1.00 News, Info and Gossip

[Fruit]

@Fruit I love your enthusiasm about digging deeper into the game. It's great to have people like you around, who can still provide us some fresh information about an old old patch!

Way to go!

Thank you Grape!
I actually really appreciate the comment, as I often feel hesitant to share findings.

So thanks.

that would be hilarious if a sorc could leech with blizzard.

I suppose blizzard doesn't leech, right? What about in older versions?

Unfortunately it doesn't. (Not in 1.00 at least.) That would've been so much fun.
Every time I start up Diablo, a part of me hopes to find a bug like that. Especially a bug that would actually allow for a unique build.

One bug I recently noticed is that when a Sorceress enchants herself, Fire Mastery is applied twice when using a ranged weapon (but unfortunately the damage is also divided by 3). Another thing is that fire damage from gear is also increased by Fire Mastery (I assume this wasn't intended). As usual, the character screen and skill descriptions are lying about much of it.
These particular bugs are irrelevant of course, since they'll never net you enough damage to be effective on Hell, but they give me hope that there's a useful bug hiding somewhere, like leech working with Blizzard or something.

(It's funny (to me) that in 1.14, the description (of Enchant) says that its damage is divided by 3 for ranged weapons, even though it is not. While in 1.00, it is divided by 3, even though the description doesn't mention it. Also, in 1.14 it's actually the melee damage where Fire Mastery is applied twice, while in 1.00 it's the ranged damage. And in 1.00, Fire Mastery doesn't apply at all when enchanting allies, but this was already known I believe. Every attempt at fixing a bug seems to have caused five new ones. )


@TedDeeBoy
A little extra on Defense. I did a (bit of a lazy) test:

Spoiler

As a level 72 Barbarian with Shout(20) and Iron Skin(20), I reached 8710 defense (without a shield, and with 45 dexterity). I let a Doom Knight on Hell (level 74) attack me 100 times, and I was hit 16 times.
If you run the numbers through the formula (including the *4 multiplier bug), you'd end up with a ~13.79% chance to be hit.
Since I'm too impatient to let a Doom Knight attack me a million times, I'm just gonna assume that the 16/100 checks out with ~13/100, and my conclusion in turn is that defense rating shown in the character screen is accurate. (Premature conclusion, but for now I'll take it.)

The character screen however showed only 3% chance to be hit: When I ran the numbers through the formula without the *4 multiplier bug, the result was ~3.79% chance to be hit. So, obviously, the character screen doesn't include the *4 multiplier bug. (And who knows what base attack rating it even uses.) My conclusion is that this number is totally useless.
(I used the attack rating of a Doom Knight. Doesn't really matter, though.)

As Sorceress with the same gear and stats, and with active Shiver Armor(20), my defense reached 3698. In that case, the chance to be hit would be ~27.06%. Pretty much twice as high as the Barbarian with 8710 defense.

With 300 defense, the chance to be hit would be ~82.06%.
With 1000 defense, the chance to be hit would be ~57.84%.

Anyway, those are just a few examples. There are important variables to consider during gameplay, like: Base attack rating of the attack, mlvl, clvl, and champions, elites and minions may get an additional AR multiplier(?).

 

[Albatross]

To add to what Grape said.

I've also always enjoyed reading about game mechanics, especially those which are broken.

 

[pharphis]

Does blizzard do physical dmg in 1.07? Maybe it leeches in there, like lightning fury does

 

[teddeeboy]

Thank you Grape!





Unfortunately it doesn't. (Not in 1.00 at least.) That would've been so much fun.
@TedDeeBoy
A little extra on Defense. I did a (bit of a lazy) test:

Spoiler

As a level 72 Barbarian with Shout(20) and Iron Skin(20), I reached 8710 defense (without a shield, and with 45 dexterity). I let a Doom Knight on Hell (level 74) attack me 100 times, and I was hit 16 times.
If you run the numbers through the formula (including the *4 multiplier bug), you'd end up with a ~13.79% chance to be hit.
Since I'm too impatient to let a Doom Knight attack me a million times, I'm just gonna assume that the 16/100 checks out with ~13/100, and my conclusion in turn is that defense rating shown in the character screen is accurate. (Premature conclusion, but for now I'll take it.)

