Ma/strafe zone hell?

i crafted knock back gloves, enemies totally stun after strike while my valk hits,i may just love to love them, if i craft some GG ones that is but end game is laying of hands. however since i lost +20 ias gloves I now feel my decrepify is casting later thats not good either. to make up, I went backwards from a edge in a shadow bow to a blade bow for the -10 speed. With atma's its cruial to strafe a-10 bow for quick casting.

can a rare bow actually be better then edge? i found a rare spider bow 52-114 damage, +10 ias, 128 ed, 7-28 cold,100 poison. stats show this bow does way more damage then my best edges, can a yellow rare bow beat a runeword like edge?what the best you guys have found? i didnt think they were worth picking up.
 
@DemonAbuse This bow is FAR from ideal (e.g. no IAS, leech, or Fool's mod), but it shows that you can come by some pretty nice damage numbers on rare bows. I almost always ID rares of good base items just for the chance of finding a really nice rare, because they are out there. I'm sure some people here can show off some infinitely better ones than the one I presented. The big problem with Edge is that it has no generic enhanced damage, so it really suffers against non-demons.
 
Phive ty for answering, I was reading a past post about a similar subject where yourself n zyr were involved titled untwinked strafezon assistance.

Zyr recommends keeping strafe at 7 for less strafe lock however I’ve also noticed that every point I put into strafe = 1-2 points max damage, not anywhere near 5 percent what it’s supposed to be, what gives?

I crafted nice +2 Amazon bow skills knock back gloves got very happy but went back to fire poison res knock back gloves after noticed the damage or lack of from the 1st. I guess elemental bowazons benefit more but still, +2 to strafe is 10 percent so wtf??? If I could take 13 almost useless points from strafe and pump have a 13 percent added chance to hit from my many shots maybe that’s the right move. Or I again I may be missing something.



Btw so far with atmas everything goes down w lvl 20 strafe.I dunno about act 4 n 5 but I just watched my valk hit a phys immune wrath, proc amp damage and take it down herself while doing a countess run.shes lvl (20, lvl 10 decoy)
Ma seems like a 20 point luxury right now, and 13 point ma in hell is like an alcoholic trying to get drunk off wine coolers. If I do lose MA the only thing I won’t dare n strafe is diablo, I even stRafed/decoyed hell Baal, it was uneventful.. maybe zyr has advice for me and diablo??? Love to hear it if you have the time, thanks.
 
I like Guided Arrow against Diablo - shoot one in his general direction, run, shoot again, run. Keep him off screen if you can, and keep moving to avoid the bone prisons and lightning hose of death. Not a quick kill, but a fun one.
 
maybe zyr has advice for me and diablo??? Love to hear it if you have the time, thanks.

@Noodle's advice is perfectly sound, if you can do it. Diablo's Lightning Hose and Bone Prison are indeed the greatest dangers, especially in combination.

There's a special danger for a Zon wielding a "Harmony" bow: Diablo always targets the unit dealing the highest elemental damage, and won't switch targets until death, whether it's that unit's death or his own. In your case, that means D. will totally ignore your Valkyrie, your Decoy, and your mercenary, and focus only on your Zon, as long as she wields the "Harmony" bow.

I'm not good at gunning and running, as @Noodle recommends, and I long ago discovered that, for me, with my limitations as a player, the least dangerous way to tackle most Act bosses is standing on his toes in melee.

After considerable difficulty trying to deal with Diablo (and Baal) as a Bowazon, I realized: "Hey! A Bowazon's Dex makes her qualified to be a pretty damned good Daggerzon!" Dex gives her both a decent Chance to Hit and excellent Blocking. So, the last several times my Bowazons (not just my physical damage dealers like yours, but a Magezon as well) faced Diablo and Baal, they did so wielding "Strength" Fanged Knives and "Rhyme" Bone or Grim Shields. D. won't cast Bone Prison on a melee attacker, and in NM and Hell the character is too close for the Lightning Hose to hit.

I'm not advising you (or anyone else) to do this; I'm merely reporting what has worked well for me.
 
... Diablo always targets the unit dealing the highest elemental damage, and won't switch targets until death, whether it's that unit's death or his own. ...

That's fantastic advice for my bowa is that's true. Do you have any sources on that?

I'm thinking of putting some elemental damage helm on merc, and then using Gladiator's bane to negate his firestorm's damage altogether. Then, I only ever have to feed him purples for D's big right hand swings.
 
