Looking for precisions on some mechanics [Answered]

Hello,

It must have been asked quite a lot of times but I have several questions I was not able to find definite answers for.
I tried asking them in the short thread but I think it went unnoticed among the other questions :

1) What's the difference between "on attack" and "on striking" ?
=> Answered : On attack applies only on weapon swings in melee.
On striking applies to all weapon damage based skills.

2) What are the different damage sources ? Melee attacks, projectile (ranged attacks), and spells ? Others ?
=> Answered :
Physical Melee Damage
Elemental Melee Damage
Physical Projectile Damage
Elemental Projectile Damage
Passive Poison Damage
Projectile Poison Damage
Spell Poison Damage
Elemental Spell Damage
Physical/Magic Spell Damage
Feedback Damage (Special to mana-sorcs)

3) What are the mechanics for leech ? I could only find that the ratio changed with difficulties, but nothing on actual mechanics :
Is it instant ?
Does it work with all kind of damage ?
=> Answered : Leech is instant, and is the summed total of all your "Percent Life/mana Stolen" mods from gear or skills.
The %age leeched is only base on physical weapon damage, and no other sources.
Furthermore, leech efficiency varies depending on below factors :
- Normal Effecitiveness : 1/4 th.
- Nightmare Effectiveness : 1/7th.
- Hell Effectiveness : 1/15th.
- Bosses have a 40% reduction to leech in all difficulties

4) What is "Combat Speed" ? Is it something like both attack and cast speed ? Or something else ?
=> Answered : combat speed is a category that includes hit recovery, cast rate, attack speed, and block rate.

5) On several skills, you see both WDM and an elemental bonus. Is it then considered as 2 different part for mechanics ?
=> Answered : Modifiers for weapon damage are applied as follows:
1: Ethereal Bonus (50% base damage on weapon)
2: %Enhanced Damage (%ED)
3: +Flat Damage.
4: %Physical Damage, this includes %EWD from items, %damage from skills / passives and buffs and str/dex factor, which are all ADDED up into one big multiplier (%dmg = %EWD + %physdmg + %dex/strbonus)
5: Deadly Strike (if it rolls successfully, x2 all damage up until this point)
6: %Conversion is applied.
7: +Flat elemental damage from weapon/gear/skills.
8: %WDM of skill used."

=> So flat bonus from skills are added in step 7, and total multiplied by %WDM in step 8

6) Some skills have multiple projectiles or mechanics where a same place can be "hit" by several parts of the skill. Targets can be hit several times by the same cast of a skill depending on the Next Delay (ND) mechanics. That I could figure/find on forums.
But how do you determine the ND of a skill ?
And what in practicality does it mean ? D2 mechanics with frames is extremely confusing....
=> Answered : A frame is the time unit for d2. A second contains 25 frames.

The primary use case for ND is with novas. Most novas are made of 32 or 64 missiles. So imagine a case where a monster is standing right in the center of a nova being created. In a world with no ND, this would lead to a ridiculous damage spike, i.e. 64x the intended nova damage. However novas are generally meant to shine as AoE skills and not single target, which is why this mechanic is in place, therefore making novas deal consistent damage regardless of where an enemy is being hit.

ND can only be found with extensive testing. old documentation found here (not really up to date though) :
https://www.moddb.com/mods/medianxl/dow ... evision-25

7) How can you see the item level of an item ?
=> Answered : In "Preference -> Interface", there is an option to check to show item level

8) Is there specific conditions for sacred uniques or set to drop ? Zone level maybe ?
=> Answered : su drops in alvl 104+ (see the area level at the top right in game below the game name). ssu in 119+, sssu in 130+

9) What's the difference between EWD and ED ? Both can be MO'd unto a weapon and it's pretty confusing.
=> Answered : ED is a local modifier, ewd is global. That means ed increases the damage on the weapon, while ewd increases your total physical damage done by your weapon (which also includes any added dmg from other items).
Essentially it's 3 steps to damage calc:

(weap base * ED + flat from any source) * EWD * DS

Obviously deadly strike is just a chance for double damage but "10% DS" can be read as "10% total (phys) damage". And it applies before %conversion.

