Physical Vs Elemental the never ending story

The end.

Nice post purplefly, I love constructive feedback!

About frenzy, I got that wrong then, sorry!

We can try to make a formula for this:

X = Base damage (all flat physical damage)
Y = Base elemental damage (all flat elemental damage)
P = %physical
E = %elemental
Z = %added damage
C = Conversion rate


To calculate elemental damage:
E * ((Z * P * X) + (C * P * X) + Y))

Player 1:
Gear:
High Dps thicket = 188
Rings that give +72% WED
Gloves that give +36% WED
Broadstroke and The Magnate that gives +55% phys
Helms and chests are excluded from the equation
Lets assume that rings adds 3-300 elemental damage (1-100 of each type) = 150
Gloves adds 1-100 elemental damage = 50

Stats:
Phys% from gear = +55%
Phys% from passives = 136%
Total phys% = 191%
Total WED% = 108%
Added elemental damage = 200

Skills:
Added Fire damage: 30% added fire damage
Hatred: 25% added cold damage
Lightning strike: 50% convertion

Add this to the equation:
E * ((Z * P * X) + (C * P * X) + Y))
2,08 * ((0,55 * 2,91 * 188) + (0,5 * 2,91 * 188) + 200)) = 1611 elemental damage

This player will also deal 188/2 * 2,91 = 274 physical damage


Player 2:
Gear:
Thicket bow with these stats:
Phys dmg: 45
Elemental damage : 121
Rings that give +72% WED
Gloves that give +36% WED
Belt and quiver that gives +72% WED
Helms and chests are excluded from the equation
Lets assume that rings adds 3-300 elemental damage (1-100 of each type) = 150
Gloves adds 1-100 elemental damage = 50
Quiver adds 3-300 elemental damage = 150

Skills:
Wrath + inner force = +70 elemental damage
WED support gem +80% WED

Stats:
%Phys from passives = 70%
%WED from passives = 120%
%WED from gear = 180%
Total %WED = 380%
Added elemental damage = 350

Add this to the equation
E * ((Z * P * X) + (C * P * X) + Y))
4,8 * ((0 * 1,7 * 45) + (0,5 * 1,7 * 45) + 350))
4,8(0,5 * 1,7 * 45 + 350) = 1863 elemental damage

This player will also deal 45/2 * 1,7 = 48 physical damage


Player 3:
Gear:
High Dps thicket = 188
Rings that give +72% WED
Gloves that give +36% WED
The Magnate that gives +25% phys
Blackgleam that adds 50% convertion
Helms and chests are excluded from the equation
Lets assume that rings adds 3-300 elemental damage (1-100 of each type) = 150
Gloves adds 1-100 elemental damage = 50

Stats:
Phys% from gear = +25%
Phys% from passives = 136%
Total phys% = 161%
Total WED% = 108%
Added elemental damage = 200

Skills:
Added Fire damage: 30% added fire damage
Hatred: 25% added cold damage
Lightning strike: 50% convertion

Add this to the equation:
E * ((Z * P * X) + (C * P * X) + Y))
2,08 * ((0,55 * 2,61 * 188) + (1 * 2,61 * 188) + 200)) = 1998 elemental damage

This player will deal 0 physical damage.

Player 4:
Gear:
High Dps thicket = 188
Rings that give +72% WED
Gloves that give +36% WED
The Magnate that gives +25% phys
Blackgleam that adds 50% convertion
Helms and chests are excluded from the equation
Lets assume that rings adds 3-300 elemental damage (1-100 of each type) = 150
Gloves adds 1-100 elemental damage = 50

Skills:
WED support gem +80% WED
Hatred: 25% added cold damage
Lightning strike: 50% convertion

Stats:
Phys% from gear = +25%
Phys% from passives = 136%
Total phys% = 161%
Total WED% = 188%
Added elemental damage = 200

Add this to the equation:
E * ((Z * P * X) + (C * P * X) + Y))
2,88(1,25 * 2,61 * 188 + 200) = 2342 elemental damage

This player will deal 0 physical damage.

Conclusion:
The ideal path is to up physical damage as high as possible and then convert 100% of it to elemental damage. And that Weapon elemental damage > Added fire damage.

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Altadoc wrote:

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Khazrad wrote:

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well, excuse me.

Flat damage modifiers scale with attack speed. Elemental damage scales linear with attack speed, so 20% less damage and 20% more attack speed cancel each other out. It makes sense to use the fastest base speed to maximize those modifiers. For Physical damage this isn't true. 20% less damage and 20% more attack speed don't sum to zero because the 'armor penetration value' is lower for the attack speed case. Which means that physical builds should use slow bases to maximize the armor pen which in turm makes flat damage modifiers even worse.

That makes your comment more clear and I agree it is a factor, from the armour penetration point of view.

However I would be very surprised (although not crunched any numbers yet) that the armour penetration value is relevant at the sort of damage levels we are talking about here.

i.e. I am saying that for all intensive purposes 20% more damage, 20% less attack speed vs 20% less damage, 20% increased attack speed, really is the same for both physical and elemental damage.

Usually armour penetration becomes significant when damage scales up by orders of magnitude, not by some few percent.

.