@Gynli, no sources that I can cite right now, because I read it in an Amazon Basin thread many years ago, and the Basin Forums are currently down (again).

CAVEAT: The discussion pertained to battle.net, and Diablo's threat assessment might be different in SP, though I have no reason to think it might be.

I've confirmed this phenomenon to my own satisfaction on battle.net, both solo and playing with a partner. Though it has been years, I vividly recall the difference in D.'s behavior toward Balistaria, my Guardian Crossbowazon, when I switched between her 272%ED "Harmony" Colossus Crossbow and her 300% ED Cruel Colossus Crossbow.

BTW, at least one of the Ancients (possibly Korlic?) is also a "Harmony" hater. I was playing a Barb with my partner's Bowazon, and doing my best to draw his attention away from the Zon and toward the Barb. But the Ancient locked relentlessly on the Zon until my partner switched away from the "Harmony" bow.

I don't think there's any difference in Diablo's targeting between difficulties, so it shouldn't take too long to test your highly sensible proposal with a high level character (and merc) in Normal or NM.
 
@Zyr That is interesting about Diablo targeting the character with the highest elemental damage, I didn't know that. Might test some things myself but I was wondering, what does this apply to specifically? I'd assume elemental damage as applied per standard attack (melee or ranged), but not damage from elemental spells? Does having a certain attack/spell selected affect this?
 
It's certainly true on BNet. We have encountered Diablo so many times now in our weekly group game, with group size ranging from 3 - 7 people, and he always targets the character with most elemental damage.
 
I had no idea about that diablo res thing either, Its 100 percent true on single player. I recharged harmony, revived 20 demons, charged!!!! but diablo only had eyes for my amazon. i did have to dance a little however Diablo was simple this way and I didnt even feel too cheezy.

I never knew you could use laz to socc Shako!!! I cant decide what to put into it if I socket i with, would like advice for my particular case please. I CAN PUT IN +15 res all jewel or my best ed jewel is 32%. Im using a -10 bow with 20 ias so i dont think i need anymore ias/.
res.
F 71
C 60
L74
P62 life is at 954 lvl 86, dont feel squishy.
my inventory is totally with full of res charms have not saved anya yet either. my bow is quickly tearing down everything already, however with higher res i can possibly go back to atmas but my endgame res will be a bit lower. maras amulet is +27,my jewel is +15 res all or 32% ed jewel as well.

Harmony +3 mat bow
Shako,
mara's amulet,
razortail,
laying of hands,
2 rare rings with res, mods + strength, half freeze, +ar.
fortitude, sandstorm trek.
i never thought I could get a bow amazon to be this powerful and simply bad ass in hell in a single player hardcore game!! i read so many post about how bow amazons suck in hell I almost gave up but it such a fun character.

my merc has a Insight giant thresher eth,
vamp gaze,
treachery /he's killing very fast!

I stuck with MAX MA 27 with plus skills/ max strafe lvl27 with plus , valk max28 with plus skills, 15 decoy with plus , penetrate 15 with plus skills now ,and will dump the rest into this.@ what lvl do you stop getting + skills benefit over lvl 20? or does it just keep stacking?
 
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I just tested all 4 merc types with different elemental damage against diablo's aggression.

Act 1 merc with harmony versus my faith/none. Diablo will target Act 1 merc.
Act 1 merc with harmony vs my faith/harmony. -- couldn't test, but most likely me because I have ravenfrost.
Act 2 merc with Pride vs my faith/harmony. Diablo targets me.
Act 2 merc with Pride vs my faith/none. Diablo targets merc.

Act 3 merc (all 3 types) with Lawbringer(280-390 elemental) vs my faith/harmony. Diablo targets me.
Act 3 merc (all 3 types) with Lawbringer vs my faith/none. Diablo targets me.
Act 5 merc with Lawbringer vs my faith/none. Diablo targets merc.

Act 5 merc with Lawbringer vs my faith/harmony. -- couldn't test, but most likely me because harmony has more elemental damage.

Note#1. switch weapon matters.
Note#2. Diablo will target Act 5 merc with Lawbringer (faith/none), but not an Act 3 merc with the same setup.

I'm wondering why diablo is ignoring Act 3 merc...

@Zyr It seems AB is back up. do you mind linking where you read about diablo's target selection - if you remeber xD? I'm quite curious.

E: Note#3. Diablo selects his target before he takes any damage.

Also tested some more w/ act 3 merc.

