Is That Damage Good for Your Build? How Does Damage Work? Deep Dive.

[@MChaseC5]

Really needed this refresher! I wish more content creators made this “teach a man to fish” style video rather than: “this build does 400billion damage.”

[@jasonbonadio8870]

Yessir I agree

[@animago81]

Perfect summary... I love to find the build by myself, but i like to know some mechanics first

[@Ichiban_Kasuga.]

Yeah. I'm historically shitty with math. But his pacing is fantastic!

[@Linxflasher]

Macro knows math and ready to dive deep and break it up for everyone, unlike majority of other streamers 😁

[@tituscrow4951]

I hate math. I’m dyslexic partly. Been an artist for 30 years. I thought I was out. … Diablo keeps drawing me back into numbers 😭

[@ooshadow-ravenoo525]

I can’t possibly stress enough of how DESCRIPTIVE and HELPFUL this video is. Bravo 🙌🏻 So many people just jump in the game and take whatever content creators build they choose and use it and wonder “Why is mine not working like theirs?”. There are so many factors that are at play that they don’t even realize. Thank you for creating a baseline formula for each INDIVIDUAL player to use for THEMSELVES and actually understand how to reach those higher numbers. THIS is the type of information we need! Thanks you tremendously Macro!

[@barbupanaitescu8508]

Super generous of you to break this down for everybody, I found it clear and helpful and I hope others do as well ❤️

[@VirusTechKEKW]

Man, I believe you are the most nerd ( in very very good way) person in Maxroll team. I respect all content creators working there, writing guides and stuff but for some reason I believe you go so deep in your theorycrafting, you explain everything, you're so passionate about all you do which is inspiring. Hell, sometimes if I wanna play another class I miss that there's not a guy like you behind that class to explain things so nicely and be so into the class. You don't just create content about Necromancer, you take this shit too seriously and I appreciate it, dude.

[@erikleach1753]

I feel like if @MacroBioBoi would put his math skills to work on Sorc, we'd have better damage

[@kyletiley2352]

Yeah the other creators don't bother with non meta builds either and honestly I found boiler to be an arrogant superior individual who "can't be bothered" with older builds that aren't meta. Almost like not everyone cares about playing the same 1 shot cookie cutter builds... but still would like to know how our class gets the most significant increase via skills/paragon etc... I would literally pay for a in depth pulverize grizzly rage earth skill druid guide the way he does necromancer here.

[@a.x.w]

@MacroBioBoi I'd like to point out a couple of corrections you might want to edit in: 19:00 It doesn't actually matter how many multipliers you have. What's important to understand is that to double your total damage you need to double any one of your multipliers. If you have 100% additive damage you need to increase it by another 200% additive damage to get double the total damage (from a multiplier of 2 to 4) 29:40 Reducing critical strike chance from 1 to 0.8 would result in an average multiplier of 1+0.8*0.5=1.4

[@MacroBioBoi]

You can't edit KZbin videos. Thx for the insight. I heard the expected multi from crit being wrong as I said it, but couldn't think in the moment why it was.

[@a.x.w]

@@MacroBioBoi I noticed your hesitation. It's a small detail and you got the important points across. I wouldn't have pointed it out if your video wasn't such a great reference for the coming seasons and forum discussions.

[@maxogge]

@@MacroBioBoi added crit damage can't be put neatly in there unless you have critchance of 100% or 0%. I am not saying your damage calculations are wrong. I am just trying to point out that it isn't as simple as something like the int damage multiplier. B: Base damage b: everything damage bucket c: added crit damage C: Crit Chance Damage = B (1 + b) (1 - C) + B (1 + b + c) C×1.5 Here damage is calculated for non crits and then for crits. Now lets expand this equation. Damage = B (1.5 c C + 0.5 b C + 0.5 C + b + 1) And as we can see there is nothing we can do to seperate C and c and it will remain "complicated". Comparing it to the formula if c=0 : - B (1 + b) (1 + 0.5 C) - which is easy to undersand.

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@maxogge correct, I specifically explain that. It's based on your crit chance.

[@joelhodoborgas]

Yes that's how math works not just in diablo

[@Orthus100]

Here I was thinking I already knew all this math when you blow my mind. I've been mentally calculating crit dmg like D3's base + additive the whole time, not as separate instances. Thanks for teaching me something new.

[@rothbardfreedom3325]

So helpful. I now actually know why the maxroll guides recommend what they do and feel very informed when deciding what gear etc is better. You are among the best diablo 4 youtubers.

[@fzaoo]

The section in 18:40 I learned on halo of karini's mitigation on D3... The DR affix ranges from 70~80% so you initially think: 10%, not a big deal. However, this 10% equals 33% of damage reduction: If a minimun roll makes you take 30% Damage, and a max roll makes you take 20% Damage, that's effectively a 33% decrease.

[@MGPL_]

Great vid! Will definitely check out your other ones. Tip: To calc the product of multiple cells in Excel, you can use the PRODUCT function [e.g. =PRODUCT(D2:D16)] instead of selecting each cell separately [e.g. =D2*D3*D4...]

