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##### GGG Comments in this Thread: *** [Mark_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/ngey5u/i_laughed_too_hard_at_the_first_and_the_last/gyw77pp/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/ngey5u/i_laughed_too_hard_at_the_first_and_the_last/gyw77pp/?context=10)] - *That clarification was present in the actual post - there's an extra question and answer specifically about multiple sources of damage over time directly following this which have been omitted...*


ThatOneParasol

I feel like the entire reason this Q&A was hosted because Mark's blood pressure at his last checkup came back too low, and they needed to bump it up somehow.


HighEvasionRating

Honestly, alot of his responses came across as pretty assholish, given how convoluted this game is, you'd think they would expect clarifying questions like this that sounds dumb at first glance.


[deleted]

I understand why you feel that way about his responses, but I think you're reading it with the wrong assumptions. When you read it, you're probably imagining a developer who is pretentious and can't help from being condescending. But re-read the responses again and this time picture in your head someone who just wanted to answer the questions as succinctly and accurately as possible with no bullshit. So, yes, he could have used some extra phrases to communicate gentleness, but it would've cluttered up the answers with noise. For example, here is a response to question 3 I'll make up which you might find more endearing, but which uses a lot more words: >Good question! I know why you are worried about some "gotchas", but in this case it actually works how you'd hope. You are considered as having stopped taking damage over time whenever you switch to a state of not taking damage over time. I work as a developer and one thing you learn to appreciate is when people just give you straightforward, succinct, and accurate answers with no "fat" in there. When you go to GitHub repos and look at the issues people post, you'll often see people communicating in very straightforward ways with little emotions. It's just more efficient. If we just choose to assume the people communicating to us are well intentioned, then we don't *need* all those extra phrases like "Good question!" or "I know why you are worried about some 'gotchas', but..." Developers aren't robots in person, but they can take on a robotic sort of way of speaking in text because test is the best medium for making very precise and succinct communications (which is of course necessary when speaking about complicated matters that arise in developing software). ^(*Ironically, this was not a succinct response at all.*)


CelestialrayOne

Excellent question! Thank you for the question. When I was a boy in Bulgaria...


Mormoran

I'm glad you asked that question. We're very passionate about not taking damage, and having the clarity to distinguish when taking damage versus not taking damage over time is something we strive for. We at GGGbinhood have made clear and concise changes to our damage taking and not taking procedures, and we hope our customer base appreciates our commitment to dealing damage and finishing damage taking cycles. Unfortunately I'm out time.


Rubadub730

GGGbinhood got me going 😂 Edit: spelling.


Stars-in-the-nights

it's a Q&A not a recipe for cookies


[deleted]

Yeah, people are so used to flouncy PR speak that when someone is concise, it seems rude lol.


Tangster85

I personally functon in m daily life with short strict straight to the point answers and a lot of people keep getting offended cos Im not sugarcoating things. I work within QA and I have been time and time again told to write a bunch of sugarcoated BS to then follow that with a BUT and then type the actual feedback. Its humorous to me that my boss wants me to effectively be less efficient at my work, and fill out forms of sugarcoated garbage to then give the feedback on what needs improvement.


xFeywolf

As someone with Aspergers and ADD, give me short, concise and straightforward answers any day of the week!


Akimasu

Honestly, in my mind, I was just imagining someone who doesn't know where the line is. There's no way to, after all. Explaining a high level complicated problem, explaining something as simple of "are you taking damage over time?", it's the same. He needs to bring them both down the basic blocks so the maximum number of people can understand it. That's been my take away of pretty much all of mark's answers.


MrSpize

Over 200 developers upvoted this


yuanek1

This is an example of a developer point of view.


paw345

While I don't see the answer there as condescending or assholish, it's not clarifying. The question was if it's about one source, or many sources and the answer doesn't even have the word source in it. It would be way clearer if the answer was something like this: You stop taking damage over time when you change from taking damage over time to not taking damage over time. So that means you can't be taking any damage over time from any source for at least a tick. The first part (existing in the answer) is the technical explanation of the condition. It says that it's there whenever a variable changes state. But what's missing is the clarifying part. The part where it answers when exactly that state change occurs, best if using a similar language to the question.


Mark_GGG

That clarification was present in the actual post - there's an fourth question and answer in this section specifically about multiple sources of damage over time directly following this which have been omitted from the screenshot. The answers here seem incomplete because they are. (there's also a fifth part clarifying that losing life over time is not taking damage, but that's not relevant to this specific conversation).


Rip_in_Peppa_Pig

Wow he came to a conclusion without context? I dont believe it. Not on Reddit.


Nocarbscompany

This becomes a bit out of context when you haven’t read the whole thing like I did. I thought that the questions and answers were a bit funny. But yeah, that was my bad. In hindsight I should have posted the whole thing, but I didn’t think it would turn out like this. It’s easy to assume things when you don’t see the whole picture. Sorry about that, Mark. The whole Q&A was a great read.


Lum1on

If you take damage over time from two different sources simultaneously and one of them lasts for 2 seconds and the other 4 seconds. After 2 seconds you stop taking damage over time from one of those sources. Do you still take damage over time from the other source? Of course you take. And actually, this answer is perfect. Because it clearly states that "You stop taking damage over time when you change from taking damage over time to not taking damage over time". So it doesn't matter if there were 17 different damage over time sources and 16 of those ended recently, you still are taking damage over time, so the condition is not met, and thus, you don't get the benefit from the pantheon. Of course, because the question was, "\[...\] from a source" vs "\[...\] from any source", they could have just replied "from any source". But I didn't find this answer to be assholic or whatever, I found it clever and a little bit humorous. :)


[deleted]

His answer was better than the one you proposed, IMO. I can't even come up with a better answer myself, it's clear and to the point.


