How to improve damage.

[Spyrus 0]

So, a general rule is to enhance my sockets with the type of damage I use in my CAs or not?

If it is a two-damaged type I should keep them equal to 50%/50%?

Well, actually for example if the CA do only physical damage, then it is best to keep it that way, means that on weapons do not socket a chunk of lava?

 

Attention:

 

To my questions ^^ I need again to clarify:

1)Let's say we have a weapon-based CA with physical damage

and a weapon with physical + magic.

That will make the CA to have a 70%-30% physical + magic.

I have tested that if I have 2 rings one with +%physical and one with +%magic with the same %,

then the damage is raised more on behalf of physical.

The opposite is done if magic was in CA more (non-based CAs for example)

 

2)More complex scenario: thing the previous (1) and modify a CA to have also poison damage,

e.g. Dryad CA.

At this time poison % is shown on the CA even though I have still the %magic on my weapon.

In this case I suppose it could show magic in CA display only IF the % on my weapon was a lot,

but I am not sure.

 

3)So , we have let's say physical + poison (mod) + magic (socket) with 33% each.

In that case , should I put in my weapon a poison socket to have 66% poison?

Should I keep both different types of damage?

Does the CA overwrite my magic enhancement on weapon (or does not care anymore),

since it is now moded to poison?

 

4)In a Dual Wield character you will also notice that the right hand weapon damage type socketed

will determine the CAs damage. So if you have 2 types (ice + fire) only one will be shown and

I guess this is used. That makes me thing that CAs do not work with the two weapons both to hit,

even if the animation shows that (Soul Hammer example in Seraphim shows hit with both weapons

at once, but CA do not show physical + 2 types of damage )

Edited April 13, 2009 by Spyrus

[Spyrus 0]

Deleted post

Edited April 13, 2009 by Spyrus

[Knuckles 904]

It can get quite complex

 

Say you have a weapon with 50% each to Phys and Poison. You have Gold socket and one Blue socket. Do you socket +Phys Dmg Ring in Gold socket and Poison Fang in Blue one? Or one Fire and one Poison? or.........

 

Or both Poison since you are primarily using this weapon against enemies with low resistance to Poison?

 

I believe all enemies have some phys resist. They may or may not have any resist to Fire, Poison, Ice or Magic.

 

I feel the best thing is to have a weapon with max elemental dmg of each type. So you would have a high 'Fire' dmg sword, high 'Poison' dmg sword etc. You should treat it like you do the Relics, just switch to the one your enemy has the least resistance to.

[Schot 407]

Sorry I didn't see your first post Spyrus but now that I have I thought it best to create a new topic from your posts here that were in the topic; Wiki and Combat Arts damage types. The questions you bring up here are much more complex than that other topic.

 

Non Converted Damage:

 

Ok. So damage eh? As you say it's a complicated matter. ^^ I'll go to your question in your first post. If I understand correctly, in your first post's example you're talking about a melee Combat Art. The determining damage type factor of most melee Combat Arts is the weapon your holding itself. The majority of weapons in the game have physical damage when nothing is forged into them. The question in this case is "Which damage modifier is the best to use in this case?". A simple example like this one has a simple solution. When considering whether to forge one of the 5 types of Damage: TYPE +X% it would be best to forge Damage: Physical +X%. Of course the are many other and possibily better ways of improving damage across all the types by using non elemental type dependent damage modifiers such as Blacksmith Arts, and Item Modifiers such as Chance for critical hits, Opponent level for death blow, Damage +X%(affects all element types) or even All Skills +X.

 

Converted Damage:

 

Naturally there is a great benefit in using damage converters via materials such as Lava Chunks, Ice Crytals, Poison Fangs and Magic Pearls. Since the majority the enemies have mostly physical resistances it's ideal to damage them with something other than physical. Even many Combat Arts have a damage type conversion built in or can have using Combat Art Modifications. So after you have converted much of your physical damage to some other element what then is the best way to increase it using one of the 5 types of Damage: TYPE +X%? The in game calculation for conversion is done after damage is modified so if you converted a fully physical weapon into 80% fire damage then the best modifier of the 5 types would still be Damage: Physical +X%. Damage: Physical +X% will be applied first and then it would be converted into the fire element for this exmple.

