Right now, when adding aerogel or amphibious blooms to a gem, the effect states" +X% attack knockback". This gives one the impression that it will be ADDING whatever percentage rolled from the jewelcraft to your current knockback meaning it implies that it can give knockback to attacks that under normal circumstances wouldn’t have any.
This is absolutely NOT the case, however, and it only works multiplicatively, as in it will only affect knockback on attacks that ALREADY HAVE IT (i.e. wind). This is really unfortunate because trying to make an uncommon build is impossible using attack knockback secondary effects unless you are either a wind mage or a class using melee as they are the only things in the game that have innate knockback
TWO POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Solution 1: The lame solution
if this is really just a wording mistake, a change could be issued to all secondary effects to exclude the “+” term before the % increase given by the gem, because the gems do not actually add a percentage increase to the player and simply just multiply current percentages together. This solution is kind of boring though and I think the next solution would be a lot better for the game.
Solution 2: The cool solution
This solution entails actually making the +knockback effect actually grant knockback to attacks that do not already have it. Not only would this be great for build-diversity in jewels but it would also allow for interesting combinations to be experienced by players who primarily focus on the pvp or pve aspects of the game alike.
I didn’t know this. Knockback already sucks compared to the other gem secondary stats, so making it useful on a larger variety of builds (everything that isn’t wind) is good.
+40% of 0 is 0 since 0 * 0.4 = 0
but in the case of 1 + 20% +20% vs 1+40%
the “seperated” version is more since it is basically same thing as compound interest
Last thing imma say cuz we kinda arguing in circles is NOT the same as 0 + 0.4%
My suggestion is arguing that for clarity’s sake, the game should either tell the player that it works multiplicatively instead of additively as the +x% format implies, or just change it to add knockback (ignoring base knockback).
When the average player sees +40% ATTACK KNOCKBACK their mind doesn’t think “oh this must multiply my base knockback by 40%.” they think “this is going to add 40% more knockback to my attacks” (regardless of base knockback obviously)
no this is solving for what the +40% is
so 0 + 40% is the same as 0+0 (since 40% of 0 is 0)
also when I saw the +40% knockback I thought it was adding onto existing (hence it being a %)
if it said +40 knockback then I would assume it gives knockback that did not previoustly exist
is NOT the same as 0 + 0.4%