Pls Explain Shackles Of Pain

[GoldXExodus]

So I'm new to the game, arguable, 30 hours in and at the area of Reapers Coast.
I have a very Necromancer/Summoning based character, 2 handed melee if it's important.

I like the idea of shackles of pain, but whenever I use it I'm not seeing any clear effects, at first I thought it was only activated by attacks dealing damage direct to vitality but after playing some more it doesn't seem to be the case.

My interpretation of it was that once shackled, you could no longer be dealt damage as it would be transferred to your target. Am I misunderstanding what it does?

[Kalmia]

Essentially Shackles of Pain works in the way that only SOME of the damage you take is transferred to the target you are now shackled to. So since you are say, shackled to this Magister. If you get hit, that damage will be partially transferred to that Magister however you'll take reduced damage as well.

Really Shackles of Pain is just a great way to shut down a particular character from ever harming you for the most part.

[GoldXExodus]

Originally posted by Eilen:

Essentially Shackles of Pain works in the way that only SOME of the damage you take is transferred to the target you are now shackled too. So since you are say, shackled to this Magister. If you get hit, that damage will be partially transferred to that Magister however you'll take reduced damage.

Really Shackles of Pain is just a great way to shut down a particular character from ever harming you for the most part.

Ohh I see, I was thinking it was all damage, that makes a lot more sense though, Thank You :)

[Kalmia]

Originally posted by GoldXExodus:

Originally posted by Eilen:

Essentially Shackles of Pain works in the way that only SOME of the damage you take is transferred to the target you are now shackled too. So since you are say, shackled to this Magister. If you get hit, that damage will be partially transferred to that Magister however you'll take reduced damage.

Really Shackles of Pain is just a great way to shut down a particular character from ever harming you for the most part.

Ohh I see, I was thinking it was all damage, that makes a lot more sense though, Thank You :)

No problem! Shackles of Pain when you use it correctly is super broken, and super fun to use. Have a wonderful day/night.

[Free Luigi M.]

That's not how Shackles of Pain works.

It just mirrors the damage the caster receives to the target.
It does not prevent or reduce any damage the caster receives. The target of the shackle will simply also take all the damage the caster takes.

For example, an useful way to employ SoP is to have an undead character cast it on a living enemy. Then hit yourself with poison. The undead caster will be healed, while the living target will take damage.

[Kalmia]

Originally posted by Joe Chip:

That's not how Shackles of Pain works.

It just mirrors the damage the caster receives to the target.
It does not prevent or reduce any damage the caster receives. The target of the shackle will simply also take all the damage the caster takes.

For example, an useful way to employ SoP is to have an undead character cast it on a living enemy. Then hit yourself with poison. The undead caster will be healed, while the living target will take damage.

Must be a mod I use. I've got a few installed, lmao. Only had the game for a while thanks to a friend tossing the game my way. Which my god this game is fun.

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Eilen:

Originally posted by Joe Chip:

That's not how Shackles of Pain works.

It just mirrors the damage the caster receives to the target.
It does not prevent or reduce any damage the caster receives. The target of the shackle will simply also take all the damage the caster takes.

For example, an useful way to employ SoP is to have an undead character cast it on a living enemy. Then hit yourself with poison. The undead caster will be healed, while the living target will take damage.

Must be a mod I use. I've got a few installed, lmao. Only had the game for a while thanks to a friend tossing the game my way. Which my god this game is fun.

Well you were wrong in the specifics, but you are still using it right. It's best use is to make enemies not want to attack you, because they know it will kill their ally that you're shackled to. It makes your character casting it "hard to kill" because they won't attack you, not because it reduces the damage dealt. It's extra useful on glass cannons, because sometimes the AI will attack you anyway for the cc and end up destroying their own team. And if you're down to one character left, who happens to have SoP, cast it and you'll be able to retreat much easier.

[Chaoslink]

One thing that I've yet to test with it that I think could work, is nullifying resistances. Because I'm pretty sure the game calculates 100% and 100%+ resistance differently than you'd expect it to, immunity and healing not being damage as much as a different calculation, my expectation is that this only works on 99% and lower. Either way, I vaguely remember shackling something with a high resistance like 80% to a magic element, then taking say 200 damage of that element and the enemy getting the full 200 as well, despite their resistance. If true, this could allow mages who are highly resisted to attack friendly targets (with living on the edge obviously) that are shackled to the enemy in order to take them down.

Again, its a theory I've never tested, but a concept that might have uses. Either way, shackling an enemy then hitting them AND your ally with AoE is a solid way to boost your own damage against that enemy. Good for nuking bosses with massive health pools like the various trolls you encounter.

Edit: again, I’ve not used the ability much, but this was a theory I came up with after analyzing what seemed to be inconsistencies in the concept of how the ability works. If the caster takes less damage due to resistance, then the target generally took that same reduced damage, indicating that the caster’s resistance was used to determine the target’s damage taken. If so, then it doesn’t make sense for that damage to be further reduced by the target’s own resistance as well. This is because, by its description, shackles mirrors the damage the caster takes to the target. This doesn’t work on target’s with 100% or over because, as far as my observations go, 100% resistance isn’t 100% resistance. Meaning that it isn’t:
Damage taken = attack - (attack x resistance%)
If the resistance is 100%. Otherwise they’re taking a damage value of 0. Instead, I’m pretty sure is counts as immunity in that situation where the damage is simply not applied. The end result is both the same, but what’s important is the method it is applied. If the immunity concept is right, that explains why fire damage to the caster wouldn’t harm the target because the target simply is protected from taking their resisted damage at all. Meaning that it isn’t ignored by shackles even if non-100% resistances are ignored.

