Not so short question: damge conversion options and results

[Archmagister]

So… Radaggan said, it’s time to check on damage conversion now.

I read a bit about it, yes, but still have some questions:

• when I have a vitality skill, and convert it to lightning, but wear a lot of vitality boosting stuff, will the vitallity be boosted before becoming lightning, or do I have to wear lightning boosting stuff, in order to strengthen the then converted damage?

Besides that: it seems that, (besides the 100% Skill X being converted to another damage type, that) for most (all?) damage types regardless of any skill there can be found conversions (to any/most other damage types) and, with some luck, stacked to 100%, even changing the colours. (Some exceptions might be bleeding or pierce to a certain extend.)

Is this assumption correct?

Now… when I plan to have my OFF converted from cold to fire or vitality or chaos… does the FREEZING still… freeze (CC) the enemies?

And my winddevils can become firedevils or vitality devils or Chaos devils with the appropriate colours to it?

What abou the RR-effects of such skills, are they converted too?

So, the question is: are secondary effects on damage skills converted too/ still work?

[tqFan]

So, the question is: are secondary effects on damage skills converted too/ still work?

This is kinda complicated Secondary Skill Modifiers

Besides that: it seems that, (besides the 100% Skill X being converted to another damage type, that) for most (all?) damage types regardless of any skill there can be found conversions (to any/most other damage types) and, with some luck, stacked to 100%, even changing the colours. (Some exceptions might be bleeding or pierce to a certain extend.)

Global conversions don’t change skill colors / visuals. Only 100% skill modifiers from items and not all of them:

Visual changes of skills through items

Arcanist Inquisitor/Oathkeeper Soldier/Occultist Nightblade/Shaman Demolitionist/Necromancer 1.1.7 MI update 1.1.7 Conduit changes 1.1.8 New item changes and Chaos/Physical RE Aether Ravenous Earth Vindictive Flame Fx 1.1.9.1 Conduit Fx bye

@arivus I’m leaving some stuff for you too since you started writing already
I wanted to post these good links.

[arivus]

when I have a vitality skill, and convert it to lightning, but wear a lot of vitality boosting stuff, will the vitallity be boosted before becoming lightning

I believe conversion happens first before any +% damage.

do I have to wear lightning boosting stuff, in order to strengthen the then converted damage?

Yes.

changing the colours

Only happen if the conversion is on the skill itself or item that directly state it convert the skill damage.

when I plan to have my OFF converted from cold to fire or vitality or chaos… does the FREEZING still… freeze (CC) the enemies?

The damage is converted but the freeze still there, and the enemy only get freeze if it have low freeze resist. I believe there is a build posted somewhere in this forum that utilize mageslayer set to reduce enemy freeze resist and use fire AAR.

winddevils can become firedevils or vitality devils or Chaos devils

I don’t think there is any way to convert devil colours. I might be wrong here.

What abou the RR-effects of such skills, are they converted too?

Nope.

@tqFan

THere are Acid and Aether Wind Devils

Never tried that transmuter, didn;t know that they change color

[tqFan]

I don’t think there is any way to convert devil colours.

THere are Acid and Aether Wind Devils I used Acid ones in Acid Primal Strike build
I don’t think there are more (i.e. no Vit Red ones ) . They might be getting blueish after Cold conversion but I’m not sure.

[arivus]

The fx colour sure change a bit, but the swirl still blue. @Retal_Abuser video confirms it

The middle fx color on aether is more cyan, while the acid fx give dirty green colour

[tqFan]

These are kinda low quality. I did these pictures once:
They seem to be looking good on a good machine (I got no FPS when doing such pictures).

@arivus I don’t remember know - maybe putting points into nodes give them blueish whirl?
Or is it just settings? Not sure.

[arivus]

maybe putting points into nodes give them blueish whirl?

Seems like Raging tempest give them the bluish effect. At least on untransmuted one it add some snow like effect on the devils.

