08-21-2003, 06:42 PM
Partly because of a lack of technical documentation and partly because of the "lying character screenS" ™ there are quite a few neat features/quirks of the game that aren't obvious at a glance that "inquiring minds want to know". Some of this is new in v1.10 and some old. I thought I'd mention a few and hope for more posts to enlighten me...
(my definition of "hidden" is rather loose here, so I'm sure I'll mention many things that are "well known" to LLers--but I only recently learned Grim Ward doesn't work on Skeletons, so who knows what someone will/won't know?)
v1.10s Assassin skill Fade actually grants slvl% phys damage reduction (capped at 50% in combo with all phys reduction% items).
Sorc Thunderstorm pulses a lot more frequently with high slvl.
Barb Leap (not "Leap Attack") expands with high slvl to knockback a huge radius of enemies.
"missile" range is typically a function of its time-out duration and speed. What you see on the screen with (Amazon) Slow Missiles isn't always visually correct (actually even the sound effects can be wrong) and I suspect, therefore, that even without SM occasionally what you see isn't "reality" (e.g. I often see missiles "pierce" when no piercing is possible--its just an illusion)...
My big question here is: what "missile" effects (aka player skills) have a missile speed that varies according to something (e.g. slvl or AR or ?). I noticed a Guided Arrow pvp thread on the AB that couldn't figure out why one player was typically more effective with their GA range, and I'm wondering if perhaps that player somehow had slightly faster missile speed.
v1.10s some skills have "hidden" bonuses, e.g. to AR, that mpq readers have seen and are apparently real, even though the LCS (lying character screen) doesn't reflect the feature.
I've seen stacking threads on Barb Battle Cry + Taunt stacking to reduce enemy damage output to nearly nothing *before* you apply -damage items, resulting in no-damage taken uber tank status for the Barb. Been meaning to test this myself while using either a Nadir helm (Nef+Tir) with 9 charges of Cloak of Shadows or charges of dim vision (I'm hoping the Taunt will overwrite "blindness"--needs testing--so I can stop everything and pull one defanged thing to me at a time). I remember there used to be some weird interaction between "flee" effects and Taunt, so I'll need to retest that also.
v1.10(s) has improved Inner Sight (Amazon) such that your Rogue hireling is now dropping the monster DR quite a lot at high levels.
(One of my favorites, as I made this build and enjoyed it, is that) Necro Bone Prison gets cheaper with slvl, dropping to only 1 mana a cast around slvl 26/27 iirc ("free" at or before that as your mana regen during the casting time will typically exceed the cost of the spell).
Amazon Freezing Arrow gets freeze duration time boost from your chill duration time adders (charms etc.).
The Amazon Freezing Arrow, Exploding Arrow, and Immolation Arrow splash effects, and Lightning Bolt, all carry the damage adders (charms etc.) of their particular type (cold, fire, lightning).
Assassin Blade Fury and kick (finisher) skills don't visually appear to use your weapon, but they use attributes of your weapon. This is a complex topic, but for illustration: using a Serpent Lord staff (v1.10beta1) an Assassin does normal kick damage (i.e. a lot) and does 100% mana steal on it.
Paladin Smite always hits (no to-hit needed, no blocking allowed). Although it won't leech it can use Life Tap and does trigger effects. The other "auto-hit" skills (v1.10s, iirc) that transmit effects are Amazon Guided Arrow and Lightning Bolt.
Speaking of Life Tap, buying daggers, throwing knives, or rods with charges of this is fairly easy (and not too spendy, not even for repair, imho). This is a miracle spell for tough toe-to-toe fights as it is one of the curses that works on basically everything (e.g. Act bosses also). (fyi: Life Tap curses the monster such that when you hit it in melee, 50% of the physical damage you do is handed back to you as hit points, with no reduction for nm/hell or monster leech nerf factor). (In general, the shop-available charged items of value, apart from Teleport, are all from the Necromancer line: Terror, Dim Vision, Confuse, Attract, Life Tap, Lower Resist, Weaken. Other (shop buyable) class skill charges I admire are: teleport, telekinesis, Multishot. Additionally, if you want to gamble circlets/amulets you can also buy charges... my fav here would be an amulet with charges of Grim Ward).
