Kinetic Carbine hits boosted with Mystic Shot don't count as one hit for Improved Burst

[Kubius]

Essentially what the title says. Hits that surpass 125 damage with Mystic Shot factored in, but don't surpass that damage otherwise, don't count as dealing enough damage. Since these show up as a single number in damage numbers, I'm guessing this is unintended.

 

[Time-Girl™]

Pretty sure it's intended. See this post for more information: https://forums.playdeadlock.com/posts/42246/

Hi,

this isn't very clear in-game because the purple damage number that pops up above their heads is the a sum of all Spirit Damage that happened in that moment, but these are indeed separate instances of damage. Mystic/Improved Burst only consider the damage done by the ability. Same thing happens with Mystic Shot and Kinetic Carbine, where people wonder why Improved Burst sometimes doesn't trigger when the number is clearly above 125.
Presumably, that's why things like Quicksilver Reload and Mystic Shot explicitly call it a bonus—as in an extra thing added—whereas Surge of Power (which does work to put skills above the threshold for Mystic/Improved Burst) does not.

When you are on the receiving end, you can see it in the damage summary that these are separate instances of damage:

View attachment 15410



So it's not really a bug, it just unfortunately is somewhat opaque due to the game removing clutter by bunching these number together.


(Tangentially related bonus info; It's also worth noting that Mystic Burst and Improved Burst trigger based on the actual damage received by the target, and not the number you read in the skill description. So the threshold is higher if you use it on someone who bought Spirit Resist or a Hero with innate Spirit Resist like McGinnis.)

 

[Kubius]

If it is an intended mechanic, there could be clarification in involved items, i.e. the Bursts stating that they require 80 or 125 non-bonus damage to proc. Right now it's pretty opaque.

 

[Time-Girl™]

The wording is accurate by saying these items triggers if an ability deals 80 damage or more in a single it. What makes it unclear is how the Spirit Damage is currently summed up, making at appear as if this is a single hit done by Kinetic Carbine.

It can be changed how this behaves by setting citadel_damage_text_batching_window_ability -0.1 in the console. Then it shows both numbers, though they awkwardly overlap:




I personally think the best way to make it clear what's going on in such instances is changing the Spirit Damage text to behave like the Bullet Damage text, where it shows semi-transparent numbers for the prior five damage instances that went into the sum:





Ergo, something like this, where it's very clear that 75 is smaller than 80.

 

[Kubius]

That'd be another good spot to clarify it, yeah.