[tqFan]

I guess you can skip it on those Aether / Acid builds anyway for the look
Maelstrom Lightning visual is changed too by the way.

@Archmagister I’d advise you to read the official guide https://www.grimdawn.com/guide/
There are answers to questions such us

when I have a vitality skill, and convert it to lightning, but wear a lot of vitality boosting stuff, will the vitallity be boosted before becoming lightning, or do I have to wear lightning boosting stuff, in order to strengthen the then converted damage?

there.

[Archmagister]

Ok, thank you for the answers … but to be frank I think I didn’t understand much.

Ok-ish with the “first convert-then buff Damage” - part. Thought so, is logical, but wanted to be sure.

But the Rest…

Let me concretize the OFF/AZ-Skill-Question, maybe the Phrase ‘secondary’ confused you guys?

a) it does cold and forstburn damage
b) it reduces fire and physical resist
c) it freezes targets solid

Now I convert the cold damage 100% by using some items which offer xx% Cold to (any other damage here, except Chaos and Aether, as they have no DoT), in such a way that I have a 100% Conversion of the damage.

Afaik:

a) the DoT Damage does also change/is converted (known)
b) the resists stay as they are, no matter the conversion!? In this case it makes sense (OFF-case), but with Wind Devils it would not. If you use a conduit to change Wind Devil to Acid Devil, the RR stays Elemental? How did this get accepted!? And you are saying, this applies to each and all Skills with RR-effects, these stick with the damage type that they have before conversion. And there was no outrage because of this!?
c) but the CC-Effect ‘frozen’ stays unaltered, as I understand (as it is in itself not a ‘cold-damage-skill’ but a CC-skill)? And this goes with all such skills?

I believe there is a build posted somewhere in this forum that utilize mageslayer set to reduce enemy freeze resist and use fire AAR.

Well, if you happen to find the link, please post.

I don’t think there are more (i.e. no Vit Red ones )

Well, there are items which change Wind Devils partly to Vitality Devils…pure vitality is violett, afaik, mixed with blue from cold or white-ish from Lightning, you wouldn’t see much, I say… but I will test that. Somewhen.

Only happen if the conversion is on the skill itself or item that directly state it convert the skill damage.

This is 100% sure? Shit… I was hoping to have red and violet Chainlightnings and Whirlpools… ah, well…

[tqFan]

This is 100% sure? Shit… I was hoping to have red and violet Chainlightnings and Whirlpools… ah, well…

yes

Well, there are items which change Wind Devils partly to Vitality Devils…pure vitality is violett, afaik, mixed with blue from cold or white-ish from Lightning, you wouldn’t see much, I say… but I will test that. Somewhen.

No red Wind Devils but you can have red Blade Spirits. Not only I tested it in the past in-game but now I can quickly datamine this:

$ find . -iname "*winddevil*fx*"
./mods/gdx1/database/records/skills/playerclass06/pets/modifier_acidwinddevil_fxswap.dbr
./mods/gdx2/database/records/skills/playerclass06/pets/modifier_aetherwinddevil_fxswap.dbr

a) the DoT Damage does also change/is converted (known)
b) the resists stay as they are, no matter the conversion!? In this case it makes sense (OFF-case), but with Wind Devils it would not. If you use a conduit to change Wind Devil to Acid Devil, the RR stays Elemental? How did this get accepted!? And you are saying, this applies to each and all Skills with RR-effects, these stick with the damage type that they have before conversion. And there was no outrage because of this!?
c) but the CC-Effect ‘frozen’ stays unaltered, as I understand (as it is in itself not a ‘cold-damage-skill’ but a CC-skill)? And this goes with all such skills?

a) yes, on the first node of skills. But on the second and third nodes - damage and dots are not always converted. See the the link I posted in my first post to understand it.

b) simply if RR is needed, it’s added, for example this Acid WD conduit has also Acid RR added to Wind Devil. How did this get accepted? I guess it’s your fault that you weren’t there at the time to oppose this. Shame on you! You are years too late, should have come when Titan Quest was being developed which Grim Dawn inherits from