 

The in game sample weapon, a gun, for the explanation below is level 67 and bought on a Gold difficulty server. Total Damage when equipped is 158-220 comprised of 58-80 Physical, 50-70 Fire and 50-70 Poison damage. Chance for Secondary Damage Effects; Burn 15.8% and Poison 15.8%.

 

 

Multi Elemental Weapons:

 

In the case of a weapon that has a mixture of three different element types using the basic modifier Damage: TYPE +X% is probably not a good idea to consider at all. A weapon like this is quite a good one and significant in the fact that it will provide 2-3 different Secondary Effects. Let's say this weapon has 36% physical, 32% fire and 32% poison damage. So this weapon without conversion will have a chance to inflict the Secondary Effects Burn and Poison. In order to modify this kind of a weapon's damage types while maintaining it's innate benefits an "all damage types" modifier would best be used like the Blacksmith Art Whet, or Item Modifiers such as Chance for critical hits, Opponent level for death blow, Damage +X%(affects all element types) or even All Skills +X, etc...

 

Damage Conversion of a Multi Elemental Weapon:

 

Using the same weapon above as an example; 36% physical, 32% fire and 32% poison damage. If this weapon is forged with a Magic Pearl that converts 39.5% Physical damage into magic damage then three things will occur. The elements on the weapon, fire and poison, will be merged, the fire and poison elements will be converted to magic and 39.5% of the physical damage will be converted into magic. The results will be a weapon with 27.4% physical damage and 72.6% magic damage. However, even though the weapon now will hit targets with 27.4% physical damage and 72.6% magic damage a ring with the modifier Damage: Magic +X% will have no effect on the weapon's damage. After a damage conversion the the weapon's original damage type remains to be the damage type to modify which is why when a player hovers over their converted weapon the original damage type(s) will be displayed. The Secondary effects of this weapon ARE changed by converters. Before conversion this weapon's Secondary Effects were 15.8% Chance to Burn and 15.8% Chance to Poison. Both of these effects can be inflicted on a single target but only one graphical representations can appear on the target. After conversion using a Magic Pearl of 39.4% the Secondary Effect changes into Weaken 39.2%. So using damage conversion will not change the basic damage of a weapon to be modified by specific element modifiers but it can control completely the Secondary Effects.

 

 

Damage conversion comes down to a matter of play style and what works best for the build. Micro managing to the extreme I'd say. Should I create weapon damage that has a moderate chance to inflict several Secondary Effects and attack with multiple damage types in a single blow or should I focus my damage into a concentrated single element with a high chance to cause a single Secondary effect? Tough question...

[Viper007 0]

holy crap schot lol..... my brain hurts now just a lil^ .

[Zinsho 0]

Schot... in a way I have to say thank you, for reminding me of something I'd forgotten to look at. Now to add damage conversion to what I'm writing... Hrm... I think I'll have to test something else as well... just to see how conversions stack.

[stubbie 21]

Great information, thanks Schot. I just have to get my brain around it all

 

One quick question.

Is it just a graphical bug that shows my blazing tempest CA giving ice damage when I equip an ice damage weapon?

[D-molisher 9]

Great information, thanks Schot. I just have to get my brain around it all

 

One quick question.

Is it just a graphical bug that shows my blazing tempest CA giving ice damage when I equip an ice damage weapon?

 

It should give the modified dammage type, my nature build´s edaph lances do dmg type after the weap.

Fire from fire weap etc.

[StiCk_eM 1]

Blazing tempest has no damage converted because it is a pure fire spell, if the spell had physical damage within it (say 50%) then that physical damage would be converted to ice or whatever depending on the type and percent of the socketable. So yes it will work on edaphic lances for Dryad because they are physical and fire if I am correct?

 

And btw great post Schot

 

StiCk_eM

Edited April 9, 2009 by StiCk_eM

[Arperum 3]

Great information, thanks Schot. I just have to get my brain around it all

 

One quick question.

Is it just a graphical bug that shows my blazing tempest CA giving ice damage when I equip an ice damage weapon?

