Questions About Encrusting

Is there currently any way to find the instability value on encrusted weapons? Or is it up to the player to keep a tally on everything?

 

So what do people think, now, of encrusting, with the changes they have been made? If you find it worthwhile, how do you handle the downside? What's your strategy?

 

After I got 5x Haematic drain on my character, I dumped him.
And he was such an aspiring Clockwork Kight... *sniff*
But yeah, encrusting became much more dangerois these days.

 

This made blood magic even more desirable for mage builds. Pop a Haematic Phylactery in case of emergencies, profit!

 

He'd have to give himself a sixth stack in order to remove one of the five.

They occasionally show up on the dungeon floor, but you don't need Blood Magic to find them.

 

Whoops. I forgot that the phylactery doesn't remove stacked haematic drain debuffs anymore. Ignore the last post.

 

So you're stuck with the debuff, then?

 

Yup. You're boned if you get haematic drain instability, pretty much.

 

In the immortal words of Lao Tzu, "Blech." I suppose that's good enough reason to throw away any item that acquires a tendency to kick a Haematic Drain back at the PC. Not worth taking the chance.

 

Actually, the answer is Paranormal Investigator. Xenochemistry transmutes potions, which means that, given enough time, you can turn your stockpiled stacks of Acidium Salis and Aqua Regia into... Haematic Phylacteries. Totally bonkers, of course.

 

Confirmation? Has anybody actually done this?

 

I've a weapon that's acquired the Greater Necrodrain affect. Yum. It's only temporary in Necroeconomics, but is it permanent when it happens through an encrusted weapon?

 

Ouch. I haven't got any instabilities yet to speak of, but if that's a permanent feature, and you happen to be a wizard, you're sort of boned.

 

Yes, but I have no idea if it's the case, or not.

Can anyone confirm or deny that temp debuffs are permanent when received through unstable encrusts?

 

All unstable encrusts should act exactly as they do when you get them in other ways.
Haematic Drain is permanent because it's permanent when you get it from using blood magic. Every other debuff should be temporary because they're temporary when you get them from their respective situations.

 

Thanks. I'm assuming you've tested this. --Because while these should act the same way as the originals, I wouldn't put it past any group of game developers to device ingenious new ways to torture their players. Claiming, fore example, that permanent debuffs were temporary when administered through entirely different means.

Many people forget that the phrase, "sneaky bastards" is in fact synonymous in six languages with "game developers." It's true. I couldn't make such a thing up.

 

Nah, in this case the effects triggered are exactly the same as those you can get normally, and thus the duration is also the same.

 

Good. That makes me feel much more comfortable about taking on a slightly unstable item without that miniscule chance of cursing my character forever and ever and ever and ever.

 

I mean, if you go into the XML, you can see the list of the instability effects, which I believe are almost all effects that show up in other spells. So both the Haematic Drain spell and the Necrodrain spell work exactly as they do as part of the Blood Magic and Necronomiconomics trees - and in those cases, the Haematic Drain buff is permanent until removed with a Haematic Phylactery, while Necrodrain is just a temporary debuff.

I mean, if you're asking if anyone's done this, then, yes, this isn't idle speculation - I've been playing around with Paranormal Investigator and, while I think they might be less common, I've definitely spawned Haematic Phylacteries and Potions of Alchemical Inspiration. If you're asking if someone else has done it to confirm it's possible - sorry, can't help you, though I can upload a screenshot of my character with some Haematic Phylacteries and no Haematic Drain debuffs. (Unfortunately this might take a bit - I managed to stockpile about five in my last run, but my latest run only has one, which is fully possible to do without Xenochemistry because they occasionally spawn in a specific room layout that always has a random potion in a rusty bin.)

 

I've also seen quite a few phylacteries in low level wizardlands. I've seen a couple before in normal gameplay, and about 20 through my time in the wizardlands.