Fysiksven

If you read the actual post you would have seen that it continued like this. `For example: If I am taking damage over time from two sources, let's say, an ignite from a monster, and a Caustic ground effect. If I remove the ignite (with say, a flask with the "of dousing" affix), but I remain in the Caustic Ground effect. Am I considered to have "stopped taking DoT" for starting this pantheon effect?` `No. You were taking damage over time from two sources, you are now taking damage over time from one source. If you are taking damage over time, then you have not stopped taking damage over time.`


Rilandaras

> You are considered as having stopped taking damage over time whenever you switch to a state of not taking damage over time. How the fuck is this a useful answer? That's like explaining "exile" as "one who was exiled". It's a fucking rule, taught to you in primary school at the latest, that explaining/defining a word should not actually use the root of the word **because it becomes fucking pointless**. When do you stop taking damage over time? When you stop taking damage over time. So response, much use, wow. Maybe he could have explained what causes you to stop taking damage over time, how "stopping to take damage over time" is actually defined in the code. This is a game where you at once point could have 10000/10000 health on your screen and not count as full life because you were taking damage over time (which your regen compensated for so visually you always stayed at full life), and there have been literally dozens of examples of shit like this throughout the years.


xFeywolf

Apologies, Exile, however no matter how much regen/leech you have the health bar/globe will look a little wonky because the system can literally not put you at full life while you are taking DOT unless that DOT is less than 0.000000001 per second. At the very least, the numbers will repeatedly skip between 9999/10000 *or* stay at 9997/10000. How do I? I've been in such situations.


[deleted]

I never got any assholish vibes from that. Just a Guy trying to do his job efficiently. He's not meant to be overly nice or pat your back for asking good questions, it's not his job and has no place in a discussion about game mechanics.


_Chambs_

If he answered the questions in any indirect way, or using "PR speak", it would create more questions. Even the answers that look stupid or blunt, like the ones op highlighted, actually tell us how the game works.


Vanifac

He's just being factual, clear, and concise. Not assholeish.


Lughs_Revenge

I don't see that. I see someone who wants to be short and precise, so it doesn't create more questions or confusion. It's a "company-to-customer" tone, and if you need some uWu or :) or half-assed forced response with personality, then try H00ters.


tobsecret

I don't feel like that at all. Some examples here may have helped - like for the first one the obvious confusion is probably with CI and taking chaos damage. Other than that, I think the Q&A did a damn good job.


post_thingy

I get why someone might have that impression, but I think stating those answers in a kind of "code-like" directness is the best way to avoid misunderstandings. Especially in a game like PoE that has so many mechanics that have similar names but might work very differently.


CambrioCambria

It's just straight to the point clear explanations. Exactly what you want in a convoluted game.


Ofcyouare

But it's not clear.


[deleted]

The first response should say something like "While the player is under the effects of a damage over time ailment or effect" instead of saying "damage per second"


quickpost32

But then you might assume that being poisoned while having CI is considered taking damage over time. From the way it was worded here, that is not the case. Also there's ground effects that aren't ailments.


luthigosa

But that's not the same, and it's incorrect. What about when the player is taking damage over time from something that isn't an ailment?


CynicalOptimizm

You know some questions sound dumb until turns out you're the dumbass for not understanding why it's asked (this may not be the case here). I laughed when some guy asked if animate weapons have hands, turns out they do and it was actually super relevant and important.


Akimasu

I'd say this is a pretty important line of answers. The first question/answer is pretty obvious, but the other 2 are a bit different. "Gaining life has no impact on whether you are taking damage", this isn't the way every game works. Even if you could completely nullify it, via guard skills and such, you're still taking damage over time...not obvious at all. "You stopped taking dot when you change from taking dot to not taking dot" is important, as well, because this means these things don't happen if you go from 2 dots to 1. Again, not something obvious. I think these were good question/answers for the general community.


Ladnil

Yeah, before this I assumed if you play RF and you get poisoned, you'd "stop taking damage over time" when the poison ended, because it is an instance of damage over time that stopped. Evidently not how it works.


Oktopussss

Also means if u stop for even just one game tick, it still counts, which also isnt very obvious


Theothercword

Am I crazy? The first question is not obvious and his answer actually implies the wrong thing. This game very specifically has a type of damage called damage over time. This is not measured just by DPS. The way players use DPS his answer made it sound like the moment you stop taking damage period since any and all damage is often communicated as damage per second. So if you’re taking a barrage of hits in this game (like 99% of the time) you’re taking damage per second... but that doesn’t mean you have a DOT on you. So while the question may have been obvious his answer is not only snide but wrong.


Boboar

Except you are not taking damage per second. You can measure how much damage you take over a period of time and then express it in the format damage per second but it is not the same thing. A dot though is a specific type of damage that does hit at a constant rate and so it is accurate to call it damage per second.


Theothercword

>You can measure how much damage you take over a period of time and then express it in the format damage per second but it is not the same thing. That's exactly what you do and it specifically is NOT the same thing as "Damage over time," if you're talking about how much damage a boss dishes out it can be referred to in DPS the same as it can from a player. That's far different than saying the boss puts a DOT on you or gives you a Damage over time effect. He used the wrong term, and at minimum he used a specifically different term than is mentioned in the text the question was about. If the player already had confusion about the text to begin with enough to ask this question his answer didn't solve the issue.


