Divergen Arcane surge + arcane surge increase from passive

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twitticles wrote:

First off, this is not restricted to Arcane Blessing, but any two different sources of Arcane Surge in conjunction with Arcane Capacitor.

I've been testing this a bit since I noticed it a few days ago, and I'm fairly sure this is what's happening:

Arcane Capacitor does not apply it's increased Arcane Surge effect retroactively or dynamically. In other words, if you cast a 1k mana cost spell linked to a lvl 20 Arcane Surge, that spell will not get the 50% increased AS effect (actually it doesn't get any of the benefits of the AS buff), nor will the 50% increased effect apply to your mana regen, cast speed etc as your AS buff is "regular" strength. When you cast the same 1k mana cost spell again within the 4s "recently" window, that spell will apply the juiced-up Arcane Surge as it sees the 1k mana spent on the first cast. The same would apply if the second spell cast cost 400 mana (to fulfill the Arcane Surge mana spending requirement).


Now what's happening with the buff strength is easily explained:

You cast Wave of Conviction, granting a regular strength lvl 20 Arcane Surge buff, then Arcane Blessing triggers, granting you a lvl 1 Arcane surge buff that has been juiced up by Arcane Capacitor. The game compares the two Arcane Surge buffs, both having the same name but the second (lvl 1) having increased effect than the first (lvl 20) and consequently applying the second buff instead, despite it actually being a weaker buff in all aspects, regardless of the increased effect.

Now, this will only come in play with infrequent casts of high-mana spells, as the lvl 20 Arcane Surge buff is chosen over the lvl 1 buff if they both have equal increased effect. It does however impact the usage of things like Arcane Cloak + Arcane Surge as a temporary buff in that the high-level AS will be overwritten by a lower effect.


Clearly the game chosing a lower strength buff over a higher strength one needs to be addressed. Ideally the behaviour of Arcane Capacitor should be changed as well to allow for high-cost casts to grant the increased Arcane Surge buff immediately but I guess that's not as clear-cut and more of a game mechanics question.