1) if LA does a normal melee attack once it lands, why does it bypass the dmg returned check (thorns or iron maiden)?

2) so a throwing knife gets no mastery boost when using LA?

3) just to confirm: a throwing knife only uses throwing mastery when thrown?

1) Umm...I'll leave that to someone else
2) Jarulf said it isn't ranged, so it'd not get a Mastery boost.
3) Yes, only Throwing Mastery; however, the Critical Strike from Axe Mastery works with Throwing Axes (and works properly: not 100%).

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To increase damage on a leaping knifer, realize that the LA skill has a large damage boost. Plus you can boost it further by adding to strength and dexterity, both of which add a bonus to damage of throwing weapons and daggers.

That is not correct.

>They say that adding points to your Bash skill increases
>Leap Attack damage.

Thus that is not correct either.

> However, I could not confirm this
>through testing (using numbers on char screen). My guess is
>that a previous patch changed the bash to a normal attack.

No. But LA has never done a bash attack, at least not since the release of Diablo II a few years ago. I have no idea in pre release versions.

Note that the attack made with LA *will* add a knock back effect though. That might be a reason why people believed it was a bash attack perhaps.

>To increase damage on a leaping knifer, realize that the LA
>skill has a large damage boost. Plus you can boost it
>further by adding to strength and dexterity, both of which
>add a bonus to damage of throwing weapons and daggers.

To answer that shortly: because the LA code doesn't call the code that handle such effects (it include many of the cold armor checks and such too).

To answer it slightly longer. Normally, the game will set up some "combat" data as soon as you initiate any attack. This is done when you actually initiate the attack, not later on when your attack "hits" the target. This setup basically perform the ToHit check (thus in advance so to speak) and calculate the damage and in most cases even the damage reductions due to resistances and such. The game then keep track of the happenings and when you finally hit, a bunch of functions will if we are at the time for the hit, call the functions that check for things like Thorns, Cold armor and such. It then calls the damage resolution code that deal the actual damage and finally the code that update the target for the attack, such as seting hot recovery, checking for death and such.

Various hit effects such as Crushing Blow, mana from killing demon (is it called that?), atatcker take damage and such are called and checked for at various places (some in the place were Thorns and such, don't recall which though, they would be skiped by LA too).

The LA skill will when you initiate it only do the actual leap. When you actually land, it will do the "attack", that is call the damage calc function (including the damage reduction due to resistance, PVP and such) and the proceed to immediately call the "deal damage" function. Thus the game never ends up in the function that check for Thorns and such (and it can't be called directly either since it works based on the stored away combat data on the character, unpacking that one and such which neever happens in a LA.

Not sure if this helped to explain it though

The probable reason to precalculate most attacks is to combat lag and such.

>2) so a throwing knife gets no mastery boost when using LA?

Hmm, it would get from the mastery that would be used for a normal attack with a knife (don't remember what it is called) but not from throwing mastery, no.

>
>3) just to confirm: a throwing knife only uses throwing
>mastery when thrown?

Yup.

Long story short. Leap Attack triggers everything PRIOR to the thorns/IM portion of the combat code upon activation(when you target something with it), performs the leap, then does everything AFTER the thorns/IM portion of the combat code upon "impact" Wow, 1 sentence, that's a record summary for me.

>>2) so a throwing knife gets no mastery boost when using LA?
>
>Hmm, it would get from the mastery that would be used for a
>normal attack with a knife (don't remember what it is
>called) but not from throwing mastery, no.

Correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm talking to the Superior Being Known As Jarulf, but unless "Dagger" class weapons are counted under Sword Mastery, throwing knives won't get any mastery bonuses from anywhere unless thrown(at which point they are affected by Throwing Mastery)

>>3) just to confirm: a throwing knife only uses throwing
>>mastery when thrown?
>
>Yup.

*A spark, then a flashing brilliance, with the accompaniment of the divine orchestra.*

Have a nuke-u-ler break, have an AtomicKitKat!

Correct.

Well, it actually does everything when your character lands, not one part when you activate the skill and the rest when you land. Also note that as I mentioned, in the code section handling Thorns/IM, it also handles a few other things like those various cold armors and some other stuff, they will also be skipped.

Otherwise it was correct

>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm talking to the Superior
>Being Known As Jarulf, but unless "Dagger" class weapons are
>counted under Sword Mastery, throwing knives won't get any
>mastery bonuses from anywhere unless thrown(at which point
>they are affected by Throwing Mastery)

I was uncertain of the exact masteries in existance and thus avoided writing sword mastery