So I'm tossing around some ideas for a warrior build... I've done some pretty exhaustive searching on both the official and unofficial forums, including tick-by-tick log analysis of warriors who have had the Whispers of the Great Siege legacy, and I can't quite nail down the answer to this question:

Does poison, plague, or crimson scourge negate the effects of WotGS?

Players who have had it have argued both ways, indicating that a tweak to the legacy may have occurred. I have found plentiful logs of confirmed WotGS in action, but no poison/plague/crimson. I've also found logs of poisoned WotGS characters not regenerating, but I can't confirm their level, or that they had chosen WotGS yet.

Side question: Does poison, plague, or crimson negate the effects of Dove, Hawk, Eagle, and Owl edges? (My suspicion is that these edges, as well as WotGS, apply a modifier to the existing regen rate. If regen rate is set to 0 under certain conditions, such as poison, then the modifier doesn't matter - regen rate will always be 0).

Double super side question: Is there a legacy that counters the effects of poison, plague, or crimson scourge? Riddle of resilience reduces the duration and intensity of maladies, but indications are that they are physical maladies only (kot, kane, boneshatter, bleeding, etc.). Calming the Tempest changes how a character interacts with magic in some fundamental way, to resist spells and communes - but there are certainly non-spell, non-commune ways to contract poison and plagues (weapon attack type "poison bite", for instance).

Thanks for any input, even vague and Nepenthe-esque. I barely have time for a real character, let alone 100 hours to hero and test legacies with a throw-away character.

So bear with me...still looking for deeper understanding. Actually, I just reread this jumbled, rambling piece of crap and won't feel bad if no one responds... but I took the time, so I'm going to post anyway.

The following snippets are from a log starring Vershelt, who had the Whispers legacy (and happens to have the most consecutive logs posted that I could find for analysis - Grogim was another, but I didn't find poison/plague in them).

SNIP 1
Standing regen rates, plague damage plus whispers = -36hp

862hp 500m 735mv 27100tn s
s
The Avenue of Conquest


You scream in agony as plague sores erupt from your skin.
You writhe in agony from the plague.
Your sickness MUTILATES you!

826hp 475m 714mv 27100tn s
The Imperial Square
-----------------------------------------------

SNIP 2
Sleeping regen rates, plague damage plus whispers = -40hp

1152hp 500m 820mv 27100tn
You feel less armored.
You writhe in agony from the plague.
Your sickness MUTILATES you!

1112hp 475m 795mv 27100tn
------------------------------------------------------

SNIP 3
Sleeping regen rates, next tick, plague damage plus whispers = -21hp

1112hp 475m 795mv 27100tn
You writhe in agony from the plague.
Your sickness MUTILATES you!

1091hp 456m 777mv 27100tn stu
In your dreams, or what?
----------------------------------------------------------

SNIP 4
Sleeping regen rates, plague plus poison plus whispers = -72hp

1091hp 456m 777mv 27100tn stu

You hear the haunting notes of Greensleeves, following you.
Your eyes see less truly.
You writhe in agony from the plague.
Your sickness MUTILATES you!
You shiver and suffer.
Your poison devastates you!

1019hp 437m 759mv 27100tn In your dreams, or what?
----------------------------------------------------------

SNIP 5
For comparison's sake, approximate damage from MUTILATES+graze = -47hp

687hp 437m 753mv 27100tn No way! You are still fighting!
Someone sends you sprawling with a powerful bash!
Someone's bash grazes you.
You hear the haunting notes of Greensleeves, following you.
You hear the haunting notes of Greensleeves, following you.
Someone's beating MUTILATES you!
Someone is in perfect health.

