From a
thread about CobraStrike that went off-topic:
blue_myriddn wrote:
Leach Penalties may be higher in HU...
According to difficulties.txt, the "leach divisor" is 2 in NM and 4 in Hell. The penalty in HU is probably 50% for NM and 25% for Hell.
I took a look at monstats.txt for the drain values of about 860 monsters. Some monsters are not enabled, or from Classic non-LoD, so consider these numbers as just rough estimates. Average Drain does not consider those with 0%, so if the creature is leachable at all, then it's probably leachable by this amount. Drain=0 is the number of creatures you can not leach from; keep in mind that this includes not only Undead, but probably doors and NPCs too, note that the number doesn't change much from act to act. Drain=100 is just a ballpark value for the number of completely leachable critters in that difficulty.
Code:
AvgDrain Drain=0 Drain=100
Norm 73% 433 201
NM 58% 433 55
Hell 45% 440 55
Moral of the data: In Hell, expect to leach about 12% of the amount listed on your gear, i.e. 100% life leach in Hell is similar to 16% life leach in Norm.