Damage modifications

[Crystalion]

LT is _not_ affected by any leech drain abilities besides physical resistance.

Then it hasn't changed in release (from beta).

This reminds me of the excellent point discussed re: Life Tap (e.g. that new paly shield!) and the Sanctuary aura (which is broken in some weird ways, but still usable) removing the physical resist of undead.

It's still on my docket to do more testing about the LT ranged bugs (apparent multiple life steals, greatly in the player's favor).

Hard to imagine a Paly dying if using throwing of cruel elite throwing dagger of piercing with Sanctuary and Lifetap vs. undead. The life coming in would be enormous and the knockback from Sanctuary would likely keep them mostly at bay. An interesting specialty build.

[Tommi]

@librarian: Do you really mean that Life Tap is affected only by physical resistance, or by all damage modification effects that affect physical damage, such as the PvP Penalty and Energy Shield, for example?

I would presume that Life Tap, as well as life/mana stolen per hit abilities, would be calculated based on Damage after all damage modification effects...

Cheers,

Tommi

[librarian]

Heiho,

I only meant the 'monster-side penalties' you have, such as leech penalties in different difficulties or the new 1.10 leech drain factors. And, surely, the physical resistance of the opponent monster.

I'm with you when it comes to 'player-side penalties', such as damage modifications. Of course the healing ability depends on the actual (physical) damage dealt out.

PvP is a completely different matter, with some odd behaviour in itself.
In 1.09, the via LT gained life in PvP scenarios was calculated via the PvM damage. So, if a friendly PvP party member dealt out 1000 damage against a LT'd foeish hostile (with no damred gear), he gained actual 500life with a successful hit. Not, as would be the first thought, 125, because of PvP damage penalty.
With most of my fellow testers and meself not heavily interested in PvP, and the PvP guys still rushing and MFing to get the chars and stuff they need to bash themselves to death each other, I'm not clear about the new oddities in PvP curse behaviour. So I'm lost with the even more complicate sides of the global sight to all modifications like Energy Shield.

[Crystalion]

50%/35%/25% (normal/night/hell) for:
Hireling v some kinds of bosses (not sure exactly which ones).
This is the percentage of of their real damage they do to act bosses (what I understood from PK).

+200% for
Some kind of bosses (not sure exactly which ones) v hirelings

+400% for
Some kind of bosses (not sure exactly which ones) v minions
Prime Evil's for both, I suspect (this I haven't seen discussed though).

A bunch of misc. notes...

It has recently been pointed out, through discussion about the effectiveness of Thorns vs. Meph, that this seems to be a loophole in the intended hireling vs. Act Boss nerfs.

That is the act boss gets to multiply his damage for his "bonus" but then this increased damage is returned tenfold against him! (apparently without nerf).

...

I don't recall if I mentioned before in this thread the clarification that Lifetap seems to work properly with bowshot, but buggily (several times better than it should, as if doing multiple steals from the same attack) with thrown items.

...

Something I've long noticed with my enchantress, who uses various absorb items (not percent)... She stays capped at max life. This strongly suggests that the absorb has been changed to come after or conjoint with the damage (it used to be applied prior to the damage, so you'd always drop off of peak life).

Further, casual claims here and there suggest that absorb % may be better than it used to be. I've not tested it, but if it also absorbs conjoint/after damage, that would be an improvement in the player's favor.

...

One report of actual use of Fire Golem in v1.10 claims that it seems to heal by fire (despite the theory that the 100% fire resist in v1.10 prevents this). I've not tested it myself.

...

I still see Blood Golems listed in the .txt as taking 10% of their damage and transmitting it to the caster. However I've seen several posts claiming that you no longer take harm form blood golems being injured. I've not tested this.

...

A bit off topic... what skills have a different effect at slvls > 1? Seems like shadows die with a nova if > 1, otherwise not, iirc. Used to be Iron Golems got thorns at slvl > 1 (still true?). I'm wondering if Fire Golems CE on death only if > 1? (just a wild guess).

Certainly there are lots of "hidden" bonuses to some skills as slvl rises (some not in the mpq data, still).

...

thought the thread could use a bump and some new trivia/questions. :)

[librarian]

Heiho,

regarding Thorns (and similar all damage reflection skills, and more so items with reflecting damage properties):
I still can't see any use of them since the global physical resistance/immunity was invented (and even when it is not 50% in Hell for all monster classes, the average resistance is still pretty high in Hell). Monsters have an absurdly high amount of HPs compared to the melee damage they deal out.
Only very patient party members would let, say, a Frenzytaur bash them multiple times till it dies by some thorny effect (and most probably they won't ally with the thorny caster one more time in future), so it is restricted to zookeepers of any kind.
Regarding the quartering of damage if one uses conversed or revived monsters it is nearly useless.
Regarding the effectiveness of Blessed Aim on the greatly improved Skeleton Warriors it would be a waste to give them a Thorns Aura or IM as 'support'.

