How Oak's Soul Power Buff Really Works

By transitive on May 3, 2009 4:41:10 PM from

for those of you who, like me, have been curious as to exactly how this buff functions, i've got some results for you. this is stuff i learned while checking out the data files for the game. you can find the code for this in HOak_Abilities.lua

this somewhat crude table conveys the general idea of how this works. there are 6 levels of buffs you can have. your buff level goes up by 1 for every 3 spirits you have. if you have ranks in Soul Power you gain an additional constant damage bonus for having at least 1 spirit active. the total damage is always 20 times the buff level. it ranges from 0 to 120.

Soul Power Damage Bonus Buff Level

1 spirit buff level [base]

3 spirits buff level [base] +1

6 spirits buff level [base] +2

9 spirits buff level [base] +3

where base is the value associated with the skill rank

edit: removed false information about buff being active with zero skill points spent

update: upon further testing of in game behavior, a minimum of 1 skill point must be spent to enable damage bonuses for active spirits. spending more than skill point does not increase the bonus for active spirits, this is a fixed value of 20 for every 3 spirits alive. my conclusion then is that the first rank of Soul Power is by far the most effective one, where as ranks 2 and 3 only add a flat additional 20 bonus damage each.

what this means is that adding ranks to Soul Power just adds 20 constant damage per rank and nothing else. you'll always be able to get 20, 40, or 60 bonus damage for having 3, 6, or 9 spirits out respectively. ranks in Soul Power don't affect that bonus at all, its just built in to the character.

what the ranks do is provide a constant bonus for having at least 1 spirit out. so if you have 6 spirits out and no ranks in soul power you'd get no damage, but if you had rank 1 soul power you'd get an additional 20 damage from it (since you had at least 1 spirit out) and would instead have 60 bonus damage. the 60 damage is composed of of a flat 20 from Soul Power rank 1(active for having at least 1 spirit out) and then another 40 (for having at least 1 rank in Soul Power and having 6 spirits out). the highest damage possible is 120 from rank 3 soul power and 9 spirits active.

edit update:

just recorded some observations from a game played against AI's to confirm that my anaylsis is correct. it seems to be, though my observation data isnt exactly thorough.

anyway, here's the results

conditions

baseline damage with 0 spirits

315-349

soul power 2

raise dead 3

6 spirits

theory predicts buff level of 4, or +80 damage

observed results

391-433 damage

the damage range was increased by 76-84, which is exactly 80 with a +- of 5% (which seems to be Oak's natural damage range)

+66 Karma | 25 Replies

Nice works. So this means that enhancing Soul Power isn't as useful as it seems. Have you tried parsing this or watching to see if the damage figures you're generating match your hypothesis?

no, unfortunately i haven't verified this empirically yet. these results are from interpreting code and nothing else. i'd be thrilled if someone can assist me and try to get some observed results. it might be harder than you think though since the tooltips are not easily accessible and also quite prone to bugs or are just out of date.

for example, there is an undocumented feature of the Raise Dead Banners at ranks 3 and 4 they provide a Guardian Aura that boosts armor to everything within 20 units of the banner. not only is that feature undocumented in the mousover tooltip but the status icon tooltip that does show up in game when you're affected by the aura is wrong. it says +250 or +500 armor. the tooltip text is in the data file and records values of 250 and 500. however, directly below that line in the data file is the code for the actual aura and you can see clearly that the bonus is only 200 and 400.

so there's lot of weird stuff like that that makes me have little confidence in the ability to watch gameplay to get an accurate reading on what your stats really are. classic "lying character sheet" syndrome.

Cool to see the forums are so active in this game Just bought it today and i LOVE Oak so far. Last game i played with a friend as Rook vs 2 nightmare ai's, we let them win cuz we had raiding to do in WoW, but the game was awesome. The build I went with maxed out soul power and the healing when you kill ability. Also maxed out shield to purity and raise dead all the way. So the only cast ability I had was shield and this actually worked really well, was hitting for 500+ at 20 and the few times I died I tended to obliterate whatever I chased down in Last Stand mode. It didn't seam like wasted points to me but I'm still a noob

I honestly don't see the point in getting last stand unless I know suicide rushing late game is what it's going to take.

If it's a stalemate when everybody is above level 16 then I'll go for last stand.

I don't die enough to warrant it's use in any other situation.

deleted

Quoting PvtBrian,

reply 4

I honestly don't see the point in getting last stand unless I know suicide rushing late game is what it's going to take.

