If you strike me down, I shall become more

[Crystalion]

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

Since the item attribute miscount bug is well known and probably responsible for what I'm about to relate, I probably don't really need to post this in the Maggot Lair, but my friend suggested the subject line and it fits too hilariously with the observed phenomenon, so here we are...

Because of Ruvanal's investigations into the way mlvl works for no-ratio monsters in some areas of the game in v1.10beta we can visit some spots and fight tougher monsters (whose first TC drop will, at least, be a promoted aka better drop) than are elsewhere in the act. A notable example is that the Burial Grounds, The Crypt, and The Mausoleum in hell difficulty will have monsters of level 81, 83, 85 (plus bump for champs, minions, bosses) whereas other Cold Plains stuff is probably only high 60s.

I have this hell allowed (I rushed him) HolyFist Paladin character (that I don't play much--XP factory proof of concept char) who is level 52 and lives in the nightmare Zombie Garden (Pindle area) because he trashes undead. So I thought I'd run him to the hell Burial Grounds and check it out. Sure enough, he kills all the stuff in the Burial Grounds no problem. Bloodraven resurrects stuff that doesn't give xp when I kill it, but eventually that runs out of steam (apparently she is either limited in her total "nest" number or resurrectees have some constitutional limit?).

So I'm left with Bloodraven. Now I happen to be level 53, my Barb merc is 52 and she's apparently level 88. I decide to FoH her a bit over time (but not slark down tons of mana potions) and Holy Bolt my merc to keep him alive, distracting and (very very slowly) killing her.

This battle took over ten minutes.

After the fight was over and my friend and I had time to discuss it, we realized we'd seen a couple of anomalous things. In the first part of the battle I'd run all over chasing the hyper B' (short for "Bloodraven"--did you think I meant something else?) and my hireling had died a couple times as a result. So eventually I pinned her in a corner of fencing (with my hireling slightly closer, so she always targeted him) where it took over five minutes to finish her off.

Once she was pinned, we did not see her use Fire Arrow even once. (I suspect perhaps the random number generator seeding partly on x,y coord might get in ruts in such a case). (edit: come to think of it, I don't recall ever seeing my hireling poisoned either).

Since she is firing lots of normal arrows, and I'm occassionally HBing my hireling to heal him, we were paying attention to whether her arrows seemed to be missing or hitting. The short answer is that a *lot* of her arrows missed. Afterwards we are thinking about mlvl vs. hireling lvl and AR vs DR and scratching our heads (Hireling displayed 1315 defense, d2data claims 7044 AR for B'). Based on our calculations, she should be hitting at the cap of 95% (not even close).

But then we're looking at the Barb's equipment: Swordguard (+100 Defense vs. Missile) and Haemosu's Adamant (+35 Defense vs. Missile). BTW, HolyFist found this stuff in his normal line of work (aka trashing undead). Our first thought is: gee, could that (D vs. M) mean percent bonus?! But then I thought of the bug about item effects adding up.

Our best guess is that all the times my hireling died before this fight (on the way to BG etc.) may also have bumped the power of the bug, effectively giving him a huge DR boost. Thus the quote that starts this post.

[Guest]

Once she was pinned, we did not see her use Fire Arrow even once.

her AI seems to tell her to move all the time, so she got a problem with that. maybe she was trying to summon but there wasn't any room, or she got disrupted?

when i was killing her with hydra on nightmare she didn't do a thing, the hydras(hydrae?) made her spend all her time running out of the way of the shots.

edit > oh, you meant she didn't just use fire arrow :o

well, she does have 28% chance to block, but no shield(or code for blocking without shield), in that case the 'zeal' bug could of explained her problem.

ooh, then there's the hireling bug with missiles...they just don't seem to be hit(or damaged much) by them.

ooh ooh, barb mercs also have damageregen of 10, which means a lot of hp regenerated, and with the slow health-bar updating that can be confusing with "not being hit".

I suspect perhaps the random number generator seeding partly on x,y coord

i thought that was firing angle? or maybe it was firing angle and coordinate :huh:

[Pren]

As a note, the bloodraven limit to summoning the dead is not in 1.09. She hits it very rapidly in 1.10 (at least in normal), but does not in 1.09. I have an extremely humorous screenshot of the results of this, but no hosting...

[Ferengi]

I've seen the "run Raven out of revives" trick many times, since I use it whenever I cannot eliminate her fast. I always thought of it as limited charges. And I've used the "trap her in a corner" too [but only after the revives are exhausted!], and I noticed that the problem suddenly got easier. Based on other interactions, I always thought a minimum attack range was required in her AI.

[Bolty]

As a note, the bloodraven limit to summoning the dead is not in 1.09. She hits it very rapidly in 1.10 (at least in normal), but does not in 1.09. I have an extremely humorous screenshot of the results of this, but no hosting...

You know, there are places where you can send such "interesting" shots. :)

-Bolty