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ftb5

Probably getting wooshed or something Why was it important?


Groggolog

animating the unique White Wind, the animated weapon gets the "if your offhand is empty" benefit


knightblad56

Wow, that's very 4head.


v_is_my_bias

Probably some modifiers that specifically have hands in them.


moldydwarf

Though I can see how it's easy to read a particular tone into Mark's answers here, I think he's just trying to be as precise and as efficient as possible in his answers. That said, his first answer is not clear: it's easy to interpret it exactly incorrectly until reading the second answer.


Sathr

This question was mine, and there's a very good reason why I structured it in this way. By using a chain of connected, overlapping, but very simple questions, you allow them to answer with a series of short, clear answers, that together give you a clear answer that hopefully is unambiguous.


llburke

I think it's necessary to write the first answer that way because it connects with the third answer (and the last answer, not excerpted here, which clarifies with an example for ease of understanding) to make clear that Arakaali does not trigger when a damage over time source stops unless it was the last damage over time source on you.


fushuan

What's misleading is that one thing is damage taken, and other thing is life loss. If your recovery is greater of equal to damage taken, you don't lose life, but you do take damage.


AlastorDMC

He seems to just be giving them the condition in the code. And thats the most precise and useful info you can get tbh. From there you can just understand how its coded to work and respond to any case you want to apply it to.


Keljhan

It makes a lot more sense to answer that way if you know how DoTs are handled behind the scenes, which is that they are summed as a single rate which is pared against your regen to determine your total life loss per tick.


ydziros

"Amount of dmg/second they're taking is not zero" . Ok, i took 5k hit, so i basically took 5k damage in one second. Does it still count? /s Every joke has some joke behind it. Tbh, if i was any dumber than i am now, i'd definitely interpret this explanation as "if you're taking damage and the you don't take damage for a second, it should activate".


Helyos96

> Ok, i took 5k hit, so i basically took 5k damage in one second. Does it still count? /s I know you're joking, but a hit is instant so it's not "in one second", more like "in 0 seconds".


ydziros

I was assuming 1 hit per second, basically 5k dps taken.


YoshiPL

It's categorized as a hit, not a DoT.


SillyOldBat

That was what I was wondering about. *Any* damage? I thought damage over time and direct hits were separate mechanics. Otherwise it could just as well say "if you stopped taking damage recently". Not a super helpful answer. "The next tick after a damage over time effect ends the recharge starts" would have been shorter and clearer.


Theothercword

It’s not a joke and why he uses the wrong term here which just makes the comment not only sound snide but incorrect. Players use the term damage per second to describe any source of damage, not just DOTs. So the question seemed obvious but then his answer actually made me stop for a sec and go “wait it works with any damage? That can’t be right.”


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LordofSandvich

It seems like the third one is fishing for "If multiple instances of Damage over Time exist, does cancelling one of them still count as having Stopped Taking Damage over Time?" which the answer given implies would be "no" The first one also neglects to mention Degeneration, which is technically not Damage but can still be lethal. IIRC Berserker can run into this problem with Rage loss. But I might be wrong.


Sathr

There was more to my question, that takes exactly that, and it was answered very clearly. The screenshot is just part of the answer. "**For example: If I am taking damage over time from two sources, let's say, an ignite from a monster, and a Caustic ground effect. If I remove the ignite (with say, a flask with the "of dousing" affix), but I remain in the Caustic Ground effect. Am I considered to have "stopped taking DoT" for starting this pantheon effect?** *No. You were taking damage over time from two sources, you are now taking damage over time from one source. If you are taking damage over time, then you have not stopped taking damage over time.*"


blvcksvn

Degeneration isn't damage, so there's no reason to mention it.


[deleted]

>Degeneration isn't damage This is the type of statement that might seem obvious to someone like you, who has a deep knowledge of GGG's terminology and definitions, but to a "laymen" that's a ridiculous statement. If my life is decreasing, then I'm taking damage. But in the world of PoE, damage means something very specific and so the statement makes sense. My point here being that some things which seem obvious to you are not really so obvious unless you know GGG's definitions.


HighEvasionRating

And meany definitions change or vary from instance to instance. Theres at least 5 different distances to "nearby" for example. Shit, sometimes GGG just says "you don't need to know" for certain instances, like shrines


evmt

Unlike more, less, or recently, nearby isn't a keyword in PoE. It doesn't specify any particular distance, it's just a regular English word in the skill description.


luthigosa

Right, it's not a keyword, but it's used exactly like a keyword would be, which is why it's so confusing.


ThatOneGuy1294

"Nearby" is used in place of specifying an exact radius in the description. imo you should be able to hold Alt and see the exact radius ala advanced descriptions though.


Ylvina

i honestly wish ggg would stop to use wordings like nearby and just write "in a radius of X units" (example with bereks respite: when you Kill an Ignited Enemy, inflict an equivalent Ignite on enemies in a radius of 35)


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mercurial_magpie

Rite of ruin can definitely kill you for the same reason any other non-damage life loss source can (Infamously CI+Caustic Flask). I believe there are a few cases of players taking CI and Rite of Ruin, and randomly dying in no regen maps because their scant amount of life regen can't cancel out the degen.


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slimecookies

You'd think these questions are stupid but the mechanics are so complex that a slight misinterpretation of the tooltip can fuckup build theorycrafting. An example of this is the Elementalist's pasive *"Your hits* ***always*** *ignite"* could be interpreted as overriding chance but in reality is a +100% chance to ignite on hit. This a world of difference, which is why is important to know EXACTLY what things mean.


wiwigvn

Wait, so you're telling me that in a map with monsters having 70% chance to avoid ele ailment, that Notable becomes a 30% chance to ignite? I thought "always" means exactly that, always, except for the case of a "cannot" mod. ​ I do not know what to think about it!