The character screen however showed only 3% chance to be hit: When I ran the numbers through the formula without the *4 multiplier bug, the result was ~3.79% chance to be hit. So, obviously, the character screen doesn't include the *4 multiplier bug. (And who knows what base attack rating it even uses.) My conclusion is that this number is totally useless.
(I used the attack rating of a Doom Knight. Doesn't really matter, though.)

As Sorceress with the same gear and stats, and with active Shiver Armor(20), my defense reached 3698. In that case, the chance to be hit would be ~27.06%. Pretty much twice as high as the Barbarian with 8710 defense.

With 300 defense, the chance to be hit would be ~82.06%.
With 1000 defense, the chance to be hit would be ~57.84%.

Anyway, those are just a few examples. There are important variables to consider during gameplay, like: Base attack rating of the attack, mlvl, clvl, and champions, elites and minions may get an additional AR multiplier(?).

Thanks again for the great research. What armours with base def rating did you use for the test? It looks like a titan iron barb would will a good build if you can compensate for walking everywhere.

 

[Fruit]

Does blizzard do physical dmg in 1.07? Maybe it leeches in there, like lightning fury does

I checked -- turns out it was 1.07 that removed it (1.06 still has the physical damage portion). Good thinking, but it seems we're out of luck. Lightning Fury 2.0 would've been good
(Do you happen to know if the LF bug from 1.07 also applies to 1.00-1.06?)

Probably a bit too hopeful, but I'll definitely be going through the Lightning and Poison skills of Amazon at some point.
Since Freezing Arrow adds the base arrow damage to the entire splash radius (1.00-1.08), kind of similar to LF from 1.07, there's a chance that there are more skills with a similar bug. (Chance is slim, but worth investigating in my opinion )

Thanks again for the great research. What armours with base def rating did you use for the test? It looks like a titan iron barb would will a good build if you can compensate for walking everywhere.

Not sure if I'm correctly understanding the question, but base defense is always (max+1) when +%defense spawns, so there isn't actually a "base roll" at all.
Here's how my items ended up after spawning them with the Holy prefix (+81-99%):
Ornate Plate(879), Grim Helm(238), War Gauntlets(101) and War Boots(103). I could've cheated perfect +99% rolls, but I think having Holy on all four pieces is already lucky enough (The idea was to simulate something realistic.)

You make a good point though; walking. It's one of the reasons that makes investing in defense rating not look so appealing to me. However, defense is in full effect while whirlwinding, so if you play well, you should be able to avoid autohits.

 

[pharphis]

dunno never tried zon pre-1.07. I just call those "cow mules"

edit: I guess they are actually RoF mules or "maggot mules" in classic

 

[GalaXyHaXz]

(Do you happen to know if the LF bug from 1.07 also applies to 1.00-1.06?)

Actually it wasn't a bug originally. Before 1.07 you only had white/superior javelins, and no synergies. Blizzard made LF treat damage sources the same way for each bolt, so physical/elemental damage carried. This balanced the skill somewhat. In 1.07 they introduced much more powerful (and magical) javelins, which unintentionally made LF insanely good. They eliminated this "feature" in 1.08, not realizing that they butchered the skill for post-lod classic players. (who don't have Titans--try making a 1.10+ classic LF zon )

 

[Fruit]

Actually it wasn't a bug originally.

I do hate to be skeptical, but do you have a source? I searched the "Tapatalk LL" and found nothing on it. (Not of a bug, nor a feature.)
Here's what the patch notes from 1.08 say: "Fixed the bug that added javelin damage to Lightning Fury, and made the graphics simpler for the lightning."

I checked both 1.00 and 1.06 in-game, and the bolts from LF definitely do not carry anything. (Only the actual javelin does.)

Your theory would make total sense, but it doesn't seem to check out anywhere.



Edit: Removed some stuff, I see what went wrong now. There was a change in Missiles.txt:

In 1.00-1.06 in Missiles.txt, they had declared the damage for the bolts directly in the FuryLightning entry. In 1.07, they removed the damage from this entry, and in stead pointed to Skill 35 (which is Lightning Fury in skills.txt) to fetch damage numbers. But because the Lightning Fury entry in skills.txt has SrcDam 2 (which means 100% source damage), the bolts would now copy the lightning damage as well as the source damage (javelin).

In 1.08 they changed the SrcDam colum in Missiles.txt (for FuryLightning) from a 0 to a -1. I think we can safely assume that this tells the game that it should ignore the source damage column when it fetches damage numbers from skills.txt.

