The main difference is that we already have multipliers which buff elite’s damage separately from power ability’s damage. Eruption requires a passive (Annihilate) to make use of the rage to empower its damage, but this is similar to an investment any other elite ability would get to get some direct or indirect additional punch. A 20% damage increase on elites provided by Pierre Delacroix boosts directly Eruption + Annihilate’s damage.
The way it works, the wording basically doesn’t mention anything about neck signet power ability damage increase also buffing specialties - this is done for the sake of simplicity, just like Outstanding chance and stuff related to agents is hidden to not confuse new / casual players. But this is however how the game works in terms of consistency - while there are components that tend to increase outputs of an elite’s damage by adding in specialty (Annihilate with rage spending), as stated, they already have their own modifiers (Annihilate scales off elite’s damage increase, while things like Auto-Loader, passive for High Explosive Grenade, actually in this situation scales off the neck’s signet BECAUSE the neck signet boosts incendiary grenades’ damage, otherwise it wouldn’t scale at all unlike Annihilate (Fractured Existence - passive for Pandemonium - is another example where the elite’s passive scales with power ability boost since it produces a singularity, being a Controlled Chaos effect as part of chaos specialty, thus getting buffed by neck signet)).
Crystallized Blaze isn’t part of the elemental specialty at all, just a random elemental Special ability. It’s like saying Seethe isn’t buffed by the neck signet, which would be sort of silly. Crystallized Blaze is perceived as mandatory in the current meta because of how overpowered it is, that’s why people can see it as being part of the elemental specialty even if it is not - it is purely a balance issue. It doesn’t make Blaze suddenly part of the specialty, just a Special ability. Elemental specialty is the heat, and since it is multiplicative with everything else, it automatically buffs all the abilities on an additional multiplier’s level, so there’s no additional scaling required there (same principle for blood). Incendiary grenade though is directly part of rifle’s special ability since it is the only way to get the generated grenades used, just like Spirit Blade is for blade, or Frenzied Wrath is for fists, so these slot taxes need to be somehow scaled to match Demolish rage bonus (otherwise, hammer would simply be the only weapon to scale its specialty with power signet, which is just silly…, well, hammer and ele/blood which autoscale everything, as said).
I could blame this decision, i won’t do it though because i actually like it, it makes things working differently for weapons. Things like having a slot tax to make use of a weapon’s specialty is the things that i enjoy for the sake of variety - while it can be perceived as detrimental (because who likes having 1 less slot on the bar?), it is also indirectly a way to make people move for different offhands depending on the weapon slot requirements.
So, TLDR:
- From the point of view of consistency and theorycrafting, power agent bonuses not affecting specialty skills (grenades, Spirit Blade, Frenzied/Invigorating Wrath, Controlled Chaos, matching chamber bonuses, shotgun shells) is not a normal behaviour.
- Power agent bonuses not affecting Swallow Cut is purely a bug, different from the previous point.
- Power agent bonuses not affecting other Special Abilities such as Crystallized Flame (excluding those related to weapon specialties listed in the 1st point) is a normal behaviour, just like neck signet power ability increases already NOT affecting those.
Maybe @Glaucon could drop a comment about this issue?
