Talk:Volatile Magic (object)

Confusion

Not to be confused with Latent Magic. This one can be found normaly in the air yet the Latent Magic is from destroyed Kryptis Turrets. This object also gives Swiftness and Quickness effects and can be found in Soto maps as well --DiegoDeLaHouska (talk) 20:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC).

Daily account pickup limit

So there seems to be more going on than a hard cap of 250 orbs. I can get slightly above the 250, but the orbs disappear around 260, depends on the day. I checked not picking up any of the large orbs (they still disappear) like at the Astralarium telescope or on top of the Joko statues in Kourna and Istan. The orbs in Jahai from the storms, which give only flat 1 Volatile Magic and half the XP, also contribute to the limit - picking them up can make others disappear. Those orbs in the Jahai storm regions (not the tornado, but where there's the environmental vulnerability effect) also don't reappear when the limit is hit. Maybe after 250 orbs, there's a soft chance-based limit? Something like every orb > 250 has a higher and higher chance of triggering the limit? --BelleroPhone (talk) 17:00, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

What's also weird is that some orbs respawn at reset (I just observed the orb chain high in the sky above Jahai Bluffs), but some don't (e.g. the ones in the radioactive ruins in Sandswept Isles on Calon Islet). Also, around there I picked up only the small ones leaving the large ones behind and after reset, only the (unpicked) large ones reappeared. On the other hand, the Thunderhead Peaks orbs in the Oil Floes and the Grotto were immediately back, even though I had gathered them. --BelleroPhone (talk) 00:18, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Nice research, I have not checked these at all myself (and don't intend to :D). Just brainstorming: Maybe it's the total VM that is the limit? (SotO Latent Magic has a daily currency limit rather than node limit.) Map and/or instance limits? I can't think of anything with a soft chance to reach limit. --Hazasoul (talk) 01:50, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Actually nice idea with the VM limit. Now that I checked Thunderhead Peaks only, the rest of the orbs despawned exactly at 250 orbs / 750 VM. Now that I think about it, the orbs will have indivitual 24 hour cooldowns, but at reset the cap reset will of course refresh. Still a bit more to find out :) --BelleroPhone (talk) 18:45, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

So the limit seems to be a clean 250 orbs, including the large ones. I picked up the 250th in Sandswept Isles where there are those small-large-small triplets and the small one disappeared along with some more in the distance. In the end, I had 246 small and 4 large orbs and the small orbs by themselves had more than 750 VM in total (770 VM for an average of 3.1 per orb, btw). I am currently assuming that the different Jahai orbs, both kinds (phasing storms and tornado path), might contribute differently to the limit (maybe two count as one towards the limit?), since they do give less VM and in the case of the phasing storm ones less XP. --BelleroPhone (talk) 18:07, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Awesome! Today I was able to pick up a total of 258 orbs which includes 16 orbs from the phasing storms in Jahai Bluffs (1 VM each). Those give as I mentioned half XP (1270 XP for me) and also seem to count only half towards the 250 daily limit. That explains what started all of this, since I did gather orbs in Jahai bluffs at the beginning. --BelleroPhone (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

And the final observation from Jahai is: The orbs that are strung up high in the sky count 1:1 towards the 250 daily account limit, so the XP gain is the distinguishing property here. I guess that technically means one should first grab all of the large orbs from all maps on all characters and then grab the regular small orbs anywhere but Jahai, but that sounds like peak minmaxing :) --BelleroPhone (talk) 16:35, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Just to record this observation somewhere: I confirmed that (at least in Thunderhead Peaks), the "normal" small orbs, the ones giving 2-4 VM, individually respawn 24 hours after pick up. I even managed to grab a short screen recording where you see them phase in one by one. This, combined with the observation of the Jahai orbs instantly respawning at reset, makes it seem more likely that there's just different kinds/subtypes of orbs. They have different respawn times and give different XP and VM values, so it will probably will also have an effect on the pickup limits. --BelleroPhone (talk) 07:47, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Man, what inconsistent observations: Sometimes the orbs are back after the reset, sometimes after 24 hours. Intially I thought that it was tied to hitting the daily limit, but I had both a reset respawn and a 24 hour respawn after not hitting the limit, so this warrants further observation... --BelleroPhone (talk) 18:07, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

New hypothesis: What if the 24 hours is a per character and per instance respawn of individual orbs and the reappearance earlier than the 24 hours is an unrecorded map instance change? I'll try to check. Assuming that is true, sitting in a map over the reset should now immediately respawn orbs which have been picked up, just phase in the unpicked ones that disappeared because of the daily account limit. In those cases where previously picked up orbs do reappear the next day (if one wasn't sitting in a LWS4 map right at reset), a map change should have happened. Now I'm additionally curious if changing map instances before the reset also makes the same orbs available again... --BelleroPhone (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Different subtypes

So there seem to be at least four different "kinds" of these objects:

• Small orbs in Jahai Bluffs within the local storms with Vulnerability (Branded Storm) - those give a flat one Volatile Magic and half XP (for me, 1270 XP) per pickup. These are the ones which phase in and out with the stormy weather.
• Small orbs in Jahai Bluffs high in the sky - those give "full" XP (2540 XP for me) and either one or two Volatile Magic. Those I definitely saw instantly respawning at reset time.
• Small orbs "everywhere else" (?, not sure about Dragonfall) - those seem to be the regular 2-4 Volatile Magic ones. Those don't seem to be around in Jahai, but can be found in the other LWS4 maps.
• Large orbs "everywhere else" - same as above, only that these might be the ones giving 2-8 Volatile Magic. I am reasonably sure I saw them giving as low as 4 VM in my own testing (specifically, the large orbs above Palawadan on Joko's statue).
• Potentially different large orbs in Jahai - those sky orb lanes end in clusters of orbs with one larger orb in the center (e.g. eastern end of the Brand Scar/Shattered Cliffs). I have not checked whether these differ from the other large orbs.

--BelleroPhone (talk) 13:21, 15 May 2026 (UTC)