You're probably used to Druids using their Carrion Vine to suck the life out of corpses and haven't seen much of their lower Poison Creeper vine. PC is pretty neat when you need a quick fix to (e.g. v1.10s) monster regen, as it is a cheap spell to cast to apply psuedo-area effect poison (the vine poisons what it touches, but also leaves a mat of poison on the ground that poisons monsters that move on it). Of course you also probably haven't seen that Werewolf Druid chain poison monsters with Rabies, either. Very cool effect visually. Next time you party with one, perhaps if you scratch behind the werewolf's ears, he'll do some new tricks for you. ;)
You can "repair" throwing potions by selling them to the shop and buying them back. (This is a reason to pick up potions from a Shrine individually, as you can then max out each one into a full stack). Throwing potions don't do much damage for their level requirement in general, but they are auto-hit (if proximate to a target, of course). The stangling gas potion is a nice twink for level 6+ characters, as 24 points of poison damage takes care of a lot of monsters at low levels all by itself. The 5-15 fire damage Fulminating potion has no level requirement, so a level 1 rushee can actually can assured of hitting something if he should find a need to do so (more on why this is useful when I finally do my rushing report).
Your newbie Amazon Javalins don't need to be repaired for a buck--if they aren't broken you can sell them to the shop for a buck and then buy them back, repaired, for a buck. Combined with /nopickup and distaining ever picking up any non-quest item (well, perhaps an exception for TP scrolls), you could conceivably play this as a no-cash/no-items variant. I wonder how far you'd get? (probably until you had to kill a poison immune with HP regen).
Apparently, at least as of v1.10s, Assassin Shadow Masters, whenever they need to decide what to attack, give preference to what you attacked last. This raises the interesting question of how all the game's minions/hires/etc. decide what to do and in what ways, if any, you can influence it. (e.g. when my Assassin "teleports" with Dragon Flight, my merc and Shadow seem to instantaneously show up overlapping me *and* attack/aura--much faster than even the monsters react to my sudden appearance in their face).
As of v1.10s Sorc Enchant at high levels/synergy/mastery looks to have taken a page from Everquest Enchanters in that people will probably get addicted to it and beg for it always to be "up" (i.e. having 1000 pts of +fire damage and a large +AR% boost for 13 minutes at a time is pretty attractive).
As of v1.10s Paladin Holy Bolts synergized with Prayer can actually do more than enough healing to be helpful (i.e. many 100s of HPs per second).
People are reporting, v1.10beta, that some Paladin skills (Blessed Hammer, Fist of Heavens) have been granted the ability to ignore the resistance of undead and demons (and certainly I'm seeing Holy Bolt not being resisted by undead). I thought I saw display text about this in v1.10 beta1, but it isn't mentioned in v1.10s.
Well, enough off the top of my head for now. What "hidden" features do you think are worth mentioning?
(my definition of "hidden" is rather loose here, so I'm sure I'll mention many things that are "well known" to LLers--but I only recently learned Grim Ward doesn't work on Skeletons, so who knows what someone will/won't know?)
v1.10s Assassin skill Fade actually grants slvl% phys damage reduction (capped at 50% in combo with all phys reduction% items).
Sorc Thunderstorm pulses a lot more frequently with high slvl.
Barb Leap (not "Leap Attack") expands with high slvl to knockback a huge radius of enemies.
"missile" range is typically a function of its time-out duration and speed. What you see on the screen with (Amazon) Slow Missiles isn't always visually correct (actually even the sound effects can be wrong) and I suspect, therefore, that even without SM occasionally what you see isn't "reality" (e.g. I often see missiles "pierce" when no piercing is possible--its just an illusion)...
My big question here is: what "missile" effects (aka player skills) have a missile speed that varies according to something (e.g. slvl or AR or ?). I noticed a Guided Arrow pvp thread on the AB that couldn't figure out why one player was typically more effective with their GA range, and I'm wondering if perhaps that player somehow had slightly faster missile speed.
v1.10s some skills have "hidden" bonuses, e.g. to AR, that mpq readers have seen and are apparently real, even though the LCS (lying character screen) doesn't reflect the feature.
I've seen stacking threads on Barb Battle Cry + Taunt stacking to reduce enemy damage output to nearly nothing *before* you apply -damage items, resulting in no-damage taken uber tank status for the Barb. Been meaning to test this myself while using either a Nadir helm (Nef+Tir) with 9 charges of Cloak of Shadows or charges of dim vision (I'm hoping the Taunt will overwrite "blindness"--needs testing--so I can stop everything and pull one defanged thing to me at a time). I remember there used to be some weird interaction between "flee" effects and Taunt, so I'll need to retest that also.
v1.10(s) has improved Inner Sight (Amazon) such that your Rogue hireling is now dropping the monster DR quite a lot at high levels.
(One of my favorites, as I made this build and enjoyed it, is that) Necro Bone Prison gets cheaper with slvl, dropping to only 1 mana a cast around slvl 26/27 iirc ("free" at or before that as your mana regen during the casting time will typically exceed the cost of the spell).
Amazon Freezing Arrow gets freeze duration time boost from your chill duration time adders (charms etc.).
The Amazon Freezing Arrow, Exploding Arrow, and Immolation Arrow splash effects, and Lightning Bolt, all carry the damage adders (charms etc.) of their particular type (cold, fire, lightning).
