DoT and Pet Scaling

[Neinball]

First off, all thanks go to Valkemen and his friend Astehnir for testing out this info.

Over on the monk boards (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=814583) the community was compiling info on the undocumented patch changes and we came across something weird. The DoT component of Exploding Palm was showing different figures then the talent calculator as well as different figures for different people. Upon some testing done by Valkemen and Astehnir they found that the DoT was scaling with weapon speed, the faster the weapon the more damage the DoT did.

Testing has found that the formula is relatively simple:

Weapon Dmg % x Weapon APS* = Actual Damage.

*Dual wielding gives the main hand weapon a bonus of 15% APS.

Example:

The Exploding Palm DoT does a base 65% weapon dmg per second, if a monk is using a 1.2 APS weapon the DoT will now deal 78% (65 x 1.2=78) wpn dmg per second. A dual wielding monk with a 1.2 APS main hand weapon will deal 89.7% (65 x (1.2 x 1.15)=89.7) wpn dmg per second.

After this was discovered for the Monks we decided to test out the only other class with a DoT within the beta, the WD and some strange things were discovered.

As excepted Firebats scales it's damage in the same exact way, it was 100% wpn dmg x APS = actual dmg per second. Surprisingly, the DoT component of Poison Dart did not scale at all with APS. Not being satisified with such a small sampling of abilities Valkeman and Astehnir decided to load up an emulator and check other abilities that may have scaled in a similar fashion.

They found the following abilities all scale their damage on APS in the same exact way:

Acid Cloud
Locust Swarm
Haunt
Grasp of the dead
Gargantuan
Fetish army

With this it would seem that certain pets also scale their damage on the APS of the caster. There are many other abilities/pets/summons from other classes that need to be tested out either in an emulator or the beta (Call of the Ancients, Companion, Sentry, etc) and many, many rune effects that will need to be tested once the game goes live.

Also not being in the beta I can't test it but would like to know if anyone has any experience with DoTs critting.

Summary:

DoT and Pet Damage Formula:

Single Weapon (1h or 2h)
Base Weapon Damage % x Weapon APS = Final Damage Total

Dual Wielding
Base Weapon Damage % x (Main Hand Weapon APS x 1.15) = Final Damage Total

[Grayson Carlyle]

Might this apply to all attacks with a static attack rate? Channeled DoTs as well; Disintegrate, Ray of Frost, etc...?

[Neinball]

I'd be willing to say yes given how it interacts with Firebats. I don't have a beta account so I can't say for certain.

[Astehnir]

Maybe I'll throw up some numbers for you to do the math. ;]

WIZARD

Disintegrate
APS DPS
1,02 138%
1,30 176%
1,39 188%
1,44 195%
1,50 203%

Explosive Blast
APS Damage
1,02 168%
1,30 214%
1,39 230%
1,44 238%
1,50 247%

Ray of Frost
APS DPS
1,02 275%
1,30 351%
1,39 376%
1,44 389%
1,50 405%

Arcane Torrent
APS DPS
1,02 204%
1,30 260%
1,39 278%
1,44 288%
1,50 300%

Ice Armor (!)
APS WD reflect/hit
1,02 10%
1,30 13%
1,39 14%
1,44 14%
1,50 15%

Familiar
APS Damage
1,02 15%
1,30 20%
1,39 21%
1,44 22%
1,50 22%
1,53 23%


DEMON HUNTER

Rain of Vengeance
APS DPS
1,34 178%
1,40 186%
1,43 190%
1,60 213%
1,84 245%

Companion
APS Damage
1,34 40%
1,40 42%
1,43 43%
1,60 48%
1,84 55%

All precentages here are the precentage of your weapon damage. Barbarian doesn't have any skills that scale with APS, Demon Hunter has only two. I'll leave the values of each monk skill to Valkemen, as it's his "guinea pig" to test on. :>

Cya around.

[Valkemen]

Two monk's skills work with APS - Exploding Palm and Lethal Decoy

numbers for Lethal Decoy

no wpn = 1 APS = 110%
1h wpn 1,40 APS = 154%
dual wpn 1,40 APS +15% bonus = 1,6 APS = 177%

[snurrfint]

To sum it up then.

DMG of DOTs, channeling and cool-down skills (Basically all skills where attack speed normally doesn't help you.) are calculated based on Weapon DPS.

DMG of skills without cool-down are calculated based on weapon dmg. Attacks speed based on weapon APS.

This is pretty good but they should change the skill tool-tips. Instead of "140% weapon dmg per second" use "140% weapon DPS per second". Although, that sounds pretty ridiculous.

[cacophony]

Finally, continuous scaling for DoTs. Makes things a lot easier to theorycraft. Just need to figure out the crit mechanics.

Also, I'm assuming only Barbs and Monks can dual wield melee weapons, and Hunters can dual wield small crossbows? And if you're worrying about DoTs and Monks, which weapon does the DoT damage? Do you alternate hands like other skills? Exploding Palm A on Monster A uses right hand weapon for DoTs, and Exploding Palm B on Monster B uses the left hand weapon for DoTs?

[snurrfint]

Finally, continuous scaling for DoTs. Makes things a lot easier to theorycraft. Just need to figure out the crit mechanics.

Also, I'm assuming only Barbs and Monks can dual wield melee weapons, and Hunters can dual wield small crossbows? And if you're worrying about DoTs and Monks, which weapon does the DoT damage? Do you alternate hands like other skills? Exploding Palm A on Monster A uses right hand weapon for DoTs, and Exploding Palm B on Monster B uses the left hand weapon for DoTs?

As I said before. DOT dmg is calculated using your basic attack DPS. This is presented to you nicely in the character screen in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHorZSXg4QU

If your DOT do 75% weapon dmg per second, you simply multiply 433 (in this case) with 0.75 and get 324 dmg/second. And thats all you'll have to know. If you want to see if dual-wielding will increase DoT dmg, simply equip an offhand weapon and check the basic attack DPS value.

I don't think the OP is right when he say that dual wielding increase the main weapon APS by 15%. I think your APS is a combined value of both weapons. That atleast, makes more sence to me.

[Neinball]

I don't think the OP is right when he say that dual wielding increase the main weapon APS by 15%. I think your APS is a combined value of both weapons. That atleast, makes more sence to me.

The math is what supports this, when you dual wield the number listed in the skill window will always have that 15% bonus.

It's something that can be checked with multitude of different weapon speeds equipped to each hand though. I'll see about getting it tested.

I think you're right on about it being the % of dps of the weapon, we just don't know if either the dps listing or the skill takes into account elemental effects on the weapons/gear or how it handles the damage calculations with dual wielding. It's things like that I would love to test for hours on end if I could.

[Astehnir]

The math is what supports this, when you dual wield the number listed in the skill window will always have that 15% bonus.

It's something that can be checked with multitude of different weapon speeds equipped to each hand though. I'll see about getting it tested.


Done that already. Tested 8 times on different weapons, and the outcome was always the same. Equipping an offhand weapon increases attack speed by 15%.

Anyone want more numbers, just to prove it? :>

[snurrfint]

Done that already. Tested 8 times on different weapons, and the outcome was always the same. Equipping an offhand weapon increases attack speed by 15%.

Anyone want more numbers, just to prove it? :>

I'm still not entirely convinced to be honest.

