Damage modifications

[adeyke]

3. In which order are Energy Shield, Bone Armor and Cyclone Armor applied?

All I know is that they all seem to take effect before resistances.

4. How is piercing resistances of immune monsters handled?

There are four skills which can break immunities: amplify damage, lower resists, conviction and decrepify. In each case, they have 1/5 effectiveness against immune monsters.

The resistance piercing effect, from cold mastery and from -% resistance items, has no effect on immune monsters. However, if the immunity was broken by one of the above, they'll work normally. The effect is always a straight subtraction.

5. Are there effects that prevent Amplify Damage and Lower Resistance and other skills from piercing immunities?

Since the effectiveness is reduced to 1/5 against immunes, sufficiently high resistances will let immune monsters stay immune. For example, amplify damage is -20% against PIs, so anything with 120% or more physical resistance will stay immune.

[Guest]

Brista: I haven't noticed any difference with MDR.

Now I don't even remember what I tested (it was before LL went down), but the damage was plainly added before any other resistance reductions.

[wsbchicago]

At some point (prior to 1.10) MDR calculations occurred prior to PVP reductions. Now, per Jarulf's listing (see item 7), it occurs afterwards. This does in effect increase how MDR operates drastically. Maybe this is what Brista meant? MDR now would play a significant role in PVP against frame based attacks.

Example:
Prior: assuming MDR of 15 and firewall of 6,000.

6,000 = 240/second. Less mdr = 225/second. After PVP penalty = 56 /second.
MDR reduces damage by less than .4% per MDR point.

Now:

6,000 = 240/second. After PVP penalty = 40 / second. Less mdr = 25 /second.
MDR reduces damage by 2.5% per MDR point.

Of the change in damage (56 to 25), the PVP penalty reduces overall damage by 18.5, while the sequence change reduces it by 12.5. That "might" be explained by the increased damage in these spells in 1.10 versus 1.09. Of course, with items and synergies, you can get firewall even higher. But this has an affect if skills aren't increased.

Was this part of Blizzard's strategy to encourage maxing synergy spells? Or maybe just an overall change to make MDR relevant?

[librarian]

Heiho,

even with me being not really tight to formulas and calculations I can confirm that Bone Armor protection seems now early in the order, it gets damage before physical resistance or damage reduction is applied. In 1.09 it was damaged after the effects of damage reduce and physical resistance.

I also want to add that Crushing Blow, even when an effect of its own, seems to be applied _before_ other damage calculations, whereas it was applied _after_ all other damage in 1.09.
You can kill a monster with one hit, when you do a CB and actually only enough other damage to bring it down to 1/4 of its maxlife. With the 1.09 mechanics you could not kill an enemy with a single hit and CB, when your actual damage was below the Hitpoints of that enemy, in 1.10 you can.

[Caaroid]

This is one of the strange occurences we noted with a friend:

Two sorely PVM kicksins combatting each other. Main skill (surprise, surprise) is dragon tail. My friend's kicksin is geared towards damage, and with 3 charge-ups had about 23k kick damage. Mine was an MDR build with 10k kick damage.

We both had ~ 600 life and maxed resists (75% all in both cases). I had an additional 21% PDR, and a level 14 Fade (I do not know if it ads PDR or not, it was assumed it does and AS says it does, but who knows). I also had 75MDR and 33 PDR.

The fact is: he died from one of my kicks, and I did always survive one of his kicks. No matter how we tried to work the numbers, this does not seem to be correct (I should've died).

I'd be happy if someone could enlighten us about this :)

BTW, PVP usage: seen anyone PVP with firewall latelly? :) Against 14k fireballs, 4k spirits and 4k lightning traps 80-100MDR seems hardly relevant :(

[Crystalion]

I also want to add that Crushing Blow, even when an effect of its own, seems to be applied _before_ other damage calculations, whereas it was applied _after_ all other damage in 1.09.
You can kill a monster with one hit, when you do a CB and actually only enough other damage to bring it down to 1/4 of its maxlife.

This factoid would be granted the daily "surprising tidbit" Crystalion award, if I were actually giving out such things ;)

If this is true, then it is, imo, a HUGE boon. For one thing it means that a fast hitting build with Amp Damage (proc) can expect to have a decent chance vs. Physical Immunes. But the finish-off utility is pretty high, for Zeal and Fury users, who really want their number of targets to fall as quickly as possible.