 

It's a display bug, I tested it with blazing tempest, and it does always fire damage.

[Spyrus 0]

Sorry I didn't see your first post Spyrus but now that I have I thought it best to create a new topic from your posts here that were in the topic; Wiki and Combat Arts damage types. The questions you bring up here are much more complex than that other topic.

 

Great, I did it though in that thread, because it was simpler to me at first sight, but yes it is now a thread on its own.

 

Damage Conversion of a Multi Elemental Weapon:

 

Using the same weapon above as an example; 36% physical, 32% fire and 32% poison damage. If this weapon is forged with a Magic Pearl that converts 39.5% Physical damage into magic damage then three things will occur. The elements on the weapon, fire and poison, will be merged, the fire and poison elements will be converted to magic and 39.5% of the physical damage will be converted into magic. The results will be a weapon with 27.4% physical damage and 72.6% magic damage. However, even though the weapon now will hit targets with 27.4% physical damage and 72.6% magic damage a ring with the modifier Damage: Magic +X% will have no effect on the weapon's damage. After a damage conversion the the weapon's original damage type remains to be the damage type to modify which is why when a player hovers over their converted weapon the original damage type(s) will be displayed. The Secondary effects of this weapon ARE changed by converters. Before conversion this weapon's Secondary Effects were 15.8% Chance to Burn and 15.8% Chance to Poison. Both of these effects can be inflicted on a single target but only one graphical representations can appear on the target. After conversion using a Magic Pearl of 39.4% the Secondary Effect changes into Weaken 39.2%. So using damage conversion will not change the basic damage of a weapon to be modified by specific element modifiers but it can control completely the Secondary Effects.

 

Clear, but some further clarifications:

1)If I had a way for damage conversion +100% of the physical or more then again I choose jewel

with %physical?

2)Damage +X%(affects all element types) , if my weapon has only poison seems to me

that it does the same like the 2 jewell with +%physical & % poison, correct?

3)If physical first and then conversion is always the case for a weapon and its CAs, I will

choose always physical and then the weapon does not need %elemental jewel to affect it.

4)For a weapon that has by default a % of fire damage, seems to me that

it is best to apply a poison fang for example so as to benefit by the additional elemental

damage, (still I will have one secondary so no change there)

5)For a weapon that has by default fire + ice ,

seems to me that it is best to apply ice or lava chunk again and not poison,

to keep the secondary effects, except in the case you ask if it is best to have multiple

kind of damages per weapon or not.

On the other hand, I will have 3 types of damage and one secondary vs

2 types of damage and 2 secondary .... hard to decide...

6)Forging elemental damage then is best only for non-weapon-based combat arts, correct?

Only caster CAs will work with %elemental jewel.

Edited April 9, 2009 by Spyrus

[Zinsho 0]

As far as I am aware on the conversions (This seems to be what Schot is saying as well and what I've seen in other posts).

 

The Conversion occurs after all damage increase mods are calculated.

 

To oversimplify the formula just for the sake of showing the relevant calculations:

 

Final Damage = Sum (Damage of each element)

Damage of each element = Base element Damage * Damage Modifiers

 

The modifiers are a bit more complex, but it works out to that sort of formula in the end.

 

Damage is calculated for each element independently, and then summed together (And resistances/mitigation are calculated independently as well, then summed).

 

Now, damage conversion adds an extra step between Calculation of damage and actual attack vs resistance.

 

Once you have the damage for each element I suppose the best way of explaining it would be:

 

Without Damage Conversion

Final Damage = Sum (Damage of each element)

 

With Damage Conversion

Final Physical Damage = Physical Damage * (1-%Conversion) [max %Conversion = 1]

Non Physical Damage = {Sum(Non Physical Damage) + Physical Damage * (%conversion) [max %Conversion =1]} -> All converted to Element of Converter

The reason for max %Conversion = 1 is because you cannot increase damage via conversion as far as I know, the values are just oddities. Of course I might be wrong.

Final Damage = Final Physical Damage + Non Physical Damage

 

2) Yes, If you socket a +X% Damage to all elements in something that has specific elements, you will have it break down into +x% To each element, with some elements having a larger value.