What you guys said was that your main hand attack speed gets increased by 15% when dual-wielding. Fine, that may be true. But, it would make more sense if dual-wielding just increased your over-all attack speed by 15%.

"The Exploding Palm DoT does a base 65% weapon dmg per second, if a monk is using a 1.2 APS weapon the DoT will now deal 78% (65 x 1.2=78) wpn dmg per second. A dual wielding monk with a 1.2 APS main hand weapon will deal 89.7% (65 x (1.2 x 1.15)=89.7) wpn dmg per second."

What you suggest is that a 14.5 dps main hand weapon together with a 2.5 dps weapon in off-hand would produce the same dps as a 14.5 dps off-hand. That could be true, if the DoT dmg is only based on the main hand dmg, but to me, it sounds like a really crappy design.

What would make more sense is that the dot dps is based on an average dps from both weapons multiplied with 1.15 for dual-wield attack speed bonus.

I'm not trying to disprove you, but are you really sure that you are correct?

[Grayson Carlyle]

For Barbarian (and probably Monk) non-DoT attacks, the skill uses the weapon damage of the last weapon you swung with. So if you swing with a 40 DPS 1H then swing with a 2 DPS 1H, then use HotA, you'll do a whopping 3-4 damage to each enemy you hit. It's terrible design and makes no sense at all, but that's how it is. So I wouldn't be surprised if they screwed up DW DoT and pet damage too. I'd go confirm if I had beta, but my point is, there's no reason to be surprised if things don't make sense in D3 right now. :/

[Astehnir]

Just tested it. I used a 3dps (1,20aps) mainhand weapon and a 17,5dps (1,47aps) offhand weapon. The DoT of the exploding palm did 2dmg/tick, when the last strike was done by the mainhand weapon, and 14dmg/tick for the offhand.

Fortunately both classes (wizard, witch doctor), that have most skills, that synergise with aps, cannot dualwield weapons, so you won't wonder, if the ray of frost is ticking your main or offhand weapon. ;]

[snurrfint]

Just tested it. I used a 3dps (1,20aps) mainhand weapon and a 17,5dps (1,47aps) offhand weapon. The DoT of the exploding palm did 2dmg/tick, when the last strike was done by the mainhand weapon, and 14dmg/tick for the offhand.

Fortunately both classes (wizard, witch doctor), that have most skills, that synergise with aps, cannot dualwield weapons, so you won't wonder, if the ray of frost is ticking your main or offhand weapon. ;]

Well then. That's pretty disappointing. I guess that most one-handers have similar dps. So this is pretty much only a problem for characters with two very different quality weapons, but still. You don't really want to waste your fury or spirit with the lower quality weapon. To avoid this, you'll have to count every attack.

meh.

[Astehnir]

There hasn't been a situation in which my weapons had some big quality differences. Often it was like 2-5dps or 0,2aps more on the better one. That is until i got my blacksmith. After that i had the best weapons available in beta for both hands. For the barbarian that is ;>

[cacophony]

Just tested it. I used a 3dps (1,20aps) mainhand weapon and a 17,5dps (1,47aps) offhand weapon. The DoT of the exploding palm did 2dmg/tick, when the last strike was done by the mainhand weapon, and 14dmg/tick for the offhand.

Fortunately both classes (wizard, witch doctor), that have most skills, that synergise with aps, cannot dualwield weapons, so you won't wonder, if the ray of frost is ticking your main or offhand weapon. ;]

That's fine for a "fast" skill like Exploding Palm. I actually like that approach.

What happens when we get to Earthquake, Call of the Ancients, or other big cooldown skills? What about Seven Sided Strike? Does each individual strike alternate hands? What about Hunters and the big cooldown on Rain of Vengeance? What about runed Conviction Aura, which makes it a constant damage aura? Which weapon is ticking each second, or does it alternate hands each second?

[Astehnir]

Well most of those skills that you mentioned aren't available in the beta, so we can just guess and wonder. The rain of vengeance skill probably works on the same principle as exploding palm, so the damage of the skill is different on mainhand weapon strike and the offhand. However like I said, it's pretty hard to have two weapons with big dmg difference. At least I had no problem with that.

[cacophony]

Well most of those skills that you mentioned aren't available in the beta, so we can just guess and wonder. The rain of vengeance skill probably works on the same principle as exploding palm, so the damage of the skill is different on mainhand weapon strike and the offhand. However like I said, it's pretty hard to have two weapons with big dmg difference. At least I had no problem with that.

Rain of Vengeance has a 30 second cooldown. Also, I'm starting to worry not about the pure numbers (b/c like you said, most people will dual wield two weapons close in damage/DPS to each other, considering there's no Main Hand/Off Hand mechanic, thus far). I'm going to worry about enchantments. One weapon is cold enchanted, and slows enemies. The other is poison enchanted, and adds poison DoT. When you let loose w/ Rain of Vengeance, what the hell is going on? Or Earthquake? I know most wizard/doctor spells don't transfer the utility properties of elemental enchantments (but do transfer the damage boost), but what about weapon skills like Rapid Fire, Rain of Vengeance, Seven Sided Strike, Ancient Spear, etc?

[Soval]

Snurrfint
Well then. That's pretty disappointing. I guess that most one-handers have similar dps. So this is pretty much only a problem for characters with two very different quality weapons, but still. You don't really want to waste your fury or spirit with the lower quality weapon. To avoid this, you'll have to count every attack.

meh.
The solution then is to not use such an inferior weapon when you are trying to dual wield.

If you make the bad decision to use such a poor piece of gear, you have no one to blame but yourself, it is not the fault of the game that you made that terrible choice. It's not reasonable to complain because you did something yourself that put you at a disadvantage because of your own poor judgement.

In other words, you will only have to count your attacks when you sabotage yourself into that crappy scenario, it's not any kind of inherent flaw in the games's design.

[Grayson Carlyle]

Snurrfint
The solution then is to not use such an inferior weapon when you are trying to dual wield.

If you make the bad decision to use such a poor piece of gear, you have no one to blame but yourself, it is not the fault of the game that you made that terrible choice. It's not reasonable to complain because you did something yourself that put you at a disadvantage because of your own poor judgement.

In other words, you will only have to count your attacks when you sabotage yourself into that crappy scenario, it's not any kind of inherent flaw in the games's design.

You're making the assumption that you have access to an equally good OH.

What if an incredibly powerful 1H just dropped for you, something that would go for $600-800 on the RMAH, but that's not your thing but you want to use it. Your only other 1H is 80% of the DPS of this amazing weapon. The only way you can use your new weapon and not have it be a DPS loss if you go 1H + Shield. That's bad game design.

[cacophony]

You're making the assumption that you have access to an equally good OH.

What if an incredibly powerful 1H just dropped for you, something that would go for $600-800 on the RMAH, but that's not your thing but you want to use it. Your only other 1H is 80% of the DPS of this amazing weapon. The only way you can use your new weapon and not have it be a DPS loss if you go 1H + Shield. That's bad game design.

What he said. If your off-hand is <85% of the DPS (since it seems that's what DoTs/pets/non-traditional attack skills scale w/, not regular damage), then you should go shield. It's counter intuitive to do MORE damage w/ sword and board w/ the same main hand weapon than if you stick in a crummy off-hand.

