Breakpoints

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Breakpoints are the values at which spells, attacks, hit recovery and other animations become a frame faster or slower. It's essential to know the main breakpoints for your character's attack rate, and knowing all the rest is very useful to wisely plan your equipment.



Diablo II Strategy Guide Info:
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Why Are there Breakpoints?[edit]

Since Diablo II runs with 2D graphics, at 25 frames per second, events can only occur at discrete numbers of frames. As a result of this, improvements to attack rate, casting speed, hit recovery, and blocking rate are measured by the number of frames required to display the motion. If a normal attack with a given weapon takes 10 frames, some amount of faster attack bonus will drop it down to 9 frames, but until that amount is reached, no improvement will occur. Players call the amounts of improvement necessary to cause a change "breakpoints."

Speeds for all of these properties vary greatly between the different characters and items. Many attack skills have their own speeds and breakpoints. Other skills (such as Fanaticism) modify the overall speed of all attacks.

Values must meet or exceed numbers to achieve that breakpoint. If a breakpoint requires 48% Faster Hit Recovery, you will not get it with 46% or 47%. You must get to 48%, and then anything above that will cause no change until you meet or exceed the next breakpoint.

Increased speeds are displayed by dropping frames of animation. This can result in very fast movements looking choppy. For instance, if a character's basic attack with a given weapon requires 12 frames for the full animation (showing the arm swinging, the weapon descending, the hit landing, and then the weapon being lifted back to the ready pose), and your character has that attack down to 5 frames, thanks to a lot of IAS and a boost from Fanaticism, 7 of the 12 frames of animation will not be shown. The game will only display the weapon at the top, halfway down, hitting, halfway back up and at rest. Hence it looks choppy. This display issue can not be avoided in a frame-based, 2D game. 3D games do not have this issue, since movements can be shown at any speed -- the refresh rate of your monitor, 3D card, and the game engine permitting.

Breakpoint Modifiers[edit]

Modifiers that use the "breakpoint system" are:

  • Faster Block Rate (FBR)
  • Faster Cast Rate (FCR)
  • Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)
  • Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Given below are tables for FBR, FCR and FHR. Breakpoints for IAS depend on too many variables (item, skill, character, equipment) to be put in simple tables. There are on-line IAS calculators available.

In DiabloII, animation speeds are measured in "frames," as explained above. One frame is 1/25 of a second.

Increased Blocking Speed[edit]

More commonly called "fast block", this modifier helps characters block more frequently.

A character goes into block animation if its opponent succeeds in the hit check and the character succeeds in a blocking check. The character can do nothing else during the blocking animation. Blocking is only possible while engaged in melee combat, or while walking. (Not while running.) See the blocking article for more details.

Improvements to faster blocking are difficult to achieve since the bonuses to it are found almost exclusively on shields.

  • In some cases the equipped weapon influences the blocking speed.
  • The Assassin's Weapon Block skill is also affected by her Faster Block Rate, and the same values as for shield blocking apply.
  • Act 3 mercenaries do not block even though they are capable of using a shield.
Character Weapon / Skill / Form Block Frames
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Amazon 1H swinging weapon (*) 0 4 6 11 15 23 29 40 56 80 120 200 480        
Other weapons                         0 13 32 86 600
Assassin all                         0 13 32 86 600
Barbarian all                     0 9 20 42 86 280  
Druid Human form             0 6 13 20 32 52 86 174 600    
Bear form           0 5 10 16 27 40 65 109 223      
Wolf form                 0 7 15 27 48 86 200    
Necromancer all             0 6 13 20 32 52 86 174 600    
Paladin normal                         0 13 32 86 600
with Holy Shield                               0 86
Sorceress all                 0 7 15 27 48 86 200    
Character Weapon / Skill / Form 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Block Frames

(*) 1-handed swinging weapons include 1-handed axes, clubs, 1-handed maces, orbs, scepters, 1-handed swords, 2-handed swords wielded in one hand, throwing axes, and wands.