I can imagine a twisted necro melee build: Beast user, 4 frame crushing blow vs. amped target (e.g. 5 shael chu-ko-nu).

The key is, as other posters have noted, the game doesn't have much in the way of highly immune to physical monsters (i.e. AD or Decrepify are usually just fine to crack them).

Crushing blow(various), freezes target (various), zeal (e.g. Passion; other non-Zeal fast attacks), prevent monster heal (and/or poision/Open Wounds) may again be a viable combo (for those willing to fight monsters that aren't above their clvl). And I thought my Axe of Fechmar was only good for a kick assassin! :)

[librarian]

Heiho,

as maybe already known I'm not a big guy in formulas, and I still refuse to do any modding. So with most of the infos referring to such stuff I do only the transfer between two german sites and two english sites, and any awards directed to me are in fact adressed wrong^^

black_spy, who belongs to the few people I tend to believe anything they say about the game, had tested the behaviour of CB during the beta and just recently confirmed the testings referring to the final. He is member of d2wissen.de staff, a site designed by Atair to bring techical details of our beloved game to those who can't or don't want to browse several english boards to collect tidbits of information here and there.

The modded scenario included IIRC gear with 100%CB Chance, but only enough physical damage to tear down not all of the HPs of the attacked monster, which was also set to 0%physical resistance. No other damage sources, and set to 1ppl.
With this setting it is possible to kill the attacked monster with a single hit, and this would be impossible if the CB check would be done at last in the order.

<edit>
insert scenario
1) modded Fallens with exactly 103 life in 8ppl game
2) weapon doing 100-101 damage -> they'll all survive the first punch
3) add 100% Chance of doing CB (without further damage sources) -> every Fallen dies from the first punch
With CB tearing down ~5.5% of the HPs (5HPs absolute with full HPs) in 8ppl.
If CB would work _after_ the 'real' physical damage application it wouldn't have any effect here because of the truncating of numbers ingame.

The setting was indeed slightly more complicated than I remembered, because the scenario included also the new scaling procedure of CB along with the player number.
</edit>

I myself couldn't do such testing, because without modding I can reach 100%CB Chance, but I couldn't avoid to do other damage as well, and the monster HPs and resistancies are too various for exact tests.

[Tommi]

Thanks to everyone for input. I just updated my damage modification page to 1.10. I hope I got everything correct:

http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/damagereduction.html

Since I didn't hear a word from Jarulf, I made the following assumptions/corrections:
- Removed a separate row for Baal from the XvX table
- Act End Bosses do only normal (100%) damage to hirelings
- put ES before Cyclone Armor and Bone Armor (dunno if you can get two of them on the same character).

If I've got something incorrectly, just post a reply or email me, and I'll change it. I won't be able to do any decisive tests for the moment, but I'll keep updating the page.

Cheers,

Tommi

[Guest]

Oh, here's the thread. :D *cuts out, pastes*

For damage reduction mechanics, see:

http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/damagereduction.html

Ahh, I didn't know it was updated for 1.10.

I noticed some inaccuracies though,

* here InfernoFlame2,etc are mentioned, while #1's (the first mentioned missile for the Inferno attacks) are the only ones used by the game, eventhough #2's are mentioned in the code (well, skills.txt row). Refer to this thread.

* Lower Resist isn't mentioned to reduce poison resist.

* 3.2 Notes on resistance calculations - Missile's piercing doesn't use a stat (skill_bypass_*) for its ability, instead the Holy missiles.txt column, although you might not want to mention everything. A note on FoH would be good though since the lightning damage isn't piercing (its Holy column is empty) just the bolts shot from it, while it's stated by the AS (and patch text?) otherwise.

> Skills and item properties that pierce
> poison resistance also reduce poison length.

So the average total damage is exactly same (damage +25%, length -25%)? Or was that supposed to say increase?

*Reduce mana equal to two times of the damage absorbed by Energy Shield - The AS even has this right :P The mana lost is equal to (32-unmodified Telekinesis skill level)/16.

