How I believe GA and pierce should work together

[ALnitak]

Hi all,

After a week of boards-browsing, and since it's my first post here, I feel like I have to introduce myself a bit before going further. I'm 22, and am hooked with zons since my beginnings in Diablo2 - was in classic 1.06. I started posting at PDF on February last year, and I'm considered there as one of the zons' specialists - although I don't expect it to have any weigh here, considering the awesome guides Lurker Lounge's members had already written.

As for my chars, they have all been built in single player mode. I began with a bowazon (converted to burizon with LoD, now level 92), kept on with a javazon based on crushing blow and deadly strike (level 93), then a level 78 hybrid (although I played more with her bowazon's genes, then did some PvP with her), and last a level 98 windexazon, on who I've been focused for 8 months, gathering stuff for her. I also built a level 90 frenzy barb - I have to confess it's boring not to fear dying :-) -. Right now I'm playing a D2 Classic 1.06 sorc, level 34 act1 hell, who I'll convert to LoD 1.07/1.08 after she finishes classic, and all this to collect sweet charms and gear. Her top-end quest is to find a 1.08 Windforce for my dexazon, although I realize it will be long not to say impossible. But I already traded for two 1.08 Windforce, they turned out to be dupes as Atma was released then I deleted them. So I'm decided to find this bow by my own, whatever the time it takes - my dexazon is a very long term build, by the way...

Three words about Lurker Lounge forums now :

1) The look and features of the forum really rock.

2) The low rate of forum trolls is really appreciable, which might be related to 3)

3) It seems to be one of the rare D2 forums with no post count, and I really think it's a good thing as I believe it prevents spam. I hope it's not temporary as Lurker Lounge just changed its forums' software...


****************************** Now back to topic ******************************

In what follows, zons will stand for bowazons, or zons using GA skill.

From my personnal forum experience, I've observed one of the most common expectancies about patch 1.10 is related to what's called the GA bug, pierce bug or whatever : "nerf it !", "no more multiple pierces !", "zons are invicible in duels !". So, if you don't mind, let's have a seat and discuss about it - although I guess it had been done numerous times before. I hope I come with new arguments in favour of GA piercing one time (GA piercing one time and nothing more).

The bare facts (please correct me here if I'm wrong)

• guided arrow didn't pierce in D2 Classic, not until LoD 1.09 patch
  <>
  
• guided arrow now can pierce up to 4 times (it is said to depend on the monster type, or the distance and angle from which you shoot at your target...)
  <>
  
• zons using this feature in duels can hardly be beat<>
  [st]
  A fast conclusion one shouldn't draw, although I've often read it - I'm not talking about LL
  
  Guided arrow piercing is unfair in duels, ridiculous, then it's a bug and GA should never pierce.
  
  Side note 1 : I would say that a PvP-only concern (zons being overpowered because of GA + pierce) shouldn't lead systematically to a nerf ; I mean, this game is not only PvP, and one should keep in mind that before duelling, chars need to be levelled up, thus play PvM. This game has multiple features, the main of those being PvM, IMO. Thus the fact that zons are overall more powerful than other classes in PvP shouldn't be a motivation to nerf zons, just for the purpose of making duels more fair to other classes (although it's up to Blizzard to decide that, not me, I'm quite aware of it). I hope PvPers will understand my point... and I encourage them to read the second side note...
  
  Side note 2 : I truely believe zons having a huge advantage on other classes in PvP is not related to this GA + pierce bug or whatever it's called ; I do think it is rather related to a feature that is part of zons, which is : zons are the only chars who can leech while having ranged attacks (throwing barbs and variants let apart). In duels, they have the advantage of being ranged chars as sorcs and necromancers (bone spirit), as well as the advantages of melee physical chars (barbs, paladins, non-elemental druids, and assassins), that is leeching. This very combo, part of zons, is something no patch will ever change, that is to say zons will always be unfair chars to duel, GA piercing or not. But true, it's not a reason to allow other advantages for zons, and that's why rules exist in legit, fair duels, which commonly consist of a limitation on pierce amount from pierce skill, and forbidden use of piercing items such as buriza or razortail.
  
  Instead, let's try to be more accurate when we say it...
  
