Enchanted Shrines

[Mick]

Hello everyone,

Lovely to see the Lurker Lounge still alive and well. I played Diablo when it first came out and found help here and from members of the DSF. Now I've dug the demon out again... I'm playing a Rogue, currently clvl36, and I like playing a true versatile; she has to be able to handle every level of the dungeon on every difficulty playing archer, magic and melee before I'm happy.

So far, so good. Bow is fine up to Hell/Caves. I've got a Grandfather and a reasonable shield, with Awesome plate, so she can melee effectively enough up to Hell/Cats. Yes, I'd prefer a King's sword of Haste or Civerb's Cudgel with a fastblock shield, but we don't always get what we want

Magic is going a little more slowly. I have a Thinking Cap and had Aguinara's Hatchet but swapped it for an Archangel's Staff of somnething-or-other since the only thing I was after with the hatchet was the extra spell level (Archangel's gives two). I can't risk the TC yet, though - I've only got the durability up to 11 so far.

The thing that's really annoying me is the way Enchanted Shrines seem to hit Chain Lightning more than any other spell - that is, they knock it down.

I've been doing shrine hunts mainly because I wanted to find Hidden Shrines to increase the durability of the TC - I've only found one of them so far. But I've found about five or six Enchanted Shrines. My Fireball and Flame Wave are at a very handy lvl 14 now. But my Chain Lightning is lvl 7! Make that 'LVL7!!!', if you don't mind frustrated yelling.

Chain Lightning has been hit four times in a row. It's only lvl7 because I bought books at Adria's shack twice to restore lvls. Is there anything I can do about this? I'm getting paranoid. If I keep hitting Enchanted Shrines will I keep losing CL lvls? I feel like I'll end up at the weekend with lvl20 Fireball and lvl 2 Chain Lightning...

Any help appreciated.

Mick.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Honestly, don't let it get to you that much. The Enchanted Shrine basically gives you the effect of handing over and reading as many spellbooks as you have listed in your Spells tab—that's a lot of spellbooks. And mind you, the Chain Lightning spellbook is reasonably shoppable at Adria's and only costs 11000, which is chump change once you get your character well past 30.

I wish I found as many Enchanted Shrines as I have found Hiddens, especially for my Warriors. A Rogue with the primo Magic-boosting gear can raise herself to the point where she can read any book that comes here way. A Warrior is hard-pressed to get past 150 in Magic, which leaves the highest spell levels to the most expensive spells inaccessible to him— except for the grace given by the Enchanteds.

[Mick]

Thanks for replying. I found another ES today and this time CL escaped - but it got ordinary Lightning instead! What is it about Lightning spells?

I can currently get about 185 Magic with the equipment I have. I haven't been diligently searching for +Mag items so will probably be able to improve on that. I think there's another CL readability level at 199.

I don't understand the following from your reply: "The Enchanted Shrine basically gives you the effect of handing over and reading as many spellbooks as you have listed in your Spells tab — that's a lot of spellbooks." Umm, more specifically, I don't understand 'handing over and reading as many spellbooks as you have listed in your Spells tab'. Can you explain this?

Mick.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Say you've got 10 spells learned so far. Hitting an Enchanted Shrine acts just like as if you found 9 spellbooks and had them read automatically to you. For a Sorceror, this means nothing. But for a Warrior, this means everything. He can't collect nor read most spellbooks otherwise.

[Mick]

Thank you, I see what you mean now. BTW, I thought your moniker was so interesting I did a Google search on it and have read more ancient British history than I ever would have expected.

Mick.

[Vandiablo]

It is now time to reveal who I am... I was once a great mage... uh, no... I once ran Van's Shrine Emporium, where all that was known about the Greater Shrines, some gleaned from my own work on frozen shrines, could be taught in one or two quick lessons ("Wear white items??? Boot to head!" *boot to head*). But times change... a youngster named Jarulf set up across the way, and claimed to be able to read the Bits of Meaning, and all my customers started going there. After a couple deaths, I became morally and financially bankrupt, and my shop was reposessed ... by demons, yes... accounting trolls if you must know, and now my only prized items are this Wooden Chair of Rocking and my Bitter Shawl of Regret.