If it's a stalemate when everybody is above level 16 then I'll go for last stand.

I don't die enough to warrant it's use in any other situation.

For me, Last Stand is very circumstancial to the game. If I get to around level 10 and I havent died or have died only once, I'll typically skip it. If I've been having a hard time, I'll pick it up for the sake of making better use of my deaths.

And then jump straight into other abilities, if im like level 20 and theres nothing else to grab (Not likely!) then maybe ill start ranking that up, but usually there is something else I would rather have.

Quoting cilice,

reply 7

Hey dude, I wouldnt advise maxing out the "heal on kill" ability, I usually just get the first rank because its the most cost effective for the points (1 point, 10%) compared to the other ranks (2 points, 15%/ 3 points 20%)

And then jump straight into other abilities, if im like level 20 and theres nothing else to grab (Not likely!) then maybe ill start ranking that up, but usually there is something else I would rather have.

I generally get the first point early on for mana regeneration purposes, and then once I get level 10 (when Surge of Faith kills entire grunt swarms) I'll look to put a second point in it. 5 Minotaurs with 390 HP each = 39 HP per minotaur = 195 Health and Mana per Surge of Faith. Bumping that up to almost 300 health and mana, for you and your allies, is a pretty sweet deal. If you cast Surge about every 10 seconds, that ends up being an additional ~30 Health and Mana per second (The second point increases health and mana by ~10 per second). And of course that doesn't include any normal kills.

Also, nailing a 5k DG, and getting back another 250 Health and Mana is pretty sweet too.

Meh, different strats, I find that with monk minions/ vlemish faceguard I need the extra regen less than I need the boosted damage or more spirits. Granted the extra burst healing/ mana regen would be nice, but usually by level 10 im already jumping into sieging down towers etc. and focusing less on creep support/ assasinations.

I'm a little confused.. Is this how the chart reads?

So Spirits would be better to get after getting SP 1 because the spirits will outway the difference in damage at that point right?

At lvl 3 raise the dead 9 spirits is atleast 9xdamage per is 72.. and they do more than 9dmg... I'm a noob- so correct me if I'm completly wrong here... soul power lvl 1+ raise the dead lvl 3 is the shiz right?

Weapon Damage	SP 0	SP 1	SP 2	SP 3
No spirit	0	20	40	60
1 spirit	0	20	40	60
3 spirits	0	20	60	80
6 spirits	0	60	80	100
9 spirits	0	80	100	120

soul power affects Oak's own melee weapon swing, that is all.

in my original post the quantity i've calld "buff level base" is identical with your number of ranks in Soul Power. the buff granted by soul power comes only in chunks of 20 weapon damage, depending on how many spirits you have out (in multiples of 3).

note that there are two separate "buff sources" from Soul Power, if you want to look at it that way.

i) if you have one or more spirits active: 20 weapon damage per rank of Soul Power

ii) # of spirits active divided by 3 (rounded down to nearest integer): 20 weapon damage for each group of 3 spirits active

these are independent conditions apparently.

Wait, I thought the base damage increase from Soul Power was present even if there were no spirits out?

Thats what I am wonding.. because my graph changes to no spirits- 0 weapon damage

Weapon Damage	SP 0	SP 1	SP 2	SP 3
No spirit	0	0	0	0
1 spirit	0	20	40	60
3 spirits	0	40	60	80
6 spirits	0	60	80	100
9 spirits	0	80	100	120

Is this the correct representation of the added weapon damage done by oak with these skills? Someone wanna test this again? I can't because I'm out of town.

Interesting. Good thread

Anybody know if at least 1 spirit must be out for Soul Power to do any bonus damage?

Quoting jonthemon,

reply 15

Anybody know if at least 1 spirit must be out for Soul Power to do any bonus damage?

If no souls are out, you get the base Soul Power bonus, afaik. So 20 damage at rank 1, etc.

Quoting bladesling,

reply 13

Thats what I am wonding.. because my graph changes to no spirits- 0 weapon damage

Weapon Damage

SP 0
SP 1
SP 2
SP 3

No spirit
0
0
0
0

1 spirit
0
20
40
60

3 spirits
0
40
60
80

6 spirits
0
60
80
100

9 spirits
0
80
100
120

Is this the correct representation of the added weapon damage done by oak with these skills? Someone wanna test this again? I can't because I'm out of town.

pretty much yes this is how it works.

Quoting bladesling,

reply 10

I'm a little confused.. Is this how the chart reads?