[@KeyFryc]

nice explanation, finally i can understand how it works, i put it in other words, so for people who are bad at math like me, could be easier to swallow... "to get to the kitchen, stand up, go straight 5 steps, than face right, go back to face straight, take two steps back without turning back, jump forward, check if you are not in the toilet, if not continue, if yes, consider the chances of getting to kitchen in next (10-30 mins wide range random) check the colors of your socks. start the drone to see a house from above.

[@Walthanar]

As a physicist and a maths and game enthusiast, I had these concept pretty clear myself, but it was a joy to watch it all in a video and witness how 4k base damage became over a hundred millions. Those 1.1 multipliers explode rapidly, the exponential function is STRONG

[@angrypillow1486]

This was really all I needed. I always understood the basic math, but coming from POE the real eye opener was seeing which sources fell into the overall "more" category. If you weren't analyzing combat data with various changes, there would be no practical way of knowing that the "+'s" basically get lumped together which would hit effective diminishing returns pretty quickly. The actual formula to calculate overall effective damage is so simple it's actually kind of infuriating that the AP calculator doesn't do exactly this.

[@Themaestermagus]

Yea GG man, had to have this crash course for d3 years ago but I'm glad to see it laid out for people

[@JTCollier]

That's a lot of information! Thanks for taking the time to make this explainer!

[@jodyirl]

This is so incredibly helpful. I can now move forward with my custom build and it’s all to you my friend!

[@poundcakeshuffle]

You really cleared up a lot of questions I had. I now have a clearer idea of how I want to pursue my builds for better end game experience. Thank you so much.

[@JayTheTruth]

This video is what I needed. I’ve been playing for about a week and couldn’t figure out why I have all these +damage stats yet I still barely did anything. Super excited to get home and revise my builds

[@Minijote]

English is not my native language and I'm missing the words to express how much your video helped me. I've always wanted to do a character on my own and tried this season thanks to Raxx video on Paragon and how to plan it but I was still missing something to get to the next level and this was all I could have hoped for.

[@Dullahan96-y2m]

you really walked us through from elementary school math, cant imagine the effort and time you put into composing this video. Huge respect!

[@DionArendse]

Awesome video! Thx so much for taking the time to do this!

[@f.m848]

Jeez, I finally understand the multiplicative and additive damage in this game!! Thank you. all the things I was prioritizing were holding my damage back! I didn't even fully understanding how different (x) and (+) damages were!

[@jeffery2005]

Fantastic breakdown. I'm breaking out excel when I get home to figure out where I'm going wrong.

[@godofm3tal1]

Enlightening. Correct me if I'm wrong but what I'm gathering from this is, stack as many multis as physically possible and throw buffing any base multis out the window unless you can happen to achieve them on the way to the primary goal. I've been going about it somewhat poorly up to this point.

[@MacroBioBoi]

Yes

[@JosephLRutledge]

Amazing explanation. It's late in the season (and my first time in any Diablo game) and I pathed all wrong with my builds but this is great data to have for next season. Like and sub earned with a single video. Can't wait to learn more.

[@jasperhighwind6119]

I love math. This video definitely showed me where I was erring; I thought all you needed was just higher and higher Crit (the fact that +Crit is additive instead of increasing the multiplier blows my mind); and that's all I was focusing on. That was fine up until I started adding other multipliers. I kept hitting a very hard damage wall (5 - 6 million) and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I'm only halfway through the video and I'm already like, "Sh1t. I put too much in Crit and don't have enough dumps in other multipliers." Thank you for this.

[@DragoonKain3]

"If we had 80% chance to crit, that means our 50% damage increase from successfully critting is only actually representative of a 20% increase in [total] damage." This is incorrect, because your base damage at 0% crit chance is at 100% multiplier, not 0% multiplier (which the above statement implies). Formula for crit damage should be, noting crit chance and multiplier is in decimals: 1 + [crit chance] x [crit multiplier] Since [crit multiplier] is now always 50%, if you have 80% chance to crit, your effective crit multiplier would be a 40% increase in total damage. (Which would be represented as "1.4" in the "status multi" column) But otherwise, this video is very insightful. I was wondering why I actually LOST damage when I changed over +INT gear into +Crit Damage, not knowing they changed +Crit Damage from modifying "status multi" column, to only adding to the "additive" column (which in this season can get to absurd amounts).

[@MacroBioBoi]

Yep it's (.8*.5)+1

[@Pestilence021]

just wanted to say you did a great job in explaining this. i just think my brain is a little slow trying to understand all of this. appreciate you taking the time to explain it.

[@nerael]

Really insightful, thanks Bioboy. Quite different from game launch when last I played (returning just before expansion)

[@beakee]

Thank you for this! Got a little lost with the calculations around crit dmg 😂 but I get the general direction now. Looking forward to S4!

[@hebrews_12_2anthonyalexand6]

Excellent video! Especially for us making our own builds! I hope you do one like this for season 5.

