Alchemists -- spell crit / spellpower

[Repton]

Do spellpower and spell crit matter to alchemists?

It sometimes seems like a get spell crits ("seems more powerful!"), but the damage always seems about what I would normally expect.

[darkgod]

Yeah they work for alchemists.
i'll check the crit code but I believe it should work

[Repton]

Actually, I take some of that back: I have seen crits on channel staff.

But I get criticals with throw bomb ("looks more powerful"), but the damage doesn't seem much.

Actually, on reflection, I can't figure out damage at all. Currently my talent description says "will explode for 150.74 fireburn damage". I just did 66.33 fire damage on a critical hit against a grave wight (fire resistance 20%) with ongoing burn damage of 22.11.

[darkgod]

Yeah fireburn means the total damage will be that: the direct effect + the DOT

[Repton]

Ok, but I feel like there's still something fishy going on.

Here's a sample log where I get a critical:

[LOG] James casts Throw Bomb.
USING table: 0x19767d80 Throw Bomb
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James is on fire!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] Golem (servant of James) is on fire!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[PROJECTOR] starting dam 88.403347223225
[PROJECTOR] after difficulty dam 88.403347223225
[PROJECTOR] res -37.899541542376 1.3789954154238 on dam 104.31594972341
[PROJECTOR] final dam 143.85121642415
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[LOG] James's spell looks more powerful!
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[SPELL CRIT %] 18.4
[PROJECTOR] starting dam 29.467782407742
[PROJECTOR] after difficulty dam 29.467782407742
[PROJECTOR] res -37.899541542376 1.3789954154238 on dam 34.771983241135
[PROJECTOR] final dam 47.950405474718
[PROJECTOR] starting dam 0
[PROJECTOR] after difficulty dam 0
[PROJECTOR] res 0 1 on dam 0
[PROJECTOR] final dam 0
[LOG] James hits golem (servant of James) for #LIGHT_RED#0.00 fire damage#LAST#.
[PROJECTOR] starting dam 0
[PROJECTOR] after difficulty dam 0
[PROJECTOR] res 15 0.85 on dam 0
[PROJECTOR] final dam 0
[LOG] James hits James for #LIGHT_RED#0.00 fire damage#LAST#.

Is it possible that it's calculating the critical hit chance independently for every square in the area of effect, regardless of whether anything is occupying that square? Since wielding the staff of destruction, I get a heap of "looks more poweful!" messages every time I throw a bomb...

[Repton]

Bring it back to the spoilers thread: does spellpower have any effect on channel staff or throw bomb?

[edge2054]

Magic effects staff damage but I don't believe spell damage does. The only talent I see in the staff combat tree that scales off spellpower is defensive posture. Everything else scales just off weapon damage.

Of the golem talents Invoke and Refit (the healing part) scale off spellpower.

Fire Alchemy all scales off spellpower.

Stonetouch checks spellpower to determine resist. Gem Portal scales off spellpower.

Bombs scale of spellpower and appear to attack each square individually (which is what allows Alchemist Protection to work I'm guessing).

What you're seeing in the combat log is it checking crit against each tile. So yes, you will see a crit and then not see the damage increase (because you didn't crit an occupied tile). (I figured this out because the base 3 x 3 bomb checks crit nine times in the combat log).

Granted there may be something in the code that I'm overlooking and I may be way off base on this stuff but looking through the files and testing with an alchemist seems to confirm everything above.

[darkgod]

Edge is right, and channel staff scales of weapon damage and magic since staff damage scales off magic

[Mithril]

This information would be really helpful if stated in the talent descriptions for those not understanding how to read the code.

[Repton]

So items that improve physical power will help my channel staff damage?

[edge2054]

Items that increase your Attack Power should improve your staff damage.

In fact I think that's all the stat scaling for weapons really does is inflate that AP number by a percent of a given stat (for staves that stat being magic.)