Well, sorry, I got carried away, this doesn't contribute to the point ... I just should have written that I missed that report about a loophole along with Thorns and Meppl, could you give me a linked hint please?^^
<edit>
found it, should be this one
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...showtopic=37788
</edit>

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Regarding LT with ranged weapons:
I have the reports of two fellow Necro players, one used my 'method' of testing things (id est taking an existing build, giving him some stuff and having a close look what's happening, differently from me he did it SP), the other did some modding.
Very strange results, the modder says there is no such a thing as a multiple heal with (any) ranged weapons, the other one confirmed with Throwing Knives what I confirmed with a Kuko, that there is indeed much more heal than there should be.
I can only guess that there is some odd thing happening like the MaeK bug in the beta, somehow the healing effect works maybe on both, vitality _and_ life, or on base life _and_ life via items or some reequipping oddity, or a mixup from all this.

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regarding absorb:
no idea here

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regarding BG:
AFAIK you further share your health with the BG, you get damaged when he is kicked, and he gets heal when you drink a potion, only the Thorns/IM->Leech trigger is removed. I have to recheck this.

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regarding FG/IG:
last report from the modder Necro (same as above) is that FG does only splashdamage when dying, not while casted. Still 100phys+100fire, regardless of FG sLvl (but only tested in Norm)
I don't know anything about it healing from fire, are you sure that there was no lag effect or friendly Prayer or foeish conviction/lowering fire resistance involved (against players and pets lowering resistance items work even against resistancy>100).
IG has its own Thorns activated already at sLvl1 and does damage foeish melees, I don't know numbers by heart (I'm _bad_ with numbers, really...).

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other misc stuff
Being nearly complete with the IM effect on Players I still have to do some testing regarding Weaken and Decrepify both vs Monsters _and_ vs Players.
In 1.09d we had confirmation that vP both curses reduced only the weapon damage of the hostile Player, before the modifications via dex/str/Skills/equipED/....

I have to do the testing myself now, and because vP testing is really tedious work with two computers but only one monitor attached to both I wanted to ask here if someone has already some results here.
And I can't do reliable testings vM, so I don't have a clue if the cursing works only with the monster base damage before modifications in benefit for the monster, like some boss aura and/or modifiers like extra strong.

(A side question here: the monster damage listed in the files is a kind of base damage also when it comes to modifiers like certain skills some monsters use? Or do they only use the skill effects like Stun without the damage bonus a player with the same skill would benefit from?)

[Crystalion]

Regarding LT with ranged weapons:...
Very strange results, the modder says there is no such a thing as a multiple heal with (any) ranged weapons, the other one confirmed with Throwing Knives what I confirmed with a Kuko, that there is indeed much more heal than there should be.
I can only guess that there is some odd thing happening ...

Yep, something odd yet to be nailed down.

regarding absorb: no idea here

Well, I continue to try to open this issue up for investigation... e.g. my "squeaky wheel" post about absorb at the Basin

regarding FG/IG: last report from the modder Necro (same as above) is that FG does only splashdamage when dying, not while casted.

The old trick was that recasting or unsummoning killed the old FG, so what I was wondering was if that still works. Sounds like it probably does, but it also sounds like Shadow and FG death effects (nova/CE like) don't do a lot of damage, being more for show.

other misc stuff

reminds me, fwiw, that I've confirmed Jarulf's and my speculations that MDR is now "uber" in pvp... except, of course, that absorb is more uber still. Sure looks to me like physical and magic damage are the only way to go in PvP, vs. a well equiped opponent (but then, I'm not a Pvp kinda guy, so I don't know).

A side question here...

Sounds like something for Ruvanal or adeyke to answer.

[Tharn]

Yes.&nbsp;

In v1.09 there was a bug that if the character died and came back in town they lost this resistance bonus until they exited and re-entered the game.&nbsp; The display for the character was listing the resistance wrong at this point.&nbsp; I think that they found a DLL editing solution for this at the Phrozen Keep.&nbsp; I do not know if this problem has been fixed in the v1.10 version, but I hope so.

Unless they fixed it serverside sometime ago, Anya bug was NOT fixed in 1.10. I and several others tested it for PvP purposes.

Life Tap: I don't know why or how much but it's certailny MUCH more effective than LL from equipment. Charge/Smite palas with Exile get like full rejuvs once they get LT off.

Crystalion: I and many others do think that absorb is first healed and then damage is applied. And numbers fit as well. Try getting sorc and shoot Ice Blast at target with 2 ravens. The first hit (where absorb has nothing to heal) will be about three times more damaging than the subsequent hits.

[Baajikiil]

I still see Blood Golems listed in the .txt as taking 10% of their damage and transmitting it to the caster. However I've seen several posts claiming that you no longer take harm form blood golems being injured. I've not tested this.

This one, I'm quite interested in. I've played a few necros in 1.10 who used blood golem. Through out all of normal and nm, I never saw my hp go down at all from damage to the BG. Even if, say, Diablo hoses down the BG in one attack. But, the interesting part was that once I got to hell, occasionally I would share some of the golems damage.

I only seemed to take a very small fraction of the damage, and only when the golem was getting really, really pounded. Like fanat/curse. Or extra strong/curse. Other than times like that, I never lost a single hp from the BG. My necros have since died, so my interest is academic, but I am still curious.

It seemed like there was some kind of buffer or something, blocking all damage up to a certain point. Like, only after the golem was taking single blows doing several hundred damage a piece was I taking damage. Obviously that shouldn't be possible, so I have no ideas.