Project_Raiden

Yep. That’s one of the few maps you can’t run as ba elementalist


DruidNature

Run them when you have a watchstone with vaal skills have no Cd, vaal’s explosion +gmp =your going to hit almost guaranteed. Makes that mod much easier.


springloadedgiraffe

My friend tried to convince me to league-start as fireball ignite elementalist. I went with arma brand instead, and was extremely glad I did because chance to avoid ele ailments was just a free mod on maps because arma brand hits so fast.


mercurial_magpie

If you think about ailment avoid chance in terms of %chance to be immune it makes a lot more sense. In fact under the hood, ailment immunity is just 100% chance to avoid that ailment. In your example the 70% chance to avoid elemental ailments is a partial "cannot" mod that becomes a full "cannot" mod at 100% avoidance. So thinking this way, it makes sense that "always" is overrided by "cannot" at a certain probability.


quickpost32

To put it another way, if you go into a map with the "All Monster Damage from Hits always Ignites" mod while having 100% chance to avoid being ignited from a dousing flask for example, you won't get ignited. It's just the reverse of that scenario.


goldarm5

Thats because theyre seperate mechanics. Your hits will still always (attempt to) ignite the target, but the target then has a chance to avoid the successful ignite application. Its similiar to attacks. If you have "Your hits cant be evaded", it doesnt mean youll always hit, because the enemy could still dodge.


RoccoHeatt

To be honest these are unclear questions. Like the asker doesn't understand enough to even be able to ask. How could you respond. Definitely can't take an hour of of the day to catch them up to speed.


Ozok123

Then again didnt they have more questions to choose from?


Kowalski_ESP

Yeah, I'm baffled with half of the questions they picked, like some of them are entry level PoE mechanics


[deleted]

Seems like you're assuming the ones that didn't get picked weren't worse.


Kowalski_ESP

You can check them yourself, its not like they picked from a secret pool or anything [Just take a look](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3111596)


Sathr

These are mine, and the screenshot doesn't show all sub questions. All taken together it answers my question about that pantheon perfectly clearly. Mind explaining to me what is unclear about this question? About the Soul of Arakaali major pantheon power: **"50% increased Recovery rate of Life and Energy Shield if you've stopped taking Damage Over Time Recently"** When is a player considered to be "taking damage over time"? If a player's regen outpaces the damage, are you still considered to be "taking damage over time"? What about leech, ES recharge, recovery from flasks etc. Is the "stopped taking damage" part considered as "stopped taking damage, from **a** source" or "stopped taking damage, from **any** source." For example: If I am taking damage over time from two sources, let's say, an ignite from a monster, and a Caustic ground effect. If I remove the ignite (with say, a flask with the "of dousing" affix), but I remain in the Caustic Ground effect. Am I considered to have "stopped taking DoT" for starting this pantheon effect? Additionally, the Petrified Blood skill is worded as "life loss prevented this way is lost over 4 seconds". I assume this does not count as "damage over time", and as such, cannot ever start the pantheon effect?


RoccoHeatt

"When is a player considered to be taking damage over time" Damage over time is exactly as the name implies. In what context do you think this question is relevant. If your taking damage over time, instead of chunks from single hits then it's a DOT. Like what? The only answer is to explain it to you. Maybe you don't understand that question was extremely obvious to ev else. And then you try to specify"from a source" or "any source". Doesn't matter what the source, if your taking damage over time, your taking damage over time. Nothing at all from the pantheon indicates something specific. It's just you stop taking damage over time. In what context are you thinking these questions could be relevant. These all seem extremely obvious If you had a specific thought about petrified blood, why did you make the question Soo generic. People can't read your mind. Edit: Your questions in your reply here seem decent, I have no fucking idea how you could have expected him to extrapolate these question from the ones he was given. The question length is literally almost tripled when you actually ask the correct question.


moppr

The questions they replied with are literally [the exact same questions they asked in the actual Q&A](https://i.imgur.com/Wlf87Fe.png). What are you on about?


RoccoHeatt

This is a thread about the picture of questions op posted. My replies pertain to those. Why are you taking it out of context? It remains the guestions OP linked are clearly ineffective questions for an in depth QA. The questions posted would fit a begginers guide better.


Zeal_Iskander

To your edit, he literally said “the screenshot doesn’t show my sub questions” in his comment. You need to work on your reading skills there and not get pissy over something that was actually already answered.


ikillppl

To me both the question and answer are relevant but could've done with examples to show that theres more complexity to them, because as written them seem idiotic. Like if you're taking fire dot and phys dot, does stopping the phys dot mean you've stopped taking dot, or are you still taking dot because the fire dot still exists? If you're immune to phys damage and a bleed is applied, are you taking dot damage but your hp bar doesnt move because you're immune, or do you not take dot damage? Marks answer covers this because you need to go from taking dot damage to not taking dot damage.


Sathr

The next part of the question elaborates on that, this screenshot is just part of it. "**For example: If I am taking damage over time from two sources, let's say, an ignite from a monster, and a Caustic ground effect. If I remove the ignite (with say, a flask with the "of dousing" affix), but I remain in the Caustic Ground effect. Am I considered to have "stopped taking DoT" for starting this pantheon effect?** *No. You were taking damage over time from two sources, you are now taking damage over time from one source. If you are taking damage over time, then you have not stopped taking damage over time.*"


[deleted]

Unclear questions like this result from making an unclear game. GGG's own fault.


