Rabies

When in werewolf form, bite your enemies to inflict them with disease that spreads to other monsters.

Rabies is the Druid's level 18 Shape Shifting attack, requiring Feral Rage; it unlocks Fury. It is used only as a werewolf. The bite is a melee attack that lays a long poison on the target and marks it as infected; while the infection lasts, the target itself spreads the same poison to everything near it. Two numbers decide it: the poison, 18–43 over 4 seconds at level 1 and 924–996 over 11.6 seconds at level 20, and the attack rating, +240% at level 20.

The numbers

• Poison length is ELen 100 frames plus 10 frames a level (ELevLen1–3), ÷ 25 for seconds: 4 seconds at level 1, 11.6 at level 20, 15.6 at level 30. The tooltip's total damage is the per-frame poison times this length.
• Poison damage is the EMin/EMax columns in the table's per-frame units, with five brackets (EMinLev1–5 and EMaxLev1–5, the same steps for both ends): EMin 6 and EMax 14 at level 1, then +4 a level to level 8, +5 to 16, +7 to 22, +11 to 28 and +16 past that. The brackets and the growing length together make the total climb faster and faster: 96–131 at level 5, 261–308 at level 10, 517–577 at level 15, 924–996 at level 20, 2,608–2,705 at level 30. Spread over the length, level 20 is about 80–86 poison a second.
• Attack rating is ToHit 50 plus LevToHit 10 a level: +240% at level 20, +340% at level 30. The Basin's page records the older line, 43 + 7 a level (183% at level 20), and notes the D2R change.
• Mana is a flat 10 (mana 10, lvlmana 0).

Every tooltip line reads lvl, so +skills from items raise the poison, its length and the attack rating. The synergy alone reads hard points.

How it works

The bite rolls your attack rating against the target's defense (Chance to Hit) and, on a hit, deals your weapon's physical damage plus the poison, which is Poison Damage with EType pois: it ticks over the length and is cut by the target's Poison Resist, see Dealing Elemental Damage. The table gives the bite a server missile (srvmissilea rabiesplague) and puts a state on the target (auratargetstate rabies); that state is the infection. The Basin describes what it does: the host fires invisible piercing missiles in a random direction every 4 frames (0.16 seconds), which always hit and cannot be blocked, and every target they touch, inside about 3⅓ yards of the host, is infected and poisoned for the remaining length. The infection expires at the same moment on every target that caught it from the same bite, and once a target is infected the infection's length cannot be overridden until it runs out, though a stronger poison can still override the poison rate and length.

The skill level is fixed at the bite. The Basin adds that +% Poison Skill Damage is applied at the bite and again each time a missile spreads the infection, and −% Enemy Poison Resistance whenever a new poison source lands, so bite at the highest level you can and swap gear afterwards for more poison skill damage and resistance reduction.

The Basin also says poison from items or Venom is a separate, competing source: the higher rate applies for its length, after which a missile may reapply the Rabies rate for what remains. Poison-immune monsters still carry the infection to others.

Synergies and +skills

One synergy: Poison Creeper, +20% poison damage per level (Param8 = 20, the table's "Damage synergy"). The calc is EDmgSymPerCalc = skill('Plague Poppy'.blvl) × par8, so it reads hard points only; +skills in Poison Creeper from items do nothing for Rabies. Rabies in turn is a synergy for Poison Creeper, whose page gives the line. The Basin records the older value, 18% a point.

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. The Basin's page adds one thing: because the poison is reapplied constantly while a target is infected, Rabies can kill players outright, since a player reduced to one life point dies on the next application.

Build notes

• The poison grows on two axes at once, the per-frame brackets and 0.4 seconds a level of length, so levels past 20 from +skills pay well: 924–996 at 20, 2,608–2,705 at 30.
• Each hard point in Poison Creeper is +20% on the whole poison; nothing from items substitutes for them.
• Mana is a flat 10 and one bite infects the pack: the bite has to land, and the infection does the rest.