Environmental damage and xp

[Uncle Shags]

I've had a hovering, unenacted plan for a while now to run an ITF where the team repeatedly brings all the baddies to the dark crystals to get blown up. I like the efficiency of the idea, I guess, but I don't like leading itf because I get lost in the caves so the plan remains just a plan. 

 

That plan was put on pause last night, however, after a comment made by a teammate. I occasionally throw out a half-hearted suggestion to use crystal explosions during the nictus cave mission - perhaps I'm casually fishing for buy in.  I'm usually ignored, which I expect, but last night, "Why let crystals steal my kills?" was the reply in team chat.  I Ioled and we moved on, but it got me thinking... 

 

Do the crystal explosions (or other similar damages) steal xp? Is it like confusion, in that the distribution is skewed to favor the player, or is it a straight "kill steal" type scenario? 

 

If you're doing a speed run the answer would be obvious.  But for a KM ITF interested in xp, should clearing the area before explosion be the plan?

 

Thoughts? 

[MoonSheep]

i think on a KM ITF the impact on XP would be so minimal it’s not worth thinking about

 

i run a nightly KM and have never  observed much variation

[Luminara]

Any HP an NPC loses counts against XP.  If an NPC falls off of a building, or is teleported to max range straight up and dropped, or stands in a red crystal on an Oranbegan map, or is attacked by another hostile NPC, whatever the reason, you can only receive XP for the percentage of damage you dealt to defeat it.  Confuse is the only exception to that rule.  In all other cases, if your character, your ally NPC, your pet or your teammate isn't the one dealing damage, XP is lost.

[tidge]

Some XP is lost, but any additional drops (e.g. recipes, salvage, fishcakes) still have teh same chance to go to whatever PC did (any) damage to the critters before defeat. This is why I try to slot %damage in about half of my characters with AoE Confuse powers. There is nothing magical about the 50%, its just that there are some builds where the AoE Confuse is better served by six pieces of Coercive Persuasion, because of the nature of the %Confuse proc... the 50% is just an empirical result.

[Zect]

You can try blowing up teammates with the crystals (they stun, to help you kill your team) and then blowing up the dead teammates with fallout. PvPvE baby!

Edited February 26 by Zect

[srmalloy]

On 2/24/2025 at 11:10 AM, Luminara said:

or is teleported to max range straight up and dropped

Except with Wormhole, where it seems that "powexeclocation up:max Wormhole" causes the mobs to appear in the air over you, then drop to the ground unharmed (and completely oblivious to boot) -- except for the odd mob on instanced outdoor maps that will have a Wile E. Coyote moment and fail to notice they're standing on thin air and fail to fall.

[biostem]

On 2/24/2025 at 12:07 PM, Uncle Shags said:

the team repeatedly brings all the baddies to the dark crystals to get blown up

It's not about whether environmental damage steals XP or not - it's about whether the effort to gather the enemies around said environmental hazards results in a significantly greater defeat rate, thereby raising the XP/hr.  If it does, then by all means, go for it!  If not, then carry on as normal, I suppose...

[jprewitt73]

13 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Except with Wormhole, where it seems that "powexeclocation up:max Wormhole" causes the mobs to appear in the air over you, then drop to the ground unharmed (and completely oblivious to boot) -- except for the odd mob on instanced outdoor maps that will have a Wile E. Coyote moment and fail to notice they're standing on thin air and fail to fall.

 

I'm not sure how I never tried this before, but I definitely will be now...

[DoctorDitko]

Wait, there's another use for Wormhole?

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, DoctorDitko said:

Wait, there's another use for Wormhole?

Depends on what you mean by 'another' use. It's useful for repositioning spawns as an aid to stealth — moving a spawn out of your way to make it easier to skate through a mission.