[Neinball]

I'm still not entirely convinced to be honest.

What you guys said was that your main hand attack speed gets increased by 15% when dual-wielding. Fine, that may be true. But, it would make more sense if dual-wielding just increased your over-all attack speed by 15%.

That may very well be the case but we can't tell that as the character screen and the skill window are only showing us the values for the main hand. The off-hand by very well be getting a 15% buff, we're not saying it doesn't, but there's nothing to prove it yet. It's a matter of fact vs assumption.



What would make more sense is that the dot dps is based on an average dps from both weapons multiplied with 1.15 for dual-wield attack speed bonus.

I'm not trying to disprove you, but are you really sure that you are correct?

As has been pointed out already D3 is acting just as D2 did where the last weapon to hit is what decides the dmg. So as long both weapons are close in overall damage you should be fine.


Really good stuff about the DW vs. S&B ideas there. It is odd that you'd get pigeoned holed into something like due to the nature of how the skills work, but this is the type of info theorycrafting is all about!

[Soval]

You're making the assumption that you have access to an equally good OH.

What if an incredibly powerful 1H just dropped for you, something that would go for $600-800 on the RMAH, but that's not your thing but you want to use it. Your only other 1H is 80% of the DPS of this amazing weapon. The only way you can use your new weapon and not have it be a DPS loss if you go 1H + Shield. That's bad game design.
Again, you are complaining about something that is entirely a problem of your own making. If those mismatched weapons are going to be a problem for you, then it is completely on you to make the decision whether or not to use them.

Expecting that the game will compensate for your poor gear choices is not at all reasonable. It's up to you yourself, not the game designers, to make smart decisions about what you do.

[Astehnir]

I see a huge misunderstanding here. What OP wrote about offhand giving mainhand a bonus attack speed isn't quite true. You see, your attack speed defines how many times a second you swing your weapons. If you have one weapon, and 1,50 attack speed then you can hit someting 1,50 times per second. But if you dualwield, and have 1,50 attack speed (not that of a weapon, the one in the hero stat window) you make 1,50 attack per second with both weapons. Mainhand attack and offhand attack.

For example, with 1,50 attack speed in two seconds you hit 3 times with mainhand, or two times with mainhand and once with offhand if dualwielding.

[Ganoidyn]

And thus the problem is beautifully resolved.

When you carry a fine sword and good shield, you are quite focused on swinging your sword. It's a bit slower because only one arm is swinging.

When you carry two swords, you can swing them both a bit faster now because you can alternate your arms. But, see, if one sword is a really fine thing and the other one's a rusty piece of crap you're going to do the math and discover that you were better off focusing just swinging that one arm.

Your faster attack speed and lower DPS explained in a simple, silly analogy.

I am really not sure why you're saying this is poor design. I'm kind of with Soval on this issue.

[Grayson Carlyle]

But if you dualwield, and have 1,50 attack speed (not that of a weapon, the one in the hero stat window) you make 1,50 attack per second with both weapons. Mainhand attack and offhand attack.

No. That's not true at all. Each weapon has it's own attack speed.

Use 2 weapons with very different attack speeds and watch the stat window. The APS and DPS will change after each swing to represent what your next swing will do.

[Grayson Carlyle]

I am really not sure why you're saying this is poor design. I'm kind of with Soval on this issue.

You aren't getting it at all. To expand your analogy, say you want to do your really huge special attack. You'd do that with the awesome fine sword, or even swing both weapons at once, no? Well, that's not how it is in D3. The broken part is that special attacks use neither a combined attack calculation nor your best weapon; it uses whichever you swung with last (which makes even less sense than swinging with your next weapon).

[cacophony]

You aren't getting it at all. To expand your analogy, say you want to do your really huge special attack. You'd do that with the awesome fine sword, or even swing both weapons at once, no? Well, that's not how it is in D3. The broken part is that special attacks use neither a combined attack calculation nor your best weapon; it uses whichever you swung with last (which makes even less sense than swinging with your next weapon).

Wait, really? I spam cleave then Hammer, A-B-A-B-Hammer; what weapon does the damage in Hammer? A or B?

[Grayson Carlyle]

Wait, really? I spam cleave then Hammer, A-B-A-B-Hammer; what weapon does the damage in Hammer? A or B?

B.

Ten chars.

[cacophony]

B.

Ten chars.

That's weird. What if you keep hitting Hammer? Does it start alternating again? Or is it B's all the way down?

[Grayson Carlyle]

That's weird. What if you keep hitting Hammer? Does it start alternating again? Or is it B's all the way down?

B all the way down T_T

This was something that was brought up in the beta feedback though, so I'm hoping someone who is actually in beta will test it out in beta 6 to see if they've modified it at all.

[Piousflea]

This is very interesting. The skill text would definitely make more sense if it said something like "Deals damage equal to 30% of your weapon DPS."

I remember seeing some Blue post commenting about how they might make the resource cost of channeled spells (ie Disintegrate, Ray of Frost) scale with weapon speed. This makes a lot more sense if it effectively "hits more often" with a faster weapon.

As far as the dual wielding goes - using the damage and speed of just one weapon makes sense for stuff like Hammer of the Ancients, but it makes absolutely no sense for summoning spells. I am interested in seeing the difference in spells like Sentry. Hopefully Blizz has put enough forethought into it to average out the weapon DPS.

[cacophony]

Any updates for Beta 6 yet?

[Neinball]

So far no, the monk video we saw on the mainpage confirmed the formula is still working as we thought it did. The only thing I don't know is if there were any changes to the 'last hit' effect for DW.

[Valkemen]

Bashiok said:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3595370796?page=1#10

The tick rate of channeled skills is currently scaled by your weapon speed. This has the side effect of making the resource cost go up, which we’re okay with. It’s consistent with the philosophy that faster speed weapons consume more resource but may do more damage. Channeled skills might still be better with slower weapons though because on a channeled skill, you have as much mobility as you want, so the “mobility” and “overkill” advantages of faster weapons are eroded with channeled abilities, so all you’re left with is increased mana cost for increased damage.

We've been thinking of changing the tooltips and going with “ continuously does X% weapon damage”. The reservations we currently have are:
Even though we say continuously, there’s a pulse rate under the hood, so do players want to know this pulse rate?If we did show a pulse rate, we’re adding more complexity to an already complicated tooltip.

However, the benefit of being able to directly compare 135% weapon damage on Disintegrate to X% weapon damage on another skill is super high, so we love that.

Stepping back and going big picture, we’re currently working on greatly simplifying tooltips. It’s too early to give details at this point, but our general feeling is that we provide way too much information in the skill tooltips in general.

[Valkemen]

Witch Doctor's and Wizard's skills costs resources, fine. But Monk's Exploding Palm generates resources - yup! Now we know about Blizzard's philosophy, but where is the logic? ;)

Can someone explain this?

[konfeta]

Stepping back and going big picture, we’re currently working on greatly simplifying tooltips. It’s too early to give details at this point, but our general feeling is that we provide way too much information in the skill tooltips in general.
Of all the modern game design maxims, hiding information from players is the most infuriating one.

Diablo 3, at least, has the benefit of diligent dataminers to pull this information and put it up on some wiki.


Can someone explain this?
You just described an upside of faster attacks.

