fanaticism AR bonus

[LavCat]

I have been exploring ways to raise my fanatic zealot's AR, which at the moment displays as 6142. In inventory he has a captain's charm. Without the charm (all else being equal) he has level 23 fanaticism, which according to the skill tree display gives "attack: +150 percent". With the charm, the skill level is 24, and the listed bonus is +155 percent. The character screen however lists the actual AR as 6142 with or without the charm.

I can think of four possibilities: the character screen is wrong, the skill display is wrong, both the character screen and the skill display are wrong, or there is some granularity in the AR bonus calculation.

I can't believe I am the first one to notice this, so I went back and found 353 threads on fanaticism from the old forum. I can't say I read every one, but none seemed to address this issue.

Can anyone explain what is going on? (And I hope this is the correct forum in which to ask the question.)

[Elric of Grans]

Hail LavCat,

"I can think of four possibilities: the character screen is wrong..."

It's wrong more often than not: I no longer even look at it, as you cannot trust the information. Fear not, you are getting an AR boost from charms - even if they are not displayed. Not sure if there are any threads or not: it's not news that the Lying Character Screen is wrong ;) By the way, this is the correct forum for fiddly game-workings information such as this. Maggot Lair for bug reports, Armoury for strategy, Fortress for setting up games, Atma's for general DII chat. Hmm... where's the Paladin-bashing forum? ;)

[WarBlade]

Try searching for mentions of the "Lying Character Screen" instead. :lol: You should get a few hits that way. BTW, the merc screen tends to lie a bit too, so don't go too deep into using that for any feedbck either. ;)

[Striker]

Hmm... where's the Paladin-bashing forum? ;)

Apparently wherever you post. *cough* spammer *cough* ;)

And chalk up another vote for possibility number 1.

[NERDmanWhippy]

Hmm... where's the Paladin-bashing forum? ;)

Hey hey... LOL...where is the Mod bashing forum ;)

(All in jest)

I love my pally very very much :)

J

[LavCat]

Elric, thank you. Do you feel up to checking my manual calculation (if you call the Windows calculator "manual")?

Total dex is 208. If 1 dex = 4 AR, then this is 832. AR items add 346 AR, for a total of 1178. The percentage modifiers are Herald of Zakarum, 20%; level 25 zeal, 250%; and level 24 fanaticism, 155% -- for a total of 425%.

Thus total AR = 1178 + 1178 * 4.25 = 6184.5

In addition he has 300 AR against demons, so the AR against demons should be:

6184.5 + 300 + 4.25 * 300 = 7759.5

If I switch to using Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band, I should get 176.7 more AR from the boost to zeal and fanaticism, for a new total of 6361.2, or 7681.2 against demons.

(...a couple of hours later -- forum sotware said I did not have permission to post when I tried to send this. Grrr.)

Anyhow, I switched things around and got my AR up to (I calculate) 7071.75, or 8646.75 against demons. The character screen now says 7029. I don't need to go into the item detail here, but I'm mainly looking for confirmation that the formula I'm using is correct.

I gave Bul-Kathos' back to my poor bowazon. By the way, what is a reasonable AR for an amazon or an elf?

[LavCat]

Yeah, thanks, "Lying Character Screen" got a few hits. I stayed late at work to use the TI line.

[Tommi]

I got the following:

AR from Dex = 4*Dex - 8 = 4*208 - 8 = 824
AR from items = 346
Total AR before % bonuses = 1170

Bonus from HoZ = [1170*20/100] = 234
Bonus from Zeal = [1170*250/100] = 2925
Bonus from Fana = [1170*155/100] = 1813

[] indicates rounding down.

Total AR = 6142

It seems that the char screen is correct on this.

With a lower level Fanaticism (+150% to AR), AR should drop to 6084. May be there is a display bug that it does not get updated.

Cheers,

Tommi

[Elric of Grans]

Hail LavCat,

My Amazons generally end up with 200 base Dex, as well as a little +dex, and have slvl5 Pennetrate, with +skills, and maybe a little +AR. They have no troubles.

Elves have an innate ITD ability that even works against bosses :lol:

[Dani]

Hail LavCat,

My Amazons generally end up with 200 base Dex, as well as a little +dex, and have slvl5 Pennetrate, with +skills, and maybe a little +AR. They have no troubles.