[@travellingslim]

I tried following this for my sorc and quickly gave up once I realized how puny the numbers are. way less weapon damage, 30% skill damage with no multiplier opposed to the 224% in example with additional 848%. Even all of the tempers are 3x higher than on sorc. Crazy. I can understand that it might be all about attack speed but its just so demoralizing following this using the example lol

[@lughor82]

If you are playing a Shadowblight Necro, your additive bucket will be split in two buckets. All additive damage which is not dot damage is in bucket 1, dot damage will be in bucket 2 and will be a separate multiplier for the Shadowblight Key Passive. You can get a 10x multiplier from the additive sources and another 10x multiplier from dot-damage, giving you a total 100x multiplier. Mathematically you should always make both buckets about the same size, because you can maximize the area of a rectangle in regards to its circumference by having it with equal side length, thus a square would be perfect in this regard.

[@etrosknight2254]

great point, this math shows Shadowblight is considerably stronger than it might first appear

[@MacroBioBoi]

That's not really what those words mean. Shadowblight has a multiplier from damage over time, but this doesn't multiply all of your damage by a new bucket.

[@lughor82]

@@MacroBioBoi Shadowblight is getting considerably stronger in season 4. It’s only doing 22% of your weapon damage, but you can temper 6 times 108.7% Shadow dot damage on your gear, 6 times 165% if you want to crit your Mastercrafting fully on this stat. You can put 4 times up to 97.5% dot damage as greater affixes on your gear, 35% on the Wither board and 99% with the Scourge Glyph. That’s 1514% in total, giving you a 16 times multiplier on Shadowblight Key passive damage. That’s a 352% weapon damage if you include this multiplier there. The problem with this calculation is, that you have very little additive damage left in your normal big additive bucket, because you put so much damage into dot and Shadowblight is not a dot. In my calculations I get to about 550% other additive damage including the darkness Glyph (92.4%), Essence Glyph (154.4%), 60% starter board, 107% dmg vs dotted and Elites, 55% Shadow damage and 85.5% damage while Fortyfied from Undaunted Glyph. So instead of a total additive bonus of 2064%, which is a factor of 21.64, you can get a factor of 6.5 x 16 = 104 with Shadowblight damage only of course. And of course splitting your bucket equally would result in 1032% in both buckets, giving you a theoretical multiplier of 11.32 x 11.32 = 128.1424, so about 128. And because minions got buffed a lot, you can have 6 skeletal warriors with cleave attacks, doing area shadow damage when using the Aphotic Aspect, you can have 5 skeletal mages with 99% chance for double casting their shadow bolt attack (weapon temperings with full Mastercrafting, which would lower your dot damage from 1500% to about 1400%) which now pierces. And of course your attack speed is transferred 100% to your minions, so your minions will attack much more often. I don’t know how often a minion can attack per second if you maximize attack speed, but with let's say 2 times per second, you can hit 32 times per second per target. So you can proc 3 times the Shadowblight key passive per second on every target when your targets are tightly pulled together. And of course the Occult Aspect on your amulet is an option for even more hits. And of course I am looking forward to hear your opinion on this topic.

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@lughor82 you'd be significantly better off running an actual shadow dot build if you're investing in shadow dots. But then you're not scaling shadowblight Damage which is crit damage focused. And ignoring other, significantly stronger procs in the form of X'Fal's base damage already being a 10x factor over your weapon damage, as well as elemental surge and the new crippling darkness, and I think you get to why trying to waste stats on dot AND non-dot damage becomes so detrimental.

[@lughor82]

@@MacroBioBoi Dot builds do not profit from minions and this will be a minion centric build. X’Fal’s I will test against Shadowblight, but the beauty of using Shadowblight is that my minions can proc the damage. I can just use Bonestorm and be in Blood Mist 90% of the fight and let my minions do the work. That’s my approach to not get one-shot in the Pit. With X’fal’s I need to do a lot of dot damage. How often can a dot trigger X’Fal? Isn’t the 25% chance of corpse explosion divided by all 12 damage instances? With X’Fal you need to invest in Lucky Hit and Crit Chance. Elemental Surge is not what I want to play, it needs to be nerfed anyway. And Crippling Darkness is again Lucky Hit based and my minions don’t use darkness skills. So X’Fal and Crippling Darkness does not work with minion builds. Does Elemental Surge proc from minion attacks?

[@pake1]

fantastic vid - probably the longest damage deep dive I've watched in any ARPG - is there an online calculator or spreadsheet you recommend so that we can do this with our existing builds?

[@shadamyrr12]

now THAT was good. informative and explicative. put onto a chart we can see the effects of. love it

[@syntaxbad]

Just doing Horadrim’s work here and we all appreciate you going to the bottom of the rabbit hole for us. Since you are probably the single most trustworthy source of clear information I would love it if you could clarify something that reddit threads (I know, I know) have muddied for me. Namely: con you confirm that every [x] multiplier (from glyphs, aspects etc) is an INDEPENDENT multiplier in the compound interest math sense? I have seen several take, referencing online damage calculators that claim that all the [x] multipliers get added together before being applied, as if they were just another separate Mega-bucket like the additive damage or mainstat buckets. If this were the case it would obviously change the optimization logic, so I desperately want to know which one is true before I spend any more brainpower messing with my gear/paragon boards. Thank you in advance!

