Quote Originally Posted by 'hpavc',index.php?page=Thread&postID=97276#post972 76
I cannot believe SoC hasn't gotten the AoE nerf yet, arcane explosion, hellfire, blizzard and frigging Holy Nova got the nerfed with very diminished results starting at the 10th. Its a savage spell with multiple locks that have the jump on a group of people/mobs.

A solid [spy versus spy laugh] and the animal house "this is going to be great" come to mind quite often.

Though I have been burned by the bomb effect a few times humorously in PvE with some massive unexpected pulls. Oh well.
SoC is capped, just like nearly every other AoE in the game (notable exceptions are Engineering bombs and Consecrate).
The damage cap for SoC is 13580, some other spells for comparison - Arcane explosion is 10100, Blizzard is 3620 per tick, Fire Nova Totem is 9975 and Magma Totem 1550 per tick. This is the total damage an AoE will do however critical hits can go over the cap and resists go under it.

Example 1000 damage cap AoE, that normally does 100 on a base hit and 1.5x critical bonus. Up to 10 targets they will each take 100 per hit, and 150 on a crit. From the 11th on then they start taking less. At 20 targets then they will each take 50, a crit will do 75. Resists still count so if you hit 1 of the 20 for a 1/4 damage resist he'll take 12.5 (either 12 or 13 depends on rounding) but the other people won't take extra to "make up" for it. Additionally, if someone has a damage-increasing effect (berserker stance) then they would take extra damage over the cap as well, so with a 10% increase you'd hit the one person for 55 instead of 50.


Much more detailed thread on EJ : http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t25902-a...cap_mechanics/