DoT and Pet Scaling

[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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.