Questions about +min, +max, and +ED% bonuses.

[ak404]

According to chippydip's, my werebear has a +260% bonus to damage, as well as the +188% ED granted to him by HoW, and another +350% from Aldur's (yes, Aldur's). If this is all additive, that means I have a +798% bonus to damage when the HoW is active...with a small mace.

Following adekye's advice, I passed over +ED% jewel in favor of straight +damage jewels, though I put two Shaels and a +8 min-ias jewel in the jagged star for 85% IAS. The rest of the set has 40% IAS. Surprisingly enough, the combo gives about the same amount of damage as a +250% scourge - I have one, I checked.

The set already has a +18 minimum damage (a +10 minimum damage jewel in the armor) and +51 maximum damage (A +25 and +26 max in the helm) attached to it. I am now in the process of optimizing my shield, a three-socketed Headhunter's Glory. I have a couple of routes ahead of me.

• A triple set of +10-18 min damage jewels.
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• A triple set of +25-30 max damage jewels.
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• A triple set of +10-15 damage jewels.<>
  [st]Given my werebear's damage multipliers, what would seem to be the best choice for enhancing his overall damage? I might also switch out the +10 min damage jewel in the armor for something with more +min or +max if I can afford to do so.
  
  I also have a couple of jewels that give heavy fire damage, around 25-47 or whereabouts. Given that Fire Claws is my primary attack (Maul and Shockwave take up the right-click), would using these instead of physical damage jewels be a good idea?
  
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  Also, my werebear has quite a bit of +defense vs. missiles. How is this damage bonus applied, given the werebear's skill-based defense bonus, if at all?

[Caaroid]

but with fire claws you need SPEED above all else. I realize that with Aldur's you won't match the speed of a SHAEL Phase blade, and you want to use the enormous leech you get from the set, so you DO want to have some physical damage.

One thing is true, and can help you as a basic rule: +min damage pushes your average damage by the same amount as +max damage UNLESS YOU CAN EXCEED YOUR MAX DMAGE WITH YOUR MIN DAMAGE.

Example: sample build, does 10-20 points of damage, has +100% enh damage (from skills, equ, etc together): 20-40, average 30.
+5 min dmg jewel would put your base damage 15-20, overall damage 30-40, average 35: average damage changed by (+mindmg/2)*(1+enh.dam%/100), in this case: 5/2 * 2 = 5.
+5 max dmg jewel would put base damage 10-25, overall damage 20-50, average damage 35 again.

If, however, you have the option to use +15 min or +15 max, you get:
+15min: 25-26 base damage, 50-52 final, 51 average
+15max: 10-35 base damage, 20-70 final, 45 average.

I hope this is understandable. With a small-damage weapon as aldur's (and if I recall correctly, it has a small "spread", like the min is only 30 away from the max) you could try to use all sockets (the 2 in helm, 1 in armor and 3 in shield) to get +min dmg jewels. You have to consider, however, that +max jewels are "better quality".

IF we disregard any +max dmg charms, you're better off with +min than +max if:
(SUM(min)-(weapon-spread))*2 + (weapon-spread) > SUM(max),
where SUM(min) means the sum of the +MIN dmg you could get from jewels, and SUM(max) means the sum of the +MAX damage you could get from the jewels.

(SIDE NOTE: you seem to posess really high quality jewels, so for the exact calculation one would need to know how many +18 min and +30 max jewels you have, etc...)

I hope I did not goof something up, and that it is useful

[adeyke]

Minor nit:

+15min: 25-26 base damage, 50-52 final, 51 average

While the 25-26 is what's listed on the weapon, the weapon is actually 25-25. After applying the off-weapon ED, it would be 50-50. Only then does it notice that physical damage has a range of 0, so it gives it 50-51, 50.5 average.

[Caaroid]

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

That implicitly means that I was not far, right?

[Draconis]

the aldurs 350% affects base weapon only iirc

[adeyke]

That implicitly means that I was not far, right?

You are right about min damage doing about twice as much as max damage once you hit the min=max point. The same thing was brought up on the AB version of this thread. Note that there's already 51 max damage in the helm, though, and that becomes completely worthless when going for min=max (if you have a 10-20 weapon, adding 50 min damage is equivalent to adding 50 min damage and 40 max damage; the max damage isn't doing anything).

[adeyke]

the aldurs 350% affects base weapon only iirc

The 350% on Aldur's works exactly the same way as other off-weapon ED. 350% on Aldur's is the same as 350% worth of off-weapon ED jewels, 350 strength (given the Aldur's weapon), 350% aura ED, 350% skill ED, 350% undead/demon damage (assuming you're fighting undead/demons), etc.

[Caaroid]

Note that there's already 51 max damage in the helm

That is exactly the reason why I did not suggest any precise socketing plans. If he has 5 of those +18 min dmg jewels, it might be worth forgetting the +51 in the helm (aldurs helms drop very frequently - at least, I quit picking them up, and I've been playing ladder for like 3 weeks now).
If, on the other hand, he does not want to loose them, I'd go with +max in the armor.

edit: typos

[ak404]

*grumble grumble*

Who'd have thought that these jewels would be so incredibly difficult to find? OK, I'm a bit at the end of my rope here: I've discovered I can hit the next breakpoint (6 frames) if I add another 20% non-weapon IAS, so I decided on a pair of +15 max/ias jewels with a +30 max jewel.

Apparently, these either no longer spawn, or are incredibly valuable. Can these jewels still spawn, and if so, where'sthe best place to find them?

[adeyke]

Those do spawn.

The 11-15 max prefix is alvl 58.

The 11-15 max suffix is alvl 18.
The 15% IAS suffix is alvl 39.

So both of the jewels you want require alvl 58+ to spawn. On jewels, this correspond to ilvl 58+. That'd act 5 nightmare or later.

Note that those are extremely rare. By 1.09 values (I'm not sure just how much it's changed for 1.10, since the affix calculator is still not updated), there's only a 1 in 3,245 chance for an ilvl jewel to have the max/IAS affixes. Only 1 in 12,980 will be a perfect 15 max/IAS. Similarly, only 1 in 3,245 ilvl 58 jewels will have the best max/max affixes and only 1 in 51,920 will be a perfect 30.

[ak404]

But act 5 Nightmare, huh? Good tip.