NM Ancients FE bug still kickin!

[Shmidley]

There she stood, the glorious level 86 Orb/TK Sorceress Jelmei, valiantly aiding new adventurers in their quest to defeat Baal on Nightmare difficulty. With a post-BO Hp of 2700, 7000 defense, 75% resist all, 25% damage reduction, max telekinesis with a 60% absorb ES and 1000 mana, it seemed that nothing could stand in the way of this unstoppable Goddess.

Except perhaps the NM Ancients Fire Enchantment bug, which presumably maxes out the integer value for damage somewhere around two billion, which is more HP than the average adventurer has.

R.I.P. Jelmei.

So yea, if the NM Ancients are fire enchanted, don't stand next to them when they die no matter how much HP or resistance you have. Re roll them by opening a town portal, or you and everything you ever loved will die. Especially your children.

As an addendum, this bug may also occur with Pindle and the Super Unique Flayer Witch Doctor. If the game decides Pindle should ressurect like a regular undead guy, it kills him again to make sure he doesn't. There is no animation, but the FE damage is then applied again to anyone nearby. Same goes for the Flayer Witch Doctor, who is supposed to resurrect as a regular Flayer but is instead killed by the game to keep him down.

[RoXoR]

oh my gosh, that's jacked :( Still amazes me how much dmg they can push out...
sry for your loss

[NecromanSassin]

Yeah, happened to him RIGHT as he was rushing me. I feel somewhat responsible still man :undecided:

Lucky you had so many remakes though, how many chars do you think you can pop out in a day?

[Rawis]

This is such a lovely bug.

A friend of mine lost a lvl 94 to a leaping FE Korlic. Korlic thought it'd be cool to leap right next to him and blow up.

[STINGER]

Any boss in NM with high life can kill you on its death if FE so dont go thinking there is only a few or its happening again!!!

BTW....the definition of bug is gone after they fixed it in Hell and left it in NM about 3 years or so ago.

[PhatTrumpet]

Like he said... it's not a bug, it's an intended feature.

[MrKaxe]

Like he said... it's not a bug, it's an intended feature.

And a buttcheek of a feature at that...i have found that sometimes i get hit for a little bit of life, some times a lot and on rare occasions (like the damn Ancients) get completely pw0n3d!!1! :tongue:

Woot! Post 500!

[STINGER]

It has everything to do with the mods that spawn......The death explosion is influenced by the mods which are the ones that improve life.

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/bonus.shtml

Dont forget, these little buggers have always been like this even before 1.10.

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-bonefetish.shtml

[PhatTrumpet]

Don't forget either that the Extra Strong mod also affects the FE damage.

[Shmidley]

Considering I've stood next to a Hell Ancient exploding under the exact same conditions and survived, I'm going to have to disregard everything everyone has said.

It may be an "intended" feature now, but it is clearly a bug -not- related to normal damage calculations. The actual explosion damage is not applied one time at an extremely high value, the explosion damage itself is applied over and over. That is not how the fire enchantment bonus is supposed to work. It is a bug, that if you don't know about it, you cannot possibly anticipate because the damage you receive is geometrically larger than it would normally be if you were fighting any other monster with the exact health and bonuses.

It seems to me this was a bug, that Blizzard fixed in Hell, but left in Nightmare just to screw with mid-level players. Of course.. high levels will encounter it if they are helping other people. As long as we're on this thought, let's look at some other "features". Blizzard fixes TPPK for Hammerdins but doesn't for anything else. They have essentially designated Bowazons and Hurricane Druids as being TPPK classes.

Is TPPK a "feature" ?
Is duping a "feature" ?
Is FE Enchantment damage being incorrectly applied a "feature" ?

I say they are bugs.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Is TPPK a "feature" ?
Is duping a "feature" ?
Is FE Enchantment damage being incorrectly applied a "feature" ?

Semantics.

The fact is if you aren't knowledgeable on the subject of tppks, you will get tppked, people will dupe whether you want them to or not, and FEs in NM will kill anyone who isn't careful. All 3 exist for different reasons and effect the game in different ways, yet if one of the 3 is making the game unenjoyable for you, the only thing you can do about it is find a new game. So yes you COULD argue that all three are features. Or you could argue that all three are bugs. Or you could argue that one is a feature, one is a bug/hack, and one is just hacking. Or any number of other things.

If you'd really like to get into it, here's my opinion:
Marrow bug - feature
Mastery bug - feature
Bugged NM FEs - feature
Cube upgrade bug - feature
Piercing GA - feature
Eth = ITD - feature

Some of these have "bug" in the description, but I'd still call them features that have (in most cases) been removed from the game, because they are things you have to go out of your way to not do. Eg not putting any points into pierce (or if using a burrito cannon, into GA), not putting points into mastery, not using eth, not using marrows without points in bone prison, not using the socket recipe on eth armours, etc. In the specific case of bugged NM FEs, it's even more of a "feature" because unlike the others, you CAN'T go out of your way to avoid the existence of the feature... it's just there. Period.

