Physical vs. elemental damage

Although I enjoy playing in the new leagues when they manifest, my go-to character for playing is my cyclone slayer in standard. He is a physical damage character using the only piece of equipment I have ever bought in this game: an Atziri's Disfavour. Linked in the axe are cyclone, brutality, added melee damage, maim, chance to bleed, and faster attacks. He is running Herald of Purity and blasphemy-vulnerability and his sheet damage is around 101,000.

I wanted to try something different just as a change, so I replaced cyclone with a 20/20 wild strike, removed brutality for elemental attack damage, and switched the chance to bleed for added fire. I swapped the blasphemy for a herald of ash--I have a shaper ring that grants a level 22 herald of ash skill--and checked the dps. It dropped by about 15,000 or so.

My question is why this should be so. My second question is whether anyone could look at my character and offer advice. As I said, he is my choice when I simply want to play for a short time, maybe run a few maps or delves, but with his damage so much lower than what I have seen on other forum posts, he is struggling quite a bit. Aside from the axe, all of the equipment is self-found and I would prefer to keep it that way. I still have the skill point reset that came with the new league, so if needed, I can redo the tree.

I know he will never be the best of the best. The highest map I have run is a corrupted rare basilica map--and that one took five portals and a minor miracle. I have never seen a shaper guardian map drop nor will I likely ever see the shaper himself. I have killed the elder a few times and defeated normal Atziri a few times; I have defeated a handful of liches in the abyss depths and have delved to a whopping level 160 or so. I'm not looking for a ridiculously overpowered toon, just someone who can somewhat reasonably clear maps and enjoy playing.

I appreciate any who have read this and would like to offer help. Thank you.

Oh, and I forgot to mention to anyone who needs to look at my character sheet, the name is MastersLackey.

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dom625 wrote:

I wanted to try something different just as a change, so I replaced cyclone with a 20/20 wild strike, removed brutality for elemental attack damage, and switched the chance to bleed for added fire. I swapped the blasphemy for a herald of ash--I have a shaper ring that grants a level 22 herald of ash skill--and checked the dps. It dropped by about 15,000 or so.

Wild strike transforms your physical damage to a random element.
It works fine, but the ingame tooltip cannot handle this "random" part and will just calculate with "zero" base damage.

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Even though your skilltree and gear are by no means prepared for the swap into elemental damage (no %elemental damage with attacks on all jewelry, no elemental penetration from tree etc), you probably already have more base damage with the simple swaps you described above.

I thank you for your reply.

I have not redone my skill tree as of yet because I did not want to gimp him with no way to "undo" the changes until the next patch. A few more questions if you have the time.

Would my cyclone set up be better off as an elemental attack? I have a ton of items in my stash, including a Nghamu's (spelling?) Flame, a Debeon Dirge, an Oro's Sacrifice, and several other weapons. I also have a Bronn's Lithe and a Loreweave. I have legacy versions of several unique items as well. Any recommendations?

As I said, I just want to play the higher level content without getting ripped a new one all the time. I appreciate your advice and wish you a good weekend!

Okay, after some contemplating, I decided to redo the skill tree with a focus on cold damage so I could potentially chill or freeze enemies. Using cyclone, elemental damage with attacks, maim, added fire, melee physical, and faster attacks. Dropped the blasphemy for hatred and kept the herald of purity. Set up a second cast when damage taken with frost bomb, poacher's mark, and increased duration. Damage went up to 135,000, a bit higher than before but still nowhere near where others are. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks!

I am on my phone, cannot watch your tree.
But you're probably doing it wrong.
Looks like you changed one piece of gear and a couple gems, and expect that will be enough. You will need a new gear set, different tree, gems etc.


Where is your wise oak flask?
Where is any dps flask?
Lions roar, Atziri's flask?
You can double your dps by pressing 1-5.

You do not have "increased elemental damage with attacks" on any of your amulet, ring or belt slots. You're missing around 200% damage here.

Your amulet doesn't have shaper mods with "added phys as element".

Your jewels are probably not 3-4 modded.

How much elemental penetration do you stack?

Do you have enough int to use gems like elemental focus?

If you wear the cheapest gloves in the game, at least get them with "curse with ele weakness on hit" corruption?

I have a lightning damage juggernaut with disfavour, this is how gear could look like (still not 100% optimized, but good enough):

Note the 100% increased damage on the belt?
It's kind of expensive to get items like this, but that's what makes elemental damage desirable, you CAN have 100% damage on a belt, with physical damage you CANNOT.

Edit: your current skilltree is a mess. Very weird pathing, lots of wasted skillpoints.