Damage modifications

[Crystalion]

Here's a couple tidbits:

But wait!--there's more...

(lost cable connectively for hours after a blackout, so I did some v1.10 SP/lan testing)

Someone suggested they were seeing a diff in how long their cyclone armor held up, and ascribed it to resists (i.e. they suggested that maybe CA comes after resists).

Testing indicates, for SP at least, that this is not so, as follows:

pvp test, slvl 10 telekinesis with stated 12-13 lightning damage, each testee zapped 10 times...
0% resist: 22 damage (~ expected)
60% resist: 9 damage (~ expected)
0% resist with slvl 1 cyclone armor up (40 "absorb elemental"): 19 teleks dropped the armor (~ expected)
60% resist ditto: 20 teleks dropped it (~ expected, if CA taken before resists).

If the poster (AB?) was not imagining things, then perhaps CA can be restored or benefited in some other way.

...

I asked, fairly recently, if Malice's -100 DR effect works vs. bosses, so I did a test:
Griswold is marked in monstats.txt as a "boss" so I gave him more mlvl (match my test char), more HPs, more regen and more DR.

I confirmed that my thrown daggers (fire animation if they hit, due to magefists) missed him a lot, then I wacked him with malice a bit and resumed the throwing... they basically hit every time (I wasn't patient enough to look for 5% miss and I had turned off his blocking).

iirc only Malice has this property? (-DR per hit) Blade Fury assassins might consider using Malice vs. tough DR bosses (like DC) to pussycat them for the party (the -DR appeared fairly "permanent") as a monster with 0 DR can be hit 95% of the time (apart from blocking) if you are close to their level.

For example, if DC is 110 and a player is 90 and we zap his 2940 DR "permanently" down to 0 by Malice (30 hits at range by Blade Fury, e.g.)...

to hit: n/(n+0) * 2 * 90/(90+110) = 1 * 2 * 90/200 = 90% to hit. (pretty damn good I'd say).

Alternately a Dragon Talon specialist could use Malice (damage doesn't come from weapon for kicks) to get his DR down faster than BF (10 attempts to hit a second possible with studly DT, 5 attempts always with BF). Etc. Etc. Depends on how cowardly you want to be in Pussycatting him. From what I hear, being cowardly with DC is a pretty good idea.

Naturally there are other ways to lower a monsters DR, so I'm not saying Malice is the only way to go. But getting a monsters DR to 0 and having it stay there without maintanence might be really useful in certain situations.

This is similar to the effect of high level Taunt taking the monsters AR down to 0... if they use AR (many attacks don't, of course) then they will only hit you 5% of the time (and you can block, perhaps, or dodge, etc.). Getting Taunt to that level is absurdly hard of course. (and if they do hit you, their phys damage output is reduced alot... not sure where the cap is, if any). Still, as hard as high level Taunt is, it is certainly easier than getting your DR to be ~20x the monsters AR in most cases (that actually matter) (unlike my test with Malice and Gris, Taunt won't work on bosses etc., so the comparision is not entirely apt).