Guide Powders And Powder Specials

Please refer to the version of this Powder Guide on UWynn with updated info and many extra contributions by Saya et al.

Since there isn't anything comprehensive yet, figured I might as well.

[#] - Unconfirmed/missing info, see footnotes. Please contribute if you can.

Powders
Elemental powders have two major uses - they can be added to identifiable and merchant weapons or armor to boost elemental damages or defenses, or they can be used as crafting ingredients to give the same effects to crafted gear (they cannot be used on consumables).

Powder Masters can apply powders to weapons or armor, or remove powders (though you won't get them back), for a small price.

There are six tiers of powders, with each tier giving stronger effects than the previous tier. You can upgrade four powders of one tier into one powder of the next higher tier at a Powder Master. Typically this is done with four powders of the same element, but it can also be done with different elements, although this gives a partial chance of receiving a powder of each of the elements used.

Powdering Weapons
The number of powders that can be applied to an item is displayed near the bottom of the item info (example image). Most items have between 0 and 5 powder slots, with a small number having more (presently, Matryoshka Shell, Singularity, Empire Builder, and Neutrino are the only items with more than 5 powder slots). Adding powders to weapons will 1) increase the minimum and maximum damage done by certain amounts, and 2) convert some of the weapon's existing neutral damage (if there is any) to damage of that element. Note that when using spells, this conversion applies after the natural spell conversion, additively.

The exact damage boost and conversion depends on the element of powder - for example, Earth powders give the most conversion and a smaller raw boost vs. Thunder, which gives the least conversion. See Wynndata's powders page for exact numbers.

Incidentally, weapons with no neutral damage will not be affected by conversion, either from powders or spells (for example, an item like Alkatraz, with no powder slots and no neutral damage, will only ever do Earth damage, even when using spells). After all neutral damage is converted, any further neutral conversion will have no effect.

Note that weapons with no neutral damage will still get nominal 0 spell conversion. This has no effect in the general case, but "0 Earth damage" differs from "no Earth damage" in the sense that the former can be added to by a mob's elemental weakness while the latter cannot. This means neutral damage on a weapon is not necessary to use spell conversion for elemental weakness exploitation. While not strictly relevant to powders, I suspect most people reading this guide would find the information useful.

Powdering Armor
When applied to armor, powders increase the elemental defense of the armor in their element, and give a (smaller) decrease in elemental defense for their "weak" element. In the typical ordering, an element's weakness is the element immediately before it - for example. Water is weak to Thunder, Thunder is weak to Earth, Earth is weak to Air (looping back around to the end), etc. As with damages, the strength of these effects depends on the particular element of powder. Note that percent elemental defense modifiers are applied after the changes from armor powdering.

Crafted Items
Using powders as ingredients in crafting recipes gives their effects to the result. The effects are exactly what one would obtain when adding a powder to a slot - crafted armor (or accessories) gain elemental defense, and crafted weapons gain elemental damage boost and neutral conversion. Powders cannot be used in consumable recipes. Note that post-crafting powder conversion is multiplicative with ingredient powder conversion. For example, using a T6 Earth powder as an ingredient will convert 40% of the base neutral damage to Earth damage. Adding a T6 Earth powder to the weapon after crafting will convert 40% of the remaining neutral damage, for a net conversion of 64% neutral to Earth.

Powder Specials
Applying two or more powders Tier 4 or higher of the same element to either a weapon or armor piece gives it a powder special. A particular item can only have at most one powder special - if the item has 4 or more slots and there is the possibility for multiple powder specials, the special obtained depends on the order they are added. To determine the particular special, take the sequence of powders and ignore any powders without two of that element. The first powder's element in the remaining sequence determines the powder special. Note that if you add, say, F6-T6-T6 to a weapon and get Chain Lightning, adding an additional F6 will actually change the powder special into Courage. The strength of a powder special varies depending on the tier of powders used, with five possibilities (T4/T4, T4/T5, T4/T6 or T5/T5, T5/T6, and T6/T6) - again, see Wynndata's powders page for exact numbers. It it not advised to use a Tier 4 and Tier 6 powder together, since using two Tier 5 powders generally achieves a stronger effect at a lower cost (8 T4-equivalent vs. 17 T4-equivalent, since a T6 powder requires 16 T4 powders to obtain).

