Talk:Ghostly Skeleton

Damage Reduction 100/good, and how DR Scaling works
Ok since this is confusing a lot of players, I did some further testing and got pictures for you guys to explain it as clearly as I can:


 * Yes Ghostly Skeletons have DR 100/Good. They always have, it has never changed. I know this for a fact not only from personal testing, but also various sources who gave me some very detailed info ripped from the game files.
 * Damage reduction scaling is in place here. It is a global thing thats been around a while, it applies to everything in the game, not just ghostly skeletons. It is complex, and confuses a lot of players. Most aren't even aware it exists. I believe it was added to the game around the same time dungeon scale was added, but it works quite a bit differently then that, and varies based on difficulty:
 * Casual/Normal: If an enemy had enough DR that it would have reduced the damage you do to zero, you instead deal 50% damage. This is displayed in a masked way to fool the player.. (EG: You hit ghostly skeleton for 30 damage, after 30 was stopped by dr/good.).
 * No it doesn't have 30DR/Good.. You did 60 damage, but it was divided by 2 and thats how it displays.
 * Hard: DR scaling applies too, but at half strength - EG you only deal 25% of the damage.
 * Elite/Epic/Any Raid: DR Scaling is disabled. Attacks under 100 damage will be reduced to zero.

Pictures for fun/proof and because not many players can deal 100+ dmg to these to test themselves:

Shade 08:07, January 20, 2012 (EST)


 * Continuing here, edit comments conversations suck.

Yes very few monsters have a DR that absorbs a percentage of the physical damage dealt, I've encountered only 2 or 3 such monsters in the whole game. It's a game mechanic that seems to kick in for very few monsters and/or when the DR is crazy high. But for 99.99% of DDO monsters that have some form of DR their DR will block only a fixed amount of damage. It doesn't matter if you hit Harry with a masterwork dagger or with an eSoS, he will always block 15/25/35 points of damage on N/H/E if you don't bypass his DR.

Expanding on the note you added is a good thing, it doesn't subtract anything from the info provided and it gives the readers the info they need (The DR for this monster is...?) here and now. If they need more info on how damage reduction scaling works - so they know how to deal with the other 1-2 monsters that are affected by it - then they will follow the links. by Mjoll 14:07, January 20, 2012 (EST)



You still don't seem to get it's not a per-monster special thing.

Name one monster in the game it doesn't happen on.

Arraetrikos: Doesn't happen because as explained in the DR article, raids don't feature DR scaling, much the same as they don't feature dungeon scaling. It's only on casual/normal/hard. Not Elite/Epic/Raids. Not sure about solo difficulty, nothing on that mode has DR to test, but since it doesn't feature dungeon scaling scaling, id bet it doesn't have DR scaling either.

I've tested many others, it's a gamewide feature. Maybe it has some minimum DR amount for it to work, it is a weird setup, but it's not that uncommon. Whats uncommon is quests with monsters that enough DR that your damage is completely negated.. Most mobs in standard normal/hard quests simply don't have that much DR, so its not something you see often.

What you subtracted? The DR amount, you did the same thing that last 100 ppl did, wrote in DR/Good without the amount in your note, thats just dumb - I've proven what the DR is in the screenshot, and yes its on normal, its the same on all difficulties ive tested. I'll leave your other stuff but fixing that. Shade 16:14, January 20, 2012 (EST)


 * I can name more than one monster, I can paste the whole Monsters by type and race page here minus the monsters that have no DR. Monsters with a fixed DR value are the rule, monsters with a percentage based DR are the exception. It doesn't matter if this percentage based DR mechanic is implemented for all monsters and kicks in only if certain conditions are met (very high DR seems to be the main condition), what matters is that for 99.99% of all monsters this mechanic never kicks in so it should be treated like the exception that it is.

If the Harry example won't do then do another test, kill the first orthons in Genesis Point without DR breakers, once with max dps gear and once with minimum dps gear (use fists, masterwork weapons, whatever). In both cases you'll see that they have DR 5/15/15/Good on N/H/E regardless of how much or little damage you do.

