howdy and a question

[CoonerTheRed]

first off, howdy all, it's been a couple months since i even lurked, let alone posted, but i figured i would drop a line and say hi. i've been hiding in international waters for a month and a half (avoiding Bush?) doing oceanography stuff, then off to jolly old England for a couple weeks at Cambridge doing more research. At any rate, I'm done hiding and am back home working and playing when I get time, so hopefully I'll bump into some of you online again.

second off, i've been playing almost exclusively with another group (who cannot be named here, but suffice it to say it's not the one we're not supposed to talk about ) and someone there is insisting that when you run, your defense drops to zero and "monsters have 100% chance to hit you." I'm pretty sure that's wrong- I know it drops blocking, but didn't think it did anything to defense. As this forum is clearly the most intelligent (or at least most addicted) group of players i know, I figured someone here could give me the correct answer. Thanks, and stay safe!

~Cooner

[MoUsE_WiZ]

0 defence while running is a fact.
Whether or not that translates to "100% chance to hit" is another matter though, and I'm about 99.9% sure that it doesn't. Still a much higher chance to be hit though either way.

[TheCerberus]

They say 0 defense when running, and 1/3 of blocking.
And I'm pretty sure the highest chance you can have to hit is 95%, so they hit you 95% while you block at most 25%. I guess, maybe I'm lying.

[CoonerTheRed]

0 defence while running is a fact.
Whether or not that translates to "100% chance to hit" is another matter though, and I'm about 99.9% sure that it doesn't. Still a much higher chance to be hit though either way.

he made a point to say that normally a monster's to hit was capped at 95, but when you were running, it was 100. i don't quite buy this though... i've run around with a 2H barb (ie, no block) with monsters swinging at me as i ran around them, and very rarely got hit... are they just swinging at my dust? (edit: it's very possible i'm just clueless )

[WingBlade]

glad 2 see your again Cooner...

[Nerf-Herder]

does the defense drop occur while actually running or does it also apply when you have run toggled but are standing still?

[STINGER]

hum 0 D while running just sounds wrong..........wont say its wrong, but man I run a TON with my two hand guys and dont get hit that much.

[rpgforumsnet]

This is really new to me. What else we didn't know?
Did someone rip apart blizzard source code to reveal this?

[Baranor]

as far as I know its true, but its ALSO true that monster weapons have ranges just as yours, and if you pass out of range, they miss. Its easy to make them miss by running around.

% to hit however is also affected by a clvl/mlvl equation thingie so i duobt that "to hit" goes to 100%

[MoUsE_WiZ]

This, like many questions, can be answered on the AS:

Running vs Walking
You may be wondering why you would want to walk instead of running everywhere. When you are running, any melee monster within range will always hit you. By running near melee monsters, you leave yourself vulnerable to attacks. However, when you are walking near monsters, the normal chance to hit, determined by your Dexterity, your character's level, etc., will apply. You might want to return to walking when facing monsters, especially if you're using a class that relies on melee attacks, like the Barbarian, Paladin, and, at times, the Amazon.

When you are running, there is a slight chance that a monster's attack will hit an area that you have already run past. While there's a good chance that you will get hit, it's not absolutely certain. If you find you're getting hit too often while running, try walking for a while.

Since melee monsters will almost always hit you when you're running, classes that need to run a lot don't need to worry too much about Defense stats. In the later Acts and at higher levels, Necromancers and Sorceresses need to run a lot to evade groups of enemies. These classes should use shields to increase their odds of block, rather than focus on Defense.

Is there the same better chance for other players to hit me when I'm running with Player vs Player melee attacks?
Yes.

Note that if a player is moving, their Blocking percentage is reduced to 1/3rd of its original value. This means players will get hit a lot more when running, even with high blocking.

I'm not sure exactly HOW reliable the information is (for example, it says 1/3 block while moving rather than running...?), as sometimes they have bits that are partially erroneous, but the basic idea of "defence doesn't count while running" is there.