Many of us who didn’t have Geomancer most likely took advantage of the guaranteed event that started on the 27th July where you could get him for 40 Ancient Shards. Our team decided to take a deep dive into his passive mechanic and figure out exactly how it worked. If you want to see the full workings, check out the video below but lets breakdown what we discovered.
Breaking Down the Passive
Geomancer’s passive is described as:
Decreases the damage all allies receive by 15% and deflects that damage onto each enemy under a HP Burn debuff placed by this champion. Whenever this Champion is attacked, deflects 30% of the damage instead.
Our team figured out pretty quickly that the damage reduction actually works WITHOUT the HP Burn being present making that component already an extremely powerful mechanic. You need to make sure also that if you want the damage reflection that it is Geomancer who places the HP burn (or overwrites it).
Reflect Damage Formula
The team ran a number of tests through Doom Tower Hard floor 1 and 2 where we were able to determine all the stats we need (check out the Stages Tool which gives you this information) to find the calculation behind Geomancer’s passive. They quickly realised that a regular and reproducible number was reflecting back which made it clear that it must be drawing from the raw damage. Additionally, if the attack was AoE, Geomancer reflects two times. The first is each attack for each ally at a rate of 15% of the raw damage and the second is 1 time at a rate of 30% for Geomancers damage.
As the damage is placed on an enemy – it is reduced by that target’s Defence Reduction % therefore effects such as decrease defence and Ignore Defence increased the output of damage from the passive. Additionally any weaken effects on the enemy also multiplied the reflected damage according to its strength.
This drew the conclusion that the initial formula was:
Raw Damage * 15% or 30% * (1-Damage Reduction %) * Weaken
Ally Protection + Guardian Impact
The conclusion that damage was affected by multiplied effects led the team to consider the impact of Ally Protection and Guardian Artifact Set. This did have a significant impact on the damage:
- If a champion attack had Ally Protection – the reflect amount was HALVED however the damage was still calculated from Raw Damage
- If a team had a single guardian set on a champion – the reflect amount was reduced by 10%
- Each subsequent set of guardian reduced the damage by a further 10%
Defensive Masteries Impact
As a result of these tests, the team considered if Ally Protection reduced damage then are other damage reduction effects in place such as Blastproof or Bulwark masteries. Testing with a bulwark champion did lead to 5% less reflect damage being produced. Meanwhile tests in clan boss proved conclusively that Blastproof also reduced the reflected amount produced by Geomancer.
Whilst these masteries are ofcourse essential in most areas of the game, it is still somewhat frustrating that you lose damage as a result.
Gathering Fury Impact (Clan Boss)
Most people will likely plan for Geomancer to be used in Clan Boss. The team’s initial tests proved challenging with many numbers flying around but what become clear was that the later the fight, the more damage Geomancer reflected. This led to testing if the enemies multiplication effects also increased the Reflect amount.
The clan boss ramps up in damage on turn 10 onwards and more significantly after turn 20. The formula for this (where DMG_MUL is the damage done by Clan Boss Attack):
Turns 10 – 19: DMG_MUL * 0.75 * (CB Turn-9)
Turns 20+: DMG_MUL * 7.5 + DMG_MUL * (CB Turn-19)
Through testing with screenshots, the team discovered that Geomancer’s reflect damage actually is multiplied by the same formula above, even though it is not generated by the enemy. This means the longer you can survive against the Clan Boss, the more effective your Geomancer becomes. All whilst giving you a flat 15% damage reduction.
Conclusions
Hopefully this article has given you a greater understanding of how to get the most from your geomancer passive. It’s an incredibly powerful ability. Let us know in the comments below if anything found here has changed your approach and please check our new team Youtube channel where we cover Raid and many other games.
