Molten Strike & Point Blank interaction

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ComradeSerge wrote:

Is the max distance of the Molten Strike projectiles so low that it always triggers the 50% more dmg from point blank? Is there any way to know what the max distance of MS projectiles is?

The projectiles travel a random distance between 5 units and 20 units, with the latter distance being affected by AoE increases (the minimum distances is always 5). Point Blank gives a 50% damage bonus only until range 10, which would thus cover only a third of the projectiles with no AoE increase.

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Humperding wrote:

Yesterday i tried molten strike with a one hand axe and with the wideswing unique axe. I noticed that wit wideswing the projectiles seemed to spread much more. So maybe projectile range has something to do with weapon range (or i am just imagining things, possible).

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ComradeSerge wrote:

A bit offtopic, but if someone knows the answer, I'd really appreciate it:

If I take Master of the Arena which gives +2 to Melee Weapon and Unarmed range, will that increase the max distance of the MS projectiles? Cause if so, it would decrease the effectiveness of Point Blank, in which case I'd obviously avoid taking it.

Weapon range affects how far from you the melee attack can hit. It has no effect on the distance the projectiles travel, however, since the projectiles spawn at the point of impact, rather than on the player, that will affect how far total from the player they reach, since tey can thus start further from the player.

Point blank cares about how far the projectile moved, not about distance from the player.

Molten Strike is not picking locations from an area. It's firing projectiles in a random direction (within a 270-degree arc in front of the user), with a random speed. The speed determines how far they get before they hit the ground (gravity is constant*, so the time they're in the air is the same). The quoted statement is correct.

This is in contrast to, say, Firestorm, which is picking reandom locations in an area to drop an explosion on, in which case they are evenly distributed over the area.

While there are broad similarities between the two (circular AoE damage hits located within a larger circle), what they're doing is fundamentally not the same, and thus does not lead to the same result.

*Technically, the game has no concept of gravity, and this would be more correct as "the arcing animation of the porjectile is played at a constant speed", but the reason that's done is to maintain the illusion of constant gravity. There are other cases where gameplay constaints override such illusions, such as Leap Slam.