Skill damage - how does it work?

[remodemo]

I have my barbarian (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WZXViP!ZYg!cZYZaZ) and i use Hammer of the ancients. While i have two Journeyman Heavy Axes (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/artisan/blacksmith/recipe/journeyman-heavy-axe) equipped. Now in the tool tip of the skill it says "[...] for 200% of your weapon damage [...]". this would have to mean that the skill will deal 20-34 damage (not considering armor, block, additional affixes and crit and so on).
in another instance i would be carrying this Apprentice Flamberge (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/artisan/blacksmith/recipe/apprentice-flamberge). using this weapon HotA should deal 24-34 damage.

this is my first question: does the actual damage of the weapon or its dps matter when the skill dmg is being calculated? (i think and hope actual min/max damage)
my second question: in the tooltips it explicitly says WEAPON damage. does this mean that the additional damage we receive from our armor pieces does not matter when we are you using skills? only the stats on the weapons matter?

i think that would be really retarded and i can't imagine blizz would do that. but in that case the tool tip is simply wrong. i actually don't have beta access and can test it out. so could someone please clarify for me?

[Raesene]

I believe that the actual damage is used in most cases, because the speed of the skill will be based off the speed of the weapon. I don't know if some skills will normalize the damage or not for cases where speed is not really a factor (for say, earthquake). If no normalization takes place, then some skills will be better using the slowest weapon possible.

Damage added by rings and off-hand will be factored in as if it were added directly to the weapons. I don't know if this is normalized or not. If it is not normalized, then bonus damage from rings and off-hands will be increased by using the fastest weapon possible.

[z00t]

Yeah, I also believe it's actual damage - that's why 2-handers can deal the most massive blows of damage, but at the cost of attack speed (same tradeoff when you're using a skill like Hammer of the Ancients).

Not too sure about the 2nd point although I'd say that +dmg effects from items count towards weapon damage.

[HardRock]

does the actual damage of the weapon or its dps matter when the skill dmg is being calculated?

For skills like Hammer of the Ancients, each individual hit will deal weapon damage multiplied by the skill's stated damage. As your APS increases you'll hit faster. Keep in mind, that not all of these skills have the same base attack speed.

Channeled skills like Ray of Frost will deal the stated weapon damage over a cycle. The length of one cycle is 1 / APS. This means that the DPS of channeled skills is your DPS multiplied by skill damage. The mana cost of these skills is the stated cost per cycle.

DoT skills like Haunt will do weapon damage multiplied by skill damage over their duration. APS doesn't seem to affect these skills, other than their casting speed.


in the tooltips it explicitly says WEAPON damage. does this mean that the additional damage we receive from our armor pieces does not matter when we are you using skills? only the stats on the weapons matter?

Every bonus matters for skills. Basically, weapon damage means a normal attack.

[konfeta]

DoT skills like Haunt will do weapon damage multiplied by skill damage over their duration. APS doesn't seem to affect these skills.
I am curious why are those skills so screwed? They are basically front loaded, once you get to the point where the best way to improve your damage output is attack speed and crit, they are gonna become almost completely worthless as damage skills.

[HardRock]

To be honest, I'm not sure yet about the APS part for DoTs, but the last time I did tests against Leoric my damage was consistent with what I wrote in my previous post. However, my weapon at the time had close to 1 APS, so if damage reduction affected my damage then my conclusions are quite possibly flawed. Will do more tests today.

[yovargas]

Can I reiterate again how much I hate tying weapon dmg to spells? :P So unintuitive!!

[konfeta]

You know, for a system so dumbed down that the casual consoletardsnooblords can understand it, this thing has serious information transparency issues.

[Eeryck]

I believe that Blizzard has made it quite simple this time around (Hardrock can correct me if I have mistaken something) but if you look at your Character Screen dps that takes into account base DPS from weapon and all modifiers from armor. It also calculates bonus from your class stat into that number.

Then your skill average dps is the tooltip value times the character screen dps number.

[HardRock]

The DPS number on your character screen is a good measure of how your DPS with skills changes as you equip different weapons, except for skills with cooldowns and possibly for DoTs. I would still like to see my total weapon damage though, because sometimes hitting hard is more important than DPS.

[Menarus]

One thing I noticed about using two one handers and a skill like hammer of the ancients... is that it seems (like your auto attack and other skills like cleave) that you use one weapon for the skill and then a different one if you cast it again. I tested this by using a weapon that had arcane damage and a weapon that had cold damage. Swung ancient hammer once, the creatured died purple. Swung it again, the next creature died cold. I believe this is part of the reason they suggest using similar damage weapons when dual wielding, is that you are always alternating weapons. The benefit to which is more bonus stats and an increase in attack speed. So to answer your question... it will be % dmg on skill * first weapon or second weapon min-max dmg. I don't believe it factors both weapons into the damage... though I could be wrong.

[HardRock]

That's correct, although keep in mind, that not all skills alternate weapons like that.

[Menarus]

Yep yep, just going off the example the OP had given. ^,~
Thanks for the confirm.

[Apocalypse]

how hard would it be for bliz to have each skill have the damage listed in the description? i mean It would have to change with each equipment/level/buff change but really it would make life much easier. Is anyone not confused by how things are now?

[Menarus]

Yeah I completely agree Apoc... I seem to recall reading somewhere that they said they would implement this soon too... In the character window kind of D2 style... I hope thats true.

As an aside, reading about DoT damage... anyone think that attack speed should affect the duration of the DoT? Making it so that ASP dealt the full damage faster? >,> Seems like a logical progression to me...
Slow large dmg weapon = High dmg DoT that takes longer to deal damage
Quick less dmg weapon = Less total dmg DoT but deals its damage faster, allowing a recast sooner... or potentially finishing off targets more quickly

[Raesene]

how hard would it be for bliz to have each skill have the damage listed in the description? i mean It would have to change with each equipment/level/buff change but really it would make life much easier. Is anyone not confused by how things are now?

That would be the perfect solution for me. I guess if it was easy to do though, they would have just done it.

[Apocalypse]

well we are talking about bliz here lol

[HardRock]

To be honest, I'm not sure yet about the APS part for DoTs

I am now, at least about Haunt. It 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. Haunt did 41 damage to Leoric with the crossbow. With the dagger, it did 29.

EDIT: I can confirm that Rend and Exploding Palm works the same way.