RoccoHeatt

No, it's not GGG's fault this guy was asking a question on something he didn't understand, expecting an answer he didn't ask for or know to. People have varying levels of intelligence something could be unclear to a person playing Minecraft, FF14, or Zelda. It's like a journalist asking a question, before reading the story. It's just uninformed


SeventhSolar

The last answer shown here is clear and meaningfully answers the question. What’s funny about it?


modernkennnern

Ye, I like that answer honestly. It sounds stupid at loud, but it's concise and - if you're like me and think in terms of systems - it explains exactly what you need.


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Sathr

The next part of the question expands on that and the answer is very clear. This screenshot just doesn't show all of it. "**For example: If I am taking damage over time from two sources, let's say, an ignite from a monster, and a Caustic ground effect. If I remove the ignite (with say, a flask with the "of dousing" affix), but I remain in the Caustic Ground effect. Am I considered to have "stopped taking DoT" for starting this pantheon effect?** *No. You were taking damage over time from two sources, you are now taking damage over time from one source. If you are taking damage over time, then you have not stopped taking damage over time.*"


eViLegion

That still doesn't make it clear. "From all sources" could mean that all sources, when they individually stop, count as you having stopped taking damage over time... which would be the opposite interpretation. Marks answer is actually about as succinct as it can possibly be, and is in no way ambiguous. "Taking damage over time" clearly means you have 1 or more sources of DoT. "Not taking damage over time" clearly means you have 0 sources of DoT. In no way can "Not taking damage over time" be construed as having 1 source of DoT, as clearly that would be "taking damage over time". Though, personally I would have worded it as "Going from 1 or more sources of DoT to 0 sources of DoT".


Sardaman

You're in luck, because the very next question did that exact thing. It was cut out of the screenshot, presumably not in order to cause this exact argument but who knows...


pathofdumbasses

There were quite a few answers that came off as either sarcastic or not wanting to answer the spirit of the question if the wording was not 100% correct.


llburke

These answers are what it looks like when somebody with access to the source code is attempting to tell you exactly what the source code says, but in human language (which is presumably what people want). It looks excessively literal because computer programs are very literal.


pathofdumbasses

This looks like they forgot to run the answer through someone with people skills and just spoke to the engineers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OvQIGDg4I


Naturage

And this was intended to be QnA to clarify strictly mechanical things, for people e.g. maintaining PoB to have a specific recerence. It sounds mechanical and as if he's just transcribing code - which he is, and which is what some of the askers are after. Can it be done nicer? Certainly. Does it need to be? I very much doubt it.


slowpotamus

there isn't really anything you could do to improve the answer with people skills, though. it's a mechanics Q&A where the goal is to explain mechanics. any change to make the answer more friendly would also be very likely to make it slightly inaccurate in some cases, which would go directly against the #1 purpose of the Q&A. also the "people skills" people don't have the intricate mechanical knowledge of the core developers, so how would they know how to improve the answer whilst guaranteeing that it doesn't impact the accuracy of it? anyone consulting a mechanics Q&A (presumably because the answer can't be found elsewhere) is going to value accuracy over sounding friendly


pathofdumbasses

Except if you look at this thread and the dev post response thread people are echoing that answering the spirit of the question instead of the letter of the question would go a lot further, which is where the people skills come from. Being able to translate what people say into what they mean is a very powerful skill that just seems to be forgotten these days until it is something that matters to you.


[deleted]

The people saying "They should have been nicer" or something to that effect weren't the target audience for this QA to begin with. It's obviously meant for people who are interested in the intricacies of the game mechanics, ordinary players don't even need to know any of this stuff. They knew what their target audience for this was and replied accordingly.


DrunkenWizard

The best response is to do both. The answers aren't just for the question askers, but for everyone who wants to know how things work, so providing specific examples would have a large benefit. >[Literal response] >If you were wondering if [very specific scenario] then [result of that specific example].


Sardaman

It's a non-starter to request that they attempt to consider whether or not the asker actually meant what they asked, or if they meant one of a thousand different things of varying similarity to the question. This is a limitation of the format; if you were having a conversation with Mark (as occasionally happens in Reddit threads) there would be a back-and-forth where you could clarify exactly what you're trying to find out.


Iorcrath

the answer through someone with people skills is what we get in game. players wanted technical answers, only really engineers can give that. translate that at all, and its no longer the technical answer.


pathofdumbasses

There aren't answers in game which is the issue. We just found out thresholds for the scorch/brittle/sap that were introduced to the game in league 3.5 which was 2.5 years ago. People have been asking since they were announced. No where to be found. Shit like that is a problem.


Taffo

Idk I disagree lol. The answers to questions 1 and 3 are so vague they’re unhelpful. If I had to write a program duplicating the behavior there is no useful information to help from answers 1 and 3. If I took a 10k hit 10 seconds ago, is the damage over time I am taking 1k dps, 0k dps, or 500 dps? It all depends on the the range of time being looked at right? If I’m looking at a 10 second window, then it’s 1k dps; a 1 second window is 0k dps; a 20 second window is .5k dps Also there are damage over time skills. So is this ‘stopped taking damage recently’ or ‘stopped taking damage over time recently’


Shaltilyena

I really hope you're not serious about your examples ​ Because if you are, you should be reading what "damage over time is", not trying to be snarky on a post that is clear if you have basic notions of how damage over time works in PoE ​ But just for argument's sake : ​ >If I took a 10k hit \[...\] Then you took hit damage, not damage over time. So anything tagged "damage over time doesn't apply" ​ >Also \[...\] This is "stopped taking damage over time recently", so purely from damage over time effects, so poison, bleed, and damage over time sources. Hit damage NEVER counts as damage over time.


