Wednesday 30 September 2015

An in-depth guide to Bane of the Stricken



I decided to do this in a Q&A style. If you have anything to add or correct, post below.

What is a frame?

Diablo III servers run at a constant 60 frames per second (FPS), with a frame being the smallest step made in any calculation. This also is the reason attack speed breakpoints exist: Getting above certain attack speed thresholds reduces the frames per attack (FPA) needed.

What is a proc?

Proc is an abbreviation that refers to a weapon, item or ability activating on hit or on cast. Abilities in Diablo III have so-called proc coefficients, which describe the chance of a proc to occur. This has been introduced to balance item procs for abilities with a large area of effect.

What is an internal cooldown?

An internal cooldown (ICD) is the amount of frames that need to be between two procs of the same kind. For example, the ICD of Thunderfury is defined as ⎡(60 frames/second) / (attacks/second)⎤ (always round up). If you have an attack speed of 1.4 attacks per second (base attack speed of Thunderfury), the ICD of its proc is 43 frames. This means that once an attack procced Thunderfury, it cannot be procced again for 43 frames.

Some ICDs scale with APS, others don't.

How can I proc Bane of the Stricken?

Bane of the Stricken is independent of proc coefficients, but does not proc off skills with a proc coefficient of 0% (Damage over Time ticks, Pet attacks, Some other attacks like Sweeping Wind) or skills that do not deal damage. It always procs on the first target hit per cast.

For some reason, Bane of the Stricken can also be procced using the Bottomless Potion of Fear.

What is the ICD of Bane of the Stricken?

The ICD of Bane of the Stricken is just like the ICD of Thunderfury, which means it actually scales with your APS displayed on your character sheet. Please note that this does not include attack speed modifiers for skills or attack speed buffs that do not appear on your character sheet. This means that if you get non-sheet APS or use skills with an attack speed modifier that is greater than 1.0, your hits and the ICD may get out of sync.

The ICD on your Bane of the Stricken is snapshotted when you enter a zone, use a health potion, or revive.

How does the damage calculation of Bane of the Stricken work?

The base effect of the gem is multiplicative with other buffs but stacks additively with itself. There is no cap on this buff.

The secondary effect of the gem is multiplicative with other buffs.

Bane of the Stricken falls off when you switch zones.

How can I maximize the value I get out of Bane of the Stricken?

If your sheet APS scales dynamically (Archon/Pain Enhancer/Group Buffs), make sure to re-snapshot the ICD to a lower value when possible by using a potion. Sheet APS is maxed out at 5.0, so the lowest ICD you can get is 12 frames (= 0.2 seconds).

When using attacks where you can control what enemies you hit first, make sure to hit the target with the most health first.

Where did you gather this information?

Most of it comes from my own testing and some testing found in the PTR Bug Report forums (which are down as of this edit). You can find some more information here: