Oddities in Assassin Dragon Talon kick

[Crystalion]

Raziel posted in Atma's [ http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...t=ST&f=5&t=1533 ] about an Assassin build focusing on using Crushing Blow items (which may be buggy in v1.10 beta, see http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...t=ST&f=8&t=1416 ) and I happen to be playing an untwinked level 36 v1.10 beta Assassin that has 24 uncommitted skill points so I spent a little time playing with Dragon Talon and found what I consider to be a fair number of oddities...

ATM I'm not finding the thread listing the new v1.10 assasin kick base damages for various boot types or I'd also link that here.

So, using just various items my non-twink has, I pumped Dragon Talon to ~18 (for 4 kicks) and ran around a bit.

What first surprised me in my experiments is that the damage display is wrong. The poison and elemental adders from your charms items and, indeed, your "unused by kick" weapon are being carried by the kick. As well as leeching. As well as monster-flee, and presumably all the other special effects.

As if that wasn't odd enough, it sure seems that the kicks are using the range of the equiped weapon to determine if you have the reach to kick the monster [tested by remaining in place and starting the kick before the monster had gotten to me].

So, as Raziel posted, the multiple strikes per kick make %cast and CB extremely powerful.

Even assuming CB is presently buggy and will be fixed this seems like a major skill now. Perhaps too good. [While using a claw I may have seen a crit, so I'm also wondering if the kick is getting crits from claw mastery--not tested, just a heads up fyi].

Of course, if I end up using the skill, I will desparately need a mod to silence her "hiyah" growl for each kick--maddening.

Does anyone have a pointer to what affects the frame timing for the skill? You know, does BoS help, etc.

[Tub]

I can tell you about the speeds in 1.09. didn't verify them for 1.10, and won't do that before 1.10 final is out (it just takes too much time).

these tables use effective ias, calculated as:
eff. ias = [ (120 * ias) / (120 + ias) ] + [ias from BoS] - [weapon base speed]
ias: ias from the claw in your left hand doesn't count (as said, 1.09 data, didn't check for 1.10)
ias from bos: was bugged in 1.09, the game used the run-bonus for ias. Didn't check if it's fixed in 1.10.
weapon base speed: as listed in the Arreat Summit

first kick of one attack:

Code:

baseframes 12
0 -  8 %   -> 12 frames
9 - 18 %   -> 11 frames
19 - 30 %   -> 10 frames
31 - 44 %   -> 9 frames
45 - 62 %   -> 8 frames
63+ %        -> 7 frames

every following kick:

Code:

baseframes 4
0   - 24 %  -> 4 frames
25  - 66 %  -> 3 frames
67+ %       -> 2 frames

so, you can probably get away without BoS if you use fast claws and some ias on your gear. If you need fade ..


Kickdamage:
I updated my german kickdamage-calc from diablo2.de. I guess I should translate it to english some time, until then, just take a wild guess where to enter the values. Should work ;)
http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/Kickcalc.php

no guarantee for anything though, didn't check the formulas too close (only a few PvP-tests).

yes, elemental damage adds to the kick, as do boots. a quick translation:
3-8 Boots
4-10 Heavy Boots
6-12 Chain Boots
8-16 Light Plated Boots
10-20 Greaves
26-46 Demonhide Boots
28-50 Sharkskin Boots
23-52 Mesh Boots
37-64 Battle Boots
39-80 War Boots
65-100 Wyrmhide Boots
60-110 Scarabshell Boots
69-118 Boneweave Boots
50-145 Mirrored Boots
83-149 Myrmidon Greaves

this boot-damage is multiplied with (0.6 * str), then added to your base kick damage you get from the 1.09 formula.


I don't know about kick-range. Thanks for the hint, sounds interesting.


Crushing Blow: yes, it is bugged in 1.10 beta. but I'll leave the details to others, as it wasn't me who found out.
An interesting option would be maxed Venom. The poison-lenght-cap at 0.4 seconds seems to be a "feature" (why is beyond me), so use it. 4 quick kicks can inflict a lot of poison damage at those enemys. Good for PIs as well. And since Venom is independant from BoS/Fade now, there is no good reason not to use Venom (unless you need your skill points somewhere else)


The CB / DTalon-Assassin was a working build in 1.09. Not the fastest killer, but sure did work. If Blizzard fixes CB, the added leech, elemental damage (Venom!) and increased kicks should keep it playable.


ciao
Tub

[Zath]

Ruvanal's post over at the AB suggested that the boot damage strength multiplier was 1.2 instead of 0.6. Can we confirm which is correct in this case?