[@syntaxbad]

@@NazSef Rude.

[@MacroBioBoi]

All multipliers are independent multipliers. There's no multiplier bucket.

[@syntaxbad]

@@MacroBioBoi I was 95% sure of this until I saw some people using very sloppy language in some threads, which muddied the issue. Thought I'd come to the expert to clear it up :) Thanks!

[@AllThingsFascinate]

​@@MacroBioBoiSo if a passive states it does "10% (x) more critical strike damage", does it, a) 0.6 b) 0.55 Add 10 percentage points, or multiply the crit multiplier by 1.1?

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@AllThingsFascinate if you crit, your total damage value is increased by 10%.

[@PPG87]

Thank you for this! Just jumping back in since launch and just watching this and making some minor adjustments, already 5x my damage... they still have some work to do on the items but a great step in the right direction

[@khkid26]

This video was incredibly informative for me I’ve always tried to do some napkin math for this game but my God the amount of variance on weapons, skills, and glyphs makes my head spin. At this point I just use it as an approximation of what my damage should be lol. Really loved this video thanks for taking the time putting out this content!

[@mitchelrivers369]

Love this. Also, if you just used the spreadsheets...like spreadsheets...you could leave descriptions and values in rows below and leave clean totals in row 2 for multiplication (rather than cutting and pasting values and constantly rewriting cells). Love the explanation. The excel nerd in me is sweating 😅

[@ryanadshead4809]

I appreciate the break down in a way that I could follow and understand what was going on.

[@colo6327]

Thank you man! You've done enormous job here! I just unsubscribe other Diablo IV channels because I see your content is enough to understand mechanics of that game. Keep going and we are waiting for more!

[@ScribletAndBits]

Banished Lord's Talisman Edit: Every will Bone Spirit will overpower in S4, if cast at 275 essence, not every-other. The Cast that overpowers counts towards the next BLT proc. You can test this right now in Season 3 (I just did). I got to 300 stacks of BLT (current cap). Cast Auto-overpowerd Blight One time. Ended with 25 charge on BLT (the cost of Blight).

[@MacroBioBoi]

I'll go test that. Thanks.

[@Kornchildxii]

Thank you so much for this. I’ll probably need to listen to this a few times to digest it all but it’s really helpful for someone that likes to try to make my own builds. Key word there is try lol

[@A-a-r-on]

I have a doctorate and I still struggled to follow this video. Granted math isn't my speciality, but good lord I'm struggling to understand the damage modifiers in a video game? Probably going to have to watch this a few times to get it to sink in. I want to learn it because I've noticed alot of builds out there these days are poorly optimized or just wrong. I haven't known enough to make my own build so I wanted to learn but realizing now that's gonna be a journey. All the praise to you for putting this together, truly a great effort

[@JosephMazur-yf2td]

Question for understanding: What the overall take away is - getting a +10% to bone damage, and a plus 10% to cursed targets as an example ( of course assuming the target is cursed) in a general sense would out perform say just +30% to bone damage?

[@MacroBioBoi]

You want the highest additive damage you apply the majority of the time. If you only do bone damage, then bone damage has 100% uptime. Then work from there.

[@zulqarnay5116]

We need more of this ! thank you !

[@NeptuneMyst]

Dude! This video was highly appreciated and gave me so much more understanding.

[@UltracoreUltraUranium]

Super thanks Macro for breaking this damage down. Been super needing this

[@abioticocean223]

This is super helpful so just to have a benchmark in my head every 1000 in a base stat like intelligence it's a 10percent increased DMG

[@Peter_Parker69]

Thank you so much. As a casual with 50 jobs and 200 children, this truly was mindblowing

[@novalith3778]

I love watching you geek out on math. Never change!

[@lchn12345678]

great video, is the paragon deep dive still coming? i cant seem to find a video on your channel with paragon in the title

[@MacroBioBoi]

I haven't made it yet. Too many other things to cover, sadly.

[@lchn12345678]

@@MacroBioBoi thanks for letting me know, if u do ever make one i hope that it shows up on my recommended

[@MixingPigment]

This is the most insane thing I think I’ve ever listened to. I was hoping to learn which damage buckets were multiplicative and which were additive. Truly this is all that’s important and I think this video confuses which buckets are which more than anything.

[@MacroBioBoi]

There are no buckets. That's the whole point of the video. There are multipliers, and there's additive damage. That's it.

[@MixingPigment]

@@MacroBioBoi thank you for your response, I watched this video last night, (listened) while running Duriel. Then listening on the way to work again this morning. I do appreciate all the time you spent, it is a well made video, very very well explained. But it’s so explained that with every possible example and scenario I got more confused. Maybe I’m just not smart, which is very possible. So to ask the most simple question regarding this video…. Which multipliers should I focus on the most to multiply damage? Intelligence, Critical Strike, Weapon Damage (per second) and then everything else that’s additive? As Vulnerable no long plays a separate multiplier as it did before? I do apologize, I’m trying to understand this, but holy shit it seems overly complicated! I mean, as your video states no one understands the damage calculator, not even blizzard.. thanks for your time and efforts. I’m not sure I’ve seen or heard a more complex deep dive into the damage system as your video here.

