Time Bomb Oddities and Bugs

[Tilomere]

Time bomb is a fire damage, sonic damage, knockdown ability in the mechanic tree.

However, it seems to be completely blcoked by spell resistance on most spell resistant mobs, regardless of your characters spell penetration. For example: my caster can clearly break drow spell penetration here in elite heroic Von3 with 4 favored soul levels, and disable evasion by helpless stunning the archers here, but the exploded time bomb fails to register. The only explanation is spell resistance is blocking this ability, although no spell resistance symbols appear. Strangely, even though my character has the proper spell pen feats/past lives/enhancements/gear, and the time bomb should spell pen like soundburst does, it doesn't. Time bomb does not seem to work on drow, duergar, yugoloth, and although I haven't tested it I'm guessing most spell resistant mobs.



It isn't the archers superior balance/dex/reflex, since soundburst helpless stun drops dex bonus to 0, and time bomb doesn't work on caster drow either:


However, it will work on some golems, most notably flesh and iron golems, (but not very often on clay golems?):



In addition, time bomb will work on some smooth slopes, against some mobs:



However, it won't work if there is a small lip, or on all slopes, or if a rock protrudes from the ground in the path. As per Tlorrd and testing, the time bomb generally has to be higher than the mobs to affect them:

If you are on a slope, TB needs to be higher than the mobs to affect them.

The lip/rock appears to entirely stop and absorb time bomb.



Presumably, time bomb is setting off a ground level pulse in 360 degrees, with no vertical component. This is verified by it not hitting flying mobs, like mephits. It can hit some floating mobs, like reapers, that you soundburst stun.

Time bomb doesn't scale off spell power, but does scale on spell crit. I have yet to test its scaling based on sonic/fire caster levels. I also need to see if there is some way to jump cast it, but I don't think so.

[Vyrzain]

THANKS for working on this : )

I do hope that Time Bomb issues will get address as reported in….

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6152105

[Tlorrd]

If you are on a slope, TB needs to be higher than the mobs to affect them.

[Vyrzain]

Thanks again Tilomere.

Because I am only a First Life Character do not have all the extra / special abilities you have like soundburst, etc…

So I may not be able to get Time Bomb off like you can.

If you have the time would you please test…

http://ddowiki.com/page/The_Forgotten_Caverns

As a level 18 Rogue was not able to get Time Bomb to function in anyway on the Ice Mephits in the first room on Normal difficulty level 6 : (
I would have thought Time Bomb’s Fire would destroy these but NO!
What I did was round up all the Mephits and then take them back to the flat before the doorway. On the Rug. Placed the Time Bomb and nothing!
Now that I was surrounded by these Mephits I placed Time Bomb again, twice more, in the center of these Mephits and still nothing.

No Fire damage.. no Sonic damage....no Trips : (

[Deathmaster35]

I have just recently made a mechanic and am running into all of these issues as well. Time bomb does not seem to use the same hit detection system that other abilities in the game use. If the floor is perfectly smooth it will hit things around it most of the time, any slope or unevenness at all makes the bomb about worthless. It seems to go down better than it goes up, which makes me wonder if there is an error in the code and the character location at the placement is the top of the explosion instead of the center of it, or if it is a two dimensional disk, instead of being in three dimensions, so the disk is more likely to hit something below it

As the combat log information for the time bomb is mostly not there, I have no idea how to really test it as many times when I place it, nothing around it appears to be effected. it also potentially has a max number of targets it can hit as sometimes I will be surrounded on a flat surface and plant one, a bunch of the things take hits and there will be one or two right in the middle that are not affected at all and are still at full health. When the bomb hits something you can clearly see the details in the combat log. When it doesnt hit something, there is nothing at all about it in the log, which points to an issue with hit detectio

[Jonesin]

Time Bomb is utterly useless and has been since it's release, how have devs not fixed or even looked at it?

[VinoeWhines]

Time Bomb is utterly useless and has been since it's release, how have devs not fixed or even looked at it?

Ya the name sounds cool but...
They should make Time Bomb be Tactical Detonation plus more x 10, it's Tier V and locks you out of other Tier V's, so should be scaling off INT, sneak attack dice, Disable Device and Range Power.