Stupid hephasto!

[Kaleban]

Sometimes I swear. Playing Hardcore, with my DTalon/Traps Hybrid, figure I'd polish up a few quests.

45 Claw Block, 900+ life, full life bulb as I DTalon Hephasto into Oblivion, he of course explodes and I get Deeds will be remembered.

GRRR. I remember reading somewhere that there's some FE bug where they do massive amounts of damage. Was I subjected to this, or do I need three billion life to survive.

Plus I had resists all in the upper 50s, this is Nightmare, so WTF happened?

[Master Zap]

NM Heph has 10214life.
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-hephasto.shtml

That's 5107 phy damage and 5107 fire damage.

If you had 50% damage reduction (you didnt) that's still 2553 phy damage taken. With 75 Fire res your taking 1276 fire damage

total damage taken = 3829 damage. If your life is less then this, your toast.

Most of us have our minions kill the FE bosses when its slivered. High life targets are the worst.

Good luck on the rebuild.


I have revived and modified my version of FE info (not only the bug).

1. What is the FE bug?

There are two parts about FE bug.

First, for 100% sure, FE ancients has ability to inflict a massive bugged attack that is capable of one-hit-killing any legitimate character, regardless of defense, fire absorb or resistances. In fact, they do not have to land any hit, FE ancients are capable (and they love to) of releasing the bugged damage regardless what they do (even doing nothing).

Second, there is the never ending argument on other FE uniques than ancients. Few people reported none ancients bosses carried the bugged damage. However, it is a rather rare event, and very hard to verify if not impossible.

Please note that FE boss death blast is deadly, and can one-hit-kill too, but it is not a bug. After all, blizzard did warn us it is deadly.

FE bug has a big impact on gameplay specially in HC. Even in SC, death at high level (in Hell) is very painful due to the lost of experiences.

2. How does it work?

Due to the FE bug, a FE ancient (some believe other bosses as well) applies its death blast damage (at least 1x, there was test reported 2x) within the FE blast range at his/her/its will; no attack or getting hit is required to release the damage.

The following event may carry (not proved yet) some form of bugged damage, so beware:

If the boss has aura like Holy fire, the aura damage may carry more damage than it should. I have seen FE/holy fire boss’ aura does over 500 damage to max resistant build from half screen away in “one hit” myself.


3. so who should I avoid to contact?

Any high life FE boss! The ancients are the worst, so if you see ANY ancient is FE, reroll them. Please note that there is a reported bug that the leap attack ancient can "lock" you in place when he is in air (most likely happen after you cast some form of spell/magic). If that happens, and the ancient is FE, you have no chance to survive.

4. is the FE bug real or just few n00b made it up, because they don't know how to play this game?

The bug is very real. on b.net realm, blizzard fixed it. in SP, they didn't. FE ancients will always use the bugged attack. Random bosses may or may not be bugged, but, don't bet on it! Especially if you play HC.

5. how much damage does the bug do?

It is believed to be the death blast damage (or 2x FE blast damage on ancients) at any time. That’s why high life boss is dangerous while low life boss seems “harmless”. Some believe the bugged damage is half fire, half physical; some believe it could be pure fire. I personally saw something unusual, and I believe at least in very rare (like found a legit ZOD in SP rare) case, it could be pure fire.

Don't forget, on top of the FE bugged damage, you will also take normal damage from the boss if you get hit (which can be deadly by itself).

6. So I'm hopeless against FE?

No, to avoid this bug just stay away of FE blast range all the time. The range is 2.6 yards in normal, 3.3 in nightmare and 4.0 in hell. So stay away from at least 3.3 yards in late NM, and 4 yards in Hell. Also your merc and other pets are immune to the bug. If you play melee, try to have some kind of ranged attack on switch (eg. My MA assassin uses a xbow on switch to deal with FE and IM curse).

And no matter what build you play, always check ancients' mod before the fight!

