Miscellaneous Qs 4 anyone, or the

[Ahvae'el]

Hullo All.

I have a few miscellaneous questions I was wondering about. If you can answer them I'd be greatly appreciative.

Assassin

1) Does Dragon Tail add a % of fire damage from your total damage? I.E. a total physical damage of 100 with a, say, lvl 1 Dragon tail doing +50% fire damage being 100 phys + 50 fire = 150 damage (physical and fire)?

How does that work?

2) Does Dragon Claw release charges twice, because I think that's indicated in the skill description (applies charges to both claws), but it doesn't seem to do that in practice. For instance, if you charge up Pheonix Strike once (1 meteor) but use Dragon Claw, are you still supposed to only get one meteor out of the finish?

3) Is Cloak of Shadows supposed to disable ranged attackers? I mean, I know it lowers their defense and increases your defense, but I thought it was supposed to dim their vision a bit, though not as drastically as the almighty necro curse. Anyway, I was in the Bloody Foothills, and, even though I was using a lvl 13 Cloak of Shadows, monsters I had NOT activated before would shoot at me from up to 1.5 screens away (no Blade Shield/Holy Freeze/etc to activate them, either)

Sorceress

1) How does Telekinesis help Energy Shield?

Mercenary

1) If you mercenary has things that reduce monsters resistance on, such as a Rainbow Facet in his/her weapon/armor, does that apply to their attacks only? Or to yours as well?



Thank you, and Buena Suerte.

[adeyke]

I can answer the sorceress question. It reduces the amount of mana that's drained when your energy shield triggers. The formula is this:
(32-telekenesis lvl)/16 * damage absorbed

That means that with no telekinesis (not likely, as it's a pre-requisite), you'll lose 2 mana per damage absorbed. With maxed telekinesis, you'll just lose 12/16 = 3/4 of a mana per damage absorbed.

For the mercenary question, AFAIK, it only applies to their attacks. I haven't heard of any testing for this specifically, though.

[Ahvae'el]

Hullo Adeyke.

Cool. Thanks for the info. Really appreciated. I wish the investment in TK were a bit more efficient, but that's another deal.

Buena Suerte

[Zath]

For the Assassin questions:

1): Dragon Tail works exactly as you have described. The only thing to remember is that Dragon Tail's damage is calcaulated from the physical damage received by your target, and this can be affected by various methods of damage reduction. A physical immune monster, for example, will also be immune to Dragon Tail. If you had a physical damage output of 100, but attacked a monster with 50% physical resistance, you would deal 50 physical damage total, and L1 Dragon Tail would add 25 fire damage to your attack.

2): Dragon Claw only releases charges once. The same thing applies to Dragon Talon.

3): Cloak of Shadows will disable ranged attackers exactly as Dim Vision would. The one complication here is that it only affects those monsters which were within range of the skill at the time of casting, and these monsters will be marked with a plume of smoke over their head. The darkened sky caused by Cloak of Shadows has nothing to do with the skill's actual effects.

[Ahvae'el]

Hullo Zath.

Excellent response. I'm delighted.

You're heretofore labeled as another smarty.

Another Q though; what's the freakin' incentive to use D Tail, then? That's stupid... I mean, why did they make the skill absolutely ineffective against PIs and basically ineffective against FIs? It defeats the purpose...

About D Claw; uh, a glorified Double Swing? No thanks. 8( I still love D Talon though.

Buena Suerte!

[roguebanshee]

D Tail : Area damage with knockback, +AR & +damage (vs non PI/FI), No timer (D Flight), Faster than D Talon (no multi kicks), Doesn't require 2 claws (D Claw).

I can't remember if it also has the 'apply elemental bonuses/special state attacks to area' thing that comes/came with some other physical+magic area skills.

D Claw : +AR/+Damage claw finisher, Reasonably fast, Cheap.

I haven't seen anything yet on whether you can release charges with non-assassin skills or not. If you can't D Claw is the only good way of doing so without using kicks.

[librarian]

Heiho,

uhmm, I'm not that smart ...
But I think all answers are done already, so I can just confirm, that reduce monster resistance equipment only applies to his own damage, not the hireling-keeper's.
In fact, it seems more like the equivalent to AD in physical damage.
I know, this terms are not quite coherent, but it helps understanding why there is an attribut for lowering elemental resists and another for increasing your elemental damage - which will result in other numbers for the enemies recieved damage, when its base resistance is not zero.

Example
You deal out 100 firedam vs an enemy with 0 fire resist -> he receives 100 damage
You wear something which increases you firedam by 25%
-> he receives 125 damage
You wear something which lowers enemy resistance by 25%
-> he receives 125 damage

again
You deal out 100 firedam vs an enemy with 50% fire resist -> he receives 50 damage
You wear something which increases you firedam by 25%
-> he receives 62 damage (125/2 truncated)
You wear something which lowers enemy resistance by 25%
-> he receives 75 damage

BTW the increasing/lowering attributes don't work with all Spells done by Characters as well, so good ol' Necro's CE won't profit from both fire related attributes. I guess this is the same with the asn trap imitating CE (Death Sentry?), but I'm even less smart with asn - and, come to that, sorc :c)

[Ahvae'el]

Hullo Librarian.

Well, you always have good answers for my diablo related inquiries. You also have the best name ever.

Thanks for the calculations; I see why rainbow facets are pretty nice.

Buena Suerte.

[Raziel]

Wow, I think I can help out here!

Assassin:

1) The fire damage is based off the physical kick damage dealt to the target. Anything that increases the physical damage of the kick will also increase the subsequent fire damage. This is why TS works with DTail, and why DTail can't hurt physical immunes.

I mentally imagine it as two calls to the damage routine - the first is a call for the physical damage, applied to the kick target, returning an integer. The second call takes the first returned number and increases it by DTail's ed% and applies it in AoE as fire damage. So if the first number (the physical, single target kick damage) is zero.. you end up with zero fire AoE. I'm not sure if that even approaches reality :)

2) I'm not sure what Dragon Claw is supposed to do, but I can tell you that it doesn't work. I guess you figured that part out.

I wish it DID release two meteors. That would make it sickeningly powerful. No wait, that would make Dragon Talon sickeningly powerful - can you imagine FOUR meteors being released? LOL.

3) Cloak of Shadows is supposed to blind ranged attackers - but only the ones with the smoke over their heads. Only monsters in about a screen's radius get the smoke. Monsters beyond that can see you even if the sky is dark! So if a monster has a longer "vision" and "weapon range" than your CoS, you're screwed!

Sorceress:

1) It doesn't, currently. How it should help is something i'll leave up to the gurus.

Mercenary:

1) Can't help you here, sorry!

[Ahvae'el]

Hullo Raziel.

Thanks a bunch. I really wish that DC did what it said, or I think it said... "applies charge ups to both claw attacks." Applying TS to both claw attacks, ~I~ think, would be having, say, +300% damage in each claw swipe. But Nooo, it's only on the first claw.

If charges only release with your right hand claw, there's a huge incentive missing from the idea of using two claws. The right hand is much too favored.

I think it would be nice if they could, perhaps, reduce physical and elemental damage for DC but allow the multiple charge release. Actually, that would be fantastic.

Buena Suerte