Problem with Physical builds.

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Aelloon wrote:

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lucksickle wrote:

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Aelloon wrote:

Just go full physical, it's no big deal:
Then put added fire (39%), herald of ash (15%) and hatred (36%) on. So you have 90% added elemental damage to your physical attacks. Or in other words: 47% of your damage output will be elemental and 53% physical.

But why stop there? Why not use Increased Weapon Elemental support? I believe many "physical" builds looked into incorporating it too?

And because of that it would also always be best to go with a physical conversion to elemental attack too.

And that's the point where you start drifting away. Which is kind of the point I'm trying to make :/

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lucksickle wrote:

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Aelloon wrote:

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lucksickle wrote:

But why stop there? Why not use Increased Weapon Elemental support? I believe many "physical" builds looked into incorporating it too?

And because of that it would also always be best to go with a physical conversion to elemental attack too.

And that's the point where you start drifting away. Which is kind of the point I'm trying to make :/

Yes, I was being sarcastic with the first comment. It's an issue when physical builds deal 47% of their total damage as elemental damage:
you don't have a penetration gem in there nor could you add one (you deal 2 elements) and against 75% resistances your 47% elemental damage will be down to <12%effective damage because your elemental damage is only 25% effective, while somebody who is built around dealing elemental damage will have 62 to 65% effective elemental damage. Not to mention they only have to deal with one resistance against reflect too.

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Aelloon wrote:

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Yeah, another issue which I'm not delving a whole lot into is how multistrikes/spell echo feel more like socket taxing than build diversifiers.

They're still physical builds because they focus on scaling physical damage, the elemental damage all just comes from things that scale off of physical. You also still get more physical damage than elemental, and more benefit from using physical modifiers.

Assuming you're using Added Fire, Hatred, and Herald of Ash that is ~80% of phys damage added as elemental. This amounts to approximately 44% of your damage being elemental. However, if you also factor in that damage being subject to enemy resistances, compared to physical only being mitigated by enemies' negligible armor, your effect damage output ends up being much less than 44% elemental. You're also still encouraged to build solely physical, as elemental increase bonuses are far less effective than physical since you're using a physical-->elemental conversion.

The 44% number also assumes you're using all 3 sources of conversion, which many builds won't. Added Fire is pretty much never used outside of non-crit melee builds, as crit builds need sockets for Crit Damage and/or PCoC, and ranged builds need LMP, Chain, or Pierce to achieve their AoE. Herald of Ash is also neglected on many builds since it adds a fairly minor 10% of your damage(which is mathematically additive with Hatred) for a rather large 25% reserve cost.

So all in all I don't think the conversion effects available to phys builds are a problem for the most part. The only thing I have issue with is that Hatred is mandatory for basically any phys build, but Herald of Ash and Added Fire are in a pretty good place.

Draft out of sync not letting me post.

I guess desync found its way into the forums [panic!]

Ok, time to go sleep.

Pure physical builds have a huge advantage: they can use life leech in high percentages on gear and on blood rage. Saving a potential gem slot

I'm talking about 10%+ life leech which is an overkill specially in hardcore leagues

There are plenty of physical builds.

Reave, Double/Dual/Heavy Strike + melee splash, Cleave and Cyclone among many others.

With these builds weapon elemental damage is never the best damage support. At most there is going to be Hatred and HoA damage as elemental, which is roughly an added 50% of base physical altogether. So 33% of total damage as elemental and with resistances factored in it is realistically half that again.

Don't be too picky :)

I wish you could as easily add physical damage to spellcaster/elemental builds.