Iron Heart + Baron: Do they synergize?

{I am not sure what you mean by "an ability" and "a modifier" - as far as I know "an ability" is not a mechanical terminology in PoE.}

*Points at Tyroki's post* *shrugs*

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*Spends a bunch of time talking to a friend who's helping to theorycraft, gets thoughts in some kind of order*

*Decides that spoilers are a nice way to avoid walls of text and terrible forum browsing experiences.*

--- Okay, so thought process here:



--- OKAY, that's out of the way. Next part, using theory from previous part.

So, Baron is adding a new multiplier where there apparently was none previously. It seems like it could do this one of two ways:

1. It's registering the player's strength score (the total strength) as one large number, taking only that number into account, dividing it either before or after it applies to the minions, and then calling the rule for strength applying a buff from.... SOMEWHERE.

2. It could be taking the player's base strength, before ANY modifiers, applying said modifiers, AND THEN either giving it to the minions and dividing, or vice versa. Bringing any possible rules about how strength affects damage along with it, assuming there isn't a global rules list:

I have no idea how the server is calculating damage. It could be pulling from a global list and forming an equation that way, or it could be referring to the information it is sent with player data for each and every skill and effect being used by that character, possibly formed into it's own list when it loads the player into an instance that isn't just Town. Either has it's own strengths and weaknesses depending on how many "unique" effects there are that it would have to search through, how often it has to do it a "game tick", and a bunch of other stuff, some of which is afaik mostly online related. Hell it could even be offloading some of the grunt work onto the PC that's running the game and having it sent back for all I know.

The first one means, I think, that Iron Heart only affects the player.
The second could mean anything from ALL modifiers get transferred, to only modifiers on a whitelist do. Which would be weird and much more messy, but only in certain ways.

The second would mean that Brawn, Alberons, and other percent strength multipliers are whitelisted, but anything else affecting strength is not. God that is weird and looks error-prone as a concept.

Okay it's 3am here, I'mma leave it at that for a while. Would love to hear more thoughts from yall, thanks for the replies so far and trying to help me straight out this mess of an idea. XD

@Abdiel_Kavash

...Welcome to the internet? Why is thinking about something a bad thing exactly?

Hardly see how anything I said is philosophy. Might wanna explain what you think the difference is, cause I'm not seeing it.

I could spam the entire thread with numbers. I even have spreadsheets. I figured it would be a more pleasant experience reading everything if I didn't do that right off the bat. Am I to take it that you would prefer I do so?

Not asking about preferred design mechanics, I'm asking about code. I assure you there is a difference.

True, it has no effect. The process itself clearly has no effect either. Deadlines have no effect. Mishandled code has no effect. Code patches have no effect. New coders working off notes from people who don't write such things well has no effect....

5=1% is, in fact a buff. More precisely it is a multiplier, and is treated as "increased" by the game. It buffs your base weapon damage, because it does not replace or add to it, it multiplies it. Technically for this purpose it would still be a "buff" even if it added. By the standard of RPG's in general btw, not just this game.

You're assuming the game works via an easily updatable database. Unless you've seen the base code of the game and that is not, in fact, an assumption.

Yes, auras have been around for a long time, yes they modify a entity's attacks as they are being calculated.
Strength, on the other hand, is in this case being applied to a entity's basic information, instead of only to an equation being run by the server off to the side somewhere.
It is a group of effects, that are also modified by other rule changing effects. Possibly adding a new line of code to an entity on equip, that is then modified by a new item that is being vague about how it actually works.

Given that I spend most of my day looking at console logs for mods for other games, trying to figure out why a simple behavior modifying chunk of code is causing some deco mod to scream bloody murder and crash everything; given that this is a complex game running on and between multiple OS's and servers; given that this is computing we are discussing here and hell knows that NEVER has any issues whatsoever; please, explain to me why I should automatically trust that this combination will work the way everyone expects it to at first glance.

Also I have no idea why your tone suddenly went hostile and insulting. Seriously dude what the hell. Is my not taking you at your word instantly, no matter my thoughts on the matter, such an enraging thing to you?

"

Vipermagi wrote:

You are extremely overcomplicating this :/


All entities work the same. Players, monsters, minions. If an entity has a value for Strength, it gains Increased Melee Physical Damage relative to that value.

By default, Minions have 0 in all their attributes. The Baron adds half your final Strength value to their Strength. This has no effect on what Strength does. Strength's effect is entirely unrelated to where Strength comes from, how it is calculated, and whether the entity has any by default.

Iron Heart changes what Strength does for your character. Your modifiers do not apply to your Minions. Your Minions do not have Iron Heart equipped, their Damage multiplier from Strength is unaffected.

