Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

[krizalllid]

Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

Does the -25% Target defense apply to Corpse Explosion or not?

I recently socketed a decent +2skill wand with an Eth and I'm wondering if I made a mistake.

Haven't had time to test it properly yet.

 

[LorveN]

Re: Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

Corpse explosion is a spell, and it will hit if the monster is within its range, no matter the defense of the monster. So socketing a wand with an Eth doesn't really make any sense, sorry.

 

[krizalllid]

Re: Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

I just found out that defense is rather counter-intuitive in D2, with it only affecting your chance to get hit. I was thinking it reduced the damage you take. Should've read up on that.

Ah well. It's not like I had anything better to socket it with.

 

[LorveN]

Re: Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

True, that's how defense works in D2.
Though resistances work in the way you mentioned, reducing the damage taken by a percentage. There are also mods like "damage reduced by x%", "damage reduced by x", which reduce the physical damage by percentages and integer numbers respectively. Also, there are similar for each and every element.

Corpse explosion is an interesting spell though, since the damage it gives is divided into 50% fire damage/50% physical damage. Dual damage type spells are often very useful, since immune monsters still can be killed in most cases

 

[krizalllid]

Re: Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

I've got another related question - what modifiers would increase the damage CE does?

Theoretically I suppose I would need to roll a jewel with -fire resist to target or something along those lines.

Can you get such bonuses on a jewel?

 

[LorveN]

Re: Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

There is such a jewel (unique, however) that increases the elemental damage and reduces the elemental resist of one of the elements by 3-5% each, as well as gives a few other bonuses. Read here for complete stats/info:
http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Unique_Jewels

I'm not sure if the +%damage adds to the damage from your Corpse Explosion since it is a fixed value (60-100% of corpse life), but at least there's a bit of -%res.

On the other hand, 60-100% of the corpse life means that if you have two corpses and explode them, all other monsters nearby will be dead too (assuming they're not tougher monsters), and you'll also have a bunch of new corpses to explode.
Because of this, this is by far one of the best methods to clean out a large room full of monsters, since the number of monsters is not a factor slowing the killing down.
With a decent number of +skills, the radius is big already. If you at the same time curse the monsters with amplify damage, the room is wiped clean before you know it.

 

[onderduiker]

Re: Eth Rune and Corpse Explosion

+% Fire Skill Damage doesn't apply to Corpse Explosion's fire damage (although + Fire Skills will increase its skill level) but -% Enemy Fire Resistance does. Fire Resist -% from Conviction and Lower Resist will also increase CE's fire damage, Damage Resist -% from Amplify Damage and Decrepify will increase its physical damage and equipping a Sanctuary Aura When Equipped item will pierce DR % of undead when the Necromancer equips it.

It's always better to cast AD rather than LR on monsters that aren't Immune to Physical. Also, whenever possible you should try to ensure that your character level (clvl) is at least equal to monster level (mlvl), since when clvl < mlvl CE's damage is multiplied by clvl/mlvl.