Edit >

*Check Blocking (applied at 1/3 if the defender is running) - The Assassin's Weapon Block is set to zero (erh, ignored / by-passed?) when running.

Actually, it seems to be just Dodge with changed appearance, but also like Evade with spell blocking, but that skill works when running....agh.

[godfeast]

Is this checking a boolean value or a test if condition is greater than zero (true)?&nbsp; There have been a couple of complaints pointing that wearing two such items is canceling the effect form working.&nbsp; If the game is adding two boolean values of 1 then you would get 1+1=0 or false condition for wearing two items with these effects.&nbsp; I suspect that it really just that the testers were not too good at getting accurate measurements.

Well, not that I've found or truely understand the math involved in the mpq, but maybe this is why I ran into an issue earlier.

I have a ravefrost on for preventing freeze, but I also have a pair of gloves with nice resists and half freeze duration.

I find that roughly half of the time I deal with a freezing damage situation, I get frozen for a small length of time.

I guess its time to ditch the gloves, but then again, I had hoped to use two ravenfrosts in the future -- one wonders if this means foregoing the prevent freeze modifier now?

[Tommi]

Alright. I fixed these. Thanks for the comments.

Especially I clarified the role of PLR. Effects that reduce poison resistance also reduce "Poison Length Reduced" stat, which consequently increases poison length. However, -25% does not necessarily translate into 25% longer duration, similarly as -25 to poison resistance does not necessarily result in exactly 25% more damage.

Cheers,

Tommi

[WarBlade]

9. Apply absorbtion%. The absorbtion% is caped at 40%.

So this means that Fire Golems will no longer heal from fire? :(

[Ferengi]

not sure about LifeTap, forgot how it works and what it do

It doesn't seem to do much. A test can be arranged as follows:

NM Meph will kill your maxed (as in 23/23, pretty easy to arrange) skeletons due to the poison cloud (pick players4+ to give him some HP). It is a race between the skeletons regen and the poison. If you cast Life Tap on Meph, your damage rate will slow down. The skeletons _should_ be gaining HP whenever they hit, but what happens is that you lose more skeletons. Life Tap seems not to help skeletons, perhaps it works for melee players (I have none).

Meph is not the only monster that LT seems to be useless (for skeletons) against, if it wasn't for Lower Resist and Firewall, it would be pointless. There is a good chance that when you think LT is working for skeletons, it is merely the high regen rate.

[Ruvanal]

... It is a race between the skeletons regen and the poison. ...

It is not even a race. The poison will turn off the regeneration and replace it with the poison damage rate for the duration. This is the one type of attack that most frequently would cause the destruction of my skeletons in the earlier parts of the game.

[greatdane]

"QUOTE
3. In which order are Energy Shield, Bone Armor and Cyclone Armor applied?


All I know is that they all seem to take effect before resistances."


Interesting post. Maybe I read this incorrectly, but thought I would speak up. I don't know about energy shield and bone armor, but cyclone armor now works after resistances. If you have higher resistance to an element, the cylone armor stays active longer and you wont take any damage.

For instance I can survive 5 Souls shooting chain lightning at me with 75 lightning resist (from wizard spike) and cyclone armor; and the armor is still active as I run and hide and recast the cyclone armor. :P But if I have magic find gear on (alibaba) and around 30 lightning resist, and get hit by a few Souls, the cyclone armor is instantly destroyed and I die.

I think in 1.09, cyclone armor took the full damage of the elemental attack. Now it takes a smaller percent of the damage based on your resistances, but still protects you 100% while its active of course.

[Crystalion]

It is not even a race.&nbsp; The poison will turn off the regeneration and replace it with the poison damage rate for the duration.

Off hand it looks like necro skelies don't have any native resist, getting only resist to poison from summon resist, without penalty for difficulty level, capped at 75%. This right?