[cacophony]

Of all the modern game design maxims, hiding information from players is the most infuriating one.

Diablo 3, at least, has the benefit of diligent dataminers to pull this information and put it up on some wiki.


One the suggestions on the regular B.net is surprisingly good. Have a toggle in the options, "Simplified Tooltips." Power gamers would use the advanced, wordy tooltips, and noobs would use the simplified tooltips. After awhile, the pros would probably switch to simplified just to reduce screen clutter.

[Valkemen]

You just described an upside of faster attacks.

For me the problem was not in a balance between fast and slow weapons. That's ok. Uniqueness of Monk's Exploding Palm is that it can generate resources and dmg at the same time. But I forgot about passive skill that compensates that advantage of faster weapons by increasing generation of resources with slower two-handed weapons. :)

"The Guardian's Path - [...] While using a two-handed weapon, all Spirit generation is increased by 20%."

[Neinball]

Staves will also be able to roll modifiers with +Spirit/sec. In the beta atm it's no contest between DW and staves but we'll see how that changes at higher levels when more options open up.


One the suggestions on the regular B.net is surprisingly good. Have a toggle in the options, "Simplified Tooltips." Power gamers would use the advanced, wordy tooltips, and noobs would use the simplified tooltips. After awhile, the pros would probably switch to simplified just to reduce screen clutter.

That one almost seems like a no brainer as they already have that in place for WoW.

[Flux]

Bashiok replied to a question about this thread today:
http://blues.incgamers.com/Posts/10/1/40/819/134384/dot-scaling-and-attack-speed

The tick rate of channeled skills is currently scaled by your weapon speed. This has the side effect of making the resource cost go up, which we’re okay with. It’s consistent with the philosophy that faster speed weapons consume more resource but may do more damage. Channeled skills might still be better with slower weapons though because on a channeled skill, you have as much mobility as you want, so the “mobility” and “overkill” advantages of faster weapons are eroded with channeled abilities, so all you’re left with is increased mana cost for increased damage.

We've been thinking of changing the tooltips and going with “ continuously does X% weapon damage”. The reservations we currently have are:

* Even though we say continuously, there’s a pulse rate under the hood, so do players want to know this pulse rate?
* If we did show a pulse rate, we’re adding more complexity to an already complicated tooltip.



However, the benefit of being able to directly compare 135% weapon damage on Disintegrate to X% weapon damage on another skill is super high, so we love that.

Stepping back and going big picture, we’re currently working on greatly simplifying tooltips. It’s too early to give details at this point, but our general feeling is that we provide way too much information in the skill tooltips in general.

[Kingu]

Damn them, I cant stand hearing that something needs to be simplified and will be awesome...

[Vernichtung]

Why dont they just add an option like: "Activate complicated tooltips" and all are happy?
I really wanna have my complicated tooltips XP

[Elfik]

Why dont they just add an option like: "Activate complicated tooltips" and all are happy?
I really wanna have my complicated tooltips XP

Nah that's too complicated a command. It would have to be "Activate" only.

[Sombre]

Hi to everyone.

In first, i have to apologies if my english isn't good. Its not my native langage and i will do my best to avoid errors.

If i come here, its because i have some interrogation about the theorycraft.
My real problem is how to calculate with accury DMG and DPS of channeled skills.

Can you try to explain me with real simple math ? my english is good enough to understand you, but my math are bad!
Like with simple thing like :

I have XX intel
i have a 6-13 sword (13.3dps) 1.4 attacks speed
i have XX DPS global on my character screen
i use ray of frost (200% weapon dmg)

[Harlow]

http://www.infoocean.info/avatar3.jpgAfter this was discovered for the Monks we decided to test out the only other class with a DoT within the beta, the WD and some strange things were discovered.

[Valkemen]

Here is my discovery about dependance between channelled spells and weapons speed.



Faster Weapon makes shorter channel to make the same damage at the same cost of resources
Slower Weapon makes longer channel to make the same damage at the same cost of resources
Faster Weapon hits more often with lower damage
Slower Weapon hits less often with bigger damage
Time is different, because two equal damage weapons (with 2 different speeds) need different durations of channeling.


Links:
to reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/Dia:blo/comments/ri6ta/how_far_monk_runs_while_channeling_tempest_rush/

or to my blog about Monk - translation to English:

http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=pl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fszaolin.********.com%2F2012%2F03%2F test-channeling-tempest-rush.html

[HardRock]

If i come here, its because i have some interrogation about the theorycraft.
My real problem is how to calculate with accury DMG and DPS of channeled skills.

Can you try to explain me with real simple math ? my english is good enough to understand you, but my math are bad!

First, the relevant stats:

109 Intelligence
15-16 damage crossbow with 17.1 DPS and 1.1 APS
36.53 DPS on the character screen
Ray of Frost deals 215% weapon damage

Now, the problem when trying to calculate the damage of channeled spells is that they have a peculiar way of displaying their damage. They do this in half a second ticks, but the damage they show you has a much larger spread than what you would expect based on your weapon. For example, with the above stats, my Ray of Frost usually displayed 38 or 46 damage, but it wasn't rare to see a large divergence from those numbers. For example, once it displayed 52 and 62 as well.

My theory is that you can calculate the damage that channeled spells will do in a second by simply taking the DPS shown on your character screen and then multiplying it by the skills damage. By doing this for RoF I came really close to what damage the game usually showed to me.

I'm not sure what causes the anomalies in the displayed damage of channeled skills, but I have a feeling that frame rate has something to do with it.

If you didn't understand some part of my post or you have more questions, feel free to ask.

[Sombre]

Thx for you answers,

If have to resume it , with :
109 Intelligence
15-16 damage crossbow with 17.1 DPS and 1.1 APS
36.53 DPS on the character screen
Ray of Frost deals 215% weapon damage

If i use Ray of Frost, my ticks damage will be : 36.53 x 215% = 78.60 / second ?

There is no advantage to have faster weapons ?
They dont give more DPS , they only consume more ressource?

[HardRock]

If i use Ray of Frost, my ticks damage will be : 36.53 x 215% = 78.60 / second ?

Yes, that's correct. Although like I said, the displayed numbers are sometimes inconsistent, but the damage itself isn't. So, according to the game I did 38 or 46 damage every 0.5 second, which means that my average damage was 42 every 0.5 second or 84 per second. According to my character sheet my DPS is 35.53 so Ray of Frost should do about 78.54 DPS, like you said, which is close enough to the displayed 84 for me, especially since the displayed numbers aren't accurate enough and the size of my sample could be larger as well.


There is no advantage to have faster weapons ?

Yes, there is. The damage of channeled skills will always be displayed every half a second, but the displayed damage will increase with faster attack speed. More APS means more DPS even with channeled skills.


They dont give more DPS , they only consume more ressource?

They do both. Multiply a channeled skills mana cost with your APS to get the skills real mana cost per second.

[Sombre]

" Yes, there is. The damage of channeled skills will always be displayed every half a second, but the displayed damage will increase with faster attack speed. More APS means more DPS even with channeled skills."

Ok, but if i have a weapon with 1.6 APS (and no 1.1) but the same overall dps (36.53)

The formule is still :
36.53x 215%
and the result is still : 78.53

where is the advantage of attack speed ? ^^

[HardRock]

Ok, but if i have a weapon with 1.6 APS (and no 1.1) but the same overall dps (36.53)

If your DPS remains the same when your APS increases that must mean that the damage of your weapon decreased since: weapon damage * weapon APS = weapon DPS

In that case yes, even the DPS of your skills would remain the same.