  Guided arrow piercing more than once is unfair and should be removed. And this more than once thing is the key point of my demonstration.
  
  4 arguments which make me believe GA piercing is no bug
  • Unless I'm mistaken, there is no official line from Blizzard saying that GA piercing is a bug, in no patch release info it is said that it's a known bug. There again please correct me if I'm wrong - I have searched for such information, but never found it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
    
    <>
    
  • Nowhere on Arreat Summit - official site of the game, although it was kinda out-of-date not so long ago - it's said that guided arrow should not pierce. I quote Arreat's Summit :
    
    

    Effect: Imbues an arrow with the ability to seek its nearest target.
    
    Guided Arrow is very effective in Player vs Player battles.
    
    Guided Arrow is handy when it is difficult to hit a moving enemy (Sand Leapers) or you want to hit an enemy around a corner. Keep in mind that Strafe and Multishot can also get the job done.
    
    Players focused in Strafe or Multishot may wish to use this for single monsters or bosses.

    
    I already had this debate at PDF, and one member objected, as a proof of GA being a bug, that this skill was originally designed to kill monsters in corners, not to be the utlimate boss killer. As you can notice, this argument falls, as Blizzard described guided arrow to be also a skill used for bosses, and even an effective PvP skill (everybody will agree here :-)).
    
    
    <>
    
  • Same, nowhere on Arreat's Summit it is said that pierce skill doesn't work with guided arrow. I quote Arreat Summit again :
    
    

    Passive Effect: A chance that your missile will continue through its victim.
    
    This is a very powerful passive skill since it affects any and all missile weapons you employ a chance to damage, pass through, and then damage another creature.

    
    Although I chose the lines I quoted, there is no mention of pierce not working with guided arrow, and why would it be implicit ? Not that obvious to me, as an argument...
    
    However, at this very point of my demonstration, the aware reader should have noticed a loop-hole. Pierce is to allow missiles to pass through a creature, then damage another creature... hey hey gotcha AL ! Wait a minute please. I guess this is a handy sentence they made, as pierce is to work on all bow skills : for all "regular" bow skills (strafe, multishot, freezing arrow etc...), arrows will indeed do that ; that's a majority of skills having this behaviour with pierce. Now let's take guided arrow's description again :
    
    

    Effect: Imbues an arrow with the ability to seek its nearest target.

    
    So to me, guided arrow works special with pierce as the nearest target after a pierce is the very target that has just been pierced. So they just wrote "damage another creature" to make it short ; indeed, for guided arrow, the "other creature" is the very same that has just been hit before. No big deal. If I ask you : "give me a number", let's say you reply "21". Then I ask you "gimme another number" : what prevents you from saying 21 again ?
    
    <>
    
  • Now, my key argument : in the name of basic logic, why would a level 18 skill (guided arrow) take precedence over a level 30 skill (pierce) ? In the name of what, game balance ? Let's get back to D2 Classic, when sorceresses were much more powerful than other classes, not to say really overpowered. How did Blizzard nerf sorcs ? They added casting delays. Did they inhibit masteries (level 30 skills) for powerful skills (frozen orb - level 30 -, or even firewall - level 18 -) ? Nope. Why would it be different for zons - although I do agree something has to be done ?<>
    [st]
    Now something to satisfy both sides (pro and anti) : let's be reasonable. Guided arrow piercing 4 times is way too much, it makes zons be overpowered in duels mainly, but also in PvM compared to other classes. But guided arrow piercing once would be the most logical thing, as pierce is a level 30 skill, said to work with all missile attacks, and which shouldn't be hijacked by a level 18 skill, whatever powerful this skill is.
    
    My conclusion is guided arrow should pierce either none (if you haven't got any point in pierce, or if the pierce roll failed), or once and no more (if you have 100% pierce or if the pierce roll succeeded).
    
    Addition : I think what should be really nerfed, without any doubt, is buriza. Buriza-do Kyanon, an exceptional unique weapon being almost as powerful as the most godly, powerful bow in the whole game. A weapon easy to find or trade for. A weapon which boosts your pierce amount to 100%, an amount no zon could ever obtain only with points in pierce skill, even 60 of them (without razortail). There is no equivalent of this in the game - as if a staff would give +50 fire mastery for sorcs !
    
