Regarding weapons for a Witch

Hello

I am completely new to this game so still trying to figure out the mechanics behind the gears act.

My question is about how do I chose a weapon, or simply upgrade from what I have now. I mean, do I have to look at the physical dmg the weapon does(do spells scale of weapon damage similar to that of Diablo 3?) or do I purely watch stats as int/crit? Also what effect does the x-xx elemental damage have on the dps. I diablo3 a high dps white weapon with no stats could outclass a low level rare with plenty of stats purely by its dmg.

I am running atm my witch with a rare wand that I had for some levels now and am constantly confused whether I should keep it or get some other. I guess how the sockets are aligned has a meaning also, I am trying to pickup items so I maintain any support gems currently have/use.

Thank you guys in advance for any clarification

Spells do not scale with the physical or elemental(example +1-15 lightning damage) damage on a weapon. They will however scale with Spell Damage (wands have a base spell damage mod inherently), +x% elemental damage (of the appropriate type for the spell), +x% global crit chance/multiplier modifiers, and any +1 skill level mods appropriate for the spell, and any cast speed mods on the weapon.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Searing_Touch example of an excellent weapon for any fire caster

Hope that helps.

Just a tidbit that took me awhile to realize when I played in early beta.

You can dual wield wands.

So in general and I could be wrong, a wands Physical/Elemental damage has nothing to do with your spell damage most of the time. What you want to look for in a wand is "% increased spell damage". The higher the better.

So a wand that does 4-8 Physical/Elemental Damage with 48% Increased Spell Damage is better than a wand with 18-40 Physical/Elemental Damage with 14% Increased Spell Damage, most of the time.

There are exceptions, like I think Power Siphon draws from physical damage instead of spell damage?

Basically, attack damage and spell damage are calculated differently.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

PoE demands rather a lot more thinking than Diablo III! Except maybe for D3 end-end-end game, which I haven't experienced.

GGG's intentions are for tooltips to be as painfully literal as possible.

Spellcasters can be a bit strange for newcomers, because a lower grade item (Driftwood Wand) can very much theoretically outclass the highest grade item (Prophecy Wand). But ONLY if that Driftwood Wand drops from high level areas or endgame maps!

If you want to increase your damage, and the only Skills you use are Spells, then the only relevant modifiers you want to look at are % increased spell damage and % increased (element which you deal) damage. "Adds x-y" mods have no bearing, because those only apply to Attacks. The natural physical damage range on a wand has no bearing, because that only applies to Attacks.

Here's an example of weapons that my endgame witch uses:

thank you for the information, that will save me a lot of confusion in game.

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DoomCloud wrote:

There are exceptions, like I think Power Siphon draws from physical damage instead of spell damage?

GGG intends that there are no exceptions which are not explicitly stated. (Why they don't tell new players about curse effectiveness on rare/unique monsters is beyond me).

Power Siphon is an Attack, not a Spell, and as such benefits from physical damage etc.

A "wander" build (build which uses wand attacks as main damage source) is similar to a bow build.

"

DoomCloud wrote:

There are exceptions, like I think Power Siphon draws from physical damage instead of spell damage?

Power Siphon is a ranged ATTACK, not a SPELL.



Attack



Spell.

While some ranged attacks DO work with wands, they will NOT scale off any sort of SPELL damage, but can scale off elemental or Weapon Elemental damage multipliers.