Do you know when resists are applied when damage is converted? For example, if you used thermite mines which have -fire resist, would that resist still be used or is it lost as the damage is converted first to chaos?
AFAIK, first damage is converted, then relevant +% bonus is applied, then once the actual hit triggers resistances will take effect.
So sure, -%fire res and +%fire damage will be lost if you convert to chaos.
I figured that as much… will be a huge hit to OFF…might have to switch that skill out… Big boost to my thermite mines… will be able to use the -chaos res of hellfire mines now as that damage is converted to aether from my rings…
Why? OFF does the listed damage in ~1s instances over the freeze duration, also frostburn will be converted to burn, that also uses fire resistance. So the first tick will be weaker, then resistance reduction takes effect and OFF begins to melt trash. It’s very convenient for CT builds, because CT builds typically have very high +%fire and non-existant +%cold. Also, warpfire is BiS for that build, not sure about AAR.
You won’t be able to use -%chaos if you convert damage to aether. If you do so then at the first step your damage is already aether, then +%aether is added to it and then it obviously checks for enemy’s aether resistance. The only potential case when you can use -%chaos is if you use Tainted Ray or Blood Rite, because, as someone said here, damage can only be converted once.
Not exactly once, but generally only once.
There is a line of actions the game takes.
Step 1. Base damage on the skill, and all damage amplifiers within the skill line itself. Example for Panetti’s, would be Panettis base damage, and Supercharge amp of 80%. You then have Panneti’s base damage (lets say 20, just for easy math), + 80% elemental boost, resulting in 36.
Step 2. Transmuters directly attached to the skill. Think Tainted Ray.
Step 3. Gear and buff applied conversions. IEE, Reckless Power, Warpfire, Blood Orb, Clarivoyant Set, ect, are all applied at the same exact time in the damage conversions. Don’t know the exact order of two things try to modify the same value, but I think it prioritizes gear innate conversions over buffs IIRC, meaning if you are using Warpfire, and Blood Orb, Your cold damage will convert to fire, and everything else will convert to chaos. It’s a bit messy to figure out overall.
Going back to Panetti’s demo idea, assuming you have +900% Chaos damage, and convert Panetti’s to Chaos via Blood Orb, you multiply that into base Panetti damage (20) by the +900%, so 200, plus the bonus +80% you got from Supercharged, or 16, for a total of 216 damage, all applied as Chaos damage. Now obviously Panettis doesn’t have 20 base damage except at very low ranks, but we just wanted easy math and 20 gave us easy math.
We can also use Panetti’s for a far more complicated conversion discussion, the idea of how Warpfire interacts within the Panetti line.
Step 1, Base Panetti’s, lets assume 60 damage for clean numbers, and a perfect 100% conversion from Warpfire (Don’t know if Warpfire has potential for a 100% roll or not, but clean math trumps all for this explanation so lets assume it does). We pick up Distortion, which for clean math, lets say grants a flat +100% fire damage to Panetti’s. This increases base Panetti damage to 20 cold, 20 Lightning, 40 Fire.
Really complicated territory here, with multiple parts of the Panetti’s tree skill line, with clean math numbers.
Base Panetti 60 damage, 20 Fire, 20 Cold, 20 Lightning. Distortion, Supercharged, both applying a +100% bonus (Meaning 200% fire 100% cold 100% Lightning), and Warpfire applying a 100% cold to fire conversion. Step 1, Apply all damage amplifiers. Fire 60(20 Base + 40 Bonus), Cold 40 (20 base + 20 Bonus), and Lightning 40 (20 base + 20 Bonus). Warpfire applied, and we change to Fire 100 (20 base, 40 bonus, C to F 20 base, C to F 20 Bonus), Lightning 40 (20 Base, 20 Bonus).
Assuming we decide to NOW apply the +900% fire damage you just happen to have sitting around as your multplier, here is the results we get.
Fire 460 (20 base Fire+900%, 40 bonus fire damage, CtF 20+900%, CtF 20 Bonus).
Steelflame, looks like I have understood it. You wanted to say that +%bonuses from the skill-related passive nodes aren’t thrown in a common bucket of +% multipliers and applied before the conversion. After conversion a common bucket of +%multipliers from passives and gear is applied, but only to base damage part, to prevent multiplication of modifiers. Thanks, didn’t knew of this one. 