    I realize this post is kinda pointless since patch 1.10 approaches - let's hope so -, and anyway, Blizzard wouldn't have taken my point of view into account. I just wanna know what you all think of this, does it sound fair for both sides ? Would it satisfy duellers ? Do you find my ideas on the way those two skills should work together acceptable ?
    
    Thanks for having read this.
    
    --- Multiple edits due to wrong-key hit, and also because I'm used to edit my posts all the time... ---

[Hammerman]

Hey hey, look who's here :)

Lol.. welcome Alnitak, nice to have you here. Enjoy your stay!

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Alnitak,

Firstly, there'll never be post counts: I think we CAN enable them, but do not want them. Besides, we all know who posts most: we simply read the fora to see that ;)

Anywho, to the topic at hand, I see it at one, simple level: although there is obviously no way you can look at this realistically, if we look at the general physics of the skill...it directs itself at one critter. Once it hits them, why the heck would it go anywhere else? Sure, it comes back, but why did it leave in the first place? As for pure cheese factor, it's almost as cheesy as the pure cheese Lemmings eat! Why look further :P

I cannot recall if there was ever an official word or not, but it seems a bug to me. Given the way it has been working, I suspect it was on the list of things to correct in 1.10 - and what a list THAT must have been. I'll tell you what, I'm glad it wasn't my job ;) I believe there's a more general concensus here than it's a bug than there is on whether twinking is OK or not, so I guess that says something about our attitudes :)

[ALnitak]

Thanks for the welcome, Hammerman. And nice to see admins here have the time to post.

although there is obviously no way you can look at this realistically, if we look at the general physics of the skill...it directs itself at one critter. Once it hits them, why the heck would it go anywhere else? Sure, it comes back, but why did it leave in the first place?

Forgot to mention that I study physics :-) - oh well, I'm not that skilled in physics, not what I'm saying. But if I say "inertia", does it sound like an explanation ? If we look at it "realistically", any arrow not being GA hitting a critter and piercing it doesn't shock you, right ? Should be linked to inertia : the arrow has a certain speed and mass, which gives it an energy, allowing it to keep on after it has hit one monster. Well, forget about this in real life, for sure (the arrow should be slowed down, its direction changed after each pierce, etc...).

But why would it be different for GA ? Sure GA automatically aims at a target, so your point is : "why would it leave the target it has reached and was supposed to reach ?", right ? I answer inertia again, if we are still in that same context you wanted to introduce. Inertia makes it impossible to stop for a short space range, before it aims again at the target.

How does it sound to you now ? lol I doubt Blizzard programmers went that much into physics stuff, anyway. Hum, well, who knows, maybe after all :P

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Alnitak,

Aye, I constantly spam these...um...I mean I often post, if I have something to say :D

Now, I know next to nothing of physics as such, but if you have something that is guided to a target, why would it continue past it? Take the Patriot Arrow for example: it split the existing arrows in the target, and stopped in the dead center. OK, perhaps using commedy as an example is not the best way ;) Anywho, that is along the lines of what I am thinking. The arrow is magically directed to reach a specific target (for argument's sake, we'll say the heart of that fallen wearing the uber Cracked Sash). We fire, the arrow does a little dance, and finds the stinker's heart...why should the magic then allow it to come out the back, turn around, and take another shot. Sure, that *is* some pretty powerful magic (ha, and the Sorceresses think THEY as the master of magic! Never seen a Meteor pierce the earth, orbit, and come back for a second shot), but it seems to contradict the whole point of the spell: it is directed to a target, and is supposed to go to there, and nowhere else.

Of cause, back in my day we didn't have fancy magic: we used nothing more than wooden bows and our apparently unlimited supply of arrows, and we made do just fine! Why, we would walk 15 miles though the snow and rain, merely to get kicked in the behind by a truly fearsome creature; then we'd show him what for, believe you me! Why, I could pick off a gnat on a Balrog's behind from 20 paces, and if only we had already invented spectacles, I believe I could do it still!

PS Is anyone else thinking a OLD-esque variant for the Rogue? Perhaps the MOLD: Mother of the Geezer ;)

[swirly]

Pierce:
Passive Effect: A chance that your missile will continue through its victim.

