Mechanical Questions Thread

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Mr_Magic_Fingers wrote:

Hi and thanks for the reply! but I'm not confused but are rather trying to understand EXACTLY how THIS game works haha as many games have stats for their minions' DPS which shows the damage they do per hit when they hit

PoE is not other games.

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When I add an "added cold damage support" or any other added damage it ADDS a certain amount of THAT type of damage to the minion right?, because minions themselves DO HIT.

Yes. "Support gems linked to the minion summoning gem" do affect minions. Specifically, they affect them in the same way as if they were linked to the skill the minion uses. If the minion's skill hits monsters, then Added Cold Damage will add cold damage to those hits.

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So like any other game with minions one would figure that the DPS was referring to the minions' hits not a generic spell hit counter as you are referring to, the same way elemental proliferation adds a chance to freeze everyone around ON THE MINIONS HIT that it SHOWS on the minions stat page(their cast speed, chance to freeze, dps etc)

No. You are seeing the cast speed, chance to freeze, etc. of the minion summoning skill that your character uses. Again, depending on which skill this is, some of these stats might not actually do anything.

Often a support gem can affect both the minion summoning skill of your character and the skills the minion itself uses. For example, Faster Casting linked with Raise Spectre, if you raise a spectre that casts spells. In this case, your character will raise the spectres faster, and the spectres will cast their own damaging spell faster as well. But again, the values on your character sheet only pertain to your own character.

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So what I'm asking is; IS that added cold damage boosted by passives that boost cold damage?

Unless the passive says "cold damage of minions" (which no passive currently in game does), it will not affect the damage your minions do with their skills. Your minions don't share your passives.

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every other game I've ever played in the world handles things this exact way so it's not myself's or anyone else's fault for not looking at things in an uncommon way as you say that poe handles these things, that's an error not on the player but the game's design I'd think.

PoE is not any other game.

Nobody is saying it's anyone's fault - we were all once new. Asking questions is one of the best ways to learn.

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Adding cold damage to minions makes them do cold damage, so if you increase the cold damage then one would figure the cold damage would increase haha

If you increase the cold damage via a support gem linked to the minion summoning skill (e.g. Elemental Focus), it will. If you increase it by a passive that says "increased minion damage", it will. If you increase it by any other source that is not either a support gem linked to the minion skill or an effect that can explicitly affect minions or allies, it will only affect your character.

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Am I wrong for looking at things in a common sense way as they are usually handled in 99.999% of games I've ever played abd in life in general?

PoE is not other games.

I'm not sure where you find minions in life in general - please let me know, I could use some.

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because saying it's a sort of error or display bug seems like a huge issue that needs to be patched and shouldn't count against a players understanding as if they don't know what they are talking about, it's not our understanding that's confusing but rather the way that the game displays SOME information.

This is neither an error nor a display issue. Your character screen displays stats of your own character, and it does display those stats correctly. It does not display the stats of any other entity in the game.

(Yes, there are some modifiers for which the character screen either does not or fundamentally can not account for; but this is not what the discussion is about.)

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I'm just trying to properly understand man because I am far from a fool or a noob to rpgs and I've been number crunching, boosting minions on ganes, and making great builds since a small child so please just help me understand properly

The best way to figure out what exactly will have what effect is using a character planner before you actually invest into a build. I have already recommended Path of Building.

Of course, don't hesitate to ask here if you are still uncertain. That's what these forums are for!

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the game itself is giving us this information to play off of and if it is not literal like almost every other game

PoE is not any other game.

In my own experience, PoE is much more literal in its descriptions than any other RPG I have played. Once you understand what each of the modifiers does, it is in a vast majority of cases very simple to figure out what affects what, and in what way - down to single digits of difference.

Some other game might give you "Strength increases your damage done". Is this damage in melee? With a bow? Damage with spells? By how much? How does it scale? Who knows.

In PoE, you get "2% increased melee physical damage per 10 points of strength". This tells you specifically what it affects (melee, physical damage), in what way it affects it (increased means it is additive with any other such bonuses), and by how much it affects that (2% for every 10 points). I'm not going to say I have played every other RPG there is, but I have not seen any other game with this kind of detailed information available without having to dig through secondary sources.

"Damage" means damage of your character. "Minion damage" means damage of your minions. Two different modifiers with no overlap. Again, very specific, and literal.

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Because saying that added cold damage etc only affects the "skill" but the minion in fact HITS with the damage is verrrrry confusing abd makes zero since

Again, using the example of zombies: Raise Zombie is a skill your character uses. Melee Slam is a skill your zombie uses. These are two different skills used by two different entities. There are ways to modify the stats of each of those skills separately, and some modifiers affect both of those skills. In either case, your character screen will only ever display information about skills used by your character.

The game is not giving you the information about the damage your minions do with their skills. You are reading another piece of information that is telling you a different thing, and mistakenly interpreting it as saying what you want it to say. No wonder that you find it "inaccurate" - you are looking at a completely different stat.

I hope that clears this up.

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I would VERY MUCH like a developer that worked on the game to clarify this hence why I tried to write mark and email support to get OFFICIAL developer clarification on this no offense my brother.

"Which modifiers affects minions" is perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions here, especially in this thread. It is also considered widely known as one of the basic mechanics of the game. Thus I had some problems digging up dev quotes about this. There is this, this (towards the bottom; pretty much the same explanation as mine), and more recently this (giving the short answer).

Tangentially related (technical explanation why minion damage can not be displayed on your character screen) here.

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Benchmark04 wrote:

my question is about Mon'tregul's Grasp

how much fire damage does it deal?

20% of the monster's maximum life.

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and how can you scale it?
with all minion damage nodes?

Fire damage, Area damage, generic Damage. Fairly sure it would be secondary damage, so Spell or Attack damage will not work.

Keep in mind that it is damage that is dealt by your minions, so your minions need to have the relevant stats, not you. For example, your "minion damage" stat is giving your minions the generic "damage" stat, thus it will increase the damage of the explosion.

Anything that modifies fire damage taken by the monsters obviously also works - for example, reducing their resistances using the Flammability curse.

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and also elemental focus support linked to raise zombie?

No, support gems can only modify skills. The explosion is not a skill.