[MustBHacks]

" Yes, there is. The damage of channeled skills will always be displayed every half a second, but the displayed damage will increase with faster attack speed. More APS means more DPS even with channeled skills."

Ok, but if i have a weapon with 1.6 APS (and no 1.1) but the same overall dps (36.53)

The formule is still :
36.53x 215%
and the result is still : 78.53

where is the advantage of attack speed ? ^^

The advantage to APS is faster cast rate, this obviously wont affect channeled skills, but would affect most of your other skills.

[Superstate]

Ok, but if i have a weapon with 1.6 APS (and no 1.1) but the same overall dps (36.53)

The formule is still :
36.53x 215%
and the result is still : 78.53

where is the advantage of attack speed ? ^^


I can only presume you're trolling.



The advantage to APS is faster cast rate, this obviously wont affect channeled skills, ...

Did I misread this?

This is literally the first sentence in that bluepost: "The tick rate of channeled skills is currently scaled by your weapon speed.".

[HardRock]

This is literally the first sentence in that bluepost: "The tick rate of channeled skills is currently scaled by your weapon speed.".

To be honest, I don't think that's the case. I did my tests about this in patch 13, but back then the tick rate was a fixed 0.5 second and more APS increased the damage displayed in those ticks.

[Superstate]

To be honest, I don't think that's the case. I did my tests about this in patch 13, but back then the tick rate was a fixed 0.5 second and more APS increased the damage displayed in those ticks.

You are presuming that his use of "tick rate" is equal to the damage display rate, it doesn't need to be.

[HardRock]

Right, but from a player's viewpoint that statement can be confusing as hell in that case.

[Superstate]

Right, but from a player's viewpoint that statement can be confusing as hell in that case.

They are employed to spread confusion, expect ambigous statements!

[Karpalo]

Maybe I'll throw up some numbers for you to do the math. ;]

WIZARD

Disintegrate
APS DPS
1,02 138%
1,30 176%
1,39 188%
1,44 195%
1,50 203%

Explosive Blast
APS Damage
1,02 168%
1,30 214%
1,39 230%
1,44 238%
1,50 247%

Ray of Frost
APS DPS
1,02 275%
1,30 351%
1,39 376%
1,44 389%
1,50 405%

Arcane Torrent
APS DPS
1,02 204%
1,30 260%
1,39 278%
1,44 288%
1,50 300%

Ice Armor (!)
APS WD reflect/hit
1,02 10%
1,30 13%
1,39 14%
1,44 14%
1,50 15%

Familiar
APS Damage
1,02 15%
1,30 20%
1,39 21%
1,44 22%
1,50 22%
1,53 23%


DEMON HUNTER

Rain of Vengeance
APS DPS
1,34 178%
1,40 186%
1,43 190%
1,60 213%
1,84 245%

Companion
APS Damage
1,34 40%
1,40 42%
1,43 43%
1,60 48%
1,84 55%

All precentages here are the precentage of your weapon damage. Barbarian doesn't have any skills that scale with APS, Demon Hunter has only two. I'll leave the values of each monk skill to Valkemen, as it's his "guinea pig" to test on. :>

Cya around.

Seems to be perfectly in line with that cycle system. Faster attack speed burns resources faster which leads into higher dps. If we want to compare which is actually better fast or slow APS it will get pretty complicated and it would hugely depend on the fight duration as well. Overall it would still look like that in ideal tank and spank scenario fast APS would lead into higher DPS overall.

[Neinball]

Seems to be perfectly in line with that cycle system. Faster attack speed burns resources faster which leads into higher dps. If we want to compare which is actually better fast or slow APS it will get pretty complicated and it would hugely depend on the fight duration as well. Overall it would still look like that in ideal tank and spank scenario fast APS would lead into higher DPS overall.

Higher APS will also scale very well for channeled skills in movement heavy fights, which I'm going to guess will be most boss fights (at least until we figure it out and gear appropriately to just stand there and take it.) That's one of the trickier things that is very difficult to model accurately.

[Superstate]

That's one of the trickier things that is very difficult to model accurately.


It isn't that difficult really, you'll want a faster burn rate than appears to be the best solution on paper (in terms of ap efficiency relative to damage). The faster you can spend your ap, the more efficient you become in these scenarios where avoiding stuff is paramount.

As for the modeling of it, I come from a spreadsheet perspective and all you need is breaks and intervals of breaks to simulate moving, and by letting the user edit the breaks/intervals themselves a consensus can be drawn for that particular build / weapon speed etc. For the sake of completion, it could easily be macroable to determine varying degrees of % time spent running for the same build. For example, if the user currently has 50% time spent running, the macro will determine the same value for for example 10% and 90% spent running in order to determine how effective it is in very varying degrees of downtime.

[Karpalo]

It isn't that difficult really, you'll want a faster burn rate than appears to be the best solution on paper (in terms of ap efficiency relative to damage). The faster you can spend your ap, the more efficient you become in these scenarios where avoiding stuff is paramount.


I disagree. It would hugely depend on the "profile" of the fight. Faster weapons makes resource overflowing less likely, but at the same time it makes resource starvation more likely. It would boil down to the fight when the question is which one is the more optimal choice.

If you know you have to move to avoid stuff then ideal situation is that you use that time to passively regen resources back, but this doesn't happen if your resources are capped to begin with. On the other hand when you get change to go balls deep damage out you wouldn't want to run into situation where your resource bar is depleted and you will be forced to use generators to get it back.

[Sombre]

Ok, wasn't well write i figure (no im not a troll ><)
If i have a weapon with 1.5 aps (with lower base dmg on than my prévious 1.1 aps weapon indeed), the same overall dps (36.53) on my character sheet and i use again ray of frost ( 215%)
The formula is still : 36.53 x 215% = 78.53?

Or , finally , did i have to use :
Ray of Frost
APS DPS
1,02 275%
1,30 351%
1,39 376%
1,44 389%
1,50 405%

and make : 36.53 x 405%: = 147.94 ? oO

[Superstate]

The formula is still : 36.53 x 215% = 78.53?

Yes.

You would have a much easier time understanding this if you let go of the weapon speed (ie DPS), instead focusing on it from the damage range only, and after doing so introducing varying weapon speeds.

[Sombre]

I have to kill SK :
with 1.1 APS weapon, 36.53 dps sheet x 215% (r.o.f) = 78.53 Skill DPS
and 1.5 APS weapon, 36.53 dps sheet x 215% (r.o.f) = 78.53 Skill DPS
advantage of slow weapon, cause less ressource cost? I will not do more damage with fast weapon?

If i use the rune " 0 cost ressource for ray of frost" : is it better to have , for the same overall sheet dps, fast or slow weapon?

[Superstate]

advantage of slow weapon, cause less ressource cost?

The same amount of damage for significantly less resources, yes.


If i use the rune " 0 cost ressource for ray of frost" : is it better to have , for the same overall sheet dps, fast or slow weapon?

A friend told me recently this is bugged and it does have a cost, it just isn't reflected in the calculator. I'm taking his word for it!

