Weapon Mechanics Questions

[NBarnes]

A bit more research...

I pulled up the lvl 54 staff, the Stygian Staff, on the AH, to get an idea of what the base stats were like. I paged through the low-DPS examples in white, blue, and yellow, and found that the base damage ranges were fairly tight.

Min damage 191 to 196
Max damage to 283 to 294
1.00 attacks per second
For a base item DPS of 237.0 to 245.0

So that's your basic Stygian Staff. The 1.0 base attacks per second make it easy to find that the average damage over the range of mix/max per hit equals the listed DPS perfectly, which is pretty much what you'd expect.

So, let's take this Stygian Staff of Sores I found. Blue item, listed damage 255 to 431, 343.0 listed DPS, with a listed poison damage add of 58 to 138. 255 + 431 / 2 is 343.0, so that matches up exactly. Now, as we can see, the listed min/max damage is far above what we'd expect for a white Stygian Staff, so right away we can guess that the poison damage add is being baked into the listed min/max damage and DPS listed on the item. Let's check those numbers real quick.

255 displayed min damage - 58 min poison add = 197 base min
431 displayed max damage - 138 max poison add = 293 base max
197 to 293 min/max damage is perfectly in the range that we'd expect for a Stygian Staff.

So I think it's pretty clear that the elemental damage adds are baked right in to the displayed min/max damage numbers.

[NBarnes]

Also, I'm looking forward to the release of PvP arena, where controlled conditions will make a lot of these questions researchable in controlled conditions, especially things like rate of attack for Hydras, Hydra poisons, channeled spells, and suchlike. FOR SCIENCE!

[mickptd]

It does not help you with desintegrate even if it works like you say. I used to have it before.. it will potentially help you on fat bosses which take half of the sreen. Otherwise (usuall mobs) you will spend half of your arcane power for nothing as mobs are moving/dying and your mana expense is HUGE. 10-15 seconds and you are out of arcane power.

[NBarnes]

In theory, this thread is concerned with questions such as 'Does IAS or weapon attack speed affect Disintegrate at all?'. Whatever tactical applications the answer to that question has is for another thread.

[mickptd]

In practice, noone uses desintegrate for inferno so the question is more about how ias works with non-signatire spells but OK, lets leave it in peace

[PhoeniX Skye]

In practice, noone uses desintegrate for inferno so the question is more about how ias works with non-signatire spells but OK, lets leave it in peace

I miss my Disintegrate :( And all those fun spells I used to use back in Normal and NM.

[melianor]

C) ....
The range appears to update with the ruby's minimum damage rather than maximum, which I find a little odd. In any case, it suggests that when shopping on the AH for a weapon, it's important to remember that weapons with sockets already filled with rubies will have a higher displayed DPS than weapons with empty sockets, despite being essentially equal in that regard. Caveat empertor.

...................

Yes you really need to check what kind of gem is in the weapon on the AH!

D) Here's one of my serious questions; many weapons have potentially quite large elemental damage adds listed. My current dagger has 16-65 Poison damage added. Is this damage added to my spell casts? It doesn't appear to be factored into the weapon's listed DPS or damage range.


EDIT: After meditating over the AH weapon listings for a while, I am coming to suspect that the elemental damage modifiers are, in fact, baked into the displayed damage range and DPS ratings on weapons. I haven't really grokked how yet, but the fact that the highest listed DPS weapons (if you sort in the AH by DPS) all have really big elemental damage adds while the ones lowest on the list have small ones or none at all suggests that the elemental damage adds are included in the listed damage and DPS.

There is only ONE spell that behaves differently and does NOT convert the elemental damage type into the type that is being cast, and that skill is "Spectral Blades". Spectral Blades will transform the damage type into the damage type that is on the weapon! Meaning a weapon with cold damage on it will make Spectral Blades deal cold damage!

Just consider the impact this has on your skill and weapon choice when you use Spectral Blades as your signature spell!

With all other skills the elemental damage on your weapon of choice will be converted to the damage type of the skill you are using to attack.

E) Is there any understanding of how +% Damage on weapons is factored into their displayed damage range and DPS? My guess is that it is baked in to the numbers, and so isn't really a separate factor for people shopping for weapon upgrades, but I wonder if anybody knows for sure.

It's factored into the displayed damage as far as i remember.

[melianor]

In practice, noone uses desintegrate for inferno so the question is more about how ias works with non-signatire spells but OK, lets leave it in peace

I beg to differ. Just look what at Frostlions post in the Wizard Setup thread....
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...=1#post8336676

[mickptd]

I beg to differ. Just look what at Frostlions post in the Wizard Setup thread....
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...=1#post8336676

I saw that Thats a huge surprise for me as he also says he got like 60 ias. It would be nice to hear from him what tactics he uses and how ias helps him. Without signature spells and such amount of attack speed I don't really understand that build.

[XenoXb]

Yes it is true that IAS does not affect your actual damage because your Arcane Power Pool and Arcane Regeneration are the limiting factors on the amount of times you can cast a spell within any given timeframe, so IAS just means you run out of Arcane Power faster.

However, IAS is fantastic for kiting because it reduces the casting delay where your hero stands still for some moments, meaning that with a high enough IAS you can theoretically cast while running.