1.10s Venom questions

[nebula]

As stated on The Arreat Summit - Assassin: Shadow Disciplines Skills page:

'Burst of Speed and Fade cannot be used at the same time. You can only use one of them at a time.'

No mention, though, of Venom. Does Venom stack with Burst of Speed?

Also, is maxed Venom effective with ranged weapons other than bows (javelins, throwing axes / knives etc.) ?

Thanks

[Freepaperclips]

In 1.1 Venom can stack with Fade or Burst. I don't know about the ranged weapons. Good question, though, I hadn't thought of it.


Edit: Fade and Burst still can't stack with each other though.

[nebula]

Thanks. I confirmed this last night - reached the magic clvl 30 and dumped a few saved points into both Venom and Burst of Speed.

Works well. I'm now planning to max Venom and increase BoS to slvl 5, maybe more if it's worth it.

Just need to find a fast (preferably very fast) throwing weapon with decent damge - suggestions anyone?

[Quillan]

Anyone know how Venom stacks (or vetos) with poison dagger? For example, a high level poison dagger combined with either the benefits from a rainbow facet jewel (on level up) or using one of the few items that grants venom as a skill, such as archanid's mesh belt.

Thanks

Quillan

[Freepaperclips]

For throwing info try: Throwology It's a good site for info and comparisons if you're into minutiae.

[Kinbote]

You don't really need a dedicated throwing weapon. All you need is 1 point in Blade Fury and you can use any weapon as a throwing weapon.

The 3/4 damage penalty also applies to your Venom damage, but IMO the speed (and unlimited ammo) makes up for it.

[Ruvanal]

The 3/4 damage penalty also applies to your Venom damage, but IMO the speed (and unlimited ammo) makes up for it.

The 3/4 weapon damage modifier is applied only to the physical damage. The elemental damages (like Venom) are unaffected by it.

[Kinbote]

At least according to the damage display, Blade Fury does cause a 3/4 Venom damage penalty. I reloaded 1.10s and took some screenshots.

This shows an assassin with Venom off. My max Blade Fury damage is listed as 52, and my max Venom damage at L 11 is listed as 245:
http://home.nyc.rr.com/kahlil/venomoff.JPG

Then I cast Venom:
http://home.nyc.rr.com/kahlil/venomfury.JPG

If I got full Venom damage I should do max 297 damage. But the damage display shows me that Venom is only giving me
235 = 52 + 3/4(245)

[Ruvanal]

First I do not much trust the "Lying Character Screen" too much because it all too often shows the information wrong on many skills. In this case however it is reflecting the correct information, based on repeating tests from earlier versions. In the the earlier versions of the game mechanism that is used to adjust the damage by 3/4 would only work on the physical portion of the damage and not effect the elemental components. This is a change in 1.10.

[Zath]

Does that apply to all the SrcDam calculations in skills.txt, Ruvanal? What about the SrcDamage values in missiles.txt? I remember reading a post where you explained how these two used to interact, but I cannot recall the details anymore. There is some vague memory of SrcDamage=-1 in missiles.txt making the game fetch the damage that was calculated back in skills.txt once per attack, whereas a non zero value would just apply the SrcDamage/128 multiplier to damage.

One reason for this confusion is me seeing Strafe call upon the same multipleshotarrow and multipleshotbolt missiles that Multishot does, which have SrcDamage=96 in missiles.txt. Since Strafe shouldn't be taking a 1/4 hit in damage, this would suggest the SrcDamage values in missiles.txt are ignored if SrcDam is non-zero in skills.txt?

[Ruvanal]

In actuality the SrcDamage=96 in missiles.txt is getting used on Strafe when it should not be. This is a case of the Lying Character Screen showing the damage at full value when in fact it is also taking a 1/4 hit in effectiveness from the skills.txt Strafe calling the same missiles that multishot does. It should be calling a different set of missiles that do not have this reduced damage on them.

I thought that I had heard of this getting reported earlier as a bug, but you may want to check up on it. It would be easy to fix in a mod, but that will not help the bulk of the players in the game. And it is not easy for them to notice or test either.

[Snorelax]

Does this damage bug apply in 1.09 as well as 1.10s?

[Zath]

Just to elaborate further on the problem:

Multishot has SrcDam=96 in skills.txt, and calls upon the multipleshotarrow and multipleshotbolt missiles with SrcDamage=96 in missiles.txt.

Strafe has SrcDam=128 in skills.txt, and calls upon the multipleshotarrow and multipleshotbolt missiles with SrcDamage=96 in missiles.txt.

From your understanding of the MPQ files, would this imply that Multishot is taking the 1/4 damage penalty twice (perhaps compounded), whereas Strafe is also taking it once? If SrcDam and SrcDamage are both being applied, do they both affect elemental damage, or is it just restricted to SrcDam in skills.txt (the difference between Multishot and Strafe)?

