How is Frost Blades' damage applied / modified?

I wanna make a build using this, but I'm unsure of the specifics of how the damage works, so I don't know what to build to increase it.

The spell has the initial melee hit, which would be your [normal melee hit] + [any modifiers] like +fire damage, +lightning damage, etc., with the physical damage being amplified (1.02x level 1), and then 40% turned to cold, and that makes sense. After, the attack splits into 3 projectiles. This doesn't add the modifiers, which I get, but I don't understand what damage the projectiles have. I also don't understand when %damage modifiers come into play.

Basically, I need to know

-if the projectiles do the same damage as the melee hit, taking off any non physical damage (before the cold conversion), or if the projectiles are just the cold damage that was converted.

-when conversion stuff comes into play; if I do 100 damage, it becomes 102 damage, and then that becomes 40.8 cold and 61.2 physical. Is +physical % applied at the base 100 damage stage, or after the cold conversion (would 100% Physical Dmg make the spell do 200 damage, then 1.02x, then take 40% of that for cold and 60% for physical, or would the 100 damage apply, convert the cold, and add 100% to the remaining 61.2 damage, making the spell do 40.8 + 61.2*2?)

-would +%Melee Physical Bonus only add to the initial hit, or would it get applied to the base physical, and have part of the bonus converted to cold?

If this is confusing, sorry, it's hard to explain this kinda stuff when you throw in game language and math.

Thanks in advance :)

First to all, it's an attack not a "SPELL", and the projectiles do both damage physical and cold, "melee" damage and melee damage bonus not apply to projectiles, so how this is a mix melee and projectiles you have to be very careful with the gems, because "melee physical damage" gonna give you a lot damage at initial hit, but doesn't count for the projectiles.

A possible 6-link could be: Frost Blades + Faster Attacks + Weapon Elem Damage + Faster Projectiles + Added Cold Damage + Cold Penetration (could be Hypotermia or Ice Bite) i really don't know who could be better.

Off course you have to use a melee weapon with "cold damage to attacks" otherwise WED it's useless

Works pretty much the same as Lightning Strike, minus the damage penalty on projectiles.

- So, if your weapon has 100 damage base and the skill has 'deals 120% of base damage' than base damage of that skill is 120.
- The skill has two parts, melee hit and projectiles released on impact, with projectiles having the same base damage as melee hit, but affected by projectile damage bonuses instead of melee ones.
- Some of the skill base physical damage is converted to cold and affected by cold damage bonuses in addition to physical ones.

There isn't any tricky sequence to calculations there, in a nutshell, the skill has its base damage and different damage segments having different properties which determine which damage bonuses apply to which segment. Conversion just adds additional properties to parts of its damage, damage calculation sequence is the same, you just have a longer list of damage bonuses that can apply to it.

"

Focate wrote:

-when conversion stuff comes into play; if I do 100 damage, it becomes 102 damage, and then that becomes 40.8 cold and 61.2 physical. Is +physical % applied at the base 100 damage stage, or after the cold conversion (would 100% Physical Dmg make the spell do 200 damage, then 1.02x, then take 40% of that for cold and 60% for physical, or would the 100 damage apply, convert the cold, and add 100% to the remaining 61.2 damage, making the spell do 40.8 + 61.2*2?)

ok its a weird one with conversion in this game. Your physical % applies after the conversion, but it still applies to both the physical part and the cold part, so its not only amping the 60% phys bit, it will increase the 40% cold bit too as that was once physical damage, the cold part will be increased by physical or elemental increases.


the guys have said the rest, I guess Ill repeat some of it while Im here cause sometimes a thing said a different way helps clarify maybe. The projectiles do the same damage as the initial hit when the damage is unmodified. Any damage modifiers that effect "melee damage" only apply to the initial hit and any that effect "projectile damage" only apply to the projectiles. If you avoid using either of those then the projectiles will remain doing exactly the same damage as the initial melee hit.


Worth noting, there are often 2 key phrases in the wording of damage nodes. One describes the damage being dealt, one describes the equipment the character has to have to qualify for the node. Example..

"20% increased physical damage with 1 handed melee weapons"

you need to look at a line like that and split it up like this...

"20% increased physical damage with 1 handed melee weapons"

even tho the word melee is on this node it will still apply to both the projectile and the initial melee hit. the description of the damage it increases, highlighted in red, is simply "physical damage", its not specific to melee or projectile. Only the condition of the gear you have to be using has the melee tag, which is highlighted in green. That is fine because you are using a melee weapon with this skill.

On the other hand a node like this...

"20% increased melee physical damage while holding a shield"

the description of the damage itself has the melee tag, so that will only apply to the melee hit not the projectile.



Its up to you but I feel the best way to spec this skill is to avoid as much as possible modifiers that only effect the melee hit or only effect the projectiles, and unless you are using physical to lightning in order to convert most of your remaining phys to elemental I would avoid scaling elemental on the tree as it only applies to the cold not the phys, where scaling phys will apply to the phys AND the cold. Once again, because the cold was once phys it will scale with both cold and physical modifiers.


I have 2 frost blades characters, theyre both crit, my gem setups are...


Frost Blades, Faster Attacks, Multistrike, Weapon Elemental Damage, Power Charge On Crit, Crititcal Hit Multiplier

and

Frost Blades, Faster Attacks, Multistrike, Weapon Elemental Damage, Physical to Lightning, Crititcal Hit Multiplier


I dont use melee physical damage because it doesnt effect the projectiles, only the melee part. I do however spec point blank on the tree, thats one place I spec something that is only projectile related, and I spec the Defiance cluster in the duelist which is only effecting the melee hit because I need to path through something there and Id rather scale my single target damage than the projectile when forced to chose speccing 1 or the other, esp as I have already amped the projectiles with point blank.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1324942

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