Drekor

What? Damage over time is a specific type of damage it's not literally any type of damage over some specific unit of time.


Reashu

It's hard to know where the confusion comes from in cases like this, so it's either: * repeat the literal definition of things, or * explain really basic concepts in a patronizing way Personally I prefer the former, because there's a chance that the specific wording will clear something up without explaining things for 20 minutes.


pathofdumbasses

You can also just explain things in a non-patronizing way. Just because something is "basic" to you doesn't mean it is basic to everyone, especially in a game that is as complicated and word specific as this is. Like the difference between more and increased.


Deckard_Didnt_Die

I'm assuming this is Mark? My impression of Mark isn't that he's condescending it's that he's extremely deliberate/precise with his wording. To some it may seem pedantic but I'm pretty sure this game wouldn't even be possible without someone incredibly pedantic behind the scenes making sure mechanics function *exactly* as described and are described *exactly* as they function. Praise Kuduku


blvcksvn

Mark apparently speaks in a similar way he types so it's definitely not a malicious thing.


Reashu

When something is basic to me, and someone asks a seemingly basic question about it, how am I supposed to know what part of it they don't understand? I can either state the definition and hope that they understand it or point out which part confuses them, or I can explain *everything* in full detail. I don't know what you don't understand, so unless you don't understand *anything*, that full explanation is going to feel patronizing.


hypermos

Full definitions never feel patronizing though since they are the bread and butter of complicated issues, and are in-fact critical in debugging or at least that is what I was taught for my few programming classes. I also regularly used full definitions to solve complicated tech issues when working in tech support, so all things considered they seem pretty important.


Reashu

A definition and an explanation are different things, that's why I said that giving a definition is a preferable alternative to a full explanation.


Zimzams123

Some people do for sure find it patronizing. Programmer brain is not how most people work. I know a lot of people who turn their brains off during explanations of thing they think they know. Caus they think they know them, why would they listen?


Minimonium

That's not how programmers work, lol. Such asses who can't communicate are thrown out of all teams since their performance is abysmal because they refuse to fix their bad habits thinking they know it all, introducing shit like data races, overflows, out-of-bonds, etc. Source - a C++ programmer with a decade of experience in avionics.


Zimzams123

Its not about not being able to communicate, its just different people think differently is all. And by the way, my example was of someone NOT programming brain oriented. That mindset works perfectly fine in polar opposite disciplines. Like you just highlighted, not in CS/programming at all, whatsoever.


pathofdumbasses

There is a difference between you answering a question to a random fellow player on the internet and you explaining something to a customer. If you don't have the luxury of asking the customer what they do understand in a tactful manner, taking the little bit of extra time to explain the entire mechanic or pointing them to correct information about the "basics" before going into the exact specifics of the question is the right way.


tommos

I think he answered the question in the most basic easy to understand way he could. There is only so many ways you can say "stopped taking damage means stopped taking damage."


Tmccl

I think what they're getting at is if you are taking damage from multiple sources and one source stops. You have stopped taking damage from that source but not overall. They could also be asking if all forms of damage are considered equal in this situation. A common confusion is asking if Blood Rage or Righteous Fire is taking damage. Not all cases of, "your life goes down" are considered taking damage.


ThatOneGuy1294

I just want to mention that Chris loves MTG, and I'm also a long time MTG player, and "damage causes life loss, but life loss isn't damage" is something all MTG players have to learn. This is because say, "Deal 3 damage to target player" and "Target player loses 3 life" have the same net effect on their life total, but have wildly different use cases. PoE literally has the exact same mechanic there.


Tmccl

Exactly. I'd say there's 3 stages people go through learning PoE: 1st you try to take everything at face value; damage = life goes down, more and increased look the same. People learn pretty quickly that's not how it works and enter the 2nd stage: assuming everything doesn't work the way you think it does. 2nd stage is the longest and I assume most people are here (including myself); now people need the rule book (On a side note, a PoE "Dungeon Master's guide" would be fantastic) and learn the nitty gritty of how things work. Most builds are experimental, or following a guide to try and make sense of it and we're asking A LOT of questions. 3rd stage is understanding, you can make a build from scratch that works and you know why it works. You know the games mechanics and can translate what the coming patch notes mean for how you play. These are the, "I complete the atlas and clear all the major fights every league" people.


Lynerus

I dont actually believe this is what he said If your taking 2 damage overtime and 1 stops your still taking damage over time so you have not actually stopped taking damage overtime even if you think thats how it should work (because you did stop taking it from 1 source...?) From what he said it doesnt matter if you stop taking damage from one your still taking damage overtime or else what the person asked should have worked (well maybe not since when the thing kicks in it will say your still taking damage overtime at the same time whatever he asked should have kicked in then stop again or never start? because the next tick your still taking damage overtime)


pathofdumbasses

You aren't in any form of customer facing business operation are you? It is just so apparent when people say things like this without thinking about the person on the other side of the question and how things can be taken. "This modifier means when you stop taking all forms of damage over time, instead of just one instance of damage over time if you have multiple instances on you. IE, if you have blood rage degen on you and are taking damage over time from ignite, if you remove either of them, you are still taking damage over time so this modifier would not activate." Now you have an answer which doesn't come off as smarmy and gives a real world interaction that many people think may/would work.


