Misc. Questions

[Taem]

Hello fellow lurkers. I am in need of some answers to questions I don't know in regards to Diablo and as usual, this is the first place I decided to check. Any help in answering the following questions would be greatly appreciated:

1.) Does a Paladin's Sanctuary cause Magic Damage to ALL monsters or ONLY undead?

2.) Does an Amazon's Freezing Arrow do FULL normal damage + bow damage, or just the listed Freezing Arrow damage?

3.) Do the effects of Pierce still work with Freezing Arrow in 1.1?

4.) If I use M'avina's Complete Set with my Freezing Arrow, would the "Fires Magic Arrows" ability on the bow cancel out my Freezing Arrow?

5.) Does a Druids Cyclone Armor protect against MAGIC damage, such as a Barbarians Berserk attack? Does a Necromancers Bone Armor?

6.) How come my Blessed Hammers can kill the Revivers that specifically say in their name describtion: IMMUNE TO MAGIC? Even if the damage is split 1/2 physical, my damage isin't enough to 1-hit kill these guys in hell if you take away half the damage, yet I do it all the time.

7.) Does Telekinesis have a diminishing return on the synergy it provides to Mana Shield? If not, then if I got level 38 Telekinesis (not too terribly hard to do with +skill items and charms), would I loose NO mana? And if I somehow got it above level 38, would I actually GAIN mana when enemies struck my Mana Shield?

8.) I checked Tommi's site on how damage is calculated but am still confused on one thing: When is Life Leech done, before or after Sacrifice Damage? (I had a high level martyr die in hell when I hit Radament, but I had 30% Life Leech and as for as I know, he is only 33% or 66% immune to life leeching, so I'm not sure how I died with 30% LL.)

9.) Can a Necromancers Teeth skill hit the same enemy more than once? For example, if I shot Teeth at point blank on Diablo, would all 24+ Teeth hit him, or only 1?

10.) Can an Amazon's Pierce get above the typical 75% or 95% break points? For example, if I had a Razortail (33% pierce), Demonmachine (66% pierce), and some points into the Pierce skill for 54%, would it register that I had 153% Pierce? (I seem to remember how after an arrow pierces, its chance to pierce reduces by half, and half again and again if it continues to pierce).

Thanks too all for any replies ahead of time.

EDIT: Added Question 9 + 10

[JustAGuy]

I can answer a couple of questions:

1. Sanctuary does damange to ONLY undead. I believe it's unresistable damage as well (not 100% on that).

6. Blessed Hammer doesn't fall under the "Magic" category. "Magic" are Bone Spells and, I believe, the barbarian Berserk skill as well. Blessed Hammer damage is purely unresistable by everything. That's why it is an overpowered build in some people's opinions.

[Taem]

Thanks for your reply!

Re: #1; Ahh, so a paladin build focused on Sanctuary would definatly be a specialized build then. I wonder of there are undead high enough level to make this type of build viable?

Re: #6; Haaa, that is unfair, IMO. I always thought it was 1/2 physical, 1/2 magical.

[jrichard]

Actually, i was under the impression that blessed hammer damage is magical. It just ignores the magical resistance of undead. Seeing as how there is only one monster in the games who's immune to magic and not undead, there's only one monster type in the game that BH can't hurt. The wailing beasts in the temples of act three hell iirc.

jrichard

[adeyke]

2.) Does an Amazon's Freezing Arrow do FULL normal damage + bow damage, or just the listed Freezing Arrow damage?

The arrow part of it will have the same damage as normal attack. The splash damage will have the FA damage as well as the damage from all your cold sources.

3.) Do the effects of Pierce still work with Freezing Arrow in 1.1?

Yes. If the arrow itself hits (it has a chance-to-hit roll), it'll have a chance to pierce.

4.) If I use M'avina's Complete Set with my Freezing Arrow, would the "Fires Magic Arrows" ability on the bow cancel out my Freezing Arrow?

