attack speed vs physical damage

i use lightning strike.
i have every elemental and lightning damage passive skills.
now i must choose one.
attack speed vs physical damage.
50% physical damage goes lightning damage.
which one is best for my highest lightning dps.
since there is no even a site i can test my build and skill's dps
i can do nothing seriously. help me with your experience.

If you have a lot of +elemental damage on your gear then ias is probably better

"

taekvideo wrote:

If you have a lot of +elemental damage on your gear then ias is probably better

i just want to know the truth.
i am not talking about better build or strong build.
i don't care of the game.
i just want to know attack speed vs physical damage in skill tree.
i dont have time to memorize every skills in there. and i can't compare each of them.
just tell me speed or phy dmg is better if i use lightning strike with 100% correct proof with numerical value.

hi there,

i have a similar problem... choosing between damage or speed


well, i've done some calculating and dps wise i think "in general" speed is better than damage



some thought's on why i come to that conclusion:


1. attack speed raises all your damage.
- it doesnt matter if its elemental, physical or converted.
as long as the damage is applied with each hit, it will benefit from more attack speed


2. the way the percenteges are dealt with in the damage formula

- the thing is... that there are way more buffs for damage than for speed.
that may sounds a bit akward but this fact makes speed actually the better stat.

think about it.
let's say u have a ring that gives u +100% physical damage. would that ring double your total damage? no, of course not. thats because your character will have alot more +phys. dmg % buffs and the ring damage buff would just be accumulated with your "ordinary" buffs.

take this (simplified)example:

say your weapon does 100 damage
your character has (through nodes, items, weapon specializations etc) a total of +250% physical damage
so u would do 100 + (100*2,5) = 350 damage

now u find that awesome ring that gives u +100% physical damage

so u would do 100 + (100* (2,5 + 1)) = 450 damage


the +100% phys. damage from the ring in this example would translate to 30% more total damage.

ok, thats not THAT suprising. the same thing applies to attack speed.
well... yes and no.
yes, because the mechanic is indeed the same (more or less).
no, because u will have a much lower speed percentage buffs in the first place. so each 1% of a speed buff u add, will have more value in the formula.
(a melee character with passives alone, can easily achieve 300% increased physical damage. but its very hard to get to 100% increased attack speed)

the funny thing is, that the more u invest in damage buffs the more valuable speed buffs become (and vice versa of course)

so say u have 300% increased physical damage and 100% increased attack speed.
that would mean, that for each 1% of increased attack speed, you would need something like 4% increased physical damage to get to same same amount of more damage dealt (more or less)



that said, there are three things that must be considered.

1. if your build relies heavy on converted damage (like hatred, where +xx% of your physical damage will be added as elemental damage), having more increased physical damage could be better. that is because the actual damage added will be determined AFTER all your damage buffs had been calculated and then added as extra damage.
quick (simplified)example:
100 base damage, 200% buffs, 20% converted (added) damage:
100+ (100*2)+ (100+(100*2))*0.2 = 300 + 60 = 360
so the +20% converted (added) damage REALLY boosts your (raw)damage by 20%

but still... like i said above attack speed will obviously also increase this type of damage.

2. mana costs
having more attack speed can really drain your mana fast as u will do more attacks.

3. dimishing returns
ok this is complicated...and i have to say, that i am not quite familiar with this topic, so everything i know is from hearsay :)


in later games enemys will have a high armour rate, thats basicly means that:

the more damage you do with each single hit, the more total damage u will effectivly deal.
if you need more hits do deal the same amount of damage, u will effectivly deal less total damage

simplefied explanatory example:
500 damage per hit do 200 damage
100 damage per hit do 30 damage, so 5 hits (5*30) would do only 150 damage




(ok, i'll hope that i am not totally talking bullshit^^
if i did any errors please feel free to correct me)