Now, sonny, what was yer question again? Eh? Speak up! All those darn apocalypses ruined my eardrums. Oh, Enchanted Shrines, yes... Chain Lightning, yes yes, a common complaint. It's been a while since it's been asked tho.

Well now, it is a fact that yer CL is the most likely spell to be hit by the ES. Cuz, get this, the ES is *both* random and not-random. Confused? Yeah, so am I.

It seems that the ES is never initiated properly. Now what I am about to say ain't 100% right, according to Young Jarulf, but it'll help ya unnerstand. If the memory that the ES checks for seeding the randomness has not been used yet, you get the same effect everytime, which hits CL if you've got it. It's kinda like asking a Basenji to bark and counting the barks as a random number generator. The number's always 0, so you can predict what your (pseudo)random number is going to be. However, if the memory that the ES reads its seed information has been previously used, then you pretty much get a random effect, assuming the bit-garbage distributes itself evenly across the spectrum.

Unnerstand? Of course, it is actually more complicated than that, the problem is more about *pointers* that aren't initialized properly, and wind up pointin' to places they have no business pointin' to, but let's not make this too hard to understand. My first explanation, tho technically wrong, is easier to unnerstand.

So... what this means is that, the longer you play Diablo in one sitting, the more likely you are to get a random effect. I am not sure whether its playing more than one game or playing several levels, here my old man memory is failing me, but you are much more likely to have CL hit if yer hitting an ES shrine on the first level you play.

BUT, I shoulda said this at the beginning, I don't think you really WANT yer CL to be above level 10 or 11. You ever hear about gaps?? It seems that Diablo the Game has a sprite limit, or sumpthin like that, and once yer hittin CL level 12 or so, yer bolts aren't long willowy things, they're short and they jump from very close to you to a good distance from you, leaving the monsters that are somewhat close to you unbolted. So you want to go easy on the CL. I've known people who said their CL is at 15 and they'd really like to reduce it thru using ES, but they were some of the "lucky" people who didn't seem to suffer from the ES/CL problem, so they were stuck with gaps.

Hey, it's nap time, well it's been nice talkin' wichya, feel free to come back and ... zzzZZZzzz ... zzzZZZzzz .... zzzZZZzzz...

[Yogi_Baar]

It seems that Diablo the Game has a sprite limit, or sumpthin like that, and once yer hittin CL level 12 or so, yer bolts aren't long willowy things, they're short and they jump from very close to you to a good distance from you, leaving the monsters that are somewhat close to you unbolted.

I don't know if this is related, but when I was playing my sorcerer, slvl 15 CL, and there were beasties vulnerable to lightning around, I teleported around to wake up as many as possible, then I retreated into a corner, waited till the whole gang was about 4 squares away and started casting CL like a madman. The sprite limit you mentioned hardly ever got me. It seems to me that when the CL goes off in just one direction (cone shaped), it works pretty well. Maybe there are gaps in some bolts, but then the other bolts must have "filled in" those gaps. I could achieve the same effect at those 3-squares-wide doorways in Hell. Corners and doorways, that's where I got best CL results. If I got surrounded by enemies, then I could forget about CL.

[Jarulf]

There is no sprite limit like that mentioned at all. HOWEVER,ther is a limit on the number of ongoing spell effects (well, arrows for this purpose are "spells" too). The game keeps an internal table of all ongoing effects and that table has a maximum of 127 entries (or close to 127). Chain lightning is especially troublesome since it consumes a LOT of spell effects. First, each "stream", leaving your sourcerer (even if many might be on top of each other) is an invissible spell effect that travels from the cater outwards until it hits a wall or something else stoping it. On the way, this invisiblle effect will spawn a (stationary) lighting bolt in each new location it enters. It doesn't matter if another stream has allready created a bolt there, so multiple bolts from different streams can exist in the same location. Each such bolt is also an ongoing spell effect with a certain duration (all this gives the impression of moving bolts emerging from the caster travelling along untill it hits a wall, but the actual bolts thus, acutally don't move at all :) ).