Note that EWD is the sum of multiple stats with a different name which are all EWD synonyms. Such as:
- Enhanced Weapon Damage
- Strength/Dexterity Damage Bonus
- Weapon Physical Damage: +X% (from skills)
- Physical Damage: +X% (not spell ofc, also from skills)

Sorry and thanks in advance

this guide answers a lot of your questions (1, 2, 3, 5, and 6)

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=22672

4.) combat speed is a category that includes hit recovery, cast rate, attack speed, and block rate.

7.) item level is displayed on the item. might have to change a setting in preferences if it doesnt appear.

8.) su drops in alvl 105+ (see the area level at the top right in game below the game name). ssu in 117+, sssu in 130+

Thanks a lot for these answers

As for the linked topic, I checked it and it was very informative. I was not able to find answers to the listed questions though, expect partially for Next Delay

Here some quotes right from there (all found by simple "Ctrl-F" search in browser)..

"On Attack / On Striking
On attack procs are just about any melee attack. Only a melee “slap” can proc these. Note some skills (thorn strike for example) can be cast at range, so they fall under “On striking”.

On striking procs are any %WDM trigger at all. A javelin proc can proc another javelin proc, etc."

"Leech
Life and Mana Leech get reduced a higher amount in higher difficulties, and then again vs bosses in each difficulty.
Normal Effecitiveness : 1/4 th.
Nightmare Effectiveness : 1/7th.
Hell Effectiveness : 1/15th.
Bosses have a 40% reduction to leech in all difficulties."

"Modifiers for weapon damage are applied as follows:
1: Ethereal Bonus (50% base damage on weapon)
2: %Enhanced Damage (%ED)
3: +Flat Damage.
4: %Physical Damage, this includes %EWD from items, %damage from skills / passives and buffs and str/dex factor, which are all ADDED up into one big multiplier (%dmg = %EWD + %physdmg + %dex/strbonus)
5: Deadly Strike (if it rolls successfully, x2 all damage up until this point)
6: %Conversion is applied.
7: +Flat elemental damage from weapon/gear/skills.
8: %WDM of skill used."

Squiggoth wrote:1) What's the difference between "on attack" and "on striking" ?

On attack applies only on weapon swings in melee.

On striking applies to all weapon damage based skills.

2) What are the different damage sources ? Melee attacks, projectile (ranged attacks), and spells ? Others ?

Physical Melee Damage
Elemental Melee Damage
Physical Projectile Damage
Elemental Projectile Damage
Passive Poison Damage
Projectile Poison Damage
Spell Poison Damage
Elemental Spell Damage
Physical/Magic Spell Damage
Feedback Damage (Special to mana-sorcs)

3) What are the mechanics for leech ?

Same as normal D2: https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Life_Stealing_(Diablo_II)

Is it instant ?

Refer to link above.

Does it work with all kind of damage ?

Only physical weapon damage.

4) What is "Combat Speed" ? Is it something like both attack and cast speed ? Or something else ?
=> Answered : combat speed is a category that includes hit recovery, cast rate, attack speed, and block rate.

5) On several skills, you see both WDM and an elemental bonus. Is it then considered as 2 different part for mechanics ?

WDM is a multiplier to the main skill damage, usually associated elemental bonus damage is added on top of the skill separately .

Look at the previous post Crash posted for the WDM explanation.

6) Some skills have multiple projectiles or mechanics where a same place can be "hit" by several parts of the skill. Targets can be hit several times by the same cast of a skill depending on the Next Delay (ND) mechanics. That I could figure/find on forums.
But how do you determine the ND of a skill ?

You don't without some form of extensive testing. You can dig up some of the next delay values from old documentation found here:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/medianxl/dow ... evision-25

They're not really up to date for most things though.

And what in practicality does it mean ? D2 mechanics with frames is extremely confusing....

I wouldn't try to bother figuring out the next delay in practicality as it changes all the time.

