Physical Vs Elemental the never ending story

*WARNING* Wall of text ahead:

In this thread I am going to attempt to determine wheater or not its better to add physical damage modifiers or elemental damage modifiers.

For the record (since alot of people will jump on me for this) elemental damage is far superiour when the damage actually lands on a mob, this is just two different methods of achiving that.

For this example I am going to assume that:

Player 1 (Physical increase) is using the following:
Lioneyes glare
Broadstroke
Is using this build

If we disregard every aspect of the build except for damage boosting this is the values we get:

Physical damage multiplier: 106% (with iron grip) + 30% (broadstroke) = 136%
Attack speed increase: 69% + (20% lioneyes) = 89%
Projectile damage increase: 67%

Player 2 (Elemental increase) is using the following:
Thicket bow
Random quiver that equals broadstroke (+30% elemental damage increase)
Is using this build

If we disregard every aspect of the build except for damage boosting this is the values we get:

Physical damage multiplier: 76% (with iron grip)
Elemental damage increase: 90% + 30% (quiver) = 120%
Attack speed increase: 43% + 15% (Thicket bow) = 58%
Projectile damage increase: 36%


BASE DAMAGE
Player 1:
Lioneyes glare (min+max)/2 = 200 base physical damage

Player 2:
Thicket bows are tricky since there are so many variables but lets assume this:
Physical damage = 50
Elemental damage = 150
In those circumstances we get the same base damage as the Lioneyes.


Now lets look at the modifers:
Base damage with inate modifiers:

Player 1
Physical damage modifier: 200*2,36 = 472
Attack speed modifier: 272*1,89 = 892
Projectile damage modifier: 514 * 1,67 = 1490

Player 2
Physical
Physical damage modifier: 50 * 1,72 = 86
Physical damage after attack speed: 1,58*86 = 136
Physical damage after projectile damage: 136*1,36 = 185

Elemental
Elemental damage modifier: 150 * 2,2 = 330
Elemental damage after attack speed: 1,58 * 330 = 521
Elemental damage after projectile modifier: 521 * 1,36 = 709


Summary

Player 1 deals 1490 physical damage

Player 2 deals 185 physical damage and 709 elemental damage


Now lets try what this does to skills and gems:

Frenzy at four charges
48% physical damage + 44% attack speed

Player 1
After physical part: 1490*1,48 = 2205
After attack speed part = 3175
Player 1 does 3175 physical damage


Player 2
After physical part: 185*1,48 = 274
After attack speed part: 274 * 1,44 = 395
Elemental after attack speed part: 709 * 1,44 = 1021
Player 2 does 395 physical and 1021 elemntal damage


Lightning arrow
Converts 50% of physical damage to lightning

Player 1
1490 physical damage / 2 = 745
Will do 745 physical and 745 elemental damage

With four frenzy charges =
3175 / 2 = 1586
Will do 1586 physical and 1586 elemental damage at full frenzy


Player 2
185 physical damage / 2 = 93
Will do 93 physical and 745+93 = 838 elemental damage

With four frenzy charges =
Physical 395/2 = 198
Will do 198 physical and (1021+198) 1219 elemental damage at full frenzy

Interesing to see that Player 1 DOES MORE elemental damage than Player 2 at full frenzy.


I just thought of something, many will say that I should comparision the values excluding attack speed and projectile damage, even though its hard to get projectile damage and attack speed when going elemental. But I will do it anyway:

So, to simplify things:

Player 1
Base physical damage 200
Physical damage increase 136%
After physical increase = 472

Player 2
Elemental damage increase 120%
Base physical damage 50
Base elemental damage 150
After elemental increase = 50 physical and 330 elemental

Frenzy at four charges
48% physical damage

Player 1:
699 physical

Player 2:
92 physical
330 elemental

Lightning arrow:
Player 1:
236 physical
236 elemental

Player 2:
25 physical
355 elemental

At full frenzy:
Player 1
350 physical
350 elemental

Player 2
46 physical
376 elemental

Now we all know that elemental damage > physical damage

Player 1 does 304 more physical damage than Player 2
Player 2 does 26 more elemental damage than Player 1

The question at hand is wheater elemental damage is 11 times better than physical damage or in other words:
Would you rather do 1100 physical damage per attack or 100 elemental damage per attack?

The last example is still rather simplified because as en elemental archer it is very hard to up elemental damage + attack speed + projectile damage.
It is much easier to up base physical damage and let the skills convert and/or add elemental damage.

shameless bump

alot of effort went into this thread, some input would be appreciated!

I think you're ending up with elemental damage numbers that are too low because you dont account for +ele dmg from rings/boots/gloves.

Overall, physical damage is safer due to possibly more leech, elemental damage can reach higher dps values easier.

If I account for those numbers, I must account for +physical damage numbers as well. It will be too complex.

Are you sure you accounted for the most important thing?

attack speed?

"

Celavie wrote:

If I account for those numbers, I must account for +physical damage numbers as well. It will be too complex.

+ physical damage is much weaker generally and not used as much as +elemental

Attack speed is irrelevant in the second example because it would boost both attacks exactly the same, this is the damage PER ATTACK, not per second.

On a side note to this, I believe that attack speed is much easier to gain when going physical increase because of the nature of the passive tree.

Also, the Thicket bow and Lioneyes glare have a very similar attack speed. (1.55 against 1.5 attacks per second)

By your numbers they are pretty equal, unless...
Auras.

Anger and Wrath:
elemental damage + weapon elemental damage ->more than double damage on same aura as would have phys archer. and +30% on top from inner force.
Hatred:
Give to second player same Lioneye + blackgleam.

I wouldn't even mention that your second build gimped by picking 18% lightning damage nodes instead of 30% WED cluster near vaal pact.

"

Deen1983 wrote:

"

Celavie wrote:

If I account for those numbers, I must account for +physical damage numbers as well. It will be too complex.

+ physical damage is much weaker generally and not used as much as +elemental

This is not a valid argument. Yes, I know elemental is better because of mitigration. But the whole point of this thread is to should that you can end up with HIGHER elemental damage by boosting physical. Than boosting elemental alone.

Both Player one and Player two deals elemental damage, it´s just two different approaches to getting there.

I don´t think that elemental damage is 11 times better than physical.

Say that a mob has 90% physical damage reduction and only half that at 45% resists.

1100 physical damage will remove 110 hitpoints.
100 elemental will remove 55 hitpoints.

Conclusion: 11 times more physical damage will reduce twice as much HP as 1/11 elemental damage. Rating elemental damage at 5.5:1 versus physical.

Discalimer: These figueras are highly speculative, but it is no way that elemental damage is 11 times more effective than physical.

"

Gremlion wrote:

By your numbers they are pretty equal, unless...
Auras.

Anger and Wrath:
elemental damage + weapon elemental damage ->more than double damage on same aura as would have phys archer. and +30% on top from inner force.
Hatred:
Give to second player same Lioneye + blackgleam.

I wouldn't even mention that your second build gimped by picking 18% lightning damage nodes instead of 30% WED cluster near vaal pact.

Not an issue:

Auras and inner forcé would increase the elemental damage of the physical player as well. And as stated; the physical player actually dealt MORE elemental damage than the elemental player thus gaining MORE from auras.

However; I did not account for "Add fire damage" it adds 30% your physical damage as elemental. This would GREATLY increase the damage of Player 1.

I choose not to include these figues as they would confuse and more or less cancel out.


THe second build is not mine, I choose a very popular LA archer build from the dualist forum. Give me a better one and ill do the numbers. But remeber to not use all the points in offence; still ahs to be a fairly balanced build.