Strafe still has a 3/4 weapon damage penalty even after patch 2.4

Bug Report
1

Strafe is still affected by the 3/4 weapon damage even after patch 2.4, despite what the patch notes state.

What the D2R devs changed is the “SrcDamage” column for Strafe in skills.txt from 96 to 128, this unfortunately didn’t remove the penalty.

What you also need to do is change the “SrcDamage” column for “strafearrow” and “strafebolt” in missiles.txt from 96 to 128, this will allow strafe to deal full damage as stated in the 2.4 patch notes.

Hopefully this gets fixed eventually. :slight_smile:

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An explanation of my testing methodology to determine that Strafe is indeed still penalized, sorry for the wall of text. :stuck_out_tongue: Copy pasted from my Reddit post:

How do I know for sure that it’s not working as intended?

I did some testing. Sorry for the horribly convoluted method, I’m sure there’s a much easier way to test it but I’ll explain what I did.

In monstats.txt (handles monster statistics):

  • set “enabled” column to 0 for fallen and quill rats (prevents them from spawning)
  • set “AI” column to “Idle” for zombies (prevents them from moving or attacking),
  • set “noRatio” to 0 to disable it (noRatio is a column that affects how monster’s baseline stats are calculated like life/damage, etc)
  • set "MinHP(H) and “MaxHP(H)” columns to 5000 for zombies (this is why I disabled noRatio, otherwise they wouldn’t have 5000 life exactly)
  • set “DamageRegen” column to 0 for zombies (prevents life regeneration)

In skills.txt:

  • set “Param3” and “Param4” columns for Strafe to 1 (makes Strafe always shoot only 1 arrow)

After that I created a hero edited amazon that has these stats and items:

  • 4000 current life and 8000 maximum life
  • No allocated stat or skill points (500 available stat points and 200 available skill points, both for testing purposes)
  • Plain short bow (1 - 4 damage) and arrows
  • Small charm with 49 minimum/46 maximum damage
  • Small charm with 50 min/50 max damage
  • 6x small charms with 100% life steal each (600% life steal total)

Testing methodology:

My bow and charms give me a base damage of 100-100 (min: 1 + 49 + 50 = 100, max: 4 + 46 + 50 = 100).

I allocate points up the bow skill tree until I have 1 point in Strafe, which has 20% enhanced damage (5% from Strafe, 5% from Multiple Shot synergy, 10% from Guided Arrow synergy). I allocate 55 points to dexterity giving me 80 total dexterity (25 base dexterity). This gives me exactly 100% enhanced damage when using a bow, which increases my damage to 200-200.

Zombies have 50% damage reduction which would reduce my damage to 100-100, which means it should take exactly 50 hits to kill them. I also have 600% life steal which is reduced to 100% by the Hell penalty (1/3) and the zombies “drain effectiveness” stat (50%, which means life steal is half effective), so I should leech exactly 100 life per hit as well.

I shoot a zombie with Strafe and I only leech 56 life, which is consistent with the 3/4 penalty which also applies to life/mana steal (100 damage * .75 = 75 damage, 100% leech * .75 = 75% leech, 75 damage * .75 leech = 56.25 life returned). I continue shooting the zombie with Strafe until it dies, which takes 67 hits (75 damage * 67 = 5025 total damage).

Then I switch to Guided Arrow which has 12% enhanced damage, so I allocate an additional 8 dexterity (88 total) so I maintain 100% enhanced damage. I shoot the zombie and leech the expected 100 life and it takes exactly 50 hits to kill it.

Testing changes to missiles.txt:

After performing the above tests and determining that Strafe is still penalized, I adjusted “SrcDam” of “strafearrow” in missiles.txt from 96 to 128 and performed the tests again (I respecced the amazon so that the additional 8 dexterity doesn’t throw off the first test), and Strafe dealt full damage as intended, 100 life leeched per hit and exactly 50 hits to kill the zombie.

5 Likes
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Great work, I can’t confirm your testing method or math but I do believe it certainly deserves to be addressed (or at least glanced at) by Blizzard.

1 Like
4

While we’re here, I’m noticing that the attack rating bonus is not working either. Probably the same reason?

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It’s likely related, I haven’t done any testing regarding the attack rating but I do remember when Ubeogesh noted that quite a while back in this post here:

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6

incredible find. i knew we were operating on placebo

7

Got told to post this here.

Pez - for the D2R dev team to look at and add to the JIRA ticket.
Covers:

  • Damage penalty not being removed
  • Arrack rating bonus not working
7 Likes
8

Bump to the topic. I’ve watched above vid and it’s evident that numbers seen are not reflecting reality.

9

I had a feeling that strafe was not as powered up as the patch made it out to be. This becomes more evident once you maxed strafe.

Turns out the buffs were not implemented, thanks for testing and confirming this.

2 Likes
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Bump. 2020202022020220

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Bump!!! WTF is so hard about fixing this, exactly? Is there nobody available to fix anything unless it’s messing with the streamer-dclone market?

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PezRadar said “it’s known and bugged in JIRA with the team.”

It’s not hard to fix, they just don’t push out patches willy-nilly unless it’s a really big issue unfortunately. They add it to the pile then push the bug fixes in a big batch. We probably won’t see this fixed until 2.6 releases around February I’m guessing. :frowning_with_open_mouth:

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13

Good that at least have it on the radar so it should be fixed sooner than later.

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14

Either in the lead up to start of next season or a mid season patch like they did last time. Hope it’s the latter so that we can confirm it’s all good before next ladder.

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15

That’d be nice, I’m not holding my breath though. :frowning_with_open_mouth:

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As you said, it’s not a hard fix and it’s impacting heavily a patch that they have rolled out so I’d assume it will be covered in the next patch update whenever it comes it’s a question :slight_smile:

1 Like