 

3) I'm not quite sure what you mean

 

4) Sure, although using a Lava Chunk would give you the extra elemental damage too, just fire rather than poison.

 

5) If you use a converter you only have one secondary effect type, regardless of what you use, and it will be a large amount of elemental damage of that type.

 

6) As far as I know, non-weapon CAs only appear to add the conversion, but it seems to be a GUI bug and not a true conversion (Try using say meteor vs highly ice resistant enemies (Ghosts) with an ice converter, your damage should remain constant)

[phramulo 0]

For Non-weapon Combat Arts conversion happens iff there is partial physical damage. Some spells do straight ice (FF), while other spells do partial (IS). Although the bar shows otherwise, the conversion only occurs with the physical damage. Thus, converting IS to ice only converts x% of the physical to ice. In general, these conversions aren't enough to really notice. 35% conversion of a spell that has say 40% physical damage is roughly 14% of the damage.

 

I read somewhere that it should convert all non-specific elemental damage. For example, a weapon that does partial poison (magic, ice, fire) will have all of its elemental converted. Well, typically... Most weapons have elemental damage but aren't 'flaming sword of billybob' specific. So, similarly generic Combat Arts should do the same. I can't think of any off hand. That isn't to say there aren't any.

[Spyrus 0]

3) I'm not quite sure what you mean

 

'If physical first and then conversion is always the case for a weapon and its CAs, I will

choose always physical and then the weapon does not need %elemental jewel to affect it.'

 

We have a weapon based CA. If I socket %elemental damage I will have less benefit ALL the times vs %physical damage,

even though I have converted some of the damage to %elemental damage. That was also said by Schot in previous post.

4) Sure, although using a Lava Chunk would give you the extra elemental damage too, just fire rather than poison.

We were saying the same thing. We overwrite the weapon elemental damage if we use a different converter.

But in the end, we have the same amount of % on conversion and on effects (but either full poison or either full fire)

 

5) If you use a converter you only have one secondary effect type, regardless of what you use, and it will be a large amount of elemental damage of that type.

 

6) As far as I know, non-weapon CAs only appear to add the conversion, but it seems to be a GUI bug and not a true conversion (Try using say meteor vs highly ice resistant enemies (Ghosts) with an ice converter, your damage should remain constant)

Yes , I agree to that. The non-weapon based should do what they always do no matter what we put as a converter in our weapon

(And also gui shows).

 

And this raise 2 questions:

1)critical hits is weapon based - only modifier or not? Is the spell intensity the analogous for non-weapon CAs?

2)Attack value / Speed has no effect on caster?Casting speed has no effect on combat I am sure for that

 

 

P.S. %elemental ring/amulet is only useful in non-weapon-based CAs. Modifier is only affect weapon Combat Arts

Edited April 9, 2009 by Spyrus

[Zinsho 0]

%Damage rings/amulets will work on weapon-based CAs, if they have innate elemental damage of the right type.

 

Casting Speed affects non-weapon... and attack speed seems to have an effect on animation speed for CAs.

 

Attack value is needed for some 'spells', like archangels wrath and magic coup it appears. They're special cases though.

 

Critical Hits... spells can critical, both from the yellow mod, and from the aspect lore (And perhaps even from weapons with +Crit as a sword lore modifier for all I know, it doesn't say weapon based crit)

[Spyrus 0]

Can someone explain why in Dual Wield the secondary effect % is not the same when having equipped both the weapons than when

putting them one by one? Is this a bug?

[Dobri 55]

To which secondary "effect" are you referring to? The skill has only one "secondary effect", which you get at mastery - double hit, which is the same for dual wield, sword lore, hafted lore, pole lore and such.

 

If you are referring to critical hit % which appears in the weapons, this is based on the specific weapon lore. But I'm only guessing, maybe you should clarify what did you mean.

[Spyrus 0]

Yes, sorry, I meant the secondary effect from forging a damage converter (burn,freeze,weaken etc)

Edited April 12, 2009 by Spyrus

[Dobri 55]

I suppose this is because the total damage of a character is based on both weapons. For example, if you have dual wield, if you put only 1 weapon there, it will display only its damage and the attack rating will be lower, because only 1 weapon does not qualify for the use of the dual wield skill. If you put a second weapon, the skill kicks in and things get different.