No. It won't have any effect at all unless you're using normal attack (which will be replaced by the magic arrows).

5.) Does a Druids Cyclone Armor protect against MAGIC damage, such as a Barbarians Berserk attack? Does a Necromancers Bone Armor?

I think Cyclone Armour is only against fire, lightning and cold, while Bone Armour is only against physical.

7.) Does Telekinesis have a diminishing return on the synergy it provides to Mana Shield? If not, then if I got level 38 Telekinesis (not too terribly hard to do with +skill items and charms), would I loose NO mana? And if I somehow got it above level 38, would I actually GAIN mana when enemies struck my Mana Shield?

Only base points help. +skills won't do anything. So there's a natural limit of 20 synergy.

9.) Can a Necromancers Teeth skill hit the same enemy more than once? For example, if I shot Teeth at point blank on Diablo, would all 24+ Teeth hit him, or only 1?

No. One tooth per monster per volley.

10.) Can an Amazon's Pierce get above the typical 75% or 95% break points? For example, if I had a Razortail (33% pierce), Demonmachine (66% pierce), and some points into the Pierce skill for 54%, would it register that I had 153% Pierce? (I seem to remember how after an arrow pierces, its chance to pierce reduces by half, and half again and again if it continues to pierce).

100% pierce means it'll always pierce (assuming it hits each time). There isn't any sort of halving effect. So anything above 100% will be the same as 100%.

[Obi2Kenobi]

1.) Does a Paladin's Sanctuary cause Magic Damage to ALL monsters or ONLY undead?

Paladin's sanctuary does physical damage to undead, and undead only. It also sets the undead's resistance to 0, unless it is already lower (by way of Amp). This allows you to damage and leech from monsters labeled "Physical Immune". This effect only applies to the user of sanctuary, not their party.

5.) Does a Druids Cyclone Armor protect against MAGIC damage, such as a Barbarians Berserk attack? Does a Necromancers Bone Armor?

Cyclone armor is only Fire, Lightning and Cold. Bone armor is only physical.

6.) How come my Blessed Hammers can kill the Revivers that specifically say in their name describtion: IMMUNE TO MAGIC? Even if the damage is split 1/2 physical, my damage isin't enough to 1-hit kill these guys in hell if you take away half the damage, yet I do it all the time

Undead and demons have their resistance set to 0 (unless it is already lower, but as no monster has less than 0...) against Blessed Hammer. It is 100% magical.

[Taem]

Thanks all for your replies fellows! The information really helped out.

RE: Sacrifice; I'm not sure how the LL happens. If it happened "after" or even "before" the Sacrifice return damage, I would surly die with my martyr, but I'm not dying so I can only assume the LL cancels out the sacrifice damage and the difference is applied. If anyone is positivly in the know about this, I'd be interested in knowing.

RE: Pierce; I don't have the link, but I'm pretty sure after the first pierce, your chance to pierce the next target gets reduced 50%, and if it pierces again, gets reduced another 50%, etc. If that's right, then the higer pierce you have, the better your chance of continued pierce, but if its CAPPED at 100%, then thats the limit. But i guess I might be wrong about the way pierce works. I'll check the Amazon Basin out about this.

Thanks again for all the replies.

[adeyke]

RE: Pierce; I don't have the link, but I'm pretty sure after the first pierce, your chance to pierce the next target gets reduced 50%, and if it pierces again, gets reduced another 50%, etc. If that's right, then the higer pierce you have, the better your chance of continued pierce, but if its CAPPED at 100%, then thats the limit. But i guess I might be wrong about the way pierce works. I'll check the Amazon Basin out about this.

There really isn't anything of the sort.

It does get less likely to get more pierces, but that's just because of the multiplicative property of probabilities. Let's suppose you have 80% pierce.

You have an 80% chance of piercing once.
You have a 64% chance of piercing twice.
You have a 51% chance of piercing three times.
You have a 41% chance of piercing four times.

