Shock nova ring doesn't always shock with three dragons

When Shock Nova changed, I think it introduced a problem about 'the ring' being deemed to merely be 'lightning damage'. The issue is whether the ring is a feature of shock nova or a description of lightning damage of shock nova. Does the ring guarantee shock or does the ring's lightning damage guarantee an ailment? According to the gem and item descriptions, it should be the former, but in practice it is the latter. Historically, shock nova's ring has been a unique feature of the skill gem.

Shock nova gem says "Ring always Shocks". Three Dragons says "Lightning Damage can Freeze but not Shock". When you equip that and hit with shock nova ring, the ring does not shock. Thus, "Ring always Shocks" is false, when you equip Three dragons, even though Three Dragon's doesn't say it affects Shocknova's ring.

Theoretically, we could hit with shock nova's ring and deal 0 lightning damage, and according to the gem description, it will shock. This should serve as the counter-example to shock nova's ring being merely lightning damage.

When you equip Three dragons, the ring appears to change from a feature to a description of shock nova. For example, if you hit with Shocknova's ring, the ring hits with lightning spell damage without shocking. This would make sense if the ring doesn't always shock. It also would make sense if the ring always inflicts an elemental status, which with three dragons converts to a freeze sometimes. Alternatively, it would also make sense if Three Dragons converted all shocks into freezes--which it doesn't.

Why would the ring change if we equip Three Dragons? Three Dragons doesn't affect Shock nova's ring. No item or passive in the game affects Shock nova's ring. Thus, the ring should still always shock. In contrast, something like Dead Reckoning changes Summon Skeletons. Three Dragons does not change Shock Nova.

If the ring doesn't always shock with Three Dragons equipped, then what is the ring's mechanic? If I equip three dragons, and hit with shock nova's ring, I would anticipate either 1) the non-ring can freeze but not shock, the ring always shocks, and the ring's lightning damage procs a chance to freeze, or 2) all of shock nova can freeze but the ring guarantees a freeze.

If it's the latter, you still need freeze duration over 0.3 to not have the freeze be dismissed, I suppose, but from my experience in using it, it doesn't always freeze.

this isn't a bug, cannot > always.

if you converted the damage to cold then got say cold damage can shock somewhere, it would then always shock. Shock is only from lightning damage by default.

if you want both shocks and freezes, try expeditions end, or call of the void to get chills over freezes.

I don't think you understand the problem. Shocknova's ring is a feature of the skill. The gem specifies that there is a ring.

They may well intend for shock nova's ring to guarantee elemental ailments, but that's not what the gem says. They may well intend for Three Dragons to convert all shocks (regardless if it comes from lightning or another source) to freeze, but that's not what the item says.

The item does not say it affects shock nova's ring.

The ring's effect is to do Lightning Damage with 100% chance to shock, with the shock effect being based on the lightning damage dealt. For anything that both does damage and mentions a chance to inflict an ailment, including "Always" which means 100% chance to inflict the ailment, the magnitude of the ailment will depend on the damage dealt that can contribute to the ailment.



The ring does not specify that its lightning damage always shocks, because as far as I know there is nothing in the game which, in one modifier, forces an ailment calculation while preventing certain damage sources from contributing to that calculation.

Put more simply: if you have a mod saying that "Your Fire Damage can Shock", and hit an enemy with Shock Nova's ring with a source of fire damage, then your fire damage would contribute to the inflicted shock.



Three Dragon's doesn't say that "All Shocks become Freezes", because you're still able to Shock with non-lightning damage. The item itself allows Fire damage to shock.



If you attempt to inflict an ailment with 0 damage that can contribute to the ailment, then you will not inflict the ailment, even in the case of Shaper of Storms or Shaper of Winter (Elementalist ascendencies) which would otherwise guarantee a minimum ailment magnitude.

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The ring's effect is to do Lightning Damage with 100% chance to shock, with the shock effect being based on the lightning damage dealt.

That might be intended, but it just doesn't say that. In fact, it goes out of it way to specify both 'the ring' and 'always' and not ring's lightning damage. Put in a different way, Three Dragon's doesn't cause the ring to always freeze--as far as I can tell.

What this means is that the bug with Three Dragon's is that the ring's +100% shock isn't converted to +100% chance to freeze, and instead the ring uses either 1) your chance to freeze, which ignores the skill's ring feature, or 2) Three Dragon's use's shock nova's non-ring chance to shock (ie, default lightning damage percent to shock + your added shock chance) which then is converted to freeze. Surely the devs did not design an item to ignore part of a skill's features.

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Three Dragon's doesn't say that "All Shocks become Freezes", because you're still able to Shock with non-lightning damage. The item itself allows Fire damage to shock.

I know. That's why I said that. It's part of the problem with Three Dragon's affecting 'lightning damage' and not 'shock nova's ring'.

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If you attempt to inflict an ailment with 0 damage that can contribute to the ailment, then you will not inflict the ailment

I think the gem description says the ring does. I didn't write the gem's description. It just says 'always'.

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Suven wrote:

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The ring's effect is to do Lightning Damage with 100% chance to shock, with the shock effect being based on the lightning damage dealt.

That might be intended, but it just doesn't say that. In fact, it goes out of it way to specify both 'the ring' and 'always' and not ring's lightning damage. Put in a different way, Three Dragon's doesn't cause the ring to always freeze--as far as I can tell.

