Cyclone Armor

Shield yourself from damage caused by fire, cold, and lightning.

Cyclone Armor is the Druid's level 12 Elemental skill, requiring Arctic Blast; it unlocks Twister. It is a personal buff with one number: a pool of elemental damage absorbed, 40 at level 1 and 268 at level 20, that eats incoming fire, cold and lightning point for point until it is used up, and it is spent before anything else you have. The three wind skills raise the pool by 7% a hard point each, and the cost climbs a mana a level.

The numbers

• Elemental damage absorbed is ln12: Param1 40 ("Elemental Damage Absorbed baseline") plus Param2 12 a level ("Elemental Damage Absorbed per level"). 40 at level 1, 88 at 5, 148 at 10, 208 at 15, 268 at 20, 388 at

1. The table above counts the synergies at zero; each hard point in Twister, Tornado or Hurricane adds 7% of the level's pool (Param8, "Damage Absorbed synergy"). The Basin writes the base line as 28 + 12 × slvl.

• The pool is set on the character as the bonearmor and bonearmormax stats (aurastat1–2), the same stats Bone Armor uses, times 256 in the engine's units; the row's absorb event (auraevent1 absorbdamage) is what spends it.
• Mana is 5 at level 1 and 1 more a level (mana 5, lvlmana 1): 14 at level 10, 24 at level 20, 34 at level 30.
• The row's InTown column is 1: it can be cast in town. It has no duration line; the armour lasts until the pool is spent.

The absorb line reads lvl, so +skills from items raise the pool; the synergies read hard points only.

How it works

The Basin's rules: the armour reduces incoming Fire Damage, Lightning Damage and Cold Damage by an integer amount while active, and it is applied to elemental damage before anything else, including Energy Shield and your resistances, see Taking Damage. The pool is cumulative across the three elements: negating 100 fire, 100 lightning and 100 cold, whether they land together or one after another, takes at least 300 of absorb. When a hit is bigger than what is left, the remainder goes through undiminished, so a 100-point hit against 10 points of armour leaves 90 to your resistances; cast again to refresh. It does nothing against physical, magic or poison damage.

Cold damage is absorbed but the cold length is still applied: the armour does not stop the chill of Chill and Freeze, only the damage.

The Basin adds that it can be active at the same time as Blade Shield and as Bone Armor or one of the Sorceress's Chilling, Frozen and Shiver Armors, and that in the older game it could not be cast as a werewolf or werebear.

Synergies and +skills

Three synergies at +7% elemental damage absorbed per level (Param8 = 7): Twister, Tornado and Hurricane, inside the absorb calc itself as (100 + (Twister.blvl + Tornado.blvl + Hurricane.blvl) × par8) ÷ 100, hard points only. Cyclone Armor's own hard points are a synergy for Arctic Blast (+15% cold damage a point), Tornado (+9% damage a point) and Hurricane; those pages give their lines.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player; the armour then absorbs from what is left, so a pool of 268 covers a 1,576-point elemental hit before the cut. The Basin's page says nothing more about Cyclone Armor against players.

Build notes

• The pool is 12 a level with no cap, so +skills from items grow it as well as hard points do: 268 at level 20, 388 at 30.
• Sixty hard points across the three wind skills are +420% on the pool; a wind Druid who maxes them gets a five-times armour from one point in this skill plus +skills.
• The cost rises a mana a level and the armour has to be recast whenever the pool is spent, so a big pool is also a cheap one per point absorbed.
• It is cast in town, so start every game with it up.