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...ST&f=56&t=28576

[Ruvanal]

Ruvanal's post over at the AB suggested that the boot damage strength multiplier was 1.2 instead of 0.6. Can we confirm which is correct in this case?

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...ST&f=56&t=28576

The actual work was started here.
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...&hl=boot+damage

[Dagni]

An interesting option would be maxed Venom. The poison-lenght-cap at 0.4 seconds seems to be a "feature" (why is beyond me), so use it. 4 quick kicks can inflict a lot of poison damage at those enemys.

Hmm. I wonder to what extent that is true. If you have the fastest kick speed and 4 kicks total, that means your first kick takes 7 frames, and the remaining 3 kicks take 2 frames each. If the actual damage is inflicted on the third frame for the first kick, and the second frame for the later kicks, then all the hits fall within frames 3-13. That's an 11 frame span, just greater than the duration of Venom. But if the damage is actually dealt on a later frame for the first kick, or an earlier frame for the later kicks, then all the attacks fall within the duration of the first attack's Venom, not (necessarily) resetting the duration at all.

Still, the multiple attacks could be of some help. Each of the later attacks can reset the duration if that particular Venom attack randomly does more poison damage the earlier attack. So the second kick should have a 50% chance to reset the duration, since it is equally likely for either of the first two attacks to have the higher random value picked from the min/max range of the poison damage. Of course, the second kick resetting the duration could work against you if you did have 11 frames between the first and last attack, because now the last attack is not guaranteed to reset the duration.

- Dagni

[Crystalion]

I can tell you  [...]

Thanks for the info.

And now for another oddity (with Dragon Talon and Blade Fury being "pseudo-weapons")...

I've been looking at some of the weenie unique items that drop for me (Andarial runs are, as another poster noted, surprisingly good for drops) because I know they can potentially be cubed to elite--since all elite weapons have decent damage it becomes more an issue of what the mods are on the unique. So I was paying attention when I got one of the "joke" uniques and realized that in some sense, in v1.10 beta, it is an uber item for Assassins...

Serpent Lord, (normal) Long Staff
misc minor mods; 50% target defense
and, to quote Arreat Summit: "100% Mana Stolen Per Hit (Yes that's correct!)"

And yes, indeed, my kicks were skimming 100% mana, as were my shuriken. Both benefit from the 50% target defense. The kicks do not care that the weapon has sucky damage. The shuriken damage is poor of course, clearly needing the staff to be cubed to elite.

So, for proof of concept, I was spamming out my whole globe of mana in Mind Blasts and then kicking some poor senseless monster to instantly refill the whole globe. This could be quite a useful weapon switch if you don't like going to town for mana potions in middle of long battles.

[BOB2]

I happen to be playing an untwinked level 36 v1.10 beta Assassin that has 24 uncommitted skill points so I spent a little time playing with Dragon Talon and found what I consider to be a fair number of oddities...

What first surprised me in my experiments is that the damage display is wrong. The poison and elemental adders from your charms items and, indeed, your "unused by kick" weapon are being carried by the kick. As well as leeching. As well as monster-flee, and presumably all the other special effects.

First sorry if the question was already asked (and answerd).
There is still something I do not really understand. I am in fact a litlle confused.
From reading this post, I undestood that the damage of the "unused by kick" weapon is added to the dragon talon damage.
But from the reference post: where the actual work begins from ruvanal: here, it seems that the weapon damage is not added to the total damage of dragon talon.

Furthermore, if the damage is added, what happen in case of a dual claws wielding?

Thanks in advance,

BOB2

[Dagni]

Dragon Talon/Dragon Flight + Serpent Lord = Assassin's version of Hunger :blink: ;)

With a high level Blade Shield supplying the damage, and that weapon (even non-upgraded), you could probably refill your mana ball just by letting a monster get close! Unless Blade Shield doesn't leech off of the skill's damage?

- Dagni

[Crystalion]

There is still something I do not really understand. I am in fact a litlle confused.
From reading this post, I undestood that the damage of the "unused by kick" weapon is added to the dragon talon damage.
But from the reference post: [...] it seems that the weapon damage is not added to the total damage of dragon talon.

