Discussion - Spell damage stat - Is it even good? (1 Viewer)

[juice999]

I run a very caster heavy group composition and I had been hearing from my caster peers to prioritize spell damage as a stat above all else. To be fair, that totally sounds like the correct thing to do. Why would you prioritize any stat other than the one that is increasing your damage as something like a Wizard? Due to this I think I may have been overvaluing spell damage a bit. I was unaware of how it worked and I had made the assumption that it was adding to your base spell damage. This was then kind of mentally validated to me by the AA "Fury of the Gods" which states very clearly "Increase Spell Damage by (x)" on Alla/Lucy and what it does is increase your base spell damage. So I had just been under the impression that all "Spell Damage" was base damage.

You can imagine my disappointment when I realized what it actually does, which is add the damage at the end of your hit calculation. Luckily I haven't been sacrificing other stats to pump this one, but I know a few people who do.

So, how valuable is spell damage in reality? Is it better to be stacking mana/hInt on your casters above spell dmg? Are spell dmg augs still the best choice?
Would love to hear what some of you think because I'm quite horrible at math.

 

[naamloseeen]

I started ignoring spell damage once I made the same realization that you did. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I'd rather just get more hps/mana than spell damage.

Honestly, other than focus effects, gear for casters is just kind of meh.

 

[juice999]

I started ignoring spell damage once I made the same realization that you did. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I'd rather just get more hps/mana than spell damage.

Honestly, other than focus effects, gear for casters is just kind of meh.

You're not wrong, but I'm still addicted to new gear and min/maxing to BiS. I'm aware of how little some gear upgrades have done for me but it's almost compulsory for me to get my main 6 in near-BiS every xpac, lol.

I do get the feeling that survivability is a better stat to prioritize than spell damage at this point. It just seems to me like the amount of actual damage it adds to a log is negligible; almost unnoticeable.

 

[Monkers]

I started ignoring spell damage once I made the same realization that you did. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I'd rather just get more hps/mana than spell damage.

Honestly, other than focus effects, gear for casters is just kind of meh.

For the absolute life of me, I will never fucking understand why Daybreak (or any previous EQ owner) has never bothered to make caster gear boost damage. I remember playing a necro a long time ago, literally all that mattered was getting the raid focus effects.

Upgrading from a group wrist to BiS wrist item - whoop-dee-fucking-doo! An aug that increases my hp/mana by an extra 30 - wow! This itemization strategy is just so highly regarded. Come to think of it, melee dps get screwed here too...

Gotta give credit to WoW, at least they knew how to design items so that every single upgrade had a meaningful impact.

 

[Szazor]

Spell Damage is even worse than that, though to be honest they may have changed their algorithm's since I last really looked - but it used to divide the Spell Damage by 8 before it added the damage to each spell.
Its totally pointless when you are Nuking for Millions of HP.

Is it better to be stacking mana/hInt on your casters above spell dmg?

hInt is just as useless too. It will give you more Mana...but you wont notice the difference on the Damage side of things.
I have swung every Caster toon I have - both INT and WIS over to heroic Stamina.

One day I hope that they take a look and fix the holes in their algorithms - but it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

 

[Avian]

divide the Spell Damage by 8 before it added the damage to each spell.

(Cast_Time + Recast_Time) / 7 * Spell_Damage = bonus damage per hit - That is to say, that's a flat amount of damage added on to the nuke after all calculations are done.

(Technically it's a little more complicated that that, but for the sake of this point there's no need to get into it. Just know this calculation is best case scenario)

It was never intended to be a significant increase. However, like with damage shields, the monumental increase in player damage/mob HP has caused it to effectively atrophy to near uselessness.

As a former extreme min-maxxer, I always stacked SD because there was just no other way to get what it's doing. In todays game, even with that min-maxxer mindset, I wouldn't be basing any gearing decisions on how much SD it has. Not without a significant increase to the amount of SD gear/augs have on them.

 

[Many_Whelps]

I don't even bother looking at the individual stats on an item, I just always make sure that I'm upgrading to the next best tier of gear available. If I'm still in last years T2 raid gear, I try to get this year's T1 item for cheap DKP, then I look to upgrade that T1 item to current T2.

