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Member
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Joined: May 17 2004
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Jan 9 2008 05:04pm
Here are a few good threads from the HGL forums that contain info

Chat commands:

Hit slash / then Tab through to find these slash commands or type them in as follows:

/accept = accept a party invite

/bug = submit a bug report

/channels = list all chat channels

/channeljoin [channel] = join a channel (e.g. /channeljoin chat-2)

/channelleave [channel]= quit a channel

/chat = chat to server default channel

/disband = disband a party.

/fps = shows frames per second in-game top left of screen.

/ignore [name] = ignores chat from that player (great for whiners or 'Nightmare' bores).

/invite [name] = allows you to invite a player to your party (even if you're not in the same zone).

/kick [name] = kick a player from a party.

/l [text] = chat local zone (same as town).

/leave = leave a party.

/lfg [text] = Looking For Group channel.

/newbie [text] = your general chat command.

/p [text] = party chat.

/played = show how long you played your character

/ping = shows your ping rate to the server.

/r [text] = reply to last tell/whisper.

/quit = quit the game directly to desktop.

/s text = allows players to talk in the chat-1 or chat-2 channel.

/stuck = respawn your character at the begining of the instance if you are stuck

/t [name] [text] = Allows you to whisper any player in game if you know their name. (works like /w)

/town [text] = town chat

/trade [text] = trade channel

/w [name] [text] = allows you to whisper any player in game if you know their name (works like /t).

/who = how many people on the server

Source: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=46484

Luck:

You kill a monster. Items drop out of said monster. Between those two actions, a chance roll occurs. The item that drops, let's say it's a sword, has a chance of being either Normal, Enhanced, Rare, Legendary, or Unique. Now for a better way to represent this:

***PLEASE NOTE***
THE NUMBERS USED HERE DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL CHANCE RATES.
THEY ARE ONLY BEING USED TO ILLUSTRATE HOW LUCK WORKS.


180 - Normal
14 - Enhanced
3 - Rare
2 - Legendary
1 - Unique

180+14+3+2+1 = 200

Let's say these are the numbers for when you are wearing no Luck items. They do not represent the game's drop rates and are only used for this explanation. This would mean that the sword which is about to drop has a 90% chance of being Normal, 7% Enhanced, 1.5% Rare, 1% Legendary, and 0.5% Unique.

Now, let's say you're wearing Luck gear totaling 80 Luck. This subtracts 80 from the Normal number which is now 100 in the case of my example numbers. Suddenly:

100 - Normal
14 - Enhanced
3 - Rare
2 - Legendary
1 - Unique

100+14+3+2+1 = 120

This means that now there's only an 83.33% chance of a Normal roll while all of the higher rarities increase in their percentage chance: 11.67% Enhanced, 2.5% Rare, 1.67% Legendary, and 0.833% Unique. Sounds pretty good, right? Hold tight, here's where it gets interesting.

Monsters which are Rare, Legendary, or Bosses are already set to drop selections from different rarity groups. To explain, let's say you're about to land the killing blow to Shulgoth. This time there's a series of chance rolls. This is because monsters who have a rarity level higher than Normal have multiple chance rolls when it comes to dropping loot. For example:

Chance Roll #1:
Normal -> Unique
2 items from this group

Chance Roll #2:
Enhanced -> Unique
1 item from this group

Chance Roll #3:
Rare - > Unique
1 item from this group

There are a lot of percentage chances at play in these rolls, naturally. However, Luck only affects Chance Roll #1. Why? Because it's the only one that has Normal items as a possibility.

SO! Luck improves the quality of your drops by reducing the percentage chance that a drop is Normal quality. It does not directly improve the percentage chance that a drop is higher quality but instead indirectly. It also does not increase the number of drops in any way. Nor does it improve chance rolls where Normal items are not a possible drop.

Source: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=60772

Drop Rates of items in your char class versus others

As you all know, the vast majority of equipment is faction-specific, barring quest items. Many have commented on how they feel that they've been getting drops for other factions more than that of their character's faction. However, ever since the game launched, the drop rate has been 60/20/20. This means there's a 60% chance a drop will be for your character's faction while there's a 20% it'll be for one of the other two factions.

The only changes in this ratio occurred prior to the game's Halloween launch. During Community Day in May, it was 33/33/33. During alpha/beta, it was 50/25/25.

http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=58463

What to do if you're having trouble getting items (SWORDS) for the minigame

You simply use one of the augmenting machines method, nano-forge etc, that is used to get rid of unwanted quest items by dropping them to the ground. Do this with a sword/armor you already have (i use wart's leg) and it will drop, then pick it up again and the mini-game will trigger.

For those of you unfamiliar with this method simply fill your inventory with items and put the sword/armor into the augmenting machine. With the machine still open rearrange your inventory so the item won't fit back in, then hit cancel on the machine and the item will drop with a warning saying this.

As for mods I don't believe it's possible since they take up only one slot. Hope this helps those waiting for those pesky sword drops.

Source: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=66399

The Minigame

The Hellgate Mini-game is a fun game in its own! You see the three little icons in the bottom-right corner of your screen, some with numbers on them? Those are the mini-game tasks! Each one represents some active task for your current session to complete, such as killing X number of zombies, completing a quest, and collecting Y armor pieces.

The images start out greyed (yellowish, actually) out, some with a number over them. Each step towards completing the mini-game counts down the required number of kills/collects. Once the required goal has been completed, the image lights up and fills itself in. After you've completed all of them, your überskill pays off with massive luck (enhanced item drops) and whatnot (randomly generated bonus mobs/items/money). Your tasks, including all progress made, will reset only after you've completed them all, and a new set will be randomly generated, so if you're missing out because, say, you don't have a weapon that deals a specific type of damage, look for it in all the gear/mods you get.

The icons randomly appear, spanning 3.2 categories: killing monsters with a certain damage type, killing monsters of a certain species/type, collecting items of a certain type, completing a quest, and getting a critical hit (kill?). Below is a chart to show you what means what (made by the awesome user Nocktis (his thread), so no complaining about quality!). This also shows you what the items look like when completed, so if you still aren't sure if your stuff is done, here's a reference of completed images (note that by "Magic Item", it means an item of a higher quality (Enhanced+)).



