The Shadow "knows"

[Raziel]

But again, the A.I. is so important! The shadows are apparently completely clueless about even releasing their charges appropriately, much less a finer distinction like choosing how many charges to build up for Phoenix Strike to thereby select a situationally appropriate elemental finish.

Is she clueless? That's wierd. I don't recall ever seeing a shadow use a particular elemental charge against something immune to it..

Here's a thought in regards to possibilties.. a MA sin with maxed Shadow Master. This is actually one of my character plans that i'm working on, that has really got a boost in light of this discovery.

SM: 13
FoF: 20
CoT: 20
BoI: 1
PS: 20
CM: 4+ (maxed last?)
WB: 4
BoS: 1

Something like that, I guess. Let's also assume that when I cast Shadow Master I switch to 2x +3 to Shadow skills, which when combined with Natalya's armor (+2 shadow) make for a level 21 shadow. Divided by three, this means my Shadow would have a base level of 7 in everything.

I anticipate wearing full Natalya's set (+3) with a 2ma/2sd Jade Talon offhand for maxed resists and a +3 Martial Arts amulet or +2 Assassin amulet. Let's also assume I wear +3 Martial Arts gloves. This means my MA skills are at either +10 or +11, for a grand total of level 30/31 MA. This divides by two for a level 15 adder to my shadow when she uses the skills I have maxed.

This means my Shadow will be using FoF, CoT and PS at level 22, with level 22 synergies once she learns them all! Furthermore she'll have level 7 claw mastery, weapon block, fade, bos, etc, which is fairly respectable, as well as level 7 BoI which will be recieving a level 22 synergy from Phoenix Strike.

The problem is i'm not sure what i'll be able to hit with just level 4 Claw Mastery <_< ah well, the build needs work, but clearly you could have a VERY high damaging phoenix strike "pet"!

Here's a question nobody's answered yet.. how do the randomly spawning +skill adders on a Shadow Master's equipment play into this? Do they contribute to synergies too?

[LiquidDamage]

Is she clueless?&nbsp; That's wierd.&nbsp; I don't recall ever seeing a shadow use a particular elemental charge against something immune to it..

You mean you have never seen her drop a meteor on a fire immune? Heck, I think she may very well ONLY drop them on fire immunes. :P

[Crystalion]

You mean you have never seen her drop a meteor on a fire immune?&nbsp; Heck, I think she may very well ONLY drop them on fire immunes. :P

Yes, what I meant is that I've commonly seen this, in versions prior to v1.10 at least.

Perhaps Raziel meant that she doesn't use Fists of Fire vs. fire immunes, etc? That would be interesting to know.

I won't try to answer that one but Raziel raises another point that I think I know how to run off and test...

[Kelmadics]

For all I know, however, the behavior of the Master can be influenced.

I have just recently started playing D2, but my favoite character is the assassin. One thing that i have noticed is with my shadow master is that if you keep the same shadow master for a couple of acts it starts to mimic you more and more. The shadow master starts off using a little bit of everything but as time progresses it seems to start refining the moves and starts to copy what you do if possible. I have had a shadow master last from act one to act four, in act four it was dropping a cloak of shadow, followed by death sentry and then leaps into the battle using a combination of cobra strike, and phoenix strike charge-ups ,and dragon claw as a finish move.

Although this may not mean much as i don't have the experience, but i think that you can "teach" the shadow master various strategies and build it's synergies, but it does take a long time to do so.

[DaVinci]

Am i right in thinking that the warriro gets her level x 4 to allres capped at 75, without any diminishing returns.
and that the master gets the same, with a cap of 85, but with diminishing returns.

Now what are these Dmreturns ? are they the same penalty as players get -40 nm -100 hell or more like the FRW dm returns ?

Also when can a master expect his resistance to be at 85 ? if he was cast at level 20.

I kinda want to try and make a chart for this, so one can see just when a warrior overtakes the master and when he takes back 1st place again.

DaVinci

[GenericKen]

Haven't played D2 in a while, but couldn't help myself with the theoretical build:

ShadowTrapper: +16 Shadow Warrior at time of casting, +16 Traps general

Max SW, Max FB, max 3 FB syns, w/ 1 point in others


Once all 6 syns are burned in, the shadow warrior will do aproximately 22k damage per fireblast. You'll be doing 9.2k. This is on top of whatever massive lightning sentries she lays down doing 10k a shot.

[Raziel]

^ I'm not quite sure how you got to those numbers.. care to explain?

Hmm.. i'll think about it maybe figure it out myself?

Maxed Shadow Warrior, maxed FB, maxed CBS, maxed LS, 1 pt in DS, CoS, MB etc. Notably, you should put 1 point in WoF and WoI as well.

Fire Blast on LMB and flip between CBS, DS, SWeb (for burn in) and Lightning Sentry (for actual use) on the right.

Assuming you cast the SW with 2x +3 shadow claws, a +2 all tiara, a +2 all amulet and +2 Shadow Natalya's armor, that will generate a level 32 warrior who has a base level of 10 in all skills. A +1 Shadow gc will lift her to level 11, but let's assume you don't have one for now (I do *g*). You could bump it further with tree specific ammy and tiara but let's take a slightly more practical route.

