Might and Influence Questions

I've been playing around with and am intrigued by the new Dual Strike threshold jewel, Might and Influence but I have a few questions about it's mechanics before I delve too deep into a fully fledged character using it.

I assume it functions the same as the Melee Splash Support gem in most cases; i.e. making the splash portion influenced by increases and reductions in area size and damage.

If so, I'm confused as to what the purpose is. Maybe it's the niche uses (one of which I'm pursuing with my current character) of it specifically splashing the off-hand portion, but it seems in most regards to be a worse feeling version of Melee Splash Support as it's area doesn't grow naturally without investment.

Maybe it's meant to be stacked with melee splash? But that seems kind of lame since it feels like it's intended to allow you to drop melee splash for more interesting support options. And extra aoe damage isn't really the problem with these name-lock skills, it's the actual size and awkwardness of the aoe.

I actually really love the mechanic of the different applications of the main-hand hit and the off-hand hit and it's been fun theory crafting how to take advantage of this. It would be a shame if that creativity is stifled by how clunky it has felt in my (albeit limited) testing simply because the area is so small and strange.

Let me know what you guys think and please correct me if I'm missing something. Thanks!

Edit:
Oh, forgot to link it so people know what I'm babbling about:

Imo looks like it is supposed to complement exploding bleed thing.

Gladiator has ascendancy that makes bleeding enemies explode when killed and there are new unique glove sthat do similar thing.

With this Threshold Jewel, your main hand will have a chance to deal double damage, so main target receives huge bleed. Targets around receive small damage and small bleed but they bleed nevertheless, so when main target explodes, surrounding enemies explode too resulting in cascade of pain.

In theory, never tried it, nor intend to in nearest future.

That's a cool application of it for sure.

I'm wondering if it would be worth speccing into aoe to help with the clunkiness of the splash or if melee splash is necessary for it to actually kill packs at a reasonable rate. In which case I feel some of the cool factor is squandered because of that necessity.

Have not tested it yet, but I saw it as well. Methinks the main point is to reduce the necessity for Melee Splash on non-Slayer characters, as well as offering that built-in soft crit system.

The other thing that occured to me was dual-wielding Dyadus and getting guaranteed Chills from the offhand splash to help with pack control, but without testing I dunno if that's worth anything. Mostly just off-the-cuffing with it, and scaling nothing but WED for Dyadus is kind of a pain for a lot of characters.

I'm actually trying to build a goofy dyadus setup to take advantage of the chill splash this combo would give. Like you suggested, building elemental dual wield axes is pretty awkward on the tree, but that's another topic.

I've researched the Slayer Impact ascendancy node and gotten some conflicting information but it seems to work with inc aoe on the tree or other non-gem sources, but only works with the inc aoe gem if the original skill has the aoe tag on it.

I'm guessing this jewel works in the same fashion but would love confirmation on that fact. If that's the case, then you would likely want to pick up a bit of aoe on the tree (another thing making this build awkward) if you want anything close to a comfortable play style.

Prolif is an interesting option and I believe that would scale with an inc aoe gem, but suddently you have a bunch of links that aren't increasing your dual strike damage. Might just have to level a character and mess around with stuff to see if there's any way to make it comfortable and still deal enough damage to clear.

In case anyone was still curious, I've done some testing with dual strike and this jewel with various setups.

Even with most of the inc aoe on the tree, the jewel alone feels pretty stubby. For general clear, I've started including melee splash in the setup (sub multistrike for tougher bosses). This isn't too big a deal because with my current build, the damage is still there with melee splash and it's a bit smoother than always running multistrike anyway.

So the results kind of undermine the idea of the second effect of the jewel replacing melee splash for your build. It does add more damage to your splash at a bit closer range though, which is only a plus.

This in addition to the roughly 10%+ more multiplier (doubles damage with main-hand 20% of the time) off of the first effect of the jewel makes it probably worth bothering with. It really does help you wreck single targets faster, and the skill is already pretty good at that.