Hm, aight. I'd still like to know if you have any evidence for the 'having any integer for attributes' and 'How Iron Heart's description is supposed to be parsed'. Like in-game stats or dev notes or something.
I also still wouldn't be surprised if it did work despite that not being the intent, but eh. Guess unless they change it in some fashion, Iron Heart is doomed to be another severely underused unique, judging by prices, no life roll, and the cannot block spells at least. Much disappoint and such.

"

CommanderJess wrote:

Hm, aight. I'd still like to know if you have any evidence for the 'having any integer for attributes' and 'How Iron Heart's description is supposed to be parsed'. Like in-game stats or dev notes or something.
I also still wouldn't be surprised if it did work despite that not being the intent, but eh. Guess unless they change it in some fashion, Iron Heart is doomed to be another severely underused unique, judging by prices, no life roll, and the cannot block spells at least. Much disappoint and such.

His evidence is the dozens and dozens of questions people have asked Mark_GGG in the mechanics thread, and also extensive experience with the game, how it works, his own personal testing, accounts of other folks' personal testing...yeah. Vipermagi is one of the strongest mechanics guys on the forum, man. He knows his stuff.

That said? Echoing the other two - you are vastly overcomplicating this.

The Baron has one effect relevant to this conversation: it sums your final 'Strength' number - the integer shown in 'Strength' on your character screen - chops it in half, and grants the resulting integer as a bonus to Minion strength. That is what the Baron does. It doesn't clone your Strength stat or weird modifiers to your Strength stat. Why would it? Do modifiers attached to your minions affect your stats? Does Iron Grip Support on a minion mean your projectile damage would gain a bonus from Strength? No, of course not. That's blatantly, intuitively untrue. So why would the opposite somehow be less untrue?

Iron Heart, as stated, also has one relevant effect - it replaces your melee damage bonus from Strength with a 0.3% modifier, rather than a 0.2% modifier. It doesn't touch Strength at all. That modifier swap is not inherited by the Baron because the Baron does not care about, or in fact reference/know about, the Strength melee bonus at all. The Baron is concerned solely with the raw Strength number. Iron Heart is concerned solely with the player's melee damage modifier from Strength. The two mods do not interact.

Wanting them to interact does not mean they interact. No matter how badly you would like them to. Viper said it in the first reply in this thread - you're wearing Iron Heart, your minions are not. Thus, you get Iron heart's bonus, but your minions do not.

I think the whole when was what coded in which way is way too assumptious.

Look at this (Quote from the Wiki):
"Necromantic Aegis is a keystone passive skill that removes all bonuses provided by modifiers on equipped shields from the character and imparts those bonuses onto minions instead."

According to the WIki the Keystone was added in patch: 0.9.5g

Don't know how old the +strength or any other attribute stat on shields is but I guess that the framwork for giving your minions stats of your character was around at least from when NA was introduced.
Otherwise the keystone would be pointless. So as far as I can assume: Giving your minions strength, even though they might not have any to begin with, will give them an appropriate derived modifier like increased melee phys damage, for like ages now.

Everything which does not specificaly say it does affect your minions will not affect them, thats just how this game works.

A stat being "global" in changing a rule like the amount of IMPD per strength does not imply it changes the whole game instance or something. Global alwys means "your cahracter".

To add to that: IMPD from strength is not changing you base weapon damage, its an increased modifier that gets added to all the other increases.

Super normal PoE logic here actually.

If you think it might still work in a different way, you should check that and i guarantee you it would be a bug then.

regards

PS: Looking at you char, also stuff like %increased damge from le Heup does not apply to your minions. its global, not minion.

" It doesn't clone your Strength stat or weird modifiers to your Strength stat. Why would it? Do modifiers attached to your minions affect your stats?"

*Points at -https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Scourge-*
Just sayin'. I realize that doesn't necessarily create precedent, but it does happen.

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Fair on the point of Necro aegis, I'd forgotten it for a bit there. Does make the idea of having placeholders from the beginning the more likely scenario.
Though I still think having something be "global" and then not affect part of your build because it would be affecting something coded as a separate entity is mildly confusing at first glance. I recognize it's probably mostly to do with balance that it works the way it does, but still think the terminology could be better.

Yup, I realize @le heup; I'm using it for the attributes and resistances till I find or make something better. Also I just like the item in general since it has most of what I need for most builds without having to scour poe.trade for the exact mods I want once I hit maps.

Considering a ANIMATE GUARDIAN build for 3.2. Question ;

With IRON HEART used on AG, would the added strength be multiplied to AG? I checked on POB and it did not change the default attack of AG. Wondering if its just a bug. It makes sense to me that it SHOULD stack to AG