How does %Damage to Demons work?

[DeeBye]

Does +%Damage to Demons affect just the base weapon damage? Or does it affect the overall damage? I'm a bit confused.

Specifically, I'd like to know if the Demon Damage bonus "stacks" while using an IK Maul and a Laying of Hands.

I have a Hardcore Druid using an IK Maul (+200% Damage to Demons), and I thought I'd try out Laying of Hands (+350% Damage to Demons) for cheesy Meph runs. I was hoping for a more than three-fold increase in his Mephisto killing speed using the LoH, but it never happened. It's a bit hard to guage, but I'm pretty sure he kills Hell/Meph just as fast without the LoH.

Am I seeing things? Or do I not understand how %Damage to Demons really works?

Also, (this is a bit of a longshot, I'm sure) does +%Damage to Demons have any effect on elemental damage dealt? Specifically, I'm wondering about using a Baranar's Star with LoH. I'm sceptical, but will the +350% affect the obscene elemental damage dealt out by BStar?

Thanks in advance for any input.


-DeeBye


edit: typo

[the Langolier]

I once experimented with an assassin and enhanced damage from her items and charges. I was wondering why my <insert appropriate charge here> (its been awhile) didn't seem to be doing the correct amount of damage. I forget its name: it is the first charge that simply enhances damage, not adding elemental effects. In total, I seemed to be getting +100% enhanced damage from this charge when used with a finishing move, but the damage I was doing didn't follow suit. Through some math and experimenting, I found out what was happening.

Sum up all the enhanced damage modifiers from items (including current weapon), then apply that to the base item damage. When equiped you can calculate damage based on your character stats as well. For example, using a weapon that has +100% enhanced damage, and a skill that adds +200% damage, the total addition to your damage is 300% enhanced base damage. This is equivilent to having the base item with a +300% enhanced damage modifier. Note that you do not add double the damage that is displayed by the weapon becaus this already has an enhancement of 100% damage. If this were true, your damage would be: 3.00*(2.00*x-y) = 600% base damage, but really the damage is only 400% base damage. With more damage modifiers, the more apparent this becomes.

With my assasin, I have a total of +200% damage from weapon, +900% damage from charges, and finally +100% from a finishing move. I was expecting the charges to increase the diplayed weapon damage by 900%, and then the finishing move to then double THAT damage from the charges. Mathematically:

(((x-y*300%) * 1000%) * 200%) = 60 times the base damage! But what was really happening was:

(x-y) + (x-y) * (200% + 900% + 100%) = 12 times the base damage. My finishing move that added 100% damage in reality was only adding a factor of x-y. The skill then didn't seem at all powerful as I once thought.

*x-y = min-max damage

To answer your question, I am sure the same thing is happening in your case, save that it only affects demons. The gloves add 3.5 times your base weapon damage. While this is nothing to scoff at, is surely isn't what you were expecting, which was 3.5 times your current total. I am sure that the killing speed didnt' increase by a large factor simply because the bonus of 3.5 times the base weapon damage was not a significant increase compared to your current damage that was fairly large already.

This is an important note for skills like fury for a druid, because the +400% dmg for a high lvl fury only applies to base weapon damage. As you can see, this skill is much for effective for polearms or axes, even though a smalller weapon may have a greater listed damage due to enhancements on the item.

I am fairly certain that this doesn't add in any way to elemental damage.

[nookiestar]

The way extra damage to demons/undead works, has been changed with the last patches (I think 1.09). In v1.08 the overall damage was multiplied which made that mod very powerful against any type of demon/undead, even with a lot of hitpoints (Three-Hit-Kills on Mephi with an IK maul/LoH WW druid for example). It did not work at all with ranged weapon though (probably a bug).

With v1.09 Blizzard changed the way it works, probably because they had realised it might be too powerful. Extra damage to demons/undead now adds up to the extra weapon %ED, skill%, str/dex% and all that stuff, that modifies the overall weapon damage. Note that even if the mod is set on a weapon (like on GSA) it does not modify the base weapon damage itself like "normal" %ED would do.

Some people say that e.g. 350 % extra damage to demons on LoH effectively acts like 350 extra points in strength or dexterity, that only applies to weapon, that have str/dex factors of 100 though.

>>>Specifically, I'd like to know if the Demon Damage bonus "stacks" while using an IK Maul and a Laying of Hands.

Yes, it stacks.

>>>Also, does +%Damage to Demons have any effect on elemental damage dealt?

No effect on elemental damage.

An exception would be berserk which converts the total damage (inculding extra damage to demons/undead) to magical damage.

Edit: D'oh, a few minutes too late. :)

cu