So How Have Powders Been Treating Y'all?

I did, but then I removed it because I found it utterly useless :>

 

What exactly happens when you try to combine two or more armor powder effects? I heard somewhere that they both fail.

 

Fire because the buff damage really helpful.

 

The I got a like from Salted club is expanding.

 

This right there is the true shame. Hijacking my thread for some brown nosing action with the Exalted Salted. The thought that the Supreme Commander of all Wynncraft, the Most Glorious of Game Devs, him who's Bovine Sexiness can never be Surpassed, would be so easily flattered by such classless behavior is appalling. Y'all really need to stop this pointless pandering and get back to the point of this otherwise, thought provoking and informative thread. :-P

I didn't know there was a club for the A-Salted?! Do we get a membership trinket? A Salt-Lick Amulet of Water Retention perhaps (Min INT = 1, +1% Water Damage, +1% Water Defense, +100% Salty)?

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

Seems the main thing is that folks get more out of specials that fit their character's Modus Operendi. Courage sounds nice, but I run an archer as my main dude and I tend to solo more often than not due to my erratic schedule, so Chain Lightening, Curse and/or Wind Prison fit my character and situation better than Courage or Quake.

Not all specials are meant to inflict more damage. Rather, they provide more tactical options to add to your repertoire of spells and basic attacks. With that in mind, my experience with Wind Prison is actually quite good. While it's true that it doesn't do any direct damage, what it does is:

1. Provide you with a non-mana based method to escape fast close combat mobs/bosses.
2. Sets up the target for a follow-up attack that will inflict more damage that usual (I misspoke in a previous post... Using 2 T6 powders the damage increase is 180%, not 150%).
3. Adds knockback to the follow-up attack (24 blocks with the T6's)

The above would be better thought of as utilities a player can use to change how fights play out rather than just adding more damage per hit. Pokextreme gave a great example of this by explaining how he utilizes the knockback effect from Wind Prison to send enemy mobs into lava.

No idea. after I test out my water powder infused Bow, I'll move toward powdering up my Morph Set items. My understanding is that, like weapons, no one item can have multiple specials. But I haven't heard about how different specials on concurrently worn items interact or interfere with each other. I also wondered if having multiple items with the same special provided an added benefit or not. So many questions... So much experimentation yet to do.

Mainly I started this thread to find out what other folks have already tried so I could use their experience to minimize how much I'd need to test myself. Hopefully others have tested out the armor specials so I don't have to scrounge all the powders. Also, I have no idea if the passive armor specials' effects scale with the tier powder used. Obviously, the strength of the defensive bonus/penalty changes with the tier, I just haven't tried anything out yet. But if others have, it'll help shorten my research cycle. :-)

The other purpose for this thread is to see how folks have made the powders work for them, or if there were any abilities that seemed more valuable than others. I like that these abilities aren't just another added variable to the arms race. Powders don't turn your favored pointy thing into a game changing super weapon. They are a way to tweak an existing weapon's damage output while providing opportunities to add some tactical nuance to the game. And because nuance isn't just another raw damage boost its hard to gauge their impact to the game directly. Some some folks simply won't see their value (not everything is a math problem) and not really utilize them to their full extent. There will be others that fully embrace the use of powders and I suspect that they'll develop some strong likes and dislikes, but these appear to be very subjective to their personal preference/style. I see this as a very positive thing. Those who wish to embrace it will find something they can use, and maybe find combat more interesting. Those who don't, can continue playing as before without any serious consequences.

My personal experience is that Chain Lightening and Wind Prison have useful effects for my character's MO and both include the added elemental damage inherent to the powders used. So more damage, more options and more tactical flexibility. I lean toward the "always be prepared" boyscout mindset. More options on my utility belt, even if they go unused most of the time is always better than not having an option when it might have been really useful right about now...

-DavicusPrime

 

Armour Specials will increase in power dependent on the tier powder used. For instance, T4 Earth powders will give you the Rage effect, which, for every 1% of health you have lost, increases the Earth damage you inflict by 0.3%. However, the T5 Earth powders increase it by 0.5%, and T6, by 1%.

