Spell Double Attack - what is affected? - I'm confused:(

[GONYLIN]

<p>As a raiding Coercer (though I suspect this may apply to many other classes) I'm very confused now about which spells or parts of spells are affected by SDA.  My logs from the last 4 raids since GU 60 show that none of my reactives, POM and only the first dot of Phsycic Trauma have the potential to be affected by SDA.  Of my remaining spells only the first tic of my DoTs (the majority of my remaining dps) are recorded as having the potential to DA. On top of this and on the rare occaision that this does occur it appears that only one of the two hits actually crits.  This leaves the Coercer with just one regulary used spell - Heamorrage - which has the potential to DA in the way I thought it would!.</p><p>Can you confirm or otherwise that:</p><ul><li>reactives (the majority of a Coercers dps) is not affected by SMA - if so why?</li><li>after first tic of a DOT (the majority of the rest of the Coercers dps) is not affected</li><li>if the first tic of a DOT does SMA should the remaining tic also?</li><li>if the first tic does not MA does it automatically follow that none of the remaining tics can DA - if so why not if the answer to the last question is no (it seems reasonable that you cant have it both ways - either each part of a DoT spell is treated independently and checked whether it DA's - or DA is just checked at the start and then affects the whole spell if a DA procs.)</li><li>why on the rare occasion that I do get a recorded DA (I only have 3.5% and given the above worries) does the second hit never appear to crit?</li></ul><div>Thanks in advance to helping clarify the situation</div><div></div><div>Obim/Obam (senile old grumpy man<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></div>

[wullailhuit]

<p><cite>GONYLIN wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>why on the rare occasion that I do get a recorded DA (I only have 3.5% and given the above worries) does the second hit never appear to crit?</blockquote><p>On any DoT , only the first hit has ever crit , this is the same as Summoner DoTs.</p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>GONYLIN wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As a raiding Coercer (though I suspect this may apply to many other classes) I'm very confused now about which spells or parts of spells are affected by SDA.  My logs from the last 4 raids since GU 60 show that none of my reactives, POM and only the first dot of Phsycic Trauma have the potential to be affected by SDA.  Of my remaining spells only the first tic of my DoTs (the majority of my remaining dps) are recorded as having the potential to DA. On top of this and on the rare occaision that this does occur it appears that only one of the two hits actually crits.  This leaves the Coercer with just one regulary used spell - Heamorrage - which has the potential to DA in the way I thought it would!.</p><p>Can you confirm or otherwise that:</p><ul><li>reactives (the majority of a Coercers dps) is not affected by SMA - if so why?</li><li><span style="color: #008000;">Ticks are added to reactives.  I think it's 2 ticks.</span></li><li>after first tic of a DOT (the majority of the rest of the Coercers dps) is not affected</li><li><span style="color: #008000;">DoT's now double attack, running their entire duration as 2 DoT's, unless you overwrite them with the same DoT</span></li><li>if the first tic of a DOT does SMA should the remaining tic also?</li><li><span style="color: #008000;">Should and do.</span></li><li>if the first tic does not MA does it automatically follow that none of the remaining tics can DA - if so why not if the answer to the last question is no (it seems reasonable that you cant have it both ways - either each part of a DoT spell is treated independently and checked whether it DA's - or DA is just checked at the start and then affects the whole spell if a DA procs.)</li><li><span style="color: #008000;">The only check for double attack is when the spell lands.  If it lands as a double, it ticks out as a double.  If it lands as a single, there are no further checks.  Double attack is a check that happens once, when the spell lands.  You can witness this behavior by noting how spells that begin casting before Time Warp goes active will Double Attack, yet spells that begin casting during Time Warp, but land after expiration do not.</span></li><li>why on the rare occasion that I do get a recorded DA (I only have 3.5% and given the above worries) does the second hit never appear to crit?</li><li><span style="color: #008000;">This is a bug with double attack DoT's.  They do in fact crit, but they are not logged as crits.  I have confirmed and reported this bug here but it has not yet been addressed.  This is a DISPLAY bug.  The double attack does crit, assuming that the spell itself did.</span></li></ul><div>Thanks in advance to helping clarify the situation</div><div></div><div>Obim/Obam (senile old grumpy man<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></div></blockquote><p><cite>Wullailduo@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>On any DoT , only the first hit has ever crit , this is the same as Summoner DoTs.</p></blockquote><p>You are completely wrong.  DoT's crit on every tick*.  The first tick of a DoT is where all Ability Mod is placed.  It used to be that only the first tick of a DoT would double attack, but that has changed.</p><p>* Note</p><p>There is currently a <strong>display</strong> bug which makes it appear that subsequent ticks of a DoT that double attacks doesn't crit.  This bug is display only.  The ticks are actually crits, but the game logs are not reporting them as such.  I have reported this bug in another thread here.</p>

[GONYLIN]

<p>Thanks for comprehensive reply Bandit - I will check bag in my logs to check that 2 ticks are being added to my reactives on some occassion just to confirm.  Is there a post soewhere that indicates that this should be the case as I cant find it despite quite a long search.</p><p>Your reply on DoTs makes sense in terms of if you overwrite them then that will cancel the DA if it was active - ta for that.</p><p>With regards to the second and subsequent dots critting I'm not so sure.  My logs seem to show the the second and third dots hit significantly lower (by about 1/3 ie 1st tick 30k damage - subsequent ones c.20k) in almost every case.  Occaisionally the second or third dot equels the first but never goes above it.</p><p>I remain still a bit confused about the official intended/actual  mechanics.</p><p>I'll do a bit more trials on the training dummies checking each element (ie dots and reactives) and also see if I can work it out from next raids ACT logs aswell and report back.  Would be nice in the meantime if a nice dev. from Sony could clarify how they intended for SDA to work<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Ta again Obam</p>

[Banditman]

<p>See <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=501569" target="_blank">this thread</a> for a logged example of the DoT DA bug.  This example was from my Wizard, but I observed the same behavoir on my Conjuror as well.</p>

[slippery]

<p>Triggers are only added to reactives by timewarp, reactives gain nothing from spell double.</p><p>Edit: And I'm pretty sure Hostage caps at 9 triggers, so if you have an armor focus only gets 1 additional trigger from Timewarp. Coercers especially gain very little from spell double.</p>

[GONYLIN]

<p>Thanks both of you for reply.  As I sadly suspected SDA is next to useless for Coercers.  This doesnt make too much sense in terms of progression.  With casting speed, reuse and recovery (often) all capped in raid already (I/we are just starting killing HM stuff) along with Spell Mod for most situations/spells this dont leave us much place to go as a class and is rather disappointing;(  It may even be better for us if they reclassed any items to have mellee multi attack rather than SDA!</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Growing DPS is really down to two stats for Mages:  Crit Bonus and Potency.  If you increase that, you increase DPS.  For the most part, there is no struggle to cap cast / re-use.  Spell DA is such a rare thing that it is almost beyond the ability of most classes to even focus on.</p><p>I believe the current itemization / ability trees allow a Sorcerer to get like 23% SDA.  No one else even comes close.</p>