Assassin Blade Fury and kick (finisher) skills don't visually appear to use your weapon, but they use attributes of your weapon. This is a complex topic, but for illustration: using a Serpent Lord staff (v1.10beta1) an Assassin does normal kick damage (i.e. a lot) and does 100% mana steal on it.
Paladin Smite always hits (no to-hit needed, no blocking allowed). Although it won't leech it can use Life Tap and does trigger effects. The other "auto-hit" skills (v1.10s, iirc) that transmit effects are Amazon Guided Arrow and Lightning Bolt.
Speaking of Life Tap, buying daggers, throwing knives, or rods with charges of this is fairly easy (and not too spendy, not even for repair, imho). This is a miracle spell for tough toe-to-toe fights as it is one of the curses that works on basically everything (e.g. Act bosses also). (fyi: Life Tap curses the monster such that when you hit it in melee, 50% of the physical damage you do is handed back to you as hit points, with no reduction for nm/hell or monster leech nerf factor). (In general, the shop-available charged items of value, apart from Teleport, are all from the Necromancer line: Terror, Dim Vision, Confuse, Attract, Life Tap, Lower Resist, Weaken. Other (shop buyable) class skill charges I admire are: teleport, telekinesis, Multishot. Additionally, if you want to gamble circlets/amulets you can also buy charges... my fav here would be an amulet with charges of Grim Ward).
You're probably used to Druids using their Carrion Vine to suck the life out of corpses and haven't seen much of their lower Poison Creeper vine. PC is pretty neat when you need a quick fix to (e.g. v1.10s) monster regen, as it is a cheap spell to cast to apply psuedo-area effect poison (the vine poisons what it touches, but also leaves a mat of poison on the ground that poisons monsters that move on it). Of course you also probably haven't seen that Werewolf Druid chain poison monsters with Rabies, either. Very cool effect visually. Next time you party with one, perhaps if you scratch behind the werewolf's ears, he'll do some new tricks for you. ;)
You can "repair" throwing potions by selling them to the shop and buying them back. (This is a reason to pick up potions from a Shrine individually, as you can then max out each one into a full stack). Throwing potions don't do much damage for their level requirement in general, but they are auto-hit (if proximate to a target, of course). The stangling gas potion is a nice twink for level 6+ characters, as 24 points of poison damage takes care of a lot of monsters at low levels all by itself. The 5-15 fire damage Fulminating potion has no level requirement, so a level 1 rushee can actually can assured of hitting something if he should find a need to do so (more on why this is useful when I finally do my rushing report).
Your newbie Amazon Javalins don't need to be repaired for a buck--if they aren't broken you can sell them to the shop for a buck and then buy them back, repaired, for a buck. Combined with /nopickup and distaining ever picking up any non-quest item (well, perhaps an exception for TP scrolls), you could conceivably play this as a no-cash/no-items variant. I wonder how far you'd get? (probably until you had to kill a poison immune with HP regen).
Apparently, at least as of v1.10s, Assassin Shadow Masters, whenever they need to decide what to attack, give preference to what you attacked last. This raises the interesting question of how all the game's minions/hires/etc. decide what to do and in what ways, if any, you can influence it. (e.g. when my Assassin "teleports" with Dragon Flight, my merc and Shadow seem to instantaneously show up overlapping me *and* attack/aura--much faster than even the monsters react to my sudden appearance in their face).
As of v1.10s Sorc Enchant at high levels/synergy/mastery looks to have taken a page from Everquest Enchanters in that people will probably get addicted to it and beg for it always to be "up" (i.e. having 1000 pts of +fire damage and a large +AR% boost for 13 minutes at a time is pretty attractive).
As of v1.10s Paladin Holy Bolts synergized with Prayer can actually do more than enough healing to be helpful (i.e. many 100s of HPs per second).
People are reporting, v1.10beta, that some Paladin skills (Blessed Hammer, Fist of Heavens) have been granted the ability to ignore the resistance of undead and demons (and certainly I'm seeing Holy Bolt not being resisted by undead). I thought I saw display text about this in v1.10 beta1, but it isn't mentioned in v1.10s.
Well, enough off the top of my head for now. What "hidden" features do you think are worth mentioning?
"He's got demons? Cool!" -- Gonzo, Muppet Treasure Island
"Proto-matter... an unstable substance which every ethical scientist in the galaxy has denounced as dangerously unpredictable." -- Saavik, Star Trek III
"Mom! Dad! It's evil! Don't touch it!" -- Kevin, Time Bandits
"Proto-matter... an unstable substance which every ethical scientist in the galaxy has denounced as dangerously unpredictable." -- Saavik, Star Trek III
"Mom! Dad! It's evil! Don't touch it!" -- Kevin, Time Bandits