If you then switch to 2x +3 trap claws, still including the +2 all tiara and +2 all amulet, you will be dropping your maxed traps at level 30, and death sentry at level 11. Your shadow will toss all of your maxed traps (fb, cbs, ls) at level 25 (10 base +15 your skills), and will drop level 10 shock web and level 10 death sentry. Of note, she will also drop level 10 WoI and WoF even though you only have one point in them.

This means she'll be using level 25 fire blast with the following applicable synergies once fully trained:
level 10 Shock Web
level 25 Charged Bolt Sentry
level 25 Lightning Sentry
level 10 Death Sentry
level 10 Wake of Fire
level 10 Wake of Inferno

Total: 90 x 9% = 810% fire damage :ph34r: :ph34r:

She'll also be using level 25 Lightning Sentry with the following applicable synergies once fully trained:
level 10 Shock Web
level 25 Charged Bolt Sentry
level 10 Death Sentry

Total: 45 x 12% = +540% lightning damage :ph34r:

Not counting any +skills she happens to roll on the magical tiara. :blink:

To quote keanu:

Woah.

Of course for this to work you would have to let her do all the trap laying. You could still throw FB's though. The good news is it would be ridiculously easy to train the Shadow Warrior in Act 1. Just walk around the cold plains, running through your traps on the right mouse button until she's cast them all. If she dies in combat you should immediately recast AND put charged bolt sentry on your right mouse button. As soon as she drops one (it'll be level 25) both FB and LS will have at least one working synergy and her performance should be greatly boosted.

Note: this same Shadow Warrior, at level 30, would easily hit it's resistance cap of 75%. Furthermore, it would have level 10 Weapon Block and level 10 Fade. You could EASILY make her invulnerable to elemental attacks by forcing her to cast fade, and level 10 Weapon Block isn't too shabby in terms of the physical either.

[GenericKen]

I gave the specs on the + to skills and said that 3 syns were maxed, not 2, which taken with prereqs & 1 point syns gives a total of 107 points spent without an aura or blade fury.

I read it wrong at first, with skill contributing 1/3 and warrior contributing 1/2, but it doesn't throw my results off very much at all. I'll elaborate on this later.

I was very wrong, however, in my calcs, forgetting parenthesis in the average damage. 22k is about 50% too high.


Anyway here's the calc:

+16 to shadows isn't hard (+2 helm, +2 armor (arcane's), +2 rings, +2 ammy, +6 claws with a touch of automod). +16 to traps isn't at all hard either with a few charms.


3 full syns at (36/2 + 36/3)=30 -> 3*30*.09 = +810%
3 single point syns at (17/2 + 36/3)=20 -> 3*20*.09 = +540% {Previously, this was (17/3 + 36/2)=23 -> 621, a difference of 81%}

avg 985 dmg at 36 * 14.5 = 14.2k. You do 6.3k yourself.



If we were to twink this out hardcore, you could completely change equipment to get the shaddow master as high as possible. That would give:
Shadow: (+3 helm, +3 ammy, +2 armor, +2 rings, +12 claws with max automod, +11 charms, +2 boots, +1 belt, +1 from BO from CtA)=+37
Traps: (+3 helm, +3 ammy, +2 armor, +2 rings, +3 gloves, +6 katars, +11 charms, +1 belt, +1 from BO from CtA)=+32

3 full syns at (52/2 + 57/3)=45 -> 3*45*.09 = 1215%
3 single point syns at (33/2 + 57/3)=35 -> 3*35*.09 = 945%
3 automods on each claw +3 to syns -> 3*6/2*.09 = 81% {note that fireblast automods can't spawn on +3 traps claws, so syns are the optimal choice}
Each additional + to traps from warrior will net -> 6*1/2*.09 = 27%. Ignoring this for now.

avg 1977 * 23.41 = 46.3k damage per blast. You yourself do something a little above 12.7k.

No idea what sort of damage the warrior lightning sentry does, though.

I do get the feeling the sorc maybe gets better milage with fireball at 60 (~32k with fewer spent points and no eq switch hastle).

[Nightwind]

call that hardcode twinkage?
you forgot that instead of just skill tree boost, you can get specific skill boosters to go even HIGHER for each of the burn in skill, and swap back to the skill tree ones for normal usage.

[GenericKen]

call that hardcode twinkage?
you forgot that instead of just skill tree boost, you can get specific skill boosters to go even HIGHER for each of the burn in skill, and swap back to the skill tree ones for normal usage.

I took into account 3 automods on each claw. I believe a number of the syns with fireblast cannot have automods show up on +3 skill tree claws.

So I guess give or take 27%.

[Raziel]

It's probably already been asked, but I have to try..

Does the shadow get any skill level in your oskills?

For example, if an Assassin was wielding a "Passion" Phase Blade, and wearing a skin of the vipermagi (+1 all), would the shadow get +1 to Zeal and Berserk? Would the shadow ever use the skills?

[supersajinjesus]

oh dude i read ur post i just wanted to know about the after effects

[ShadowHM]

*shamelessly necro-posts to bump the topic so's I can find it again* :blush:

[Tal]

Its not just the guy on the bridge who knows. Get real We all know. We live here. The only ones that dont know are the politicians that supposedly represents us. And they make the decisions. Decisions based on what.......?