This also means that +%aether from disintegration isn’t ultimately lost if you go Tainted Ray. This may also mean that 75% chance for +250% phys isn’t lost if you convert grenado to fire/lightning. Hmmm…
Wait, will clairvoyant set convert tainted ray back to aether? 
Thanks, appreciate your writeup.
I am a little lost. Made up numbers for ease…
Aether Ray - 100 damage
Disintegration - +50% aether increase
Gear - +100% chaos increase
Final result - 100 base -> 150 via Disintegration -> convert -> 300 via chaos boost?
or
Final result - 100 base -> 150 via Disintegration -> convert -> 250 via chaos boost?
Yes. Honestly, I hate the Clarivoyant set, mostly because it just feels off to convert chaos to aether. To me, Chaos is raw entropy, and should be a “final” state. Converting things into it shouldn’t be that difficult, but converting from it just should be near impossible. Aether is just corrupted energy distorting the fabric of reality, and be hard to convert from as well.
I do hope the new Aether gunner that has been said to be the 7th mastery we will get helps give us more interesting mechanics to work with. We both need another gun based mastery, and another mastery that actually makes use of Aether damage (I also wouldn’t mind it making good use of Cold damage, and giving a proper name to the Aether+Cold damage combo, as we have Aetherstorm and Aetherfire for the other element combos with Aether, as well as the fact cold isn’t really well used by many classes/class synergies)
Second one. It’s insanely messy math when you use more complicated skills like PRM, but the basics are as you said.
aether gunner wut link
It was a discussion on what the new class was going to be, and they dropped a few hints. It was confirmed a gunner class, and confirmed would have Aether damage. Not much else was said, and the link is LONG gone by this point.
Just like Chthon who is the origin of Life, an ever-changing Chaos is the origin of Power.
KILL THE NON-BELIEVER! ANOTHER SACRIFICE!
Ok, so tried this out… Switched my herald of the apocolypse out for essence of grim dawn and of course AV for blood orb. Kept the rest of the gear. Dropped Ultzin’s torch and…something else to pick up fiend and solael’s witch blade. Took my AAR sheet DPS from about 38K to 49K! So pretty big boost. Could definitely clear TF a little faster…wasn’t much of a challenge to start with though… However, my main farming area’s of Log and 1st floor BoC seemed to slow WAY down! The Log fight went from 45 seconds to almost 3 minutes. BoC seemed to almost double too…Those obsidian mobs just seem to take a lot longer to kill (I’m still trying to farm chipped claws so kill everything in BoC). Not sure if they have a high chaos resist, or just missing out on all of the -fire resist from OFF and warpfire (did move points from thermite mines into hellfire mines for more chaos res reduct plus this would not affect log as OFF doesn’t help there anyways) made that big of an impact… First time I spect Solael’s witch blade, so eldritch fire started at lv 1 (ended at lv 5) so maybe it will be better when then is leveled up… So, while the DPS did jump, might have more selective locations to use it… I didn’t full fine tune the build so might be able to tweak more. Was just sad at the slower clear speed with about 11k sheet DPS bump… Might be better if I go back to farm AU some… Didn’t try him in crucible either…
Numbers don’t mean shit if you don’t have the resist reduction to back it up ofc and chaos res is a bit lacking. Even with eldritch leveled up its -20 and hellfire mine is sadly much much weaker than the main thermite skill. Also, yeah bastion is super chaos resistant to the point where it kinda pisses me off how much res they seem to have for it
Random, but it’s a shame how much ass the apocalypse skill sucks. 18 second CD, 1300 mana, doesn’t do a ton of damage, and it’s spread over such a huge area that it might as well do no damage. Oh yeah and instead of sounding like the heavens are falling it sounds like I dunno but it sounds weak as shit
yeah, resist reduction is the way to go… I soft cap OFF so that is -100 fire res right there…up top of others like black star and warpfire… So I’m sure that helps a ton in dropping those obsidian guys.
I do like the look of apocalypse though…and the rest of the stats on the amulet are decent (when still using fire)… I really only use the skill vs trash when devastation is on CD or big bosses like moose and log… small fast moving bosses it is worthless against… might be time to try out the peerless eye…seems a lot of build gravitate there…
I did like how much stronger my chaos strike (warp stone) skill was with a chaos spec… Made it seem a little more useful instead of just as a means to move faster…