Instability Popup

I wish I had taken a screenshot of this.

So recently I was encrusting my new Cloak of Sagan when it hit slightly unstable. I then recieved a popup explaining that my items was now unstable and had the attribute "Missing", meaning that it could cause death .

First off, YIKES. This seems like a disproportionate penalty. Has anyone actually died because of this yet?

Second, are there other attributes that get assigned via pop-up now? Or is "Missing" the only one?

 

Welcome to every Roguelike ever.

But I am concerned if this happens to be an actual penalty and not a bug. So far I've been careful to not encrust something too much but this frightens me a little.

 

From the xml:​

<unstableEffect spell="Grenade Self" name="Exploder"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Easy Target Instability" name="Missing"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Necropain" name="Necromanticula"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Tentacular Self-doom" name="Tentacles"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity" name="Twitchiness"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Terrible Poison" name="Impoisoning"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Curse of Weakness" name="Weakening"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Easy Target Sucker Curse" name="Sucker"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Blood Debt" name="Sanguinous Misappropriation"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Haematic Drain" name="Foul Lich-magic"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Pyromatic Implosion" name="Immolation"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Self Darkened Vision" name="Darkening"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Necromantic Blinding" name="Seeing What Should Not Be Seen"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Greater Necrodrain" name="Thaumoentropic Vexation"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Necrodrain" name="Draining"/>
<unstableEffect spell="Hungry Hero" name="Hunger"/>​

As for dying from overencrusting, yes, I did. I had Impoisoning (iirc it's like 10 max health reduction when it procs, i forget exactly), Exploder and Foul Lich-magic on the same item.. I was fine for the most part, but I ended up stepping on a blink trap that sent me in a Zoo. Died from my own counter-attacks cause it procced all 3 almost constantly.​

 

...That looks like it should proc the Easy Target Curse if the instability goes off.

 

.....

I'm a moron. thank you for pointing it out. Allow me to whack myself in the head with a blunt object a few times.

 

My work here is done.

 

Whew, ok. I can deal with an easy target curse a lot easier than insta-death. Thanks!

 

The "may cause death" bit is part of the default message - it says that whether it drops all your stats by one for a bit or opens a tenebrous rift right on your head.

 

"Side effects may include: dry mouth, nausea, vomiting, water retention, painful rectal itch, hallucination, dementia, psychosis, coma, death, and halitosis. Magic is not for everyone. Consult your doctor before use." -WC3 Priest.

 

Foul Lich-magic is the only one you have to be very worried about, as it's the only one whose debuff you can't be rid off.

 

So are the instability stack on you or the item? I mean, I can just stop using the item if anything....... Or is it just a 1 time effect that goes away over time?

 

depends on which instability you got. Haematic Drain gives you a permanent debuff that only goes away if you swallow a haematic phylactery. God help you if you don't have any of those. If that is put on your item, you're better off abandoning it for the Magic golems and dragons.

 

The instabilities stack on the item. If you stop using it, it's all good. The effects stick to the item and they stack. Which means you could (technically) get all of the instabilities at once on the same item

 

The initial instability you get only has a 5% chance of going off when you hit (for a weapon) or get hit (for armour). The chance increases the more instabilities you get on the same item.

 

After some testing, the number at the bottom is the encrust number being applied to the item. The higher the number, the more chance the item gains instability. I suspect it is % out of 100.

The game checks for instability "after" the stat has been applied, which means even the first encrust has a chance of getting instability.

 

Basically, it's a % chance of getting unstable. Encrusts of the same type makes the % multiplicative and different types make it additive (or something like that. Daynab I think was the one who can confirm the exact formula)

 

That's the way that they're supposed to work, but it doesn't always seem to hold up.

One key distinction though, it isn't the probability percentages that are multiplied when you use the same encrust more than once, it's the instability number. At first glance, those seem to be identical, but when you multiply percentages that are less than 100%, the number actually gets smaller, not larger.

For example, if the instability on a crust was 4, then the probability of the item becoming unstable would be 4%.
Now, if you did it twice, that would multiply the instability by itself and give 4*4 = 16, which would then give a probability of 16%. Whereas, if you multiplied the probability percentages directly, you'd have 4%*4% = 0.16%. Which would be a significant decrease in the chance of instability.

 

It would make more sense if they just add it instead of multiply. Though here when they say multiply I assume they just take the whole number.

Besides, beyond 20% is too high of a risk already unless you got a spare. Stacking more than twice, add or multiply, is asking for trouble.

 

It is. But you can get "lucky" with the instabilities. If you have enough resists, some of them can be insanely good to clear zoos and such. It's a risk, sometimes worth it, sometimes not.

 

Well, it never hurt to craft spam Schrat's Helm or something (they are literally everywhere), but I won't touch my rare core items at all. So if I am using a CK I won't encrust any of my blast resist items unless I got a spare sitting around.

It's funny how all the final tier items are literally all over the place, and yet the item 1 tier up (the old end game items) are so super rare because of the huge varieties.