Different armour specials can be stacked and used; having the Thunder special on one piece of armour won't cancel out your Rage special on another. In addition, utilizing more than one of the same special -will- stack their effects up. Using two armours with T6 rage will increase your damage by 2%, using three will increase it by 3%, and so on, meaning you can get some fairly significant boosts this way. By the way, you're correct about one item being able to only have one special. But, of course, the powder master can clear out your powders if you don't particularly like what you got.

And, your statement of powders "are a way to tweak an existing weapon's damage output while providing opportunities to add some tactical nuance to the game" is just about spot on. A few weapons do rely on powders for their damage, looking at a couple like Cluster or Empire Builder or The Specialist, but those are generally gimmicked weapons rather than the norm. All items were based around that mindset. They're cool and useful, but not really game-breaking.

 

Concentration + Nirvana = POWEEER

 

And what pops into my noggin is a heavily armored dude that is burning and smoking constantly like the balrog from that "Lurd of the Rungs" movie.

In VECTRON'S NAME, I whole heartedly support this future vision for the Craft called Wynn. You may carry out your plans, knowing that this one, non-paying player has bestowed his very nearly worthless stamp of approval upon it. HUZZAH!

-DavicusPrime

 

Haven't even applied a powder to my weapon, but im gonna apply earth to them cuz uppercut op

 

Well I just Kind of flew past that well-made plan of yours, since I went to lvl 45 back in minecraft 1.8, didn't Play for like a year(you updated the powder systam in the meantime) and I joined again about 2 weeks ago with my Level 45 archer and didn't even know elemental damage/defence was a Thing,
So good Job me, I somehow managed to ruin that idiot-safe slowly paced element tutorial you handcrfated for myself, even though that's not supposed to be possible! Well done me! :P

 

I've only been able to test Chain Lightning, and it really is helpful, especially with the amount of damage it does for my Strength/Dexterity Archer.

Spoiler: Melee

Spoiler: Chain Lightning

It probably really depends on your build and your base damage, so maybe that's why it sucks to you?

 

Alrighty... I've finally scrounged up enough Blue Powders of Moistness to juice up my second Spiritshock.

I've only had a chance to use it on some random 70-85 level mobs in the wild. The effect is quite potent when using only melee attacks (~kills mobs dead in half the time) but as my spells tend to kill most of those guys outright, testing them on "cursed" mobs proved to be Inconclusive.

Not being an idiot Lab-Tech, I conclude that additional testing is required. As of now I hypothesize that when tested on Bosses and/or other high health mobs, the curse special will greatly improve combat performace. The fact that the curse effect lasts for 9 seconds!!! is a huge deal. Plug a boss with one of these curse arrows and everyone in the fight is doing an additional 250% damage for, I repeat, 9 seconds!!! That should let you and/or your mates take a huge piece out of the cursed individual(s). I'm kind of confused that the duration hasn't been trumpeted from the roof tops.

While Wind Prison's effect is a utility focused on distancing yourself from your opponent(s), Curse is all about murder.

All effected are going to be VERY vulnerable to everything you toss at them for a VERY LONG TIME!!!

So here are my thoughts so far:

Chain Lightening: Straight forward way to spread damage to multiple mobs in proximity to each other. Especially dangerous for Thunder weak targets. Lets melee fighters set off a damaging effect that extends their limited reach.

Wind Prison: Good for allowing retreat from melee nasties. Sets up targets for a follow-up attack/spell by you or your fellow party members (It appears that poison sets off this effect too, which may be good or bad depending on your opinion). Inflicts a strong knockback on anything that survives the follow-up, allowing more distance and/or airmailing them into a hazard, off a cliff or out of detection range.

Curse: THE BLACK SPOT of Wynncraft! Hit a boss or difficult to kill mob(s) with this and you will have a much easier time making their health bar move to the left. The cloud that follows it's victims is a "Kick Me" sign for every other player in sight. I'm so ready to use this thing on a boss, ASAP!

-DavicusPrime

 

After further testing, curse makes bosses of insufficient potency laughably easy to kill.

Undergrowth ruins... Melee attacks to knock the jelly off of him, curse, and 2x bomb arrows and it was over. Ran it again with two other dudes... Over before it began.

Boss alter in temple of legends... Melee attacks to charge up, curse, bomb arrow per "form". Last one took two bomb arrows.

The bug thingy on the troubled tribesman quest... Dead before I could tell which mob was the boss.

Curse is the Black Spot! *Crosses self, spins in a circle and spits*

-DavicusPrime