Help me understand pet dmg type conversion please, I'm getting headaches

Primalist
1

I know there’s an ingame guide but for all purposes it is phrased so weirdly it’s more confusing than helping.
I’m trying a beastmaster build now a a sabertooth and I would like to know if

  1. passives such as +flat minion melee physical damage will apply if I convert my sabertooth to melee ice tag ?

  2. Flat melee damage can do the same thing ?

3 %minion melee damage passive helps or not ?

  1. Why is the pet’s Flurry ability doing 1600~dps in tooltip with an axe that has 16 minion melee&spell dmg and 40 damage for MYSELF (not pet) but it does some 3600dps with a sword that has 80 damage for MYSELF and no pet bonuses at all ?

There’s way too many damage types for a single thing, getting D4 itemization vibes when I try to figure out something and it’s really frustrating to “test it out” when you got to spend so much time reskilling then leveling up the pet skills all over again and it’s only noticeable if you’re already very high or max level, at mid levels it’s really hard to check with the huge randomness of numbers I’m getting. Often I get much higher crits without the thing that should improve my pet dmg and lower with the thing equipped/skilled -_-

2

Flat added damage does not care what damage type or conversion an ability does.
But the added damage will be physical and not converted.

Flat melee (or spell damage) is adaptive and will convert into whatever damage type(s) the skill does.

Those still work, the converted Sabertooth still does melee damage. (Melee Cold Damage is melee damage).

Even the added flat physical damage from No.1 will be affected by this %inc melee damage.

Tooltip dps is very wonky, especailly on cooldown skills and minion skills. Technically this ability is a minion skill. I think you cna just ignore the tooltip entirely currently it is simply not working properly.

I do think this will become less of an issue once you understand the fundamental systems better. When you start to understand certain things you will not have to test every single bit of interactions anymore.

3

Thank you !
So then if the pet ability tooltip is to be ignored, that’s a bit shamey for a game long out of 1.0 release I guess. If I figured it out, while it’s a pet skill, it has no minion tag, just regular tags and then it should be affected by my own stats and not the pet’s hence why it displays double damage with a better weapon dps even tho in reality I don’t see that much higher numbers only at times, which is another layer of unneeded confusion.

If the flat melee physical from beastmaster passive tree is not converted to melee cold then it’s kind of useless to stack that since it won’t even be noticeable ,tooltip states pet’s entire base damage and any added on top is multiplied only through %melee cold or minion dmg% .
I guess it’s time to go back to the necro which feels much easier and well thought out as a pet class. Whenever I try druid I get a "now I have to mix two main needed stats and I can’t have a pet on it’s own, feels mostly like a hurdle to make it useful by investing in 5-6 different paths for myself that buffs my pet partially aswell only to end up you doing most of the damage, anytime I check some guide…way too difficult than it should, my honest opinion.

4

Flat damage is never useless, it depends on how much %melee vs %cold inc. damage you have. And for example if you apply cold resistance shred to enemies, only the cold portion would benefit. So it depends on a lot of factors.

You read that tooltip wrong, the bolded part is what you got wrong

5

Tooltip for Ice Tiger states “converting 100% of it’s base melee physical damage to cold” .
Beastmaster has two passives that add + melee physical damage to minions. Now , is that flat damage from passive added to the pet’s base melee physical before conversion to cold ?
Guide says it should and then that it won’t…I’m so tired man.

6

Nothing ever is added to a skills base damage.

I don’t know what guide you are using, but than its a bad guide.

Generic “Minion Melee Damage” would get converted, because that is adaptive.

7

So ingame guide says damage - Tinypic
"When calculating damage dealt blah blah stats like +5 melee typeof damage is then added to the base damage of same or converted if applicable , before dmg multiplicative takes effect. In this case the ice tiger should benefit from those melee physical flat dmg passives but it does not ?

8

I think that wording might be very old, I don’t know.
That is definitely not how its works.

Flat Added damage to any skill (be it melee, spell or bow) usually does not convert, except it specifically states that all added damage gets converted. But I do think even that does not exist anymore, previuously some conversiosn converted everything and some only base damage, this was changes a couple of patches ago and right now all conversions only convert base damage.

9

Do me a favor and upload your character using the sword which shows higher tooltip damage using the import function on the build planner here and then share the link:

As far as what you’re reading, untyped damage is indeed of the same type (and split in the same way) as the damage type of the ability in question. So if you have +16 minion melee damage, and your sabertooth has been converted in its base melee damage to cold with ice tiger, then the +16 minion melee damage is cold damage. If you’ve not converted with ice tiger, but you have +20 cold damage from frost fang (so normally it’s dealing base 18 physical damage and 20 cold damage), the +16 minion melee damage is physical.

Worth noting it only matters if you have an effect which offers increased minion {type} damage, like Dragonflame Edict has +200% increased minion fire damage. Or if you have cold resistance shred or something, or some other effect which cares about the type of damage your minion is dealing. Otherwise if you have total 500% increased minion damage it’ll apply the same whether the damage being dealt is physical, cold, or any other type.

10

It happens without the cold conversion anyway.
What I really wanted to clarify is if those flat melee physical passive values are being converted to the melee cold tag and then multiplied by % whatever cold dmg for pet since it states the pet’s base damage is melee physical and the ingame guide says that any similar damage type is added to the base damage before conversion but ingame seems it’s working or not, too hard to check a worthy difference unless I get all the way to max skills I guess, that’s why I was asking mb someone who went all the way and already has experience. Because when I ask the game guide has all we need but then it’s not reliable :grin:

See in the skill three it says “converting 100% of it’s base melee physical damage to cold” and in the same tooltip at the bottom it says base melee damage- > Cold % … it is contradicting itself in the context where melee can be melee physical but already melee physical is not “melee” only but a converted type from generic, you get me ?
Many ingame skills have this weird phrasing where it’s either one or the other , at least they should be updated to the proper wording when the devs put so much emphasis on very specific damage types and conversions.

