Bow skills damage conversion

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SoulOfReapeR#4323 wrote:

Okay then, let's move on to another angle if you want.
You admit that there is no pure elemental bow build in this game? Because of the conversion issue I mentioned?

No, I say that I see no "issue" whatsoever.
And I definitely do not see any kind of "loss".

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

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SoulOfReapeR#4323 wrote:

Okay then, let's move on to another angle if you want.
You admit that there is no pure elemental bow build in this game? Because of the conversion issue I mentioned?

No, I say that I see no "issue" whatsoever.
And I definitely do not see any kind of "loss".

You're just trolling. This kind of thing should be banned on this forum.

A partial conversion limits you in what passives and affixes you can use to scale the damage. A full conversion gives you more options.

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Avaricta#4758 wrote:

A partial conversion limits you in what passives and affixes you can use to scale the damage. A full conversion gives you more options.

I completely agree.

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SoulOfReapeR#4323 wrote:

You're just trolling. This kind of thing should be banned on this forum.

I do not agree with you.
I explained everything to you, to the best of my ability.

1 damage is 1 damage. It can be cold, it can be fire, it can be lightning.
IT is 1 damage. The process of converting it is not "loss".

How you look at it - that is not important.

The fact is that it 1 damage. 1 = 1.
End of story. Find a way to deal with it.

First off physical damage is very useful for many elemental abilities. For instance, you need it to break up frozen enemies to use herald of ice as an example. The physical damage portion, even if it is small, will cause all those nice frozen enemies to explode and damage everyone else.

Also even if it's only a portion of the damage, physical damage causes stun build up, affects poison and bleed etc. IF the elemental damage is extra, it doesn't even take away from the physical (it's just an additional amount of elemental damage added, and most elemental builds have those nodes in the tree).

Also conversion allow you to both increase damage with physical % and direct physical increases to your bow AND elemental increases. Why is the physical important if you are going mostly elemental?

Here is why. A high physical bow with physical % increases allows you to use the different bow skills to convert into any element. If it's got a ton of say....ice damage on the bow, and elemental increases only, that bow is gonna blow for lightning or fire attacks.

Now you CAN use ice infusion etc to boost the % of an element (even to 100%) but often that is NOT a good idea because you have other elemental damage added to your bow (at least it's per skill so you can do it to just ice salvo for instance).

That being said, in general, you want a bow with as much base physical damage as you can get, a HUGE amount of physical % increase (especially if you are a ranger since there are so few physical/elemental/attack/two handed etc nodes by ranger).

With a high base physical damage on your bow, physical % runes on it, a high +x to x physical damage on it, and +x to x phsycial damage on your gloves etc, you will destroy with your bow using lightning arrow or ice shot or salvo etc.

In fact, I found over time that Titan Warriors are WAY better with a bow than rangers, even though you can't get to the bow nodes at all. Why?

Well a ranger is limited in the damage % nodes it can get. You can get a ton of evasion, a ton of dex, the most freaking attack speed in the world etc, but damage % nodes? Seriously hard to get over 100-150% near ranger start.

Warrior start, especially with titans 50% boost to small nodes? No joke, not kidding, you can get over 1000% lol, 10x the bonus of ranger area.

Now it doesn't end up being 10x the damage in the game because you get damage % bonuses on equipment etc, but it's still a HUGE (4-5x) difference in damage.

Physical damage base, is generally the best way to go because it's WAY easier to boost it, and bow skills convert physical damage for you (after boosting the damage because it's physical and THEN boosting it again once it's elemental...double boost for the win).

IF you have 300 cold damage added to your bow, it doesn't get boosted by physical % increases at all, it would still get boosted by attack and projectile damage, but not by physical damage.

If you have 300 physical damage on your bow, it would get boosted by everything, and twice if you have elemental or cold damage boosts.

So 300 physical damage with 200% physical increase makes that 900 physical damage (that is added together with projectile etc), then it's converted to cold damage by your bow skill (I think salvo is 100% conversion), so 900 cold damage that is now boosted by your elemental and cold damage bonuses as well.

Even if you only have say 70% conversion, you STILL come out way ahead because you get the physcial boosts first, and then the result is increased by elemental.

If your bow was just flat out doing cold damage, you would lose a TON, so you are ALWAYS gaining alot from physical, and even if you don't convert 100% of it, you are still waaaay ahead (and again you can finish off the conversion both with support gems like ice infusion and with some pieces of equipment.

Hope this helps make you happier with the skills. Bow skills btw, are in general some of the best in the game, second, in my opinion, only to quarterstaff skills. The elemental conversions are amazing and play so well off a high physical bow, allowing you a ton of versatility throughout the game, the ability to have very high output with all elemental damage types AND physical (allowing you to use basic attacks to build up stun SUPER quick (especially in combo with snipe), break armor etc, but still be able to freeze things easily from range (and blow everything the heck up with ice herald lol), you got fire if you want, poison (again based of physical and can be very large), bleed, lightning of course etc.