Guided Arrow:
Effect: Imbues an arrow with the ability to seek its nearest target.

Looking at those two descriptions and not thinking about how it actually works, has in the past, or anything else along those lines gives me the following image. I see an amazon shooting an arrow and it homing in on a target. I see it following a kind of arc in its path to the target. Then once it hits the target it goes through it and travels in another arc towards the next target.

If you go with an image like that then it becomes less likely for a guided arrow to hit the same monster twice. It would have to go through it and then arc completely around in a full circle and hit it again from a different direction. In most situations the arrow would probably hit some other obstacle before making this complete turn. Even assuming it didn't though, I would imagine that the spell guiding the arrow would fade before it would make it completely around again.

Now I know this isn't really practical, but it gets at how I think it should work. So going off of that idea and applying the way it works in the game I end up with thinking that it should hit the first monster, then hit another one that isn't too far out of its path, and then possibly one more before flying off in a straight line. If the others aren't there then I think it should just fly off in a straight line because there are no more valid targets.

Having said that I do admit that when I was playing my first (and only actually) amazon I remember thinking "wouldn't it be cool if guided came back and hit the same monster" or some such like that. I don't remember if I just hadn't noticed at the time that it did, that I thought it only damaged the first time, or what exactly I thought. My point though is that I do recognize that it is kind of cool having it do that. Even having said that I still think it shouldn't do it though. : )

Since I don't play PvP and have only played one amazon in PvM I can't really say how things need to work in the game to be balanced correctly for the amazon. I do think that the hitting of a single target multiple times with one shot is against the spirit of how it was imagined to work though. Of course this is just my opinion. I'm sure many people have a different feel for the spirit of how it was meant to be.

As to your idea of it piercing the same target once, but no more. I think it needs to be explained why it can only pierce once. Now this could be solved by implementing a spell timer on it. Something so that after a certain amount of time the guided spell fades and it becomes a normal arrow again. With a system like this if you were point blank with a monster then the arrow might pierce 3 or 4 times. If you were a decent distance away it might pierce 1 or 2 times and if you were a good ways away it wouldn't pierce at all. I'm not sure what length of time we would be talking about so that it would still be functional, but also not be as abusable. Somebody who played amazons more would probably have a better idea of how that would work. It also may be possible to have the spell timer increase with more skill points. It would be like the more skillful you became at the ability the longer you could sustain it.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Hey there, Alnitac. You don't know me, but I do not know you. :)

Nice to see someone saying something other than "Thiz skil iz ub3r-l337" on the subject. ;)

I think that it should not be able to do more than... say, 70* per second? (maybe that's too low, I don't play zons...)

[Isolde]

Unless I'm mistaken, there is no official line from Blizzard saying that GA piercing is a bug

Ah. It's a bug (well it was intentional to make the change but not intentional that it actually get shipped) and will be removed in 1.10. Officially.

Same, nowhere on Arreat's Summit it is said that pierce skill doesn't work with guided arrow.

The purpose of the Arreat Summit is to reflect how the game *is* rather than how the game is meant to be. :lol:

Now, my key argument : in the name of basic logic, why would a level 18 skill (guided arrow) take precedence over a level 30 skill (pierce) ?

No idea :) I don't think it's actually taking precedence either - that argument would only apply if pierce was useless if you had points in guided arrow, but it isn't: it still applies to all your other arrow skills.

PS. Sorcs weren't nerfed via casting delays... they were originally added to prevent spamming and frame rate drops on slower machines. At the same time as casting delays were added, the damages of the skills with casting delays was increased significantly (which contributed to uber firewall, etc). At any rate, if something needs to be nerfed, there are many options with which to do it. Just because one might be used in one case, doesn't mean the same avenue will be taken in all cases.

[FoxBat]

I don't think it's actually taking precedence either - that argument would only apply if pierce was useless if you had points in guided arrow, but it isn't: it still applies to all your other arrow skills.

Wait, I thought the whole reason for the post was that there effectively are no other arrow skills. :D

[Isolde]

Ah so, someone should probably tell ALnitak about multishot, freezing arrow and fire arrow then.

