Weapon stats and DPS... this maths be confusin me!11 der=0>

[remodemo]

So today i was browsing the items page on the official blog, trying to find out what my barbarian is gonna be equipped with whilst running around sanctuary, kicking serious buttox.

Skorn quickly became my weapon of choice. I kinda prefer 2handers in general, so I find more awesome killing toolery: The ever popular Grandfather, and the very awesome Immortal King's Stone Crusher.

But I also want to check out some high end 1handers. Just for the giggles. I find the Azurewrath. At this point i think to myself "hmm.... this does quite a bit of damage for a 1hander."
So I take a closer look at the stats and am immediately confused. For there it says (122-126)–(286-294) Damage. Does this mean that half of the time the dropped item has 122-126 base damage and the other half it has 286-294? Upon further investigation i notice that a lot (but not all!) of the weapons show this characteristic.
Skon for example does (590-724)–(743-1037) Damage base damage. However weapons like the Empyrean Messenger have 180–267 Damage. Only one scale of possibilities. Not two.

Utterly confused at this point something else comes to my attention. The Empyrian Messenger does 492.0–715.8 Damage Per Second, 1.20 Attacks per Second and has 180–267 base Damage. Now I am no mathematician but **** ain't be addin' up.
Intrigued by this i start doing the math on the other weapons. And while the two handers seem to be fairly accurate (although not exactly) the 1 handers are way off.
You can take any 1 handed weapon you like. The DPS is displayed way higher than it is in actuality. Here's just another example of the countless items that this regards. The Wizardspike does 59–178 Damage and 1.71-1.72 Attacks per Second. Yet for some magical reason it does 482.2–767.6 Damage Per Second.

So this gets me thinking. Maybe the DPS displayed is what you would get if you equipped two of the same one handers. So i quickly do the math with the Sky Splitter. Let's say we roll the best possible one twice and end up with 155 dmg per axe. With 1.52 attacks per second. That would be around 231 DPS per axe. Combined that makes 464... Nowhere near what is stated on the page (620.4). In addition to that, if you do the math with the worst possible roll you're even a lot farther off. So that can't be it.
I kept trying to find the mathematical explanation for it but for the life of me was not able to find it. I mean there must be some reasonable parameter or something that I'm not seeing. Or is it really possible that all of Diablo 3 calculates its 1 handed weapon damage totally wrong? I actually do not think so. Please help me out here.

[Raesene]

It might be possible that the DPS numbers shown are factoring in affix bonuses that aren't actually displayed but are still in the database. That's my best guess.

[remodemo]

well that's a possibility i guess, but the thing is the two handers are pretty much spot on with their numbers. in conclusion that would mean that none of them have dmg enhancing affixes. and i don't think that that is possible.

[Raesene]

Maybe their affixes give like a billion strength or something, so the damage they give is not really reflected in the dps of the weapon itself but is more indirect.

[Cid]

azur (122-126)–(286-294) Damage

i think it is minimum variance - maximum variance
so worst azure does 122-286 and best azur does 126-294 damage

hope that helps

another explanation: the weapon has 0-135% increased weapon damage as a variable stat

[Dahmer]

My conclusion from looking at the stats is that it's too early to figure out what you'll be using...besides that there are two-handed weapons where the DPS doesn't add up to the damage & dps shown so they also have dps affixes.

[Brokenstorm]

azur (122-126)–(286-294) Damage

i think it is minimum variance - maximum variance
so worst azure does 122-286 and best azur does 126-294 damage

This.

A couple patch ago they made it so all weapon have now a min-max dmg range instead of a fixed min-max dmg like it was before.

The Empyrean Messenger is strange. If you compare it to its normal white lance it has the lowest min and max damage of the white item.

I kept trying to find the mathematical explanation for it but for the life of me was not able to find it. I mean there must be some reasonable parameter or something that I'm not seeing. Or is it really possible that all of Diablo 3 calculates its 1 handed weapon damage totally wrong? I actually do not think so. Please help me out here.

The damge doesn't add up because it takes into consideration the mods that we can't see