Dragon Claw

Finishing move: slice and dice your enemies with your dual claw-class weapons; adds charged-up bonuses to both claw attacks.

Dragon Claw is the Martial Arts finisher for two claws (level 6, requires Dragon Talon; it unlocks Dragon Tail). It needs a claw-class weapon in each hand (itypea1 and itypeb1 "h2h") and attacks once with each. The number that decides it is the damage bonus, +50% at level 1 and +15% a level to +335% at level 20, plus +4% per hard point in Claw Mastery; the attack-rating bonus, +25% a level, is what makes it land.

The numbers

• Mana is a flat 2 at every level, so it is left out of the table.
• Damage is calc1: ln12, Param1 (50%) plus Param2 (15%) a level, plus Claw Mastery's hard points times Param7 (4). The table above reads Claw Mastery at 0, so it shows the base alone: +335% at level 20, +485% at level 30; with 20 hard points in Claw Mastery add 80, +415% at level 20. The Basin's page notes the 1.10-era growth was 5% a level and D2R raised it to the table's 15.
• Attack rating is ToHit (40%) plus LevToHit (25%) a level: +515% at level 20, +765% at level 30.

The damage base and the attack rating read lvl, so +skills count; the Claw Mastery term reads blvl, hard points only.

How it works

Dragon Claw is a finishing move (finishing 1) that consumes charges (prgchargesconsumed 1) and needs none to be used (prgchargestocast 0). It swings with each claw at the weapon's full damage (SrcDam 128): the Basin's page says the two claws attack one target each when more than one is in range, or the same target once each when only one is, and that if no target is selected, targets in range are picked automatically. Each claw is its own Chance to Hit roll with the +% attack rating above, and the damage is weapon damage with the bonus, under the rules of Dealing Physical Damage.

Charges from Tiger Strike, Fists of Fire, Cobra Strike, Claws of Thunder, Blades of Ice and Phoenix Strike are released by the first claw that lands; the second claw releases them only if the first missed and the second hits (Basin). Two rules the Basin marks as D2R only match the current row: the finisher consumes one charge of each Martial Arts skill rather than all of them, and it always hits when the Assassin has any Martial Arts charge, which is the row's Param8 = 1 ("always hit, enabled only when charges are consumed").

The second claw is a plain Dragon Claw hit: the charge-up fire, lightning, cold or steal rides the first claw that lands, and only one charge of each is spent, so a three-charge Fists of Fire needs three Dragon Claws to empty.

The Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master can use it (Basin).

Synergies and +skills

One synergy, the dsc3 line: +4% damage per hard point in [[claw-mastery]] (Param7, read as blvl), so +80% at 20 hard points. Dragon Claw feeds no other skill. The skill's own lines read lvl, so a +skill is worth +15% damage and +25% attack rating; the Basin says +1–3 Dragon Claw can spawn on exceptional and elite claws of item level below 37.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player, and each claw is such a hit. The Basin's page says nothing else specific about players.

Build notes

• Level 20 is two claw hits at +335% damage and +515% attack rating for 2 mana; 20 hard points in Claw Mastery make it +415%.
• A hard point and a +skill buy the same +15% here; the Claw Mastery synergy is hard points only.
• Because a release always hits and spends only one charge of each skill, Dragon Claw is a finisher that can be used on every swing once the charges are up: three charges are three guaranteed hits.
• It needs a claw in each hand; the Basin says Dragon Talon kicks with any weapon or none.