But if it was at 0 cost, it wouldn't matter which weapon speed you chose. The runestone would however be more powerful for faster weapons, since it is effectively a higher decrease of ap cost / second.

[Sombre]

Ok, thx for you'r help superstate ! i have fully understand now i think ...
Or not : i don't full understand the purpose of
Ray of Frost
APS DPS
1,02 275%
1,30 351%
1,39 376%
1,44 389%
1,50 405%

Link before, but its ok if i know i have to use slow weapon ^^

[Karpalo]

That's just relative comparison. DPS is what matter. Those numbers represent that you can have lower damage weapon, but as long it has more dps due faster AS it deals more damage.

the % part tells what multiplier it uses for your weapon damage. The APS is the length of the cycle. System is in place so weapon damage range won't be the only thing that matters, but attack speed also get's applied as well.

275 / 1.02 = ~270 (rounded up)

405 / 1.5 = 270

That ray of frost example was used to illustrate that in this context all that matters is weapon DPS.

It get's bit more complicated when you start applying passive resource generation, flat damage affixes outside of weapons, on-hit effects and possible skill cooldowns. Most cooldowns seems to be normalized tho, but it's not certain at this stage whenever it applies to all of them.

[HardRock]

Just a heads-up, Haunt doesn't scale with attack speed, unless we are talking about it's initial cast animation. Tested this with these stats and weapons:

43 Intelligence
4.3 DPS crossbow, 5-5 damage, 0.86 APS
4.9 DPS dagger, 2-5 damage, 1.37 APS

If Haunt scales with APS, then the dagger should have done slightly more damage. That wasn't the case however. The crossbow always ticked for 2 damage for me, while the dagger usually ticked for 1. Keep in mind, that damage numbers are rounded.

EDIT: Haunt did 41 damage to Leoric with the crossbow. With the dagger, it did 29.

[sacridoc]

Hm... I wonder if it's supposed to work like that. I really thought that all dots/channeled spells worked off DPS.

Maybe it's just channeled spells?

[z00t]

Just a heads-up, Haunt doesn't scale with attack speed, unless we are talking about it's initial cast animation. Tested this with these stats and weapons:

43 Intelligence
4.3 DPS crossbow, 5-5 damage, 0.86 APS
4.9 DPS dagger, 2-5 damage, 1.37 APS

If Haunt scales with APS, then the dagger should have done slightly more damage. That wasn't the case however. The crossbow always ticked for 2 damage for me, while the dagger usually ticked for 1. Keep in mind, that that damage numbers are rounded.

EDIT: Haunt did 41 damage to Leoric with the crossbow. With the dagger, it did 29.

I think that the Crossbow has higher base damage, but a slower attack speed, and the dagger has less damage but a higher attack speed, right?

So their DPS would work out to be about the same, but since skills look at weapon damage, not attack speed, then Haunt (with Crossbow) should deal more damage a slower period of time than the dagger, which will do less damage, but finish all its ticks sooner than Haunt with a Crossbow...at least that's how I understood it >_>.

[sacridoc]

Eh... that's not really how dots/channeled spells have been said to work.

It's been said they work off your DPS and tick at predetermined intervals (like every 0.5sec) that do not change with attack speed. However, maybe this just refers to channeled spells. Anyways, the mana is supposed to increase with attack speed even if the DPS is the same. This wouldn't apply to dot I suppose, so I guess I really don't understand how dots work.

Keep in mind, if your dot ticked every 2.1 sec for an 8sec dot, it would only tick 3 times if it worked like that, which doesn't make sense, hence the predetermined intervals.

You could suggest that the dot should last for less time when increased attack speed... but I don't believe it works like that.

I didn't think dots just went off only your overall weapon damage though. It doesn't seem right really, and might not be functioning correctly if the dot still lasts 12sec. Because it means that having a slow attack speed is always better for such abilities.

___

edit...

My assumption at this point is that Nuke / Channeled spells have their mana cost increased by attack speed. But DoTs do not. Because DoTs don't receive a penalty to mana cost for the faster attack speed, the "cost" is perhaps transferred to the damage.

So if you have 2 weapons with the same DPS but one is twice as fast, you'll use twice as much mana for the same damage with Nukes and Channeled spells on the faster weapon.

For the same two weapons, using a DoT spell you'll spend the same amount of mana for both, but you'll do half the damage with the faster weapon. The predetermined tick rate will not change, it'll just take your weapon damage (ignore your DPS) which is half as much on the faster weapon, and that'll be the damage you do.

Furthermore... this penalty for using a faster weapon is supposed to be compensated for by the stats of your offhand (as a WD). This applies specifically to WDs because they don't have generators.

Somebody should test this further with maybe GotD or something.

[HardRock]

Let me try to sum up how the different skills work to the best of my knowledge.

Resource costs are constant per attack. You'll always attack faster with more APS (even the casting time of DoTs is reduced), so resource costs per second may change.

Damage and critical hits are calculated per attack for skills that deal continuous damage (Grasp of the Dead, Rend, Sleet Storm, Haunt) and per hit for skills that don't (Arcane Torrent, Dire Bats, Cleave). This means that skills that belong in the first category will critically hit all their targets or none of them.

Skill durations are always fixed.

As I've already said, more APS reduces the time it takes our character to attack and it benefits every skill. For DoT skills that have a cooldown (Grasp of the Dead, Earthquake) APS also increases the damage of the attack.

The only thing I still have to explain is what exactly constitutes as an attack with the different skills.

With skills like Bash and Cleave, an attack is one swing.

With skills that have a fixed duration (Rend, Haunt, Grasp of the Dead) the whole duration is one attack. This means the when these skills crit, they will deal increased damage over their duration (remember that crits are per attack).

Finally, an attack with channeled skills is one cycle. The length of one cycle is 1 / APS, so 1 second if your APS is 1 and 0.5 second if your APS is 2 for example. Keep in mind that some channeled skills (Arcane Torrent, Rapid Fire) have a huge APS multiplier (4 in case of AT). When these skills crit they will deal increased damage over one cycle if the damage is continuous or with one projectile when it's not. This hasn't been verified yet with channeled skills that deal continuous damage however, since it's not easy to test, but this would be consistent with how other skills work.


Keep in mind, if your dot ticked every 2.1 sec for an 8sec dot, it would only tick 3 times if it worked like that, which doesn't make sense

It wouldn't be a huge problem, since DoT damage is continuous in D3. It's represented in ticks only when it's displayed to the player.


I didn't think dots just went off only your overall weapon damage though. It doesn't seem right really, and might not be functioning correctly if the dot still lasts 12sec. Because it means that having a slow attack speed is always better for such abilities.

Not always. Let's assume that weapon 'A' has 100 damage with 1 APS and weapon 'B' has 50 damage with 2 APS. Weapon 'A' is superior against single targets, since you can't stack DoTs. In crowds however they're the same DPS-wise, since with weapon 'B' you'll be able to cast DoTs on every enemy in half the time it would take with weapon 'A', so you can start using other abilities faster.


Somebody should test this further with maybe GotD or something.

The last time I looked at Grasp of the Dead's damage it seemed to scale with APS. This would mean that DoTs with cooldowns are exceptions to certain rules. If that's the case then I'll update the part in my post about APS.

