How does Arcane Combat + Flexible Combat work together?

[rekenner]

So, I really like Arcane Blades. They've basically always been my favorite class. And having recently come back to the game, I'm thinking about what prodigies I'd take. And I see Flexible Combat, and I think to myself, "Wait a second. A lot of an Arcane Blade's damage, in fact, comes from riders on melee attacks. Unarmed strikes are melee attacks."

I know that you can activate Arcane Combat twice, if you're dual-wielding or via Greater Weapon Focus, so can it activate on every attack in a round? Also, if you're wielding a single weapon, but have have Flexible Combat, will that count as having two weapons for Arcane Combat?

And Flexible Combat can activate on every attack, right? If you went Full-Adventurer and got Flurry onto this, could you attack 6 times and get 6 spellcasts and 6 Arcane Destruction procs? (The phrase "Shun Goku Satsu" is coming to mind...)

And finally, how does unarmed combat work on someone that isn't a brawler? Would the Arcane Might prodigy give a 50% magic coefficient to an unarmed attack if you're not a brawler?

I'm probably going to try to test this out by turning on the console, levelling an Arcane Blade to some absurd level, and rushing to the Vor Armory vault, where that'd be the first place I can think of that would have monsters that wouldn't explode before the full set of attacks went off... But it would be nice to have confirmation of things if there are people that know their way around the code base better than I.

[SageAcrin]

I know that you can activate Arcane Combat twice, if you're dual-wielding or via Greater Weapon Focus, so can it activate on every attack in a round?

Flexible Combat can activate once per overall "attack". Dualwielding is two actions in one "attack", so it'll activate once per double swing there. Otherwise, yes, it can activate on GWF hits and normal attacks in the same round.

Also, if you're wielding a single weapon, but have have Flexible Combat, will that count as having two weapons for Arcane Combat?

It will not count as two weapons, no.

And Flexible Combat can activate on every attack, right? If you went Full-Adventurer and got Flurry onto this, could you attack 6 times and get 6 spellcasts and 6 Arcane Destruction procs? (The phrase "Shun Goku Satsu" is coming to mind...)

Flurry could activate six spellcasts, six arcane destruction procs, and three Flexible Combat procs for three more of each, yes.

And finally, how does unarmed combat work on someone that isn't a brawler? Would the Arcane Might prodigy give a 50% magic coefficient to an unarmed attack if you're not a brawler?

Yes. However, do note that your weapon is unequipped temporarily for purposes of Flexible Combat, and I think this means that any Physical Power bonuses associated with what weapon you have equipped will be lost for that swing, unless you have the actual Unarmed Combat physical power boosts that Brawler gains. (Casual observation supports this I think.)

So it does way less damage than you'd think, on base, even with Arcane Might.

There was a build done that was able to proc around 15k worth of damage in one Flurry with a highly optimized dualwield build. The downside is, unless you're really good, you'll probably die getting it off the ground, but oh well(It's a terrible earlygame setup with little synergy or kick until higher levels.). With Adventurers, though...yeah, you can make some insanely good damage setups.

[rekenner]

Wow, that was a quick response. Thanks!

I just spent the time messing around in the console to get Arcane combat to 200% and GWF to 100% and get 100% crit chance to see it work without random chance. It took to well into triple digit levels.

It then took clearing 8 floors of the ID to get 2 daggers.

8 floors.

Then I started consoling myself deeper until I could find something that would *survive*. Took to like floor 100. I then looked at a like 4 page combat log.

Then TP'd down to floor 200 and found a unique with 126% resist all, laughed, died, and knew I had done SCIENCE!

And, yes, it seems like a build that's not really that ... actually doable, as you're terrible until it all comes together. Then again, that's basically Arcane Blades in a nutshell, anyway...

[SageAcrin]

Well, there's a difference between "Getting by until it all comes together" and building four stats(Str/Dex/Mag/Cun) as primary statistics, investing in, optimally, three locked categories(Stone/Battle Tactics/Dual Weapon Offense is optimal, though you can do solid damage with the latter two.), etc.

About the only thing that build has going for it is Fire tree(and you have to juggle points out of that constantly if you want the optimal Stone-only Earthen Missiles Arcane Combat damage.) and Aegis/Conveyance, for the first 20 levels or so. It's basically the only reason it isn't breaking the game in half right now.

Flame/Lightning hurts Arcane Combat's damage eventually, compared to just having Earthen Missiles, but that also means you get two 3CD beams. And Sword/Shield Offense is just superior in the earlygame, Assault's autocritical is amazing for that. And both of those builds don't need Dex for anything. Generally, the more optimal damage you give up, the better the class is in the earlygame.

Also it tends to do like 2000-3000 damage in the endgame without Battle Tactics, off normal bump attacks that get Earthen Missiles, just with Flexible Combat. It's not like you really need the optimal damage for it to be good at the end.

[sofocles]

I need to ask this : Shield attacks can trigger arcane combat?

[BoomFrog]

I just started a shield using arcane blade and I seem to have triggered arcane combat by just blocking. Or triggered by retaliation damage. Either of those possible?

[Rholor]

Well tbh dual wielding ABs does synergie very well. There isnt much that can stop you. I always managed to kill the Master without teleporting just buch throwing out a few thousand dmg.

http://te4.org/characters/31416/tome/12 ... 3b986bf63a Nightmare Roguelike Thaloren AB winner

http://te4.org/characters/31416/tome/9c ... 73f1c9d60a Nightmare Roguelike Thaloren Adventurer winner, More or less a super over powered version of an AB. 15-16k Flurrys are common.

[Hommit]

http://te4.org/characters/31416/tome/9c ... 73f1c9d60a Nightmare Roguelike Thaloren Adventurer winner, More or less a super over powered version of an AB. 15-16k Flurrys are common.

What weapons do you use? There is dagger mastery in talents but dual axes equipped.

Damn, starting is hard...Mindblast charm is all the way to go

[Nussbaum]

I tried the training dummy, and it works.

I have a screenshot of three different attacks on training dummy.

Attack 1:
Attack with staff triggers earthen missiles, also it's a critical and triggers arcane destruction, but flexible combat isn't triggered.

Attack 2:
Attack with staff triggers spell and flexible combat, but neither are critical hits so arcane destruction isn't triggered. Both attacks (staff and gloves) trigger earthen missiles however.

Attack 3:
Staff triggers spell, also it triggers flexible combat. Both melee hits are critical so they trigger arcane destruction but the other attack doesn't trigger earthen missiles like in Attack 2. Arcane damage of arcane destruction is smaller for gloves (160, while it's 353 for staff), I think because staves have procs damage/accuracy bonus while gloves don't.

All three attacks are normal "bump attacks" with flexible combat on arcane blade level 42.