Instant Deaths on "Death March" - What causes them ?

[Velcharis]

Instant Deaths on "Death March" - What causes them ?

Oi,

I am on an ongoing no-reload no-deaths no-metagaming challenge, a policy I personally call a"Playtrue".

What I realized is, the only thing that gives me trouble is spontaneous spikes of enemy damage, often actually instant death in combat, for which I search an explanation.

The exact same Drowners who, with my weapon sheathed and standing still, hit me for quite exactly 9,7% of my vitality, once killed me in two hits from full health (meaning their strike damage must have suddenly dealt more than 5x their normal damage) Both hits were the same animation (their most common forward lunge right arm claw swipe)

Its an amusing irony actually, I keep seeing under-leveled weak common enemies dish out damage that would put the bosses to shame.

So how does that happen ?


Theories:

> Do monsters on Death March have a small "Chance to Dismember" like some of our gear ?

> Can monsters have critical hit damage modifiers as large as that, more than 400% additional damage ?

> Does the critical hit damage modifier for monsters vary ?

> Might there be a glitch of an attack registering twice or more ?

 

[Exentryk]

Death March monsters deal higher damage. You SHOULD be dying within one or two hits on Death March. That's how it is designed to be.

 

[Guest 3713529]

That's weird. I play exclusively on Death March (though I don't follow any of your rules, I just keep all HUD and visual aids turned off), but I never encountered any instant death situations like that. The only obvious exception being red skull enemies that overlevel me, like the Chort in White Orchard.

The only similar experience I had was when six drowners jumped me in a hilariously syncronised lounge attack: full health and quen weren't enough.

Death March monsters deal higher damage. You SHOULD be dying within one or two hits on Death March. That's how it is designed to be.

I think the point of the topic is that enemy damage seems inconsistent, which makes us question whether enemies have buffs and/or critical chance as well.

 

[jj284b]

Death March monsters deal higher damage. You SHOULD be dying within one or two hits on Death March. That's how it is designed to be.

they do have higher damage, but its not about that... some monsters have super strong critical damage in some occasions.. like those mentioned drowners. sometimes, they do normal hits, but sometimes they can deal like 5x greater damage.. yet if you look at your critical damage potential, you would hardly be dealing more than 2 or 3x of normal damage... its not a problem with strong monsters, where you kinda expect it, but if a level 4 drowner can do that.. then its quite weird..

 

[dragonbird]

It's usually when they hit you from behind, isn't it? That definitely increases the damage drastically.

 

[Mogsters73]

It's usually when they hit you from behind, isn't it? That definitely increases the damage drastically.

yea dont get hit from behind without quen up or its instant bye bye

 

[evilhippo]

Any critical hit from behind is double plus ungood.

 

[vennecto]

The only obvious exception being red skull enemies that overlevel me, like the Chort in White Orchard.

Chort in White Orchard is a feature that prevents Player from exploiting cow's hides; he will always outlevel player.

 

[Lieste]

Damage received can easily be many times higher on a critical hit as it is only marginal damage after armour and resistances. If you block 80% of damage then reduce the remainder by 50%, then you'll take 10% of the initial attack as damage.... double that damage and you'll take 3 times as much damage...

With the current "Strong attack" there is no "blocking" armour (Armour reduced by 1000 for all strong attacks), only damage resistance, so a strong critical would give around 12 times the original case's damage.

Backstabs are either *all* criticals or at least have a *much* higher critical chance.

 

[ustandic]

Chort in White Orchard is a feature that prevents Player from exploiting cow's hides; he will always outlevel player.

Not always :happy: They're good source of red mutagens and chort hide and I'm really grateful for them

 

[vennecto]

Oh yea, right. I saw screenshots that feel when you exploit exploit-preventing monster.

 

[tahirahmed]

Not always :happy: They're good source of red mutagens and chort hide and I'm really grateful for them

Lol I exploited a Cyclops in Skellige once and was wondering when some exploit preventing mechanism will trigger but there was nothing

@vennecto

Ssshhh ! you heard nothing.

 

[Velcharis]

Heya everyone and thanks for your time,

The only similar experience I had was when six drowners jumped me in a hilariously syncronised lounge attack: full health and quen weren't enough.
I think the point of the topic is that enemy damage seems inconsistent, which makes us question whether enemies have buffs and/or critical chance as well.