EDIT: Yep, Grasp of the Dead is affected by APS. I assume other similar skills with cooldowns will be affected as well.

[sacridoc]

It seems like a lot of this has to do whether the spell has a cooldown or not. [Let me see if I've got this right...]

1) Dots with no cooldown will not have damage that scales with attack speed because the rate at which you can get the dots out will compensate for the lower damage. So if you have a 50 damage/2 APS weapon (vs 100 damage/1 APS) your dots will do half the damage but you'll be able to spread them twice as fast.

2) For dots that have a cooldown though, they should work off your DPS (which includes attack speed). Truthfully, the tooltip

3) Dots that have no cooldown and no cast time should work off your DPS as well, because they receive no benefit from increase APS. This includes abilities like Burning Dogs, Big Stinker, etc.

__

So ultimately this means that dots do not receive any kind of penalty for having a faster attack speed. They're worse against a lower amount of targets, but it just means that's more time you would use a single target spell.

__

It's still kind of confusing though why Single Target and Channeled abilities receive a penalty when used with a faster weapon (when the DPS is the same) in the form of a much higher mana cost. It makes sense perhaps for other classes that have resource generators. But for the WD particuarly... you're always at a disadvantage using a faster weapon with single target and channeled abilities.

[I'll come back to this later when I have more time...]

[HardRock]

Your first two points and your conclusions are correct.


Dots that have no cooldown and no cast time should work off your DPS as well, because they receive no benefit from increase APS. This includes abilities like Burning Dogs, Big Stinker, etc.

Hmm, I haven't thought about that. We have no way to test this, but as far as I know the dogs themselves don't benefit from APS, so their DoT may not benefit either.


It's still kind of confusing though why Single Target and Channeled abilities receive a penalty when used with a faster weapon (when the DPS is the same) in the form of a much higher mana cost. It makes sense perhaps for other classes that have resource generators. But for the WD particuarly... you're always at a disadvantage using a faster weapon with single target and channeled abilities.

Yeah, going with faster weapons hits the WD the hardest resource-wise. If you use a ceremonial knife + mojo combo, then you can at least increase your mana pool and mana regen. For this reason, I don't think that many WD's will use normal one-handed weapons with shields for example later in the game. If they do, then they most likely has to use at least one of the mana management passives if they don't want to run out quickly.

[sacridoc]

I would think that pet damage would work off DPS. But it's going to be hard to tell because it's so low in the Beta. It would make the most sense that way imo.

Anyways... it's been said that the only items that have resources attached to them are class specific items. The WD has 3 of these obviously... MH/OH and the Helm.

The point is... if you're a WD using a 2H weapon (which means you'll have a very slow attack speed, which is better in most scenarios) you'll miss out on the + Mana that's going to be attached to your MH/OH if you use a ceremonial knife. You can still get the helm of course... but you'll lose 2/3 of your class items with mana on them.

So in that sense... it should balance out to some extent.

__

And if you're a WD who wants to use a shield, you may need one of mana passives. Or somehow having more defense allows you to use less mana. And it balances out or something. Like you said, using a regular 1H with a shield is going to kill your mana, and doesn't seem like a great idea.

[mike20599]

Keep in mind that some channeled skills (Arcane Torrent, Rapid Fire) have a huge APS multiplier (4 in case of AT).

Can you explain more about this APS multiplier please?

[sacridoc]

Can you explain more about this APS multiplier please?

I think what it means is that (in general) a channeled skill should "tick" every 0.5sec. That's the cycle that it follows. So even if your attack speed is 1 APS, it would still display damage every 0.5sec. However, for skills like Rapid Fire, the cycle is much much faster than 0.5sec. The ticks are like constant. In general, your damage doesn't increase with this increased cycle rate, it's just that because of the ability, your damage is displayed much more often.

__

The discussion about what constitutes an attack is important though. Going by how Dots are said to work... does it mean that if your GotD crits that every tick is displayed as with the typical number "flash" of a critical? Or is it just that you'll see the numbers increase by 50% over the full duration?

The thing that I really wish we knew was how the internal cooldowns / penalties work for on-proc and Life Per Hit type of abilities. Because if you have something that gives a bonus every time you crit, it would seemingly be much better when paired with something like Rapid Fire as opposed to a Dot.

I imagine such abilities will work off the true attack speed with channeled abilities as opposed to the cycle-rate. These are probably different things, though it doesn't effect your damage really.

[HardRock]

I would think that pet damage would work off DPS. But it's going to be hard to tell because it's so low in the Beta. It would make the most sense that way imo.

It turns out that you're correct. I compared the damage of my dogs with two weapons:

a) 5-13 damage dagger, 1.5 APS, 13.5 DPS
b) 11-16 damage staff, 1 APS, 13.5 DPS

My dogs did exactly the same amount of damage with both weapons. The damage wasn't too low to compare, because I used Soul Harvest.


Can you explain more about this APS multiplier please?

Sure. What I mean is that Rapid Fire and Arcane Torrent fire projectiles and a lot of them. They don't deal continuous damage like some of the other channeled skills. Their rate of fire is much higher than your APS. In case of AT, the number of projectiles fired per second equals your APS * 4 and APS * 6 in case of Rapid Fire I believe.


The discussion about what constitutes an attack is important though. Going by how Dots are said to work... does it mean that if your GotD crits that every tick is displayed as with the typical number "flash" of a critical? Or is it just that you'll see the numbers increase by 50% over the full duration?

The latter. When skills with continuous damage crit (Haunt, Ray of Frost for example) they don't display their crits with yellow numbers.

[konfeta]

Well, I *sort* of see the logic behind single target DoTs not scaling with Attack Speed (even though they will still become obsolete as damage skills if their damage per cast drops below other single target attacks), but for AoE DoTs like Blizzard or Poison Cloud...?


*OK, they wouldn't actually become flat out obsolete, but still, utility as a supporting damage ability goes down if you lose killing speed by casting a DoT.

[HardRock]

Yeah, looks like AoE DoTs that don't have a cooldown won't be very good unless you're using a two-hander.

However, I'm still betting that Blizzard isn't implemented as a DoT and instead it will work like Arcane Torrent. This would mean more projectiles as APS increases and critical hits calculated per enemy hit.

[sacridoc]

I wouldn't be surprised if the high cost AoE dots work the same way as GotD. Especially considering that you can't stack them on top of each other in one area. After you cast Blizzard once it might as well have a cooldown because you can't use it to do damage in the same area until the duration is over and has a higher AP cost.

Someone should really do some testing on how life per hit works with channeled spells, etc. I don't have beta so I can't unfortunately. It might give you some understanding of how other proc abilities will work with faster attack speeds.

[Frida]

i tested life per hit a little bit and wrote something about it here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4363779270

[HardRock]

Someone should really do some testing on how life per hit works with channeled spells

Without testing, I have to say the most likely scenario is that they will give you life per cycle or per hit, depending on the skill.

[sacridoc]

i tested life per hit a little bit and wrote something about it here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4363779270

Ah... it seems like it'll work differently for each skill based on how many monsters they expect you to hit with the ability. And for channeled spells it'll be based on the cycle but you won't get the full amount of life per cycle. Overall it seems like it'll be difficult to calculate honestly.

