I just learned that proc skills and skills like Inquisitor Seal and Blade Spirit can crit.
Is the OA inherent for each skill
or
do they use the character’s OA?
Thank you.
Use the character’s OA.
OA == Offensive Ability
DA == Defensive Abilities
From my experience, every skill / effect in the game that deals:
- Instant damage (normal damage) can crit, based on your character’s OA and the target’s DA at the moment that the damage is dealt.
- Damage over time (DOT) can crit, but the OA and DA are verified when the DOT is first applied. If a crit did happen then, the DOT will deal increased damage for it’s entire duration until it expires or is refreshed / replaced by another DOT effect of the same source.
Crits on DOTs are even better than that, they will not be replaced by another instance of the same DOT unless it is a higher crit, so they will do the full duration of the crit before being replaced.
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About that second part, I’ve recently learned that it’s the same for resistance reduction which is a shame. The example given wa War Cry’s RR transmuter + the item skill modifier that gives it bleeding damage.
Thank you for your insights.
Tbh, and maybe I’m missing something, I wouldn’t focus too much on crits & skills that rely on it. If you can’t get the DA to go with it, you’re screwed. I have a ranged Infiltrator(Nightblade + Inquisitor) with 151% movement speed that crits like crazy and I can tell you the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. Sure, you can do the campaign a bit quicker, but you won’t be clearing the higher SR runs without a lot of deaths, and you’ll probably be doing a lot of re-runs for the rogue dungeons(i.e. Port Valbury) due to dying. 3368 OA + 2340 DA fully buffed in Elite and the character still gets crit hits from DoTs.
Unfortunately, in this game you need to be able to tank hits regardless of which class you’re playing. If not, you just end up dying fast to a single hit or DoTs. The game mechanics have an absolute aversion to extremes: Go all offense, you die fast; go all defense, you hit like a wimp when you get lucky and land a blow(just to give an example, try fist-fighting mobs in the Crucible at level 1).
Low DA alone can hurt but isn’t likely to kill you, most enemies don’t even have crit damage bonuses. Are you using Inquisitor Seal? Even with avoid and damage reduction from their other skills, Infiltrators are still pretty squishy without the 200+ flat damage reduction after resists that you get from standing on a maxed seal.
I don’t even bother with inquisitor seal right now & not even sure which direction to take the character. Energy can be a problem as well in Crucible/SR runs. There’s no Legendary equipment sets that support dual range cold builds focusing on Amarasta’s Blade Burst & OA/crit damage.
The way I see it, if you max out inquisitor seal, a lot of other stuff has to give, at which point I’m probably better off just scrapping the dual-range cold and go for dual-melee cold, poison/acid or something else.
Dual wield melee cold/acid is gonna be better (pierce is best, like, waaaay better; can kill Callagadra), but ranged is absolutely viable, if you know it’s limits, but it’s also important to define what ‘viable’ is. Ranged Infiltrator is a meme build, so it’s never gonna be top tier, but it can be a lot of fun if you’re aware of its limits going into it. It can destroy main campaign, which seems to be what the developers developers have balanced the game around (which makes sense to me), but Inquisitor Seal is kinda a necessary part of ranged Inquisitor builds, especially a non-mainline build (I’m hesitant to say ‘meta’ because it’s a single-player game with no leaderboard).
2340 DA is low, yes, and I’ve been there, my solution is running into an Inquisitor Seal to absorb the DoT, even though it’s a slower playstyle. Blade Barrier works, too. I’d also look at armor absorption. I think the disconnect is between your expectations and the ceiling of the build, because I have a ranged cold Infiltrator that is a ton of fun to play, but I only use it for main campaign shenanigans. I’ve only gotten the extra SR skill points and wouldn’t attempt to push SR with this one.