Attack Modifiers

Many items can be found in Diablo II that add special effects to a weapon's attack.

Crushing Blow removes half of a monster's life in a single hit. Crushing Blow is determined AFTER your weapon's normal damage, so if you hit a 500 HP monster for 100 normal damage and get a Crushing Blow, it will be left with 200 HP. Crushing Blow does not function against Champions, Uniques, Act Bosses, or other players. Crushing Blow does not function in conjunction (conjunction junction, what's your function?) with ranged attacks, although Blizzard has stated (as noted in Diabloii.Net's XPack Preview) that it probably will in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, perhaps at reduced effectiveness. If you have two or more items which give a chance for Crushing Blow (e.g. you are wielding Rixot's Keen, the Unique Short Sword, and wearing Goblin Toe, the Unique Light Plated Boots) the percentages are ADDED and applied to a single chance for a Crushing Blow each attack; you don't get a chance to deal a 'Doubly-Crushing Blow.' Also, your attack does have to hit the target (swing-and-miss doesn't count) for Crushing Blow to take effect.

Deadly Strike causes the weapon to deal double its normal damage; this doubling is applied after your bonus from Strength and other skills, such as Critical Strike. As with Crushing Blow, multiple items with Deadly Strike add their chances together, but do not allow 'Doubly-Deadly Strike.' Deadly Strike also does not modify elemental damage on weapons, and you must make a regular hit for it to take effect.

Open Wounds causes the target to bleed after being struck. This is similar to poison damage, only worse, if you'd believe it. At least Open Wounds doesn't prevent hit recovery animations, the way poison does. Damage is a piddling 2 per second, for 3 to 11 seconds varying with level. And of course, multiple instances of % chance for Open Wounds are additive, and you have to hit the target to make it go. Doesn't work with ranged weapons. Blizzard has promised to beef this one up quite a bit in Lord of Destruction.

Knockback pushes the target back a square, and sends it into a lengthy hit recovery animation. This sounds awesome, but in practice can be quite a hassle when you are under attack by a mob: you hit a monster, and it slides back into the pack, and if you want to finish him, you'll have to dive headfirst into the crowd. Still, many players keep a set of Cleglaw's Pincers (gloves with Slows Target by 25% and Knockback) in their backpack for dealing with certain types of Unique monsters (Teleporting mostly), since rapid attacks with Knockback grant quite a solid stunlock; after the unique is up against a wall, it will stop being knocked backwards but will still have to go through the hit recovery animation after each strike. Doesn't work with ranged weapons.

Hit Freezes Target makes 'em lock up completely solid for a short while. Champions, Uniques, and Players will be chilled (as per cold damage) for the duration instead. The duration is reduced 50% in Nightmare and 75% in Hell. Although this modifier doesn't work with bows, this seems to be a bug rather than a deliberate intention of Blizzard's: the Vidala's set, with a bow as its weapon, grants the Hit Freezes Target ability as part of its set bonus, although it doesn't take effect. With Vidala's set in its current broken condition, Iceblink (unique Splint Mail) and the Axe of Fechmar (unique Large Axe) are the only items I can think of which grants this modifier, and the Axe of Fechmar does terrible damage and requires both hands. However, the Sorceress spells Ice Blast, Glacial Spike, and Frozen Armor all have effects which function identically to the effect from Iceblink, as do the Amazon skills Ice Arrow and Frozen Arrow. Being Frozen negates Knockback, so you could use Iceblink armor together with Cleglaw's Pincers to keep the slowdown effect without the Knockback....but if you're freezing the target, why do you need it slowed?

X Damage to Undead modifies your weapon's base damage by the listed amount when attacking undead monsters. This means that, if you have a 10-20 damage weapon with 150% Damage to Undead, and 75 points of Strength, your damage will be (10 * 1.50) * (1 + .75) = 26 to 52 damage. At the moment, I'm not sure how multiple modifiers of this type (i.e. wielding a Mace with 3 Diamonds socketed while wearing The Face of Horror) add up, sorry.

Slows Target by X is another attack modifier that does exactly what it says it does. The monster will turn blue, as though hit by a cold attack, but the effect does not count as Cold and indeed the two can be stacked on a single monster for incredible effect. Doesn't work with ranged weapons.

Ignores Target's Defense is another one of those things that does just like it says. Your AR is meaningless when the target always has 0 defense! Go ahead, leave your Dex at base, forget your Meteoric rings, and rejoice. Level still factors in, though, and there's always a 5% chance to miss regardless of the Grand Universal Hit Equation's results. The only downside to this modifier is that it currently only comes on Wands, Staves, and Scepters. One of Blizzard's "example Rune Words" for the Expansion Pack (as seen at DiabloII.net) contained this modifier, although this is not set in stone; keep your hopes up, but don't design a character around having, say, an ITD War Pike. ITD Scepters CAN have damage very similar to those of one-handed swords, but ITD Scepters are very rare and ones with decent Enhanced Damage are even rarer.

Hit Blinds Target....blinds the target. This gives them the Blind overhead status effect for a good length of time. Doesn't work with ranged weapons.

Prevents Monster Heal stops a monster's natural healing for a long period of time (sorry, I don't remember how long right now). Champions and Uniques don't heal naturally, and so this modifier is useless against them; it also does not affect healing magic (such as cast by mages in Act III) or the healing of Teleporting Uniques.

Stuns Target puts little stars spinning around the target's head for the listed time, preventing it from moving or attacking. No weapons carry this modifier; at present, there are three ways a player can stun a target. Paladins can stun a target with a successful Smite (Smite ignores AR, so missing isn't much of an issue). Barbarians can use War Cry, which isn't an attack modifier, but hey, work with me a bit here, and it Stuns all monsters in the radius for a length of time. Lastly, Sorceresses can use Telekinesis on monsters; although the damage is miniscule, it sometimes inflicts a brief stun (around .5 seconds) on the victim and sorcs with lots of bonus casting speed can get a partial stunlock which party members will appreciate. Unknown whether more points in Telekinesis raises the chance of stun, or the length.

Elemental Damage comes in four flavors: Fire, Lightning, Cold, and Poison. Elemental damage on a weapon is not multiplied by any factors, so most players effectively ignore the Fire and Lightning damage types on a weapon, since 1-8 lightning is kind of irrelevant when your overall damage is in the hundreds. Cold, however, is valued by players of all levels for its chilling effect on the enemy: "of Frost" gives 4 and "of the Glacier" 5 seconds of slowdown. Unfortunately, chill time, like freeze time, is cut in half in Nightmare and quartered in Hell; the good news is that the chill times from multiple pieces of Cold gear are additive. Poison damage is actively eschewed by many players; although a Poisoned monster doesn't regenerate health (which can be an issue in large multiplayer games), Poison damage does not stack (hitting the monster multiple times only resets the duration) and, more to the point, a Poisoned monster NEVER gets sent into its hit recovery animation. There are interesting possibilities for poison damage, however. If you have more than one item causing poison damage, their damage rates are added together AND their durations are added together, meaning a pair of items each with 2-7 over 3 seconds results in 8-28 over 6 seconds.