Mechanical Questions Thread

I've been wanting to try a poison / bleed build with the new focus placed on ailments and support gems and such. and I thought I had a decent grasp of the mechanics of it until i started moving gems around and trying to understand the number changes.

right now on this lowbie shadow besides attribute and health nodes I have:

+84% physical damage
+84% chaos damage
+10% damage over time
+40% phys dmg with 1handed weapon
+40% ailment dmg with 1handed weapons

76 STR giving 15.2% increased melee phys dmg

I equip a single dagger doing base damage of 17-64 physical damage

and put lvl 1 frenzy into that dagger for 110% base damage

i expected the hit damage work out:

(min phys dmg) * (110% base skill) * (total phys increase)
17 * 1.1 * 2.39 = 44 min damage

(max phys dmg) * (110% base skill) * (total phys increase)
64 * 1.1 * 2.39 = 168 max damage

which it does (within a couple points I probably dont have the exact calculations for damage or rounded wrong, but close enough)


now for poison I would expect if my hit damage is 44-168, then my poison for those should be:

.16*44 = 7.04
.16*168 = 26.88

then modified by +84% chaos, +10% dot and +40% ailment for 134% increase or x2.34 for:

(min poison) * (+chaos, dot, ailment dmg)
7 * 2.34 = 16.38

(max poison) * (+mods)
26 * 2.34 = 60.84

so i would expect 16-60 poison damage per second for hits... but my tooltip shows 10-38, how am I soo far off for this calculation?

thank you for helping me understand.

i've been playing with numbers and found a possible solution to my poison mechanic question

if I take the base weapon damage 17-64

and only apply attack specific modifiers before calculating poison:

40% increase for 1handed melee weapons
15% increase from STR

this makes the poison hits calculate something like this:

(base weapon dmg) * (applicable attack mods) * (16% for base poison dps) * (+chaos, dot, poison mods)

17 * 1.55 * .16 * 2.34 = 9.86

64 * 1.55 * .16 * 2.34 = 37.14

much much closer the the 10-38 I'm getting on tooltip, i'm probably missing some other applicable mod, but I'm going to try a different skill gem and some character changes to see if this math still works.

so as it stands it appears attack specific modifiers (+1 handed weapon damage, +melee physical damage, etc) do affect the hits base damage before poison calc starts


*************edit*************

ok i think the thing i forgot before was just the base frenzy 110%, i've leveled a couple times but no added damage nodes, frenzy base is currenty 112.8%

currently using the same dagger 17-64 base

applying the attack only modifiers to it first:

17 * 1.128 * 1.512 = 28.994
64 * 1.128 * 1.512 = 109.154

using that as the base for poison:

(dmg) * (16% for poison dps) * (+chaos, dot, poison)

28.994 * .16 * 2.34 = 10.855

109.154 * .16 * 2.34 = 40.867

so 10.855 - 40.867 poison dmg, currently my tooltip showing 12.1 and 41.2, I must still be missing some modifier somewhere, but it's still close

also just as a side not the dual wielding damage mod doesnt seem to affect poison at all, if i equip a second dagger the primary hit damage goes up, but poison remains the same

Gem setup: Spell Totem Support + Dark Pact + Poison support + Vile Toxins Support:

Questions:

1.1 Spell totem casting Dark pact would calculate damage based on totem life?
1.2 What are the numbers of spell totem life in that case? People need to calculate damage output per hit.

2 Dark Pact has "(0-95)% more Damage with Hits and Ailments if using your Life".
2.1 Would this work with a Spell Totem + Dark Pact setup?
2.2 Hits define damage of Ailments (Poison), if it says "with Hits and Ailments" does it mean it would make initial hit bigger which would make higher damage Ailment which would be then scaled by another multiplier overall granting (1-1.95)^2 multi on damage output?

3 Does hit multiplier with poison stacks on enemies from Vile Toxins Support make initial hits generate higher damage Ailments? (does it scale both the hit and the damage over time (we are excluding more poison multiplier here))?

Why does Gratuitous Violence not proc its on kill explosion when you 1 shot something despite having 100% chance to bleed?
Infernal Blow's on kill explosion occurs even when 1 shotting the monster with the same hit.

Does The Rippling Thoughts cast of storm cascade on attack share a cooldown across the skill if you dual-wield them?

What about for totems -- do they share your cooldown? Share each other's, if you have multiple?

Does the cooldown reduction on The Flow Untethered work on trigger cooldowns, such as Cast When Damage Taken, Cast on Crit, or even Mjolner and Cospri's malice?

[EDIT: whoops, error page double-posted me]

Hi Mark,

I am curious as to get some clarification on a few mechanics, mostly brought on by 3.0 and the introduction of the Pantheon system.

1) Does reflected damage you take count as taking a "hit" in all cases?

2) Does damage you cause to yourself via reflect proc "Savage Hit" in case of the Berserker?

3) If the reflect damage is caused by a skill which chains, such as Magma Orb, do you thus avoid the reflected damage when you have "Avoid projectiles that have chained" from the Soul of Lunaris?

4) Similar to #3, if reflect damage is caused by an area-based spell or skill, does the Soul of Solaris "20% chance to take 50% less area damage from hits" apply to that reflected damage?

Thanks

how do ailment mechanics interact with gems and other effects that rely on "killing"

for example the onslaught gem grants onslaught "on dealing a killing blow" does this include deaths caused by ailments (poison, burning, etc) caused by that hit?

another example would be ice bite gem, grants frenzy charges "on killing a frozen enemy" this description seems a little more vague would that include frozen enemies killed by poison or burn damage?

Thanks,

Hi question about scorching Ray interacting with patient reaper. Is it supposed to not trigger the 70% Mana and life regeneration. If so why is that so? The skill is a DoT so I figured it would proc it.