Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 340 - 349 Arcane Damage

Chapter 340: Chapter 349 Arcane Damage

The talent "Oathbreaker" belongs to the Dark Series of Priest talents. Although the description of the talent is vague, players are well aware of its effect, which is to convert the player’s Light Damage attribute into Dark Damage.

Back in the level 60 version of the game, if players wanted to unlock this talent, they needed to complete a specific class quest called "What Brightness Won’t Tell You." Only after finishing this quest could they activate this talent, as well as the unique Dark Priest skill "Dark Form."

Only by stacking various Holy Series damage-boosting talents could Little Black’s build (BD) be achieved.

Up to now, aside from this build, there are hardly any other builds that would pick this talent. The reason is quite simple: everyone thinks it merely converts Light Damage into Dark Damage and doesn’t help with other builds.

Moreover, this talent itself takes up a lot of talent points.

It can be taken ten times, which means using ten talent points. Players have tested that each talent point can convert 20% of the Light Series damage increase to Dark Spells, and only when all points are taken does it reach 100%.

Other damage-boosting talents generally require around 2 to 5 talent points each.

After the all-class gameplay was released, players found their talent points to be extremely tight, as damage-boosting talents existed in every class’s talent pool, and squeezing them out was impossible.

For other builds, there were many more cost-effective options, so this talent was not even considered.

"Hmm..."

"This talent, it didn’t exactly say it can only convert Light and Dark Attributes, right?"

Instructor Ding suddenly came up with such an idea out of nowhere.

By now, the Biased Elementalist’s BD had already failed, so Instructor Ding didn’t give it much thought and casually removed ten talent points to fully invest in "Oathbreaker."

Then he went to hit a training dummy.

Well... unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

The Nature Series skills suffered a DPS decline once more as a whole ten points of damage-boosting talent had been removed.

As for the Light Series and Dark Series output skills, since their damage figures were already minimal, no significant changes seemed evident.

"What other series are there in the game?

"Seems that’s all, right...?"

Instructor Ding tried hard to recall the types of damage attributes in the game and couldn’t come up with any special attributes at the moment.

The setting of Western fantasy is inherently messy, and the skills and talents of various series in Shadow World are not so clearly distinguished.

As far as Instructor Ding knows, the main ones are: Light Series, Dark Series, Element Series (including Fire, Ice, Earth, Wind, etc.), and the Nature Series.

The distinction between Nature Series and Element Series skills is not very clear either; for example, summoning Treants is considered part of the Nature Series, whereas Healing Rain can benefit from both Nature and Element Series enhancements.

He opened the talent pages for each class, checking one by one.

Suddenly, a flash of insight struck Instructor Ding: "Hey? Right, how could I forget this?

"There’s also the Arcane Series!"

Originally, Shadow World did have the Arcane Series, but these spells could only be mastered by Mages and didn’t have much synergy with other talents and skills.

The Mage who first discovered the bug in the Gan Di raid team was an Arcane Mage.

Before the all-class gameplay was introduced, Arcane Mages were notoriously mana-hungry and unpopular among the three types of Mages. After the all-class gameplay was released, Arcane Mages were even more marginalized, only used as a tool to open all-class gameplay, and had no place in mainstream builds.

Therefore, many players have nearly forgotten that the game even has such a thing as the Arcane Series.

So the question arises, what is Arcane?

In the setting of Western fantasy, there are many different explanations for this concept, but according to the official setting of Shadow World, Arcane leans more toward "knowledge" and the "interpretation of mysterious principles."

Overall, Arcane emphasizes the intelligence of the spellcaster themselves, as its power comes from the caster. The deeper the understanding of arcane mysteries, the stronger the power of Arcane Magic becomes.

Similarly, Holy Spells and Dark Spells are derived from faith.

When a player believes in Brightness, they can obtain the power of Holy Series spells.

In the same way, the Power of the Elements also comes from a certain belief, requiring communication with the Elemental Spirit to gain control over various elements.

This is why Paladins who master the Holy Power can wear plate armor, Shamans who master the Power of the Elements can wear mail armor, while Mages who master the power of Arcane can only wear cloth armor.

Because Arcane symbolizes extreme intelligence, which often corresponds to a frail body.

Both the power of Brightness and the Power of the Elements originate from the external world.

Instructor Ding casually scratched off a Skill and tapped an Arcane Mage’s skill named "Arcane Missile".

It’s a very conventional skill, nothing more than a mage lifting a hand and throwing a missile to damage the enemy. In the original version 60, Arcane Mages almost vanished, so skills like the missile hadn’t been used for a long time.

Instructor Ding casually aimed at a nearby wooden dummy and launched an Arcane Missile.

However, a string of yellow critical damage numbers startlingly appeared on the screen: 3571!

"Huh??"

Instructor Ding was stunned for a moment, then immediately realized something was amiss.

The damage number was obviously too high!

You should know, he virtually had no Arcane Series Talent bonuses at present, and though his equipment did add some spell power, no matter what, this skill should only do a few hundred damage at most.

But now, it had mysteriously increased by at least six or seven times!

Instructor Ding couldn’t help but widen his eyes, even he found it hard to believe.

"Could it be... the officials stealthily enhanced Arcane Series damage?"

This wasn’t impossible, after all, where there are nerfs, there are buffs, and the Arcane Series should be a powerful force on par with other series in the background story. However, in the whole of the 60s, it was almost completely ignored.

It wouldn’t be strange for Nitiandang to adjust some numbers to address this.

Instructor Ding immediately shared the good news with his guildmates, but the others quickly provided feedback, "Arcane Series enhanced? No? Isn’t this still the original damage?"

Instructor Ding was puzzled, what was going on?

He hit the wooden dummy several more times, and indeed, the Arcane Damage was high.

Even though the current damage per second was only a bit over 5000, which was nothing special, after all, he hadn’t yet respecced his Talents and Skills, nor had he really started studying the build.

If he were to study it properly, it was entirely possible for the damage to double or triple.

No sooner said than done, Instructor Ding directly washed all his Skills and Talents, then allocated them all to Talents that increased Arcane damage.

There weren’t many such Talents, only a few in the Mage’s Arcane Series, so he saved plenty of Talent and Skill points without knowing where to use them.

Instructor Ding didn’t pay it much mind and went on to hit a wooden dummy again.

The result made him a bit dizzy, the damage was still just over 5000 points!

There wasn’t much change from before.

"So... the problem isn’t with the Arcane Talent damage increase?

"The previously exaggeratedly high damage of Arcane Skills was due to some other reason??"