Weapon Powder Specials
Weapon powder specials are charged by landing melee attacks. Once fully charged, holding the Shift key while using a melee attack will engage the powder special (this attack does not necessarily need to be successful, although depending on the particular powder special it's often more useful if the attack is successful). The number of successful melee attacks needed to fully charge a powder special depends on the weapon's attack speed (after taking into account attack speed bonus IDs). It is scaled such that regardless of attack speed, fully charging a powder special requires the equivalent of approximately 5 seconds of continuous successful melee attacks.


from and old powder guide by @orange0401

Note that for most classes, the hit that activates a powder special doesn't do melee damage or charge the next special. However, both of these do occur for Archer.

Spoiler: Weapon powder specials details

Quake - Does a single-hit Earth attack in an area of effect around the player, or around the location of the arrow for Archer. The damage dealt is essentially a melee attack boosted by the Quake multiplier (e.g. 415% for T6/T6, refer to Wynndata for exact numbers), which affects both regular and raw melee, and also converts all remaining neutral damage (but not raw melee damage) into Earth damage. Each attack can activate life steal/mana steal, meaning Quake is more effective with life steal/mana steal at slower attack speeds, and also tends to do more damage with naturally slower weapons since they tend to have higher base damages.

Chain Lightning - Hits the attacked enemy with a Thunder attack, which then "jumps" between several nearby enemies, doing slightly less damage on each successive hit (refer to motoki's Damage Calculation Guide for exact numbers). As with Quake, damage is calculated like a boosted melee attack, so slower attack speeds are more useful. The Chain Lightning damage multiplier for the first hit is generally about 70-80% that of the Quake multiplier. Each hit can activate mana steal/life steal just like a melee hit, meaning that Chain Lightning can be incredibly useful for regenerating mana or health in boss battles with half a dozen or so minions, a common situation (or incredibly punishing if one has negative mana steal or life steal).

Curse - Afflicts mobs near the site of attack (roughly a one block radius around the attack site) with Curse for a period of time - this manifests as a raincloud above their head. While afflicted, any attacks against them (all elements and neutral, both melee and spell) will be boosted massively - in general, Curse boosts more than Courage in exchange for being narrower in the number of mobs affected, usually affecting only one (or sometimes a few closely-packed mobs). Does not affect raw damages - this can effectively be considered as a temporary boost to the user's spell and melee damage against specific enemies.

Courage - Does a single-hit Fire attack in an area of effect around the player - this essentially functions like Quake, with neutral conversion to Fire, and has a significantly multiplier than Chain Lightning. Any players nearby (including the user) will gain the Courage buff for a set period of time - their damage will be boosted significantly (all elements and neutral, both melee and spell). The damage boost from Courage is less than that of Curse, but it affects any mobs attacked by the player, and can also apply to multiple players. Does not affect raw damages - this can effectively be considered as a temporary boost to the user's spell and melee damage.

Wind Prison - Traps mobs near the site of attack in a prison for a period of time. Mobs attacked while trapped will take much more damage from their first hit (+180% damage boost on T6/T6) - this first hit will break the prison and knock back the mob a large distance - this knockback ignores the mob's natural knockback multiplier. Wind Prison is widely considered the least useful weapon powder special.

Armor Powder Specials
Armor powder specials are passive - they do not require any special technique by the player to use, and are always on. Armor powder specials all boost damage based on certain conditions, and only boost damage of the element of powders used (contrast with Curse and Courage, which boost all damage). If multiple armor pieces with the same type of special are worn, the effects will stack. Armor powder specials are generally weaker than Weapon specials, although they can be leveraged to great effect in certain cases (e.g. @YYGAYMER 's no-hit Legendary Island run used Rage on all four armor pieces along with 1 hp to massively boost damage). Note that the boosts from powder specials are additive with other elemental damage boosts, and therefore are applied prior to calculating strength and dexterity boosts. You can see the effects of armor powder specials on a Wynndata build by manually adjusting the elemental damages.

Spoiler: Armor powder specials details

Rage - For every 1% of health away from max health, Earth damage is boosted (T6/T6 yields 1% boost). Some high health builds stack this powder special on multiple armor pieces to gain large damage boosts by remaining at a fraction of their max health, which can sometimes still be quite high.

Kill Streak - Every time a mob is killed by the player, Thunder damage is boosted for 5 seconds (T6/T6 yields 9% boost). Kill Streak stacks when multiple mobs are killed in succession, making it particularly effective against bosses with a large number of minions or sometimes in wars, and can be leveraged further with a strong Chain Lightning to gain a large boost by killing many mobs. Kill Streak stacks continuously as long as the player manages to kill another mob before it wears out. [1]

Concentration - For every mana used, Water damage is boosted (T6/T6 yields 5% boost). Boosts from multiple spellcasts stack, and the length of time a boost applies depends on the amount of mana used.