Furthermore, if the damage is added, what happen in case of a dual claws wielding?

The kicks, of which Dragon Talon is under discussion because it attempts to hit one monster repeated at a fast clip, do not use physical base + enhancers of your weapon(s) but instead, v1.10 beta, combine your str/dex, str/boots_type, PLUS (though not displayed) your elemental adders, wherever their source (even if from your weapons). Since the kicks ALSO carry special effects (knockback, monster flee, crushing blow, etc.) AND "procs" such as cast soandso when striking they are coming under discussion frequently now.

As to your dual claw question, I don't know if the elemental damages and effects from both claws get added in or just one claw or an average. I don't really know if the weapon range affects the kick range, though I suspect it might. And I don't know if, using claws, the kicks can get crits via claw mastery. Above all, I don't know how much of the improvements to the kicks are intentional vs. destined to be tweaked before release.

[BOB2]

The kicks, of which Dragon Talon is under discussion because it attempts to hit one monster repeated at a fast clip, do not use physical base + enhancers of your weapon(s) but instead, v1.10 beta, combine your str/dex, str/boots_type, PLUS (though not displayed) your elemental adders, wherever their source (even if from your weapons). Since the kicks ALSO carry special effects (knockback, monster flee, crushing blow, etc.) AND "procs" such as cast soandso when striking they are coming under discussion frequently now.

As to your dual claw question, I don't know if the elemental damages and effects from both claws get added in or just one claw or an average. I don't really know if the weapon range affects the kick range, though I suspect it might. And I don't know if, using claws, the kicks can get crits via claw mastery. Above all, I don't know how much of the improvements to the kicks are intentional vs. destined to be tweaked before release.

Thanks for your quick reply.
So if I get a weapon with nice mod like leech for example, the leech will be calculated based on the kick damage before elemental damage are added.
I was now wondering about damage enhancer jewel (% or +max/min). Do you know if they the affect the kick "effective" damage?
If mods of dual claws stack together on the kick, it will be nice :) B)

[Raziel]

As to your dual claw question, I don't know if the elemental damages and effects from both claws get added in or just one claw or an average.

I can answer this in terms of Blade Fury but not really Dragon Talon (sorry). Even though this is a DTalon thread, I figured it would be of interest.

I took an Assassin out onto the blood moor a while back with 2x claws socketed with "Strength" (Amn + Tir). Each claw therefore gave +20 Strength, 25% CB, and 7% LL. I also tested with two dual socketed gemmed claws, one with 2x lightning gems the other with one fire and one cold gem.

With the "Strength" claws the assassin's Blade Fury appeared to cause Crushing Blows (dramatic "chunky" loss of life) on monsters when dual wielding far more frequently than when she was just wielding one claw. I gave this a run over a couple of monsters, because it seemed horribly broken to me and I wanted to be sure.

With the elemental damage claws equipped, it appeared that only the elemental/spell effects from the first claw equipped get applied via Blade Fury. Depending on which claw I equipped first monsters would either zap or turn blue/explode, but with the blue/red claw on first, i'd never see the lightning zap.

Anyone want to confirm / doublecheck? :)

As for Dragon Talon, I say who cares - wield "Crescent Moon" and it's gg. But I will say that wielding "The Cranium Basher", reported very similar damage on the LCS to wielding an ordinary flanged mace..

[Winter]

Serpent Lord, (normal) Long Staff
misc minor mods; 50% target defense
and, to quote Arreat Summit: "100% Mana Stolen Per Hit (Yes that's correct!)"

GENIUS!

*Goes to pull the Serpent Lord off the Amazon and stick it on the bootysin* :D

Has anyone else noticed Dragon Talon's tendency to not lose your chargeups? What i mean is, i'll get three charges of Cobra Strike and then Dragon Talon and i'll get my life back, but won't lose my Cobra Strike charges. The next Dragon Talon will also replenish life/mana, and i will lose my charges.

I have a feeling this has something to do with Dragon Claw not working as advertised.

[Raziel]

Serpent Lord + Goblin Toe = nearly unlimited Blade Fury's and/or Dragon Talon with a decent chance of Crushing Blow. NEF the staff if you want Knockback (might not be a good idea for DTalon).

Combine with Death's Sash and Gloves for crazy amounts of life at very, very low levels. Basically you have pretty good survivability right there.

[Raziel]

Uploaded basic kicktest character.

