That would be excellent, and I would encourage anyone able to do so to jump up and validate anythinf I do (repetition!). I don't know if you can do that when playing on GeForceNow, but I will look i to it. I'm pretty sure I won't be ablw to access the saved character files since I donyhave the game actually installed on my Mac.departure wrote: 17 hours agoCan I recommend that you do this offline? Build yourself a good character on maxroll and export it to offline so you have all the gear you need. Enable respec so that you can respec at will, and you can set player count at will. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could even lock your map seed.FerociousTerrier wrote: 18 hours agoI am working on an experimental design, generously funded by @kerph as my patron of Token of Absolution for respeccing in and out of Blood Oath. The objectives are as follows:
1. Determine when Blood Oath is applied to a bound demon: at binding, at game start, or dynamically during play
2. Determine if all benefits of Blood Oath (including warlock benefit of damage transfer) are applied at the same time
3. Use these determinations to identify optimal allocation of skill points and soft points for Blood Oath use in mixed demon builds
Ancillary objectives:
Explore the interaction of the HealthCap and Blood Oath.
Aim 1. Determine when Blood Oath is applied to a bound demon.
- I will again be using bound Fallen to test the hypothesis that Blood Oath is applied and snapshot at time of binding, or alternatively, at time of spawning at the start of a game. The null hypothesis is that it does neither of these and adjusts Life, Resists, Physical Resists and Warlock Damage Transfer at any point in time depending on present skill level.
Methods:
1. Reset skills. Put one point in Demonic Mastery and one point in Bind Demon (and pre-reqs).
2. Bind a Fallen in P1.
3. Take Fallen to Jails and find a closed cell with archers or, alternatively, Teleport into a closed cell with archers on the outside. Estimate number of missiles required to kill the Fallen (or damage the Fallen to X% if unkillable).
4. Repeat steps 2-3 for each Blood Oath condition detailed below.
image.png
For the exploratory aim of understanding how/when the health Cap takes effect, I will only test in Players 8 (this ought to be fun in online SCNL...) doing essentially the same thing but selecting skill levels that theoretically minimize or max out the health caps:
image.png
In principal, Level 11 Blood Oath in P8 should perform exactly the same as Level 30 Blood Oath in P8. However, if we find that Lvl 30 is much more durable than Lvl 11, it may mean that Blood Oath ignores the health caps, and it is only the base demon health that gets capped. Note: the difference between Lvl 11 and Lvl 30 damage reduction to demon is 3% (8% and 11%, respectively). I don't think that will account for a 2.5 fold difference in health, so it should be noticable if they have equivalent hp.
Happy to take any critiques, comments or suggestions before starting! Cheers!
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FerociousTerrier
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Already running into some flaws in this design. As opposed to the previous experiment looking at demon damage, where I wanted differences, here the Bind Demon and Demon Mastery level is a hindrance. The bound Fallen is too strong and kills everything. Sure, it can die when surrounded, but this makes it difficult to count how many hits it takes.
Also, I can't just do a naked bind, because it would be an unfair comparison when testing higher Blood Oath levels--the higher ones will have Spectral Hit, and thus more resists.
So far, the only place I've found where archers can consistently hit the Fallen is Palace Cellar lvl 3, but those archers have electric Arrows. Lvl 2 archers shoot poison... and to top it off, if they hit me with my Obession, it triggers Weakess.
I am considering instead throwing him in front of Diablo and simply recording time of survival, but that also has the issue of variance from different attacks, meaning more replicates... Any ideas?
Also, I can't just do a naked bind, because it would be an unfair comparison when testing higher Blood Oath levels--the higher ones will have Spectral Hit, and thus more resists.
So far, the only place I've found where archers can consistently hit the Fallen is Palace Cellar lvl 3, but those archers have electric Arrows. Lvl 2 archers shoot poison... and to top it off, if they hit me with my Obession, it triggers Weakess.
I am considering instead throwing him in front of Diablo and simply recording time of survival, but that also has the issue of variance from different attacks, meaning more replicates... Any ideas?
