Radial Blind And It's Hidden Feature

[CitShell]

Good morning/day/evening, my fellow tenno.

 

Earlier today I decided to fool around with one of my favorite frames - Excalibur and probably one of the most underused skills - Radial Blind.

 

Now we all now that Radial Blind instantly disables any amount of enemies (behind walls and in open) in range of ability. Pretty cool already, right? Now I'm going to reveal you hidden feature of this skill - each blinded target will turn into unalerted state.

You'll ask me: "So what?", and then I'll remind you what happens when Loki or Ash use their Invisibility/Smoke Screen - whenever they turn invisible, enemies become unalerted toward them (as in if they never spotted them...as in if they were using stealth to complete mission) and thus recieve 4x damage from melee attacks (before people will jump on me saying that it's Invisibility/Smoke Screen that amplify damage - if you throw Glaive at enemies far far away from you in a long corridor, sometimes you'll deal 4x damage...aka bonus damage against unalerted targets...even though they're running toward you...AI, I guess? But again, they have to be really far away). 

 

In short: Radial Blind does something similar.

 

And here's some fresh...science?

 

Weapons used in testing: Glaive Prime, Galatine and Dakra Prime.

Test faction: infested.

! Sentinel has been unequipped during testing !

 

Testing melee damage amplification against blinded targets:

1) Glaive Prime: Glaive Prime reliably deals over 8k damage (2k damage against normal enemies) toward blinded targets. It doesn't matter if enemies have white sparkles effect from Radial Blind or not. As long as they're under effect of skill, they'll recive 4 times more damage from single (per enemy and Radial Blind) melee attack.

 

! I noticed short delay when enemies won't recieve amplified damage after being affected by Radial Blind (something around first 2 seconds) !

 

2) Galatine: after comparing amount of yellow damage pop-ups (aka crits) and amount of damage they did against blind and normal enemies, I came to conclusion that Galatine is slightly less reliable at dealing amplified damage bonus than Glaive Prime. Damage bonus does work with Galatine and it deals significantly more damage against blinded targets and, just like with Glaive, it's applied only to single attack per enemy/Radial Blind.

 

! It may take two hits to apply 4x damage !

 

3) Dakra Prime: this weapon works the worst with Radial Blind. Just like with Glaive and Galatine, damage is applied only to single attack per enemy/Radial Blind and since whole point of this weapon is to spam standart attack...yeah, doesn't work as well.

 

Conclusion: I'd recommend to use glaives and charge-spam-happy melee weapons to benefit the most from this combo.

Speculation: Whole team's melee weapons may benefit against blinded targets.

Speculation №2: It may not work if Excalibur isn't the host due to bug.

 

P.S. I want to apologize for any typos since I'm not native english speaker.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Re6ellion

[CelsiusPrime]

that's interesting. I might have to give that a try.

 

p.s. your english was perfect. don't worry about it.

[MasterRisto]

Dude you're english was perfect.

[BioCharge]

Very interesting facts, here. I felt it did something like that, but I don't have the patience for testing things like this. Good work.

 

P.S. I only wish native English speakers were so eloquent.

[fatpig84]

Dude. Your english is fine.

[Zoid25]

I wish I spoke other languages half as well as you speak english

[Kaboinglefop]

This is a very interesting point about a very under appreciated skill you brought up...

And you speak quite well, don't sweat it buddy. : )

[SpacePirateKing]

Dude you're english was perfect.

*your

[CitShell]

Did some more tests (now with Dethcube equiped) and here's some new information:
1) Feels like sentinels somehow aggro blinded enemies (well, even if you blind infested, they'll still listen to noise and try to track you)...so it's like: Radial Blind disables and forcefully turns enemies into an unalerted state -> sentinel shoots at target x -> target returns into an alerted state -> next melee attack against target x won't recieve 4x damage bonus.
2) It's possible to keep enemies in unalerted state by reapplying Radial Blind each 5-6 seconds.

Overall, I'm not saying not to use Dethcube/Carrier/Vyrm since they'll target only one enemy at time. Plus you can remove precept so they won't attack enemies at all while keeping useful abilities.

 

P.S. Good thing I've been studying english language since childhood. xD

Edited December 10, 2013 by Re6ellion

[[DE]Rebecca]

 

Conclusion: I'd recommend to use glaives and charge-spam-happy melee weapons to benefit the most from this combo.

Speculation: Whole team's melee weapons may benefit against blinded targets.

Speculation №2: It may not work if Excalibur isn't the host due to bug.

 

P.S. I want to apologize for any typos since I'm not native english speaker.

 

I'm particularly interested in your speculations! Have you been able to reproduce/test the hosting factor in effectiveness of this discovery?

[xxx7]

I too, can attest to this. While I haven't watched the numbers as closely, enemies seem to die quite a bit faster.

[CitShell]

I feel honored for drawing attention of DE. xD

 

And no, Rebecca, I haven't yet tested first speculation with team of friends.

So far I've been checking and double checking...and tripple checking reliability of provided information.

 

Now my second speculation is based on expirience of playing Loki (both while hosting and being off-host) and I can say for sure that melee weapons don't benefit from 4x damage bonus to unalerted enemies if you're not host (I think it's a known bug).

 

Time to do more testing!

Edited December 10, 2013 by Re6ellion

[SpilockT_T]

As Excalibur user, I approve this post :3

 

Nice work OP 

[CitShell]

I have some more delicious information:

My melee weapon: Glaive Prime.

Artiss123 weapon: 1) Galatine (charge build); 2) Hate (all mods were removed).

Tests were performed, just like previously, against infested on Palus survival mission (level 30+).

 

Results:

When I was hosting:

- Glaive's dealt 2020 (roughly) charged damage against normal enemies and 8000+ against blinded ones.

- Galatine's dealt 3400 charged damage against normal enemies (13k crit damage against normal enemies) and 14k against blinded infested.

- Hate's dealt 238 charged damage against normal enemies and 984-1073 when they were blind (he stated that yellow number pop-ups appeared only against blinded enemies).

 

When Artiss was hosting:

Exactly the same results (though there's possibility that game has chosen me to host mission).

 

Conclusion: enemies, affected by Radial Blind, definitely receive 4x more melee damage if Excalibur is the host.

 

Big thanks to Artiss123 for helping with tests.

 

Small edit:

Looks like it works less reliably when not hosting (as in, I, just like Loki and Ash, wasn't recieving amplified damage off-host)...even though host actually deals 4x damage.

Glaive deals 430+ damage against normal Corrupted Lancers and ~1600 against blinded ones.

Oddly enough, damage pop-ups were white colored...unlike when I was hosting (they were yellow).

Edited December 10, 2013 by Re6ellion

[Egg_Chen]

Interesting, I wonder about silent secondaries like the throwing knives?

 

.. and yeah, your English is pretty astounding for a non native speaker.

You use punctuation, that's rare (these days) in the English speaking areas of the World!

[CitShell]

Interesting, I wonder about silent secondaries like the throwing knives?

If I recall correctly, blinded enemies will calmly walk around if there's no noise source (at least that's how infested tend to behave).

Bows, throwing knives...Ogris (I recall it being silent weapon before) should work, but I can't test it now.

 

Oh and thanks. xD

Edited December 10, 2013 by Re6ellion

[Monolake]

And I was just thinking if Excaliburs' blind should give bonus to melee just like Ash' and Loki' invis. Thanks for conformation, too bad its only for 1 attack and not the entire duration ;/

Edited December 10, 2013 by Monolake

[Zedera]

This has been an amazing and very well-researched topic. My hat is off to you sir. Now I will go and see this for myself.

[Rynax15]

i wonder what would happen if you combo'd bullet attractor + radial blind + radial javelin. I need numbers people!

[CitShell]

i wonder what would happen if you combo'd bullet attractor + radial blind + radial javelin. I need numbers people!

Since Radial Javelin is registered as power damage and not melee, it won't deal amplified damage whenever enemies are blind or not.

Bullet Attractor + Javelin combo will just redirect every single javeling into one enemy.

 

Fun fact:

If sentinel will shoot at blinded enemy, next melee attack (against the same target) won't deal 4x damage.

If player will shoot at blinded enemy (doesn't matter if player used silent or standart weapon), next melee attack will deal 4x damage.

 

I guess sentinels are best trolls. \(:\)/

[greymalken]

So, on the "noise alerting" idea, have you tried a combination of Radial Blind + Silence?

[Methanoid]

the bonus dmg info regarding what you report has been on the wiki for some time, same deal with vaubans bastille, you get bonus melee dmg when npc's are hung inside that as well.

[CitShell]

the bonus dmg info regarding what you report has been on the wiki for some time, same deal with vaubans bastille, you get bonus melee dmg when npc's are hung inside that as well.

Well, since I haven't seen anything related to Radial Blind (other than rumors without any confirmation), I decided to create my own topic with proper research. I've seen entry for Bastile, but again, point of this topic is to show that Radial Blind does similar thing.

[EdBazokatone]

If you want to test it with Banshee's Silence and you don't have anyone to help you out, feel free to add me, we might be in front of the best synergy in the game =)

It is not new that the two skills combined makes the party stealthed, but if it grants the melee bonus on every attack? damn...

[CitShell]

Sure, I haven't yet tested Silence with Radial Blind.

Hopefully I'll be free to do some tests tomorrow by this time.