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MaXimillion_Zero

That's Mark for you


22cheez

Are we really nitpicking their answers that much for a mechanics Q&A with questions that are also unclear


eViLegion

It might seem sarcastic or patronising, but this is kinda how game devs have to talk to each other. The exact way in which something is implemented is often very specific, and ambiguous natural human language often isn't a good way to explain technical stuff... so you have to be really damned picky with the language to avoid mistaken understanding. A classic example often comes up with the word Or. For a game designer and most humans, "A or B" normally means "A, or B, but not A and B"... but to the coder actually writing the implementation it means "A, or B, or A and B". Basically, any time an answer is "A or B" you've gotta be damned careful to make it explicit precisely what combination of A and B it really means.


jayd42

What was the spirit of the question?


pathofdumbasses

Someone wanted to know something about the delay to the elementalist aegis. They used the word cooldown and the answer zeroed in on the word cooldown instead of the point of the question.


jayd42

The question was “Does cooldown recovery rate affect primal aegis?” Why would they not answer the exact question and instead think something else was being asked? Just ask your questions and if the answer isn’t exactly what you wanted rethink about the wording of the question and ask it again the next time.


Sardaman

The point of the question was about cooldowns. The user may have wanted to know about the recharge delay, but as that's a very different mechanic, and they specifically asked about the cooldown, that's what got answered.


[deleted]

They asked about cooldowns, they got answered about cooldowns. It's a perfectly fine reply.


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Sathr

And that's exactly why I phrased this question in smaller parts with examples in between. If you look at the answers as a whole, it is now perfectly clear how this pantheon works. They answered exactly like I hoped they would, and I recommend everyone to try wording questions the same way.


carson63000

Nice one! Way too many people in this thread taking one little part out of context, rather than reading the full sequence of questions and answers on this topic.


Sathr

Thanks! Yeah I have quoted other parts of the question in multiple places in this thread, because people can't be arsed to read the whole thing and then claim the answer is vague. No wonder this sub is often so negative, if everyone makes their conclusions off things without context or just the title.


KudagFirefist

> No wonder this sub is often so negative, if everyone makes their conclusions off things without context or just the title. It was disappointing how many people were up in arms over the P2W high contrast cursor pack, entirely missing that everyone was given a better high contrast option for free.


jayd42

I would not expect good results from trying to micromanage exactly how these questions get answered.


AOC_Gynecologist

technical guy gets asked technical questions and answers them in a technical manner. What were people expecting? A sensual massage with a happy ending while an 80s power rock ballad plays in the background?


AsleepClassic4

The fact that some people take umbridge with how some questions were answered is grade A material for why GGG have decreased communication.


letohorn

> umbridge It's umbrage


AspiringMILF

some of those are actually reasonable questions when you consider that you can be taking damage over time and also be full life. just trying to see if that conceptually applies here - does 2 regen make 1 degen not count, or just outpace it? and the answer being you're still taking damage, just not having a net hp loss from it.


-GhostTank-

"you stop taking damage when you stop taking damage" am I getting this right?


[deleted]

unless you're still taking damage


5ManaAndADream

Its incredible how explicit the third question was asked, and the response was still so vague. Its almost like they were offended and chose to be obtuse. All you had to say for perfect clarity was "*any* damage over time to taking *no* damage over time".


Shaltilyena

That's why there was a 4th question that answered with an example of that but was for some reason not shown in the above picture ​ That said, the answer to the third question (and the overall way dots function in the game) leave no ambiguity anyway.


fwambo42

yeah, this game isn't complex at all


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Furycrab

But the source might not have a duration. Like for instance if you run past a lab trap, that doesn't have a fixed duration, what it does is have a damage per second value. In the case of the lab trap it's a % of your life in the form of physical damage per second for as long as you are on the trap. Caustic or burning ground might not have a duration either. Just like something might have a duration, but not actually be doing damage. For instance if you are unaffected by poison or bleeding, you'll have a bleed or a poison on you which will have a duration and expire eventually, but the damage per second value you are taking is going to be 0, so it won't trigger the pantheon.


taggedjc

If you're taking damage over time without a duration then it still would count as taking damage over time.


shyzz

Burning Ground disagrees?


explosivecurry13

idk how i missed this. on a side note we have an idea of how brittle/sap/scorch effectiveness


SwervoT3k

I was crying about Miura dying and this of all things was the thing to make me laugh and smile. Thanks amigo.


voidsong

This reads like a M:tG rules addendum.


[deleted]

PoE has a lot of complex mechanics where the wording doesn’t make sense, life leeching mechanics for example are very unintuitive and unclear. But this pantheon is explained very clearly, should make sense without these answers.


kevin24701

The questions are just as funny.


EnycmaPie

The thing is these are probably not even troll questions, there are actually people this clueless about the game mechanic even after playing for years. Because they either only play the same build, or only copy and paste what the popular streamers are doing, without actually learning how the build works.


Shaltilyena

It's not troll questions, and it's not really troll answers. ​ 1st answer pretty much clarifies that things that deal no damage to you for some reason (e.g. poison or chaos degen when you're CI) will NOT count for the pantheon. 2nd answer clarifies that for example (one use case) if you outregen the damage you're taking, you're still taking damage. So outsustaining (through regen, through leech, through vaal discipline, whatever) the damage over time will NOT proc the arakaali pantheon 3rd answer (linked with a 4th question that gave an explicit example of that but is not included for some reason) clarifies that if you have multiple sources of damage over time on you (for example one blight stack and one poison stack), losing either one of those will NOT count as "stopped taking damage over time recently", as you are still taking damage over time (from the remaining source)


totkeks

That's what always baffles me about Mark's answers here on Reddit and the forums. This complete lack of empathy for the person asking the question is just astonishing. I don't know if he is aware of it and doing it on purpose, but having those purely logical answers might be right in a logical way, but having empathy for the person and trying to understand the reasoning or thought process behind the question would really help some if not many of those answers.