Level 35, completed up to Act 4 Normal (Shadowmaster'd)

Skills: Dragon Talon: 20, Cloak of Shadows: 1, Blade Fury: 1, rest unallocated
Stats: None allocated!

Equipment: Dual "Strength" Katars.

http://www22.brinkster.com/craziel/kiqtest.d2s.basic

Drag 'n Drop or Cut 'n Paste, and take ".basic" off the end after downloading.

[Ignatz]

Here is the Babelized version of the site. Always good for a laugh, that babel. It does a pretty good job in this case (barring the "Calculator of Tub . Thank-beautifully at NOC a that patiently of me step themselves read").

Anyway, I've been running a kicker around for about a week now. The damage your calculator comes up with does gel with my character screen, whatever that is worth. The TS damage surprises me, though, since the AB reported in a couple places that it did not add to the fire splash damage now. Now I'm hearing conflicting things.

Anybody know for sure what, exactly, Dtail carries over to the splash damage? My experience so far seems to indicate that damage from Claws of Thunder and Phoenix Strike may even be included in the splash, above and beyond what the skill itself is doing. I'm having a hard time figuring that out for sure, but the damage output of Dtail increases significantly on the character screen (in to the 10's of thousands range) and, (in a rare agreement with reality?) monsters with low resistances to lightning and fire damage often get obliterated outright with a fully charged CoT + DTail.

However, this seems to happen inconsistantly, which either indicates that I'm a poor judge of what's going on, or that something else wafts that sweet, sweet brine o' fish.

[Crystalion]

*Goes to pull the Serpent Lord off the Amazon and stick it on the bootysin* :D

I'd assumed it goes without saying, but upon reflection I decided I should mention, what with the new start-at-zero ladder coming up, that if you or your friends find the unique normal Axe of Fechmar your bootysin definitely wants it.

It is a sucky 2h axe in all respects expect for "freezes target + 3" which is amazing if you put it on a weapon switch and use it for:

1) when slumming (monsters lvl way < your level) to find items or rush someone, spamming Blade Fury
2) when warping in with Dragon Flight (weapon switch, rt click, weapon switch) vs. non-freeze immunes
3) when (assuming they fix the fury/zeal/talon v1.10 bug) going toe to toe one on one vs. non-freeze immune with talon

Heres a summary, lifted from Amazon Basin (AS has it also, in different form)...

The chance of freezing (melee) is: CHANCE = 50 + 5(AL + 4B - DL)
The chance of freezing (ranged) is: CHANCE = [20 + 5(AL + 4B - DL)] /3 (note the differences, in yellow).
AL = attacker level
DL = defender level
B = freeze bonus from item (default is 1)

For both melee and ranged, freeze length = [(CHANCE - [random number between 1-100]) * 2] + 25 frames
for a minimum length of 25 frames (1 second) and a maximum length of 250 frames (10 seconds)

So, for convenience, assuming the formulae are correct, upon hitting "with" Fechmar vs. clvl==mlvl:

kick: 110% chance (certainty) of freezing for roughly 2 to 10 seconds, unformly distributed, reduced by difficulty
blade fury: ~27% chance (per blade hitting) for freezing for roughly 1 to 3 seconds, mostly near 1, reduced by difficulty

That later doesn't seem so impressive, which is why option #1 is slumming--so let's look at clvl ~= mlvl + 14:

blade fury: 50% chance (per blade hitting) for freezing for roughly 1 second, half the time, 1 to 5 seconds the other half of the time, unformly distributed, reduced by difficulty

Naturally a Multishot or Strafe Bowazon slums more effectively than this Axe of Fechmar Assassin trick *if* she has a Buriza (also +3). I rather think the axe drops more often and that people consider it a piece of junk and would be happy to just give it to an Assassin if they knew it had any value whatsoever.

Certainly, in melee, if you are using CoS to isolate the battles and warp in with a freezing Flight the monster might be Taloned to death before it thaws. :)

If you were nutso enough to upgrade this Axe to Elite and put a Cham (+3) into it things look interesting (please, don't try this at home--a Buriza is a much better item to pull this stunt on--I'd hate to see you blow a Cham rune for real). For example, the minimum freeze time jumps, upon hitting "with" Fechmar vs. clvl==mlvl:

kick: 170% chance (certainty) of freezing for roughly 7 to 14 seconds, unformly distributed, reduced by difficulty

If a monster reduced this duration by substantial (~30 to 70%) cold resist (I think thats how it used to work) then this is still a long time, in hell, without lowering their resist in some way.

