Sacrifice and self-damage

[Sixstringer]

Sacrifice and self-damage

Is the 8% self-damage increased with ...

1) Crushing blow hits?
2) Deadly Strikes?
3) the item property enhanced damage to demons/undead?
4) the standard enhanced damage to undead on all maces, hammers, scepters, etc?

Also, do you leech more life with . . .
1) Crushing blow hits?
2) Deadly Strikes?
3) the item property enhanced damage to demons/undead?
4) the standard enhanced damage to undead on all maces, hammers, scepters, etc?

Obviously, I'm trying to decide which properties to look for in a Sacrifice pally, and avoid items that deal increased damage but don't allow for increased leech.

My guess is, self-damage and leech is increased with all of the above except Crushing Blow.

Thanks for the expertise!

 

[Rawness1]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

1. No.
2. No.


The life taken away from you is the damage you actually deal, so if you hit a monster and the Deadly strike factors in, (Let's make it easy for me - I suck @ math) 100 dmg.

This reflects about 8 damage (not calculating that you are in hell) back to yourself.
Now you double that: and now you have 16 damage VS yourself.

CB: isn't added on to the whole life taken .... Nor does CB work with lifeleech. OW isn't calculated either.

Lifeleech works the same way sacrifice does, you get a % of the damage you take back, that depends on the damage you deal... soed to demon/undead = counted as damage too.

Worth mentioning: LL is at 1/3 at hell. Add in the 50% dr on the enemies.

 

[Sixstringer]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

Sorry, but your response is a bit confusing. With a deadly strike that does 100 dmg (already having been doubled), it would still just be 8 self damage, right? It would be 16 if you do 200 total damage after the deadly strike doubles your initial blow.

Essentially, though, a deadly strike will increase (double) the damage you do to yourself. Correct? And give you twice the leech?

Same with ed to demons and undead, though it's scary to do ed sacrifice damage to undead or other enemies with reduced leech. That sound right?

 

[Rawness1]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

Sorry, but your response is a bit confusing. With a deadly strike that does 100 dmg (already having been doubled), it would still just be 8 self damage, right? It would be 16 if you do 200 total damage after the deadly strike doubles your initial blow.

Essentially, though, a deadly strike will increase (double) the damage you do to yourself. Correct? And give you twice the leech?

Same with ed to demons and undead, though it's scary to do ed sacrifice damage to undead or other enemies with reduced leech. That sound right?

Yepp. Sorry for that. I have a tendency to edit when I get new informations, this sometimes leaves false conclusions hanging in the air. I am quiet fragmental in my syntax... which I guess shows.

 

[onderduiker]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

Thankfully, Crushing Blows don't count towards Sacrifice's damage-to-self.

Deadly Strike doesn't apply to Sacrifice's damage, so it doesn't increase its damage-to-self either: there's no point in equipping DS, but if an item has DS with other useful modifiers, then you can equip it without worrying about DS doubling damage and thus damage-to-self.

Both Sacrifice's damage-to-self and leeching are calculated based on actual physical damage, so % Damage to Demons/Undead and other physical damage-enhancing modifiers will affect both.

Worth mentioning: LL is at 1/3 at hell. Add in the 50% dr on the enemies.

Leeching from % Life Stolen Per Hit is 1/3 in Hell, but is also reduced by a monster's drain effectiveness: however, Life Tap isn't affected by difficulty penalties or drain effectiveness, so when cast before attacking with Sacrifice it'll always heal 42% (50-8) physical attack damage, even against monsters with 0% drain effectiveness like Skeletons (against which % LSPH is completely ineffective).

Monsters have had variable Damage Resist % since v1.10, so normal monsters now have DR 0-100%.

 

[Sixstringer]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

Thanks for the clarification, Rawness.


@onderduiker: As always, thanks for your thorough replies.

A couple of other quesitons from my searching of Sacrifice info if anyone has responses:

1) I've read Sacrifice self-damage is applied before life leech, so it's possible to kill yourself before leech kicks in, even if you would have leeched back enough life to stay alive. I've never seen this (actually, I've never killed myself from the self-damage) but I was wondering if anyone could confirm it.

2) This one doesn't make sense to me, but here goes: I have read somewhere that Sacrifice self-damage is based on how much damage you deal out, but leech is based on actual damage done. The suggestion was this: if you have 10% life leech and deal 1000 damage to a monster with only 100 hit points, you'll take 80 points of sacrifice self-damage (from the full amount of damage your blow could have dealt) but only leech back 10 points (leeching from what health the monster had left.)

Thus the conclusion was drawn that you shouldn't use Sacrifice on monsters with low health because you'll hurt yourself more than necessary to kill the thing. I've never noticed this discrepancy in my own use of Sacrifice, but I also rely on Redemption more than life leech so I might have overlooked it.

It seems like this would be basing Sacrfice self-damage on potential physical damage, rather than the actual physical damage done to a monster. Sounds ridiculous, but stranger things have happened.

 

[onderduiker]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

Yes, Sacrifice's damage-to-self is applied before healing from leeching, so you kill yourself whenever damage-to-self exceeds your current life, regardless of how much you leech.

Both damage-to-self and leeching are based on actual physical damage: Sacrifice normally returns no damage when attacking Immune to Physical monsters, and if you apply 1,000 potential physical damage to a monster with 100 hit points, only 100 damage is applied, with 8 damage-to-self and 10 life returned by 10% Life Stolen Per Hit (assuming you're in Normal and attacking a monster with 100% drain effectiveness).

Note that point and percentage damage reduction won't reduce Sacrifice's returned damage, although by reducing physical damage from other sources they reduce the risk of damage-to-self exceeding current life. The bright side of this is that being cursed with Amplify Damage or Decrepify won't increase damage-to-self (although they'll increase physical damage from other sources).

 

[Sixstringer]

Re: Sacrifice and self-damage

Note that point and percentage damage reduction won't reduce Sacrifice's returned damage, although by reducing physical damage from other sources they reduce the risk of damage-to-self exceeding current life. The bright side of this is that being cursed with Amplify Damage or Decrepify won't increase damage-to-self (although they'll increase physical damage from other sources).

Wow, this I did not know. In fact, it says just the opposite in an older guide to the Martyr that I read: DR and %DR both reduced your damage to self, and being amped was dangerous.

I guess a huge life orb is the ultimate goal for a Sacrificer, as well as some life tap, since leech loses some of its effectiveness and while DR is great, it isn't any more useful for a Sacrifice pally than it is for any other character.

Thanks.