That feature is similar to the one with poison snakes actually. Blizzard has specifically stated on their forums that the snakes are now supposed to work that way. That's probably a lie, but the fact is they DO work that way, it's probably never going to be changed, so from now on, it's a feature.

Dual wield - bug
Angelic infinite skills - bug
Dupe methods not requiring 3rd party programs - bug
TPPK - bug (though using it with things like hydra I'd call it a feature)
WP timer bypass - arguable, because you COULD be time saving by doing both at once, but for the most part I'd say bug
Bone farming - bug
Town kill - bug

These things I would call bugs or exploits because you have to go out of your way to accomplish them, but they can be done without 3rd party programs. The difference between tppk and NM FEs is that with a TPPK you have to do a series of actions that would rarely to never occur in regular game play (though with hydras it was a different story, as that's an intuitive use of game mechanics), whereas with NM FEs they are just there, period.

Then, of course, hacks are things that require 3rd party programs. There really isn't a blurry line there... you're either using one or you're not. The only debateable "hack or not?" I can think of is your OS, specifically netstat for clone hunting and user switch for running 2 copies of D2. We can save that for another thread though I hope ^^

Now, like I said, this is semantics.
Some people would define "bug" as anything that exists in the game unintentionally, and would probably refer to my "bug" list as "exploitable bugs" or something to that extent.

I wouldn't say those people are wrong, I'd just point out that you can't KNOW which things are bugs and which are features. Ever. Regardless of how silly something seems, it's still POSSIBLE it's a feature. Not until the designers state it is a bug and then proceed to fix it... the fixing is rather important to, because if it isn't fixed, it's just an unintended feature.

As such, with something like NM FEs, which are there and are unavoidable, even though everyone probably feels rather strongly that they do more damage than is intended for whatever reason(s), it's easier to just call it a feature until it is changed. The alternative gets rather messy and results in things like the softcore dueling scene (at least what it was like in 1.09) where some people refused to use eth, slow, buriza in general/pierce+ga, and some even said that putting a single point in mastery on barbs was like cheating because it was bugged.

But, like I said, it's just semantics, it's there no sense arguing if it's intended... information about why it occurs is nice because then you know how best to avoid it, but arguing what to call it is silly.

[Lord Penguin]

Ive poped a few nm fe ancients this reset(from mele range, as all my chars are mele so far) and while it hurts, its not 2 billion damage(lol) or even 5k(unless maybe you have no fire res or were convicted).

Stop trying to tank with a sorc though -.-.. outside bo wont save you forever. Some things do go through mana sheild as well and i think thats the case here. As mentioned above, strangely pindles minions can also trigger this "bug" with the fe explosion... Pindles minions(and all similar monsters) are also known to bypass manasheild entirely. Not a coincidence.

Ive poped nm fe ancients quite a few times at mele range and never died to them.

[Shmidley]

I'm never going to start calling a bug a feature just because the developer is too lazy to fix it and starts calling it one himself. I would never even agree to call it bad design. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

I'd really, really like to know how the damage on things like this are calculated, but it seems all the information on Arreat Summit cannot be correct. Supposedly Fire Enchanteds do 75%-100% of their total HP in a four yard radius. We are left to guess as to whether that damage is fire or physical. Even with loads of resistances in either category, things like the Undead Dolls have a ridiculous health range of 2789-6008 in Hell, which should be enough to kill anyone who dies near even a single regular one of them, yet I've absorbed those before too. Sometimes they blow past my energy shield, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it seems like the damage is physical, sometimes it seems like it is fire. Sometimes it seems to bypass resistances, sometimes it doesn't. It would be nice to be able to know what does what, and what to avoid, but I can't see that happening.

As for me, I got all my gear and had a backup sorc already prepared in case of just this sort of eventuality. I don't mean to complain, I'm just pissed about dying from something I don't think I could have anticipated.

And that two billion was a complete exaggeration, that just seemed to me what the maximum damage possible in any one attack would be, considering Blizzard's history of strange and innapropriate uses of signed integers. As for not even being five thousand.. well, according to Arreat Summit it supposedly should be doing 10,000 damage regardless of resistances or anything else in NM, and 60,000 in Hell.

[sanguillen]

But it's not exactly news that NM Ancients (is it Korlic or Talic? I can never remember) pack a punch when dying. I just use the tried and true method of letting the merc get the last few hits in while I stand back (waaaay back). This goes for ANY NM FE Unique. It only took one of the council members in Travincal (I think it was Geleb Flamefinger) popping next to my Barb as I wasn't paying attention to teach me to always be alert about it.

Just as an aside, I kind of like it. It just adds to the challenge.

[PhatTrumpet]

I don't mean to complain...
I think you do, because if you really wanted answers to all those questions you could just go ask in the Statistics Forum.

[Shmidley]

It was news to me. Which is the main reason I made this thread, to make sure other people knew if they did not already.