In conclusion I've enjoyed it, I just want people to know what they are getting into. You will probably want melee splash in addition to the jewel for general clearing and have some way you are increasing aoe (via tree or support gem). The jewel is still a solid buff to both the skill's single target and aoe damage, just not really to the usability.

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Scofftastic wrote:

You will probably want melee splash in addition to the jewel for general clearing and have some way you are increasing aoe (via tree or support gem). The jewel is still a solid buff to both the skill's single target and aoe damage, just not really to the usability.

I'm playing around with Dual Strike at the moment and your research really helped me! Quick question though, can I actually use the inc aoe support gem to increase the radius of the splash from the jewel and/or the melee splash gem? It seems to me that inc aoe shoudldn't do anything if the gem itself doesn't have the "aoe" tag.

And also, do the slayers increases to AoE effect the splash from the jewel? Would it be worth getting slayers "impact"? And agian, would an inc AoE gem buff the AoE from the splash given by impact, even though Dual Strike doesn't have the AoE tag?

Sorry if the questions seem noobish, I've never really done anything like this before.

Thanks in advance!

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robintysken wrote:

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Scofftastic wrote:

You will probably want melee splash in addition to the jewel for general clearing and have some way you are increasing aoe (via tree or support gem). The jewel is still a solid buff to both the skill's single target and aoe damage, just not really to the usability.

I'm playing around with Dual Strike at the moment and your research really helped me! Quick question though, can I actually use the inc aoe support gem to increase the radius of the splash from the jewel and/or the melee splash gem? It seems to me that inc aoe shoudldn't do anything if the gem itself doesn't have the "aoe" tag.

And also, do the slayers increases to AoE effect the splash from the jewel? Would it be worth getting slayers "impact"? And agian, would an inc AoE gem buff the AoE from the splash given by impact, even though Dual Strike doesn't have the AoE tag?

Sorry if the questions seem noobish, I've never really done anything like this before.

Thanks in advance!

The Might and Influence jewel adds the 'AoE' tag to the splash damage the skill deals. AoE effects will all work on that splash damage, including Inc. AoE and increased area damage from the tree and such, but no - splash does not add AoE to the default single-target hit. AoE effects only work on the splash damage. So yes, Slayer AoE increases work.

I don't believe there's any point to stacking splash sources. So far as I know, an attack either splashes or doesn't splash - it's a boolean value, not a "+1 Splash" thing, so you can't have the same melee hit splash multiple times. If you're using Impact or Melee Splash, then all you're getting from Might and Influence is the percent double damage chance for the mainhand. Melee Splash is the largest splash radius of the three options, at the cost of taking up a valuable gem slot rather than a less valuable Ascendancy point or jewel slot. Up to you which way you want to run it.

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1453R wrote:

The Might and Influence jewel adds the 'AoE' tag to the splash damage the skill deals. AoE effects will all work on that splash damage, including Inc. AoE and increased area damage from the tree and such, but no - splash does not add AoE to the default single-target hit. AoE effects only work on the splash damage. So yes, Slayer AoE increases work.

I don't believe there's any point to stacking splash sources. So far as I know, an attack either splashes or doesn't splash - it's a boolean value, not a "+1 Splash" thing, so you can't have the same melee hit splash multiple times. If you're using Impact or Melee Splash, then all you're getting from Might and Influence is the percent double damage chance for the mainhand. Melee Splash is the largest splash radius of the three options, at the cost of taking up a valuable gem slot rather than a less valuable Ascendancy point or jewel slot. Up to you which way you want to run it.

Thank you for the detailed answer, it really helps out! I'm currently leveling my character so couldn't really try anything myself yet and since I'm doing SSF I don't really want to waste to many talent points, especially not ascendancy ones, for the sake of science.

Swapping multistrike for melee splash for clearing seems like a good solution if the splash aoe from the jewel alone feels to small, gonna have to try it out when I get there.