Ironman questions

[weakwarrior]

1.) How do you figure the "to hit" percentage for Holy Bolt? Is it dependent upon slevel, clevel, mlevel, or magic, or some combination? Especially for Holy Bolt as cast by a Rogue.

2.) Suppose you've found a staff of firewall, and plan on using it versus Diablo in the final combat. Now all screens have a sprite limit -- something around 121 active animations? And a firewall is 11 tiles wide, I believe. Does this mean that casting more than 11 firewalls stacked one atop each other is a waste, as the firewalls past #11 won't generate? What about Diablo's apocalypse? If you've laid down more than 11 active firewalls, can Diablo's apocalypse generate?

Or is this line of reasoning totally incorrect?

3.) Jarulf's Guide lists a formula for figuring the damage done by a Golem.

Min. Damage: 8 + 2·slvl
Max. Damage: 16 + 2·slvl

Is this formula correct?

[Belix]

Hopefully I can answer these, since I've been poking around in Diablo's code and Jarulf's Guide for some time now, and gotten as far as Hell Catacombs playing IM.

How do you figure the "to hit" percentage for Holy Bolt?

Since I've seen nothing in Diablo's code to suggest Holy Bolt has its own hit routine, the formula Jarulf offers for non-melee attack To Hit in section 6.3.1 should be correct. Therefore the relevant bits:

7. 50 + Current Magic + Bonus (Bonus = 20 for Sorc, 0 for anyone else)
8. Subtract (mlvl*2)
9&10. Clamp the result between 5-95

According to this formula, that means a Rogue with 17 magic (common in IM games) only has a 7% chance to hit Diablo (mlvl 30) with Holy Bolt on Normal difficulty, but that is a 7% chance per frame that the spell passes through Diablo's location, so the final result is a bit higher the lower her spell level with it is (since they travel faster at higher levels).

Does this mean that casting more than 11 firewalls stacked one atop each other is a waste, as the firewalls past #11 won't generate?

Yes, the game allocates a maximum of 124 slots for active 'effects.' Effects include but are not limited to spell projectiles, arrows, spell impacts, and in older versions of Diablo, Mana Shield. As you suspected, any Fire Walls that attempt to spawn when this limit is reached will fail.

There is an interesting quirk with Fire Wall that (at least in Hellfire, based on an older version of Diablo - this PROBABLY was never changed even up to Diablo v1.09) prevents it from ever filling all 124 effect slots - when you cast Fire Wall, an extra invisible effect is created until the walls finish spawning, then is removed. Due to this, repeat casts of Fire Wall will only max the slots up to 123. When the slots are maxed at 124, all spells (including Diablo's Apoc) and projectiles will fail, even those that don't spawn visible effects such as teleport -- and spells cast during this time will not even drain mana.

Since Fire Wall will only get you to 123 of 124, you would need one more effect to cancel out Diablo's Apocalypse spell. The Rogue's bow would suffice for this, since Arrows count as effects, but she'd need to be quite close to Diablo or most of her shots would not produce arrows. It is worth noting that the durability of her bow very likely can be used up by these blank shots, despite mana for spells not being consumed in this case.

Is this formula correct?

Yes. While there are a few mistakes in Jarulf's Guide 1.62 (before anyone raises a brow, he admitted that himself in a conversation I had with him many years ago), I looked at the code for you and verified that the Golem damage formula is indeed correct, no matter what the spellbook tells you.

[weakwarrior]

Thanks Belix!

[Nystul]

I wouldn't be too worried about getting up that many firewalls in an IM game. Are you thinking in terms of setting up a big fire and then luring with holy bolt? There is some risk of the fire dying before the party starts. Actually, how to lure Diablo depends partly on the rules you are playing. Holy bolt would be a consideration if you do not have to clear Diablo's chamber, but we see that a rogue may have trouble getting it to land. If you are allowed to town portal, it can be good to trap Diablo in the maze by running into a portal. This way you can clear Diablo's chamber and ensure a 1 vs. 1 fight. If you need a full clear without leaving the level, that is trickier.

Solo rogue vs. Diablo... I don't think it is too bad. Using a shield is highly recommended, especially in combo with firewall. Rogue will block almost everything in a 1 vs. 1, but you cannot block when you are trying to cast spells. If you are tanking with firewall, set up in a corner so Diablo can't knock you back away from your kill zone.

[Belix]

That's a very valid point - I got so focused on the theory of using a Fire Wall to prevent Diablo's attack that I totally overlooked the very critical element of just how long Fire Wall lasts, which is important in Ironman where the spell level is likely to be low.

At 8 seconds + 8 seconds per slvl, and the Rogue being unable to cast as fast as a Sorcerer, you'd probably need Fire Wall at least Level 3 for the first wall to last long enough to make it even worth the effort, as it will take the Rogue at least 6.6 seconds to cast 11 Fire Walls, longer if they're not placed somewhere all 11 flames can spawn. That would give you just over 20 seconds of combat time before the flames die off. Probably impractical in an Ironman game.