Mechanics Betrayals Btw here are more reasons to rage for you (search forum if you don’t understand what some of them mean) and this is only some part of weird things in Grim Dawn mechanics. I didn’t even touch pets or melee that I know little of. But the game is balanced around these, there are compensations for imperfect mechanics (sometimes not satisfactory to some players)

c) yes

[Archmagister]

datamine

That’s a huge disappointment then. I thought colours would change based on the percentage amounts of damagetypes used. To you as a programmer: is it hard to hardcode such things into a game? This btw would be a cool mod…

a) yes, on the first node of skills. But on the second and third nodes - damage and dots are not always converted. See the link I posted in my first post to understand it.

This is a catastrophe, to be frank. I had to read that several times to finally get it. Fortunately my playstyle is hardly affected by it, but I can’t wrap my head around this.What is this, it MUST be an oversight, no? I mean, how to handle this, if it was intentional!?

b) simply if RR is needed, it’s added, for example this Acid WD conduit has also Acid RR added to Wind Devil.

Well, that’s fine for that single option then… but genericaly changing cold and lightning dmg to vitality will not change the RR. This is bad, omg…

Shame on you!

Yeah… if I had only known back then…

Grim Dawn mechanics

Well, point 5 is REALLY bad… and I think, that the point 4 issue might be responsible for my random one shot deaths…

Btw, I am not raging. I’m just genuinly dissappointed, that’s all…

[tqFan]

This is a catastrophe, to be frank. I had to read that several times to finally get it. Fortunately my playstyle is hardly affected by it, but I can’t wrap my head around this.What is this, it MUST be an oversight, no? I mean, how to handle this, if it was intentional!?

I’ll give you an example to make sure you understand every detail because it is kinda confusing:
This medal Rylok Mark converts Primal Strike and Storm Surge to Vitality but doesn’t convert Torrent. But global conversion Lightning to Vitality converts everything no problem, it’s just the skill modifier with conversion.

[Archmagister]

But global conversion Lightning to Vitality converts everything no problem, it’s just the skill modifier with conversion.

Aaahhh! THEN it is not at all as bad than I thought! Thanx for clarifying!

[tqFan]

Yeah, global conversion sometimes saves it to some degree. For example Rotgheist set (Vitality Primal Strike) has around 60% Lightning to Vit (and other sets usually have similar stuff too) so although modifiers don’t convert Torrent, it is converted partially by it.

Sad part is Torrent has still blue Lightning visual while main Primal Strike is a nice red Lightning

[Archmagister]

Torrent has still blue Lightning visual

I am no modder, last stuff I modded was Civ2 on Amiga, but those visuals, could the be modded in?

[desioner]

ALL of the issues you’re having seem to simply boil down to a lack of understanding on how damage conversions work.

It is by far the most difficult of ALL game mechanics because of the sheer complexity involved.

That being said you have learned quite a bit in this thread which shows promise for better builds to be made but there are still some misconceptions that you have regarding damage conversions.
From a development perspective while it would be nice to have these color changes like you want. I agree it would 'look cool" but it’s just impossible to implement every single damage conversion color change…
If you have a very solid foundation of general game mechanics and have MANY MANY hours experience building your own builds from the ground up eventually the limits and benefits of damage conversion become easier to use, plan for & play with. But anytime before that they can be overwhelming and complicated to the point of frustration.
Also the fact that Englsih is not your native language does make understanding these concepts a bit more difficult.
The disappointment that you can feel at times should show you that there is more to learn on that specific aspect of the game you’re trying to understand. I like you do not mod and so we just have to make our builds and test them in game, over & over & over.
I’m sure you do know but only mentioned in passing in the middle of the original post. Pierce has plenty of conversions while bleeding has ZERO. That’s correct bleeding has not a single conversion to or from that damage type. Pierce on the other hand can come and go freely between many other damage types.
Best of luck in your learning!