Source: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=22695

For other versions of a printable minigame chart, go here: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=30894
Member
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Joined: May 17 2004
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Jan 9 2008 05:05pm
Weapon / Armor Properties:

First off, if you're going to be Augmenting something I highly reccomending using the list in the following thread, which is conveniently sorted into both Weapons vs Armor and by Basic, Rare, and Legendary tiers. http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=36340

For the purposes of this I've assumed that all armor are equivalent (ie: iLvl 7 Belt + Shock Defense Property = iLvl 7 Chest + Shock Defense Property). Also I've not bothered to seperate Weapon and Armor properties because as far as I can tell, with the exception of Fawke's Gear and the Halloween Helm, it is pretty obvious which is which (except with Shields, which act as both, and that only makes it easier). Also I assumed that Uniques followed the same rules as Legendary items, just that their selection of properties was fixed.

This information was collected using a mixture of my own in-game items and from screenshots of the details screens of items posted on the various Class Trading Forums here, thus extremely low level or high level stuff is highly unrepresented. If you have some of my missing pieces, or values that don't fit into the ranges outlined, PM me screenshots or post them to this thread and I'll add them.

I have a semi-complete (ie: has most of the information here) research set of data which incorporates item-types and iLvls if someone was looking to do heavier research on iLvl cut-offs and starting points for these various properties. I plan to do some of that myself using the information, but after awhile I started cutting info straight to this format and leaving that stuff off.

I've used Minor/Moderate/Major in situations where the actual numbers are highly determined by iLvl since it got to be odd looking if I had only limited data and the Normal value range was ending up higher than the Rare value range.

Mods are presently not included, since
  1. Generally trade screenshots don't use the details page for mods, making it extraordinarily difficult to get accurate mod data.
  2. Mods sometimes seem to use similar properties to standard items at reduced rates, but even that seems inconsistent enough to make it difficult.
but I am going to reserve a section for talking about them in the future.

White names are properties for Enhanced Items (or better).
Blue names are properties on Rare or better items.
Orange names are properties on Legendary or better items.
  • Accuracy
    • Refined - +2-5 Accuracy
    • Eagle's - +6-8 Accuracy
    • Falcon's - +12-15 Accuracy
    • Zephyr's - +19-20 Accuracy

  • Strength
    • Burly - +4-5 Strength
    • Hound's - +8-10 Strength
    • Tiger's - +13 Strength
    • Lionheart - +20 Strength

  • Stamina
    • Mammoth's - +4 Stamina
    • Titan's - +8-10 Stamina
    • Juggernaut's - +13-15 Stamina
    • Leviathan's - +20 Stamina

  • Willpower
    • Clever - +2-4 Willpower
    • Friar's - +7-9 Willpower
    • Bishop's - +12-13 Willpower
    • Archbishop's - +17 Willpower

  • All Attributes
    • Bold - All Attributes +3-5
    • Courageous - All Attributes +6-10
    • Fearless - All Attributes +11-15

      ** The above properties can appear as Normal, Rare, and Legendary modifiers. The only apparent difference amongst them appears to be the required iLvl for the modifier to appear.

  • Hit Points
    • Healthy - +7-20 Hit Points
    • Bountiful - +23-38 Hit Points
    • Robust - +54-60 Hit Points
    • Vigorous - +73 Hit Points

  • Power Points
    • Energizing - +7-9 Power Points
    • Invigorating - +17-19 Power Points
    • Supercharged - +29 Power Points

      ** Similar to the +Stat properties, these can appear as a mixture of Normal, Rare, and Legendary. Higher rarity increases the amount of points relative to the iLvl. Ie: Normal iLvl 20 Healthy value < Rare iLvl 20 Healthy value.

  • Luck
    • Lucky- +32 Luck
    • Fortunate - +45-50 Luck
    • Prosperous - +60-65 Luck

  • Hit Point Bonus %
    • Sustaining - +5% Hit Points
    • Restorative - +8-11% Hit Points
    • Bracing - +13-14% Hit Points

  • Health Regen
    • Healing - Health Regen 14-21/Min
    • Mendicant - Health Regen 31/Min
    • Panacea - Health Regen 34-73/Min

  • Power Regen
    • Recharging - Power Regen 12-16/Min
    • Reviving - Power Regen 23-25/Min
    • Ameliorating - Power Regen 31-54/Min

    ** These numbers may be slightly off as Patch 0.1 claimed to have retuned the mechanics of Heath and Power Regen and some of this data was gathered during Patch 0.

  • Proc abilities
    • Shrapnel -
      Crippling, Enervating , Debilitating
    • Rebounder Bolts -
      Bouncing, Reflecting , Ricochet
    • Exploding Spikes -
      Blasting, Exploding , Eruptive
    • Fire Nova -
      Explosive, Charring , Searing
    • Electric Discharge -
      Thundering, Striking , Bolting
    • Charged Bolts -
      Charged, Storm , Tempest
    • Spectral Nova
      Tempering, Diminishing , Weakening
    • Toxic Nova -
      Viperous, Virulent , Venomous

      ** These Proc properties can come in 4 flavors - "on Attack" (while swinging/shooting), "on Hit", "on Kill", and "when Hit".
      I've been told that Nova effects originate on the target whereas non-Nova abilities originate on the player triggering them (though "when Hit" is always player centered, due to the nature of the effect, I believe), though I've only had limited testing experience with them.

      *** I think you can find all 4 flavors of Procs for all the different elements/abilities, though I don't have full data to completely back that claim (for example, I've never found a Shrapnel trigger that wasn't "on Kill" based), so extra input is always favorable.