When I am naked w/o Faith(120 fire) and ravenfrost(15-45 cold), Diablo targets merc.
When I was using white gothic bow (0 elemental) + ravenfrost (15-45 cold) Diablo targets merc.

Act 3 merc does 350~ fire damage/150 or 613 cold damage/210 or 258 lit damage depending on type. Which is far above my elemental damage...

So it's not that Diablo doesn't outright ignore act 3 merc; but rather, the merc's elemental damage is negligible to 135~165 I have on my gear.

My next guess is that Diablo looks at highest elemental dps and not the highest elemental damage for 1 shot; but I don't have enough gear/money to test it out...

@T72on1 in your MP games, did Diablo target sorc with high elemental damage or 'physical' fighters with elemental damage from gear?


Anywho... I was dreaming of a scenario where I would equip the act 3 merc with lit/fire absorb and %dr and watch Diablo chase him around the pentagram, all the while my bowa spams GA from the center. But, it seems the target agro does not work the way I wanted it to. :(

E2: apologies for taking over the thread @DemonAbuse
 
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:eek:

Another thing learned! Cheers Zyr. :p

Edit: Figured I should spoiler it up. ^^
max physical damage,
max fire damage,
max lightning damage,
max magic damage,
max cold damage,
max poison damage divided by 256.

Then he adds them all together. He doesn't check for min damage at all, so if you'd have 1-500 damage then I guess you'll get picked over your teammate if he has 498-499 damage.

There's more he checks for, but I'm not sure how everything is used in his decision-making.
He checks for current hitpoints, if the target is chilled, distance of course, cold resistance, fire resistance, lightning resistance, physical resistance, and magic resistance.
Since he checks for these resistance types, I assume he potentially factors those in when he chooses which attack to use, since his attacks have all of those types.

He also checks specifically if the target is (his own) bone prison. :D I can imagine there must've been an alpha version at some point where he started to attack his own prison..
I think highest from gear, not skills. Not sure though.

Right.
His AI does check for which skills are selected and their skill levels. There's a small formula that uses the selected skills and their levels as input, and the result seems to get added to those max damage values. The AI doesn't seem to care what the skill actually does though, so even non-offensive spells will contribute.
(The formula takes the "AttackRank" of the skill and multiplies it by the skill level. It does this for both left and right, adds the results together, and divides that by 4.)


The damage he checks for seems to be before any (off-weapon) +%, which would explain why Harmony-wearers tend to become targets. Grief's extra damage might not apply at all since I think that might be "normal damage" and not "min - max"?
Anyway, looking at "sheet damage" would not be appropriate because (if I read it right) Diablo does not factor in +% damage from things like skills and strength/dexterity. He checks the weapon's max damage after any +% and +max that's on it though.

Oh, and poison damage is stored as damage/frame, so the division by 256 pretty much makes sure it always ends up as 0, unless you deal 25+ poison damage per second. But I'm looking at 1.00, so maybe this was changed later. :p
 
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would someone please give me an idea what to socket shako with? I have a 32% ED jewel or maybe a shael?
 
I'll recommend either PTopaz or PRuby for the extra mf or life. If you are lacking resists, and do not have the necessary charms to make up for it, you can also consider putting in an 'um' rune. 15res jewels are much rarer than the rune; so you should hold on to yours.

The %ed from jewel will have very minimal effect on your dps; save it for some other time.

Regarding your last post;

1. Atma > Mara. Amp from atma is too good to pass up on.
2. Bowa don't need maxed resists; between valk, decoy, merc, and slow missile, you really shouldn't be getting hit at all in the first place. it's not a bad thing to have good resists, but it's not an absolute must like some other classes. The only thing you should be worrying about is hard-hitting physical ranged attacks and, of course, gloams. Everything else should be easy to handle with smart decoy placement + knockback.

For your reference, my /p8 CS runner is currently at 50~ fire and cold resists, ~0 lit res, and -50~ poison. The only time I die is when I let a exra strong Urdar run up and smack me in the face while I'm amped. My merc on the otherhand, I make sure he's topped up in resists.

3. For similar reasons as above, I firmly believe Cleglaw's Pincers >>> LoH. Sure you lose the 20ias and 350% to demon; but the slow and kb are so broken on strafers. Add in some pierce and you'll definitely notice how much tamer the Hell monsters can be.

-- Atma will more than make up for the kill speed lost from LoH.
-- Cleglaw's Pincer will, again, more than make up for the safety lost from 27@ on Mara.
-- if you absolutely hate losing couple frames of strafe from 20ias on LoH, consider 15%ias jewel in your Shako.

