I finally understand how skills and stats work.. Some important details about stats & skills everyone should know.

[Rontemon]

I finally understand how it all work after console testing with a few test characters from each class.. Mainly because I needed to know how "Fire & Sparks" work.

For each class, you main source of damage either come from STR or FOCUS.

STR = scales with weapon damage = scales with skills that have "inflict 70% of weapon damage"

FOCUS = scales with magic damage = scales with skills that have "*inflict 600 - 800 physical damage, inflict 600 - 800 poison damage over 5 seconds, etc"

Every piece of equipment that have "3% fire damage, and so on ONLY scales with FOCUS type of damage. Example would be:

Onslaught inflicts 100% of weapon DPS as electrical damage.

Onslaught WILL NOT benefit from 10% electrical damage items

Onslaught will ONLY benefit from increase of weapon damage from STR, etc.

I hope this details will help anyone coming from the same dilemma I had faced previously and had to reroll my berserker due to me stacking DEX, STR while using skills that inflict FOCUS type of damage.

Vit is probably the worst stat. The increment on health it minimal and it is only useful IF you use a shield but still even then it is not enough to justity adding to VIT. STR and FOCUS does not have diminishing return. Except for the chance to execute which unless you play a class like akimbo focus outlander, shouldn't be an issue as you need the increment of magic damage from focus to improve your damage from skills like glaive throws.

Hope this helps.

[kat cats]

Wow, this is really good to know. I've been boosting + fire damage items on my engi for flame hammer, but if I understand what you're saying that does nothing? It's only for "focus" type skills?

[MADicineMAN]

So what would benefit from the 10% electrical damage items?

[Dethop]

I think he's wrong.

[MADicineMAN]

Yeah, I'm also not so sure about it, particularly considering my experiences with Torchlight 1. However, he said he used the console for testing, so at the moment I'm holding my accusations back.

[Dethop]

My 80 hrs in tells me he is wrong.

[Rontemon]

Originally posted by Shr00md:

So what would benefit from the 10% electrical damage items?

Spells like say.. Prismatic Beam which deals FIXED *300 Electric Damage.. Dynamo Field which deals FIXED *300 electric damage over 3 seconds.. Stats in a weapon that inflict 35 electric damage, etc.

[Rontemon]

Originally posted by Dethop:

My 80 hrs in tells me he is wrong.

Which part are you saying I am wrong? I am very certain, you can try creating a test character to try it all out. That is pretty much how it works.

Emberquake test
Test 1) 5000 strength 5 focus > cast emberquake > deals around 100 - 800 damage
Test 2) 25 strength, 5000 focus > cast emberquake > deals ridiculous amount of damage

Fire & Spark test (75% fire & electric damage increase)
Test 1) 5000 strength, 5 focus, Fire & Spark 0, cast onslaught > deals 2000 - 5000 damage
Test 2) 25 strength, 5000 focus, Fire & Spark 0, cast onslaught > deals 1 damage
Test 3) 5000 strength, 5 focus, Fire & Spark 15, cast onslaught > deals 2000 - 5000 damage

I also tested with other class Outlander and Embermage.. My experience tells me this is how it works..

The above numbers are a rough idea. I used the beginner weapon and just consoled stats and skills only. The reason for the absurd amount of strength/focus is for the "bigger difference" effect so we can see how drastically each skills and stats affect one another.

[ColbaltSpade7]

Originally posted by Ronnie:

Originally posted by Dethop:

My 80 hrs in tells me he is wrong.

Which part are you saying I am wrong? I am very certain, you can try creating a test character to try it all out. That is pretty much how it works.

Emberquake test
Test 1) 5000 strength 5 focus > cast emberquake > deals around 100 - 800 damage
Test 2) 25 strength, 5000 focus > cast emberquake > deals ridiculous amount of damage

Fire & Spark test (75% fire & electric damage increase)
Test 1) 5000 strength, 5 focus, Fire & Spark 0, cast onslaught > deals 2000 - 5000 damage
Test 2) 25 strength, 5000 focus, Fire & Spark 0, cast onslaught > deals 1 damage
Test 3) 5000 strength, 5 focus, Fire & Spark 15, cast onslaught > deals 2000 - 5000 damage

I also tested with other class Outlander and Embermage.. My experience tells me this is how it works..

The above numbers are a rough idea. I used the beginner weapon and just consoled stats and skills only. The reason for the absurd amount of strength/focus is for the "bigger difference" effect so we can see how drastically each skills and stats affect one another.

I wouldn't call Vit a bad stat, It also increases defense. plus you kind of need it for some of the best armor...

[Nick]

From what I've seen, attacks that are based off % of Weapon DPS use Strength only, and ones that are % of Weapon DPS as <element> also use Focus, while FIXED damage is only increased through Focus.

Ex with made up numbers:

My Engineer does 100 DPS with a basic common cannon.
100 Strength increases his weapon damage by 25%
100 Focus increases his elemental damage by 25%

PERCENT based: Blast Cannon does 120% Weapon DPS, so would do 120 damage + 25% Strength boost.