  • Defensive Procs
    • Barbed - Minor Physical Thorns
    • Asperous - Moderate Physical Thorns
    • Thorned - Major Physical Thorns
    • Fevered - Minor Fire Thorns
    • Febrile - Moderate Fire Thorns
    • Pyretic - Major Fire Thorns
    • Powered - Minor Electrical Thorns
    • Electrostatic - Moderate Electrical Thorns
    • Energized - Major Electrical Thorns
    • Ethereal - Minor Spectral Thorns
    • Empyrean - Moderate Spectral Thorns
    • Celestial - Major Spectral Thorns
    • Rotted - Minor Toxic Thorns
    • Decomposing - Moderate Toxic Thorns
    • Corroded - Major Toxic Thorns

  • Defenses
    • Primal - Minor All Defenses
    • Chromatic - Moderate All Defenses
    • Kaleidoscopic - Major All Defenses
    • Stabilizing - Minor Stun Defense
    • Braced - Moderate Stun Defense
    • Steadied - Major Stun Defense
    • Extinguishing - Minor Ignite Defense
    • Dousing - Moderate Ignite Defense
    • Stifling - Major Ignite Defense
    • Resistant - Minor Shock Defense
    • Shielded - Moderate Shock Defense
    • Grounded - Major Shock Defense
    • Synchronized - Minor Phase Defense
    • Harmonic - Moderate Phase Defense
    • Concordant - Major Phase Defense
    • Vaccinating - Minor Poison Defense
    • Immunizing - Moderate Poison Defense
    • Inoculating - Major Poison Defense

    ** Numbers are highly affect by iLvl. Normal appears to be on par with 10x iLvl while Rare and Legendary seem to employ values close to 20x iLvl.

  • Armor Value and Shields
    • Statuesque - +3-5% Total Armor Value
    • Monolithic - +7-8% Total Armor Value
    • Colossal - +10% Total Armor Value

      ** Seems to be a Legendary only property.
    • Guarded - +9-17 Armor
    • Protected - +16-19 Armor
    • Solid - +13 Armor
    • Resolute - +42 Armor
    • Secure - +37-45 Armor
    • Impregnable - +50-100 Armor
    • Buffering - +6-16 Shields
    • Barricading - +17-30 Shields
    • Assimilating - +27-44 Shields
    • Redirecting - +20-45 Shields
    • Ablative - +50-100 Shields

  • Elemental Damage and Attack Strength
    • Hammering - ?% Physical Damage
    • Bashing - +15-17% Physical Damage
    • Pummeling - +20-21% Physical Damage
    • Forceful - +Minor Stun Attack Strength
    • Compelling - +Moderate Stun Attack Strength
    • Roundhouse - +Major Stun Attack Strength
    • Kindled - +11% Fire Damage
    • Inflamed - +15% Fire Damage
    • Volcanic - +21% Fire Damage
    • Burning - +Minor Ignite Attack Strength
    • Igniting - +Moderate Ignite Attack Strength
    • Combustible - +Major Ignite Attack Strength
    • Juiced - +??% Electrical Damage
    • Galvanized - +15% Electrical Damage
    • Volted - +21% Electrical Damage
    • Stunning - +Minor Shock Attack Strength
    • Dazing - +Moderate Shock Attack Strength
    • Staggering - +Major Shock Attack Strength
    • Eerie - +11-12% Spectral Damage
    • Lucent - +17% Spectral Damage
    • Radiant - +20% Spectral Damage
    • Spirited - +Minor Phase Attack Strength
    • Hallowed - +Moderate Phase Attack Strength
    • Consecrated - +Major Phase Attack Strength
    • Sickening - +11% Toxic Damage
    • Loathsome - +17% Toxic Damage
    • Tainted - +21% Toxic Damage
    • Contaminated - +Minor Poison Attack Strength
    • Polluted - +Moderate Poison Attack Strength
    • Radiated - +Major Poison Attack Strength

      ** Attack strengths are also iLvl weighted.

  • Nonspecific Damage and Criticals
    • ????? - +??% Damage
    • Blackened - +20% Damage
    • Blessed - +18-20% Damage
    • Sacred - +22-24% Damage
    • Divine - +26% Damage
    • Vindicator's - +1% Critical Chance Bonus
    • Punisher's - +3-4% Critical Chance Bonus
    • Avenger's - +5-6% Critical Chance Bonus
    • Crusher - +57% Critical Damage Bonus
    • Compensated - +64-65% Critical Damage Bonus
    • Vanquisher - +86-87% Critical Damage Bonus
    • Regulated - +92-101% Critical Damage Bonus
    • Annihilator - +105-113% Critical Damage Bonus
    • Harmonized - +121-135% Critical Damage Bonus

  • Shield Interaction
    • Disrupting - +51-57% Shield Overload
    • Subverting - +83% Shield Overload
    • Demolishing - +91-99% Shield Overload
    • Perforating - 39% Shield Penetration
    • Piercing - 49-53% Shield Penetration
    • Penetrating - +65-66% Shield Penetration

  • Anti Creature type Modifiers
    [Type] = Beast, Necro, Demon, Spectral
    • [Type] Seeker's - +24-28% Damage vs [Type]
    • [Type] Tracker's - +36-41% Damage vs [Type]
    • [Type] Hunter's - +48-54% Damage vs [Type]
    • [Type]blight - +61-70% Critical Chance Multiplier vs [Type]
    • [Type]scourge - +97-104% Critical Chance Multiplier vs [Type]
    • [Type]bane - +121-131% Critical Chance Multiplier vs [Type]
    • [Type] Lasher's - +128% Critical Damage Bonus vs [Type]
    • [Type] Mauler's - +205-208% Critical Damage Bonus vs [Type]
    • [Type] Slayer's - +242-263% Critical Damage Bonus vs [Type]

  • Misc Weapon Efficiency/Effectiveness Properties
    • Aligned - +7% Range
    • Ranged - +9% Range
    • Telescopic - +12-13% Range
    • Extracircumferential - +??% Splash Damage Radius
    • Supercircumferential - +??% Splash Damge Radius
    • Megacircumferential - +??% Splash Damage Radius
    • Steady - Energy Consumption -4-7
    • Consistent - Energy Consumption -9-10
    • Faultless - Energy Consumption -13

  • Minion Buffs
    • Agreeable - +15% Minion Health
    • Commodious - +20-27% Minion Health
    • Beneficial - +33-36% Minion Health
    • Bracing - +24% Minion Armor
    • Reinforcing - +36-43% Minion Armor
    • Buttressing - +45-49% Minion Armor
    • Acerbic - +20% Minion Damage
    • Slashing - +18-25% Minion Damage
    • Scathing - +19-30% Minion Damage