Maybe u could try to see vs Uber Duriel? Her phys damage is v high and it's easy to tell when she hits. You can bind one of the subtypes that's immune to cold so there's no variance from her Holy Freeze. I'd be happy to open portals to testFerociousTerrier wrote: 11 hours agoI am considering instead throwing him in front of Diablo and simply recording time of survival, but that also has the issue of variance from different attacks, meaning more replicates... Any ideas?
On top of that, you can even modify the game so it's easier to test the mechanics (say, make monsters have 10k HP, deal 1000 damage and have 0 resists and block).departure wrote: 17 hours agoCan I recommend that you do this offline? Build yourself a good character on maxroll and export it to offline so you have all the gear you need. Enable respec so that you can respec at will, and you can set player count at will. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could even lock your map seed.
Of course, this assumes the game works the same offline and online, which may or may not be the case (for poison damage it isn't).
Replace Obsession with Mang Song's Lesson, and remove one skiller (or another item with +1 skills) to offset the upgrade from +4 to +5.
And maybe some A5 guest monsters would be more suitable (like Quill Rats in Bloody Foothills)?
Diablo as a target is not panning out too well. I clear Chaos and just leave Diablo there in the middle, TP way out to the side. Go to Act 1, bind a Fallen and bring him to Diablo. So far all variations of binds with/without Blood Oath are dying rather quickly. I think Uber Duriel would possibly be worse.kerph wrote: 10 hours agoMaybe u could try to see vs Uber Duriel? Her phys damage is v high and it's easy to tell when she hits. You can bind one of the subtypes that's immune to cold so there's no variance from her Holy Freeze. I'd be happy to open portals to testFerociousTerrier wrote: 11 hours agoI am considering instead throwing him in front of Diablo and simply recording time of survival, but that also has the issue of variance from different attacks, meaning more replicates... Any ideas?
Something not quite right here.
It's a good idea, but I don't have Mang and probably cannot afford one. But even with Mang, I'd have to come up with about 70 resists or run a higher risk of getting killed. I currently let my merc die so I'd just have the one demon bound, which makes me a sitting duck. Worse comes to worse, I Abyss everything to oblivion, but then I don't have the carefully selected monsters for attacking my demon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Trang Oul wrote: 9 hours agoOn top of that, you can even modify the game so it's easier to test the mechanics (say, make monsters have 10k HP, deal 1000 damage and have 0 resists and block).departure wrote: 17 hours agoCan I recommend that you do this offline? Build yourself a good character on maxroll and export it to offline so you have all the gear you need. Enable respec so that you can respec at will, and you can set player count at will. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could even lock your map seed.
Of course, this assumes the game works the same offline and online, which may or may not be the case (for poison damage it isn't).
Replace Obsession with Mang Song's Lesson, and remove one skiller (or another item with +1 skills) to offset the upgrade from +4 to +5.
And maybe some A5 guest monsters would be more suitable (like Quill Rats in Bloody Foothills)?
I believe bosses do 6x damage to summons? Maybe that's why?FerociousTerrier wrote: 8 hours agoDiablo as a target is not panning out too well. I clear Chaos and just leave Diablo there in the middle, TP way out to the side. Go to Act 1, bind a Fallen and bring him to Diablo. So far all variations of binds with/without Blood Oath are dying rather quickly. I think Uber Duriel would possibly be worse.
What isn't making sense to me is the bind at level 30 Blood Oath and keeping my gear on. At that level, the Fallen should have a health range between 8982 and 12000 (healthcap). Diablo's lightning attack should be doing up to 589 damage per second if Gemini is correct (8.3 damage ticks per second, 38-48 lightning + 21-23 physical per tick). But the Fallen doesn't make it past 2 seconds of lightning hose and generally takes 1 fire + 1-2 physical strikes.
Something not quite right here.