So Spirits would be better to get after getting SP 1 because the spirits will outway the difference in damage at that point right?

At lvl 3 raise the dead 9 spirits is atleast 9xdamage per is 72.. and they do more than 9dmg... I'm a noob- so correct me if I'm completly wrong here... soul power lvl 1+ raise the dead lvl 3 is the shiz right?

Weapon Damage

SP 0
SP 1
SP 2
SP 3

No spirit
0
20
40
60

1 spirit
0
20
40
60

3 spirits
0
20
60
80

6 spirits
0
60
80
100

9 spirits
0
80
100
120

It depends on whether you are an assassin vs minion oak player; if you are an assassin you will probably want to keep the spirits at the crystal and you can max your damage at 140 with soul power III at lvl 8. The problem you have with spirits is that although they give more damage to you (if you combine what they deal individually with what the oak deals with soul power), they can die very easily without added health and they can be very slow in keeping up with a fleeing demigod (at which point their added damage is useless). If you're are all about dps as an assassin, you can forgo the pitfall of using spirit wards II, which gives absolutely no additional damage as you get only 4, not 6 spirits.

I will submit that I am not a know everything about oak, however I can play oak very well. I can play pretty much all the demigods very well. However i only specialize in support regulus. Eskendale you keep mentioning 140 max damage, and as well mentioning you get +40 damage from switching between SP 1 and SP 2 (at least when we have 3 spirits out). Anyway, the numbers presented here don't bear that out. Could you please illuminate how this occurs? Because I have been using the graphs quoted here as a basis for my arguments, and they seem correct to me, thus invalidating your points. I see the max damage possible as 120, and the difference between each SP at any given number of spirits is 20 between each level. Thus the jump between SP 1 and SP 2 should only be 20 damage.

I just hit things

No just kiddin, good read, but still a bit confusing, however, from a ingame perspective i notiched that your lads must be close to the truth.

I tend to get spirits at lvl 1, then sp at lvl 2, get 3 ghost and put em at base. I notiched that my base dmg is around 150, jumps to about 170 witouth spirits but with both skills , and then goes to about 250 with 3 spirits, does this make any sense?

That thing about the flags giving armor bonus is VERY intersting, since i get it at lvl1, and i think 200 armor at lvl 1 as an aura is AMAZING.

ow ps, Pendrix if you read this, silvius asked me tell you he is on vacation

Quoting pendrix,

reply 19

Look at the graph: there is 80 bonus damage from soul power 3 when with 3 spirits. Add this value to the base 60 damage you get with soul power 3; you get a total value of 140 max damage when with maxed soul power and only 3 spirits. You get 40 combined damage from switches to soul power 2 from 1, because 20 bonus from the spirit buff and 20 from the constant base increase of 20 from soul power. The graph focuses on the BUFF from spirits; it makes no mention of the base damage you get from just having soul power without ANY spirits; combine the values to get my results.

hmm, since im a big oak fan,

What i could do, if anyone finds it intersting, is just do a single p, and start doing tests on lets say a fortress or something.

Just to see if it matches. Beceaus in my experince the damage bonus you get from 3 spirits with sp 1 is HUGE, much more then 20.

I tend to take sp1 and spirits at lvl 1 and 2, and i see my damage go from 160ish to 250ish.

While adding ranks of sp beyond rank 1 does not seem to do much at all, i tested this in a game where we were killin the citadel and i had 6 spirits out, i think my damage went from 320ish to 340ish upgrading sp1 to 2.

Ill see if i can test tonight .

ive tested and confirmed that the base damage of 20/40/60 is active even when u don't have spirits out

u can minimze the stats display and compare ur damage before and after getting soul power with no spirits

well yes its active, but there is a huge dif between having 3 spirits or not. withouth you only get the flat 20 bonus, with spirits you hit allot harder

I was having issues figuring out which table was correct, so I redid them myself based on in game testing:

This is the table for the complete buff from Soul Power, which includes base buff and everything.

Spirits	No Soul Power	Soul Power 1	Soul Power 2	Soul Power 3
0	0	20	40	60
1	0	40	80	120
3	0	60	100	140
6	0	80	120	160
9	0	100	140	180

For the Weapon Damage increase due only to Spirits (i.e., subtracting out the base increase just for having the ability)

Spirits	No Soul Power	Soul Power 1	Soul Power 2	Soul Power 3
0	0	0	0	0
1	0	20	40	60
3	0	40	60	80
6	0	60	80	100
9	0	80	100	120

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How Oak's Soul Power Buff Really Works