[2019] Could it be just poor wording when it comes to "Leech Length Nerf"?

You are misunderstanding what is being said. The 10% limit here is the same for all leech types, and is an entirely different thing than the maximum total recovery per second from leech (which is 20% of max base for life and mana, and 10% for ES).

This is a separate maximum on the amount of recovery a single instance of leech can grant. This maximum is 10% of the maximum of that resource (life/mana/es) as the base value, and Ascendant Slayer reduces it by 50%, resulting in 5% of the resource maximum.

whoops, fixed

You are incorrect. Leech instances are not capped to 2% recovery per second - they are always at that rate. A cap would mean they can be at lower rates, which is not the case.

The 2% value is the same for ES as for life and mana. This means that it takes fewer leech instances to reach maximum recovery per second (5 instances of ES leech, compared to 10 for life/mana).

The maximum amount of recovery is applied to each leech instance. The modifier you're referring to does not apply to the individual instances, but to the total value of recovery you're getting from all instances combined. It has been reorded to make this clearer because this distinction is important - that stat is now described as "x% increased total Recovery per second from Life Leech".

As an example showing all the relevant modifiers, assume you have these stats:

• 1000 Maximum Life
• 50% increased Maximum Recovery per Life Leech
• 100% increased total Recovery per second from Life Leech
• 15% increased Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech
• 30% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Life

From these, we can derive the following extra stats:

• Your Life Leech Recovery Rate is 20 Life per second (2% of max life per second). Each life leech instance will provide 20 Life per second.
• Your Maximum Recovery per Life Leech is 150 (15%). The base value of 100 (10% of max life), increased by 50%.
• Your Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech is 230 (23%). The base value of 200 (20% of max life), increased by 15%.

Note that the later two stats will display in the Character panel as shown in bold here - showing the % value of max life in brackets after the actual value. This way people can see both the actual value, and the relative percentage of max life it represents. The Leech Recovery Rate does not currently display because it's just always 2% per second, there are no modifier stats for it.

You hit me with an Attack, dealing 700 Physical Damage. This causes you to leech 30% of that damage as life; you therefore start to create a leech instance to leech 210 life.

First, this amount is subject to the Maximum Recovery per Life Leech, which, as above, is 150. Therefore this leech instance will only be able to actually leech 150 life.

The Leech Recovery Rate is 20 per second, so it will take 7.5 seconds to leech this much life. The duration of this leech will therefore be 7.5 seconds.

A Leech instance is added to your character for a duration of 7.5 seconds. For that duration, it provides you with 20 life leeched per second.

Your base total Recovery from Life Leech is now 20 life per second, because this is your only instance of life leech. This is increased by 100% by the modifier stat, so your resulting total Recovery from Llife Leech is 40 life per second.

This value is subject to the Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech, which is 230. Since 40 is lower than the cap of 230, nothing happens.

You are now gaining 40 life per second, and assuming no other changes, will continue to do so for 7.5 seconds.

---

Being a greedy sort, this isn't enough for you, and over the next couple of seconds, you proceed to hit me another 5 times, for between 600 and 700 damage each. As above, this creates another 5 leech instances. Each of these attempts to grant between 180 and 210 life, but all are subject to the Maximum Recovery per Life Leech, which, as above, is 150. So all six leech instances are capped to 150 life.

Because each leech instance tries to recover 150 life, just like the first one, they each get a duration of 7.5 seconds, and provide 20 life per second.

You now have six life leech instances, put together they grant a base total Recovery from Life Leech of 120. This is increased by 100% by the modifier stat, so total Recovery from Life Leech is 240 life per second.

This value is subject to the Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech, which is 230. Since 240 is higher than this, you actually only gain 230 life per second in total.

EDIT: Fixed my the mistake in the maths, thanks to those who noticed and pointed it out for me.

So to follow on from the example, let's say you also have 10% of Life Regenerated per second, so 100 life per second from regen.

Total recovery is therefore 330 (230 leech + 100 regen), and that number is increased by generic modifiers to life recovery rate.

This is not ideal (recovery rate modifier gets applied separately to more specific things, and thus ends up multiplicative), but before now there were things that prevented changing that, and now we can't change it without adjusting all the stuff that's balanced around how it currently works, so that's not going to change for a while.

EDIT: fixed typo on the regen number

Yes, the entire concept of capping the amount of recovery a single leech instance can apply is new in 3.6.0.

There is no leech on DoT damage. Leech is caused by hits.

The Retch's damage over time is applied for each instance of leech, at the time that leech instance is created. So only things that apply to each instance of leech can affect it.

The new maximum amount per leech thus does limit it, but the modifiers/maximums that apply to total recovery from all instances do not.

ES Leech works the same except for the base value of Maximum total Recovery per second from Energy Shield Leech, which is 10% of max ES (Life/Mana use 20%)

I think he mistakenly applied the 50% increased Maximum Recovery per Life Leech which does not belong in this calculation since it doesn't affect the rate in any way.

No, I just still had 180 in my head from when I decided to add a range to the damage of the hits to keep it reasonable and calculated the (uncapped) life per leech at the low end of that at 180. The correct number is indeed 120.

All leech instances use a recovery rate that's 2% of the maximum of what they're leeching.