What this means is that the bug with Three Dragon's is that the ring's +100% shock isn't converted to +100% chance to freeze, and instead the ring uses either 1) your chance to freeze, which ignores the skill's ring feature, or 2) Three Dragon's use's shock nova's non-ring chance to shock (ie, default lightning damage percent to shock + your added shock chance) which then is converted to freeze. Surely the devs did not design an item to ignore part of a skill's features.

Again, it doesn't specify lightning damage, because it is not saying that non-lightning damage from the ring cannot shock. If it only said "Ring's lightning damage always shocks", then the inflicted shocks would not factor in non-lightning damage types that can contribute to shock. While equipped with Three Dragons, your Shock Nova ring will always shock based on the fire damage dealt.

Three Dragons doesn't always cause the ring to freeze, because "Chance to Shock" is not "Chance to Freeze" or "Chance to inflict ailments with Lightning damage". Three Dragons causes the ring to "always shock based on fire damage", rather than the default behavior of "always shock based on lightning damage".

Three Dragons does not convert chance to shock into chance to freeze.
Three Dragons does not do anything to your chances to inflict ailments.



When you use Shock Nova with Three Dragons equipped, the ring has the following behaviors:

100% chance to inflict Shock based on fire damage dealt
Your normal chance to inflict Freeze based on lightning damage dealt (crits innately have 100% chance)

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Suven wrote:

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If you attempt to inflict an ailment with 0 damage that can contribute to the ailment, then you will not inflict the ailment

I think the gem description says the ring does. I didn't write the gem's description. It just says 'always'.

I can take a level 1 shock nova gem, walk up to a t16 map boss, and use the gem...without inflicting shock. Unless I hook it up to support gems to increase the damage.

To be very specific, I am inflicting shocks with the ring, but the shocks inflicted don't exceed the minimum threshold, and are discarded as a result.

It says that the ring always inflicts shock, but holding alt over the gem does not mention a fixed shock value. Holding alt over the gem SHOULD give the same description for shock that other gems mentioning "chance to shock" do, which would be valid as feedback, if not as a bug report.



The ring always shocks. The ring does not inflict a fixed shock. The ring's shock is based on the damage done that can contribute to shocks, which is normally the lightning damage done.

With Three Dragons equipped, Shock Nova's ring will always shock, with the magnitude of the shock being based on the fire damage done. If the resulting shock would not meet the minimum effect threshold, no shock will be inflicted.

I want to clarify that lightning damage freezes with Three Dragons. I think you say ignite.


According to what your saying, even though Shock Nova has a specific feature about the ring, Three Dragon's breaks the functionality of the ring, even though Three Dragons only affects lightning damage and not shock nova's ring. And I'm supposed to believe this is intended?

Shouldn't Three Dragon's interact with shock nova's ring, and shouldn't the ring increase the freeze chance to 100% or alternatively since Three Dragon's doesn't affect shocknova, the ring should still shock? (It obviously doesn't affect duration of freeze, which a pre-condition for a freeze roll to not be ignored.)

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According to what your saying, even though Shock Nova has a specific feature about the ring, Three Dragon's breaks the functionality of the ring, even though Three Dragons only affects lightning damage and not shock nova's ring. And I'm supposed to believe this is intended?

Three Dragons makes lightning damage unable to apply shock. This is global and applies to any and all lightning damage that you do. Thus, if you're only doing lightning damage with Shock Nova, the ring can no longer shock regardless of what the gem says. Even if you were also an Elementalist with Shaper of Storms, it still wouldn't work. You'd need some other type of non-lightning converted or added damage.

This is because cannot/never overrides can/always in PoE, and there are no exceptions to this. Neither the gem nor the helm explicitly state this, nor is it explicitly stated anywhere in game, but it's working as intended. It's an "unwritten rule" kind of deal.

Three Dragons says your lightning damage cannot shock, so your lightning damage cannot shock. Period.

I didn't mention ignite. I did mention fire damage, because Three Dragons has the mod "Your Fire Damage can Shock but not Ignite".

Meaning that with Three Dragons equipped, if you used Shock Nova with Avatar of Fire allocated, Shock Nova's ring would always shock because it is doing fire damage, and fire damage can shock (ie fire damage contributes to shock's magnitude).

Three Dragons does not affect "Chance to Shock" or "Chance to Freeze", or any other chances to inflict ailments. The ring does still shock--it just shocks based on your fire damage instead of your lightning damage.



The two interpretations of the interaction in your post are:

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Three Dragons interacts with Shock Nova's ring, making Shock Nova's ring inflict Freeze with 100% chance
Three Dragons doesn't affect Shock Nova, the ring should still shock (based on lightning damage)

The second interpretation as originally written was technically correct, but here I included the contextual assumption which makes it incorrect. The interaction works like this:

Three Dragons does not affect chance to Shock. Shock Nova's ring still has 100% to Shock, which is now based on the Fire Damage of the hit. If the hit dealt no Fire Damage, or did not inflict enough Fire Damage to cause the minimum Shock effect, then Shock Nova's ring will not inflict Shock.
Three Dragons does not affect chance to Freeze. To freeze with Shock Nova's ring, you will need other sources of chance to Freeze, or for Shock Nova to land a critical hit. The Freeze duration will be based on the Lightning Damage of the hit.

Why is this post this long?

Essentially all it does is mean your lightning damage is now enabled for freeze calculations, disabled for shock calculations. Always shocks is still on the ring but fire damage is now the type that interacts with that.

If you then want to freeze a target with lightning damage you need to crit, or have chance to freeze.