4. You are also missing Cannot be Frozen. It's a must on any physical attackers who rely on attack speed. Ravenfrost would be the ideal solution, but consider using any item with CBF for the time being.
 
CBF is optional on Strafers.
*grabs popcorn*




Joking aside, the only reason I have CBF on my Strafers is because I need the AR/DEX on Ravenfrost. If a Strafer gets hit she'll most likely die with or without CBF or resists. Their defence is offence. Pretty much what @Gynli said. Get Knockback, %Slow Target, a couple of Cold Damage SC's and you're good to go. If you want a bit of an overkill get a HF Merc. Everything will be moving so slow even the moron won't die.

Cleglaw's Pincers are god-tier! :p
 
How Diablo chooses his Target

this topic may also be of interest.

Seems my memory was less than accurate. :oops: @Gynli, thanks for the testing, and @Fruit, thanks for the 1.00 info. :)

Haha, no problem. :p It was just a reference, to show that not just damage is factored in, obviously it's not complete. Wouldn't have bothered if I knew the Basin had it up in such detail. ^^
Appreciate the link(s) as always! Doesn't look like anything has changed since 1.00. The AI for all Act1-Act4 monsters has probably seen extremely few changes. :)

what to socket shako with? I have a 32% ED jewel or maybe a shael?

Personally I prefer damage/offense over tankiness, basically what srrw and Gynli described.
In your situation, if I had an Um I would just slam that one in so I could start replacing +res charms for +damage or +life, or otherwise just to create some room to replace the Amulet with something that fits a Strafer better.
 
Thank you fruit srrw, gynli! I just found ravenfrost talk about perfect timing!! My rare ring is 10 strength 10 res all so I’m fine there. I also have a um rune since I’m a HC player so I will go with that in shako, . Atmas is going back on but then I’m wondering if the sandstorm trek should stay on since there’s overlapping poison res, I think my safest bet is tearhunch with 10 res all 5 strength 5 dex, I need the strength and like the dex that I’d lose from trek. I don’t have war travs or gores.
 
@Fruit
@Zyr
@anyoneinterested

I just did some testing with Diablo's target selection, and tldr; not only does switch weapon matter; but it actually adds both weapons into the total damage.

I recently tried out some merc setups and I found that Diablo would always target the merc while using Obedience eth Thresher. The Obedience eth Thresher has 991 max damage, and enchant gives about 100. Obviously, my Faith bow nor Harmony doesn't even come close to that number.

With that in mind, I made a Pheonix weapon for fire absorb and put it on the merc. Pheonix eth Thresher rolled 375% ed and has 1002 max damage. Obviously, my bow still doesn't even come close, but this time, Diablo started targeting me.. !?

Well there goes my Vex Vex Lo Jah!!! In desperate attempt to save this mess, I replaced his andy's and put on a helm with 1~100 lit damage jewel. And thank god, Diablo started targeting him again.

So that made me question, why'd that 100 max lit damage matter!?

After some number crunching here's what I've found.

Merc: Obedience(991+118 enchant) + Fort(0) + Guillaume(0) = 991 + 118 = 1109;
Merc: Pheonix(1002) + Fort(0) + Guillaume(0) = 1002;
Zon: Faith(309+120 fire) + 10 Razor + 25 WT + 90 charms + @poison (too small to matter) = 554;
Zon: Harmony(27+480 elemental) + 10 Razor + 25 WT + 90 charms + @poison (too small) = 632;
Zon : Faith(309+120 fire) + Harmony(27+480 elemental) + 35 equips + 90 charms = 1062;

So darn, it seems Diablo's target selection looks at the SUM of weapons' max damage.

In hindsight, if I made my Pheonix in a eCV instead of eThresher, the merc would have, even with lowest roll, 1111 max damage. That would've been enough of a difference for Diablo to consistently target the merc. :(


Well now i'm left with a choice of resist/life/inertia charms vs using my last socket quest on the merc's Andy's to put in a jewel with 1-100 lit damage..

At least now I tested and confirmed +fire absorb and -fire resists works really well for letting merc tank Diablo... :confused:

E: Next Faith is definitely going on Diamond bow to lower the max damage from 309 to 172. That'll make Diablo target merc again. ISO: Jah/Ohm/Superior Diamonbow 4os !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad::mad::mad: /E
 
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