Iron Will

Using Ice Spear(Level 5) with Iron Will(Level 2 Quality 6%).

I have a base strength of 34. (6% bonus)
I have two items that give 16 Strength each for a total of 32 strength. (6% bonus)

Together, I should get 13% Bonus Damage at 66 Strength given 5 Strength to 1% Bonus Damage.

The numbers don't add up in my Ice Spear DPS tooltip.

Ice Spear with Iron Will DPS at Strength:

42.5 DPS at 34 Strength
43.5 DPS at 50 Strength
43.5 DPS at 66 Strength <---- Only shows 43.5 instead of ~44.8 from a 3% increased Bonus Damage


I know my numbers are small, but it's odd that the DPS of Ice Spear doesn't increase with 15 Strength.

Is there a Cap on Iron Will's bonus because its low level or is my calculation for Bonus damage from strength incorrect?

This support gem is amazing.
At low lvl, you're losing dps because it's reducing casting time by a lot (-19% at lvl1).
Because you don't have many point in str, there is no significant increase of dmge.

At higher lvl, it's incredible.

I'm using it with a fireball + faster casting + fire penetration.
Everything is around lvl16.
Iron will lvl16 is -4% casting speed.
Faster casting lvl16 is +35% casting speed.
I have around 655 str. Iron will increase my fireball dmge by 131% for no extra-mana cost !!!!
I'm using molten shell and a totem with incinerate (iron will with them too).


With a proper build, this support gem rules otherwise it can be a crap.
My build is simple. A few intel to be able to cast spell, +60% mana rgen, some reducing mana cost to compensate the lack of mana, a lot of str and life bonus.
I'm lvl65, this is my current build.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEBxthYY1BQPfyMz_ZIfLhfPykuVEnnUu8Oud3yL9SPGS4n7ayqWfPAGpBVp4QaOFor7Dg62E3YjHaePIFvBLMUTfAftPmiAKlogzidgGBt3fO2hn1TXcZG18T2PC3Grrc-eriuk2z2tfKpbngNWK9wu_bavooB3KQZG_ol34TZZU1Hfm5pxLjV-G6qPyfUFUZp4uphIRpVmswwdYTvdO1672BLBS3EFQ==

I've found Iron Will very useful on yet another skill.

Currently using Bear Trap, Added Fire Dmg and Iron Will. (Can boost it way more but I only have 3l on that item atm.)

I get 5400 DPS at skill levels 17, even without quality not 4l.

From the way I understand it, Iron Will is not a bonus to spells. It is a bonus to spell damage! For example, spells like ethereal knives and bear trap should not inherently derive a benefit by themselves if iron will is the only modifier, despite what the character screen says, because GGG has informed us that that information is currently bugged; however, that does NOT mean that iron will is useless with those two spells or ANY other SKILL for that matter that does spell damage/elemental damage/weapon elemental damage. With the Iron Will Support Gem, it should be able to benefit the added fire portion and hatred portion of bear trap and ethereal knives, and furthermore, iron will should also be able to benefit any weapon elemental damage. Of course, the weapon elemental damage users will almost certainly have terrible a critical strike percentage and critical damage multiplier. I would imagine this could be crazy with an elemental wander with high crit, and iron grip passive, and iron will, and weapon elemental damage but then again I'm sure they have spell damage anyway, which this would stack additively to (not multiplicative) in order to figure the total bonus. Still, I'm sure if you are rocking something like 500 strength and have a decent bit of weapon elemental damage, this could be really good, particularly, for a melee character with high attack speed and auras with frenzy, multistrike, weapon elemental damage, etc. I think you get the picture.

Can anyone let me know if I am correct in my understanding?

"

Vipermagi wrote:

"spells like ethereal knives and bear trap should not inherently derive a benefit by themselves if iron will is the only modifier"
Ethereal Knives is not bugged. Bear Trap, on the other hand, does not benefit from Spell Damage at all, but the Character Sheet does apply Spell damage bonuses to it. That is the bug.


Iron Will grants x% Increased Spell Damage, where x is Strength divided by 5. If you have 100 Strength, the linked skill gains 100/5 = 20% Increased Spell Damage. This works like any other 20% Increased Spell damage bonus.

Iron Will never applies to Bear Trap, and never applies to Attacks (ie. Weapon Elemental Damage). Neither deals Spell Damage, so Increased Spell Damage doesn't apply.

Added Fire linked to Ethereal Knives does benefit, because AFD then adds Fire Spell Damage. Added Fire linked to Bear Trap does not benefit, because again, Bear Trap doesn't deal Spell Damage. AFD won't add Spell Damage.

Added fire dmg on bear trap does not add spell dmg? Hatred on bear trap does not add spell dmg? You are saying iron will will buff ethereal knives dmg, but not bear trap? Then why is bear trap called a spell?!? Weapon elemental damage is not spell damage? Weapon elemental damage is elemental damage and elemental damage is spell damage. What you are saying doesn't make sense because it is not logically consistent.

Furthermore, added fire damage doesn't add fire damage based on spell damage, it adds damage based on PHYSICAL damage!! If you have a spell like fireball and use added fire damage it should do nothing aside from the quality bonus, because fireball is not physical damage.

Either iron will buffs spells and the damage they do or it buffs any form of spell damage. Which is it?

"

Vipermagi wrote:

Bear Trap is labelled a Spell because laying the Trap is not an Attack. However, the Bear Trap does not deal Spell Damage.

That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. An animal is not a cat because it not a dog. It should be called a trap then, not a spell if that is the case, and not an attack.

Ethereal knives does not do spell damage either, it does physical damage. And bear trap is a spell, like fire trap. Fire trap IS buffed by spell damage, correct?

There are 5 kinds of damage:

1)Physical
2)Fire (Elemental) (Spell)
3)Cold (Elemental) (Spell)
4)Lightning (Elemental) (Spell)
5)Chaos (Spell)

It's like you are saying that this is some 6th form of damage which has not yet been announced called trap damage, and fire trap, and freeze mine, do that form of damage, not fire or cold damage, and not any form of elemental or spell damage. But even if that were true, ethereal knives still does physical damage, not spell damage, even though it is a spell, unless it's also some mysterious 7th form of damage called physical spell damage.

Should I make a chart of questions?

Bear Trap
Buffed by Added Fire Damage yes/no
Buffed by Hatred yes/no
if buffed by Hatred and Added fire damage, buffed by Iron Will?
what about +spell dmg on gear, what about +fire dmg, what about +cold dmg, what about +elemental dmg

Fire Trap
Buffed by Iron Will yes/no
Buffed by Spell Dmg yes/no
Buffed by Fire Dmg? yes/no
Buffed by Burning Dmg? yes/no
Buffed by Elemental Dmg? yes/no

Freeze Mine
Buffed by Iron Will yes/no
Buffed by Spell Dmg yes/no
Buffed by Cold Dmg yes/no
Buffed by Elemental Dmg yes/no

Weapon Elemental Dmg
Buffed by Spell Dmg? yes/no
Buffed by Fire Dmg/Cold Dmg/Lightning Dmg yes/np
Buffed by Iron Will yes/no

Forgot to add Ethereal Knives
Buffed by Spell Dmg? yes/no
Buffed by Iron Will? Yes/no
Buffed by added fire dmg? yes/no
Buffed by Hatred? yes no
is not affected by other auras I assume
can the added fire dmg and hatred dmg be buffed by ele dmg, fire dmg and cold dmg? yes/no