Would u like to try Uber Duriel? Her phys attack does up to 500 damage and just once, rather than per sec. There should be a lot less variance w regen and abilities since she just has Holy Freeze and attack. It can't hurt to try ^^
We can give it a try. I just posted another reply to Trang suggesting Baal's Minions. The ones in Bloody Foothills are cold immune, so that may help as well. I will bind one in P1 and then invite you into the game.kerph wrote: 8 hours agoI believe bosses do 6x damage to summons? Maybe that's why?FerociousTerrier wrote: 8 hours agoDiablo as a target is not panning out too well. I clear Chaos and just leave Diablo there in the middle, TP way out to the side. Go to Act 1, bind a Fallen and bring him to Diablo. So far all variations of binds with/without Blood Oath are dying rather quickly. I think Uber Duriel would possibly be worse.
What isn't making sense to me is the bind at level 30 Blood Oath and keeping my gear on. At that level, the Fallen should have a health range between 8982 and 12000 (healthcap). Diablo's lightning attack should be doing up to 589 damage per second if Gemini is correct (8.3 damage ticks per second, 38-48 lightning + 21-23 physical per tick). But the Fallen doesn't make it past 2 seconds of lightning hose and generally takes 1 fire + 1-2 physical strikes.
Something not quite right here.
Would u like to try Uber Duriel? Her phys attack does up to 500 damage and just once, rather than per sec. There should be a lot less variance w regen and abilities since she just has Holy Freeze and attack. It can't hurt to try ^^
So, @kerph and I did a bunch of tests with demons ranging from Fallen, to Blunderbore and finally Corrupt Rogue. Target was Uber Duriel. Here are our observations:
1. Baal's Minions cannot be bound. Derr.
2. Blunderbore bound in P2 are relatively tanky and seem to regen quickly. They were not the best candidates for testing Blood Oath health bonuses.
3. Corrupt Rogues seemed to be the sweet spot. At zero points in Blood Oath (~30 points in Demonic Mastery and Bind Demon), the P2 non-terrorized Dark Rogue from Outer Cloister took approximately 5 hits from Uber Duriel.
Here's the rub. Adding 1 point into Blood Oath + 29 soft point for total 30 points into Blood Oath, for a bonus of +1065% life to demon, resulted in a newly bound Dark Rogue that took.... 5 hits from Duriel.
I then asked, is it possible that Duriel is hitting with Crushing Blow? But no, apparently Uber Duriel does not do Crushing Blow.
Ok, so maybe the Blood Oath bonuses only work with hard points. I then maxed Blood Oath, which led to a newly bound Dark Rogue at Lvl 48 Blood Oath, which took... ~5-10 hits from Duriel. I don't know exactly how many hits landed, because I'm pretty sure I saw some hit blocked by the Dark Rogue. But, from 0 points in Blood Oath to 30 points to 48 points, we observed nearly identical resilience. That sounds like Blood Oath is not working as intended--or that Blood Oath is not intended to work on bound demons.
After this, I cut short our (long) experiment, since it seems that there is something up with Blood Oath and Bind Demon.
I am going to tag a few individuals to see if there is any other knowledge or observations on how the skill works: @Schnorki @varangium @dionisy_cn @Rhaegar86 @DrunkAkuma Sorry for anyone else I left off.
Has anyone had any problems using Blood Oath with their bound demon?
1. Baal's Minions cannot be bound. Derr.
2. Blunderbore bound in P2 are relatively tanky and seem to regen quickly. They were not the best candidates for testing Blood Oath health bonuses.
3. Corrupt Rogues seemed to be the sweet spot. At zero points in Blood Oath (~30 points in Demonic Mastery and Bind Demon), the P2 non-terrorized Dark Rogue from Outer Cloister took approximately 5 hits from Uber Duriel.
Here's the rub. Adding 1 point into Blood Oath + 29 soft point for total 30 points into Blood Oath, for a bonus of +1065% life to demon, resulted in a newly bound Dark Rogue that took.... 5 hits from Duriel.
I then asked, is it possible that Duriel is hitting with Crushing Blow? But no, apparently Uber Duriel does not do Crushing Blow.