  • General Skill Properties
    • Stretching - +5% buff skill duration
    • Spanning - +8-9% buff skill duration
    • Enduring - +12% buff skill duration
    • Continuing - +4-7% boost skill duration
    • Prolonging - +8% boost skill duration
    • Persisting - +14% boost skill duration
    • Afflicted - +7% curse skill duration
    • Grevious - +?% curse skill duration
    • Woeful - +14% curse skill duration

  • Movement and Speed
    • Spry - +8-10% Movement Speed
    • Nimble - +12-14% Movement Speed
    • Quicksilver - +16-18% Movement Speed

  • Class Skill Properties
    • Smithed - +11% Combat skill damage
    • Gunsmithed - +15% Combat skill damage
    • Sighted - +20-22% Combat skill damage
    • Sparing - -10% Tactical skill power cost
    • Efficient - -12-14% Tactical skill power cost
    • Spartan - -16-17% Tactical skill power cost
    • Triggered - +??% Tactical skill use rate
    • Quickdrawn - +12-13% Tactical skill use rate
    • Snapshot - +??% Tactical skill use rate
    • ????? - -??% Evocation skill power cost
    • Rapacious - -12% Evocation skill power cost
    • Expeditious - -16% Evocation skill power cost
    • Augmented - +11% Evocation skill damage
    • Increscent - +17% Evocation skill damage
    • ????? - +??% Evocation skill damage
    • Accelerated - +11% Evocation skill use rate
    • Ardent - +14% Evocation skill use rate
    • ????? - +??% Evocation skill use rate
    • Moderate - -9% Swordsmanship skill power cost
    • Practical - -13% Swordsmanship skill power cost
    • Miserly - -17% Swordsmanship skill power cost
    • Sharp - +??% Swordsmanship skill damage
    • Sharper - +17% Swordsmanship skill damage
    • Sharpened - +??% Swordsmanship skill damage
    • Glorified - +10% Swordsmanship skill use rate
    • Exalted - +12% Swordsmanship skill use rate
    • Zealous - +14% Swordsmanship skill use rate

  • + All Skills Properties
    • Gladiator's - +1 all Blademaster Skills
    • Hero's - +1 all Guardian skills
    • Skirmisher's - +1 all Marksman skills
    • Pioneer's - +1 all Engineer skills
    • Theurgist's - +1 all Evoker skills
    • Bringer's - +1 all Summoner skills

      ** Legendary only properties

  • + Specific Skills Properties
    • Skillful - 1 Rank of Random Skill
    • Proficient - 2 Ranks of Random Skill
    • Masterful - 3 Ranks of Random Skill
    • Able - 1 Rank of Random Skill

      ** Able seems to be intended for either higher level skills or lower iLvl items, though it doesn't seem to be functioning precisely in either of those matters, especially since Skillful seems capable of granting high level skills even on lower iLvl items.

  • Presently Unsorted
    • Stabilized - +18% Critical Chance Multiplier
    • Equalized - +22% Critical Chance Multiplier
    • Marksman's - +44% Weapon Accuracy
    • Veracious - Weapon Accuracy Degradation -40
    • Linear Accelerated - Increases Missle Speed by 49%
    • Railed - Increases Missile Speed by 72%
    • Swift - +2 Sprint
    • Fawke's - +Minor Ignite Attack Strength (Armor Property)

      ** As others have pointed out, Fawke's is still an existing property, even after the end of the event.

Source: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=37458
Member
Posts: 19,735
Joined: May 17 2004
Gold: 14,060.00
Jan 9 2008 05:06pm
All You Ever Wanted to know about mods:

<<MODS OVERVIEW>>

Six mod types exist to enhance weaponry with available mod slots. The six mod types are: Ammo, Battery, Fuel, Relic, Rocket, and Tech.

Not all weapons have mod slots though most tend to have at least one. Among those that do, the number and type of mod slots can vary. However, each weapon has a fixed set of mod slot types and may only randomize, to a limited extent, the number of each of these mod types which appear.

For example, Focus weapons, as a whole, may have between zero and four Relic mod slots, but you will never find a tech or other mod slot type (not to my knowledge ... do any uniques perhaps exist that break the rule?). Some Focus weapon types may only have up to two slots while others consistently have three or four.

To give a broader example, Afflictor dart pistols (Templar 1H weapons) typically have one Fuel and one Ammo slot. The weapon may also randomly have a single additional Relic slot. It will never have mod slots of another type, however.

What are mods? What do they do or provide, exactly? Mods are nothing more than interchangeable affixes. Weapons (and armor) may often have inherent or fixed affixes that are native to the item itself. Mods allow you to add various effects to weapons, but not armor, in order to modify the offensive properties in the same fashion as if the mod effect appeared as a fixed affix.

This allows you to customize a weapon to suit your needs and, later, even re-customize the item by removing the current mods and replacing them with different or more powerful ones.

Mods, like affixes, come in three strengths referred to as the "quality" of the mod or affix; Common, Rare, or Legendary. While higher quality mods provide the strongest forms of affixes they also have heavier feed requirements, particularly when you begin to find mods with multiple or very powerful effects.

Willpower is generally the feed type most tapped upon by mods, though Accuracy and Stamina may also be required. It is also possible to encounter a mod with more than one effect and therefore feed requirement. Details as to which mods use which feed type are listed below.

<< FLAVOR OF THE DAY >>

Although mod types share many different effects, some mod types have effects unique to their type and some effects simply can't be found on one type of mod or another. Two types, Relic and Tech mods, represent an unusual case because they have a plethora of effects that can only be obtained by using one or the other. More on this in a bit ...