640hp 437m 753mv 27100tn
------------------------------------------------------------

I know that there are lots of different things that factor into regeneration rates and damage verbs apply to a range of actual damage points. However, if we assume that regular MUTILATE damage is about 40, then we see from this log that:

Plague MUTILATES while standing with Whispers = about -40hp (no regeneration at all on the tick)
Plague MUTILATES while sleeping with Whispers = about -40hp (no regeneration at all on the tick)
Plague MUTILATES while sleeping with Whispers = about -20hp (some regeneration observed on the tick)
Plague MUTILATES while sleeping with Whispers = about -40hp (with another -32 for poison devastates) (no regeneration at all on the tick)


I'm not trying to get number crunchy (really!) because I know the damage/regen calculations are more complex than I'm making them (morale, natural vs. forced sleep, constitution, fast healing checks, number of consecutive sleeping ticks, etc) However, it seems like some of the following are happening:
-Whispers isn't working when plague is on
-Whispers only works on some ticks, but isn't applied on others
-Plague reduces regeneration to almost zero, at which point the large Whispers modifier has negligible effect

This log was posted two years ago, so I hesitated to apply this information to my judgement of Whispers - and in fact, is why I wanted to ask the official gurus how Whispers is currently supposed to interact with poison, plague, etc.

I'm not sure that I'm asking any questions here, just posting an observation....maybe looking for commentary. Based on Nep's answer, I'd argue that Whispers is not really that effective at counteracting plague damage. It's good for some things, but it would be better to not get plagued in the first place (kill, run, lag, dodge, resist, save). Or cure it.

"So if you've got Whispers and you're poisoned, plagued, and crimsoned you're almost certainly losing HP every tick, but not as fast as you otherwise might. With, say, just poison, you might still be recovering some hp."

I would argue that in these log snippets, Vershelt was still losing HP every tick, and it was just as fast as he would have if he were taking MUTILATES without Whispers. Unless, of course, Whispers decreases the damage sustained from plague from say DISMEMBERS to MUTILATES...which would be a really neat feature, but I'm almost positive it doesn't do.

For further grins, here's standing Whispers regen for Vershelt from another of his many logs:

891hp 385m 711mv 27100tn They aren't here.

933hp 397m 762mv 27100tn You aren't fighting anyone.

And here's a sleeping Whispers regen tick:
488hp 394m 769mv 27100tn slee
You're already sleeping.
Your eyes see less truly.

594hp 440m 836mv 27100tn sta

With Whispers, standing regen for this tick was +42 (other standing ticks in this log regen'd 10hp, 20hp, and 30hp). His sleeping regen tick was 106hp. So without factoring in all the nitty gritty details, I can see that standing regen may, at best, just offset plague damage. At worst, he'll be taking some damage and not regenerating fast enough to zero it out. Standing. So why wasn't the extreme regeneration of Whispers SLEEPING offsetting the plague damage?


Here, this is more what I was expecting to see:

988hp 402m 743mv 27100tn dou

A striped hyena bites you.
A striped hyena's bite decimates you!
A striped hyena is in perfect health.

982hp 412m 794mv 27100tn

He has 988. He takes decimates damage for -X hp, and the tick goes through, for +Y hp, for a total of -6hp...much less than a decimate, and that's with fighting regen rates.

On the plague ticks, he takes MUTILATES damage for -X hp, and the tick goes through, for ~+0 hp, for a total of -X hp.

More data:
678hp 363m 768mv 27100tn e
k night

You shiver and suffer.
Your poison mauls you.

656hp 381m 818mv 27100tn The Meeting Chamber

This was standing regen, he took mauls damage with Whispers for -22hp.

So really, what I see is that poison and plague in particular reduce the natural regeneration rate to almost 0, and then apply their damage on each tick. Whispers applies its rather large multiplier to the regeneration rate - but since regen is effectively 0, it doesn't have a prayer of catching up to poison/plague damage - even sleeping. On the other other hand, Nep mentioned that none of those things purely negate regeneration...so...

Well, my brain hurts, and I think I just de-understanded Whispers. Go have a margarita and tell 'em Tahren sent ya.

Don't forget that there's some randomness in all of this, too. Trying to pull out rules from single examples is like trying to figure out whether a baseball player will either always get a hit or always strike out based on watching one at-bat. :)

But, I would agree with the assessment that, generally, it's more to your advantage to just not get diseased at all if you can help it, rather than try to race the damage / -regen affects.

>Does poison, plague, or crimson scourge negate the effects of
>WotGS?

No; all apply modifiers to your regen, and all modifiers apply.