PhatTrumpet.. okay, sure, maybe I do mean to complain, if you want to call it that. Mostly I'd like to know if there is any other obscure bull**** I should know about before I wind up dead from drinking a potion in the wrong place or what have you.

[PhatTrumpet]

Well the main ones are:

Fire Enchanted in Nightmare (especially big guys like Hephasto, Ancients, Lister)
Fire Enchanted in large games
Fire Enchanted plus Extra Strong
Fire Enchanted plus Cold and/or Lightning Enchanted (these are really weird)
The poison vipers down by Nihlathak

Everything else should be pretty obvious (Iron Maiden, Gloams, Dolls, etc.).

[AnimeCraze]

I wouldn't say those people are wrong, I'd just point out that you can't KNOW which things are bugs and which are features. Ever. Regardless of how silly something seems, it's still POSSIBLE it's a feature. Not until the designers state it is a bug and then proceed to fix it... the fixing is rather important to, because if it isn't fixed, it's just an unintended feature.
Anything undocumented = bug, anything unintended = bug, period. Feature is the way programmers use to "explain" things.

I mean, you can't the game crashing in the middle while you are just doing runs is a "feature", can you.

[catsmasher]

This is really weird. I've been unlucky enough (usually with my frost zealot and unlucky in that I don't see it right away) to run up to and kill FE's numerous times, but not a one has ever done enough to get me a deeds screen. I usually let the merc handle FE's, but most of the time, I barely even notice them until they pop.

CE/ES/FE's though, any combination of those, on the other hand have come close to ending a couple of my char's. Weird.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Anything undocumented = bug, anything unintended = bug, period. Feature is the way programmers use to "explain" things.
Anything undocumented = bug?

GA piercing was never documented one way or the other until after they changed it to not pierce. IIRC it was changed to pierce in the .07-.09 period, I forget where, but I'm fairly sure it didn't pierce in classic.

It was not documented that "this does not pierce" at that point.
When it was changed it was not documented to "this does pierce".

So is it a bug that it pierced, or a bug that it didn't?

If that's not enough for you I'll gladly provide a rather large list of things that are not documented by blizzard that are in the game.

I would agree that anything unintended = bug, but, like I said, you can't KNOW what's intended and not, so labeling something like NM FEs a bug, and piercing vs non-piercing GA working as intended, in either case, seems a bit hypocritical.

Like I said though, it's just semantics, NM FEs hurt regardless of the reason.

[AnimeCraze]

GA piecing is not a "bug" in the sense of intention, but a balance change, as there is no real reason for it to pierce or not to pierce. It's like reducing the cost of missile turrets from 100 minerals to 75. Though, in the sense of documentation, if it is handled separately (which it probably is), and lacks the proper documentation, it is a bug, pierce OR no pierce. I make little distinction between undocumented features and bugs. Either that they fix it by providing the proper documentation, or they remove it.

This is completely different from say tomb vipers, as the equivalent skill of amazon does not deal physical damage, which is an intention bug instead of a documentation bug. There is little reason for them to code up a separate function for this attack, as this violates common programming principles.

As for the FE ancients, if the damage:HP ratio is different than other FE's, it's a bug in intention as it does not fit with the common programming model (functions should be modular, and same type of attack should use the same function).

The biggest problem by calling things undocumented features is that it means that neither the docs or the program is going to be fixed, and that is already a sin for a programmer.

Edit: I guess the best way to sum it up is: If anything in the game does not follow common sense, and it is not documented, it is a bug whether it is intended or not. Like, if on the next SC patch the cost of missile turret changes to 50, but was not documented in the patch notes, it is a bug.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Edit: I guess the best way to sum it up is: If anything in the game does not follow common sense, and it is not documented, it is a bug whether it is intended or not.
I don't disagree with your assessments.

I said off the bat that you could call it a bug if you wanted to.

My point is that it all just depends on your definitions of "bug" and "feature", and I was attempting to point out to the guy who said "nuh uh clear cut bug, no way this could possibly be a feature" why some people would consider it a feature.

It really doesn't matter what you refer to NM FE ancients killing people as; they will continue to do it, and it will remain unchanged.

Edit: In the case of NM FE Ancients, HP scaling effecting FE was removed in hell and left in NM. Ancients also have significantly more HP than your average monster. The AS states that FE results in 75-100% HP being converted into damage at the time of the monster's death. It says nothing about hp scaling, or special cases one way or the other. Again, it's horrible balancing and probably an oversight, but it IS doing exactly what the code, and documentation, says it should afaik.

[Lord Penguin]

Other ones may include:

charge lock.. getting frozen in a charge animation.. sometimes caused by blocking or repeted charging. Also applys to Leap attack.

Failed charge/leap attack.. usually followed by multiple charge locks.. makes the skills charge and leap attack unusable until you start a new game.

Monster charge.. bypasses mana sheild. Kinda ruins pure mana sheild sorcs.

[STINGER]

For some reason I seem to recall that you do get a chance to block/dodge/evade death explosions.