Leech in 2017

Hi

I've seen several people mention here on the forum and elsewhere that leech feels worse/broken so I tried doing some math and will explain what may be the issue. In the 2017 version, the leech penalty was adjusted to the new weapon physical damage output. I believe the initial intention was for the new leech values to match up to what it was like previously but it does seem a little worse now. For the examples below, I'm going purely off the assumption that damage was reduced to 1/8 of what it was previously. So in the event that this isn't the case, well rip this whole post. Before moving on, most if not all wdm skills had their values modified, as part of the damage rework and possibly more so to balance skills that we're once weak or overpowered. The point is that some skills may leech even less (or slightly more) than what the leech values reflect globally.

In previous patches, leech had a penalty for each difficulty.

Pre-2017 2017
(H) 1/4 (H)1/1
(T) 1/50 (T) 1/7
(D) 1/100 (D) 1/15

The leech formula as it was explained to me is: leech = dmg * leech * (leech penalty) * drain effectiveness.

Drain effectiveness in median is isn't the same as in clod. Here it is just a value, either 0 or 1. An enemy with a drain effectiveness of 0 is immune physical damage, so basically necrobots. For this example we will only be assuming regular enemies that aren't immune so the drain effectiveness will remain a value of 1.

I'm gonna use 1000 physical damage and 50% leech with the old leech penalty for destruction and find out the amount of life stolen per hit.

Leech = 1000 * (.5) * (1/100) * 1
Leech = 5 life per hit

For the new values, I'm basing the damage off the 1/8 global damage rework. So again if this is not right, sorry.

So 1000/8 = 125 and the new leech penalty = 1/15

Leech = 125 * (.5) * (1/15) * 1
Leech = 4.16 life per hit

In the new patch, it appears leech is nearly 17% less effective than in prior patches. That may or may not sound like a lot, but as I said before, the wdm values most skills was adjusted and from what i've seen they have been reduced in most cases. So leech now steals less life and the wdm of skills is also less. With character life not being touched afaik, leech is now worse.

To give an example of one skill specifically, I'll use tantrum (YAY!)

Previously tantrum dealt 33.3% weapon damage and now it deals 20% which is almost exactly a 40% reduction to the damage of the skill. So that means that:

Pre-2017 - 1000 total damage per hit * 50% * 1/100 penalty = 5 life stolen per hit
2017 - 1000 - 40%(rounded) = (600/8) * 50% * 1/15 = 2.5 life stolen per hit

Also, The 50% reduction to knife throw on striking and arrow on striking wasn't mentioned in the change log from what I can tell. I don't know if these were the only procs affected either. Because they previously dealt 100% wdm, players could have been made aware as it significantly impacts overall damage output and leech potential.

Almost forgot. End game leech is now more difficulty to obtain in several cases. Previously with double mo bonus, A lvl 102 weapon orbed with leech to 120 could get 36%. Since its gone, and the fact that only a maximum of 5 of each orb can be cubed with an item, 5 * 4% = 20%. For shrine crafted weapons, it used to be 60% and now its 40%. This is slightly different though because shrine crafts do have the double bonus. So orbs haven't lost value here, its just that less can be added. The leech per added level requirement remained the same though. I have noticed leech % on rare/crafted helms so that kinda helps. I've also seen some on quivers, but since quivers no longer have any useful orbs available, they aren't worth using over uniques.

I hope i got most of this right and that it explains what I think is the issues players are experiencing in M2017.

/end

useful post hype

nvm read it wrong

well, it sure feels like life leech sucks now.
the issue that i mainly have with this post is "are the numbers correct". dont get me wrong, this needs to be discussed and im happy you brought it up, but we need more confirmed information about this

but the dmg our enemies deal was also reduced i think. So if we only take half the dmg in average, wouldnt it be just fair to have half the leech?
The only char i where i really used leech was on my holy melee pala and this char got plenty (60+ from skills). I think people who play melee nec or javazon should be able to judge this.

Anyway cool post

I recently played through Mxl 2012 and life leech there actually sustains better than in current 2017 patch (penalty in 2012 is 1/200 in dest). About melee necro-well with full strength, maxed famine & deathlord, 30% dr, 100 chance uninterruptible attack and around 200 fhr it still struggles hard in endgame farming areas.

RollsRoyce wrote:but the dmg our enemies deal was also reduced i think.
Anyway cool post

Enemy health was reduced to match 1/8 reduced player damage. didn't hear anything about enemy damage being reduced.

Fumbles wrote:Also, The 50% reduction to knife throw on striking and arrow on striking wasn't mentioned in the change log from what I can tell. I don't know if these were the only procs affected either. Because they previously dealt 100% wdm, players could have been made aware as it significantly impacts overall damage output and leech potential.

where did you hear this? isn't in patch notes afaik.

Overall a very good post and addresses some issues I think we've all noticed

cookied.

For the n-th time: all WDM on skills was reduced by 50% as part of the damage rework. This was done to make you deal 1/8th of your damage compared to before, it is not a nerf.

Why leech penalty is 1/15 instead of 1/12.5: bosses now have at most 35% physical resistance, compared to 75-100% before. We decided to nerf leech slightly compared to before because it now gives ~260% more sustain against bosses (worst case), and in the case of bosses who were using heroic shields ~500% more. Since leech is applied instantly in D2 being able to facetank content with high leech numbers is not desirable.

Nonetheless this is on our radar, at the end of the current ladder we'll have enough information to decide if a buff is necessary.

From the view of a Pounce zon player, I cannot confirm any problem about ll. Ber crafted Jewels still roll with 2% ll. In the case of the Pounce zon the Flame runeword provides a weapon with high physical damage output and ll. I am now replacing ll jewels with mf crafted ones, since I have way more ll than necessary to farm all common areas like dunc, TA, fauzt, etc. As a Pounce zon i do not feel any nerf and there is still a lot of room to improve my phys damage which would let me gain more hp per hit from my current ll.

@RollsRoyce and @suchbalance

iam feeling that the same with chars iv tested, like a wulf druid, that was "last" patches always doable to run brc fautzinville on my own, as wulf.....but now, with the same gear, the weapon feels broken, the dmg is now on the weapon from like 1.000 weapon phys dmg downgraded by the Mxl 2K17 => to under 300 weapon dmg and the leech jewels that i made in all eqippment, will not prevent me from runing in mobs and leeching not enough cuz the phys dmg is also lowerd a bit to much, it leeches not enough, iam getting down on the first screen in fautzinville now....
so i invested few days and hours for nothing now, cuz this melee build is useless now....

i v found also an ssu or whatever broad sword and the dmg on it also complete useless, cuz it cant leech enough for my wulf druid

also normaly for terror difficulty the sword rw: void - should work, but now it just feels broken and compared to an summoner or necro or totemshit facerole build complete imbalanced sorry

i v tested sorc, necro, pala, druid

strongest is now a minion tank with self spellcasting or totems, to cheese again btw !exd

and with an naked build like this, managed to kill uber bosses, yaya

gimme an weapon plz that works with wulf again or tell me, what iam doin wrong, ty

words can be ...

topic writer, wrote:
So leech now steals less life and the wdm of skills is also less