[Ruvanal]

The SrcDamage in missiles.txt and the SrcDam in skills.txt both are point to the same thing in the final execution of the damage resolution. One of them will just overwrite the other, not both be applied. In this case the missiles.txt one is overwriting the value first set in the the skills.txt.

The difference in them is when the game is actually building the database that it ends up using during execution. Depending on which file it is loading at the time is how it will check for certain conditions such as SrcDamage=-1 to signify an override to do something special in the handling.

Both of these are causing the elemental damage to be adjusted also because that is how the damage resolution code in the DLL is handling it now.

[Jarulf]

The SrcDamage in missiles.txt and the SrcDam in skills.txt both are point to the same thing in the final execution of the damage resolution.  One of them will just overwrite the other, not both be applied.  In this case the missiles.txt one is overwriting the value first set in the the skills.txt.

The difference in them is when the game is actually building the database that it ends up using during execution.  Depending on which file it is loading at the time is how it will check for certain conditions such as SrcDamage=-1 to signify an override to do something special in the handling.

Both of these are causing the elemental damage to be adjusted also because that is how the damage resolution code in the DLL is handling it now.

Has the use of those two files changed in 1.10? (I have not looked at all at 1.10). It used to work as follow when the game set up a missile:

If there was a skill mentioned in the "skill" column, use damage data from that skill in skill.txt, otherwise use damage data from missile.txt

[Zath]

Are you referring to the columns in missiles.txt, Jarulf? Both the MissileSkill and Skill columns for multipleshotarrow and multipleshotbolt happen to be empty in missiles.txt.

[Ruvanal]

Has the use of those two files changed in 1.10? (I have not looked at all at 1.10). It used to work as follow when the game set up a missile:

If there was a skill mentioned in the "skill" column, use damage data from that skill in skill.txt, otherwise use damage data from missile.txt

Yes, you are right the "skill" column is still being used in part to set up getting the damage data from the skills.txt file. But it is also possibile to set up missiles that have that field blank and can still fetch some the data for setting up the damage from the skills.txt file also. The changes to these two files is rather large. Both files have greatly increased in size and there are a lot of 'errors' in them on how the skills and missiles are set up.

In the case of Strafe and Multishot, they are both calling the same two missile records in missiles.txt. This is causing the The damage enhancements of Strafe to be ignored and instead just uses Multishot's 3/4 damage instead (revised version of it).

[Zath]

Do you report all the bugs you find to Blizzard, Ruvanal? If you don't have a hotline, who's sending in the bug reports? I was under the impression that Isolde would check fansite forums from time to time, but if he has really left Blizzard... :blink:

[Raziel]

In the case of Strafe and Multishot, they are both calling the same two missile records in missiles.txt.  This is causing the The damage enhancements of Strafe to be ignored and instead just uses Multishot's 3/4 damage instead (revised version of it).

Um.. so Strafe is dealing 3/4 damage per arrow as well, and it's ed% is disregarded? Am I reading you right?

If so.. :blink: :ph34r:

[Ruvanal]

Do you report all the bugs you find to Blizzard, Ruvanal? If you don't have a hotline, who's sending in the bug reports?

No hotline, not even a cold line.

Most of these bugs have actually been spotted by others before me. I have just been occasionaly digging into the game to see what the real problem is.

I am not even playing the game all that much right now due to how much I am aware of bugs everywhere in it. This can really ruin the enjoyment if you are noticing bugs that can potentionally be 'breaking the game' at least once every 5 minutes of play (sometimes as often as every few seconds).

Raziel:

Um.. so Strafe is dealing 3/4 damage per arrow as well, and it's ed% is disregarded? Am I reading you right?

If so..

I checked it, I was a little off there. The percent damage from the Strafe is getting applied along with the 3/4 adjustment. You would need to get at least +33% damage increase from the skill to bring the physical component of the missiles back up to the damage that you would be getting from a normal attack. This does not take into account what the 3/4 penalty is doing to the elemental effects of the damage. This still leaves teh skill seriously bugged.

Two suggested fixes for the skill would be
1. Give the Strafe skill its own missiles with the correct SrcDamage=128 or actully pointing back to the skill itself for this data.

2. In monstats.txt set the dopplezon and valkyrie back to neverCount=0. This would allow Stafe (and Fend) to use these two skills to 'synergetically' boost the attack count for extra missiles (or Fend attacks). It would allow even a solo Amazon a chance at a three shot burst of this skill against a single opponent. This is without having to deal with the unbalancing effects of getting a lot of 'bonus' missiles from things like necromancer skeletons.