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@MixingPigment anything that says +xx Damage is in the additive bucket. Doesn't matter what kind it is. Critical Strike Damage is also additive. You get a 1.5 multiplier for Critting at all. And thank you.

[@etrosknight2254]

Thanks for the reminder that critical strikes give you a 1.5x multi, and also make your additive crit damage contribute to your additive bucket (similar with vulnerable damage). This is not super intuitive and I could see people messing this up, well explained

[@kevinsims5791]

Would you be able to answer my question? So does it really matter what kind of damages you have in your additive bucket? If you can crit 100% and vuln 100% does it matter whats in the additive bucket as long as it pertains to the damage you do? Ex: If you fireball and you can crit and vuln 100%, does it make a difference to have +100 vuln dam or +100 crit damage or +100 fire damage? Or does it all result in the same number?

[@etrosknight2254]

@@kevinsims5791 In general, no it doesn't matter at all; assuming you are meeting all the relevant conditions, crit damage, vuln damage, damage to close, damage to crowd controlled, fire damage or whatever else all just get added together into one lump multiplier. The only extra thing to consider is if there is some extra interaction in your build that would make one better than another; for instance the Victimize key passive on rogue gets increased by your vulnerable damage, and the bone spear echoes from Deathless Visage get boosted by your crit damage with bone. But beyond special interactions like that you should just get whatever additive damage gets you the biggest numbers as long as you can consistently benefit from it

[@kevinsims5791]

@@etrosknight2254 thank you. I was thinking maybe additive crit damage was scaling off the crit damage dealt and not the base damage, same for vuln. Thank you for clarifying.

[@sssteviep]

Hey great video really informative. will help when I’m trying to put my build together

[@tomtomkowski7653]

Great video! The idea is simple. If you have 500 additive damage you have to add another 100 to make it 1.2x stronger but if you have 1000 then you have to add 200. Instead of searching for two nodes that will give you another +100% just focus on those that will give you another 1.2x because if you have +1000% already this +100 is just 10% Maximizing glyphs is kind of useless, especially with Tempering. Maxing out (wasting points) will give you f.g. +120% golem dmg (which could be only 10% of your golem additive dmg) but instead, just add a new board with a new glyph that will give you 1.2x which means a 20% increase. Not to mention that just one tempering can add you +152% golem dmg.

[@simaopacheco4529]

What would you consider between 80 main stat + or 70% vulnerable damage(100% uptime) // Between both additive is easy to choose right? Just take the Higher. I cant figure between a additive vs multiplier. Is it always multi?

[@simaopacheco4529]

Or above 500,600 or so additive I stop focus? Its easy to make high numbers on the additives. Its what I ve been doing... Any Magic formula? What if additives is all i can build? Just go for the Higher or most successfull?

[@simaopacheco4529]

For example in offensive tempering natural finness is like 40% damage 55 close enemies 70 distant. There isnt any multiplicative they all additive. Just roll the Higher...?

[@Mikediszel]

If u fight close pick that or far pick that. If u 50/50 pick flat damage or something else. They all + so the higher the better. I pick vulnerable because 100% up time and I'm close and far.

[@ponaskompetencija]

@@simaopacheco4529 you pick both, but if you pick only one, then of course you pick vulnerable 70%, because 80 main stat gives you only 8% more damage. Unless you piled up a lot of vulnerable already.

[@NeroHeresy]

Would absolutely love a Paragon deep dive and thank you very much for doing this and all the time you spent making it.

[@Wob841]

Ok, yes, I had heard always go for the X damage, and this was a great explanation of why.

[@allanpalacios8399]

Sorry I'm late, but does the [x%] Damage belong in the additive bucket or is it a standalone multiplier?

[@georgegrammatopoulos2669]

Excellent analysis! But I got a question for you... Do you think it is fun having to watch an hourly video and solve multiple equations to make an educated decision every time you want to select where to spend a skill point, a paragon point or which item to use?

[@MacroBioBoi]

You watch the video to learn how to do it on the fly, when faced with decisions

[@arminthielen8570]

Great Insight , but how does that work for a Rogue with the 3 Weapons for example that , uses only Bow Skills ? I mean the Average Weapon Damage .