As a DPS player, I look at it this way: Gear is there to make you more resilient and more efficient. Helps you better survive the chaos of a raid event. Outside of melee weapons, gear isn't there to allow you to do more damage just by nature of having better gear. You do more DPS by playing better. Your skill as a player, your class knowledge and the skill/knowledge of the players around you (by nature of supplying aDPS) is what will add up to larger DPS output. Bad players who ride the coattails of their guild to get raid gear don't get to beat out skilled players who are under-geared. A new player, whether they're an app trying to move up or main change who is highly skilled in doing EQ, should be able to compete with anyone else and should beat out the bad/lazy players even if those bads have BIS gear.

Getting back to spell damage as a stat, yeah, you've figured out that it was never meant to be the "big numbers" stat to make all your spells hit harder than everyone else's. It was just a small little bonus. To be honest, I wouldn't want gear to be THAT significant that you felt you couldn't compete on a skill level with other players until you were at the precipice of the gear curve.

 

[Myysterio]

Spell damage is like procs, its better to have it than not have it, but don't base your entire life around it. I focus my caster gear on focus items and survival. In case of a tie breaker I go with whatever has the most spell damage.

 

[RobRenfro]

I'm probably insane but I expect my spells to do damage. What I worry about is running out of mana. So the first stat I add is mana Regen in my Augs. I here other players from all classes struggling with mana. I run the plugins and my casters never get below 75% mana that includes mana starved Mages. Haven't tried out a wizard yet. But I'll do mana Regen first. Because a caster can't cast without mana. No Nukes, No DoTs, no Heals just corpse runs.

 

[secret_wombat]

The only time I would look at spell damage is if the items had matching Focus Effects, HP, Mana, Heroics.

The Impact varies a great deal based on the cast/recast time. For example on my druid :-

* he gets 14k damage from spell damage when casting Remote Sunscorch, this spell will hit for non-crit damage of 145k to 220k, so spell damage can make up to 10% of the damage. This due to the 25 sec cast/recast time.​

​

* he gets 7k damage from spell damage when casting Tempest Roar, this spell will hit for non-crit damage of 180k to 250k, so spell damage can make up to 4% of the damage.​

Spells that cast other nukes will normally have a lower impact as the proc'd spell will usually be instant cast with little recast time i.e. my druid casting Winter's Wildgale which procs a fire + cold nuke will only get 2k from spell damage on each proc'd nuke so ~4k extra in damage.

 

[Eltai86]

I'm probably insane but I expect my spells to do damage. What I worry about is running out of mana. So the first stat I add is mana Regen in my Augs. I here other players from all classes struggling with mana. I run the plugins and my casters never get below 75% mana that includes mana starved Mages. Haven't tried out a wizard yet. But I'll do mana Regen first. Because a caster can't cast without mana. No Nukes, No DoTs, no Heals just corpse runs.

You’ve mentioned mana regen augs before and never answered my question previously. When you say “mana regen” augs what exactly are you referring to? Because if it’s +mana regen it does nothing additional it’s capped just like +atk is for most characters in even semi recent gear. If you’re talking clairvoyance, it’s return are similarly abysmal to spell damage/heal amount. If you are referring to spec casting augs for priests and casters (does nothing for hybrids) then yes there is a ton of value but it isn’t mana regen it’s mana preservation. Hint/wis if I remember the formula correctly offhand is 25 hwis/hint=1 mana regen which would recover 10 mana per minute and while spells are costing 4-15k per cast (40-150 mins for 25 hint/hwis to regen 1 spell cast).

As far as SD is concerned, if you are raiding (which is where a lot of the min/max is coming from) you are already able to cap hint/hwis benefits to dot/spell shield and are already limited to the 25/1 I discussed above on events lasting 5-10 mins for most. If you are raiding upper tier guilds aren’t running out of mana on an event therefore the optimal if you are no longer hitting empty is to maximize SD because while it’s garbage returns it’s the only thing you can do to boost dps.