7. What else should I know about FE?

There are other arguments and fact:

a. Argument - Many believe if the boss is also LE on top of FE, the lightning bolts are lethal (Include Scarab beetle bosses)! There might be added damages carried by the lightning bolts (Beetle minions included). Why the combination is deadly though is the bolts always hit (only Assassin Claw Block and Amazon Avoid/Evade/Dodge can escape them). Basically FE/CE/LE may deal up to twice the monster's regular hit damage with each bolt and it's easy to get hit 3 times once caught in a stream of bolts caused by your merc Jabbing the Unique.

b. Fact - When close to a dying FE/CE monsters, you'll be taking a single Frost Nova and at least a FE death blasts. The Explosion can also land a critical hit, doubling all dmg done. The odds of receiving one doubled explosion may become somewhat larger when killing a FECE Unique (understandable, it is 2x explosion, so 2x chance). A high life FECE boss may take almost any legit build out with its nova blast!

c. Argument - The Poison Cloud left by Embalmed type monsters could be bugged when the Unique in the pack is FE. Getting poisoned by a cloud left by the Unique or one of the minions may apply some form of additional damage. Being mobbed by a pack of FE Embalmed types could mean none avoidable death, since each one you kill will hit you with additional damage once his cloud gets to you (which will happen every time when surrounded).


8. Let's not forget Pindle's Revenge!

Another part of the FE bug is related to Reanimated Horde type monsters. If a FE Unique of this type is killed, he'll trigger the regular messy death explosion. The bug kicks in when the game rolls for a 'ressurect' for the Unique. Normally, this roll is ignored since Uniques don't ressurect. Also, considering the FE has destroyed the corpse, there's nothing to ressurect to start with. The mechanism to prevent a Unique for being ressurect seems to be simply kill him the second the ressurection would normally occur. And the good news is of course that killing an FE monster causes a FE explosion. Since there's no corpse though, the game just neglects to display any graphics when this happens, to basicially there is a blast zone centered around the place of initial death where another FE blast can occur at some later point in time. Solution: Stay clear of the place where a FE Reanimated Horse Unique died.

Not only is there pindle's revenge, but there is the witch doctor endugu's FE problem. since when he dies there's a flayer under him, he also explodes twice, and also has the possiblity of dealing a good deal of damage before he kicks the bucket (for the second time).

9. Can you have a build that is capable to survive FE bugged damage?

You may survive normal bosses, but not FE ancients. Max resist/absorb/PDR and massive amount of life can survive the bugged damage.

PS: FE and players X

The more life, the more FE death damage will be carried out. It is NOT generally believed the damage takes player setting into account. However, I do not recommend to try it. Regardless what players setting, FE is 100% lethal. Once again, if you play HC or SC at very high level, you shall not bet on your build can survive the bug/blast.

Special thanks to every body who joined in the FE argument and provided very useful information.

Special thanks to HBeachBabe and everyone who did the proof-reading, and corrected my n00b english mistakes.


You might want to add that the Explosion can also land a critical hit, doubling all dmg done. The odds of receiving one doubled explosion becomes somewhat larger when killing a FECE Unique.

[Kaleban]

Thanks for the reply, thats good info I was unaware of. I got too comfortable being powerful lol, and wasn't even paying attention when he popped.

Looks like I'll be avoiding FEs after Normal from now on lol. Or treat them like any Stygian Doll I suppose.

[Master Zap]

Thanks for the reply, thats good info I was unaware of. I got too comfortable being powerful lol, and wasn't even paying attention when he popped.

Looks like I'll be avoiding FEs after Normal from now on lol. Or treat them like any Stygian Doll I suppose.

It's easy to fall into that rut. Just recently , and fully aware of the type of damage these things can deal, I too was running nm forge and got popped. I had something like 40 ish life left. The funny thing was this was on my bear sorc.

What makes this situation peculiar was I using a Tal's ammy to prebluff my chant/cold armor. I forgot to take this off to switch to my highlords. If you notice Tal's ammies offers 50 life. If I hadn't mistakenly forgotten to switch over ammies back to my highlords I would have been looking at my deeds screen. If you click my name for my profile you'll see that I have an obscene amount of life and res to boot. Most of my other chars could not have survived that pop, and certainly none of my sins.