[Elric of Grans]

[the Langolier]

(ALnitak):

First of all, its "momentum" not "Inertia". Also, it is irrational to use physics as an arguement to describe certain spell behavior. Do I really need to say more?

>the arrow has a certain speed and mass, which gives it an energy, allowing it to keep on after it has hit one monster

The arrow having energy has nothing to do allowing it to pass through an enemy. An arrow has energy even when it isn't moving. When a moving arrow collides, it will transfer energy to the object- it can then (depending on many factors) go through the target or simply stop.

I don't see any difference between a guided arrow being able to pierce four times or cone time. If it can pierce at all, it could do it again. It makes sense to me that a guided should be allowed to pass. One skill gives arrows homing ability. Another skill gives a missle a chance to go through the target. But skills can not be based on what the description is. The skill has to be balanced as to how it affects the game. In this case, although the descriptions don't suggest that guided arrow should not be able to pierce, in practice it just becomes too powerful. This is because when the first shot comes back for a second hit, you have already fired another arrow. Then another, and another. With boses, this usually means that they are continuously getting hit by four arrows at a time, because by the time the first arrow hits for the fourth time, you have shot your fourth arrow. Let's say you have 50% critical hit with 100% piercing. With firing that fourth arrow, the zon could have potentially done 24x their base damage. Even with no speed enhancments, firing four arrows is a very short period of time. Piercing with guided arrow is too powerful.

Swirly: how I would love "chain arrow"...

[ALnitak]

Hi all,

What a can of worms I opened :-)

Swirly,

I see your point and find it interesting. But when using guided arrow, it's not really following an arc. First if you aim at your target manually (or as a primary skill without shift key), guided arrow follows a straight line - unless the monster has moved a lot. Then if you use guided arrow aiming at nothing (secondary skill pattern), guided arrow first goes straight, then aims, changes its direction for another line going straight to the monster : two straight lines. So guided arrow arriving on a target is always along a line, not an arc.

As for why guided arrow would pierce once and no more, the explanation would be : "once" for the logical (level 30 skill > level 18 skill), "no more" for the nerf, cause it has to be nerfed. The idea of the timer is special, could be good.

Isolde,

You say this is a real bug, could you give me a link to an official source saying so ? Not that I don't trust you, I only want to see how they said it, in which terms.

The purpose of the Arreat Summit is to reflect how the game *is* rather than how the game is meant to be.

I did quote Arreat's Summit, saying it was out-to-date until recently - and maybe still biased compared to the reality of the game. I could have quoted the game itself : where, in the game, in the skills' description, is it said that GA doesn't pierce, or that pierce doesn't work with GA ? And prior to this 1.09 bug thing, it wasn't written either.

No idea&nbsp; I don't think it's actually taking precedence either - that argument would only apply if pierce was useless if you had points in guided arrow, but it isn't: it still applies to all your other arrow skills.

Pierce is not useless with other skills, true. What I meant is that if guided arrow is used and doesn't pierce, to me guided arrow takes precedence over pierce in that case. (no other bow skills than guided arrow could hijack pierce) Does it make sense ?

As for sorcs nerfing, yes it had a lot to do with lags. But in the end, frozen orb is less efficient than it was before, even if its damage has been increased. True firewall now ends up at damage summits, but you could have got something similar casting numerous firewalls at the same place - and that's what I'm doing with my classic sorc at the moment. My point was to say that if pierce doesn't work with guided arrow anymore in patch 1.10, then it will be the first time a level 30 skill doesn't work with a level 18 skill whereas it "is supposed to do so", according to me.

The Langolier,

Also, it is irrational to use physics as an arguement to describe certain spell behavior. Do I really need to say more?

Yep I do agree with that, as we would have to explain spontaneous combustion for sorc spells, which is a tough call. Note I was only replying to Elric with physics arguments, I didn't do so in my original "demonstration".

The arrow having energy has nothing to do allowing it to pass through an enemy. An arrow has energy even when it isn't moving. When a moving arrow collides, it will transfer energy to the object- it can then (depending on many factors) go through the target or simply stop.

