Cardiac Alpha Incarnate Seems to Increase Damage Instead of Damage Resistance

[Mythical Creature]

I don't know if I missed some patch notes that changed the Cardiac Alpha Abilities, but they seem to be increasing damage and not damage resistance as the ability indicates. I noticed because I was actually hoping to get the damage resistance and wanted to figure out how much it was adding. Lo and behold, it isn't adding any damage resistance at all. Is this working as intended or a bug? I am not sure, so I am reporting it here! I included a photo of the bug, I only have the T3 version but it seemed to also show up on the T4 version.

[Lazarillo]

Not a bug per se. This is sort of connected to extremely screwy mechanic. I don't know quite understand the code, but I can explain the results I think:

Essentially, for purposes of enhancements, +Damage, and +Resistance are the same thing. If you were to somehow glitch/hack content to put a Damage SO into Temporary Invulnerability, it would actually give a +33% buff to the power's Resistance instead. In fact, at one point, it was actually possible to exploit this to get extra buff values to certain resist powers by using Hamidon Enhancements.

The Cardiac Alpha essentially works the same way. The key, however, is that there are no powers that can be enhanced for both Resistance and Damage, and Alpha slot buffs are programmed only to buff powers that take enhancements of the proper type. Thus, it shows up as a damage buff, but only provides that buff to powers that take damage resistance enhancements (which no damage-dealing power does).

 

The reason you wouldn't see any damage resistance from the Cardiac power itself in your real numbers is for similar reasons: because Alphas don't, strictly speaking, buff stats, but rather, they act as an additional enhancement in on each power.  You can see the actual effects by removing the Alpha power, taking a look at how much Resistance you're getting from a toggle power (e.g., Dark Embrace), then re-equipping it and checking how much resistance the same power is providing.  It should be more (probably roughly 10% more).