Quick question about MDR

[Pansesus]

Someone told me that not all the elemental-damage spells are affected by MDR. I've checked Tommi's "Damage Modification Mechanics" and "MDR vs. Frame-Based Attacks" and didn't find any exceptions. Any idea of it? I fear that MDR could modify all types of elemental / magical damage without any "exceptions". ;)

Cheers

[AtomicKitKat]

It's got reduced utility against frame-based attacks like Firewall and Inferno. Plus, if memory serves, Fetish Shamans use a different Inferno(from experience, their inferno takes out your life in chunks, unlike the sorc's which "bleeds" you of life) from the sorceress skill, and one of the streams doesn't get affected by MDR.

[Knijnknelis]

uhm sorry but what is MDR? :huh:

[AtomicKitKat]

Nasty Trollops.

[Pansesus]

So Fetish shamans use a different kind of inferno, wow, I didn't notice that. BTW, what does "stream" mean here?


Thanks for the answer :lol:

[AtomicKitKat]

Stream=line of projectiles coming from a single source, generally headed towards a single target(ie, like if someone blew a stream of Inferno particles at you while you had Chilling Armour on, you would counteract with a stream of Ice Bolts)

Veteran Inferno/Arctic Blast players will know that you can make a "wavy" stream, which allows you to deal damage to multiple targets, at the expense of being able to concentrate all your fire(or ice) on a single target(but allowing you to "lead" a target, something you cannot do if you target a specific critter)

Hope that was clear enough.

[Pansesus]

Stream=line of projectiles coming from a single source, generally headed towards a single target(ie, like if someone blew a stream of Inferno particles at you while you had Chilling Armour on, you would counteract with a stream of Ice Bolts)

one of the streams doesn't get affected by MDR

So inferno spell contains more than one stream, and one of them is not affected by MDR, right? Now comes another question, how many streams are there in inferno / arctic blast, and why is this "specific" stream not affected by MDR. Just seems a little bit more confusing. Is there some good reference on this topic?

Thanks very much!

[Obi2Kenobi]

If you look really closely, you see that it makes a V (only more like a 10* V). So it has two streams, one of which isn't affected by MDR. Not sure about now, but I think that in some past version or another, the stream did no damage.

[AtomicKitKat]

Think about it this way. Instead of envisioning them blowing it out through their mouth(ala traditional circus fire-breathers), think about them blowing it out through their nostrils, like a smoker who sucks in the smoke, then blows it out through his nostrils. You'll see 2 streams, which are separate, but will probably fuse together a little since they're travelling in more or less the same direction.

Here's my attempt to draw it out in ascii
= is blank space
O is the character firing the spell
|| and // and \\ represent the twin streams of the spell, imagine it as the 2 sides of a snake curving its way along.

======O======
======||======
=====//=======
======\\======

Now, let's add some enemies(1,2,3)

======O======
=====1||======
=====//2======
======\\======
=======3=====

Enemy 1 will be missed by the caster, unless they're close enough to scrape the left edge of the spell, in which case, they will be hit for 1/2 damage(assuming this is the player spells Inferno/Arctic Blast), since they only get hit by 1 "puff"(forgot who came up with the "puff" terminology, but it describes Inferno perfectly. For AB, refer to them as "flakes" :) )
Enemy 2 will be hit by the top stream(the last one coming from the caster) , and possibly scraped by the side of the middle "puff"/"flake"
Enemy 3 is going to be hit dead-on by the bottom stream(the one that was fired earlier on), and maybe scraped by the latest "puff"

Did that make any sense? Basically, if you are hit by both streams, you take maximum damage(and theoretically, reduce the damage twice, once per stream), if you're hit by one side(one "puff"), you'll take only 1/2 the listed damage(only for player spells, shaman/demon versions might be different) Heck, Nihlathak and those Frozen Creeper things in Act 5 might use a different AB than the Druid's, for all I know.

Any mpq readers wanna save me several hours of eye-pain? I've been staring at 3d images in class for 2 hours straight today, and all I wanna do is stare at 3d images on my NeverWinter Nights. :)

[Pansesus]

Here's my attempt to draw it out in ascii
= is blank space
O is the character firing the spell
|| and // and \\ represent the twin streams of the spell, imagine it as the 2 sides of a snake curving its way along.

======O======
======||======
=====//=======
======\\======

Now, let's add some enemies(1,2,3)

======O======
=====1||======
=====//2======
======\\======
=======3=====

Enemy 1 will be missed by the caster, unless they're close enough to scrape the left edge of the spell, in which case, they will be hit for 1/2 damage(assuming this is the player spells Inferno/Arctic Blast), since they only get hit by 1 "puff"(forgot who came up with the "puff" terminology, but it describes Inferno perfectly. For AB, refer to them as "flakes" :) )
Enemy 2 will be hit by the top stream(the last one coming from the caster) , and possibly scraped by the side of the middle "puff"/"flake"
Enemy 3 is going to be hit dead-on by the bottom stream(the one that was fired earlier on),  and maybe scraped by the latest "puff"

Did that make any sense? Basically, if you are hit by both streams, you take maximum damage(and theoretically, reduce the damage twice, once per stream),  if you're hit by one side(one "puff"), you'll take only 1/2 the listed damage(only for player spells, shaman/demon versions might be different) Heck, Nihlathak and those Frozen Creeper things in Act 5 might use a different AB than the Druid's, for all I know.

Wow, that is perfect! Thank you AtomicKitKat, for your great illustration. Now I get an idea of how Inferno / AB works. :lol:

Cheers

[AtomicKitKat]

Ascii art seldom comes out perfectly for me, so when it did this time, I was pleased. :)

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