PoisonJavCloud and PlagueJavCloud are the only other missiles that have this column set to -1.
So, it was just a small goof: Whoever changed Missiles.txt in 1.07, forgot to change a 0 to a -1.

1.07 is definitely the only patch with the broken Lightning Fury.

 

[Barl1]

Anyone have any idea what I can go with all these Goldskins? (why can't I hold all these goldskins?) I keep finding them from the cow king but I often don't have room to keep them around for more than a few sessions of cow king runs. I sometimes will use them on a barb early on, but beyond that, they're not that great.
View attachment 9921

Also, found a pretty good pike, so I will start a pike barb soon.

View attachment 9922

 

[Fruit]

@TedDeeBoy
I made a few quick reference tables that give a better idea of how defense affects chance to be hit, specifically for Hell Act 4 (forgot to add the small demons/maggots that can be spawned):

Spoiler

link: https://i.imgur.com/9WkMUvx.png

You can see at the top what values for defense rating and clvl were used to create the tables. The last table is against Champions, which apparently get 200% attack rating (found this info in a post from 2000).
Uniques only get a bonus to attack rating if they spawn with certain affixes, but I don't know if these bonuses sum with, or multiply each other. (Or maybe only one bonus is used? Who knows.)

Anyway, I think that the first and third tables, when compared, show that stacking defense definitely pays off.

In case you wanted to get a better idea, you can copy/download the spreadsheet. All you have to do is edit the values for clvl and defense rating, and optionally bonus percent.

 

[teddeeboy]

Anyone have any idea what I can go with all these Goldskins? (why can't I hold all these goldskins?) I keep finding them from the cow king but I often don't have room to keep them around for more than a few sessions of cow king runs. I sometimes will use them on a barb early on, but beyond that, they're not that great.


Also, found a pretty good pike, so I will start a pike barb soon.

Nice dual leech tooth pick. Definitely need to start a barb to that pointy stick. You can even use a tarn and all out gold find gear eventually and still have leech coverred

generally Goldskin is not that to good to keep many, you could accumulate rare full plates if desired and have a chance of other rares.

@TedDeeBoy
I made a few quick reference tables that give a better idea of how defense affects chance to be hit, specifically for Hell Act 4 (forgot to add the small demons/maggots that can be spawned):
link: https://i.imgur.com/9WkMUvx.png

You can see at the top what values for defense rating and clvl were used to create the tables. The last table is against Champions, which apparently get 200% attack rating (found this info in a post from 2000).
Uniques only get a bonus to attack rating if they spawn with certain affixes, but I don't know if these bonuses sum with, or multiply each other. (Or maybe only one bonus is used? Who knows.)

Anyway, I think that the first and third tables, when compared, show that stacking defense definitely pays off.

In case you wanted to get a better idea, you can copy/download the spreadsheet. All you have to do is edit the values for clvl and defense rating, and optionally bonus percent.
[/spoiler]

That is a work of art and science combo Fruit. Thank-you so much. A great additional resource for the 1.00 player community. I will need to get the cyber dust of that OP I found and level my Barb so I have enough str put it on or build a new one with max WW, Mastery, BO, 13 NR, some into Inc Speed and rest into Shout and Iron Skin, str 170 vita 250, some into dex or gear and AR and rest into vita probably

 

[Fruit]

That is a work of art and science combo Fruit. Thank-you so much. A great additional resource for the 1.00 player community. I will need to get the cyber dust of that OP I found and level my Barb so I have enough str put it on or build a new one with max WW, Mastery, BO, 13 NR, some into Inc Speed and rest into Shout and Iron Skin, str 170 vita 250, some into dex or gear and AR and rest into vita probably

Haha -- not sure that level of praise is all that appropriate, but i'll take it anyway. Cheers!
As for strength, I was actually looking into something related to it the other day.
Specifically, I was looking at two things:

• The relationship between base weapon damage and requirements.
  • For example a Grim Scythe has very high damage, but it requires 140/140 (strength/dexterity). Then there's a Yari that doesn't have very high damage, but requires no dexterity at all. So how will damage look if you use the Yari and spend those saved points (that would otherwise go into dexterity) on strength?