Ok, so maybe the Blood Oath bonuses only work with hard points. I then maxed Blood Oath, which led to a newly bound Dark Rogue at Lvl 48 Blood Oath, which took... ~5-10 hits from Duriel. I don't know exactly how many hits landed, because I'm pretty sure I saw some hit blocked by the Dark Rogue. But, from 0 points in Blood Oath to 30 points to 48 points, we observed nearly identical resilience. That sounds like Blood Oath is not working as intended--or that Blood Oath is not intended to work on bound demons.
After this, I cut short our (long) experiment, since it seems that there is something up with Blood Oath and Bind Demon.
I am going to tag a few individuals to see if there is any other knowledge or observations on how the skill works: @Schnorki @varangium @dionisy_cn @Rhaegar86 @DrunkAkuma Sorry for anyone else I left off.
Has anyone had any problems using Blood Oath with their bound demon?
Regardless of what specifically is going on, I think it's safe to say that Blood Oath is probably a one point wonder for now
You rang?FerociousTerrier wrote: 5 hours agoSo, @kerph and I did a bunch of tests with demons ranging from Fallen, to Blunderbore and finally Corrupt Rogue. Target was Uber Duriel. Here are our observations:
1. Baal's Minions cannot be bound. Derr.
2. Blunderbore bound in P2 are relatively tanky and seem to regen quickly. They were not the best candidates for testing Blood Oath health bonuses.
3. Corrupt Rogues seemed to be the sweet spot. At zero points in Blood Oath (~30 points in Demonic Mastery and Bind Demon), the P2 non-terrorized Dark Rogue from Outer Cloister took approximately 5 hits from Uber Duriel.
Here's the rub. Adding 1 point into Blood Oath + 29 soft point for total 30 points into Blood Oath, for a bonus of +1065% life to demon, resulted in a newly bound Dark Rogue that took.... 5 hits from Duriel.
I then asked, is it possible that Duriel is hitting with Crushing Blow? But no, apparently Uber Duriel does not do Crushing Blow.
Ok, so maybe the Blood Oath bonuses only work with hard points. I then maxed Blood Oath, which led to a newly bound Dark Rogue at Lvl 48 Blood Oath, which took... ~5-10 hits from Duriel. I don't know exactly how many hits landed, because I'm pretty sure I saw some hit blocked by the Dark Rogue. But, from 0 points in Blood Oath to 30 points to 48 points, we observed nearly identical resilience. That sounds like Blood Oath is not working as intended--or that Blood Oath is not intended to work on bound demons.
After this, I cut short our (long) experiment, since it seems that there is something up with Blood Oath and Bind Demon.
I am going to tag a few individuals to see if there is any other knowledge or observations on how the skill works: @Schnorki @varangium @dionisy_cn @Rhaegar86 @DrunkAkuma Sorry for anyone else I left off.
Has anyone had any problems using Blood Oath with their bound demon?
Afraid I haven't done much specific focus-testing on Blood Oath but my general feeling is that it simply doesn't do anything for a bound demon. Neither the resist nor the life seemed to ever noticeably change from 0 to skilled+geared. And even if it does work for the life boost, it might still get severely limited by possibly being unable to override the new health Cap so...yeah.
Take with a massive grain of salt as that's solely based on random side-observations and no proper testing but yeah, my perception has always been that there's no real benefit to going past the 1 pt needed to unlock Consume.
If anyone wants to do real testing on it though, I'd happily be proven wrong on that one.
Not sure, Killed off my Mercenary after unequipping all his gaer, ran Chaos Sanctuary with just my Cursed Lister witch I got full speced Blood Oath Demon mastery and Bind Demon on, Diablo did not even dmg him before dying, might need to try VS Uber Duriel, but don't have keys atm.
but my general feeling is that he is tankier than before i only had a few Blood Oath points, fewer heralds could pose a threat now.
but my general feeling is that he is tankier than before i only had a few Blood Oath points, fewer heralds could pose a threat now.