At high spell levels, and with many targets closeby, there will be many streams and with each one creating quite a few bolts, the game very soon hits the 127 limit. The best way is to stand close to wals on the side of you so that one minimzie the number of bolts in "bad" directions where they won't hit anything so that there is more free slots for bolts in the direction where there is actually monsters close that you can hit with no wall in-between.

By the way, even such a things a a Mana Shield is an ongoing spell effect. And as I said, so is each arrow or other missile which is why it can at times get hard to cast spells when there is lots of witches casting blood stars or even worse, those mages (cabalists??) that fill the room with charged bolts which can also quickly consume the 127 effect limit.

As noted from the above, monsters and players share the slot limit. If one want to see it in effect, cast a whole bunch of long lived firewalls (each flame is an effect) and go see some spell casting monsters, they won't do much. On the other hand, a sorcerer can't do much either, nor a rogue using a bow.

And finally, yes, charged bolt IS bolts moving arround :)

[Rhydderch Hael]

Okay, that's scary. I just Googled my moniker. As usual, I saw the reference websites on the historical personage, as well as the legendary character of Arthurian lore. And then I saw Google references to me— not the actual Rhydderch Hael, but the monkey-on-a-typewriter that stands before you today. I've never searched Google for anything I may have said or contributed before until now, and it kinda freaked me out. :)

[Mick]

Yes, using walls and doorways is wise with CL. If I'm just using it to get through easy monsters (Laz runs, shrine hunts or collecting gold to crank Griswold and Wirt) then standing in the middle of a large room and blasting will do it. Those monsters won't be able to do me much damage, if any, when I miss them and they walk up to me. But if I'm using CL offensively on tougher monsters that method will have me dead due to gapping. <Obi-Wan voice> "Use the architecture, Luke."

Mick.

[Mick]

Thanks for the explanation Vandiablo. I understand the Basenji Principle. What I wonder now is - if you find an Enchanted Shrine, would it be better randomized if you *don't* use it immediately, run off and do another three levels then come back and use it? That is, would the randomization of effect be changed by doing more or is that seeding/randomization issue settled when the game is loaded?

Mick.

[Mick]

Thanks, Jarulf - and thanks for The Guide, too.

So it isn't 'sprite limit' it's 'spell effect limit', right? Vandiablo pointed out that the gapping seems worse at higher CL levels - and that's how it's always seemed to me, too - does this mean that higher spell levels mean more spell effects? Is this cause by more invisible streams...?

Mick.

[Mick]

I've had that experience too, Rhydderch. I searched my usenet e-mail address in 'Groups' to see how much it showed up, then out of curiosity tried the Web. Weird. I found that various medical and science newsgroups are also archived as Web-based forums, which I didn't know. I also found that some people had archived conversations with me on their websites. *Very* weird, but thankfully nothing incriminating :) just philosophical and scientific discussion.

Shortly after that, a friend said to me, "Anything you send from your computer - no matter how secure you think you are - could appear on the front page of The New York Times the next day." Of course, no-one's going to care enough what I'm sending for that to happen but it was a particularly apposite warning.

Mick.

[Jarulf]

Thanks, Jarulf - and thanks for The Guide, too.

So it isn't 'sprite limit' it's 'spell effect limit', right? Vandiablo pointed out that the gapping seems worse at higher CL levels - and that's how it's always seemed to me, too - does this mean that higher spell levels mean more spell effects? Is this cause by more invisible streams...?

Mick.

Yes, more streams (which is not directly related to spell level although with higher spell levels it seeks targets further away) of course means more bolts being spawned. Higher spell levels also mean each bolt stays in place longer before dissapearing and freeing a slot. In that longer time, the bolts "spwaner" has moved further away and the gap is thus longer.