Every time, you have an 80% chance, but it becomes increasingly unlikely that you'll actually pass all the rolls.

Also, if you have 80% pierce but only a 75% chance to hit, you have a 60% effective chance of piercing, since both conditions have to be met each time. In 1.10, a lot of the previously auto-hit skills have been given chance-to-hit checks, and even a 95% chance to hit will miss part of the time.

I think the rumour about the halving effect came about in 1.09, due to the piercing guided arrow. People found that even 100% pierce wouldn't let a guided arrow hit the target forever. However, this was because the guided arrow has a maximum distance it can travel and because there was a hard cap on the number of pierces (IIRC, 4, for a total of 5 hits).

I recall reading that the pierce cap had been removed from 1.10, but this doesn't match my experiences, at least not for all skills. Lightning bolt is still auto-hit, but even against tightly-packed, motionless monsters, I can't get the lightning bolt to pierce straight through a mob.

[Taem]

I think the rumour about the halving effect came about in 1.09, due to the piercing guided arrow. People found that even 100% pierce wouldn't let a guided arrow hit the target forever. However, this was because the guided arrow has a maximum distance it can travel and because there was a hard cap on the number of pierces (IIRC, 4, for a total of 5 hits).

Thats what it was :lol: ! Thanks for clearing that up for me. Couldn't find what I was looking for (because it didnt exist <_< ), so your explanation fit the bill perfectly.

[arrunique]

QUOTE
7.) Does Telekinesis have a diminishing return on the synergy it provides to Mana Shield? If not, then if I got level 38 Telekinesis (not too terribly hard to do with +skill items and charms), would I loose NO mana? And if I somehow got it above level 38, would I actually GAIN mana when enemies struck my Mana Shield?


Only base points help. +skills won't do anything. So there's a natural limit of 20 synergy.

Are you sure about that. I noticed with my sorc as I got more + skills items the eshield seems to be a lot less greedy, even with only one point in tk.

There is a cap of 1-1 damage for mana which you hit around at around 16 or 17 in tk.

[adeyke]

I am sure about it. The formula is (32 - base points in TK) / 16. +skills won't help.

Where are you getting the information about a 1-1 cap?

[Vash]

Sacrifice doesn't seem to take off life when you miss or your attack gets blocked. My hunch about Sacrifice is that it's an absolute -8% to your life leech after all calculations have been made. So after monster leech resistance and after difficulty leech cut, your final life leech is -8%.

Edit: Erm...crappy wording ;) What I mean to say is that your final leech is less 8%...not IS -8%.

[Obi2Kenobi]

I think of sacrifice as leech. The fact that it is an attack and not an item might make it come after the leech drain penalty (which would make sense, because you lose life attacking a skeleton).

[DukeTrout]

Also, people have observed that Pierce doesn't pierce if the arrow/bolt/javelin doesn't hit. This becomes apparent with Lightning Fury and low AR: the lightning bolt keeps going but doesn't trigger the chain lightning effect on subsequent targets.

Logically, this makes sense if you think of the "to hit" calculation as "to damage." Chuck a spear into a tight crowd of demonic bovines, and of course you are going to "hit" one of them, but did you hit it in a way that will actually cause some damage, not just give it a strange-but-fasionable body piercing? That's what the "to hit" calculation is for. That is why armor increases one's defense rating and lowers the likelihood "to hit". If you've ever actually worn armor (or protective gear for sports like football or hockey), you know that armor doesn't remotely reduce your likelihood to be struck, just the likelihood of getting damaged by the strike.

So what's my point? The missile has to successfully "hit" to Pierce. Otherwise, the missile was either absorbed without damage by the target or deflected. So one reason why you won't see infinite Piercing even with 153% Pierce is that some of the monsters you are shooting at will not be successfully hit, and thus the Pierce train will stop.