Non-Linear Damage gain.

[NewSorc]

I've been building a sorceress lately and looking for the best order of skill point placement. In doing this I noticed that many of the damage gains are non-linear. The two skills I was interested in (Charged Bolt and Lightning) both had various breakpoints where the damage began going up at a faster rate than previous levels.

Lightning (assuming 20 LM):

Level Min Max Change
1 4 163
2 4 195 32
3 4 228 33
4 4 261 33
5 4 293 32
6 4 326 33
7 4 359 33
8 4 391 32
9 4 440 49
10 4 489 49
11 4 538 49
12 4 587 49
13 4 636 49
14 4 685 49
15 4 734 49
16 4 783 49
17 4 865 82
18 4 947 82
19 4 1028 81
20 4 1110 82
21 4 1192 82
22 4 1273 81
23 4 1388 115
24 4 1502 114
25 4 1616 114
26 4 1730 114
27 4 1845 115
28 4 1959 114
29 4 2106 147
30 4 2253 147
31 4 2400 147
32 4 2547 147
33 4 2694 147
34 4 2841 147
35 4 2988 147
36 4 3135 147
37 4 3282 147
38 4 3429 147
39 4 3576 147
40 4 3723 147


Does anyone know know of any skills that are not affected by this?

Is there anyway this information can help optimize builds?

Is this only true for elemental skills?

I know in the past it was assumed that some combination of points into a skill and points into a synergy yielded the optimum damage. This seems to suggest that getting to the higher levels more quickly may be desirable over getting synergies for most skills.

It also appears single tree sorceress have an even more pronounced advantage over their dual tree cousins. Not only are your +9 skillers adding exponentially to Mastery and Base spell damage, they are pushing you into the territory of higher damage gains per level.

[Quickdeath]

The very short answer is that all skills differ.

Some skills increase linearly in damage with skill rate particularly after slvl 1. ex: Barb's Concentrate skill.

Some decline in incremental damage with skill level, e.g., many of the Amazon's Passive & Magical tree skills are like this as well as the Barbarian's Mastery Skills.

A few go up in damage at an accelerating rate. Off the top of my head, the Sorceress and Assassin have a few of these kinds of skills.

[cralz]

There's a very detailed post about this here (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=485416), which explains how synergies (and masteries for the Sorceress) work together and how to maximize your damage output for various skill setups, although Cold spells are difficult to effectively maximize due to the nature of Cold Mastery. Still, interesting stuff.

[krischan]

Apart from that, many skills have increasing mana costs, so investing into synergies or mastery instead of the main skill might make more sense for a time during the leveling process if the mana bulb empties itself quickly, even if investing into the skill itself will lead to greater damage... but only if you are able to max the main skill as soon as your mana problems have been solved.

[NewSorc]

I've done the same calculations for Frozen Orb. Nearly linear damage gain.

This seems to suggest to me that Frozen orb as a skill can best be improved using faucets and items that directly increase damage, rather than more + skills.


Level Min Max Change
1 170 183
2 187 200 34
3 204 218 35
4 221 235 34
5 238 253 35
6 254 270 33
7 271 288 35
8 288 305 34
9 308 326 41
10 327 346 39
11 347 366 40
12 366 387 40
13 386 407 40
14 406 427 40
15 426 448 41
16 446 469 41
17 466 490 41
18 487 511 42
19 507 532 41
20 527 553 41
21 548 575 43
22 569 597 43
23 590 618 42
24 611 640 43
25 632 662 43
26 653 683 42
27 674 705 43
28 695 727 43
29 716 749 43
30 737 770 42
31 758 792 43
32 779 814 43
33 800 835 42
34 821 857 43
35 842 879 43
36 863 900 42
37 884 922 43
38 905 944 43
39 924 966 41
40 947 987 44


Craiz, that discussion has little to do with this phenomena. They are simply discussion the ratios between synergies and masteries.

[nurman]

I think every single skill goes like this.
Case 1: it rises for every point spent, increasing over multiple points
Case 2: it gains a fixed increase that does not increase or decrease no matter how many points you have in it.
Case 3: it increases in decreasing style, more points you have, the lower bonus you get from it.
Case 4:You gain higher bonuses first, but they cap in some point

Remember that the game rounds up(down sometimes?) the synergies of the skill, so if you get 5% first, 10% second time, and 16% third, it has a hidden 5.3 point increase (or something similar)

Also as example, sorc warmth and the manaregen uses this formula (Manaregen*Warmth) = final regen (please correct me if i am wrong with this)

[drool]

This has been researched at length. D2common.dll and skills.txt have parameters that define five tiers of damage calculation. D2common.dll configures the tiers to start at skill levels 2, 9, 17, 23, and 29.

In skills.txt, there are 24 columns that are labeled (E)min, (E)minLev(1-5), (E)Max, (E)maxLev(1-5), and these tell how much each skill shifts per level, per tier. The E denotes an elemental damage addition to the skill, whereas ones without it define physical damage. This only involves off-weapon damage, so it is rarely used by physical based skills. min and max define the skill at skill level 1, each one above it define the change done to the skill with each advancing point into the skill.

In your first example, lightning, Emax is 40, Emaxlev1 is 8, Emaxlev2 is 12...
The hitshift is 8, which means the multiplier is essentially equal to 1.
Base damage should therefore be 40.
Changes between levels 2-8 should be 8.
Changes between levels 9-16 should be 12.
And so forth.

As said before, each skill is different and will change a different way in each tier. For example, fire ball goes up by 5 each tier (with a hitshift of 7, this translates to 2.5 points of fire damage increase per level, per tier). This equals a 7.5 increase in tier1, and a 20 increase in tier5. On the other hand, fire bolt goes up fairly exponentially each tier, with a tier1 increase of 1.5 damage, but a tier5 increase of 28 damage. This increase ultimately leads to a higher damage for fire bolt at skill levels of 50 or higher. The same occurs between bone spear and bone spirit, with the former being weaker at low skill levels, but stronger at higher ones.