Don't train till you can get it right, train till you can't get it wrong!
i really hope that whatever is killing them unexpectedly quick is a bug, the bugs gets fixed, and with it also the best minion of all, the lvl 50 Valkyrie, stops suddenly dying as well 
My experience is that Blood Oath does work. At least I have noticed a difference in the tankyness of my bound demons. Or it's just that I leveled up more and my demon is leveling with me. Perhaps something is weird with Duriel specifically, but I noticed my demons tanking heralds much better at least after pumping points into Oath. Another hypothesis could be that corrupt rogues just have a very low health Cap as a bound demon, which is why I never use them (or lancers).FerociousTerrier wrote: 5 hours agoSo, @kerph and I did a bunch of tests with demons ranging from Fallen, to Blunderbore and finally Corrupt Rogue. Target was Uber Duriel. Here are our observations:
1. Baal's Minions cannot be bound. Derr.
2. Blunderbore bound in P2 are relatively tanky and seem to regen quickly. They were not the best candidates for testing Blood Oath health bonuses.
3. Corrupt Rogues seemed to be the sweet spot. At zero points in Blood Oath (~30 points in Demonic Mastery and Bind Demon), the P2 non-terrorized Dark Rogue from Outer Cloister took approximately 5 hits from Uber Duriel.
Here's the rub. Adding 1 point into Blood Oath + 29 soft point for total 30 points into Blood Oath, for a bonus of +1065% life to demon, resulted in a newly bound Dark Rogue that took.... 5 hits from Duriel.
I then asked, is it possible that Duriel is hitting with Crushing Blow? But no, apparently Uber Duriel does not do Crushing Blow.
Ok, so maybe the Blood Oath bonuses only work with hard points. I then maxed Blood Oath, which led to a newly bound Dark Rogue at Lvl 48 Blood Oath, which took... ~5-10 hits from Duriel. I don't know exactly how many hits landed, because I'm pretty sure I saw some hit blocked by the Dark Rogue. But, from 0 points in Blood Oath to 30 points to 48 points, we observed nearly identical resilience. That sounds like Blood Oath is not working as intended--or that Blood Oath is not intended to work on bound demons.
After this, I cut short our (long) experiment, since it seems that there is something up with Blood Oath and Bind Demon.
I am going to tag a few individuals to see if there is any other knowledge or observations on how the skill works: @Schnorki @varangium @dionisy_cn @Rhaegar86 @DrunkAkuma Sorry for anyone else I left off.
Has anyone had any problems using Blood Oath with their bound demon?
To add another anecdote, i just respecced my ladder warlock and put 1 pt into Blood Oath instead of 20. Rebound the same demon with the same affixes and his tanking is indistinguishable in Uber Tristram
How many +demon skills do you have on your char?kerph wrote: 1 hour agoTo add another anecdote, i just respecced my ladder warlock and put 1 pt into Blood Oath instead of 20. Rebound the same demon with the same affixes and his tanking is indistinguishable in Uber Tristram
+19, so my Blood Oath is level 20
I don't think you would really notice a difference between a lvl 20 and lvl 39 Blood Oath, the resistances are similar only health is around 80% more. 80% more health is the difference between dieing in 5 hits and dieing in 9 hits against Duriel, which seems to be within the range of what your tests are showing.
My demon @ 39 Blood Oath would take a lot of damage from Lilith, and it seemed to be the same as now. She would get my last demon down 1/3 to 1/2, and she gets my current demon down about 1/3 to 1/2. I think if he had almost half as much hp that fight would've been noticeably more difficultMizar wrote: 40 minutes agoI don't think you would really notice a difference between a lvl 20 and lvl 39 Blood Oath, the resistances are similar only health is around 80% more. 80% more health is the difference between dieing in 5 hits and dieing in 9 hits against Duriel, which seems to be within the range of what your tests are showing.
Edit * honestly the only way i can see how it works, is that Blood Oath's bonuses just do not apply to Bind Demon. Bc nearly all of my binds should be fully immune if they were getting +70 all res, since monsters don't have caps
Also for example, binding lightning enchanted Vile Mother from Plains of Despair, if Blood Oath's +70% all resist did apply to the +75% from enchantment, she should easily be lightning immune, but she isn't
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