Burning Soul's attack dmg

[Fairlady]

Anyone have a number for this? It isn't listed in arreat summit. I'm just trying to figure out how much help tgods will be for my es sorc. While I'm at it how does the mana drain operate?

[PhatTrumpet]

http://www.d2data.net/

^ Generally a better resource when it comes to monster stats.

It lists their "Mana Drain Damage" as 188-282, which I assume means the ranged lightning attack.

Rough calcs:

With 95%ES and max TK you'll be taking [188-282]*0.95*0.75 = [134-201] mana damage (regardless of your resists or absorb) plus the mana drain, which is relatively insignificant in comparison (it's something like 10% of the actual damage). This leaves 10-14 damage applied to your life bulb. With 75% resist you'll take 3-4 damage; with 85% resist and 20 absorb you'll be healed for 3-4 health. Not really worth it if you ask me.

Note that their melee attack also drains mana. Due to a typo in the code, according to RTB (IIRC), this attack will drain 256 times as much mana as it should (again IIRC), which for most characters means the entire mana pool in one hit.

[Fairlady]

http://www.d2data.net/

^ Generally a better resource when it comes to monster stats.

It lists their "Mana Drain Damage" as 188-282, which I assume means the ranged lightning attack.

Rough calcs:

With 95%ES and max TK you'll be taking [188-282]*0.95*0.75 = [134-201] mana damage (regardless of your resists or absorb) plus the mana drain, which is relatively insignificant in comparison (it's something like 10% of the actual damage). This leaves 10-14 damage applied to your life bulb. With 75% resist you'll take 3-4 damage; with 85% resist and 20 absorb you'll be healed for 3-4 health. Not really worth it if you ask me.

Note that their melee attack also drains mana. Due to a typo in the code, according to RTB (IIRC), this attack will drain 256 times as much mana as it should (again IIRC), which for most characters means the entire mana pool in one hit.

thanks for the explanation. I am a compromised es charged boltress in hardcore ladder. I have 1 pt in es (after +skills it is about 76% absorb) and maxed tk with lvl 35+ warmth. I died from a single simultaneous stream from what appeared to be about 7-9 souls upon entering throne. I had maxed res but no tgods at the time. I do not want this to happen again. I understand that something like this were to happen again while equipped with tgods, mana drain is inevitable but how much difference will it make after the mana is burnt up? Would you mind doing the calculations for my build?

[kuafu]

It could be that you met a boss pack with conviction aura and mana burn. The conviction aura doesn't affect your ES, but the mana burn drains your mana instantly; and the conviction makes the remaining damage hit much harder.

[Orphan]

Note too that your resistances will not help the damage that is absorbed by the energy shield.

[PhatTrumpet]

I don't use ES on my Baal Sorcs. I just wear TGod's, make sure my light res is maxed (85%), and toss on some MDR (Vipermagi, Dwarfstar). The result is that I actually get healed by Souls.

Conviction Souls are an entirely different story, as is Lower Resist curse (which is fairly common down there). Only solution to these threats is to stack as much light res as possible.

[Fairlady]

I seriously doubt conviction played a role -- the shot came instantaneously and there wasn't enough time for the aura to set in and i did not notice aura on me either. Mana burn is a definite possibility. I was baffled as to why I died like that when I normally do not have a big problem with souls. I had about 1100 life which isnt terribly bad.
So back to what I was wondering about: conviction aside, if i have the repeat misfortune of being ambushed by 8+ burning souls, will t-gods ensure my survival? Will the +20 absorb effectively heal me?

[kuafu]

I seriously doubt conviction played a role -- the shot came instantaneously and there wasn't enough time for the aura to set in and i did not notice aura on me either. Mana burn is a definite possibility. I was baffled as to why I died like that when I normally do not have a big problem with souls. I had about 1100 life which isnt terribly bad.
So back to what I was wondering about: conviction aside, if i have the repeat misfortune of being ambushed by 8+ burning souls, will t-gods ensure my survival? Will the +20 absorb effectively heal me?
Conviction/LowerResist aside, you will be safe from souls if you wear tgod with 85 resist. Your mana may still drain very fast, but your life will be slightly healed (based on my own experience). MDR happens before resistance as far as I can remember, so it's far less useful than absorption.

[Konfu]

when my barb teleported to the throne room with 2xws on switch (105fcr) souls with convition can suck my... wizzy's ;-)

[PhatTrumpet]

So back to what I was wondering about: conviction aside, if i have the repeat misfortune of being ambushed by 8+ burning souls, will t-gods ensure my survival? Will the +20 absorb effectively heal me?
I answered your question through an example. A no-ES Sorc (mine) is really no different than a Sorc whose mana has drained and ES has turned off (yours).

[Antian]

How about TGods and a Wisp Projector?

[WebDragon]

How about TGods and a Wisp Projector?

Well first you have to be able to take the damage before you can absrob it. If the damage alone kills you, absorb won't save you.

As for the OP, basically what we're saying is that ES is a weak defense against elemental attacks because your resistances kick in after ES has done its job. So with a fire attack of 1000 for example, ES will absorb 760, leaving 240. Your resistances will drop that to 60. Without ES, you would have taken 250. So your ES would have absorbed 760 damage for an effective gain of 190. Not an efficient use of your ES.

So, basically you should count on ES to help against physical damage, but for elemental damage, you'll want max resist + absorb. Keeping in mind that most elemental attacks in the game are not capable of 1-hitting you, the absorb will keep kicking to lessen the damage.

[Fairlady]

Based on this information, how well would a 20% wisp projector protect me against souls? Since it's percentage based, I wouldn't be healed, correct? What kind of damage will i take considering i now have 75% lit res and not 85% anymore.

[PhatTrumpet]

You'd take about 60% of the damage you'd normally take without the Wisp (roughly half). I have a Tal's Sorc that does alright with 75% resist and a 19% Wisp, but she also has close to 1.5k life before BO. I don't feel entirely comfortable teleporting Baal with her, but that also has a lot to do with the fact that she has about 20% chance to block with 'Spirit'.

[krischan]

A Wisp projector isn't a good protection from souls. They are useful in PvP, but in PvM, T-God's with high lightning res is far better because it will be enough to negate 100% of all lightning damage from monsters. In PvP, far greater amouts of lightning damage are dealt and the case is different.

Of course, if you wear Tal's set, you cannot wear T-God's, but e.g. a meteorb sorc can kill a soul from a distance with fireballs, far quicker than a melee character.

Resists are applied to damage first, then % absorb (which is capped at 40% BTW), then absolute absorb (which is not capped). That means if you have low resists or you get attacked by high damage attacks (PvP), % absorb is better, else (PvM) absolute absorb.