If it’s converting 100% of base melee Physical that implies to me the pet’s base damage is melee physical, not melee. So if my pet has a bonus of +5 melee fire damage, it won’t matter but if it has a bonus of +5 melee physical that should make alot of difference since it’s counted in.
But at the same time it summarizes as "base melee > Cold 100% " which then implies the pet’s base damage is generic melee and by the rules in the game guide, base melee can be added to melee fire damage and benefit from the final fire multipliers in a conversion but not the other way around.

11

So, a few things:

  1. The passive is not untyped, it’s specifically physical damage, so it doesn’t care about the base damage type any more than the added cold damage from frost fang. It’s always physical.
  2. In your case, that’s a good thing, as the only type specific boons you have are all physical - you have 354% increased minion physical melee damage, and only 297% increased minion cold damage. Check the minion tab to see what’s what there.
  3. I see no reason you’d be doing more damage with the sword. I assume Heavy is correct and it’s just a bugged tooltip but I can’t say with certainty. Flurry Swipes has 200% Added Damage Effectiveness so added damage is even better with it than normal.
  4. You’re doing yourself a massive disservice by not having a point each in the aspect of the shark passives, at a minimum. Take a point out of savagery and 2 point out of whatever (I’d recommend call of the pack), put a point each in Ambush, Rending Maw and Hunters of the Deep and you’ll increase damage dealt by roughly 25% with your current stats and setup, for yourself as well as your companion.
12

By this damage - Tinypic I wanna give example of why I’m so utterly frustrated with this game whenever starting a new character. Say :

Pet has base 20 melee cold dmg, has a skill conversion that converts it to melee fire.
I have a bonus of +5 melee physical dmg and I have say 400% minion fire damage(multiplicative).
Rules states only the 20 melee cold will be multiplied by %400 so I’ll do 20x4= 80 fire dmg and 5 phys

But if I have a bonus of +5 melee cold, this is then added to base so 25x4 = 100 fire dmg , big difference.

Correct ?
Also is melee a damage type of it’s own or the base ??
If my pet has 20 melee dmg, what dmg type does it do , all and any of them ? I see no “reduced resistance to melee” attributes on items, then by default it implies physical.
Thus if you describe the pet as having " base 20 melee" that makes no sense, it’s always a melee something. In this case the ice tiger has base melee physical and gets converted to cold. Any + flat melee physical should be also converted to cold and multiplied by my final %cold multipliers because the stated rule is "when calculating damage dealt, +flat is added to the base damage if of the same type
Why this matters is because otherwise it is calculated separately resulting in much less damage total.

Thank you for your suggestions :slight_smile:

13

So there’s several inaccuracies in what you have listed. Here’s the proper way to do it:

Figure out the base damage type(s); Sabertooth attack is 18 physical as an example while Flurry Swipe is 30 physical.
Add any untyped damage, modified by the added damage effectiveness, of the same type(s) of damage as the base. If you have +16 minion melee damage, and Sabertooth doesn’t have Ice Tiger, then the normal attack adds 16 physical damage and Flurry Swipes with 200% added damage effectiveness adds 32. If you had converted, it would be cold damage added instead, but of the same amounts either way.
Add any typed damage, of the type it specifies, also modified by added damage effectiveness. If you have +20 cold damage from frost fang and +10 physical damage from the passive, those get added to the normal melee attack, and 2x that (thanks to 200% added damage effectiveness) would get added to each attack from flurry swipes.

Once you have taken care of all added damage, then you multiply by increased damage sources, all added together.
As you can tell from your minion tab, you have a total of roughly 300% increase damage. From passives, equipment, idols, all of it gets lumped together. Then, the total increased damage amounts applicable to the damage of a given type gets multiplied by that damage.

So yeah, melee damage is different from spell damage, and if your minion uses a spell (like a skeleton mage, sabertooth doesn’t have any that I know of) added or increased minion melee damage won’t apply to it. If it uses a bow attack, it won’t apply either. In all cases you can tell what applies from the scaling tags - note how the minion scaling tags are melee and physical and area. And you’re kinda correct in that 400% increased minion fire damage and nothing for physical would make the physical damage relatively low impact, but as you can see from yourself that would never happen. You have a lot of typed damage idols and yet it’s 350% physical and 300% cold.

So going back to the example, you have Ice Tiger, +20 cold damage from frost fang, +10 physical from the passives, and now you’re looking at increased damage; the total 38 cold damage is x4 (100% normal + 300% increased minion melee cold damage) for 152 damage, and the +10 physical is x4.5 (100% normal + 350% increased minion melee physical damage) for 45 damage, meaning total damage is 197.

Then you multiply by more damage; so if you had heavy paws that’s 40% more damage that’s (197 * 1.4) 275 damage, and if you also have sabermaw, since each more damage source is multiplied separately, it’s then 275 * 1.3 = 358 damage. This is before worrying about resistances, area level, or any of a number of other things, but relationally this holds true regardless.

The main point is, yes, increased damage can modify the effectiveness of added damage of a given type, but all added damage is going to be multiplied by increased damage and more damage and so forth, it’s just that the pool of increased damage or even more damage bonuses which apply to it might be different depending on what type of damage it is, and thus what “scaling tags” apply to it. And as far as what damage type it does, just look at the scaling tags. Sabertooth base scaling tag is physical, so it does physical damage base. If you take ice tiger, in addition to swapping that base damage to cold, it swaps the scaling tag. If ever it’s not clear, those tags should help clear it up.

Does that make a bit more sense?