[@simaopacheco4529]

Tldr: my question is: are multipliers always better than additives? A 70% affix vulnerable dmg(100% uptime) or 80 strenght(main stat)? 1.70 additive vs 1.08 multiplicative? Not sure if I get this right. So overall I should give priority for those multi value on paragons and aspects. What I dont get is on affixes how we would increase damage? Because damage to Crowd control or close or distant enemies. They are all additive bucket. But I also need to have them? Or I should prioritize main stat for example Over % Critical strike damage. Or I should build 600 Critical strike damage anyway, or just keep at 100%? Or focus on distant? Any of those multipliers will do same damage so I keep the one is higher? Despite not being optimal? Still do some more dmg? I should looking for the affixe of 200 value on main stats despite of 40% damage on close because main stat is a straight 1,20% increase much more value than any additive? Anyway it gets an exepction? Me as a barb have a weapon with 200% critic damage . Is that better then 200 strenght value? Or more easier what is better: A 70% affixe vulnerable dmg(100% uptime) or 80 strenght(main stat)

[@BL00DYME55]

Definitely priorize Strength. Assuming you already have +Damage from other items, that 70% additional vuln dmg is only gonna be a tiny percentage of your total additive (which includes +dmg, +dmg to close, +dmg to crowd controlled, +dmg to healthy , +crit dmg, etc. etc.). Since Str is its own multiplier, that 80 Str or 8% has much more impact. But obviously dont just ignore additive dmg entirely, you still need to increase the additive bucket, cause the bigger it is, the more effect your other multipliers will have. So Vuln should probably be your 3rd affix on any given item. For example you could have Str/HP/Crit dmg on one weapon, and Str/HP/Vuln dmg, on another weapon. Also when you can roll Crit CHANCE on an item you usually prioritize Chance over Dmg, at least until you reach 100% uptime. EDIT: As for your other questions, like choosing vuln dmg, or crit dmg, or distant dmg, since they all go in the same bucket, there's a couple of things to consider. First, what percentage range the affix can roll on an item. If an item can roll 30-40% Vuln Dmg, but can also roll 40-50% Distant Dmg, you would normally pick the larger number. However, since they're both conditional affixes, you also need to consider how often you meet said condition. You probably don't deal distant damage very often as a barb. So if your Vuln uptime is near 100%, but you only deal damage to distant 20% of the time, then Vuln is the way to go.

[@exquisitedoomlapointe185]

It depends on your build really, your main attribute will multiply your affixes linearly regardless so i would get the most effective affix as well as my main stat as they boost each other. I mainly build long ranged characters so i'm glad damage to distant is this powerful an affix. But if a paragon node i need requires another stat to gain a multiplicative, is that multiplicative higher than my damage to distant affix bonus? Can i get both? Usually i will get the required affixes to maximize the node and stop there and still focus on damage to distant. But if i have to dump 400% damage to distant, to get like a 10% multiplier, it often isn't worth it. Mind you this is mostly for high amplitude affixes like distant, close, crit, most other affixes don't surpass multipliers.

[@rebel8711]

Thank you for this, been looking for something like this for a long time.. looking forward to the paragon video

[@lymanmusic3756]

Maybe only other thing I wish was touched upon is bonus to attack speed, which (to me) seems like a "multiplier", dependent upon whether the skill being used is affected by attack speed (which by itself is a good topic -- what skills are affected by attack speed, and which ones aren't, something that is not really well-defined in the skills' descriptions).

[@MacroBioBoi]

Once we have the breakpoints ill make a video covering it

[@lymanmusic3756]

@@MacroBioBoi Kewl thanks!

[@Superawesomegeekshow]

This is a fantastic video. Really helps in understanding damage. Thanx for putting this together.

[@wallydragonking8567]

Can you explain what the base dmg is for a skeleton mage and a golem. Not sure where to find those numbers. And need a base dmg to start using the spread sheet

[@jamesloehr641]

So what's the best damage to roll for on sorceror? I am chain lightining and I have plus to lightining damage on gear. Should I roll for something different?

[@tamirleibovich]

Man you are amazing ! I love to make choices by myself in gaming while knowing all the calculations

[@MacroBioBoi]

Thank you so much for the support!

[@mrmugen866]

hey Macro, nice video. i have 3 questions, that came to my mind: 1. should you always have mainstat on your item? especially asking because of wither node and its quadruple scaling. 2. should you always take +skillranks or +skilltree nodes, if they are aviable on a gearpiece? 3. is it useful to put the minion number aspect on the amulet, to get 6 instead of 5 skeleton mages (1,2x multiplier)? from my experience in the beta the paragon board doesn't affect the damage this much, as long as you are using 6 paragon boards, which is actual a good sign blizzard balanced the nodes very well. but tempering and masterworking is another story. huge power spikes there. i would really like you to make a video about that! is masterworking Int, masterworking +skeletonmages ranks or masterworking +dmg the best? or evenly split? thanks alot, keep making interesting videos!

[@MacroBioBoi]

Yes, sometimes. Yes. And yes, sometimes.

[@OpenWorldAddict0]

So how do you determine total damage of your minions for pure minioun builds? (i don't use build guides cause i like to experiment with my build.

[@syntaxbad]

Wonderfully clear and a great resource to help dispel misconceptions. I suppose we could just follow along and make our own spreadsheet, but is there any chance you'd put up a link to a public google sheets version of what you were playing with?

