Is everyone wrong about warstaff sockets?

Maybe something about this just hasn't clicked for me in the math, but the numbers seem to speak for themselves. Everyone is slotting physical runes into their staffs on trade. Reddit seems to indicate this is the way, but the more I play the less I buy it.

lvl 91 lightning monk
Build: https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/aecb5bd4-00c0-422f-8bfb-b7dbed400577/builds/d79816b7-7a1f-45ec-ad6e-e3f78041bfbe

Staff 1 - My current weapon



Staff 2 - Found Weapon



Between the two staffs it makes sense that dps would drop that far because of the attack speed differential, but a loss of 600-900 hit damage is surprising considering staff 2 hits 100 phys harder at the top base value (and has +2 skills to make up some of the % difference)

Are people overcommitted to physical damage on Quarterstaffs?

I literally made a PSA about this problem maybe 2 weeks ago even with rough napkin math people still dont get it sadly and they will die on this hill.

Staff one is far better, even without any gem slotted!!!

That makes your example so flawed, even if you where right and "%elemental damage with attacks" is the better option, it would have nothing to do with the example you posted!

And the obvious answer, as always, is: It depends!

How much flat damage do you get from rings and possibly HoWA. How much increased damage do you have on your passive tree. Etc.

There will be different answers for different scenarios. We will only know for sure once we have an equivalent to PoB available.

But the default answer, for a lot of reasons will be that increased physical damage gems are local increases to the flat damage on your weapon. And since there are - HoWA aside - very few meaningful ways to get flat damage, they are all the more important.
If you are not familiar with the theory, google something about "damage buckets in ARPGs".

And to make it clear, it is not only reddit, who suggest this is better in most cases - watch some of PoE's biggest nerds and you will see them prioritising flat damage too.

Same gems slotted so it should be the same multipliers here generally. All that seems to indicate is that the 182% Elemental from staff 1 scales higher than +2 to skills and + 100ish physical flat. There's a lot less increased % available in the tree than there was previously and certainly fewer more multipliers for PoE1.

Its particularly egregious on the 4th hit math (4k less damage because it gets all the ele scaling rather than a generous portion of it.)

I'm cool if people are willing to die on this hill but it seems like at least the Accuracy+phys% mod is weaker than increased elemental% on a theoretically perfect item.

Will be excited to see once PoB2 comes out and especially if GGG unlocks rune slots.

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Lumynous#3082 wrote:

Same gems slotted so it should be the same multipliers here generally. All that seems to indicate is that the 182% Elemental from staff 1 scales higher than +2 to skills and + 100ish physical flat. There's a lot less increased % available in the tree than there was previously and certainly fewer more multipliers for PoE1.

Its particularly egregious on the 4th hit math (4k less damage because it gets all the ele scaling rather than a generous portion of it.)

I'm cool if people are willing to die on this hill but it seems like at least the Accuracy+phys% mod is weaker than increased elemental% on a theoretically perfect item.

Will be excited to see once PoB2 comes out and especially if GGG unlocks rune slots.

You are making so many mistakes, my patience is already leaving me!
But here we go:

Base 1 has lower base physical damage because it has higher base attack speed.

Base1: 60-123 physical dmg - 1.50 Attacks per second
Base2: 63-133 physical dmg - 1.40 Attacks per second

Now if we only look at the two Prefixes that are related to physical damage and compare the two staffs, the are actually somewhat comparable, despite staff two having slightly higher overall physical damage number because of the higher base damage.

However, staff 1 has an additional 122% additional Elemental Attack Damage, that is the highest tier of that stat and 25% attack speed, the second highest tier of that stat with a max roll of 25%.

Staff 2 on the other hand only has +2 melee, which is a max roll of the lowest tier of this mod.

You just cant compare these two staffs!
Staff 1 without gems is already way better than staff 2 with whatever gems can ever be.

This is not difficult to understand!

"

Lumynous#3082 wrote:

I'm cool if people are willing to die on this hill but it seems like at least the Accuracy+phys% mod is weaker than increased elemental% on a theoretically perfect item.

maybe.

it would be situational i think because so much of the maths would depend on how much increased damage the build had from elsewhere, the skills being used etc. there would definitely be builds with lower levels of % increased damage doing 100% ele conversion who im sure would get more from the inc ele like you say.




theres no universal answer to local phys or global ele in the sockets. every individual case will have its own answer.


lumynous might be right where the hybrid phys/acc vs the inc ele prefix is a better trade than the iron vs core sockets. honestly its another one that would have situations where both of them could be the optimal choice but % for % youre getting a better trade on switching our hybrid for ele on the prefix.

