Black Death Bug

[GhastMaster]

I remember there used to be a bug that made your game crash back in earlier versions of Diablo, and I thought that was the only one. However, while reading a post at The Dark Forums someone referred to Black Death's life steal as a bug. Is there anyway to know if this is a bug or the intended purpose of the Black Death? I think it is awesome that a Black Death will take your life. I do not think it is a bug.

[.Plaid]

Of course there is the well-documented bug involving Black Deaths and Mana Shield (the MS Bug), wherein a character with MS activated will not get stunned if their total HP is less than the damage from a BD hit.

I agree with you, though, that BD hits are supposed to reduce a char's total HP.

It could be a case of vagueness: the poster spoke of a BD bug while referring to the MS Bug.

Best regards,
.

//edit for replace "die" with "get stunned"

[[vL]Kp]

I recall reports that you could in some circumstances crash when resurrected after a Black Death reduced your maximum life to nearly nothing. Blizzard claimed to have fixed it, but I think someone disputed that claim. Either way, it is not a problem if you avoid having extremely low life.

[prototype]

Its interesting, this black death thing doesnt work in first game, similar to blocking bonus. Anyway, IMHO its one of the things messed up in this game, wich btw looks like released in a hurry/unfinished. I like this game, but some things are just too obvious..

[ronnied]

Of course there is the well-documented bug involving Black Deaths and Mana Shield (the MS Bug), wherein a character with MS activated will not get stunned if their total HP is less than the damage from a BD hit.

I agree with you, though, that BD hits are supposed to reduce a char's total HP.

It could be a case of vagueness: the poster spoke of a BD bug while referring to the MS Bug.

Best regards,
.

//edit for replace "die" with "get stunned"

hey i just made an account and gotta make a reply real quick. Plaid you are correct except the stun proof "bug" (more of a exploit) works by, if your character has less hp than your Level (i.e. 28 hp, lvl 34), you will not get stunned. so what mages used to do back in the day is go down to black deaths, and get killed repeatedly, losing 1 max hp each time. eventually your max hp would be less than your level, then you will never be stunned.

you can also achieve the same effect by just casting blood stars or being injured down to the same hps instead, but this can be negated by hitting a shrine that heals on accident or etc, and then you are stunnable again. thanks for reading if you still play Diablo 1 i'm about to post,may be of interest! RD

[Nystul]

hey i just made an account and gotta make a reply real quick. Plaid you are correct except the stun proof "bug" (more of a exploit) works by, if your character has less hp than your Level (i.e. 28 hp, lvl 34), you will not get stunned.

Welcome to the Lounge.

Actually, if your character has less life than the damage done to the character, he will not be stunned. Character level really has nothing to do with it, although higher level characters must take more damage in order to be stunned in the first place. If he cannot be stunned by the attack, he also will not be knocked back, and his items will not be damaged by it. A charging obsidian lord can do up to 206 damage, and hell/hell Diablo can do even more, so this bug affects nearly every sorcerer that has ever played the game on hell difficulty using mana shield.

This bug was not even known until at least a year after the game was released. It is a shame that Blizzard got detailed information about this bug from this community and did nothing with it, while the information then spread to b.net where people ruined their characters in order to cheat with it. That said, Blizzard did fix (or try to fix) many issues presented to them when they already had a stable and very successful game. It's just a shame that they left a few biggies behind when the fixes were practically spoon fed to them.

But really it's so ridiculous that people would waste time getting hit by black deaths for this that I can only laugh about it. They could just slap on an awesome full plate and Stormshield. Then not only would they not get stunned, but they wouldn't lose a ton of mana each time they are attacked. And if somehow they managed to click chain lightning so many times that they ran out of mana, the next blood star wouldn't kill them. So many people knew the ideal equipment of an arty mage, but had no clue how the thing is supposed to be played. If a ring of harmony and good resistances doesn't make you feel invincible already, you are a tank mage whether you know it or not.