Damage Cap - aka The Calculator Game?

[Kronos]

Hi all

I realise this has been covered a bit, but I am still curious because it is the major pain-point of this game when you reach End Game. The Mechanic FAQs and older Posts on the topic help, but they don't give an easy answer. It is still a difficult concept, and once you are at end-game gear, it seems to require constant attention when you re-spec or change gear, to make sure you are under the caps for your various spells and attacks.

Is it really a case of copping-it-sweet and just dealing with the regular calculations, and field tests?

..... As I understand it, in simple terms, the cap is 83k before you hit the 0 damage zone, then you need to factor in roll-over at 166k ......

But as we know with LCS, you don't see the real figure, and need to calculate - factoring in things like buffs, 2x weapons, charms, -enemy resistance, +spell/phys dmg, whatever else affects your damage that is not reports on the LCS - or you need to go out and test.

.......... I don't really want to pull out a calculator each time I change gear or spec....But is that really what it amounts to ???? it can be time consuming and tiresome.........

Is it not possible to update the D2engine via Median XL to rectify this issue? (or is it hidden in some protected Blizzard code?)

Also I understand this problem does not exist in V1.10. Do you really lose much by going back to that version??

I am currently tackling the final few Impossible + Extremely Hard bosses with Necro and Sorceress, have done the rest, but as my damage creeps right up with better gear, I am concerned about the 0-damage zone.

Thanks!!
Kronos

[01001010]

Afaik it's not really easy to reach caps even in end game gear, because most skills are multihitting/split damage.
Which skills do you have problems keeping under cap?
I haven't found any reliable info about damage cap changing in different patches.

About reverting the mod to 1.10 - it'd probably be super tedious, require rewriting a bunch of code and would remove a lot of features.

[Stealthmaster]

Sorc can reach the damage cap with Flamefront (without counting -enemy resists), for example, but what you need is:

1. Bloodlust buff
2. Unseelie lady Fools Gold/Kab Soul
3. Elemental Totem from SSSU Boots
4. Perfect jewels (+6% to spell damage)
5. Some cycles with spell damage
6. Good energy factor
7. Maxed Mystic Blood (having over 90% hp to cast spells)

Maybe you can reach it without some points from above (mine was about 80k max. fire dmg , though without cycles and with average jewels), but I doubt the cap is achievable before very late endgame without some charms, so if I were you I would'nt really care about it.

[Kronos]

Thanks for the replies so far.

That sorceress spec is very close to one of mine, lots of high jewels +6 spell damage and I have farmed The Triune a lot and have collected a few +spell damage cycles. When you add in a few rings and amulets with high spell damage, add plenty of -enemy resist to gear with MO, max to Energy, it all adds up.

So things like Abyss, Arcane Torrent, and even Flamestrike can get right up there if you invest skill points to maximise spell damage.

For now I can remove the charms and change spec/gear if I feel I am close to the zone, it's not a big deal, it's just something I noticed when playing lately, and a lot of posts did mention it. But they were largely older posts so I thought perhaps it was no longer an issue.

I am right at End Game with just the last 4 or 5 top bosses to go, have plenty of SU/SSU/SSSU and RW choices - but maybe I am just crap at killing the final few!

Happy to hear more comments though .... !

[Stealthmaster]

Abyss and Flamestrike multihit a lot, so both, for example, are not a choice against Astro and Brachy who teleport all the time (Abyss kills totems and is barely working in tight maggot lair area)

[Quirinus]

if you want to know the real damage, there's no real way to know it except approximately calculating it by yourself, or taking the LCS number for an estimate. you can test it on some high HP monsters - if you do very little damage, you rolled over the damage - if you do high damage/kill them, you didn't.

it rolls over for each different type of damage separately. it rolls over only if the total damage of the dmg type is high enough IN ONE FRAME (if I understand it correctly). so multihitting doesn't really help if it all hits in the same frame - but if its damage is spread across a few frames it's ok.

cap is 83k, then it rolls over to 0 if you reach 2*83k = 166k. between those 2 values, it does just 83k damage.

I'm not sure if -%enemy resists counts towards the cap/rollover, or if it's applied after. if it's applied before checking for cap/rollover, you could be reaching the rollover much more easily (even by doing just 83k dmg by dropping the enemy resists to -100% = 2 x dmg = 2*83k = 166k).

[Ben-]

Abyss and Flamestrike multihit a lot, so both, for example, are not a choice against Astro and Brachy who teleport all the time (Abyss kills totems and is barely working in tight maggot lair area)

lol did u ever try abyss vs astro/brach? its rly good...

[suchbalance]

it rolls over only if the total damage of the dmg type is high enough IN ONE FRAME (if I understand it correctly). so multihitting doesn't really help if it all hits in the same frame - but if its damage is spread across a few frames it's ok.

I believe this is wrong, it's damage per hit that is important. Does not matter if you hit 5 times in one frame or only once (Exception are damage over time skills: e.g. poison damage). Note that LCS sometimes displays per hit damage values e.g. why Obliteration seems so low, when it actually hits like a truck; and other times total damage e.g. Abyss, where you would need to divide by 25 to get per hit damage.

cap is 83k, then it rolls over to 0 if you reach 2*83k = 166k. between those 2 values, it does NO damage.

I'm not sure if -%enemy resists counts towards the cap/rollover, or if it's applied after. if it's applied before checking for cap/rollover, you could be reaching the rollover much more easily (even by doing just 83k dmg by dropping the enemy resists to -100% = 2 x dmg = 2*83k = 166k).

I believe enemy res applies after damage rollover check. So ... if you hit a 95% lightning res monster with 100k mind flay you will do no damage. Conversely if you hit a -100% lightning res monster with 50k mind flay you will also do 0 damage.

[DacianDraco]

I agree with you, LCS with poison is terrible since forever and can be misleading for other elements as well, it confused me a lot until i put it down in notepad with calculator. And with good gear is better to just invest less points into a skills and test it out until you are comfortable with damage, no matter what the skill description tells you, and be sure to factor in buffs, even buffing procs. Ultimately i can only hope for Sigma to implement something like this for each damage type:

[Stealthmaster]

Abyss and Flamestrike multihit a lot, so both, for example, are not a choice against Astro and Brachy who teleport all the time (Abyss kills totems and is barely working in tight maggot lair area)

lol did u ever try abyss vs astro/brach? its rly good...

I successfully used Abyss against some heroic bosses like Kabraxis and QT, but especially against Brachy I wasn't satisfied much because he teleported out of the room and continued through the narrow corridors where I had to switch to either Flamefront or Thunderstone. Maybe I wasn't lucky enough that time

Sorry, no idea, how you managed not to kill spider statues with Abyss. At least I failed not to hit at least one of them