For those interested in a quick summary of the mod types and what you can expect to find with each, here are the "flavors" of each mod type:

POSSIBLE ON ANY MOD
-----------------------------

Damage or Critical Chance to Specific Monster Type
Damage or Critical Damage (Any)
Increased Range
Ignite, Phase, Poison, Shock, or Stun Strength
Nova, Rebound, Shrapnel, or Spike effects

AMMO
--------

Electric, Fire, Physical, Spectral or Toxic damage (+% damage)
Shield Penetration

BATTERY
----------

Electric or Spectral damage (+% damage)
Reduced Energy Consumption*
Increased Splash Radius

FUEL
------

Fire or Toxic damage (+% damage)
Reduced Energy Consumption*
Shield Overload
Splash Radius

RELIC
-------

Critical Chance (Any)
Critical Damage vs. Specific Monster Type
Electric, Fire, Physical, Spectral, or Toxic damage (+% damage)
Health or Power Regeneration**
Improved Splash Radius
Increased Strength**
Increased Willpower**
Luck**
Random Skill**
Shield Overload or Penetration
Swordmanship Skill Use or Power Reduction**

ROCKET
---------

Electric, Fire, Physical, Spectral, or Toxic damage (+% damage)
Missile Speed**
Shield Overload

TECH
-------

Critical Chance or Critical Damage
Electric, Fire, Physical, Spectral, or Toxic damage (+% damage)
Increased Accuracy**
Marksman Skill Use or Power Reduction**
Reduced Energy Consumption*
Reticle Growth or Size**
Shield Penetration


* Useful only to weapons with energy consumption meters
** Unique to this mod type

<< SOME ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE >>

Using a mod is very easy! Simply pick up the mod and place it into an appropriate slot on the weapon. However, achieving the actual effect you want may be a little more complicated--perhaps impossible with a particular weapon.

To successfully mod it helps to understand a little about the game mechanics involved. Other posts and sources of information provide a more detailed overview of the following topics, but a fundamental grasp is useful to the consideration of methods used in modifying weapons.

UNDERSTANDING ATTACKS
---------------------------------


The first essential bit of knowledge relates to attack mechanics. When an attack is made, two primary events occur: damage is applied and an opportunity for a special effect to be applied occurs. Theoretically, the damage type of the weapon only has a material affect on the type of special effect that can be applied--100 points of a fire direct weapon is equal to 100 points of a physical direct weapon. The former inherently provides access to ignite effects, stun for the latter.

Inherently associated with each of the damage types is a specific special effect type. They are:

[ Type = Effect ]
Electric = Shock
Fire = Ignite
Physical = Stun
Spectral = Phase
Toxic = Poison

The strength of the effect type varies from weapon to weapon, with some weapons having an effective strength of zero in their particular type. You can see the special effect strengths a weapon has by inspecting the weapon--strengths greater than 0 are listed in the weapon details.

Effect strength is compared against a target foe's resistance to that effect type. This "strength vs. resistance" is more or less relative, so equal strength and resistance will produce a roughly equal chance of the effect occurring.

A second point of interest naturally relates to protection from attacks; armor and shields. Several posts could be made on either one of these, but in brief ...

SHIELDS
-----------

Shields are a first line of defense that prevent damage to your actual health. It may help to think of shields as a regenerating "pre-hit points" that offer an advantage that your real health, and armor, do not. So long as your shields remain active an attack won't "proc" a special effect. There are exceptions to this, particularly attacks which use shield penetration. We'll look at that more closely in a minute.

In most cases, attacks first must deplete your shields before damage to your health or the application of a special effect can occur.

ARMOR
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Armor protects you from from attacks which bypass your shields via damage absorption. Damage absorption negates a percent of incoming damage, effectively reducing it, helping you to conserve hit points that would otherwise have been lost.

While damage absorption is wonderful for a defender, the counter to a high armor rating, generally, is to cause a special effect to proc. The ability to apply multiple special effects against heavily armored and high hit point foes can be much more effective than attempting to eat through damage absorption with standard damage alone.

Additionally, because an enemy may have high resistances to various special effects it can be more effective, in some circumstances, to mod a weapon to produce multiple, though weaker, effect strengths rather than a single strong effect. It also broadens a weapons use against multiple foe types rather than making it potent against foes weak to a single effect type.

<< USING MODS >>

As you already know, mods help to vary the offensive nature, type, and overall strength of attacks by altering your weaponry to better suit your tactics or counter different enemies. With some of the game mechanics underfoot we can proceed to look at methods of modding used to achieve effects of common interest:

ANTI-SHIELD
---------------

Any attack is an anti-shield attack, so long as the target has shields to begin with. For that matter, an attack is anti-health as well, so long as the defender remains alive. Having said that, some strategies are more effective than others and two refined methods exist to counter opponents with strong shields; shield depletion and shield penetration.

Shield depletion works by causing a weapon to do extra damage to shields, rapidly wearing them down to get at the more lightly protected (you hope) health of the opponent. A depletion strategy relies on the use of "Shield Overload" mods which increase damage that shields take from an attack.

If you want to pursue this strategy, try to rely on weapons with a heavy concentration of Fuel, Relic, and/or Rocket mod slots (or some combination thereof), as those are the only sources of overload from mods. A good weapon for an overload strategy is the Hunter "Firefox," which often has many fuel and rocket slots, a 40m range, and does both a direct hit while simultaneously laying down a field of fire. When modded with shield overload you can quickly wear down the shields of entire groups, even igniting them as they struggle to reach you.

Converse to a strategy of rapid shield depletion is simply to bypass shields altogether. Use of this strategy is most effective when further refined in one of two ways; very high penetration or low penetration with strong effect strengths.

The former focuses on building up significant penetration so that your attacks ignore shields as much as possible, delivering damage directly to health (and armor) underneath. An example where this works particularly well is against Furies, who have notably strong shields but little health and armor.

High shield penetration also works well if you have significant critical chance and/or damage. Opponents with strong shields typically have little armor and/or lower hit points and a couple critical hits bypassing shields can make quick work of them--sometimes only a single good hit from a powerful weapon is necessary to do the job!

The strategy at the other end of the anti-shield spectrum is to simply achieve any amount of penetration, however small. The design of the strategy is to deliver one or more special effects which are no longer entirely blocked by shields. With this method, only a single mod providing shield penetration (or an innate affix, for that matter) is necessary, with remaining mod slots utilized to increase one or more special effect strengths to become as potent as possible.

