How does leech really work?

[Thrakkar]

Stamina leech is easy to understand. With x% stamina leech you have a chance of x%, to leech an amount of stamina equal to your damage, you did. Quite easy.

But I have absolutely no clue, how exactly life & mana leech works. Let's take a look, what uoguide.com says:

On every successful hit you will leech 0 to X percent health/mana of (Damage done * 0.4) - X being the Hit Life/Mana Leech value on your weapon

Let's assume, I have a weapon with 45% HLL and my hit did 50 Damage.

(50 * 0.4) - 40 = -25 (WTF?)

And what does 0 to X mean? A random percentage from 0 to X?

After writing this, this minus in the formula rather looks like hyphen to me. Well, now that would make more sense. Honestly, who wrote this? This is pretty confusing. If that's really a hyphen, a simple comma would be better.

I.e. if I use the numbers from above, the highest leech possible would be 50 * 0.4 * 0.45 = 9. So I would leech a random amount from 0-9 hit points. Would that be correct?

 

[Beer_Cayse]

I believe your final analysis of 9 HP is correct.

PM JC the Builder for changes to UOGuide to alter the " - X being ..." quote. It should read " where X is ..." I think. It's definitely not part of the equation.

 

[Hildebrand]

I usually favor any other mod besides life leech because the leech is so minimal. I get hit more than I leech. 0 to x means you can have a chance of leeching from 0 - 45% in your example. Sucks when you hit for 0 to 9 hp... and usually you hit for the low end thanks to RNG.
I always want mana & stamina leech on my weapons. Stamina for obvious reasons, and mana leech because any mana leeched is very useful.

 

[Thrakkar]

I usually favor any other mod besides life leech because the leech is so minimal.

I don't plan to use it. I just want to understand the mechanics.

 

[JC the Builder]

I have tried to clear up the wording and added examples.

www.uoguide.com/Hit_Mana_Leech
www.uoguide.com/Hit_Life_Leech

If you have any other suggestions please let us know.

 

[Thrakkar]

The wording is much better now.

But explanation and examples are contradictory. In the explanation you leech a random amount and in the examples you have a chance to leech a fixed amount.

If the explanation is the correct one, IMHO the examples should look like:

You are dealing 100 damage against a Rotting Corpse with a 50% Hit Mana Leech weapon. On each hit, you will leech a random amount from 0 to 20 (100 * 0.4 * 0.5).

You are dealing 50 damage against a Water Elemental with a 30% Hit Mana Leech weapon. On each hit, you will leech a random amount from 0 to 6 (50 * 0.4 * 0.3).

 

[Basara]

There is one application that the leeches excel - that's on a whirlwind-capable weapon, preferably one with a slayer, in thick spawn levels. Even with a paladin without bushido or necromancy, I can keep healed at the low levels of most spawns without using bandages.

Note that Corgul & Scalis corrupt life leech - you actually lose life instead of gaining it, against them. This makes the usual bushido/undead form templates suicide against them.

 

[JC the Builder]

The wording is much better now.

But explanation and examples are contradictory. In the explanation you leech a random amount and in the examples you have a chance to leech a fixed amount.

I updated the examples with your data. I really don't understand how leeches work either, lol.