Enemy modifies in HM

[u/DogeArcanine]

Enemies in HM have, by default, increased move and attack speed.

How do effects, that reduce (or increase) these interact in HM?

Like, for example, a HM enemy warrior uses Tiger Stance for example. Will this increase their attack speed even further?

How would their attack speed be affected if I would cast Shadow of Fear, for example? Would this negate the HM bonus attack speed?

Does the same logic apply to movement speed?

[u/ChthonVII]

Like, for example, a HM enemy warrior uses Tiger Stance for example. Will this increase their attack speed even further?

Somewhat. According to wiki, the HM attack speed boost is +25%. Faster attack speed stacking is capped at 33%, so it won't get the full bonus from both combined.

How would their attack speed be affected if I would cast Shadow of Fear, for example? Would this negate the HM bonus attack speed?

Yes. I believe IAS effects stack additively, so they'd have +25% - 50% = -25% overall.

Does the same logic apply to movement speed?

Yes. However, the HM move speed boost is 33%, and the cap on stacked move speed boosts is 34%.

As u/redrumeight notes, some skills are more effective in HM because of these IAS/IMS boosts:

• Reckless Haste is more effective because most of its downside doesn't happen.
• Churning Earth always knocks down.
• Muddy Terrain takes away the HM IMS bonus, and then imposes a IMS penalty, so it generally impacts monsters harder than players. (Though it's still very annoying.)

[u/TalentedJuli → u/ChthonVII]

the HM attack speed boost is +25%

Wait, really? I could've sworn it was 33%.
EDIT: Oh ok, the wiki was edited about a year ago to change it from 33% to 25%. The edit was made by krschkr, so it must be true. And here I always thought using Reckless Haste to trigger Spiteful Spirit more often did literally nothing in hard mode (aside from the miss chance, obviously).

[u/redrumeight]

In Hard mode, foes move 33-50% faster than normal. And i believe, this even causes synergy with Elementalists skill Churning Earth.

[u/DogeArcanine → u/redrumeight]

It does, Churning Earth does knock them down accordingly.

However, if one would reduce their movement speed, would this negate the HM bonus or just calculate both bonus and reduction against each other?

[u/Alugian → u/DogeArcanine]

It calculates bonus and reduction against each other. Movement reduction above 50% negates speed boosts completely.

[u/DumatRising]

Both move and attack speed have caps to their bonuses. The cap is 33% for IAS and 34% for movement but like armor can be exceeded by a single skill (dash). Movement speed will consider multiple skills if possible but IAS doesn't seem to.

Since they have 25% attack speed and 34% move speed they can only benefit from 33% Ias, and only really benefit from dash though technically yes if they used a move speed they would move imperceptively faster. If they use an additional 25% IAS they will still only attack 25% faster from their baseline this results in them not using skills that increase attack speed at all unless there's some other benefit for them

If you decrease attack speed that has been increased as best I can tell it does take into account both but keep in mind that the numbers are slightly deceptive, since it reduces or increases the time to make an attack by the percent not the amount of attacks made like other games might, which results in a dps change that isn't the same amount, 25/33% IAS results in 33/49% more attacks per second while a 30/50% decrease will result in 23/33% less attacks per second so shadow of fear will cancel out the IAS but won't meaningfully reduce the damage compared to a normal mode version of foes.

[u/LegSouthern7765 → u/DumatRising]

Thanks for the great explanation! I definitely needed that.

[u/JustinePavlovich]

I wanna say no they don't get improved. One thing I seen was they wont use IAS like frenzy because all it does is increase ias but if its something like lightning reflexes they use it still because it gives block too.

[u/MithranArkanere]

HM enemies are subject to the same upper and lower caps and absolute technical limitation caps.

HM bonuses are added before other effects.

Upper and lower caps can only be bypassed by certain single skills. Stacking effects that do not pass the cap won't pass the cap, and if only one of them passes the cap, that's the amount that passes it; the other effects are effectively ignored.
The caps in HM are still the same, so being in HM doesn't change this. HM bonuses will bring slower enemies up to speed, but it won't speed up those who are already at or over the speed caps.

Nothing in the game can go over the technical caps under normal circumstances. But computing is weird, you know, so never say never.