7) How can you see the item level of an item ?
=> Answered : In "Preference -> Interface", there is an option to check to show item level

8) Is there specific conditions for sacred uniques or set to drop ? Zone level maybe ?
=> Answered : su drops in alvl 105+ (see the area level at the top right in game below the game name). ssu in 117+, sssu in 130+

9) What's the difference between EWD and ED ? Both can be MO'd unto a weapon and it's pretty confusing.

Enchanced weapon damage is a separate multiplier.

Enhanced damage increases the base damage of the weapon and is always applied first (Theoretically eth bonus applies first but really its the same thing).

See WDM mechanics spoiler tag that Crash posted for the order in the math.

6) A frame is the time unit for d2. A second contains 25 frames.

The primary use case for ND is with novas. Most novas are made of 32 or 64 missiles. So imagine a case where a monster is standing right in the center of a nova being created. In a world with no ND, this would lead to a ridiculous damage spike, i.e. 64x the intended nova damage. However novas are generally meant to shine as AoE skills and not single target, which is why this mechanic is in place, therefore making novas deal consistent damage regardless of where an enemy is being hit.

Note that this doesn't mean ND is exclusive to novas or that all novas have ND. A good example of a 0 ND nova is Cataclysm, which does much more damage on a close range because you can hit 1 monster with multiple fireballs. How to tell it doesn't have ND, simple, a good chunk of the firebolts will be missing when casted close to a single monster.

The conclusion is: if a skill has high enough ND that it can impact how you play or build a character, you will have means to notice it from testing. On the contrary, if a skill has too low or no ND it also means its pointless to try to optimize or play around this mechanic.

In some cases, ND is even beneficial, as is the example of punisher. If you have a stream of punisher procs against an enemy, ND will actually make subsequent punishers skip the monster and continue to travel, giving it a better AoE coverage.

How come SSU’s can drop in lvl 117 areas ? Aren’t their item lvl 120 ?

So basically they can drop in TA since this place is lvl 118 ?

Johnny Impak wrote:How come SSU’s can drop in lvl 117 areas ? Aren’t their item lvl 120 ?

So basically they can drop in TA since this place is lvl 118 ?

They were ilvl117 before v1.3 or v1.4, so Crash told it abit wrong

Still priestesses in TA can drop SSUs..

Thanks a lot for the detailled answers.

I'm still a little confused on questions 5) and 9).

"Modifiers for weapon damage are applied as follows:
1: Ethereal Bonus (50% base damage on weapon)
2: %Enhanced Damage (%ED)
3: +Flat Damage.
4: %Physical Damage, this includes %EWD from items, %damage from skills / passives and buffs and str/dex factor, which are all ADDED up into one big multiplier (%dmg = %EWD + %physdmg + %dex/strbonus)
5: Deadly Strike (if it rolls successfully, x2 all damage up until this point)
6: %Conversion is applied.
7: +Flat elemental damage from weapon/gear/skills.
8: %WDM of skill used."

Does that mean that %WDM is applied multiplicatively on the total all the above ?
If a skill reads "90%WDM +158 magic dmg" and my weapon has a 120 average dmg, that means the skill will hit for 0.9*(120+158) (not considering resistances obviously, or other bonuses) ?

As for EWD and ED, if I understand right, it's two different multiplicative bonuses, with ED only affecting base dmg, while EWD affects also the bonus flat min/max dmg ?

Scalewinged wrote:
Johnny Impak wrote:How come SSU’s can drop in lvl 117 areas ? Aren’t their item lvl 120 ?

So basically they can drop in TA since this place is lvl 118 ?

They were ilvl117 before v1.3 or v1.4, so Crash told it abit wrong
Still priestesses in TA can drop SSUs..

I will assume the bosses in TA can drop because they are +1 to the area? Because SSU according to the Docs is 119.

Game>Doc>Items>Sacred Unique
-The SU variants are typically found beginning at Area Levels of 104 and beyond, SSU variants begin dropping in Area Level 119 areas, and SSSUs start dropping in Area Level 130 areas.-

Unless something changed recently and the docs have yet to be updated to reflect such but i cant find where this is the case. As far as i can tell these are current. Just not sure if Bosses get +1 to the area level or not that part isn't made clear.