I believed until recently that conversion happens in two steps, once inside the skill (through a transmuter or skill modifier) and once outside (via global conversion), but apparently that was another piece of wrong information that I carried with me all this time. Based on it, I made a few conceptual builds that used this method to reach the desired final damage type easier or in case there was no other way. I need to scrap or remake those build concepts because they wouldn’t do what I expected. However, it seemed like a clever way to overcome skill or gear limitation and obtain all kinds of effects. Unless I also understood wrong that damage is scaled in two steps, once internally (via the skill and its extensions) and once externally (via global damage bonuses), this two-step transformation does happen in the game for something. If double conversion in the same manner would be permitted, it doesn’t seem like it would make builds OP or cripple the game in any way, but rather encourage creativity and variety when it comes to builds. To give a recent example, I’ve tried to convert Righteous fervor and Guardians of Empyrion to vitality damage, but the gear setup didn’t allow me. However, I had a 2-handed weapon that globally converted 100% acid to vitality, so if I would’ve also taken the transmuters for both skills, after the internal conversion they both would’ve had only acid and vitality damage. Then, when it reaches the external layer (the global conversion), the weapon would’ve ensured that I can convert the acid part to vitality as well. Even as an implementation I don’t think that it would be hard to allow this, because all it would require is not to enforce the condition that damage previously converted can’t be converted the second time. But I have no idea how the implementation is done, so I’m just guessing here.
The damage conversion goes like this :
The order of events for Conversion is as follows: Base Skill > Skill Modifiers > Conversion on Modifiers or Transmuter > Global Conversion on Equipment and Buffs > % damage on Equipment, Auras and Passives
The information is from :
Once the damage is converted it won’t convert again. And you only scale damage from the conversion damage (the end result)… so “fire damage converted to acid damage” means you will scale acid damage from gear and devotions
Oh, so skill modifiers have a higher priority than transmuters? This is good to remember as well. And I also asked whether allowing double conversion would be a good thing - once and only once internally (through skill modifiers and transmuter) and once and only once externally (through global conversion, because you’ve reached outside the skill at this point). And whether this would be hard to change as an implementation.
I don’t understand what you are asking
But, if what you are asking is going to be a mess to balance than no
Developpers are working on the expansion which is adding a ton of possibilities, which is a lot of work to balance. Changing the way that damage convertion work is not happening in Grim Dawn, maybe in a future game… but even then as long as it make sens for the amount of time it takes to balance and how much fun the players really get out of it
Keep in mind that big changes, unless added in the next expansion, won’t happend, the game is 10 years old
Ok, thanks for the info.
real double conversion prooobably not gonna happen as Tek points out,
however
Guardians are a very special case, they don’t actually have real conversion on the transmuter(technically it spawns an entire different set of pets/flips to a different skill in game files), so those you can get to convert 100% to vitality or Acid, so you could use the Vit RF helmet? in conjunction with global acid to vit to get a pure vit build, and wouldn’t violate the conversion only 1x rule, since your acid->vit conversion would be counted as the first for guardians.
To clarify MrTek’s post and the game guide, what this is communicating is not just the order of Conversion itself, but also the order at which % Damage Modifiers apply. The point is that % Damage on steps (1) and (2) for a skill apply prior to any conversions from steps (3) and (4). Then global % damage applies at step (5).
But as ever, there are always confusing edge cases to these rules! A skill modifier like Cadence’s Deadly Momentum applies a Global Buff to the player. However, the % Damage from this buff applies on step (5), being as it is a Global Buff and not directly a skill modifier in the same fashion as something like Fighting Form.
As to the essence of your question, double conversion would have rippling ramifications for the game as we know it today. Presently, if an item has an unfavorable Conversion on it but it otherwise looks appealing, you can sometimes still use that item for your build if your Conversions are covered by specific Skill Modifiers. This allows for some edge-case creativity/optimization that double conversion would not permit.
Whether this is “good” or “bad” is open to interpretation.
I’ve noticed that.
Are you sure? If I can make it work for a few isolated cases it’s still something, although I think it would be better to make it possible in general.