• The actual damage that weapons/Whirlwind deal(s).
  • What am I talking about? Well, for example the description of a Bec-de-Corbin will say 24-77 damage, which is correct, but these are not the values used to calculate damage whenever +%damage spawns. In the case of a Bec-de-Corbin, it is actually (24+1) and (67+1) that are used for +%damage. That difference of 5 average base damage ends up being very big if you factor in strength and skill multiplications.
  • Most weapons incorrectly display damage in their description, and the character screen often incorrectly displays damage per hit.

Anyway, here are 3 quick examples/tables that hopefully sketch you an idea:

Spoiler

awd = average weapon damage
ahit = average damage per hit
rt = required (stat points) total

awd is the average weapon damage after +%damage from the weapon, but before strength and skill multiplication.
ahit is the average damage of a single hit with Whirlwind.
rt is the total stat point requirement of the weapon minus the stats points you start with (30 strength and 20 dexterity).

For the tables above, both Whirlwind and Mastery were set to lvl20, and +%damage was set to a (perfect) 198.

The stat points cell means the total number of attribute points spent:
The weapons will basically take enough points from this value to meet its dexterity requirement, and then put the rest into strength to increase their damage.

Why these weapons? Well, these are all the weapons in 1.00 with a range adder of 4. (Except for the Partizan, which has one of 3, but I felt it needed to be included because of its massive damage.)

- As you can see, the average weapon damage of a Grim Scythe is ~1.19 times as high as that of a Pike, but after 230 stat points spent, the average damage per hit with a GS is actually only ~1.02 times as high, because it needs you to put so many points into dexterity.
- The Yari, even though it has a lower average weapon damage than a Pike, actually does more damage after 230 points spent.
- The Partizan has fantastic damage, since it requires no dexterity, besides having high base damage. Unfortunately (and the reason it's cut off from the rest) it has shorter range than the other weapons listed.

The Partizan seems to be the king of damage, but not of range. For AoE, I would probably suggest a Bec-de-Corbin.
Of course a weapon like the Grim Scythe will boost your defense and attack rating as you put points into dexterity, so perhaps it is not such a bad pick after all?

The Pike is obviously also more than sufficient, and is significantly easier to obtain due to that Cow King stuff.


In case anyone is interested to have a closer look at the relationship between variables, feel free to copy/download the spreadsheet.

 

[pharphis]

How bad is the shorter range for WW?

I think it might actually be advantageous in areas like RoF when there are hordes of maggots... at least until you're guaranteed 1-hit KOs. I know before I got a higher dmg weapon (and a higher chance to hit) that it felt really slow to kill maggots on p8 because of the huge selection of monsters that WW would rotate hits between. It was quite annoying. I suppose long-term higher range is impossible to beat because you'll get more dps from just landing more hits

 

[Fruit]

How bad is the shorter range for WW?

I think it might actually be advantageous in areas like RoF when there are hordes of maggots... at least until you're guaranteed 1-hit KOs. I know before I got a higher dmg weapon (and a higher chance to hit) that it felt really slow to kill maggots on p8 because of the huge selection of monsters that WW would rotate hits between. It was quite annoying. I suppose long-term higher range is impossible to beat because you'll get more dps from just landing more hits

Not terrible, but also not inconsiderable:

yellow = 4 (Pike for example)
green = 3 (Partizan for example)

The search radius of Whirlwind covers 181 tiles, a Pike would cover 105 (~58%) of those, while a Partizan would cover 85 (~47%).
Essentially, this means efficiency drops by ~19%.
But you can work around the problem to some degree, with diagonal whirls for example, so in practise it may not be as bad as these "stats".

You could definitely expect to hit less (against larger groups), but if the change would make you go from 2hit kills to 1hit kills, I'm gonna guess it's going to be worth it.



Edit: I'm confused after re-reading your post. Were you asking if having a shorter range could actually be better than a longer one? Because that is not how it works (unfortunately).

 

[pharphis]

Yes that's what I was thinking just so that you're not likely to hit something (that takes 2 hits to die) and then leave it around for awhile because there are too many other things being hit as well

 

[Fruit]

It looks a little bit like this:

If not frame #4, do nothing.
If frame #4, scan for targets within 5 radius, and:
1) Pick a target.
2) Attack target.
3) Pick a target.
4) Attack target.

Now the thing with the Whirlwind (search) function is that it doesn't consider your melee range at all, and step 2 and step 4 are not actually part of Whirlwind.

