New Bone Shield... questions.

[Delmuir]

I get that it says that it recovers a bone shield every four turns but how come many, many enemies are recovering one every turn? I regularly will hit an enemy for significantly more damage than the trigger amount but yet it will suddenly gain one in addition to not losing one. That's a +2 difference. Kind of a problem.

What the hell is going on with this thing? Is it bugged or what?

This skill is out of control and for the record, I am not imagining it. I have been keeping track and it is definitely not operating according to the description. It might be doing what it's supposed to but it is not doing what it says.

[snj]

Is it that a bone is regenerating four turns after it was lost, rather than one every four turns? Like, if a guy loses one each on turn 1 and turn 2, is the guy getting one back on turn 5 and then one more on turn 6, instead of one on turn 5 and one on turn 9? Is that what you've been seeing?

[Delmuir]

That's kind of what I'm thinking but that just makes it a very frustrating shield, which has been my experience when dealing with it when I can't disperse it.

The tendency for enemies to retreat combined with the staggeringly rapid recovery of the shield makes it troublesome.

Oh well... thanks.

[visage]

I get that it says that it recovers a bone shield every four turns but how come many, many enemies are recovering one every turn? I regularly will hit an enemy for significantly more damage than the trigger amount but yet it will suddenly gain one in addition to not losing one. That's a +2 difference. Kind of a problem.

A few thoughts:

1) The code for Bone Shield is here.

2) Looking at that code, bone shield regenerates on a fixed timer from when it was activated, not based on when any were removed. So it would be completely normal for a bone shield to regenerate immediately after having been removed.

3) When you hit an enemy with bone shield for more than the threshold and they do not lose a shield, are you seeing the "to bones" message in the combat log when this happens? ....and just checking, but: you're talking about individual damage packets, not the total damage you did with a hit, correct? (If you use Flurry and do 20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20+20 = 300 damage, you're only going to strip bone shields if their threshold is 20 or lower.)

[Delmuir]

Yeah, I've using a mage so it's all one big burst of damage. Definitely hitting the threshold.

I have to a very precise experiment to see what's going on but man oh man do I hate running into this damn shield.