wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

[Sass]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

The focus on the necessity of damage reducing gear should seem fishy.

I agree, it isn't blatantly saying the clouds do X damage, or put caps on a and highlight the avoid part, but it definitely lets you know it's dangerous.

 

[MYK]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

*points and laughs*

HoV sure is an oddity in this game, along with the other 4 areas left in the game where you're likely to insta-die faster than you can rejuvenate.

 

[Ephraim]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

While one can possibly inferred from the information in the FAQ, it is definitely not user friendly. After all, it's not hard to add an extra line that says: On average, the vipers will do ~1200 physical damage per second per cloud if you move in the poison cloud.

I agree that the FAQ wasn't explicit enough, but does it need to be? You'll either listen to it, or you won't.

Most people that this happens to don't even read the FAQ. They get themselves killed and complain about it on the forums. Then, when someone says "You should have read the FAQ", they look up what they should have read, claim they did read it, and then give a reason why reading it didn't help.

The thing is, unless they know that the vipers are instant death, they wouldn't Google viper instant death. It's a catch 22.

Not really. I would try searching "Diablo 2 Hardcore Nihlathak's Temple", since I don't know about the vipers. Try it yourself. A thread titled "Tomb Viper Poison Bug" comes up for the fifth result. Even if the google search didn't bring up anything obvious, I'd still want to read some threads about the area I'm about to enter. Luck favors the prepared, and learning about what you're up against is part of preparing.


Personally, I don't think it'll make much of a difference explaining why it'll kill you. The FAQ says you need iDR. If I decide not to listen to that and get myself killed, I'm not going to be blaming the FAQ. Vague or not, if I had done what it said to do, I wouldn't have died that way.

 

[MizzouFTW]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

Ephraim has a point.

The FAQ is not 100% clear, but it does tell you to not enter the area if you do not have a boat load of pdr. So, if you have no pdr, why in the world would you enter the area?

You can't blame the FAQ. It told you what to do to prevent death. I'm not trying to be a prick, but it is your fault that you died. You ignored the information, that's as simple as that.

Also, MYK. Where are you!?

 

[Oldih]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

While the problem is partly that the FAQ is not too much "in your face" about, other part of the problem is that people don't consider the analogy as a way to describe how dangerous they are.

Someone should rename it standing in the cloud is like standing in front of 4x live firing MG3s for several seconds and then someone takes a photograph of your body which resembles a swiss cheese right now. That way it's really impossible to ignore that you will die fast if you are not prepared :crazyeyes:

 

[MYK]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

The FAQ could use amending, and I don't like the layout in Meph's guide, but both have good information.

A few good searches around here leads to all of the information on Nihlathak one could wish to find.

Also, MYK. Where are you!?

Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Home of the... well, I don't have a clue. I have a fuzzy rememberance of where you're living these days, so let me know if I'm any closer to you now than I was in CA.

After this next week I'll be home and able to play some D2. Hopefully I'll see you around then, aye?

 

[NorthViking]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

While the problem is partly that the FAQ is not too much "in your face" about, other part of the problem is that people don't consider the analogy as a way to describe how dangerous they are.

Someone should rename it standing in the cloud is like standing in front of 4x live firing MG3s for several seconds and then someone takes a photograph of your body which resembles a swiss cheese right now. That way it's really impossible to ignore that you will die fast if you are not prepared :crazyeyes:

Everyone talking about poison cloud, but what killed my char was the missiles, is it ranged poison cloud?

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

Everyone talking about poison cloud, but what killed my char was the missiles, is it ranged poison cloud?

The viper's attack consist of a missile itself, and a series of poison clouds that appears where the missile passes, just like plague javelin. The missile itself can be more or less ignored, as it does little damage. The poison clouds on the other hand cannot. It is very, very bugged, and does an absurd amount of damage.

 

[Ephraim]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

Here's the deal with the vipers:

We all know that poison damages over a duration. If you have 800 poison damage over 20 seconds, that's 40 Poison Damage per second. Poison damage is applied each frame, so that's actually 1.6 damage per frame for the duration of the damage.

Some monsters, like the Vipers in Halls of Vaught, add physical damage to attacks that don't normally have physical damage. In this case, we're talking about the Vipers' poison attacks. The problem is, this physical damage that's been tacked on doesn't behave like poison. Instead of spreading out the total damage like poison, the total physical damage is applied each time poison damage from the vipers is applied. This means that about 50 physical damage is applied every frame in Hell. This adds up to ~1250 damage per second. Keep in mind that it's only as low as ~1250 damage per second if the poison is applied only once. If it's applied multiple times, like when your character runs through one of the clouds, that number ramps up to at least 10k+ damage per second.

It's also easy to see why DR% is no help here, but some PDR will save you. Even with 50% DR, running through the clouds will probably kill you, because half of 10k+ damage per second is still too high. PDR is so useful here because it's actually hundreds of applications of ~50 damage, rather than one application of, say, 1000.

As far as I know, this physical damage has been tacked on to all of the Viper's poison attacks, so any of their poison attacks should easily kill you, unless you have a decently high PDR.

 

[NorthViking]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

That explains why it went so fast, when I entered the area prolly loaded some seconds and my char didn't move, so he was standing in the cloud. If this is so bugged I'm surprised Blizz didn't fix this in the latest patch.

 

[MizzouFTW]

Re: wtf is up with vipers in the Halls of Vaught?

MYK, I'm in Missouri. So I sure you are closer to me now ha. Although I did fail geography at one time. Of course you will see me on. I'm still on *Honorable

Can't wait to game with ya buddy

 

[lopzas]

Firstly, hello all from the future. I'm a SSF v1.13 HC player, investigating options to farm D-keys.

With a little over 120 minutes sunk into discovering the mechanics of the 'bugged tomb-viper poison javelin cloud physical damage bug,' it appears @MoUsE_WiZ had the most accurate response. Although I couldn't verify the 41-55 value from the given source (1.)

The search continues, and leaving a breadcrumb here until more has been uncovered.