"

way2stupid#9491 wrote:

"

Lumynous#3082 wrote:

Same gems slotted so it should be the same multipliers here generally. All that seems to indicate is that the 182% Elemental from staff 1 scales higher than +2 to skills and + 100ish physical flat. There's a lot less increased % available in the tree than there was previously and certainly fewer more multipliers for PoE1.

Its particularly egregious on the 4th hit math (4k less damage because it gets all the ele scaling rather than a generous portion of it.)

I'm cool if people are willing to die on this hill but it seems like at least the Accuracy+phys% mod is weaker than increased elemental% on a theoretically perfect item.

Will be excited to see once PoB2 comes out and especially if GGG unlocks rune slots.

You are making so many mistakes, my patience is already leaving me!
But here we go:

Base 1 has lower base physical damage because it has higher base attack speed.

Base1: 60-123 physical dmg - 1.50 Attacks per second
Base2: 63-133 physical dmg - 1.40 Attacks per second

Now if we only look at the two Prefixes that are related to physical damage and compare the two staffs, the are actually somewhat comparable, despite staff two having slightly higher overall physical damage number because of the higher base damage.

However, staff 1 has an additional 122% additional Elemental Attack Damage, that is the highest tier of that stat and 25% attack speed, the second highest tier of that stat with a max roll of 25%.

Staff 2 on the other hand only has +2 melee, which is a max roll of the lowest tier of this mod.

You just cant compare these two staffs!
Staff 1 without gems is already way better than staff 2 with whatever gems can ever be.

This is not difficult to understand!

I told myself I wouldnt get into this post and get sucked in... Search in this forum for PSA on Quarterstaves...

As I literally have a whole thread on this I wont go into the details as all of it is there. the TLDR is you get more value as a monk with Elm damage with attacks than %phys runes. Period no debate minus some oddballs doing bad builds and not doing conversion. The simple version is almost every warstaff user is converting to cold or lightning so the EDOA adds more value than Phys % runes.

there is no hill to die on here

there is no "perfect" weapon

it all depends on your build

if 90% of people play the exact same build that someone deemed "the best" then maybe a "perfect" weapon for that exact build might exist but thats a far fetch

the phys runes are theoretically superior in general on weapons because they scale the base damage of the weapon, which then gets further scaled by other mods
when looking for a weapon that hasnt been socketed yet on trade you wanna go for big flat phys rolls and small % phys rolls when sorting by phys dps as the runes then have a bigger impact

the edwas runes are sometimes better if there is a lot of flat added damage from other sources than the weapon which wont get scaled by the phys runes and if you have little % damage mods from tree and other items

to use your example weaons:
the phys staff has only a 97% roll, thats very little, could be as high as double that, so the phys runes actually work well here, lifting the damage from 197% to 237%, that over 20% more effectively
any flat added damage from non-weapon gear will lower that value
if you got less than 196% increased damage from your tree and other items edwas runes would be the better choice here, with any flat added damage raising that value

the ele staff has a 106% roll, also a low roll, so phys runes would provide 19% more damage here
as the staff has 122% already the runes lift 222% up to 282%, thats 27% more
as long as you have less than 87% increased damage from tree and gear the edwas runes will be the better choice here, any flat added damage from gear increase that value

i think the main issue here is that monks apparently have very little increased damage, even the big main quarterstaves cluster has not a single % increased damage node and generic attack damage nodes are only few in the monk are, so monks have good chances to stay below the numbers i calculated here, plus using HoWA is a thing i guess...
so for quarterstaves the edwas runes often will be the better choices, but people will have to learn how to properly search for those mods on trade as the phys runes will just boost the dps while the edwas mods wont afaik...

for comparison, my archer has easy 240+% increased damage, some from bow nodes, some projectile nodes, some generic attack nodes just from tree and thats even ignoring any elemental damage nodes as im pure phys, plus i can get % increased damage on quivers, so for bows the edwas runes are never gonna be the better choice...

i guess this really shines a light on how vastly different the tree areas are, baffling that monk has so little increased damage nodes around there...

"

lunaticwoda#2453 wrote:

the TLDR is you get more value as a monk with Elm damage with attacks than %phys runes. Period no debate minus some oddballs doing bad builds and not doing conversion. The simple version is almost every warstaff user is converting to cold or lightning so the EDOA adds more value than Phys % runes.

a dev literally came into your thread and showed you the maths where in some situations the ele was better and others where the phys was better, even for elemental conversion builds.

Socket w/e you think better then adjust your passives. If you change the weapon, you will do the same. There is no way around. :)