An arrow not moving has what's called potential energy, linked to its altitude and earth's attraction ; an arrow moving has both potential energy and kinetic energy - directly linked to its speed and mass. When I talked about energy, I was referring to the kinetic part. I agree with you it depends on many parameters whether the arrow will keep on going after it hits : the arrow's speed, its mass, the product of those two (called quantity of motion), the nature of the target, the nature of the shock (soft, elastic...)... I didn't want to get into those details as I doubt Blizzard did.

Well, in your further argumentation, you seem to agree with me that guided arrow should pierce. And I do agree with you it has to be nerfed somehow, cause it's too powerful as it is. What I suggested is in between : pierce once will stick to logic (at least yours and mine), and in the same time limit guided arrow's power. Thus this constant hitting should no longer apply, or to a lesser extent.

Sometimes there are monsters which I can only pierce once, even at 100% pierce. Often happens to me with Shenk the overseer. Honnestly, guided arrow piercing once is much less powerful than piercing 4 (obvious), and nlt overpowered in itself, and I think it would be a great solution to satisfy everybody. Instead, I fear Blizzard will basically prevent pierce from working with guided arrow. sigh

[Isolde]

Well, when I first looked at it, I thought it would be interesting to have it attack any given monster only once. But as it turns out, it runs into some very hairy synch issues which I didn't want to deal with in a patch. So you can chalk it up to programmer laziness ;)

[Kyrene]

So you can chalk it up to programmer laziness ;)

*gasp*

And when did you join the club, eh?

Proud member of the lazy pragrammers and ltter omissions and transposigns guild.

[Isolde]

:lol: It's probably not too good to go on about my laziness especially when it pertains to my job!

[ManaCraft]

I'm not exactly aware of whether the pierce on GA is a bug or not. It really doesn't matter to me that much either, I still say get rid of it. Entirely.

Then again, I've pretty much given up on the bowazon. She has no future as a balanced class in LoD.


ManaCraft

[lemekim]

Well, if you try to explain it physically, then there is one glaring gap that makes this whole "physical possibility and impossibility argument" useless.

Think PVP and our friendly boss Diablo. In both you will encounter something called shields, which apparently are supposed to stop arrows (really?) and such dead in their tracks, or at least bounce them off.

So, there is one big problem in this wonderful picture that you painted in the defense of piercing GA. If the person blocked the GA, it will pierce the shield and without magically hurting the person (!) it will continue around and try to hit him again. Sheer impossibility.

Imagine: you spot an incoming Guided Arrow heading for you, so you put up your shield between you and the arrow. The arrow pierces the shield, then continues THROUGH you, the intended target, ignoring the fact that it could simply hit you right there, and comes out on the other side!

Now you might say, "well it's actually GA not hitting the target, but bouncing off the shield and trying again, it just doesn't look right on our screens". To which I say, what does bouncing has to do with pierce? Maybe they should make a new skill "bounce" then?

~lem.

[Roland]

*hint, hint* *wink, wink* :D

[ALnitak]

Nice, but what you're talking about here is how guided arrow should interact with shields, I only wondered how it should interact with pierce. Continuously zooming on chars features, we could discuss like this forever, don't you think ?

GA piercing shields is strange. In that very case, maybe the best thing would be to make GA vanish after it hits a shield. The very idea of an arrow (GA or non GA) piercing a shield without making it burst is a non-sense (*** leather armours not rotting while bearing a sorc's firewall is also a non-sense, but oh well, we can't go much into details I fear... this game isn't meant to be that realistic).

I think it would be fair for PvPers that if a GA is blocked by a shield, GA stops just after that. Would prevent zons from being able to keep shield-wearing chars at distance by spamming GA. How does that sound to you, now :

- if GA hits a target (non shield), it goes through it once and no more.

- if GA hits a shield, it can't go through it (or else, to be realistic, the shield and the player would have to be hit, and to be honnest, the shield should go "bye bye").

Still a shield-wearing PvPer could be hit twice by a same GA, but diminished by the chance the shield blocks, and if the first block succeeds, there would be no further GA hitting. Say you have 75% chance to block, your overall chance to be hit twice by a same GA is 0.25 if your opponent has 100% pierce. Not that hard to accept, I hope.

He he, as if we were in charge of programming those things for Blizzard :P Well, 1.10 patch is said to enhance mods possibilities, and make them be easier. If they nerf GA and pierce purely and simply, I'll think about getting into some mod modifying it.