This strategy can be extremely effective when used alongside a teammate designed for high standard damage or high penetration. For example, you might mod for high shock attack strength in order to shut down the skill use of foes, significantly reducing their offensive ability, even as your partner continues to deliver high damage attacks at them. Such a strategy can be very useful against powerful or very lethal boss type mobs.
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Jan 9 2008 05:07pm
MODS CONTINUED:

OVERLOAD OR PENETRATION?

Some of you are wondering whether you should pursue overload or penetration as your anti-shield strategy. The answer will vary depending on what you are trying to accomplish though some classes benefit much more from the use of one over the other. Not to mention, the weaponry available to the various classes also tend to favor one over the other because of the mod slots available to those weapons.

The best way to consider the use of overload vs. penetration is to inspect the classes to analyze which strategy may be most productive for each. Please keep in mind that what follows are generalities and that variances in build, strategy, and the like may cause a different anti-shield strategy to become more ideal than typical.

CHOOSING OVERLOAD

The goal of an overload strategy is to peel off enemy shields in order to make them vulnerable to effects and, more importantly, expose their health. It seems that overload may be an ineffective way to approach the potential for effects when you can simply bypass shields via penetration, however, three classes can find overload as a more ideal strategy than penetration: Guardian, Summoner, and Engineer.

For the Summoner and Engineer, the reason for use of overload instead of penetration might become immediately obvious--foes without shields are exposed to the effect attacks of pets, such as the ignite effects of fire elementals and the rocket bot w/Molotov. Using AOE attacks with strong overload can rapidly turn groups of otherwise tough or annoying enemies into squishy (and then dead) ones because pets will make quick work of their unprotected health.

Guardian use of overload is a little more situational than found for Summoners and Engineers because their use of overload is based on exposing squishy health for teammates and not pets. That is, the Guardian takes up the goal of grouping mobs around them and then quickly wearing down their shields so that player allies (and their pets, if any) can kill off those monsters safely and more easily.

Having said that, a solo Guardian may find it a much more efficient strategy to use penetration with either ignite and/or phase in order to improve their otherwise and comparably low DPS.

Of course, part of the consideration also comes down to weapon selection for the various classes. For example, several Summoner weapons come with only fuel mod slots, leaving overload as the only viable option (so long as an innate affix doesn't provide penetration). Naturally, it means that these weapons are also designed with the implied use of overload and can be extremely effective at the job.

In all, overload is beneficial when fighting in a party or when you have pets whose lethality is magnified once shields are negated. A party of three Summoners will find that it is very effective to utilize strong overload tactics so that enemies are made vulnerable to the swarms of elementals that are sure to follow.

CHOOSING PENETRATION

Penetration strategies are a better choice for classes who already deliver high amounts of damage or are particularly honed to cause effects as a direct result of their attacks (as opposed to effects indirectly caused by allies and pets).

The three obvious class examples encountering a strong advantage from the use of penetration strategies are the Blademaster, Evoker, and Marksman. For each of these three classes it tends to matter little whether their ultimate goal is to deliver effects or high damage (or both) as they tend to do so in such great amounts that ignoring shields entirely merely magnifies their high and direct DPS capabilities.

In group situations the opportunity for these classes to mod differently--ignoring the pursuit of high penetration or overload--becomes possible and, instead, they can mod for the highest damage they can achieve because they will rely on allies to use strong overload to wear down shields for them. The result is that their high DPS will become even larger through modding solely for damage rather than damage and penetration.

Gear for these three classes also suggest and tend to improve penetration strategies and that includes the types and number of mod slots available. For example, the hunter XM55 20mm rifle, a commonly found weapon, comes with only ammo, battery, and/or tech slots, providing a means to increase penetration significantly but offering no means for the use of overload. Even still, the weapon can also be considered most effective as a high penetration, single-target weapon designed to stun, interrupt, and kill very efficiently.

It may seem contrary to suggest that a Blademaster should pursue penetration instead of overload due to the high overload values swords offer innately. However, Blademasters often achieve extremely high critical hit chances (and damage) and the ability to deliver these high damage attacks directly to health and/or keeping an enemy phased, as a primary effect example, can often mean the difference between living or dying.


ANTI-ARMOR
---------------


The latter effect heavy method is also the strategy of choice against heavily armored foes who, in contrast, tend to have little or no shields to be concerned with. In fact, some of these opponents can be extremely difficult to deal with unless you use at least one special effect attack against them--preferably something they are weak against.

Weapons with many mod slots provide the capability to mod in one or more very strong special effects, even if the weapon does not inherently provide the damage type you need to obtain the special effect type you desire.

For example, sniper rifles commonly provide spectral damage and can therefore be used to phase opponents by increasing the phase strength of the attacks. Some also have as many as 8 mod slots available, presenting an opportunity to generate powerful special effects of another type (or multiple types).

To accomplish this you must utilize at least two specific types of mod (or a single fortunate mod with the two effects you require); a +% damage mod and an +effect strength mod.

CHOOSING AN EFFECT

Selecting which effect or effects to mod a weapon to potentially apply is a question with many answers. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish, and why, and also includes side questions such as what weapon is involved, or could be, and what mod slots are therefore available?

Regardless, there is some consensus among experienced players that three of the effect types are most desirable--ignite, phase, and stun. The remaining two effects, poison and shock, appear to have limited use (or at least a more narrow use) for PvE though they likely have much higher values when considered for PvP.

Choosing Ignite

Ignite is a purely offensive effect. No matter which enemy is involved, ignite will deliver a 5% per second reduction in hit points. Because of its high offensive value it is prized for use against the toughest of enemies who often sport extremely large hit point and armor rating values.

You'll want to mod for high ignite strengths when you need to deliver effect based damage, as opposed to high direct weapon damage, in order to tackle difficult or ignite weak foes with greatest ease. In all, ignite is the choice effect when offensive punch is your major consideration.

Choosing Phase

Phase provides both offensive and defensive benefits that make it an excellent all-around effect type to pursue, even if only in mild degrees. In essence, a phased enemy takes 50% more damage from all sources and has all of their damage reduced by 50% in addition.

