Sympathetic Procs and Fickle

[Malleria]

So I've noticed for a while now every so often my sympathetic proc will hit for a greatly increased amount of damage without actually critting, and it finally hit me tonight. It's because the sympathetic proc is eating up Flames of Power after I cast Fickle.

Ordinarily the sympathetic proc lands after the main spells damage, ensuring the buff increases the main nukes damage. The problem comes when you use a bolt - it's damage is delayed as the spell travels the distance to the target, meaning the sympathetic proc lands first and eats the buff. While not being a *huge* problem, it seems to partially compromise the original intent of Flames of Power. Fickle's recast time itself is far too long to consider saving the buff for a recast, and with Flames of Power being a % and not a fixed increase we gain the most benefit from it by following up with a Bolt.

No real point to this post beyond that. Might be worth encouraging people to /bug report this, or one of you important types could pass it along.

Edit: pfft, I'm ashamed how long it took before the next insight hit me. If a sympathetic proc triggers from a Fickle cast, it eats the Flames of Power from that as well, as the proc occurs after the buff appears in your song bar.

[Daiou]

Wife's a chanter, recourse does the same, cast Fickle, get a flame, recourse casts and eats the flame, bolt gets nada.
Pain in the ... for sure but what ya gonna do

[Malleria]

Indeed, but reiterate potentially nets a lot more damage, and it's not an innate thing the magician has available all the time. Sympathetic procs are supposed to be coming in to make our primary choices more appealing - but how appealing are they really when they nullify a key aspect of one of our main nukes.

[wire]

The solution is to put either a min or max level limit on the Flames of Power proc so that it will not trigger on procs. This has been brought up before to no effect. It should be noted that with a bard, Flames of Power is only useful on procs, so this change is not positive in 100% of of situations.

Another solution would be to put in a non-instant cast time restriction.

If we decided as a whole to limit Flames of Power to only Fire-based spells, we could make it not get wasted by RS too.

[Merlaina]

I'm mildly embarrassed to admit to this, but up until around 72 I was still using out higher level DoT spell just because it's so mana efficient. It wasn't until I realized that the DoT ticks were eating my fickle fire procs that I stopped using it. Talk about a waste of a perfectly good fickle proc.

[Quey]

I was watching my fickle proc eaten last night when I hit RS, why hasen't this been fixed yet?

Unless the proc is enhaning my Rs pet and I don't know?

Are the devs aware, any status on this at all?

[svenalo]

It gets eaten by RS because RS leads off with like a 2hp dmg nuke. I believe they added the dmg lead off on it so the pet wouldn't get wasted if you cast it at something mezzed - the nuke wakes it, the pet then attacks it. That, then, leads to this situation which they haven't addressed.

[Piemastaj]

I think we should make Flames of Power only able to proc on fire nukes. It would make sense seeing as it is called FLAMES of Power, and baby jesus cries everytime RS eats a Flames of Power proc lol.

[Zacatac]

I was watching my fickle proc eaten last night when I hit RS, why hasen't this been fixed yet?

Unless the proc is enhaning my Rs pet and I don't know?

Are the devs aware, any status on this at all?

Devs have been aware of this for years. It's not likely to change. Getting it changed to only get used on fire based spells is an idea we have suggested in the past, but I think there was some coding issue involved.

If you get a fickle proc, you can pause and cast bolt next to maximize the recourse. If you are burning hard and casting RS as fast as possible and using up the fickle, then that's the price you pay. The aug procs on the other hand is a tough one, because you have no control over that.

[Malleria]

Has anyone tested the interactions between the updated underfoot shawl effect and flames of power? According to test notes, the shawl effect now returns some mana and gives a 12-18 second buff that increases the damage of your next nuke. If you don't cast a nuke before it fades, you get a little more mana back. So... it sounds like they changed it to do exactly what flames of power does. Anyone tested if they stack? Block each other? One overrites? Anything? I'm too lazy atm to parse it out. Wondering if I need to ride Ngreth's ass about it.