Imagine standing still, holding shift, and then clicking a target that's outside of your melee range. What will happen? You will just swing the air, with absolutely no chance of hitting. (But you did select the target!) The exact same thing happens with Whirlwind.

This is why the radius bugs for Whirlwind in 1.00-1.06 (with the exception of 1.04) are such a bummer: Whirlwind often picks targets that are out of your melee range, so you keep "swinging the air".
Reducing your melee range will not help this at all, in fact it will make it worse.


Feel free to PM me here or on Discord if something isn't clear.


Edit: I see you've already replied, but since I've already made it now, I'll just add this image:

Spoiler

Looking at their feet:
You can tell that the cow that's swinging at me is within my melee range. The cow to the left is within the search radius of Whirlwind, but not within my melee range. So what can happen now is that Whirlwind picks the target on the left, and I'll "swing the air", even though the cow next to me is right there within melee range. Even an attack rating of a million wouldn't fix the problem.

This example is with a Martel de Fer.

 

[pharphis]

oh ok I understand.

 

[Barl1]

View attachment 9951
tfw you grind cow king for hours and get nothing and then suddenly you get gold.

Also, I will say that managing inventory during cow king runs has gotten ridiculous. Trying to keep uniques around to force failed unique rares plus keeping all the good rares around has proven difficult. I don't want to mule off the items because it will reset the map. Kinda don't like giving up a good map.

e/ also i think this time around i will try a few different builds. obviously my cheese-o-mancer is present, and i'm planning a pike barb, but maybe for sorc i will try something other than static/orb and i'll try a different paladin build. still really dreading the amazon run though.

 

[Fruit]

@Barl
Absurdly good boots, grats on those!
I have the same problem with maps, since i don't use gomule/atma (either). But ultimately it's not too bad imo, since it essentially forces you to change things up, in stead of running a map until you get absolutely sick of it. At least, that's how it feels to me.

As for builds/skills, spoilered up to avoid being spammy:

Spoiler

Thorns + Conversion used to be a thing. Conversion has a significantly higher chance of succeeding relative to 1.14 (42% vs 63% at lvl20), and the duration is much longer (3.5 minutes at slvl20, while in 1.14 it's 16 seconds at all levels).

Hammerdin is an option, but perhaps by "different build" you meant a build other than hammerdin.
(Might and Concentration work with Blessed Hammer, it just won't show in the character screen.)

Vengeance is also an option for a Paladin. It's bugged to add the skill damage twice:
The skill will use your physical weapon damage (excluding strength) and add damage equal to the listed percentage for each element. So at slvl14 (+100%), the skill will add 100% of your weapon damage as fire damage, 100% of your weapon damage as lightning damage, and 100% of your weapon damage as cold damage.
The bug is that these 3 damage portions are added twice: Even an averagely rolled Battle Hammer could easily deal >1000 damage per hit.
Note that this skill does not convert any physical damage (so you still deal your regular attack damage as well, with which leech will work). Elemental damage from your gear is not increased by Vengeance.

Conviction works differently compared to later patches: It lowers a target resistance by the listed percentage of that target resistance. So when a monster has 0 lightning resistance, Conviction will not do anything. (I hope this is not too vague?)

As for Sorceress -- Blaze and Inferno were actually used skills back then. (Blaze was probably used in combination with SF.)
Inferno cast speed is static, and is not affected by any speed modifiers: FCR or IAS won't increase speed, but being chilled or affected by Holy Freeze also will not decrease speed.

Amazons.. well, it really depends on the skills you plan to use. Bowazons are in a bad spot because +%damage on bows only adds 1-1 damage.
Guided Arrow (at all levels) actually reduces total bow damage by 5%.
Strafe multiplies total bow damage by the listed amount, which is great, but of course it will multiply a low bow damage in any case.
Fend suffers from the "miss first = miss all" bug, like Zeal does.
Jab might actually work with a good Pike. Like Inferno (see above), the speed is static.
Lightning Fury was used in earlier patches, but you may still want to have a Spear in your inventory to deal with high lightning resistance. (Unfortunately no quick-switch.)

Twitchthroe only adds 1 IAS. Although there are cases where that single point is enough for you to hit the next breakpoint, usually the armor won't increase your attack speed.

Sorry if I'm just repeating common knowledge, I don't really know what everyone around here knows.

 

[pharphis]

I don't think many people know those facts. I may have only seen 1-2 of them before