Plus to damage experiment

[LavCat]

As Mongo posted on the front page, there has been discussion recently on the WoW forums as to the effectiveness of "plus to damage" items. I thought I would test to see if such items were effective for my characters. I gave Tribade a Green Lens of Holy Wrath (+32 to holy spell damage) for testing, and as a control, a Green Lens of Nature Resistance.

The experimental subjects were 60 Defias highwaymen and women (and their ilk), recruited from the Dagger Hills of Westfall. The spell chosen was Holy Shock, an instant cast holy spell of which Tribade is most fond. The paladin Sanctity aura was in effect in all cases, as this is typically how she plays solo.

The average of 30 trials using the Green Lens of Nature Resistance was 329.70 damage. The average of 30 trials using the Green Lens of Holy Wrath was 358.83. In both sets of trials there were two critical hits, and the critical hit data was included in the results.

It appears that the Green Lens of Holy Wrath added on average 29 damage per cast of Holy Shock, or about 8.8 percent extra damage. To me this is a worthwhile improvement.

I wish to thank Tribade for her assistance.

[Quark]

It would be nice if someone did a test of different speed spells with varying degrees of +damage to see how it plays out with the "faster spells get less bonus" deal.

Some things to keep in mind:
Is there a set % of bonus for a particular cast time? Is it spell-specific? School-specific? Character-specific? Does cooldown time have anything to do with the decided bonus?

I have heard that it was tiered. 3+ second cast time would get full bonus, 1.5 to 3 gets some bonus, and near-instant to 1.5 gets less, Instant gets least. Of course, that's what I've heard and haven't confirmed it.

Do talents that affect casting time make the damage bonus less? This should be easier to test if the tier system is true.

How does this work with Channeled spells? How about with different ranks of the same spell (especially when the higher ranks have higher casting time)?

[ArtegaAwayFromHome]

In a somewhat related note, I'm going to be testing how Resistances affect spell damage. It's been previously said that 1 Resistance is equivalent to 0.01% negation; hopefully I'll be able to test this as well.

Currently, I'm intending on using Arcane Missiles for DD spells (as AM apparently has the smallest variation of any spells I've asked about) and Power Word: Pain for DoT spells.

[playingtokrush]

I can already tell you that damage bonuses add to the overall damage of a full casting of Arcane Missiles. In other words, if you're casting rank 3 or higher AM and you have +10 to magic (or arcane) damage, your AM bolts will do about 2 more than base damage per hit.

That's strange that Holy Shock was receiving such a large bonus from the increased holy damage, as Blizzard's information on the subject seemed to imply that instant cast spells would receive small bonuses from increased spell damage items. Maybe the cooldown is taken into account, as it should be.

[Xanthix]

In a somewhat related note, I'm going to be testing how Resistances affect spell damage.  It's been previously said that 1 Resistance is equivalent to 0.01% negation; hopefully I'll be able to test this as well.
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Does that make sense? Wouldn't that mean that 100 resistance is only 1% damage reduction? I know Blizzard has said they don't want people walking around with max resistances and immune to spell damage, but 1% seems a little low. :)

[playingtokrush]

Does that make sense? Wouldn't that mean that 100 resistance is only 1% damage reduction? I know Blizzard has said they don't want people walking around with max resistances and immune to spell damage, but 1% seems a little low. :)
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No, that's definitely not correct at all. I know Blizzard gave some vague examples back during beta, and I seem to remember something like 200 or 300 resist being equivalent to 50% or 75% resistance against an equivalent level spell or spellcaster.

Okay, I found Blizzard's not very useful resistances page:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basi...ances.html

Code:

Resistance Score         50    100   150   200   250

Chance to Resist Spell   15%   30%   45%   60%   75%

Code:

Resistance Score             50   100   150   200   250

Chance to Resist Spell        0%   1%   1%   11%   25%

Chance to Resist 100% Damage  0%   1%   1%   11%   25%

Chance to Resist 75% Damage   2%   6%   18%   34%   55%

Chance to Resist 50% Damage   11%  24%   48%   40%  16%

Chance to Resist 25% Damage   33%  49%   26%   14%  3%

Chance to Take Full Damage    54%   20%   7%   1%   1%

[LavCat]

That's strange that Holy Shock was receiving such a large bonus from the increased holy damage, as Blizzard's information on the subject seemed to imply that instant cast spells would receive small bonuses from increased spell damage items.  Maybe the cooldown is taken into account, as it should be.
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If Tribade and I become sufficiently motivated we will do a similar test with Holy Wrath, which is a channeled spell.

I suspect that the cooldown time is taken into account and that there is some percentage of the listed damage assigned to each individual spell. Just a guess.

[MongoJerry]

It would be nice if someone did a test of different speed spells with varying degrees of +damage to see how it plays out with the "faster spells get less bonus" deal.

In the beta, someone on the forums determined that spells with 3.5 or longer casting time get the full bonus while other spells received proportionally less. Instant cast were counted as 1 second. However, this was in the beta right after these changes were made, and I can't vouch for the source, so please do check this.

Do talents that affect casting time make the damage bonus less?  This should be easier to test if the tier system is true.

According to Blizzard, talents that affect the casting time do not make the damage bonus less. That is, the bonus is determined on a spell-by-spell (including rank) basis, and changing the cast time via talents doesn't affect the bonus. However, there are many things that Blizzard says to be true but aren't, so again, I highly encourage testing on this matter.

[Icebird]

I've also noticed there are slight variations in the wording on some of the +spell damage mods:

Example: +4 to Nature Spell damage vs Up to +19 damage to fire damage.

In other words, one implies a straight addition, whereas the other implies the amount of damage added will vary.

I was under the impression from other posts that +spell damage mods were less useful than they appeared because the proportion of damage added was pretty small relative to their level requirements.