Let's look at some values.
M = Tooltip Damage Multiplier
X = Armor/Damage
R = Original Damage Reduction ( Armor /(Armor + 12*Damage) )
Actual Damage Multiplier = M*(1-(X/(X+12*M)))/(1-R)

At 10% damage reduction from armor ( D = 3/4 A )
+10% tooltip damage = 1.110091743
+20% tooltip damage = 1.220338983
+30% tooltip damage = 1.330708661
+40% tooltip damage = 1.441176471
+50% tooltip damage = 1.551724138
+60% tooltip damage = 1.662337662
+70% tooltip damage = 1.773006135
+80% tooltip damage = 1.88372093
+90% tooltip damage = 1.994475138
+100% tooltip damage= 2.105263158

At 20% damage reduction from armor ( D = 1/3 A )
+10% tooltip damage = 1.12037037
+20% tooltip damage = 1.24137931
+30% tooltip damage = 1.362903226
+40% tooltip damage = 1.484848485
+50% tooltip damage = 1.607142857
+60% tooltip damage = 1.72972973
+70% tooltip damage = 1.852564103
+80% tooltip damage = 1.975609756
+90% tooltip damage = 2.098837209
+100% tooltip damage= 2.222222222

At 30% damage reduction from armor ( D = 7/36 A )
+10% tooltip damage = 1.130841121
+20% tooltip damage = 1.263157895
+30% tooltip damage = 1.396694215
+40% tooltip damage = 1.53125
+50% tooltip damage = 1.666666667
+60% tooltip damage = 1.802816901
+70% tooltip damage = 1.939597315
+80% tooltip damage = 2.076923077
+90% tooltip damage = 2.214723926
+100% tooltip damage= 2.352941176

At 50% damage reduction from armor ( D = 1/12 A )
+10% tooltip damage = 1.152380952
+20% tooltip damage = 1.309090909
+30% tooltip damage = 1.469565217
+40% tooltip damage = 1.633333333
+50% tooltip damage = 1.8
+60% tooltip damage = 1.969230769
+70% tooltip damage = 2.140740741
+80% tooltip damage = 2.314285714
+90% tooltip damage = 2.489655172
+100% tooltip damage =2.666666667

+20% Damage values
10% Damage Reduction = 1.220338983
20% Damage Reduction = 1.24137931
30% Damage Reduction = 1.263157895
40% Damage Reduction = 1.285714286
50% Damage Reduction = 1.309090909
60% Damage Reduction = 1.333333333
70% Damage Reduction = 1.358490566
80% Damage Reduction = 1.384615385
90% Damage Reduction = 1.411764706

At 20% Damage Reduction from armor, +20% Damage = +24.1% Attack Speed.
At 50% Damage Reduction from armor, +20% Damage = +30.9% Attack Speed.
At 50% Damage Reduction from armor, +50% Damage = +80% Attack Speed.

Here's a very sobering number, on a mob with enough armor to achieve 50% damage reduction, a 4x crit is actually a 6.4x crit. That crit added 80% more damage than the tooltip says.

Physical archers suck because the 59% more damage gem for physical only applies to melee.

Give that to ranged attacks as well and you'll see them be a lot more viable.


Also lionseye glare is an example of an awful unique, hurfdurf max stat rolls + 1 special ability.


That's like giving kaom's heart the ability to have sockets and other stats.

@Celavie:

Afaik your formula looks correct. BUT there's a mistake in your actual calculations. WED support gem is a more modifier. So it is not additive with %WED on gear/passives but is a multiplier.

If you are using WED support gem, you'd have to

Support gem * (E * ((Z * P * X) + (C * P * X) + Y)))


Making these calculations is trickier then you would think. We can safely assume that all builds would use LA+lmp+chain+WED. So if you are thinking 4L, its either WED or added fire.

However once we think about a 6L it would become trickier. Let's say we would make LA+lmp+chain+WED+faster attacks+added fire. Now we would have to consider the practical side of the theory. We need mana to actually use the skill. This is not a problem untill we think about the practical use of aura's.

If we are looking at it only from dps perspective, I'd say hatred/haste on mp and wrath/anger on hp. However that might not even be practically possible in terms of 6L LA vs mana. I don't own a 6L but from what I can see around, the most common approach is to use LA+chain+lmp+wed+loh+blood magic. That way you could run pretty much any aura you'd want.

BUT to make it interesting we can assume LA+chain+lmp+wed+bloodmagic is basically good enough. That would leave us one skillgem slot! The problem is it would become even more complicated. We would be looking at added fire vs faster attacks vs added lightning vs elemental proliferation. The problem with making calculations at this point is you'd have to consider your actual lightning damage and shock chance/duration. Because you'd need to compare a direct dps vs indirect dps.

I feel 20q added lightning or elemental proliferation might yield more dmg. Basically at this point I would not look at "how much dps does the tooltip give me" but "how much lightning dps" do I have".

Tbh I have tried my hand at making detailed calculations before but in the end I gave up because it takes so much time. There are so many variables on gear+6L+actual active skill. We are looking only at LA, but you could use RoA with conc effect or 7 charge frenzy+chain+lmp or split arrow which has an inherent 5 projectiles and would not need lmp (30% less proj dmg/150% mana cost).


@AtheistGod:

I really wish we had acces to monster stats. My speculation is that in general mobs don't really have that much armour. If it was high, it would make anything with lower phys dmg useless (1 handed melee/wands/bows) but maybe that's exactly what's going on. :)

Damage conversions such as 75% Phys + 25% Chaos vs 100% Phys can be used to try and calculate mob armor. It will be a lot of work, though. The lack of static damage abilities in this game make this process much more difficult. 100% conversion would also ease the process.

You forgot to do the math with armor for the mobs. Ele dmg doesnt have to worry about that unless they have res of course. Another thing about lighting dmg crits it allows for them to take more dmg then previously. let me know what ya think im a huge fan of ele dmg after my wander

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VeniVidiVic1 wrote:

You forgot to do the math with armor for the mobs. Ele dmg doesnt have to worry about that unless they have res of course. Another thing about lighting dmg crits it allows for them to take more dmg then previously. let me know what ya think im a huge fan of ele dmg after my wander

Resistance scales linearly, and is a considerably bigger problem than armor. Also, this is a really old thread.