Back to Ghostly Sleletons... If DR 100/Good would be true across all difficulties then you wouldn't be able to hit for 52 dmg on hard difficulty (13 dmg or 25% that went through the DR + 39 dmg or 75% that were absorbed by the DR) as shown in [[Media:Ghostly-Hard.jpg|your second pic]]. That's why DR 100/Good is not true across all difficulties but for elite only, that's why Silverhand and the others before him changed it. That's why the player that reads the Special Qualities: Damage Reduction 100/Good part will disagree with it when they'll see that on normal difficulty they don't need to do 101+ dmg and just 2+ dmg will suffice if they lack good aligned weapons.

So it makes more sense to use something like:

Special Qualities: Damage Reduction/Good or

Special Qualities: Damage Reduction/Good or

Special Qualities: Damage Reduction/Good

After your latest edit the note at the bottom says:

So if you lack good aligned weaponry the Ghostly Skeleton' DR is as follows:
 * Casual & Normal: DR100/Good with 50% of your damage being absorbed if you deal less then 100 damage.

What is the role of if? What happens if you deal more than 100 dmg on normal difficulty?

Also... Name several monsters that are affected by this percentage based DR mechanic if you think all monsters are affected by it; I know of just another one but it should be easy for you to name several. by Mjoll 06:16, January 21, 2012 (EST)



To answer this for the 100th time: What is the role of if? What happens if you deal more than 100 dmg on normal difficulty? Read the DR page for the last time. It's all explained there.

The DR is 100. Period. Test it for yourself if your that stuborn. The scaling only applies if you dont surpass the DR, so no your explaination is utterly wrong. It's not that hard to reduce their fort and score a critical if you lack the base dmg. Get a mornlode breastplate of improved sunder. I can deal over 100 even at lvl with improved sunder. I recall doing 300+ dmg actaully on my lvl6 bbn recently actaully - improved sunder + halt undead (+50% dmg).

Far as your notes on my hard screenshot. No idea what your talking about. Yea there are some strange figures in there off by 1/2 points, but i'd say thats just rounding errors as they are very close. I do 25% of my dmg if I deal less then 100 dmg and no fixed DR happens, and I do 100% of my damage minus 100 if I do over 100. It seems like I have to do well over 100 tho, like 120, but ive several others on norm/hard where I deal 120+ and its you hit for 20, 100 are stopped. Again i think thats just due to the weird math/rounding they use to determine if the scaling should apply.

What other monsters ive specificly tested with same scaling: Dread Zombies in caverns of korromar (DR10 on hard, scales if u do less then 10), various skeletons, various iron golems, devils, etc. Tons, it happens everywhere.

And just for you, I even tested the exact monster you mentioned: first Orthon, Genesis point, normal: This is an extremely poor choice since he has a really crap DR thats not hard to overcome - 5/good or silver.. But I managed to do less then 5 dmg on my wimpy sorc after taking off all my str gear, and yea he has DR scaling. No matter how little dmg i delt, it was never "but did no damage".

And by same, I mean same as I explained.. Not the weird infinite percentile stuff your talking about. Every DR has a limit. Every monster on cas/norm/hard with DR, has DR scaling in place. Global thing, for the last time.

Test more carefully before replying again. Or at least read the article i wrote about this as it seems like you still haven't. Shade 11:47, January 21, 2012 (EST)



What is the role of if? What happens if you deal more than 100 dmg on normal difficulty?

My understanding of it is this... If the physical damage you deal is:
 * 2 =  1
 * 10 =  5
 * 50 = 25
 * 98 = 49
 * 100 =  0
 * 101 =  1

I hope this sums it up for everyone.. ShoeMaker 13:46, January 21, 2012 (EST)


 * I concede, the theory is true. I wasn't able to replicate results similar to the ones I got from tests I did on ghostly skeletons because I couldn't find more than one monster from a non-epic non-elite non-raid quest that has a DR higher than the amount of dmg I do with bare fists. But I found some eventually.

Bottom line, someone with low to very low STR will notice the DR scaling very often while someone with average to high STR will notice the DR scaling extremely rarely. by Mjoll 17:02, January 21, 2012 (EST)

Righteousness weapons will bypass the Ghostly Skeletons DR as of Update 15.