It's actually (1/3 of the Shadow's level, rounded down) + (1/2 of your current level in the relevant skill, rounded down), enhanced by any synergies, probably uncapped. Spell levels are (shadow master level + your skill level of that skill)/2 Still, it might be worth a try if you're looking for an SM that's more likely to use certain skills. All you can do is have the highest skill level possible in the skills you'd like her to use, and manipulate her lil' peanut brain in the field.īecause of some odd results I've gotten testing SM AI, I hava a hypothesis that each SM is created with certain skill preferences at the time of casting, though I wouldn't lay money on it. Lots of interesting stuff, but no indication of a correlation between SM level and the tier of skills she uses there. The skill with the highest score gets selected. CoS actually gets a big penalty because people were complaining about their SMs using in previous versions.Įach skill also gets a random bonus so as to not have the sm do the same thing all the time. for example, if the sm is low on health, it's more likely to use cobra, finishing moves get bonuses for each charge is on the sm, mind blast gets a bonus if there's lots of enemies, dflight gets bonuses for either lots of enemies nearby or the target is far away, etc. (in the skills table, each skill is assigned a 'type' which clues the ai on how it gets used). IIRC the way SM chooses which skill to use is by point assignment.Įach skill gets points based on its level (for the SM, which includes item bonuses), plus additional points based on the tier (theoretically lvl 30 skills are better than lvl 1 skills, etc.)Įach skill then gets bonuses based on situation. One of the former LoD designers offered this at the AB:

D2 lod shadowmaster