Expanse & Magnified Support Gems Not Providing Stated Area Effect Bonuses

I've encountered inconsistencies with two support gems in the game.

The Expanse Support gem claims to provide 50% more area effect, but it only adds 20% (0.8 on a base of 4 meters). Similarly, the Magnified Support gem states it offers 40% more area effect, yet it only increases by 16%.

These discrepancies significantly affect the effectiveness of my skills.

Area of effect modifiers are calculated based on their total ground area change and not their radius. It sounds like that may be behind what you are seeing.

POE originally calculated these modifiers against the radius of a skill, but this was changed in 2.6.0 Legacy league in 2017. This change did result in a significant decrease of effectiveness with area modifiers. The intent was for heavy investment in AOE to visually have a declining rate of return (rather than an escalating effectiveness, where increases to radius could dramatically increase the overall area).


Based on your example, the area change appears a bit short (e.g., 44% vs 50%) but I am guessing the discrepancy is from rounding on the reported skill details.

I checked the in-game reported values (skill detail) for some grenade skills when applying Magnified support and Concentrated Effect. They appear to be applying the expected change in total skill area, again allowing for rounding in the reported values.

I must be brainless because I read your whole post twice now and still don't understand why 50% MORE is not 50% more... Wording is immensely misleading and/or bugged.

It is 50% more area, but that's not the same as more radius.

In your example of a base radius of 4 meters, 50% more radius would result in 125% more area. This is why area scaled more and more with greater investment in early builds of poe1.

See wiki Area of Effect page.

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At the risk of being pedantic:

Area is 𝝅 x radius² (𝝅 is pi)

If your radius changes from 4m to 4.9m (slightly different from your example, but POE rounds the values it displays), the difference is:

4.9² / 4.0² = 1.50 or 50% more area in a circular aoe.


If instead it was 50% more radius (6 meters), you'd get a far larger actual area increase:

6.0² / 4.0² = 2.25 or 125% more area in the circle.



(Edited just to use a clearer character symbol for pi in the poe font)

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Pehr#3739 schrieb:

It is 50% more area, but that's not the same as more radius.

In your example of a base radius of 4 meters, 50% more radius would result in 125% more area. This is why area scaled more and more with greater investment in early builds of poe1.

See wiki Area of Effect page.

_________

At the risk of being pedantic:

Area is 𝝅 x radius² (𝝅 is pi)

If your radius changes from 4m to 4.9m (slightly different from your example, but POE rounds the values it displays), the difference is:

4.9² / 4.0² = 1.50 or 50% more area in a circular aoe.


If instead it was 50% more radius (6 meters), you'd get a far larger actual area increase:

6.0² / 4.0² = 2.25 or 125% more area in the circle.



(Edited just to use a clearer character symbol for pi in the poe font)

I just ran into this in-game and used /bug before finding this thread - my thoughts on this are that I agree with the geometry/math of what you're saying, for sure.

But I'm not a geometry teacher, and unless you are, most people are going to read "40% increased area of effect," and say "140% of 1 meter is 1.4 meters."

This also counterintuitively makes their value on skills with the smallest radii drastically less valuable against the already large skills that need it less.

May be working as intended, but doesn't feel good.

I get that players naturally expect more impact from it, but GGG did have reason for changing the formula.

Originally, more% area did apply against the radius of a skill and this meant that the greater the existing radius, the greater still the effect. It became more and more beneficial to add more radius, whereas the current system applies diminishing returns, from the perspective of radius.

As a result of the radius-based calculation, you had people easily obtaining screen-wide areas for skills like Cyclone (and likely Righteous Fire, though I don't recall the specifics), or any number of things.


The change was decidedly a heavy nerf to area scaling, but it had gotten out of hand.

"

Pehr#3739 schrieb:

I get that players naturally expect more impact from it, but GGG did have reason for changing the formula.

Originally, more% area did apply against the radius of a skill and this meant that the greater the existing radius, the greater still the effect. It became more and more beneficial to add more radius, whereas the current system applies diminishing returns, from the perspective of radius.

As a result of the radius-based calculation, you had people easily obtaining screen-wide areas for skills like Cyclone (and likely Righteous Fire, though I don't recall the specifics), or any number of things.


The change was decidedly a heavy nerf to area scaling, but it had gotten out of hand.

Diminishing returns implies less value over time, whereas skills with a 1 meter radius wind up with a 1.1 meter radius. This isn't nothing, but it's certainly not worth what could be a damage slot on say, cold snap. The diminish happens instantly on the smallest skills that need it the most, so that if you don't stack ridiculous aoe increase #'s it's not even noticeable.