Manipulation - Worth It?

[Nilandia]

I've been toying with the notion for a while and I'm wondering.

So far as I can tell, the benefits of manipulation are to increase damage with harm, increase the chances of insta-kills with bone shatter and wither, reducing TD with empathic assault and boosting the phantom crit padding with regeneration.

I've got 40 ranks of manipulation and I'm not seeing insta-kills that often with bone shatter or manipulation. I crit kill far more often than I do insta-kill. I don't use harm or regeneration that often and my CS is high enough that a drop in TD doesn't really do much to help.

Are my 40 ranks really worth it? Just how much does manipulation add to the insta-kill chance?

Gretchen

[phantasm]

.1% chance of insta kill per manipulation rank.

IMO 2x manipulation or nothing.

If for some odd reason you use harm...oh nevermind.

[Nilandia]

.1% chance of insta kill per manipulation rank.

IMO 2x manipulation or nothing.

If for some odd reason you use harm...oh nevermind.
Out of curiosity, what's your source on it? I don't recall ever seeing that, but it would be very useful to making my decision if it's true.

In other news, I caught this on the officials.



The main reason to keep it is the crit padding on 1150, but I don't know if we have a way to quantify how much crit padding we get.

Also, what would be interesting to me is whether crit padding given by 1150 stacks on top of any crit padding you may have on your armor, on whether it justs overrides it, or whether the better of the two is chosen.

Without lore, the default protection is equivalent to "heavily" padded armor. With ~50 ranks of Mental Lore, Manipulation, it's up to "masterfully". Unlike armor, this is not randomized. The crit reduction from the spell stacks with armor padding.

GameMaster Estild
Cleric/Empath Team


Gretchen

[phantasm]

I had empaths with ~200 ~150 ~100 and~ 50 ranks use psinet count to tally up instant kills.

[StrayRogue]

The benefits to 1150 aren't huge IMO. It's once per day for 30 seconds right?

[Nilandia]

I had empaths with ~200 ~150 ~100 and~ 50 ranks use psinet count to tally up instant kills.
Excellent, thank you. That helps things quite a bit.

And to whomever neg repped me for asking: I wouldn't have asked if it was as simple as looking it up. The official site, Carabele's lore chart and the Krakiipedia had nothing concrete. My question was valid, thank you very much.

Gretchen

[Nilandia]

The benefits to 1150 aren't huge IMO. It's once per day for 30 seconds right?
Pretty much. I'd mostly use it for the instant wound healing, and even then I only save it for true emergencies. With training in transformation lores, you can gain more uses, but it's at 50, 125 and 200 ranks. Not worth it, in my opinion.

Gretchen

[Nilandia]

For those who might care, something else off the officials.



Are you able to tell us what the seed is for the instant kills, or if bone shatter and wither have the same rate of increase based on lore?

Both spells use the same formula of a seed 1 summation of ((Mental Lore, Manipulation ranks - 10) / 2). However, if you ward the target by less than 50, it reduces your chance.

GameMaster Estild
Cleric/Empath Team


Gretchen

[BigWorm]

For those who might care, something else off the officials.



Gretchen

Sounds like warding by 50+ is more of a factor than manipulation ranks.

[phantasm]

That formula would put the upper limit at 13% instant kills.
Much lower than the results I saw with 200 ranks 8 months ago.

[Nilandia]

I would assume that there's also a base chance for instant kills, which might throw things off a bit.

Gretchen

[Athgo]

I would assume that there's also a base chance for instant kills, which might throw things off a bit.

Gretchen

From my experience there isn't a base chance for an instant kill. I fixskilled this year from around 40 ranks of manipulation to 0 ranks and haven't had an instant kill since. It seems you have to have some manipulation to have a chance at an instant kill.

[Inspire]

Bumping a really old thread.

I'd like more information about how manipulation affects 1101 (harm).

I've got 30 ranks of Manipulation, and I notice a very small addition to damage dealt, but it doesn't seem worth the TP's.

Has anyone done any other research to see how manipulation ranks affect the damage done by 1101? (harm)

[Inspire]

Harm (1101) does not have a cap for its damage. Training in Mental Lore, Manipulation adds damage to each cast (thus raising the minimum and maximum damage you deal with each cast). The lore benefit does use a summation.

GameMaster Estild
Cleric/Empath Team


----------------------


The lore benefit does use a summation.

More info on this part!

[Riltus]

Bumping a really old thread.

I'd like more information about how manipulation affects 1101 (harm).

I've got 30 ranks of Manipulation, and I notice a very small addition to damage dealt, but it doesn't seem worth the TP's.

Has anyone done any other research to see how manipulation ranks affect the damage done by 1101? (harm)

I'm pretty sure that harm (1101) uses the seed 1 summation for the extra damage from Mental Lore - Manipulation. Each bonus rank adds 1 damage for every successful cast, and, as Estild stated, this is a static bonus. The formula for the spell is probably something like this:

trunc(A * .20) + trunc(B * .15) + trunc(C * .10) + (lore bonus damage) = total damage

Where:

A = endrolls 101 - 200 with damage factor .20
B = endrolls 201 - 300 with damage factor .15
C = endrolls > 300 with damage factor .10

E.g. (from posted dated on the officials)

CS: +383 - TD: +3 + CvA: +25 + d100: +98 == +503
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the rolton's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 67 points of damage!

This is a cast posted by Throgg with 80 ranks of lore (bonus rank 12).

With a 503 endroll the values for A, B and C are:
A: 100 (endrolls 101 - 200)
B: 100 (endrolls 201 - 300)
C: 203 (endrolls 301 - 503)

(100 * .20) + (100 * .15) + (203 * .10) + (12 lore bonus)
(20) + (15) + (20) + 12 = 67 which matches the actual damage

Here is another attack from the boards posted by Sylvancode.

Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 210 110
You gesture at a young creature.
CS: +469 - TD: +149 + CvA: +8 + d100: +56 == +384
... 57 points of damage!

110 lore ranks is seed 1 bonus rank 14 , therefore, 14 bonus damage.

(100 * .20) + (100 * .15) + (84 * .10) + (14 bonus damage)
(20) + (15) + (8) + 14 = 57 calculated damage which again matches the actual damage.

Another successful cast:

Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 90 20
Empath gestures at a young creature.
CS: +448 - TD: +149 + CvA: +8 + d100: +81 == +388
... 48 points of damage!

20 lore ranks is bonus rank 5

(100 * .20) + (100 * .15) + (88 * .10) + (5 bonus damage)
(20) + (15) + (8) + (5) = 48 calculated damage matches the actual damage.


What I can't verify are the damage factors and the endroll ranges. It is possible that this part of the formula is inaccurate. This will require several samples at different endrolls particularly endrolls in the 101 - 200 range and 201 - 300 range. If there are any empaths willing to post some hits with this criteria it should be fairly simple to verify or modify the formula.

Seed 1:

Bonus -- Minimum lore ranks
--------------------------------
1 ----- 1
2 ----- 3
3 ----- 6
4 ---- 10
5 ---- 15
6 ---- 21
7 ---- 28
8 ---- 36
9 ---- 45
10 --- 55
11 --- 66
12 --- 78
13 --- 91
14 -- 105
15 -- 120
16 -- 136
17 -- 153
18 -- 171
19 -- 190
20 -- 210
21 -- 231
22 -- 253
23 -- 276
24 -- 300


Mark

[Riltus]

After giving the formula a little more thought I realized that there was probably a base damage component, otherwise, the spell would be grossly underpowered for low level empaths. I decided to collect some data and here are the results.

The Harm (1101) Damage Formula.

There are three factors in the formula:

1. A static 15 base damage.
2. A .10 damage factor for all endrolls > 100.
3. A Mental Lore - Manipulation ranks bonus using a seed 1 summation.

The formula is:

(15 Base damage) + trunc(Endroll - 100) * .10 damage factor) + ( manipulation lore ranks bonus <seed 1>)

EXAMPLE 1 :

You gesture at a giant rat.
CS: +28 - TD: +3 + CvA: +25 + d100: +85 == +135
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the rat's skin, leaving a faint beading of
scarlet in its wake.
... 19 points of damage!
Base damage: 15
Endroll - 100: 35
Lore ranks: 1 (bonus rank 1)
Damage factor: .10

(15 base damage) + (35 * .10) + (1 lore bonus damage) = total damage
(15) + (3) + (1) = 19 total damage

EXAMPLE 2 :

You gesture at a giant rat.
CS: +28 - TD: +3 + CvA: +25 + d100: +51 == +101
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the rat's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 17 points of damage!

Base damage: 15
Endroll - 100: 1
Lore ranks: 3 (bonus 2)
Damage Factor: .10

(15 base damage) + trunc(1 * .10) + (2 lore bonus damage <seed 1>)= total damage
(15) + (0) + (2) = 17 total damage

EXAMPLE 3:

Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 210 110
You gesture at a young creature.
CS: +469 - TD: +149 + CvA: +8 + d100: +56 == +384
... 57 points of damage!

Base damage: 15
Endroll - 100: 284
Lore ranks: 110 (bonus 14)
Damage factor: .10

(15 base damage) + trunc(284 * .10) + (14 lore bonus damage) = total damage
(15) + (28) + (14) = 57 total damage

Mark

[Danical]

anyone tried 202 Telep and 1108?

[Kithor]

40 Telepathy is the most I've seen any Empath with, that's where I'm at though I've toyed with the idea of 10 more ranks which I think would get the Master Telepath title. I expect I'll eventually go up to 65 ranks when I run out of things to train in, but that won't happen anytime soon.

[Kithor]

(15 Base damage) + trunc(Endroll - 100) * .10 damage factor) + ( manipulation lore ranks bonus <seed 1>)

I frequently use 1101 to finish of war griffins in OTF and that's spot on for me, good to know and thanks.

[Carblin]

What I can't verify are the damage factors and the endroll ranges. It is possible that this part of the formula is inaccurate. This will require several samples at different endrolls particularly endrolls in the 101 - 200 range and 201 - 300 range. If there are any empaths willing to post some hits with this criteria it should be fairly simple to verify or modify the formula.




Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 35 7

You gesture at a cave gnome.
CS: +48 - TD: +6 + CvA: +25 + d100: +35 == +102
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the gnome's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 18 points of damage!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

You gesture at a cave gnome.
CS: +48 - TD: +6 + CvA: +25 + d100: +91 == +158
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the gnome's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 23 points of damage!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

You gesture at a cave gnome.
CS: +48 - TD: +6 + CvA: +25 + d100: +59 == +126
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the gnome's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 20 points of damage!
[You have earned 30 recognition points.]
The cave gnome falls to the ground and dies.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

You gesture at a cave gnome.
CS: +48 - TD: +6 + CvA: +25 + d100: +94 == +161
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the gnome's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 24 points of damage!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

You gesture at a cave gnome.
CS: +48 - TD: +6 + CvA: +25 + d100: +36 == +103
Warding failed!
A brief tremor ripples across the gnome's skin, leaving a faint beading of scarlet in its wake.
... 18 points of damage!
[You have earned 30 recognition points.]
The cave gnome falls to the ground and dies.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.