Because phased enemies are vulnerable to any attacker, use of a phase effect represents an extremely efficient offensive effect for players who rely on pets. This, naturally, brings increased survivability to those same pets as the attacker cannot dispatch them as readily as they might normally.

Evokers and Blademasters may find phase to be an effect of choice because of the defensive boost it provides, increasing their own survivability while magnifying their substantial offensive power, in addition. The ability to phase groups of otherwise deadly monsters can be a life or death difference to these classes, who are lethal themselves but fragile in terms of a class vs. class comparison.

Considered in whole, phase makes a prime effect type to pursue as a general course of business, for any class type.

Choosing Stun

Stun is primarily, perhaps wholly, a defensive effect that can be very potent. If you've run across Blade Husks to any degree you'll know that a stun effect can lead to a quick demise even though it is not, directly, offensive.

A stun causes a foe to stagger, in dazed fashion, for a brief period of time. This shouldn't be confused with interrupts which merely cause an enemy action to be halted, such as casting a spell or moving forward to engage. The animations between an interrupt and a stun are fairly similar, however, and to a certain extent the same result is produced.

As with most effects, stuns can be extremely beneficial when applied via AOE attacks, making it possible to stagger entire groups of enemies for notable periods of time.

If you are looking to maximize your defensive capabilities, stun makes for perhaps the ideal effect to utilize.

Choosing Poison

Several aspects of poison remain in question so far, though it does have some usefulness that is overlooked.

If you've been poisoned you know that you cannot use health stims for the duration of the poison effect. Because monsters do not tend to use health packs, this effect has virtually no use for PvE, in that capacity.

Several times I've come across claims that poison is useful against regenerating monsters, and that may be the case, though I've tested its use against the regenerating boss in the British Museum hellgate (sorry, his name eludes me) and I can't say that it definitively stopped him from the use of his regeneration power.

Nonetheless, poison does have two discernible and arguably useful reasons for its application; movement speed decrease and DOT.

A poisoned creature encounters a decrease in their movement rate and this decrease may be dependent on the "poison strength" value listed for an appropriate weapon. This inherent strength may also carry over into any damage over time benefits that poison also seems to provide, though it is unclear how the damage and duration is determined.

In hopes of providing some insight I did some limited testing, albeit with a fair amount of difficulty, to see if I could determine how the poison effect works. This I did against a naked and similar level evoker with three different poison based weapons with various effect and "damage of poison effect" values (namely, one with no listing, one with 50%, and a third with 100% damage of poison effect).

It appears that the poison effect is extremely brief, against other players at least, and the DOT is dependent on the weapons inherent "damage of poison effect" value. We noticed that the ticks of damage were very rapid 2 damage ticks with the 100% weapon, 1 damage ticks with the 50%, and either 1 or 0 with the 0% weapon (it was difficult to tell because of how the weapon worked).

The duration didn't appear to be affected by the damage of poison effect value, any weapon's poison effect was extremely brief, perhaps only a second or two in duration with a few ticks per second occurring.

In summary, the only realistic reason that a poison effect should be sought is to affect monster movement rate though that can't be relied upon for a duration of more than a few seconds, at best. Poison seems to be a less than optimal effect to pursue when contrasted against the others (excepting shock, see below for more).

Choosing Shock

Shock, like poison, remains very questionable for use in PvE situations. Unlike the effect it has upon players it does not appear to incapacitate a monsters ability to use skills.

I have seen a comment or two that creatures can be stopped from using skills, via shock, but that they will be able to use a skill that is already in progress. This may be the case in certain circumstance, or with the AI of certain monsters, and I've done some limited testing as part of a duo that anecdotally lends to this as a possibility.

Keeping that in mind, I suspect that it may require a weapon that inherently has a "strength of shock effect" value in similar fashion to that of a poison based one, mentioned above. That is, only weapons that are both natively electric and have a "damage of shock effect" listing in the properties has any value for locking down skill use of a monster. Even then, perhaps only "100%" weapons can do this reliably, but this is just speculation on my part.

If anyone has done testing on the shock and/or poison effects and has information of interest, either PvP or PvE, please share and comment on it!

EFFECT MODDING EXAMPLE

It may be easiest to demonstrate this by use of an example. Lets use a Swarm Hive rifle as our sample weapon. We'll presume that it has 2 Fuel slots and 3 Relic slots.

A Swarm Hive rifle inherently does Toxic damage, providing direct and easy access to modding for a strong poison effect. Lets presume that we want to do that as our first example of modding for special effect strength. As such, we only need to find mods providing "+Poison Attack Strength."

Any mod type may come with "+Poison Attack Strength" so finding 2 Fuel and 3 Relics of that kind shouldn't be overly difficult. It would be smart to go with a slightly less powerful poison effect so that we can deal with enemy shields more effectively. Relics offer access to both Shield Overload and Shield Penetration while Fuel provides only Shield Overload. If we didn't do this, we'd have to first work our way through enemy shields before our poison effect has any chance of happening.

Overload lets us attack shields more rapidly but penetration allows us to bypass them entirely. So, in our case, we'll go for a little Shield Penetration so that we can deliver a Poison effect to Proc with each attack, even against foes who have actively strong shields. Our resulting weapon setup looks like this:

Swarm Rifle (2 Fuel/3 Relic)

1 Fuel w/22 Poison Strength
1 Fuel w/30 Poison Strength
2 Relics w/22 Poison Strength
1 Relic w/17% Shield Penetration

Thus, we have a weapon with 96 Poison attack strength (presuming the weapon starts with a 0 poison attack strength) and 17% shield penetration. Most base creatures who aren't particularly weak or strong against Poison might have a rough 100 resistance to poison, varied by level, monster type and quality, etc. Our weapon should do a pretty good job of spreading poison, especially against poison weak monsters such as Orbiles, effortlessly bypassing their shields and forcing them to check against the effect with each attack.

What if we want to cause a different effect type that the one native to the weapon damage? Maybe a phase or ignite attack? How about a Swarm rifle with both?

