Question about bonus damage from items

[Leighis]

Hi all,

I just recently started playing HoS and I am on my first playthrough on normal difficulty.

A question that has been bugging me for a while now is about the bonus damage from items.

When it just sais +damage is it added to ALL attacks or just physical attacks? For example:

When I use the Firebolt talent with Kjartan is it better to equip a +4 fire damage ring or a +8 damage ring? 

Would be great if someone could clarify this.

Thanks
~Leighis

[matrim]

Ok, here we go. +damage is applied to all attacks but only the physical damage portion of the attack. Let's use Firebolt as an example, level 1 because I never level it past that. It does 10-18 damage. 9 of that damage is locked physical damage, it will always be 9, no roll. 1-9 is rolled for the fire portion of the damage. +damage will be added onto the physical portion. Let's say +8 damage. Firebolt now does 9-17 physical damage + 1-9 fire damage. +4 fire damage. 9 physical (no roll) + 1-13 fire. Which is better is open to interpretation. If the enemy has low armor (through curses or just naturally low) then +damage will probably work better. If the enemy has low res, then the fire damage is probably better. Some things to note. +damage of any kind (elemental or physical) only raises maximum damage, minimum damage remains unchanged. So +4 fire damage changes a 1-9 to a 1-13. A 1 is still possible and you will only see the effects of that +4 fire damage 33% of the time. Obviously the more damage you add the more often you see the effects. Try to synergize your damage. Generally lots of a single element damage is better than an even amount of more elements. For example +30 fire damage will out perform +8 elemental damage (8 fire, ice, lightning, and earth) in almost any case as each element is rolled against resists and monster res. You want a number big enough to consistently overcome monster defenses (the exception is a strong strickening build which is my favourite build and really strong, you can read about it in the forum). Also, items can budget more elemental damage on them than straight damage (so similar quality items might have +9 damage and +12 fire damage), meaning you can stack more ele damage if you focus on it (this is because +damage virtually always increases overall damage while small amounts of elemental damage do nothing till they can start consistently overcoming res). Last thing to note is that ALL spells have a physical portion as well as an elemental damage portion. The physical will always be the minimum damage -1. The elemental will always be the damage range of the spell. So Firebolt 10-18, 9 is physical, 1-9 is fire. This means -armour increases spell damage (extremely consistently too as the physical damage portion of spells is not a roll, so the spell will get the full benefit of -armour virtually all the time), making it one of the most potent curses in the game (it benefits casters and physical damage fighters).

[Leighis]

Thank you matrim for the informative answer. It turns out that the system is a bit more complex then anticipated. However your answer now explains another question I have been wondering about: why my firebolt did so much more damage after casting choking ash.

Does this damage calculation relate to ranged damage as well? E.g. part of it is +damage and the rest is +ranged damage?

Thanks,
~Leighis

[fallen]

@leighis - +Damage does not consider the type of attack or the range of the attack. +Damage adds physical damage to any attack made by that character. Enemy armor soaks physical damage made by an attack.

As matrim pointed out, a Firebolt is comprised of both Physical Dmg and Fire Dmg, so reducing the enemy armor is going to help increase damage. Getting a +Dmg ring is also going to help increase damage. Getting a +Fire Dmg ring is going to help too. And finally, reducing enemy Resistance (-Res) or Fire Res (-Fire Res) is going to help, with -Fire Res giving the best possible boost.

[crimsonking]

It is helpful to add that adding a + lightning ring won't do anything for Fire Bolt in most cases, as each elemental damage type is calculated against resistance individually. Concentrating on one or two damage types is the way to go, the only exception being group constellations that make use of Fyona's Holy Strickening Talent.

[fallen]

crimsonking - agreed. Technically, +Lit Dmg adds Lightning Damage, but you need to get enough of it to get over the enemy Resistance threshold, so +4 Lit Dmg on its own isn't really that grand.

[bookworm21]

Neither are the boots that give +2 magical damage *shudders*

[fallen]

Aug 28, 2016 15:24:35 GMT -5 bookworm21 said:

Neither are the boots that give +2 magical damage *shudders*

Why? Not sure what "magical damage" is?

+2 Dmg is pretty good, for a starting item.

[bookworm21]

As in it gave +2 fire, ice, lightning, earth, holy and unholy damage.

Actually, it may have been elemental damage - I sold them a looong time ago after I realised they were all soaked separately

[fallen]

bookworm21 - shrug, I can only imagine you are getting them very early in the game. Give them to the right hero and they can make a difference still. Or stack. At that point, most monsters are packing 2-4 Resistance, so you can still get through with 3+ Dmg.

[matrim]

Couple things about magical damage. I believe that it is only 5 types (fire, ice, earth, lightning, and holy) and that the heroes can't do unholy damage (nor can monsters do holy damage, that I have seen). You can also go early strickening or energy storm which makes those boots quite potent. They also start all element damage when things have little resist adding far more value to other things that add elemental damage (say you had a weapon with ice damage and a fire damage ring and Vincent with thundering blades, the boots would realistically be adding 6 damage which is a fair margin better than other equips at that level).

[bookworm21]

It was very early on, yes

I don't know if I just didn't have strickening available or just decided not to use it, but I sure didn't think of that.