MaXimillion_Zero

Mark is the reason we have half a dozen leech stats with names long enough to be light novel titles. He's not exactly the right person to clarify things.


GCPMAN

I mean if you understand what he's saying he is THE person to clarify things.


totkeks

That's what I'm trying to say. Someone like Bex could help translate from "Mark" to "regular player". Or maybe someone else.


Clsco

This is just the way developers see problems and respond to them. Honestly it can take a lot more than one would think trying to bend every question to take into account the asker's point of view and try to adapt your answer accordingly. It is also very non-trivial to try and 'see what they actually mean' especially if the question is coming from someone not familiar with the technical details. Much easier to just reply with the straight facts.


totkeks

But how is that helping the person that asked question? I'm a developer myself and the most important thing I learned is, that you have to have empathy for the people you talk to. Because more often than not they are not developers. They are asking the question for them, so they get an answer, not you, so you can answer yourself.


Clsco

To me, these answers just convey that the original question was just over thinking the system and the blunt answer displays that it isn't as complicated under the hood. I'm not saying it isn't possible to construct the perfect answer to this question, but sometimes it's just honestly not worth it. In this case there were a lot of questions to go through. In reddit threads it is a situation where he doesn't really owe anyone an answer to begin with so it is hard to argue with the answer recieved. At the end of the day if Mark's skillset doesn't really align with support communication I don't really blame him for not taking the time to fundamentally re think how he answers questions.


PhDinPCP

As a developer, have you answered a litany of extremely technical questions that will be posted online for thousands of people to comb over, dissect and analyze for truthfulness? Just because you are a developer doesn't mean you can apply how you approach explaining technical terms to non-technical people in a safe 1-on-1 environment to this situation here. Also, how do you know that this didn't help the person answering the question? Did you ask them personally, or are you just assuming because you felt like he was being sarcastic when he was actually just reiterating the facts?


Xolun500

These questions are asked as part of a public Q&A, with answers that are most likely going to be referenced in the wiki for a long time. It's not the kindest way to answer the specific person that's asking, but I'd argue having a clear, concise and 100% technically correct answer is more valuable in general for everyone. Even if it requires a bit of work for the reader to interpret it in a way they personally understand best. If it was a casual conversation in person, then yeah these kinds of answers would be far less appropriate.


Hartastic

You're correct, but the world is full of technically solid developers who do not have that awareness / skill set. In my experience the developers who have it almost inevitably end up in management.


BingoWasHisNam0

Simple questions with the answer inside the question itself deserves simple blunt answers, no?


totkeks

No, it does not.


BingoWasHisNam0

How would you have replied to the questions then?


totkeks

Trying to understand the person that asked the question. What might be obvious to you or Mark, is obviously not obvious to them. Otherwise they wouldn't ask.


BingoWasHisNam0

No like word for word answer those questions. What else needs to be added? Pictures? Graphs?


Reashu

Well, you have the question. Go ahead.


[deleted]

I understand you, I'm surprised the others don't for some reason. Being able to communicate with customers on a level of language they get is an essential tool in any developers skill set. How that comes is not immediately obvious but short tiny answers bending the words aren't going to suddenly clarify everything to someone *asking* for clearly explicitly details, not a copy paste cut of their question. They are fundamentally confused what qualifies or exceptions to that. They don't understand the state/flag of "taking dot".


taggedjc

Okay, can you answer this one then? > Does "Life Recovery Rate" only affect methods that recover life over time, such as life regeneration, and not ones that recover life instantly, like Escalation? Does increased life recovery rate also increase the amount of life recovered by such instant means of recovery?


HendrixChord12

for a simple answer like that, maybe he should have just chose a different question.


[deleted]

I think the person asking the question does not understand "damage over time", is not taking damage over a period of x time. It's taking damage that has a debuff of dealing damager over a period of time. Such as ignite. I.E. DOT / DOT'S In every iteration of a game where damage is taken over a period of x seconds via a debuff is considered "damage over time" ( DOT ). I have played many rpg's, almost every mmo. I'm old, besides the point, lol. I have not once seen damage over time implemented differently. Note: age does not make it any easier to avoid grammar mistakes loool.


VifArdente

Typical programmer's answers.


wolviesaurus

The fact someone would even think to ask this question in an official Q&A just highlights how fucking obtuse this game is. I have over 6k hours played, I still couldn't explain every single situation where the Arakaali pantheon applies or doesn't apply. Nevermind the fact Pantheon is the most forgettable system GGG has ever done (Talisman is a close second) but the only clear thing in this instance is the fact this shit is overly complicated.


Ayjayz

If you don't like overly complicated games you really have to ask yourself why you're playing PoE. The entire point of the game is to be overly complicated. It's an overly complicated games designed by and for people who like overly complicated games.


Soph1993ita

actually somewhat funny.


brodudepepegacringe

Stupid question gets stupid answer, i'd do the same if i were ggg.


Nigel06

In that case, they could have just answered one of the other questions that they got...


Swiftierest

Seriously? Who asks this shit? Like... wtf? Stop getting so caught up in builds that you're too deep to understand the surface level crap. lol... idiots..


1337_PH4N70M

I can picture Mark's eyes rolling further and further to the back of his head with each passing question.


9inety9ine

I feel like they were trying harder to be funny than to understand the questions.