This is debunked if instead the damage being applied to the target isn’t affected by the caster’s resistance, something I’m pretty sure isn’t true. In that case, casting a fireball on the caster of shackles then deals damage to the target as if a different fireball was cast on them, applying the damage as if that was the case. However, if memory serves right, that’s not what I’ve witnessed in-game.

Again, all theory here.

[Icedfate]

a combo i saw elsewhere

undead character uses shackles of pain, then living on edge on themself, then drinks a huge healing potion for massive damage to the enemy.

I suppose it's this kind of broken stuff why people think the game is "too easy"

but then again, you have to shave off the enemy's armor to do shackles on them, and once you shave off their armor, you already won because now you can just CC them.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

a combo i saw elsewhere

undead character uses shackles of pain, then living on edge on themself, then drinks a huge healing potion for massive damage to the enemy.

I suppose it's this kind of broken stuff why people think the game is "too easy"

but then again, you have to shave off the enemy's armor to do shackles on them, and once you shave off their armor, you already won because now you can just CC them.

See, some people might call that strategy “cheese” and refute to use it. I call it effective as that’s exactly the kind of thing shackles is intended to do. It really isn’t cheese, but a very situational combo that can help to nuke enemies early on.

Still, some people see things as so effective they have to be a “cheesy” way to handle the game. Undead drinking a huge heal pot with shackles really wasn’t cheese though. There was a combo long since patched that would use shackles to effectively create an infinite loop of damage using soul mate or something that would basically infinitely damage the group until something died to break the loop. If your characters had living on the edge, that meant the only thing that could die was the enemy you linked to.

This was cheesy as it wasn’t intended to work this way, hence it being patched.

[Icedfate]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Icedfate:

a combo i saw elsewhere

undead character uses shackles of pain, then living on edge on themself, then drinks a huge healing potion for massive damage to the enemy.

I suppose it's this kind of broken stuff why people think the game is "too easy"

but then again, you have to shave off the enemy's armor to do shackles on them, and once you shave off their armor, you already won because now you can just CC them.

See, some people might call that strategy “cheese” and refute to use it. I call it effective as that’s exactly the kind of thing shackles is intended to do. It really isn’t cheese, but a very situational combo that can help to nuke enemies early on.

Still, some people see things as so effective they have to be a “cheesy” way to handle the game. Undead drinking a huge heal pot with shackles really wasn’t cheese though. There was a combo long since patched that would use shackles to effectively create an infinite loop of damage using soul mate or something that would basically infinitely damage the group until something died to break the loop. If your characters had living on the edge, that meant the only thing that could die was the enemy you linked to.

This was cheesy as it wasn’t intended to work this way, hence it being patched.

well, is this an example of what people mean when they say "if you understand the game mechanics, you will find that this game is super easy"?

because I realize you could trivialize many fights with this trick.

I personally have not been doing it, because it feels cheesy and exploity, but does that mean I'm just imposing restrictions on myself and making the game harder by refusing to use a tool that was given to me?

[Chaoslink]

To some degree yeah. It’s a grey area. If that’s all you’re doing to win, then there’s little difference between that and barrelmancy. Though this is a bit more involved. It’s a core reason I dislike the necromage concept that just spans source abilities constantly. It’s more of a meme/cheese the way I look at it, even though there’s nothing wrong with doing it. Ultimately, it’s up to you what you consider cheese and what you don’t. My usual thought is that it’s only cheese if it takes the fun out of the mage should you do it. If you don’t have fun spamming shackles and potions, then it’s fair to call it cheese and avoid it. If you can still have fun doing it once or twice as a sort of trump card, then only use it as a last resort. Ultimately, the point is to have fun. If something isn’t fun for you, don’t do it. I personally find source skills to be too powerful and elect not to use them. However, there are some fights I consider tedious more than fun and have no problems using source on them occasionally just to get it over with.

That said, if combat is consistently kicking your ass, then switching to using some of these tactics until you can handle combat better without them might be the better way to go. It’s really up to you.

[Icedfate]

not all source skills are OP IMO, they nerfed the ♥♥♥♥ out of arrow spray (the one that shoots a ton of arrows in a 45 degree arc), that skill was absurdly OP in DOS1, but in this, no matter how I aim it 90% if the arrows whiiff off to the sides, I'm only ever able to hit a single enemy with maybe 2-3 arrows and it does pitiful damage and at the cost of 2 source points it's totally not worth 2 memory slots. maybe it's good against giant enemies like voidwokens or dragons, I dunno

and I really haven't found a situation where Lohse's madness skill saved me..
I did it one time where I used it on an enemy and then teleported away so that one of the other enemies was closer to the maddened enemy so the mad enemy would attack the other guy and you know what they did? they used nether swap to put Lohse next to the maddened enemy so it would attack her instead. if the a.i. was "stupid", how would they think of that?

so I don't think every source ability is OP, but I didn't mean to hijack this, it was about shackles of pain and i was just sharing the undead drinking a potion combo since nobody else had mentioned it yet in this thread yet