 

[Mochila]

If you're running an all caster group you might enjoy:
Caster Damage Calculator/Sim

There's a lot of old items that are DPS increases over modern gear, general gear strategy for casters is stack as many proc augs as you can once you have focus effects, the ancient raid Belt from TBM raids scales with modern focus damage and crits - unlike the flat +5k belt that exists now. There's a few other considerations like that you can check if you rummage around with that calculator

 

[WiseTrapper]

Spell Damage is even worse than that, though to be honest they may have changed their algorithm's since I last really looked - but it used to divide the Spell Damage by 8 before it added the damage to each spell.
Its totally pointless when you are Nuking for Millions of HP.


hInt is just as useless too. It will give you more Mana...but you wont notice the difference on the Damage side of things.
I have swung every Caster toon I have - both INT and WIS over to heroic Stamina.

One day I hope that they take a look and fix the holes in their algorithms - but it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

This is absolutely right here - run all casters with hsta augs. if you run critically short of mana for whatever impossible reasons, sprinking in some hint case by case, or maybe some harmony if you are maxing everything already

 

[blahblahblah]

Bad players who ride the coattails of their guild to get raid gear don't get to beat out skilled players who are under-geared.

Yup, we have a ranger in our guild, 100% raider, but that fucker will not dps worth a shit, and always has the best of everything.. and the leadership is a body better than nobody....

 

[RobRenfro]

You’ve mentioned mana regen augs before and never answered my question previously. When you say “mana regen” augs what exactly are you referring to? Because if it’s +mana regen it does nothing additional it’s capped just like +atk is for most characters in even semi recent gear. If you’re talking clairvoyance, it’s return are similarly abysmal to spell damage/heal amount. If you are referring to spec casting augs for priests and casters (does nothing for hybrids) then yes there is a ton of value but it isn’t mana regen it’s mana preservation. Hint/wis if I remember the formula correctly offhand is 25 hwis/hint=1 mana regen which would recover 10 mana per minute and while spells are costing 4-15k per cast (40-150 mins for 25 hint/hwis to regen 1 spell cast).

As far as SD is concerned, if you are raiding (which is where a lot of the min/max is coming from) you are already able to cap hint/hwis benefits to dot/spell shield and are already limited to the 25/1 I discussed above on events lasting 5-10 mins for most. If you are raiding upper tier guilds aren’t running out of mana on an event therefore the optimal if you are no longer hitting empty is to maximize SD because while it’s garbage returns it’s the only thing you can do to boost dps.

Type 8 Augs I look for the stat with the highest mana Regen. I also look for gear with the highest mana Regen . You don't even like caster groups man. But I disagree about DPS being the all important stat. There is something to be said for survivability. Mana is a casters survivability whether it's by heal or evac. I build my groups to be prepared for the worst. I build defensive groups. But everyone loves offense it's kind of like sports in that way.

 

[Eltai86]

Type 8 Augs I look for the stat with the highest mana Regen. I also look for gear with the highest mana Regen . You don't even like caster groups man. But I disagree about DPS being the all important stat. There is something to be said for survivability. Mana is a casters survivability whether it's by heal or evac. I build my groups to be prepared for the worst. I build defensive groups. But everyone loves offense it's kind of like sports in that way.

I absolutely do have caster groups multiple of them. Just depends on what I’m doing and what my objective is on what team(s) come out to play. I don’t argue that survivability is important and there are minimum viability thresholds for a lot of content out there. I’m fully on board with someone adding type 7/8 augs that add to their hme or specing type 5 hsta/hwis/hint on priests/casters or gear in general! For non warrior/ber/bowing rangers that trade off comes at a huge cost to crit rate and thus dps if doing something besides hdex.

Again, I am going to reiterate +mana regen is capped and has been for a long time. You can add +500 more mana regen and it will do absolutely nothing after the first chunk (was 130 4 years ago and only increase has been from hero resolution aa in that time. Math is math, game code is game code. Also realized my previous math was off by a zero. 1 mana regen=4k mana after 400 mins not 40 (6 hrs 40 mins; 1 MRx10 tick/minx400 mins). Hint/hwis will go overcap on mana regen and returns at a rate of 25 hwis/hint=1 mana regen plus I believe it’s 12 mana per pt of hwis/hint

Adding +400 mana via gear/augs will extend how long your group can go before needing to med as 1 pt of uncapped mana regen (again it’s been capped for like a decade or more now) or about 25 hwis/hint.