[@nickolay1259]

Thanks for approving my thoughts that everything work this way. Worse in this game that you can not be sure if some skill or passive ever work at all. For example. On rogue, on barb - what happens if I use 2 different or 2 same dual-wielded weapons? how works abilities that activated by weapon type. Weapon mastery ar Rogue, Wallop at barb. How works Unconstraied. How works Wrath of berserker. What exactly they increase? Does that mean if I use all weapons with damage while berserking, increased by Unconstrained by x2 is better than using any other type of additive damage? What things you let fly from yourself count as skills and what are niot. Is Dust Devil a skill? Dual wielded weapons usually do 2 different digits of damage and probably each of them count own modifiers, but Dust devils is single, and produced using both weapons. How that works then? Actually, very hard and unimportant questions when real big numbers are priduced by REAL big bugs, when all your damage occasionaly get multiplied by 1000 What exactly is double dipping? how it works? how to know whne it exist and when it happens? And which exactly parts do work and which are not? Gamba.

[@numefals234]

New to D4 ,this video open my eyes. Thanks.

[@martybryanli2552]

excellently explained. thank you. maybe discuss how damage reduction works next. many are still confused with that. ^^

[@ForenoxCC]

Great video and explanation skills. Thank you very much. Now I feel confident enough to make my own build from 0 knowing I will know how to maximize dps. Great work, Thank you.!!! 1 more follower gained.

[@danieldicken6407]

Im a nerd but this takes an ubernerd to understand diablo 4

[@andyxprophet]

I would recommend this as a watch for all D4 players. Stellar, Marco.

[@SservisGaming]

Great video. Very late to the party. One correction to the discussion of how much does adding to a bucket impact the final result at about 22:00 minutes in. Going from main stat 2000 to main stat 2300 isn't a 15% increase in damage as you calculate. It's only a 10% increase in damage since the factor goes from 3.0 to 3.3 (a 10% increase). It is a 15% increase in main stat, but the damage impact is less than that.

[@MacroBioBoi]

Accurate

[@andrewkrueger2458]

So in the case of Grandfather, does that make all crit damage modifiers basically worth double overall or does it make crits a 1.5x?

[@MacroBioBoi]

Grandfather says if you crit, gain a 2x multiplier to your damage.

[@drewpost8467]

In your example (loved the breakdown, it makes so much sense) - but the example was based on weapon damage - and bone spirit was a percentage increase. But how does the calculation change when the spell does damage, rather than a percentage of weapon damage? Is the weapon damage still part of the calculation, or does that step get ignored?

[@MacroBioBoi]

All skills do a percentage of your weapon damage unless it has a flat damage value that it procs. In which case, that's the "weapon damage".

[@drewpost8467]

@@MacroBioBoi the spell is Tornado for a druid. It has a range of damage just like the weapon (based on the ranks in the skill). So I suspect it does not include the weapon damage.

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@drewpost8467 ahh no, all skills are based off weapon damage. Skills also have a range. They do a percentage or your weapon's damage.

[@drewpost8467]

@@MacroBioBoi Thanks so much for answering my questions. I'm going to go back and try and calculate to see why my damage isn't happening, and see if there are better options for my build (although I suspect it will all change again in 2 days with the new season).

[@trollsearching8968]

Thank you for this video. I am trying to understand and you made it fairly simple. How does this work with an aspect like the Rogue's Unstable Imbuement. Does the listed damage on the aspect get all of these things applied if the correct conditions are meant?

[@Naturalhigh8]

Good video. As an end game sorcerer that one ability of yours does 65 times as my hardest hitting direct damage ability which is meteor....... and the worst part is, I can't find a fix or a variation or anything outside 'the meta' builds.... fun... really disheartening knowing the game is like this.

[@benlister5477]

Is the 'enemies take +x% increased damage' stat available from glyphs a multiplier? Or is it also added on to your pile of % increased damage?

[@MacroBioBoi]

If it says + it's additive, if it says x it's a multiplier

[@majinv954]

Your quality of content is very much deserving of more subs and views then you get man.

[@SamielAC]

Really useful video! Thank you so much for the info Macro. Only a brief note, I think you forgot to include the additive damage of your paragon, in some cases a + 230% additive damage from the paragon boards is a 3.31 that can increase your damage in 500K of damage.

[@MacroBioBoi]

I didn't forget that, it was intentional to highlight how much additive you get from just gear nowadays.

[@SamielAC]

@@MacroBioBoi So you added the additive damage from your "paragon" in the additive bucket?

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@SamielAC No. I say that during the video. Im just showing stats from gear to better highlight the point of how quickly the additive buckets contribution is watered down in comparison to new multi's.

[@SamielAC]

​ @MacroBioBoi Got it!! only one more question, If I have an additional source of multiplicative Critical strike damage, for example X50% how can I include it in the formula? should I add it to the 1,2? thanks

[@MacroBioBoi]

@@SamielAC every new source that says "multiply your damage" is a new multiplier.

[@Dumbanana00]

The build potential for Necro vs Sorc is insane. Thanks for good video breakdown!

[@Naturalhigh8]

ya his weapon at 2:41 has the same + damage on his tempering than all of my pieces combined as a sorcerer.... kinda funny how that works. we also don't have a single ability that is designed like bone spirit nor hits anywhere close to it. His bone spirit hits 65 times what my meteor hits for and i'm 4-8/12 masterworking.