Since there isn't a clever "slow missile" vs. meph poison cloud (i.e. some solution to prevent the cloud from occuring or getting to nearby chars/minions) nor is there a Paly aura for resist poison, nor can you give your non-hirelings antidote potions, it would seem there are only three ways to ameloriate this problem:

1) town healer (very nice to have Atma healing now, since act 2 has lots of poison, and it saves time)
2) wells (not likely to have one near meph, or near a waypoint, are we?)
3) Paly Cleansing aura

#3 is only effective after the cloud goes away, and only if the cloud isn't highly recurrent. Looks like #1 is the only viable method? (well, if you had 8 Paly's with their auras "properly" phase spread, you'd limit the poison duration, post cloud, amazingly, but that's beside the point).

p.s. iirc the poison cloud is big enough that surrounding Meph with a (poison immune) bone prison and expecting even your high melee range act 2 merc to poke at him without getting poisoned seems unlikely (and, of course, you can feed mercs antidotes, so this is way off-topic). Previously I have seen that act 2 mercs often successfully jab at enprisoned melee monsters without retaliation (which I enjoy seeing almost as much as act 2 HF mercs with a massive slow weapon and face of horror). At least Mephs other attacks can be largely siphoned off (by Decoys, or by players/minions hiding behind nearby walls/obstructions).

[Ferengi]

It is not even a race.&nbsp; The poison will turn off the regeneration and replace it with the poison damage rate for the duration.

s/regen/HP

It is surely not an 'even' race. In fact, I keep wondering if the act boss multiplier is included in the poison. My main point was that LT seems to have become ineffective with the damage order modifications.

[Ferengi]

Just a bit of course for a moment....

I remember long ago trying the Summon Resists + 100% resist palidin shield to make an alleged elementally immune IG, after reading claims that the cap was at 95% or that is was uncapped, etc. I watch a pack of Act3 Hierphants kill him, but that was patch 1.09, perhaps it might work now with these order modifications.

Only NM/Hell Meph have a continuous poison cloud that causes skeleton loss, no other poison source has been a noticable problem. Meph is not distractable at the point, I can stand just outside the cloud with MF and lousy resistss and be ignored (no killer cold ball in many visits). The merc may or may not get poisoned, but his leech usually makes it a non-problem. Bone Prison would protect Meph, I no longer stay in parties with slow necros using Walls and Prisons, after watching too many times some elemental attacker protected by bone happily casting away at a sea of targets instead of dying under the axe.

[Guest]

4) Prayer aura, Holy Bolt. For HB isn't there a unique or two with it?

Previously I have seen that act 2 mercs often successfully jab at enprisoned melee monsters without retaliation (which I enjoy seeing almost as much as act 2 HF mercs with a massive slow weapon and face of horror).

They've got a melee range of 3 (Monstats2.txt, MeleeRng).

Ferengi,

I remember long ago trying the Summon Resists + 100% resist palidin shield to make an alleged elementally immune IG, after reading claims that the cap was at 95% or that is was uncapped, etc. I watch a pack of Act3 Hierphants kill him, but that was patch 1.09, perhaps it might work now with these order modifications.

If you just select unsummon and hover over it, that should mention the elemental immunities.

I had a nifty screenshot (that I can't find) of a quintipple immune Oak Sage in NM - thanks to Salvation aura. These don't have a resistance* (or cap) specified, and without that (and at least, with skill resistance bonuses) they can get any amount of it.




* [I know, this won't make much sense] The Aura/PassiveStat# for them/Iron Golems doesn't contain any resistance stat, while Spirit Wolf for example has aurastat1=fireresist, aurastatcalc1="min(0+(5-1)*slvl,85)".

Min specifies here the highest value that will ever be used, which apparently applies to all bonuses for (fire) resist.

[Crystalion]

4) Prayer aura, Holy Bolt. For HB isn't there a unique or two with it?

Yes, I realized I'd forgotten these immediately after posting but I needed to go out shopping. I also forgot the special case of Cantor revives (can you? and do they?) which might be able to heal Zak revives poisoned by meph. Some monsters also life steal in various ways. Still, of all these, I'm only impressed with Holy Bolt (which can now spam over 1000 HPs of healing a second to allies fairly easily, for a cleric type build).

edit: fyi, iirc holy bolt doesn't work on undead, for healing (bears testing, but that's my recollection).

As to the unsummon trick to cursor minions (now that all classes have that mouse action option) I recall many people saying it doesn't always properly show immunities (and, indeed, I saw this effect a few times myself in beta, iirc a shadow using Fade was one example).