Theoretically you could stack spell damage from numerous different pieces of equipment, but I'd like to know if it worth the effort to do so.

Chris

[playingtokrush]

I've also noticed there are slight variations in the wording on some of the +spell damage mods:

Example: +4 to Nature Spell damage vs Up to +19 damage to fire damage.

This is just inconsistent wording for the same effect. Sort of like in D2 how some things listed bonuses like "200% damage," while others would state "+100% enhanced damage" for the same effect.

[Xanthix]

I've also noticed there are slight variations in the wording on some of the +spell damage mods:

Example: +4 to Nature Spell damage vs Up to +19 damage to fire damage.
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I agree with playingtokrush that you shouldn't read too much into this. For healing, you have "+3 Healing," "+6 to Healing Spells," "+1-16 to Healing," etc. And they all do the same thing: nothing useful. :)

I was under the impression from other posts that +spell damage mods were less useful than they appeared because the proportion of damage added was pretty small relative to their level requirements.

Theoretically you could stack spell damage from numerous different pieces of equipment, but I'd like to know if it worth the effort to do so.
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Nearly all +damage/healing mods are useless, because of the level requirements, because of the other stat bonuses you must give up to get them, and because right now +healing mods only work on self-heals.

There are some of these mods on high-level purple and set items, along with stat bonuses, but otherwise they are really nothing to aim for.

[smithy]

I agree with playingtokrush that you shouldn't read too much into this. For healing, you have "+3 Healing," "+6 to Healing Spells," "+1-16 to Healing," etc. And they all do the same thing: nothing useful. :)
Nearly all +damage/healing mods are useless, because of the level requirements, because of the other stat bonuses you must give up to get them, and because right now +healing mods only work on self-heals.

There are some of these mods on high-level purple and set items, along with stat bonuses, but otherwise they are really nothing to aim for.
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Actually, there are two types of +dmg (or healing effects).

The first would be the ones where it says up to 15 damage added. The "up to" part here refers to the fact that spells with shorter casting times will receive less the the full bonus.

The other type is a random amount added, such as "up to 5-10 damage added".

I've lost the link but this was detailed in a blue response on the forums. Is that clear enough?

I will try to find the link if I can.

Smithy

[Treesh]

I've lost the link but this was detailed in a blue response on the forums.  Is that clear enough?

I will try to find the link if I can.

Smithy
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The link is given on the LL front page, but here it is; unless you're thinking of a different one.

[Concillian]

The link is given on the LL front page, but here it is; unless you're thinking of a different one.
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There is another one I saw on the messy forums (Official Forums) that broke down more precisely how +x damage worked. It was very specifica as to casting times and how much of the +x damage was applied for various casting times.

Unfortunately there's no way I can possibly find it in those forums.

[Skandranon]

All right. I just completed a small test of damage equipment. I only ran 16 shots with each spell, so it's obviously too small a sample size to draw firm conclusions from, but it provides a good preliminary look.

Rylea happened to have a couple of pieces of equipment to check this with. The first was a High Councillor's Sash of Fiery Wrath (+22 fire spell damage). The other was a pair of Fire Striders (Fire spells get up to 22 more damage). This allowed me to check for a difference between the +damage and up to damage effects.

I used Fireblast (rank 1) and Fireblast (rank 7), to check if the bonus applied consistently across instant-cast spells. Then I used Fireball (rank 1) with a 1.5s casting time, and Fireball (rank 11) with a 3.5s casting time, to see how casting time affected the bonus. I had Improved Fireball, but Blizzard claims that it doesn't affect the bonus. Someone without that talent testing could help compare results.

Testing methodology:

All tests were conducted on the small trogg island in Loch Modan, because it has a buggy and extremely quick spawn rate that let me finish quickly.

I put on the High Councillor's Sash (+22) and proceeded to test Fireblast (rank 1) and Fireblast (rank 7), 16 casts each. Then I switched to the Fire Striders and did the same, and then I did another 16 casts with each spell with no +damage equipment at all. The whole thing was repeated for Fireball (rank 1) and Fireball (rank 11).

Results:

Average damage for Fireblast (rank 1):
With High Councillor's Sash: 36.12
With Fire Striders: 37.80
With no damage enhancers: 31.75
Expected average from a listed damage of 28-36: 32

I can attribute the difference between the Sash and the Striders to a small sample size. If the Striders varied their amount, one would expect the bonus to be less, not slightly more. Both results correspond roughly to 20-25% of the bonus being applied.

Average damage for Fireblast (rank 7):
With Sash: 509.3
With Striders: 509.6
Without either: 482.6
Expected average from 459-540: 499.5

This is more interesting. A run of low numbers in the control trials is probably to blame for what almost looks like a 27 point bonus. Comparing the two results to the expected average is probably better, but still accounts for almost double the bonus applied to the lower-rank spell. Casting time doesn't seem like the only factor here.

Average damage for Fireball (rank 1):
With Sash: 24.0
With Striders: 23.9
Without either: 20.7
Expected (16-26): 21

A little under four points of added damage. Less than Fireblast, even though Fireblast is instant and this is 1.5s. This possibly might be being considered as 1.0s due to my Improved Fireball - but maybe not.

Average damage for Fireball (rank 11):
With Sash: 689.1
With Striders: 683.5
Without either: 670.8
Expected (578-736): 657

I'm really not sure how to explain these results. Furthermore, I got a strange result out of my Striders tests: a listed result of 759, which is +23 over the theoretical maximum damage of the spell base. It might be that the bonus is being adjusted to a base of 3.0s, and that Fireball's 3.5s casting time is in fact increasing the listed bonus.

Anyway, I will conduct more tests in the future, with Scorch as well as with both enhancers together to study their interaction. But for now, this is what I've got.