[@simaopacheco4529]

For damage calculation for build based on the ice spikes blizzard or dust devils ww barb. If for example dust devils damage is 5200 I should put that on the base skills damage? And the rest of "buckets" apply the same as a direct skill? Xfalls when procc has a 50k damage base. So what values affect? Still main stat? And overall aspects like ring of starless skies? + Additive bucket?

[@BL00DYME55]

Wait, Imperfectly Balanced applies the damage multiplier to Bone Spirit? The way it's phrased is that it only increases damage of Core skills.

[@great_chachino]

if i played necro i would understand these things. is there a way to explain the damages without using a specific class?

[@anthonymunster3696]

Ya super generous of you walk thru all that. I have to admit that with my busy life outside of video games that mental gymnastics and endless variables of D4 makes it a huge turn off because I can never escalate my builds with surety unless I teach my self so much .....!@#@!. I love this game and really appreciate your time but I will never be able to push the upper levels unless I learn the volumes of information through experience like you and some have. ....and then they change it every season lol. Getting to lev 80 nightmare dungeons I can do but then it stops and I get hosed without the knowledge to push further. Anyway, all that is a complement to you and others who do understand this game so well. Appreciate it.

[@tameone]

@macroBioBio Might be a stupid question but I will ask. so lets say my crit chance is 80% max. I can temper crit damage of 85% additive or damage to close at 85% additive. Would this make the damage to close better since if im close 100 percent of the time, It would be better than my crit chance of 80%? Or because crit chance gets the 50% multi, it would still be higher for the crit damage. Or does that crit multi also affect the damage up close since it all goes in the additive bucket? Hope I can get an answer for this. thanks in advance

[@MacroBioBoi]

Yes, close damage is better there.

[@FredericZbinden]

Perfect explanations! I learned something today, thank you 👍

[@peeling]

I wish he was more consistent in his terminology, because some of what he's saying is only true if you interpret it in an unintuitive way. Eg around 19:00 he's talking about 'the more multipliers you add' and 'increasing a multiplier by 50%'. What he actually means is: "The more multipliers you introduce to the equation" and "Adding 50 to a percentage multiplier" The second one is a really important distinction because he's been writing multipliers as decimals, and if you increase one of them by 50%: 2.0 multiplier, increased by 50%, is 3.0 (take 50% of the original value and add it on) Whereas what he's talking about is: 200% multiplier, increased by 50, is 250% And it's NOT AN INTEGER.

[@MacroBioBoi]

Who are you caps'ing at?

[@ThijsSchrijnemakers]

this was very informative, thanks!!

[@boristhebulletdgr]

That 187 x 4 multiplier on bone spirit assumes you're spending 187 essence to cast it. That's not true right? Why assume this? Edit: I'm dumb. It does consume all essence. Read the top of the skill description.

[@Desten2]

Does the Brawl Glyph not work for Barbs? You should make a video with all the things that aren't working in the game when it comes to the game.

[@malikadjoudi2576]

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this ( for me) complicated and barely understood subject. I think, I am understanding it a bit better but way too long out of school to do the math like you do. One question I still have or very confused about, I am playing the shadow minion necro without blight, I am So confused about the “damage over time “ aspect, I hear, “we don’t care about critical damage because of it but then in the build planner, I see they have taken, “Critical strike chance” a lot 🤦‍♀️ Maybe you find time to answer this, anyway I just wanted to thank you for explaining it so much 👏

[@MacroBioBoi]

Minions cares a lot about critical strike chance and doesn't use damage over time at all.

[@malikadjoudi2576]

@@MacroBioBoi Thank you so much for replying so quickly :) That makes sense now :)

[@MikeCasucci]

I still don't understand why the sheet say cs bonus total as 499.2%. Where is the game getting that number from? Even the green numbers from rings and paragon don't add up to that total

[@ponaskompetencija]

It is incorrect number

[@becausecontextmatters5260]

Personally i find it a bit odd that multipliers aren't additive with themselves (or in one bucket as you'd say) like in PoE, and instead, in order to tone down the scaling, they chose to butcher crit damage, which is now more accurately "increased damage when you crit", making D4 probably the only ARPG where crit dmg isn't a multiplier

[@JtotheB]

question... i haven't watched the entire video, but i'm currently playing barb upheaval/charge overpowered attacks essentially. is best case scenario for me to grab all the %max life nodes and stack strength/crit chance? i do berserk, and i have blood rage with 300% damage while berserking which caps the legendary node at 30%[x]. if i remember right Strength is still a mutiplicative source of damage. I have roughly 45k health right now, but i've seen people like rob able to get his up to 123,000. I can obviously only smash so many points into impotent presence

[@Tarrimaster]

Thanks for this! How does damage work for non-skill things such as ice spike? Is it affected by intelligence as well given that it's not actually a "skill"?

[@MacroBioBoi]

Yes.

[@Tarrimaster]

@@MacroBioBoi thanks, wish they'd make it clearer in the tooltip!