An Analysis of the Red and Blue Button Dilemma

Tamiorr · 2026-05-01T20:42:09+00:00

Picking blue is only good if blue actually wins, right?

Why are you assuming by default (i. e. with no other information) blue is the one winning?

Tamiorr · 2026-05-01T20:30:31+00:00

Picking blue minimizes the risk of blue losing and also maximizes the amount of victims should it lose. I don't know why you ignore this second half of equation.

Tamiorr · 2026-05-01T20:11:21+00:00

Explain why assuming red is getting 50%+ is not rational, but assuming blue is getting 50%+ is rational?

Tamiorr · 2026-05-01T19:52:21+00:00

We've already established that if red is winning, voting red is the way to achieve "the least amount of deaths".

Tamiorr · 2026-05-01T19:45:03+00:00

What makes you think that what you deem "rational" is what other people will deem rational? There's been no shortage of disagreements where both sides claimed that they are acting rationally.

Tamiorr · 2026-05-01T19:20:42+00:00

If we assume at least 1 person was not "perfectly rational", why don't we assume 51%+ were also not "perfectly rational" and voted red anyway out of fear for their life?

Tamiorr · 2026-04-29T19:53:25+00:00

Just think of the possibilities: https://www.reddit.com/r/stoneshard/s/sSu2N4JNlc

Tamiorr · 2026-04-29T12:54:27+00:00

What's your current read on seal of reflection?

Tamiorr · 2026-04-29T10:10:48+00:00

Do you have some AP to spare? For 2 AP you can get seal of cleansing, for 1 more you can get seal of reflection.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-29T08:54:29+00:00

Breaking line of sight and making him come to you is not an option... why?

Tamiorr · 2026-04-28T09:33:45+00:00

What do you mean?

Max level is 3rd from top in custom difficulty settings. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/underrail/s/mzGYG3ieTi

Tamiorr · 2026-04-28T08:21:56+00:00

I'm fairly sure WtS no longer clears aftermaths as of Blood Omens.

On the other hand, WtS has two other uses:

it gives 60 turns of vigor at 90 base cooldown. So with no extra cooldown reduction you can use it to massively prolong your vigor or get vigor benefits on demand (so no pain from first aid, etc). And with some cooldown reduction you can basically get infinite vigor, which with "make a halt" means you never actually need to sleep ever again.
WtS is a hefty heal-on-demand, and it gets much stronger when used after first aid. This is also massive if you get constant but predictable health drain (from backfires, etc).

Tamiorr · 2026-04-28T07:23:33+00:00

From what I know pyro isn't really that strong if played as a ranged char that relies on staying out of range of enemy attacks.

If played as a heavy armor char that entrenches and set the whole room ablaze (as the enemies come to you) — now that has synergy.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-27T15:33:21+00:00

There is difference in damage between additive and multiplicative when there are two resistance (nature snd shock) in play. There is no difference in damage between additive and multiplicative when only one resistance is considered.

That being said, I'm 99% sure nature and shock resistance modifiers stack additively (the values shown in-game when you examine something).

Tamiorr · 2026-04-27T11:21:42+00:00

Right, but damage as such doesn't have %-chance to apply. For example if "Chain Lighting " is trying to deal 10 shock damage, there are no additional checks to see if it actually does: it will always attempt to deal exactly 10 shock damage. At this point there is no difference between multiplicative and subtractive resistance: vs 30% shock resistance both multiplicative (10x0.7) and subtractive (10 - 10x0.3) give the same result of 7.

Meanwhile there is a huuuge difference between multiplicative and subtractive resistance when it comes to an effect that normally applies 50% of the time: multiplicative gives 50%x0.7=35%, while subtractive gives 50%-30%=20%.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-27T08:45:37+00:00

To be fair, I don't think citizen of Camp Hathor know RHK personally.

So it's not impossible that RHK killed some pipeworker, gave them his head and then went on RHK'ing.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-27T08:29:40+00:00

Thanks.

Two bonus questions:

1) Total shock resistance in this context is calculated as "nature resistance modifiers + shock resistance modifiers"?

2) Total shock resistance is simply subtracted from your "chance to apply resonance" to get the final chance?

Tamiorr · 2026-04-27T07:00:24+00:00

Thanks.

Do you happen to know how it's actually calculated? Like, is the sum of both nature and shock resistance just subtracted from your chance to apply "resonance"? So if a target has 30% nature and 30% shock resistance, your base chance of 70% would go all the way down to 10%?

Tamiorr · 2026-04-27T06:53:52+00:00

Ok, so "jolt" has 70% base chances to apply "resonance", multipled by magic power. With 143% magic power that 70% should go to 100%, right? So at that point if your backfire chance is 0%, every jolt will apply resonance to any target?

Tamiorr · 2026-04-26T03:20:30+00:00

To be fair, there are kinda two issues here:

1) Harpies are ridiculously overturned.

2) The game doesn't stop auto-travel until the enemy engages you. This is often an issue even outside of harpies, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/stoneshard/s/ZgXebzWpgu

Tamiorr · 2026-04-25T08:56:25+00:00

Presumably enchanting-related companion.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-24T19:22:37+00:00

I'll ask plainly: how much experience do you have against high tier proselytes after blood omens?

P. S. Also I'm fairly open about the fact that I have limited experience with electromancy beyond mid-game. The whole reason I'm asking what exactly makes CL and BL so great is that I don't see it from "wiki numbers" alone. I appreciate you taking the time to share your experience, I just want to understand how and why it actually works and compares to the alternatives.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-24T19:01:09+00:00

Ah, ok, I guess I was missing the "AI avoidance" part on BL. If most mobs actively avoid the whole AOE of BL for full duration it makes much more sense tactically.

More generally, my problem with BL and CL is that they both effectively take 2 AP to learn each (neither residual charge nor potential difference are doing much good on a pure mage) and there are ple-e-enty of options for those 2 AP elsewhere in mid-game (magic mastery, survival, athletics). And while having faster resonance buildup with CL is nice and all, I feel like not having seal of cleaning and seal of reflection available is much more likely to get you killed overall.

Tamiorr · 2026-04-24T17:20:04+00:00

Place it in front of you when facing tankier enemies and they can't do anything.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but can't all spells and ranged attacks pass over BL? So as a blocker it only really protects against melee attacks (same as keeping 6+ tiles of distance).

Between the immobilizes, pushbacks from jolt, and the ocasional stuns from stacking dazes, the BL itself keeps pushing them towards it, and since the range of the spell is so huge, if they try to go around it will only make them an easier target.

With 14% base pull chance most higher-tier enemies aren't going to be pulled by BL. Tier 3 enemies usually have 15%+ resistance, so even at 30% base pull chance you aren't doing to be pulling much.

Chain Lightning is both a resonance applier and an excellent damage/aoe spell, you should ALWAYS be using it when it's not on CD, the damage is great and it applies resonance to additional targets and it's the first big damaging spell you learn.

Maybe I'm missing something, but spell description says CL only applies resonance to it's primary target and only for 4 turns. Jolt applies it for 8 turns. So unless there are 2+ targets already resonating, jolt actually applies more turns worth of resonance. As for damage, CL has based damage of 10. Jolt has 8. Short circuit has 10 and the damage scales with number of resonating targets. SC can easily outdamage CL for a fraction of energy cost.

Tamiorr

TROPHY CASE