Faster Cast Rate[edit]

Faster casting rate is found on a variety of equipment. This stat is most important for spell-casters, for obvious reasons. All spells are affected by this value, but note that some spells have a 1 second, or longer, delay between uses. For those spells, FCR equipment will lower the frames required for the actual casting animation, but the 1 second delay will still run (for 25 frames) after each cast.

For instance, if your character takes 11 frames to cast a spell that has a 1 second delay, that's 11 + 25 = 36 frames per use. If you you use FCR equipment to cut your casting frames to 7, you'll still have to wait 7 + 25 = 32 frames to cast it again. Saving 4 frames ever time you cast a spell will certainly add up over hundreds of casts, but the difference is less noticeable than it is with spells you can "spam" as quickly as your character can cast them.

Character Skill / Form Casting Frames
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7
Amazon all         0 7 14 22 32 48 68 99 152        
Assassin all               0 8 16 27 42 65 102 174    
Barbarian all                     0 9 20 37 63 105 200
Druid Human           0 4 10 19 30 46 68 99 163      
Bear form               0 7 15 26 40 63 99 163    
Wolf form               0 6 14 26 40 60 95 157    
Necromancer Human                 0 9 18 30 48 75 125    
Vampire 0 6 11 18 24 35 48 65 86 120 180            
Paladin all                 0 9 18 30 48 75 125    
Sorceress Lightning / Chain Lightning         0 7 15 23 35 52 78 117 194        
other spells                     0 9 20 37 63 105 200
Merc Act 3 all             0 8 15 26 39 58 86 138      
Character Skill / Form 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7
Casting Frames

Faster Hit Recovery[edit]

The hit recovery counter is triggered by any hits that take off more than 1/12th of your character's maximum hit points. When this happens your character is knocked into a "hit stun" animation, which must be completed before you can take another action. Characters (or mercs or monsters) may be stunned repeatedly, trapping them in "stun lock," a very dangerous situation.

There are also a variety of skills (for players and monsters) that cause the target to be stunned. Other skills and spell effects can cause all hits to stun while they are in effect.

Character Equipped weapon Hit Recovery Frames
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Amazon all             0 6 13 20 32 52 86 174 600  
Assassin all                 0 7 15 27 48 86 200  
Barbarian all                 0 7 15 27 48 86 200  
Druid; Human form 1H swinging weapon (*)       0 3 7 13 19 29 42 63 99 174 456    
Other weapons         0 5 10 16 26 39 56 86 152 377    
Druid; Bear form all         0 5 10 16 24 37 54 86 152 360    
Druid; Wolf form all                     0 9 20 42 86 280
Necromancer; Human form all         0 5 10 16 26 39 56 86 152 377    
Necromancer; Vampire form all     0 2 6 10 16 24 34 48 72 117 ? ? ? ?
Paladin Spears and staves         0 3 7 13 20 32 48 75 129 280    
Other weapons                 0 7 15 27 48 86 200  
Sorceress all     0 5 9 14 20 30 42 60 86 142 280      
Merc Act 1 all             0 6 13 20 32 52 86 174 600  
Merc Act 2 all     0 5 9 14 20 30 42 60 86 142 280      
Merc Act 3 all 0 5 8 13 18 24 32 46 63 86 133 232 600      
Merc Act 5 all                 0 7 15 27 48 86 200  
Character Equipped weapon 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Hit Recovery Frames

(*) 1-handed swinging weapons include 1-handed axes, clubs, 1-handed maces, orbs, scepters, 1-handed swords, 2-handed swords wielded in one hand, throwing axes, and wands.

Credits[edit]

All information has been compiled from various sources, mainly the Diabloii.net Facts & Formulae Archive (FBR, FCR, FHR), Tommi Gustafsson's pages (FBR, FHR, including formulae), The Amazon Basin (accurate Act3 Merc breakpoints) and Technomage-C01's tables (Necromancer Vampire form FCR & FHR, accurate FHR for Paladins wielding spears and staves).