I'm not certain if this is a bug or something that should be balanced, but it seems pretty potent either way. So this is a new combination I haven't used before. I was using Deathly Hex on enemies and taking damage through the blood debt, but after remembering I have radiant aura and casting that to keep myself safer from pursuing lil' batties I discovered the blood debt was no longer hurting me. The ticker says "Your spell does no damage!" Also, Radiant Aura remains at 5 uses throughout. I am wondering if anyone else has any comments on this situation. Do the penalties for using necronomiconomics get strong enough to bypass Radiant Aura later, or is Radiant Aura going to undermine the penalties of this skillset later? If anyone has tried this before (as I'm sure quite a few must have!) and think so, then perhaps this should be nerfed somehow. I'll continue playing in the meantime. Oh yeah and I'm going to exploit the hell out of this while I can :O
That's not a bug, that's a smart strategy, mind you as your magic power goes higher, the pain wracking death-things do more pain and wracking so you'll need more necromantic resistance to full resist.
Yeah, any "per hit" buffs will not be reduced by attacks that deal no damage. This occasionally happens with Suit Up too, since it increases your piercing resist -- monsters that were dealing 1 piercing damage before now deal no damage and Suit Up doesn't decrement. The wiki article on necropain has a table showing how much necromantic resistance you need to avoid taking damage from necropain effects. That may be out of date with 1.0.6 though.
Damage from Necropain is determined by your magic power stat (the only instance I can think of where having a higher stat is bad for you). Also, I believe if attacks hit you but deal 0 damage it's not really counted as a hit and thus doesn't lower your defense-spell counters. As Silvah said ^, yes, that's a great strategy, unless you feel like you're cheating by not dying whenever you use your abilities
Damage to you from thaumite swarms (and traps in general, I think) is also increased by your magic power. Having a high magic power is a double-edged sword in many ways. Mages still have it easier than warriors though.
Really? I was completely unaware of that... that sounds like a bug actually, traps doing more damage to you because of higher magic power?
Yeah, not sure if it's intended or not, but Traps DO scale with your YOUR Magic Power. Being a caster with 2 high-powered Orbs and good Caster Gear, you'll find that the only thing that can kill you is a Thaumite or Bling or Acid Gargoyle trap that's dealing 18 damage/turn for 8 turns to your poor, relatively-low HP Magey arse if you happen to carelessly step on one.