This requires a little analysis of the available slots in our Swarm Weapon. Since we want the potential to cause both phase and ignite we'll need four mod effects--1 +% Spectral damage, 1 +% Fire damage, 1 +Phase Attack, and 1 +Ignite Attack. Without these, at a minimum, we have no chance of causing those effects to proc.

We know that Fuel mods can come with +Phase attack strength but we'll never find a Fuel mod that has +% Spectral damage. They just don't exist. As luck would have it, Relic mods are available for both +%Fire and +%Spectral damage, so we can successfully mod our Swarm rifle as an "Ignite/Phase" weapon.

After a bit of shop-hopping and vendor crafting, here is the final setup on our Swarm rifle:

2 Fuel w/30 Ignite Strength
1 Relic w/27 Phase Strength
1 Relic w/+5% Fire damage
1 Relic w/+7% Spectral damage

Our weapon would do an extra +12% overall damage, part fire and part spectral, combined with a 27 Phase and 60 Ignite attack strength for our effects. Low-ignite resistance zombies would burst into flame with some sense of regularity, burning even more rapidly if they have the misfortune of being phased as well!

Note that +% damage mods do in fact add to overall damage and do not simply convert a percent of existing weapon damage to the new type. That is, you will in fact do more damage with a +% damage mod. For example, a weapon that does 100 Fire damage with a +5% Physical damage mod will do 100 Fire and 5 Physical damage. At that point it may also be modded to cause either, or both, ignite and stun effects.

If you are looking for straight, high damage, another strategy is likely better than using mods providing +% elemental damage.

MODDING FOR DAMAGE

Modding for high damage entails a different strategy than found when seeking good effect strengths. Damage modding may, or may not, incorporate the use of shield overload or shield penetration. For that matter, it is less than ideal to mod a weapon for both Overload and Penetration, but neither is specifically necessary when simply pursing maximum damage output.

With all of that in mind, I'm going to avoid a bit of discussion as relates to DPS (damage per second) and the consideration of high critical hit % vs. high damage. Basically, you are likely pursuing a high critical hit rate or you are not, and you'll know if a focus on increased critical hits or damage is the path to pursue in order to maximize your damage output.

Regardless, a real consideration is that of using +% x elemental mods, or not, when trying to maximize weapon damage. The answer is generally no. More often than not, those mods are most useful for configuring effect strength weapons and strategies but cannot compare when utilizing another set of mods.

What it comes down to is this: four types of monsters exist in the game (beasts, demons, necros, spectrals) and the mods available to do increased damage to them tend to come in much higher +% increments than those for elemental damage types. For example, while you might regularly find +5% Fire mods you'll also be finding +16% damage to Beasts.

Stacking a weapon with +% vs. monster type mods can result in significant DPS improvements against those monster types. The downside is that the increase is only valid against that monster type. This is where the +% elemental mods could come into favor, if you are simply looking for a more mild yet more versatile increase to weapon damage (and therefore DPS).

Even still, we also need to consider that you can use up to six weapon slots (two per weapon set). A lot of possibility exists to create sets of weapons covering all four monster types, and you can even refine the strategy by pursuing straight damage increases or, if critical hits and critical damage is your path of choice, by increasing your chances there as well.

Familiarity with the monster types and the individual kinds that you're likely to encounter can also help to refine a weapon configuration.

For example, many beasts have zero shields, so you might want to ignore overload and penetration mods when modding a "beast killer" weapon. A plethora of demons, by contrast, tend to have very good shields so at least some overload or penetration can make a big difference in the weapon's overall effectiveness.

Monster specific weapon strategies can work very well when the strategy is aligned between two or more players. Each team member creates a primary weapon set designed to maximize damage against a specific monster type, and during encounters they will focus as much as possible on dealing with those monsters. Essentially it calls for team member specialization with secondary weapon sets of a more general purpose, swapped to when monsters of their "chosen" type aren't in great appearance, or a secondary set designed for yet another monster type (with a tertiary "general" setup).

Mods designed to do enhanced damage against any monster type also exist but are comparatively rare and more difficult to accumulate. In fact, you'll probably find that you can collect +vs. monster mods in entire sets, which may then swapped into and out of a preferred weapon, and this long before you'll find a comparable set of all +damage mods.

A rough exception to this is found in Tech mods, so long as your strategy is focused more on critical hit % and critical damage. You'll also require more Accuracy than typical because mods of that type require Accuracy rather than Willpower to use. For a critical focused hunter (and more especially Marksman), this can be a true path to extreme damage output.

In all, several strategies exist to increase weapon damage output and overall DPS. With proper planning you can create some devastating weapons. Coordinated with your friends, this can have an even greater impact--consider if most of your party enters a zone like 314s brain with weaponry heavily modded for damage vs. Spectrals, as one example.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION

A perplexing mod type is the "Energy Consumption Reduction" mods. These mods are only of use in a weapon that relies on an energy level to determine its damage or effectiveness. Laser rifles and pistols are two examples of energy based weaponry.

You'll know that you are using such a weapon by the appearance of an energy meter near your cross-hair and identifying the weapons current energy level. You may also check a weapon's details to see if the weapon is energy based; it will say "continuous" instead of providing a rate of fire figure.

Mods that reduce energy consumption cause these types of weapons to sustain energy levels more easily, or said differently, to lose energy at a slower rate. In essence, these allow energy based weapons to retain their effectiveness over longer bursts, sustaining and raising overall damage per second rates.

Source: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=54044
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Jan 9 2008 07:27pm
great sir, should be a permanent topic biggrin.gif
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Jan 9 2008 08:17pm
STICKY THAT SHIZZLE.

Your a champ dude, thanks for doing this smile.gif
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Jan 9 2008 08:30pm
adding here /ignore [name] = ignores chat from that player (great for whiners or 'Nightmare' bores).

to stop ignoring someone write /unignore [name]
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Jan 9 2008 08:46pm
yah fuggin sticky this NOW tongue.gif
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Jan 9 2008 08:59pm
Worth being stickied, Could help new comers alot, but ALOT to read, i scrolled alot of it biggrin.gif
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Jan 9 2008 09:20pm
sticky this deff.

very helpful info in here
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