If you want mana regen the only really truly impactful ways are via buffs/songs (short/long term) or spec casting augs (priests/casters only, no benefit for hybrids). If you want that full mana regen cap you also better have done all of the hero resolution aa line or the cap is lower.

As far as the offensive vs defensive, 100% there are different approaches. I personally lean to the realm of the faster shit dies the longer my toons have their burns/defensives running during the encounter and therefore the less defensive risk I’m facing of my tank getting eaten or running out of juice. Throw in emotes to it and the longer a fight goes, the more chances for a person/software glitch which fails the emote which can be nasty. Again, defense via offense.

 

[Valdemar]

Question about the calculation. Just first glance, the way the formula is constructed, it seems to be designed to benefit long cast/long recast spells significantly more than quick fire spells. Am I understanding that correctly?
Also, I'm assuming that it's:

{ (cast + recast) / 7 } * Sdam

and NOT:

(cast + recast) / (7 * Sdam).

Is that correct?
Regardless, I found everyone's comments very helpful to a newbster.

 

[juice999]

Question about the calculation. Just first glance, the way the formula is constructed, it seems to be designed to benefit long cast/long recast spells significantly more than quick fire spells. Am I understanding that correctly?
Also, I'm assuming that it's:

{ (cast + recast) / 7 } * Sdam

and NOT:

(cast + recast) / (7 * Sdam).

Is that correct?
Regardless, I found everyone's comments very helpful to a newbster.

You are correct; the way it is formulated you will only really get a benefit to spells with a longer recast time.

It is specifically beneficial to a long recast AOE spell because the spell damage is calculated for every mob hit.
It also seems to be decent for procs? I haven't tested this enough yet to be fully sure, but maybe someone else can explain the math on that.

It's not going to do a lot though, even in those situations.

 

[Valdemar]

You are correct; the way it is formulated you will only really get a benefit to spells with a longer recast time.

It is specifically beneficial to a long recast AOE spell because the spell damage is calculated for every mob hit.
It also seems to be decent for procs? I haven't tested this enough yet to be fully sure, but maybe someone else can explain the math on that.

It's not going to do a lot though, even in those situations.

Well thanks! Appreciate the clarification.

Frankly, I'm shocked that it works on procs. They're insta-cast right? That would mean zeros in the numerator and 0 * Sdam = 0. So yeah, I'd love to know how it works for procs too.

 

[Eltai86]

On procs it’s 25% of your SD amount added

 

[juice999]

Well thanks! Appreciate the clarification.

Frankly, I'm shocked that it works on procs. They're insta-cast right? That would mean zeros in the numerator and 0 * Sdam = 0. So yeah, I'd love to know how it works for procs too.

I did a little research to understand it better myself and I was able to find a discussion thread on the EQ forums containing the following post:

Using a float value "x"
1) Find which is higher Refresh Time or Recast Time.
2) Add whichever is higher from 1) to the Cast Time of the spell to get the Total Cast Time
3) Use one of 3 formulas to find x:
a) If total cast time < 2.5 Then x = 0.25
b) If total cast time > 2.5 And < 7 Then x = 0.167 * (totalcasttime - 1)
c) If total cast time >= 7 then x = 1 * totalcasttime / 7'
4) Multiply your worn spell damage by x
5) Truncate the result

Procs and spells that have cast + recast below 2.5s gain 25% of your total spell damage.
Spells from 2.5s to 7s total cast time get 26-98% of your total spell damage.
Spells over 7s total cast time get 100% or higher of your total spell damage. A 5.5 second cast spell with 1.5s recast gets exactly 100% extra from spell damage. A 30 second spell gets 428% of your total spell damage added, and a 60 second recast spell gets 857% of your total spell damage.

Also, the bonus to spell damage cannot be higher than the base damage of the spell itself. A 100 damage proc is capped at a 100 spell damage bonus. This is largely irrelevant as most procs are 720-1200.

(I wrote this post before Eltai had responded but there's a little more information here so please forgive the redundancy.)