Detonate Dead + Necromancer's Soul Eater

I was messing around with the ascendancy classes with some classic build of the week characters and came across one interaction that I'm not sure is a bug or if it's working as intended.

When a Necromancer takes the Spirit Eater Notable in the ascendancy tree, you gain:

30% Minion Damage
Desecrate creates 2 additional Corpses
40% increased Damage if you have consumed a Corpse Recently
2% increased Attack and Cast Speed for each Corpse consumed Recently

The +2 desecrate Corpses is nice for Detonate Dead builds to get more corpses to exploit, but when you Detonate a Corpse, you do not gain a damage boost or Cast speed boost.

Part of me can see why this occurs, as Detonate Dead's description states "Explodes an unused corpse, dealing fire damage to nearby enemies," whereas the offering spells specifically state "
Consumes a corpse, granting (X effect)" and the Notable specifically calls for a corpse to be consumed.

So I suppose my question is, is this a bug where Detonate Dead's corpse exploitation is just not triggering the condition for Soul Eater, or is this WAI and is not supposed to trigger Spirit Eater?

Thanks in advance!

For that matter, Raise Zombie and Raise Spectre don't use the word "consume" either. The behavior should be consistent. Either all three spells should work with it, or none of them should.

BTW, the ascendency node is called Spirit Eater. Soul eater is a monster mod.

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Nasliss wrote:

BTW, the ascendency node is called Spirit Eater. Soul eater is a monster mod.

Thank you for catching that :P Fixed in the original xD

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cmilles wrote:

I was messing around with the ascendancy classes with some classic build of the week characters and came across one interaction that I'm not sure is a bug or if it's working as intended.

When a Necromancer takes the Spirit Eater Notable in the ascendancy tree, you gain:

30% Minion Damage
Desecrate creates 2 additional Corpses
40% increased Damage if you have consumed a Corpse Recently
2% increased Attack and Cast Speed for each Corpse consumed Recently

The +2 desecrate Corpses is nice for Detonate Dead builds to get more corpses to exploit, but when you Detonate a Corpse, you do not gain a damage boost or Cast speed boost.

Part of me can see why this occurs, as Detonate Dead's description states "Explodes an unused corpse, dealing fire damage to nearby enemies," whereas the offering spells specifically state "
Consumes a corpse, granting (X effect)" and the Notable specifically calls for a corpse to be consumed.

So I suppose my question is, is this a bug where Detonate Dead's corpse exploitation is just not triggering the condition for Soul Eater, or is this WAI and is not supposed to trigger Spirit Eater?

Thanks in advance!

As you guessed, Detonate Dead doesn't consume the corpse, thus doesn't trigger Spirit Eater. The only skills that consume a corpse are the offerings (Bone, Flesh, Spirit), which is what this node is built around.

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Nasliss wrote:

For that matter, Raise Zombie and Raise Spectre don't use the word "consume" either. The behavior should be consistent. Either all three spells should work with it, or none of them should.

I don't see why 'raising' shouldn't count as consuming.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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Nasliss wrote:

For that matter, Raise Zombie and Raise Spectre don't use the word "consume" either. The behavior should be consistent. Either all three spells should work with it, or none of them should.

I don't see why 'raising' shouldn't count as consuming.

Because it really isn't consuming the corpse, it's transforming one into something else, rather than giving minions any sort of buff.

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Dunedain1014 wrote:

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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Nasliss wrote:

For that matter, Raise Zombie and Raise Spectre don't use the word "consume" either. The behavior should be consistent. Either all three spells should work with it, or none of them should.

I don't see why 'raising' shouldn't count as consuming.

Because it really isn't consuming the corpse, it's transforming one into something else, rather than giving minions any sort of buff.

It works as I expected it to where Raising Zombies and Spectres align with Detonate Dead in that they do no grant the bonus for the Spirit Eater point (or the Ascendant's Necromancer point). Was more verifying with GGG that this was WAI and not a bug. ^^

I'm torn 50/50 on feeling like it should and shouldn't be part of Spirit Eater's criteria. It'd thematically make sense to make the Necromancer strong with kills like Detonate Dead, rather than needing to focus on the Elementalist (using the enhanced golem buffs and 40% fire damage buff from the flame golem matching Det Dead's damage type). But on the same measure I totally agree with you that you aren't exactly "consuming" a corpse, so much as exploiting that corpse. So.... *shrug*

devouring totem states that it consumes a corpse. Should spirit eater then work with devouring totem? I checked in game and it currently isn't working.

From the wiki: "Totems use the player's own skills as though the player had cast them."

(ie. elemental equilibrium is triggered by totems. "Enemies you hit with Elemental Damage temporarily get +25% Resistances to those Elements and −50% Resistances to other Elements")

I know this is somewhat related/different than the topic at hand. I can make a separate thread if necessary.

I don't think it's meant to. You aren't your totem and vice versa. The totem is merely your ally and the passive is only for you, not you and your allies.

At most, the totem may get an increase to it's cast speed by a few percent based on how many corpses it can consume within 4 seconds (the "recently" in the passive description)

Of course, I could be wrong. :) In which case someone will be along to point that out I am sure.

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Dunedain1014 wrote:

I don't think it's meant to. You aren't your totem and vice versa. The totem is merely your ally and the passive is only for you, not you and your allies.

At most, the totem may get an increase to it's cast speed by a few percent based on how many corpses it can consume within 4 seconds (the "recently" in the passive description)

Of course, I could be wrong. :) In which case someone will be along to point that out I am sure.

You're right on this one in a sense. The caster's stats can buff totems but totems don't buff the user unless specifically noted (ie. leeching life/mana, life regen, aura casting totems, Ancestral Protector/Warchief).

For most purposes, totems aren't even allies. They are effected by defensive auras, but offensive auras have no effect if just cast on the totem (say if you are using Anger supported by generosity). Totems are typically only buffed up using the casters modified stats and passives. The lack of totems having independent offensive stats is why totems cant gain any type of charges, because they would have no effect. Proven by the fact that Conduit and the Guardian equivalent do not share charges to totems.

In effect, when a remote skill kills something (totems, traps, mines, and most cases minions) it doesn't trigger caster responses. This is evidenced by most of the glove enchantments not proccing unless you specifically use the one that includes minion kills. I would assume that this same reason is why Devouring totem does not get buffed by Spirit Eater. Buffing the totem in an offense sense, would have no impact as it does not use it's own stats for using skills, and unless otherwise stated, totems never reverse buff the caster.