Endurance - For each hit taken, Fire damage is boosted for 8 seconds (T6/T6 yields 6% boost). Successive hits will each create a boost - this can be stacked for rather large net boosts, particularly since the effect lasts for a relatively long time. [2]

Dodge - When within 2 blocks of enemies, Air damage is boosted a bit further every second (T6/T6 yields 6% boost). Taking a hit will cancel the boost. [2][3]

[1] Does killing another mob reset the timer as well?
[2] Do hits dodged by Agility count for Endurance boost/breaking Dodge?
[3] Further clarification on how Dodge works would be much appreciated.

 

Alright, I think I've finished this one.

 

Taking a hit will not cancel the boost, walking away from enemies will cancel the boost.

 

Thanks. Can you confirm this? (alternately, where did you learn this?)

 

[3]- The first two powders on a weapon/armor decide what special it gets, the others only add dmg/convert dmg or add elemental defense

 

I have heard conflicting information. Are you willing/able to test this?

 

Sure, been lootrunning lately and have plenty of t4s

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I'll get on in a little while, but I'll report back with what I find

 

was not expecting this at all, but @Druser here you go...

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lmk if you need more info

 

quick feedback, put stuff in spoilers to avoid the wall of text

 

So the possible variants,
- 2 powder slots is a trivial case.
- 3 powder slots is also a trivial case, since you can't have two doubles.
- 4 powder slots 1/2/2/1 does this give special 1 or special 2?
- 4 powder slots 1/2, then 2/1? (two separate powderings of the same weapon)
- 4 powder slots 1/2, then 1/2?

That should allow us to extrapolate for every scenario.

 

Pretty sure that if you add powders in separate goes, it won't add an effect
However #3 is definitely worth testing
Also: If you have the powders, you don't actually have to use them to view the changes it will have on the weapon, just hover over the output/checkmark (forget which) and itll show what will happen.

 

@orange0401 f

 

Made some updates. Should be mostly complete now, although I'd love to figure out how neutral conversion on crafted weapons works (probably best to wait until after the visual glitch is fixed for that).

 

How much does endurance stack? I've heard from guild members it only stacked per armor piece making the maximum boost 24%. But then I've also heard it can reach much higher. If you could give me any proof of this in-game that would be appreciated.

 

I have never been able to test this. When I finish leveling my Warrior (months from now at the earliest) I plan on using Endurance for endgame so I'll probably test it then if no one has done so yet.

 

couple of minor details:
1
it imo be noted that the conversion for powders on crafted weapons as ingredients is separate from application after the the weapon is crafted.

for example, earth powder t6 converts 46% earth damage.
-if you apply one as an ingredient on a weapon, it will convert 46% of the neutral damage into earth
-if you apply one as a powder after you craft the weapon, it will then convert 46% of the remaining 54% neutral damage into earth. so, instead of it being (x = neutral damage)
x * (.46 + .46) = earth damage
it's
x * .46 + x * .46 * .46 = earth damage

2
courage/curse also boost poison

3
[5] quake is done around either where the player is or where the arrow lands if you're an archer. It wouldn't be around where the mob is because you can still activate quake without there being nearby mobs.
[10] iirc from one of the IMs, much like mana and health regen, agility/getting hit does break dodge (in addition to getting hit). not too sure about endurance, but i'd assume it's the same thing. once again, not 100% sure though

4
I heard that when fighting an enemy with a weakness, there is still some "hidden" spell conversion even with weapons with no neutral.

For example, using a smoke bomb against Shade of Theorick in Corrupted Ice Barrows using Flameshot Hilt would do earth damage, but if you fight something like Cybel with a smoke bomb, it won't do air or earth damage. I haven't confirmed it yet.

5
I think it's worth noting that poison will count as a hot for wind prison, even negative poison.

p.s. cool guide, generally made sense i don't think anyone knows what dodge does

 

mind adding spaces to the weapon and armour powder special sections? to make it easier to read

 

At long last I understand how chain lightning works now, thanks :D

 

Reopened as request by OP, @Druser

 

Updated. Still need to clear up a few things, listed at the bottom - if you know the answers, please do contribute.