maybe this has been already asked but I couldn´t figure out a correct search term to not have like 100 results.
I was wondering which damage type I would need to pimp my toon the most?!
Lets have a look on following examples:
Elemental Nova and LB - Lightning
Which damage type should I prefer? Spell damage or Lightning damage? Or an even combination of both because its multiplicative? And what about Crit multi? How much should I have at least?
Lich DoT Poision - with Wandering spirits, AoD, Reaper Form and Drain Life
All skills have “spell”, “poison” (with skill passives) and “DoT” so again same question - a combination of all or doesn`t it matter at all and I just pimp what I find the most?
And what about “intelligence”? Does it boost the base damage of a skill so that all other modifiers do benefit from it? Or is it just the same like e.g. “spell damage”?!
So as you can see this are pretty basic questions here… I would love to have a proper DPS Tooltip…
Many thx for a quick overview/explanation on how damage is calculated and how to get the most “boom and fun” out of your toons
I wish it were this simple… and I am sure that you will get someone who will give you a run-down of what works with what in a clinical answer to your question.
However, my recommendation is less about damage and more about your playstyle… There are plenty of different builds (all viable) doing almost all the damage types (see The Build Compendium) and what I have realised is that its not the type of damage that is the issue, its the style of play that matters more.
For example, I liked various builds, The Plague Staff build with poison, the Shield Throwing build with lightning, the VK build with void… my reason for liking them is not because of the damage type… .but how they play and if it suits my style of play… Some builds I have tried kite far too much,… others require building up stacks and then dropping nukes… others still require summoning hundreds of minions and then exploding them… None of these I like particularly much but they do massive damage and others love them. I love the playstyle of throwing a shield around with fast attack speed and movement… I am loving a tanky spellblade melee killing mobs like there is no tomorrow…
Its all up to what suits you and the damage is secondary in my opinion.
Hope my advice is worth something…
Cheers & enjoy the game…
ps. if you just wanna run Arena, then check the ladder and find the build that is doing the best and use that…
thx for your reply! You have pointed out a very valid argument! And of course I only choose builds which I prefer the play style! But within this build I want to optimize for sure the stats… and this is the question - how do the different damages types play together.
Elemental Nova LB is obviously Foes Elemental Nova build… If you read the thread I think he (and others) answer most of your questions… he doesnt have a build guide step by step levelling but you can get the idea what is better.
For the LICH… I dont think that there is an updated 7.10 build that matches your DoT Poison requirements… but the build guide has old Acolyte builds that might help you understand how to build it.
I agree 100%
For the rest of your questions I am sure someone will give you a decent answer. Lots will have an “it depends” type response but I am sure someone will help. I am not great with the exact mechanics of the game… Just enough to be dangerous and have @Llama8 correct me each time…
All “% increased X damage” is additive, having a combinations of “spell-, lightning-, elemental damage” is totally valid and ok.
Numeric Values for things like Spell and Lightning Damage are most often higher, than more generic elemental damage for example. Also do not forget about cast speed, especially for LB, which can have great shock support, cast speed is very valuable.
Crit Chance and Crit Multi is a very difficult story, but @Llama8 did some cool math here:
As above stated, the combination does not matter, depending on the gear peace some numeric values are higher than others.
Poison damage is a bit weird, since it can’t roll on Wands for example, there were already some complaints about that, so you will most likely go with a Staff, if you want to boost the spell and the poison damage parts.
All attributes do “increase” the damage of a certain ability(by 4% in most cases and it’s the same “increase” as for other affixes, so additive), some attributes give Flat 1 X Damage instead, but that depends on the skill.
Attribut scaling is very effective and you should not forget that attributes have their inherent effect on top of scaling a skill.
General rule of thumb, everything inside the skill spec tree is multiplicative, everything else outside of it, un less specificlly mentioned, is addative
Regarding poison damage - I think I remember reading that “increase poison damage” will increase the flat DoT amount (in char sheet e.g. from 50 to 55) so every stack benefit from it?!
So in this case poison would have more effect on overhaul damage than other types?
Poison is a bit of an outsider, since it does scale with each stack further and further(becuase Poison has inherently poison resistance shred on it, which caps at 20 stacks)
I am not 100% sure, but i think all dmg ailments have about the same base dmg, i thought it was 25 base dmg, but i might be wrong on that one.
It really does not matter if “each stack” or “all stacks on the enemy” doe scale, doesnm’t make a difference, but basically i see the system that each and every application(stack) of an damaging ailment get’s increased by all of your characters modifers, like %increased poison damage, global damage, damage over time etc.
Last Epoch Wiki says it is ‘35 (over 4 sec)’ for poison. A flat stack of poison can be increased by %Inc. Damage, %Inc. Poison damage and %Inc Damage Over Time and indirectly by %poison duration. But for example, %Inc. Spell Dmg doesn’t increase poison ailment damage
I wouldn’t necessarily use the wiki, it’s not been updated for a while. Ailments also get increased by the attribute that the skill that procs it uses (eg, Str from Rive), and according to the devs, ailments also get the benefit from any non-global appropriate buffs from within the procing skill’s tree (eg, +% fire damage from a skill that procs ignite, but not % hit damage since ailments can’t hit).
