My observation of Critical Singularity with Kingpin Dragomir and Baked Presence. Buckle up.
I've been trying to understand the ordering of triggers in this game and I'm not sure if there are any defined rules. The most interesting ordering situation I have come up with revolves around the relic Critical Singularity. I think you can appreciate why ordering matters for that relic. So, let's get on with it.
The situation setup:
I have Yuuna with 3rd path Night shade. Base crit 75.
I have Dragomir with 3rd path the kingpin; additionally, Dragomir has the upgrade Baked Presence (which is Rush X: assassins gain crit equal to shards in bank)
I have the relic Critical Singularity.
I have the relic Assassin's Greed Banner on 130 shards, meaning all assassins "gain" 26 attack and magic damage.
I have the relic Shield Vessel which reads Heroes "gain" 30 magic and 30 attack. Note that the order of magic then attack is the opposite of greed banner, not relevant but awkward.
Ok the testing. I ran back-to-back battles, in one battle I had 3 shards in the bank, in the second I had 113 (popped my rewind). However, in both battles Dragomir's kingpin was set to 130 bonus crit.
Here's what happens in battle 1:
- I press fight bootahn
- Yuuna's crit gets set to 280, presumably 150 from crit sing and 130 from Kingpin, but no bonus from Banked Presence's 3 crit.
- Yuuna's attack and magic are set to my base values plus the benefit from both Shield Vessel and Greed banner, 56 bonus.
- At 10 seconds Yuuna's crit drops to 75.
Now Battle 2:
- I press that gray box in the corner.
- Yuuna's crit gets set to 318, presumably her base crit 75 + 113 baked presence + 130 kingpin.
- Yuuna's attack and magic are set to 176, presumably 150 from crit sing + 26 from assassin's greed banner.
- At 10 seconds Yunna's crit drops to 75.
Phew . . .
So, what is happening. My best guess is that the ordering of effects at start of combat are:
Rush trigger from Baked Singularity and the "gain" from Shield Vessel
Trigger from Critical Singularity.
Rush trigger from Kingpin and the "gain" from Greed's Banner
Here's why. When Baked Singularity's bonus was only 3, Yuuna's crit was bumped up to 150 exactly, by crit sing and then 130 from kingpin. Had both backup abilities happened after crit sing then her crit would be 283. However, when Baked Singularity was 113 her crit then became 318, meaning crit sing did not bump her crit up but instead her crit was already over 150 with crit sing triggered.
Both Shield Vessel and Greed's banner use the word "gain" but the term doesn't convey a strict meaning. Shield Vessel's bonus is visible on Yuuna's char sheet prior to the start of the fight, but the banner's bonus doesn't occur until fight start.
My thought's?
I think that the game would benefit from having a strict programmatic meaning for the word "gain". I think there should be two different keywords that differentiate between static buffs, and at start of combat buffs. Perhaps instead of "gain" the text would read Combat Start: gain x. Note the text of Critical Singularity is "At start of combat, . . ."
I think life would be easier for the players and ultimately the developers if there was a strict ordering of triggers at start of combat between rush, gain, "At start of combat". This strict ordering would need to include rules about the order of triggers within a category, like what order Rush triggers happen in. Trying to hard code orders for every possible situation now and the in the future is going to be a nightmare. Anyway, that's my two cents, 2 decades of Software Engineering Design (logical fallacy).
p.s. Please, for the love of God, move the event text off to the side. I can't see the Dragon's life bar when I'm under "well rested".