Vamp and Energy stacking

Mmmm. Interesting. Over in the Druids 190? thread I had the following discussion with Druid:

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

Szlat wrote:

How about making all artifacts drain adrenaline faster, but removing the restriction about adrenal surge/adrenal drip/energy leech not working whilst an artifact is running? (I think surge might already work, but I am not sure)

This is mostly off topic for this post...

Regrettably, no. You cannot imagine the number of exploits this prevents.

Druid does not want things like leech and drip running with artifacts going, because it means LAs can keep the artifacts going indefinitely. So, if it does work, I think it may be a bug.

The code for energy leech certainly seems to look like it is testing for combos and active artifacts, and if so bombing out.

I just did a quick check on a test system. I had a player with energy leech level 5, no drip or adrenaline surge. Running the triple, taking about 5 shots to kill each titan. Adrenaline kept going down steadily, jumping when each titan died.
Each shot would be doing about 180 damage, so would get a jump of 1.8*5 =9 adrenaline each shot. I didn't see it. I'll try again more seriously later.
EDIT: hang on, it was a vampire weapon I was using. They behave slightly differently. I'll try again later and post a definitive answer.

v0rTeX wrote:

Hold up a minute, I know leech works for a fact.

I can stand there with an active triple and nail a titan repeatedly and watch my adrenaline slowly go up not down. It's true that Drip doesn't work with active arts or combos, but Leech acts as it always does. The only time Leech doesn't work is when you are holding a rage weapon.

Also, the reason it doesnt leech on poison damage is because its not the direct hit from the weapon that is causing the prolonged damage. It is the action of the poison.

That's what I suspected and I what I seemed to be experiencing with my artifact char. During a titan wave I would repeatedly hear "adrenalin full" while shooting at the titans... This rarely happens with my LW char even though I can kill titans at a faster rate...

Obviously, because you have a cool anime graphic for an avatar, this information must be correct.

On the titan waves and Warlord waves I will hear adrenaline full about every 3-4 seconds if I'm running the triple.

I have just run a test with a modified Energy Leech that logs what adrenaline it is giving. With the triple off, it gives adrenaline. With the triple on, it doesn't. (Sometimes it seems a bit slow stopping giving adrenaline - perhaps a second or so, but it stops).

Now I didn't test what happens when you ghost with a triple, or what happens if you run two artifacts then switch one off. Or all manner of other things. There may be a bug there somewhere.

Now if you are running a triple on a titan wave, provided there are low level players around, you should be killing titans every 3 seconds. If the triple costs 7 adrenaline a second, and you get 16 adrenaline for a kill, or 32 with surge, then a LA with surge ought to keep to be able to keep it running, but a LW (or LA without surge) ought to struggle. (Excluding energy weapons of course)

However, both cplmac (LW) and 320 (LA without surge) seem to be able to keep it running. And on my test system I could keep it running without surge, even when leech was logging that it wasn't giving me adrenaline because I had a combo.

We must have a figure wrong somewhere.

cplmac wrote:

On the titan waves and Warlord waves I will hear adrenaline full about every 3-4 seconds if I'm running the triple.

But if cplmac can do it as a LW, and he hasn't got energy leech, I am not sure energy leech is the cause.

Wow, this seems to be getting off topic O.o

Szlat wrote:

cplmac wrote:

On the titan waves and Warlord waves I will hear adrenaline full about every 3-4 seconds if I'm running the triple.

But if cplmac can do it as a LW, and he hasn't got energy leech, I am not sure energy leech is the cause.

CPL is right. If you kill a titan with a triple and plain flak, maxed db, ect. one at a time, you will have a net loss of adren. It's pretty easy to see that. 7 adren/sec and 16 exp reward. There are ways to do it in under 2 seconds but this isn't a strategy discussion.

But more commonly, if you kill titan A and then immediately kill titans B and C who were both close to death already, then you can gain adren. And you can also pick up a small amount due to the spree kill bonus. Another thing that occurs is that because of the large amount of points possible on a titan wave, you might cross the Killing Spree, Dominating, etc. threshold, and gain exp for that.

I'll try testing it tonight. I'll make a new artifact char and put all points into leach and see what happens when the triple is on.

320 wrote:

And you can also pick up a small amount due to the spree kill bonus. Another thing that occurs is that because of the large amount of points possible on a titan wave, you might cross the Killing Spree, Dominating, etc. threshold, and gain exp for that.

But these are xp bonuses not adrenaline, aren't they?

I believe they give both XP and adrenaline.

EDIT:

Here's a little proof.

Druid, in the invasion-spree mod thread, wrote:

Killing Spree
This event occurs during the duration of your lifetime. Sometimes Ghost may say it's ended your killing spree, but this is inacurate.
At 100 points: Killing Spree: 9 exp, 20 adrenaline
At 225 points: Rampage: 18 exp, 20 adrenaline
At 375 points: Dominating: 27 exp, 20 adrenaline
At 575 points: Unstoppable: 36 exp, 20 adrenaline
At 850 points: Godlike: 45 exp, 20 adrenaline
At 1200 Points: Wicked Sick: 54 exp, 20 adrenaline

Multi kill
Multikill exp points are awarded (and notified) after you have not killed a monster in 6.5 Seconds. Adrenaline is awarded at each step. The multikill is tallied based upon points during your kill window which will continue to be extended as long as you continue to kill monsters to a max of the Holy Crap Kill.
At 32 points: Double Kill: 4.2 exp, 10 adrenaline
At 44 points: Multi Kill: 8.4 exp, 10 adrenaline
At 58 points: Mega Kill: 12.6 exp, 10 adrenaline
At 74 points: Ultra Kill: 16.8 exp, 10 adrenaline
At 94 points: Monster Kill: 21 exp, 10 adrenaline
At 116 points: Ludicrous Kill: 25.2 exp, 10 adrenaline
At 132 points: Holy Crap Kill: 29.4 exp, 10 adrenaline

Yup you are right.

320 wrote:

I'll try testing it tonight. I'll make a new artifact char and put all points into leach and see what happens when the triple is on.

More information is always worthwhile, but building a character up takes time, and at the end of the day what will it prove? If cplmac can keep a triple going without leech, doing it with leech won't prove much?

Just trying to save you some time.

Try in your existing LA character, who already has leech, shooting titans, non-energy weapon, with the triple on, and not killing them. I know it goes against the grain. Does your adrenaline go up at all when you damage a titan? Or is it only on the kill?

Szlat wrote:

320 wrote:

I'll try testing it tonight. I'll make a new artifact char and put all points into leach and see what happens when the triple is on.

More information is always worthwhile, but building a character up takes time, and at the end of the day what will it prove? If cplmac can keep a triple going without leech, doing it with leech won't prove much?

Just trying to save you some time.

Try in your existing LA character, who already has leech, shooting titans, non-energy weapon, with the triple on, and not killing them. I know it goes against the grain. Does your adrenaline go up at all when you damage a titan? Or is it only on the kill?

For LW, it only goes up if you get the kill shot.

More adren opens up many, many strategic possibilities with LA...

If I have an energy weapon it can go a long time. But more to the point, I have awareness 2. I can turn the corner and see 5 titans and know exactly which ones I can kill with 1 shot 2 shots 3 shots etc. .I regularly target the weakest titan first to thin the rock projectiles.

Well whatever causes it I agree with Druid that neither of the adrenaline grabbing skills should work while an artifact is active.