 

On the same basis, if you have dual wield, the bonus kicks in and it probably modifies the chance to inflict a secondary effect by a certain amount as well. That's the logical supposition

[Spyrus 0]

Yes, but the question is why it is almost half. So now I can calculate it:

With one weapon let's say physical damage is 100.

With a lava it would have chance 10% for burn with a 30% conversion of physical damage (30 fire).

That percent is based on physical damage value per weapon.

So, putting a second weapon with physical damage of 100,

the total physical damage is now 200 and the 30% conversion is still (30 fire),

because it is calculated on the one weapon. So before we had:

100/30 damage => 10% burn

Now 200/30 damage => 5% burn

 

If I had put in the second weapon a lava chunk too then I would have 10% burn and 60 fire damage.

 

P.S. Damage lore will enhance that percentage. But if someone has no secondary effects on his build,

no weapon modifiers for example, then the Damage Lore is useless?

Edited April 13, 2009 by Spyrus

[Dobri 55]

Because the second weapon doesn't have a modifier. 10% is divided by 2, because you use 2 weapons, and there are 2 separate swings to get the total damage, and so you get only 5% chance to burn TOTAL.

Edited April 13, 2009 by Dobri

[Spyrus 0]

Because the second weapon doesn't have a modifier. 10% is divided by 2, because you use 2 weapons, and there are 2 separate swings to get the total damage, and so you get only 5% chance to burn.

 

Well, not exactly. It is divided by 2 now, because they have the same physical damage.

If the second weapon had 200 damage then the total physical damage would be 300

and then the chance will drop further:

For a 30% on a 200 damage weapon to ~3%.

 

Remember previously:

100/30 damage => 10% burn (1 weapon alone)

200/30 damage => 5% burn (2 weapons of 100 damage)

Now 300/30 damage=> 3.3% burn (1 weapon 100 + 1 weapon 200)

 

If you take out the lava from the 100-damage weapon and put it to the 200-damage you

should see another % I suppose, because now with a 30% converter ON 200-damage

will get you to 60 fire and if I am good at math:

300/60 => 6.6% burn

 

I will examine that later, after work, but that is how I understood it works or it is supposed

to work in my opinion.

 

The burn % are not accurate but I want to show the analogy only.

Edited April 13, 2009 by Spyrus

[Dobri 55]

That's why I put TOTAL in caps. Because by TOTAL I meant both the damage, the existing damage modifier and any other modifier there could be.

The physical conversion to an elemental damage is based on the weapon damage. This is why the higher damage weapons provide better conversion and better chance to burn, if it's fire, for example. So your supposition is correct

 

I think the burn % is correct It's all in the game mechanics... Although I find it really pleasing to delve into them and have fun exploring the game as much as I can from inside out, it sort of takes out the fun And I still think that modifying the weapon damage is still sort of buggy... At least judging from the tooltips and the change in weapon damage.

[Spyrus 0]

I like maths though ... so I sometimes like to analyze without loosing my interest...

 

Off topic:

Yesterday, due to the non-removed blacksmith arts issue, I attempted to sell a unique sword (saber).

It sold by 60000 and it wanted 400000 to be bought! I did not have the money

They should fix the non-removal or at least put it in blacksmith skill (fortunately my TG can handle)

Edited April 13, 2009 by Spyrus

[Dobri 55]

Well, at least you didn't sell 3-socket shoulders for 50k and bought it back for 6mil, right?

 

This is what I can provide to support my theory on the damage. You can see the same gun before and after. I specifically bought one with 2 innate types of damage. You will note that if you put a modifier, the modifier deletes (or more properly, overwrites) the previous type of elemental damage and still converts physical to the chosen damage modifier:

 

 

Now that is wicked. Where did the first type of damage go? The same happens if you put any other modifiers with the exception of the type of innate damage, in this case, fire.

 

People say that it's normal, but I don't think so. The weapons should work like the CAs - transforming a part of the physical damage and retaining the rest.

Edited April 13, 2009 by Dobri