Elves have an innate ITD ability that even works against bosses :lol:

My Cheeseazon (Buriza, multi, guided, lots of mf...very high valk, might merc...5k damage) )has Penetrate maxed, almost 400 dex, and well, I should check her AR one day.
The dex is pumped for damage, but the Penetrate came from an observation from a German semi-friend of mine, about countless Amazons spraying maxed multishot yet not really hitting that many targets.
Umm, I'm rambling again. Anyways. I don't think AR is really that important (as in it's not important enough, same as DR) in the end. Because it has surprisingly little effect compared to the clvl/mlvl comparison, so really the only use I see for really pumping the AR is for variants of the type that can't replay any areas. (and even that much less so since the players x command)

[LavCat]

...
It seems that the char screen is correct on this.

With a lower level Fanaticism (+150% to AR), AR should drop to 6084. May be there is a display bug that it does not get updated.

Thanks, people, for all the helpful replies! -- Elric's too (joke).

Tommi, the AR formula I used was from this thread on the old forum:
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/cgi-bin/forum/...&forum=Workshop

There is no "-8" term? Was this formula from 1.08?

I solved the mystery of the display bug! When the charm is put in inventory, the character screen does not update. However if my paladin switches to a different aura and then back to fanaticism, both the AR and damage reflect new values. For point of interest the captain's charm adds 2-33 damage and 67 AR...rather less than I had hoped.

[the Langolier]

By the way, what is a reasonable AR for an amazon or an elf?

In general, it can sometimes be hard to measure how many stat points are too many, or too little. It can be difficult to tell when you need more and when you have reached a good limit. One strategy I use to distribute skill points is to set virtual maximums for myself, and not exceeding these unless you need a certain requirement for a really nice item. I usually only limit strength and dexterity (sometimes energy) to coincide with stat requirements on projected setups.

[Tommi]

There is no "-8" term?  Was this formula from 1.08?

It's a long time since I got that formula, but, IIRC, I got it from the lying character looking the AR values it displayed. The formula seems to match well to your numbers, too.

[portishead]

I solved the mystery of the display bug! When the charm is put in inventory, the character screen does not update. However if my paladin switches to a different aura and then back to fanaticism, both the AR and damage reflect new values. For point of interest the captain's charm adds 2-33 damage and 67 AR...rather less than I had hoped.

This is normal. Because of the way D2 applies the fanatacism aura, there is a lag between the time the new aura is established, and the time it's bonuses are applied. Once a fanatacism aura is applied, the game continues to check for the presence of the aura every...let's say 3 seconds since I've been away from D2 for a while. You'll notice that after party members have left the range of your fanatacism aura, they continue to benefit from the aura for a bit. This is because even though they've left the fanatacism's range, the game has not yet update their "aura status." Another manfiestation is what you observed. Adding the charm boosts your fanatacism to slvl x + 1. However, you must wait until the game performs a check for fanatacism auras again. At that time, the character screen is updated to reflect the change from slvl x fanatacism to slvl x + 1 fanatacism.

Don't know if that clears anything up for you, but thought I'd chip in.

cheers

EDIT: I'm too dumb to type more than two sentences without a bunch of typos. By now, you'd think I'd've learned to keep 'em brief.

[Ruvanal]

It's a long time since I got that formula, but, IIRC, I got it from the lying character looking the AR values it displayed. The formula seems to match well to your numbers, too.

The base AR formula without items is

AR= (Dex*4) - 28 + ToHitFactor
Where ToHitFactor is
ToHitFactor class
+5 Amazon
-15 Sorceress
-10 Necromancer
+20 Paladin
+20 Barbarian
+5 Druid
+15 Assassin

Which for a Paladin (as you frequently use) works out to be the one that you listed.

[LavCat]

This is normal. Because of the way D2 applies the fanatacism aura, there is a lag between the time the new aura is established, and the time it's bonuses are applied.

Makes perfect sense.

One problem with how this works in practice is that the aura never seems to update in town. Tonight I waited five minutes and even tried going to a different act. The thing to do is just remember to flash the aura.

Thanks for clearing up the mystery. (At least it was a mystery to me.)

[LavCat]

The base AR formula without items is

AR= (Dex*4) - 28 + ToHitFactor
Where ToHitFactor is
ToHitFactor class
...
-15 Sorceress

Now I'm glad my melee sorceress hired a mercenery with Blessed Aim!