FIXED based: Stun Grenade does 10-12 electric damage. This would do average 11 damage + 25% from Focus boost.

PERCENT ELEMENTAL based: Fusilade does 30% weapon dps as Fire, hitting for 30 damage before armor. My engineer's Fusilade attack will be 30 weapon damage + 25% strength boost + an additional 25% because of Focus.

[h4]

IMHO
Casual & Normal -> get STR and/or FOC -> kill faster
Veteran -> get mix -> kill reasonably fast, dont die too often
Elite -> get enough dex (+dex from items) to have 30-40% base dodge, dump rest in VIT -> do kite damage

--

Saying vit is the worst stat in general is just wrong. yes the HP boost is pretty bad at 3 hp per vit, but that total armor boost is rather necessary to give yourself tons of defense. The armor boost also increases your elemental defenses, and all of this together keeps you from being oneshotted by trash mobs in elite NG+x.

[h4]

The OP is mostly right, and some of the replies (deathop, Onikuma) are wrong. There is a ton of misinformation on tl2 forums and boards on this topic because people are saying things without enough (or any testing).

Onikuma is completely wrong that focus will boost level dependent skills such as shock grenade. His shock grenade example is not very good because shock grenade does a range of damage. Instead, to prove my point, I just now tested with Seismic Slam Lv.1 (on Lv 100 char):
Skill description says +570 Fire damage, 2535 Fire damage over 5 sec.

Test with 5 focus:
569.34 fire damage, 506.08 fire damage persec for 5 sec.

Test with 500 focus (+250% elemental damage):
569.34 fire damage, 506.08 fire damage persec for 5 sec.

Added level 15 "Fire and Spark" (+75% fire damage)
569.34 fire damage, 506.08 fire damage persec for 5 sec.

Added 2x "Hot Vengeance" pistols (2x+50% fire damage):
569.34 fire damage, 506.08 fire damage persec for 5 sec.

The numbers are very clear in the combat log.

TLDR:
STR & FOC boost WEAPON DPS, indirectly boosting skills that scale off weapon DPS

NOTHING boosts LEVEL-DEPENDENT skill damage (marked with *)

Whether STR or FOC helps more in boosting the DPS depends on which stat benefits the weapon you are using more.

[h4]

@sokaras87
I am not able to reproduce your results, even using 10k foc. Instead, I am getting the same results as i did before. To test, make sure you (1) de-equip any weapons because your elemental weapons will scale, and an accidental hit from a grossly empowered elemental weapon will throw off the number. and (2) wait for the burning effect to wear off on the dummy before attacking otherwise it confuses the previous burning effect with total damage.

the inital fire damage hit is the first line that says
"effect applied DAMAGE:SEISMICFIRE:DYNAMIC:Fire... Dur-900"
I'm not sure how you are getting 30k.

EDIT: Although now I have to wonder if burning somehow scales. since the burning numbers are rather large with 10k foc. But I think it is just best to ignore the "dummy absorbed" number as being buggy. You can hit the dummy with 20k applied damage and it will "absorb" 500 sometimes.

[h4]

@sokaras87
That is because they are increasing with the character's level. Even 1 point in a level-dependent skill usually does quite a bit of damage. A 1 point prismatic bolt on a level 100 naked embermage does 380*4*5 damage = 7600 damage a cast. Compare this to the same 1 point prismatic bolt at character level 1, it does what, 10*4*5 = 200 damage? I really think that the increased damage from character level is so high that players assume the scaling comes from elsewhere as well.

Regarding combat log vs floating numbers, I find the floating damage numbers to be unreliable because often it seems to group multiple packets of damage into 1 damage number. This is especially noticeable with minion builds when the archers all shoot 1 monster, and only 1 big number comes up instead of X smaller numbers.

[h4]

@sokaras87

Nice test! I was able to reproduce your results. Now I am at a loss to explain why this is. The combat log still shows 10x4 damage per bolt, but an individual bolt is able to 1shot a goblin at 10000 focus, when it cannot at default focus.

I guess maybe the combat log only includes weapon dps in its displayed number but not the subsequent boost from focus? I wish we had more useful test targets like the guildwars/ guildwars2 dummy targets.

[Rontemon]

Well after all this testing and like I said. Any character you play should only focus on 1 type of skill. Either the FIXED damage skills or % of weapon DPS skills. Having both type would mean you have to commit statpoints into both FOCUS and STR in order to be efficient.

The stats & skills system is definitely different from the traditional Diablo 2 system where we usually add str for gear and then put all into vit. Why I say vit is a bad stat investment is because of it's diminishing return.

Both DEX and VIT has diminishing return. Just pour everything into either 500 STR or 500 FOC. you can always use health+1500 and -% damage reduction socketables. If your glass cannon, it is easier to get more %crit chance from gears than from adding dex alone.

Another thing about VIT and DEX being bad investment is because unlike Diablo 2 where you actually need stats to wear certain equipments, in TL2, you can always wait until your level is high enough to wear the equipment.