So if you've got Whispers and you're poisoned, plagued, and crimsoned you're almost certainly losing HP every tick, but not as fast as you otherwise might. With, say, just poison, you might still be recovering some hp.

>Players who have had it have argued both ways, indicating that
>a tweak to the legacy may have occurred.

No tweak!

>Side question: Does poison, plague, or crimson negate the
>effects of Dove, Hawk, Eagle, and Owl edges? (My suspicion is
>that these edges, as well as WotGS, apply a modifier to the
>existing regen rate. If regen rate is set to 0 under certain
>conditions, such as poison, then the modifier doesn't matter -
>regen rate will always be 0).

Your suspicion more or less checks out, except none of those things purely negate regeneration. Rot, on the other hand, would; I believe Wasting Disease also would.

>Double super side question: Is there a legacy that counters
>the effects of poison, plague, or crimson scourge? Riddle of
>resilience reduces the duration and intensity of maladies, but
>indications are that they are physical maladies only (kot,
>kane, boneshatter, bleeding, etc.). Calming the Tempest
>changes how a character interacts with magic in some
>fundamental way, to resist spells and communes - but there are
>certainly non-spell, non-commune ways to contract poison and
>plagues (weapon attack type "poison bite", for instance).

Let's see:

- Calming the Tempest would generally not be helpful. I'm positive there are some cases in which it would be, but in most of the situations I can think of it's not helpful for these specific things. One of the big exceptions: probably very helpful if you're Battle and have things like spellbane in the mix.

- Whispers of the Great Siege, as previously discussed, is useful in offsetting the damage over time from those afflictions to some degree.

- Riddle of Resilience might be your single best choice. It's useful in resisting these afflictions in the first place, and I believe it would also cut the strength loss and possibly duration from crimson scourge slightly.

- Fortress of the Spirit would probably have a small impact on duration from magicky sources, but it'd be so small you might not even notice it.

- Forsaken Thoughts would have a large impact on durations from communes.

- Renewal of Spring can be useful in resisting the onset of poison/disease, especially if your constitution is poor.

Everything else I can think of only would have fairly indirect effects, as in, if you kill the necromancer fast enough he can't crimson scourge you much.

>Thanks for any input, even vague and Nepenthe-esque. I barely
>have time for a real character, let alone 100 hours to hero
>and test legacies with a throw-away character.

You're welcome!

Thank you, this was very informative.

>Everything else I can think of only would have fairly indirect
>effects, as in, if you kill the necromancer fast enough he
>can't crimson scourge you much.
>

This is one of the reasons I love the warrior legacy system. It's a huge trade study/ cost-benefit analysis. There are a dozen ways to fix the problem. Whispers is good for recovering, but it doesn't much help if I can't survive and escape combat and find a place to recover. Riddle might prevent it from landing. Or I could choose Place to prevent sleep. Or Tempest to reduce spell stickiness/effectiveness. Or a lagging legacy to prevent them from casting or doing the flee/sleep move. Or an offensive legacy to kill them before they can land it... Each option has some benefits against the tactic, but each also leaves some uncovered gaps, or covers areas that may or may not be a priority.

Now, I do find your comment about Renewal of the Spring very interesting... And to further push my luck, does spellbane affect Tempest in some way outside of "more save vs. spell"?

Tempest gives something akin to a second, dimished save attempt against spells/communes and that this transfers to spellbane. Suggested by nepenthe, specifically. Who knows though!

>And to further push my luck, does spellbane
>affect Tempest in some way outside of "more save vs. spell"?

No; however, more save vs. spell is generally helpful for spellbane, and Tempest will (indirectly?) make you tend to bane more spells.

A Battle character with Tempest and good saves could be a very obnoxious fight for a necromancer. (Or, at least, obnoxious for someone who'd fight Battle as a necromancer the way I would. There are alternate effective styles.) Of course, if you do get summoned to a locked room, it's probably still a very bad day for you. The system works!

Actually, I had this very fight as Rhuean vs. Dullameh. Back then, most people didn't know how to gear well against daggers, so I had the luxury of gearing almost straight saves. I had one fight against him without zombies, and he couldn't land anything on me. It was fun for me, but I'm sure a royal pain for him! Woot!