Bows rule, but in my experience, physical base is the best way to go with bows, that isn't to say it's not worth it to have elemental as well, but you want a good solid physical base if you can pull it off.

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

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SoulOfReapeR#4323 wrote:

You're just trolling. This kind of thing should be banned on this forum.

I do not agree with you.
I explained everything to you, to the best of my ability.

1 damage is 1 damage. It can be cold, it can be fire, it can be lightning.
IT is 1 damage. The process of converting it is not "loss".

How you look at it - that is not important.

The fact is that it 1 damage. 1 = 1.
End of story. Find a way to deal with it.

Brother, I understand you. So, I want to make a pure elemental bow build. What is your advice? Is there a way? I don't want physical damage at all. The name of the skill is "ICE SHOT" but there is some physical damage in it. I don't want that. That's our problem. This is hindering us. Or even if it doesn't hinder us, it's a redundancy, complexity.

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SoulOfReapeR#4323 wrote:

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

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SoulOfReapeR#4323 wrote:

You're just trolling. This kind of thing should be banned on this forum.

I do not agree with you.
I explained everything to you, to the best of my ability.

1 damage is 1 damage. It can be cold, it can be fire, it can be lightning.
IT is 1 damage. The process of converting it is not "loss".

How you look at it - that is not important.

The fact is that it 1 damage. 1 = 1.
End of story. Find a way to deal with it.

Brother, I understand you. So, I want to make a pure elemental bow build. What is your advice? Is there a way? I don't want physical damage at all. The name of the skill is "ICE SHOT" but there is some physical damage in it. I don't want that. That's our problem. This is hindering us. Or even if it doesn't hinder us, it's a redundancy, complexity.

Read wolfy's answer.

He is way more patient than I am.

I could be wrong, and probably am, but I thought you had to do some physical damage (even if just a bit) in order to shatter frozen enemies?

Maybe I mis-understood but that was always what I thought, but now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I have used 100% conversion ice skills and still shattered (but not totally sure about that).

You might be able to shatter without physical damage, although that is kinda strange lol. I freeze you SO bad you just shatter lol.

Anyway even if you don't need it for that (and you still might....not gonna test it).....like I said, having phys damage is just a bonus. It's WAY easier to boost, and those boosts are in addition to elemental damage, so just be happy!!!

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wolfy42#4073 wrote:

First off physical damage is very useful for many elemental abilities. For instance, you need it to break up frozen enemies to use herald of ice as an example.

That is not how shatter works. Shatter is when you kill a frozen enemy. Physical damage does not help you freeze. So physical damage, at the cost of potential more cold damage, is therefor detrimental for Herald of Ice.

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wolfy42#4073 wrote:

Also even if it's only a portion of the damage, physical damage causes stun build up, affects poison and bleed etc.

Stun build up, poison and bleed are all based on the physical and/or chaos damage dealt. Same effect as with freeze. The more you convert, the lower the effect will be. In both situations, if you aim for mixed damage you will always do less damage than someone who focuses on one.

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wolfy42#4073 wrote:

Also conversion allow you to both increase damage with physical % and direct physical increases to your bow AND elemental increases. Why is the physical important if you are going mostly elemental?

Are you suggesting that increase is applied before conversion? So that increased physical damage would increase the portion that is converted to an element?

If so, then you are mistaken. This is how it works in PoE 1. But in PoE 2 it has been changed so that conversion is the first step. Every increase only effects the already converted part. If you have 100 physical base damage, 50% converted to lightning and 100% increased physical damage. Your resulting damage is 100 physical + 50 lightning.

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wolfy42#4073 wrote:

That being said, in general, you want a bow with as much base physical damage as you can get, a HUGE amount of physical % increase (especially if you are a ranger since there are so few physical/elemental/attack/two handed etc nodes by ranger).

This does not change the fact that a full conversion gives you more options to scale the damage. And that a full conversion, mathematically, will do more damage than physical + elemental mixed.

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wolfy42#4073 wrote:

If you have 300 physical damage on your bow, it would get boosted by everything, and twice if you have elemental or cold damage boosts.

So 300 physical damage with 200% physical increase makes that 900 physical damage (that is added together with projectile etc), then it's converted to cold damage by your bow skill (I think salvo is 100% conversion), so 900 cold damage that is now boosted by your elemental and cold damage bonuses as well.

No. That is not how conversion works in PoE 2. Conversion is done first.

Edit:
Regarding physical increases. Just to be sure, since I am not certain how you meant it. Here we have to differentiate between local and global modifiers. Local modifiers on the weapon are calculated first and effect the base damage of the weapon, used for the skill. Global increases apply after conversion. So for your example with a 300 damage bow with 200% increased physical damage. I assumed that the local modifiers have already been taken into account by stating the bow has 300 damage. And that the 200% increased physical damage was from global modifiers.