Hah, interestingly this killed my first attempt - a synchronized attack of 4 drowners in perfectly synchronous lunge hit me and sent me straight back to the tree in White Orchard. But yes, the point is the damage variance going heavily up and down.

It's usually when they hit you from behind, isn't it? That definitely increases the damage drastically.

Unfortunately not, in fact... in this specific example it is the opposite.

The attack that killed me were two drowners hitting me at the same time, one almost exactly from the front, the other roughly 30° clockwise from my direction.

It was the weak attacks (roughly 10% vitality per strike as stated above) that hit me almost exactly in the back AND with weapons sheathed - I intentionally stood there doing nothing, to observe the damage. I also made sure it was the exact same drowners.

Damage received can easily be many times higher on a critical hit as it is only marginal damage after armour and resistances. If you block 80% of damage then reduce the remainder by 50%, then you'll take 10% of the initial attack as damage.... double that damage and you'll take 3 times as much damage...

With the current "Strong attack" there is no "blocking" armour (Armour reduced by 1000 for all strong attacks), only damage resistance, so a strong critical would give around 12 times the original case's damage.

Backstabs are either *all* criticals or at least have a *much* higher critical chance.

Thanks for the elaboration - some mechanics there that I didn't know yet. by that, a regular chance-based critical from a usually weak monster could indeed just devastate you.


---------- Updated at 04:54 PM ----------

I am sure now I found some kind of bug - or Deathmarch monsters indeed now have a chance of instant kills. If others don't get this, then it must be related to some talent or equipment.


After killing a pack of grey level (level 2) ghouls who hit me so low that Sun and Stars outheals it, I was just suddenly one-shot from full health - by a simple unbuffed level 2 ghoul.

I wish I'd have had the Action Log enabled, so I could provide proof of the cataclysmic ghoul and see for how much it actually hit.

This problem may possibly come from a recent patch because I played Deathmarch up to 26 already and these Sudden Deaths are definitely new - with one exception, very early in the game, short after it was released, I had the Action Log enabled, and a Guardsman attacking a Drowner accidently hit me for.... 72061.52 damage.



Any clarification whether chance-based instant kills or over-the-top critical hits were patched in recently or not, would be very appreciated.

 

[zetsumeisama]

You mean this? My Geralt is Level 13 here and this is Death March. < Vid Link

 

[LuckyCat]

Chort in White Orchard is a feature that prevents Player from exploiting cow's hides; he will always outlevel player.

Spoiler

Geralt of Rivia lvl 1 vs Chorts lvl ?? in White Orchard!!!
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...Lvl-in-White-Orchard!!!?p=1787443#post1787443

Spoiler

Let me remind you, You will often be staring at this that You Died. That is Death March.

 

[Butcher_of_Cidaris]

Usually caused by slow reaction or when player unthinkingly jumps onto an enemy he have no idea how to fight...

Preparation before combat might solve that bug.

"Things are easy when you do them right"

 

[alecfortescue]

Remember that being hit from behind you're likely to take almost double damage.

 

[griever0507]

Instant death for me in Death March is running through a pack of wolves while riding Roach and all of a sudden simultaneously attacking me while running and pulling me from Roach itself hahaha hilarious coz I can't seem to unmount from my horse upon seeing this pack of white wolves in Skellige.

 

[Amioran]

With the current "Strong attack" there is no "blocking" armour (Armour reduced by 1000 for all strong attacks), only damage resistance, so a strong critical would give around 12 times the original case's damage.

That's only for Geralt. Monsters or NPCs don't have that dynamic.

Backstabs are either *all* criticals or at least have a *much* higher critical chance.

Backstabs and criticals are the same exact thing (i.e. they do the same exact damage). Vanilla base backstab/critical damage is x1.25 (very little), and this both for Geralt and NPCs/Monsters.

However there's a type of attack for NPCs/Monsters that does about 400% damage (200% attack power + 200% spell power) in certain circumstances but I don't know what they are. Maybe it's only related to specific NPCs however, I have yet to understand what it does properly.

 

[zombievac]

The only similar experience I had was when six drowners jumped me in a hilariously syncronised lounge attack

A LOUNGE attack?! Oh no! Were you wearing your smoking jacket and sipping cognac?