It brings another thing into question which is how it seems like skills have different base attack speeds. Like even single target skills, some of them have a faster attack speed than others. It makes everything pretty confusing.

[HardRock]

Alright, I looked at this affix as well. I had 4 Life per hit on my gear, a 1 APS weapon and used Ray of Frost, Arcane Torrent, Haunt, Grasp of the Dead, Firebats, and Rend for my testing.

Ray of Frost: Restored about 4 Life per second.
Arcane Torrent: Restored about 1 Life per every enemy hit by one of its projectiles.
Haunt: I got 4 Life per cast and an additional 4 Life every time Haunt found a new target.
Grasp of the Dead: Gave me a regen of about 2 Life per second for every enemy hit.
Firebats: Regen'd about 2.4 Life per second per enemy.
Rend: Healed me for 1.25 Life for every enemy on the initial hit. The DoT damage didn't restore any Life.

With channeled skills, I didn't notice any clear differences between faster and slower weapons as far as this affix is concerned. However, this is most likely because the displayed numbers are rounded, so we would need much higher Life per hit numbers to better compare different weapons.

[Ganoidyn]

I just wanted to pop in and say that all of you are amazing, and the past three pages on this thread have been a very enlightening read.

I would imagine that the reason weapons with a faster attack speed will give you a higher resource cost with channeled spells such as Firebats and Ray of Frost is that in the endgame, fast one-handers will outperform two-handers in terms of DPS - and thus also in terms of damage-per-tick.

[HardRock]

EDIT: Please disregard this post.

Yeah, strangely enough faster weapons are more bursty with channeled spell, while with other skills it's the other way around.

[Sooru]

Yeah, strangely enough faster weapons are more bursty with channeled spell, while with other skills it's the other way around.

Don't all weapons simply do constant weapon dps over X time spent casting with channeled spells, while faster ones pay more resources/second for it? I can't even count the times I've become confused when reading this thread due to people using words differently to how I would say the same thing. Once I was writing a lengthy post about it in relation to cooldown DoTs scaling with APS, but while writing it I understood how people use the words scaling in that context. Personally I like to talk about skills dealing either x% weapon damage or x% weapon dps (which would be the 'scaling with APS' thing) per hit

I understand what you mean with slow weapons being more bursty with normal skills, the huge hit can come out of nothing but there's a large delay before the next hit connects. With fast weapons it's quicker stream of smaller hits. But when talking of channeled spells, what are you comparing the faster weapons to when you say they are more bursty?

[HardRock]

Forget what I said, it was a brainfart on my part. Only the DPS matters for channeled skills, so two weapons with the same DPS, even if their APS differs, will do the same amount of damage over any amount of time.

[Sooru]

Ah good, so I am on the same page afterall :)

[HardRock]

I'm a night owl and I woke up about 30 minutes ago, but I guess I'm still not completely awake yet. :)

[LeOsTyLe]

i know that DoT skills dont stack, when i make a DoT skill more time on the same monster. But what is about, when i use two diffrent DoT skills or two player use two diffrent DoT on the same monster? Still dont stack?

[HardRock]

The DoTs will stack in that case, even if two players use the same DoT.

[zakaluka]

I only read the first few pages of this discussion, so I'll make this very brief.

This is Blizzard we're dealing with here. With regard to dual-wielding providing only 15% APS to your attacks:
1) That seems strange..... A throwback to early d2 where dual wielding was completely unintuitive and did almost no good.
2) Blizzard is known for putting false information in tooltips (by simplifying them) just so that more casual players won't get confused.

Any facts you try to derive from a tooltip are subject to pretty large oversights.

[blinblinbl]

Hi

I apologize for I'm not good in English. ;(

I've read all articles in this thread, but still confused about dmg vs DPS.

1. Channeled skills tick faster if I equipped faster weapon, and do same damage with same DPS weapon whether weapon speed is slow or fast.

2. Non-channeled DoTs damage is based on weapon damage and fixed tick rate thus higher dmg weapon does more damage. But with faster weapon, I can cast more frequently(if no cooldown).

3. Direct damage skills are based on weapon damage and higher dmg weapon does more damage as well. But with faster weapon, I can cast more frequently(if no cooldown).

4. Skill that has cooldown is depend on weapon damage, no benefit from APS.

Is this right?

[HardRock]

Welcome!


1. Channeled skills tick faster if I equipped faster weapon, and do same damage with same DPS weapon whether weapon speed is slow or fast.

Kinda. I don't want to confuse you about the tick rate, so let's just concentrate on what's really important. Yes, same DPS weapons will do the same amount of damage with these skills over time, but the faster your weapon is the more resource (mana, arcane power, etc.) it will cost you. So faster weapons are less resource efficient.


2. Non-channeled DoTs damage is based on weapon damage and fixed tick rate thus higher dmg weapon does more damage. But with faster weapon, I can cast more frequently(if no cooldown).

Correct.


3. Direct damage skills are based on weapon damage and higher dmg weapon does more damage as well. But with faster weapon, I can cast more frequently(if no cooldown).

Again, correct.


4. Skill that has cooldown is depend on weapon damage, no benefit from APS.

I'm not sure about skills, that do instant damage like Wave of Force. Hopefully someone can help with this.

Grasp of the Dead however (which is an area DoT) does benefit from APS, meaning that it doesn't favor either slow or fast weapons. I assume the Barb's Earthquake and other similar skills will work like this as well.

[blinblinbl]

Thank you HardRock for reply clarified my questions.




I'm not sure about skills, that do instant damage like Wave of Force. Hopefully someone can help with this.

Grasp of the Dead however (which is an area DoT) does benefit from APS, meaning that it doesn't favor either slow or fast weapons. I assume the Barb's Earthquake and other similar skills will work like this as well.

Then, Does Grasp of the Dead higher damage per (fixed)tick w/ high APS(but same damage per attack) weapon?

[HardRock]

Yep. If you have two weapons, one with 10 damage and 1 APS and the other with 5 damage and 2 APS, then they will do the same amount of damage with Grasp of the Dead, meaning that if you increase the damage or APS of either weapons, then GotD's damage will be increased as well. Basically, GotD (and most likely other similar skills) only cares about your DPS. I hope I answered your question.

[blinblinbl]

Thank you!

And I found that Instant damage skills depend on weapon damage, not DPS @B.net forum!
All's clear!

[HardRock]

You're welcome.

Could you post a link to the thread you found on the official forums?

[blinblinbl]

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4253968229?page=3#56

Here it is

[HardRock]

Oh, I meant that I don't know how abilities with instant damage and cooldowns calculate their damage. I assume the same way as Grasp of the Dead, because otherwise they would be really weak for fast weapons.

[blinblinbl]

Oh, I meant that I don't know how abilities with instant damage and cooldowns calculate their damage. I assume the same way as Grasp of the Dead, because otherwise they would be really weak for fast weapons.

Yup, I agree.
IMO, skill combinations are determined by weapon speed... maybe.

[HardRock]

Definitely. Equipping a faster or slower weapon often will be a loss in power, unless you adjust your skill set.

[konfeta]

Great news:



Damage over time debuffs are not benefiting from items that grant crit chance.


It's a known issue and they will fix it. Haunt, etc. will now no longer become obsolete as damage dealers because they are unable to benefit from a fundamental scaling attribute. I hope this applies to stuff like Ray of Frost.