Back in D2 Classic my zealot had great fun with Freezing (Iceblink) after having used knockback/blind/poison successfully (Cleglaws, Coif of Glory, Hellplague) so this Talon idea might work for you or it might be a useless toy.

Grab yourself an Axe and have some fun as a Fech'ing Bootysin ;)

[Tub]

Anyway, I've been running a kicker around for about a week now. The damage your calculator comes up with does gel with my character screen, whatever that is worth. The TS damage surprises me, though, since the AB reported in a couple places that it did not add to the fire splash damage now. Now I'm hearing conflicting things.

As said, I only did a few PvP-tests, and it wasn't possible to test Fire-Splash-damage with just 2 players. I should check that some time, thanks for the info. Currently that weird thing called real life keeps me from testing too much though.

[Brista]

How would it stack with Iceblink?

[Crystalion]

How would it stack with Iceblink?

Iceblink is +1, Fechmar is +3, iirc Cham runes in weapons are +3 each. AFAIK it is still correct to simply add whatever you're using together to produce the number to plug into the formula. So adding in an Iceblink does help a bit.

When I posted the Axe of Fechmar I was using was imported from warehouse (I play single player or LAN/WinXP) v1.09. After testing I sold the axe to the shop as I'm trying to keep my new v1.10 bootysin in v1.10 land (only twink is that my v1.09 necro, during testing in v1.10 beta, got a nice drop: rare wrist sword, which I passed along).

Ironically enough, the next testing I did was related to rushing, so my level 46 bootysin killed normal Andarial (2 players, LAN) and she dropped--can't you guess?--an Axe of Fechmar. Now safely in my stash :D

Cham runes are really really good (even just one) in a melee weapon. The Axe of Fechmar is effectively a cheapo cham rune for bootysins because your kick damage isn't based on weapon damage (which is what kills the weapon for Fury druids). The penalty, in this case, is that other mods on a "real" weapon and your shield/blocking lose out. However, when everything you touch is a block of ice, one can potentially forgo a shield.

A Zealot using lots of points in one of the (undead or) elemental damage adding auras is okay with Fechmar until game difficulty runs over it (need for shield as a melee char; need for massive damage). A melee char using Iceblink, albeit only +1, trivializes slumming (certain and long freeze on monsters way below your level). IIRC in v1.09 (v1.10 is buggy for BS atm) Assassin Blade Shield with Iceblink on while slumming was conceptually much like Sorc Frozen Shield (or perhaps Chill Shield, as the monsters don't need to actually hit you to be affected).

[Crystalion]

ias: ias from the claw in your left hand doesn't count (as said, 1.09 data, didn't check for 1.10)

Noticed (again?--had forgotten at least) someone at the AB mentioning dual claw weapon block works at full (not 1/3) effectiveness while running so I decided to rethink being a weapon/shield assassin. This begged the question of how dual claw use, in v1.10s, affects Dragon Talon (which, along with Blade Fury, is my primary damage attack).

I remembered what you said here and have done a quick eyeball/ear test with a Greater Talon (-30) and a Hatchet Hands (10) by shift (holding still, no monster) attacking.

What seemed to be the case is that I saw/heard four speeds (when not using BoS)...

(Edit: probable bug effect being seen here--refer to edit at end of post...)

slowest
two claws, Greater Talons equiped last

slow
one claw: hatchet hands

decent
two claws, hatchet hands equiped last

better
one claw: Great Talons

There was no doubt whatsoever that the slowest, adding Greater Talons to hatchhands, was *slower* than just the hatchet hands alone.

I find this odd, as it neither matches an "ignores one claw's speed" nor does it match "averages both claws speed".

A friend suggested I need to equip two sets of Greater Talons, as the data so far does match an "adds both claws speed" and this would possibly be a confirming test.

Edit: while testing by grabbing some Blade Talons from the shop (-20) it occurred to me to test by doing a weapon switch back and forth after each change of equipment (since v1.10 beta has bugs adding things up and this seems to be one workaround). This indeed normalized test results such that averaging the speed of both weapons would seem to be the best fit (as the lone hatchet hands is now the slowest case, and hatchet hands with a faster claw is not as slow and doesn't seem dependant on which claw was last equiped).