Well, that creates some additional confusion for me (at least when it comes to damage) and perhaps you could clarify it with a particular example. Let’s assume I use Cadence, Fighting form, Deadly momentum and wear the Aetherwarped cleaver. Let’s assume some fictional values for all of this. Cadence has 100 flat damage, FF provides +100% damage, DM provides 50 flat damage and a bonus of +100% damage, while the AWC axe adds a skill modifier to Cadence of +100% damage. And let’s also consider a global damage modifier (from gear) of 200%, just to complete the scenario. How is the final damage calculated based only on these fictional parameters, step by step, for the third Cadence hit? So I can see whether my understanding is already accurate or I need to change it.
you can download DPYes to confirm dmg outputs of guardians with the pseudo double conversion, unless Z changed guardians recently, that approach not only works but has been deliberately built before
Need to also consider how much % Weapon Damage Cadence has in this scenario. Let’s assume 550%. (The amount that Cadence has at 26/16)
Global % Bonuses (G%) = Gear + DM = 200% + 100% = 300%
Global Flat Bonuses (G_flat) = DM = 50
Specific % Bonuses (S%) = FF + AWC = 100% + 100% = 200%
Cadence Flat Damage (C_flat) = (WD * G_flat) + 100 = (5.5 * 50) + 100 = 375
Cadence Final Damage = C_flat * (S% + G% + 100%*) = 375 * 6 = 2,250
* This 100% comes from the fact that baseline damage is technically 0%, so converting from percentages to a multiplier requires a 1x offset.
% Damage is always additive with itself regardless of source. The Damage Conversion order of operations solely communicates that % Damage from skill modifiers will apply to baseline damage of a matching type prior to conversion occurring, at which point the second type of % Damage is used.
The best example for this is Flames of Ignaffar’s Tainted Flame transmuter vs its Infernal Purge modifier. The % Fire/Lightning Damage from Infernal Purge will stack additively with any % Chaos Damage from gear/buffs after the conversion of Tainted Flame.
But I thought that the skill’s internal damage bonuses are applied prior to the external (global) damage bonuses. This means:
- Fin_d_1 = C_flat * S% = 375 * 3 = 1125.
- Fin_d_2 = Fin_d_1 * G% = 1125 * 4 = 4500.
So, you say that this is wrong and the % damage bonuses are all combined into a single soup? This would be sad because it means that it makes no difference what you scale more, skill extensions or global buffs and you’d most likely be tempted to always take global buffs first, so you can augment multiple skills at the same time. Instead of focusing on just one skill and augment it in a multiplicative manner.
Correct.
/10chars
I’m shocked and disappointed. And what would the independent multiplicative layers be, in terms of damage, if % bonuses are all compressed into a single one? There’s the flat damage, the “% bonus damage”, the “total damage modified by %” and the “lower resist debuff”. Attack speed is also a layer. Is there anything else?
Crit.
And they’re all multiplicative with each other. In fact, Total Damage Modified by X is multiplicative with itself; if you have two sources of the stat, they multiply, rather than adding.
Yes, I forgot about crit. Then all this information calls for a serious change of strategy for my builds, because I really based my damage output on the idea that there are two separate multiplicative layers of “% damage bonus”. I’d also like to extend the initial suggestion, which was to have double conversion, to the mechanics of damage. I mean it looked so good to me to have two layers of damage bonuses, so that it would’ve encouraged you to focus mainly on skill extensions for that (because you would’ve got enough global bonuses from gear anyway). And to prize any gear with this type of skill modifiers because they’d impact the damage more than their global % damage bonus contribution. Thanks for all the time taken to clarify.
Or maybe it’s not that necessary because I had a quick look (from a new perspective) at some of my builds and it’s still worthwhile to take skill extensions as they are, especially if you have no better global buff alternatives and if skill extensions also provide flat damage bonuses. I wouldn’t change the setup even like this and it just means that the build won’t get as much total damage as I imagined it to. I think that the mechanics of damage scaling is good as it is.
What?!? Really!?! I will never stop learning new things in GD 
So if I dual wield chillheart I get RoS with 1.9*1.9=3.6 the damage? 
Yes.
/10chars
Hmm… you can also make a mega forcewave with earthsplitter and gray knight for 3.2x damage and only 2s extra cooldown.
Only problem is all cooldown ideas are usually a huge letdown 