Faxon, I think I have what you are looking for. Or at least, I have a formula that will let you create your own formula for what you are looking for.
I created a simple diminishing returns formula that closely approximates the damage on my level 70 bruiser. This formula is not entirely perfect - ideally the exponent in it would be the same for every strength score, so there is something I am missing, but it does come pretty close. Note that this has *only* been tested on scores between 48 and 542 on a level 70 Bruiser. I suspect that your character's level is a factor in this and that is not accounted for in my formula. Similarly, I suspect that the exponent will be different for different archetypes (the dreaded "damage tables" and all that) so I will provide you with how I created this formula so you can all go do it for your own characters.
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Step 1: A Diminishing Returns Formula
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As you can see, this formula states that a weapon's damage is equal to its base damage
(note: in all cases I used the max damage but min damage or any point in between works just as well) multiplied by your strength score taken to some unknown power. Since we are shooting for diminishing returns that power should be somewhere between 0 and 1 so that the higher our strength the smaller our increase over lower strength scores.
The problem, then, is how to discover x:
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Step 2: Solving for X
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So to find the exponent to attach to your strength you need two numbers: The natural log of your damage divided by your base and the natural log of your strength. Both of these are easy to get with /weapon and the default windows calculator (in scientific mode). Make sure you pair max damage with max base, or min damage with min base or you'll screw it up. I liked using max to make rounding errors less noticable. Also be sure to take off your DPS gear/buffs.
In my setup I have a Staff of the Flapping Wing with a max damage of 198. At a strength of 542 my listed max damage with no DPS buffs or gear on is 617.
So x= 0.180549. If my formula were perfect I could then take *any* strength and *any* base damage and solve this equation for damage. The truth is that the equation is a little bit off. The exponent is as high as .199729 at 48 strength and as low as .174732 at 210 strength (at which point it starts raising again). How big of a difference does this make?
Well, at 48 strength my damage was reported as 429. If I were to use the 0.180549 exponent, however, my result would have been 398. It is about 7.3% off. This large of a difference goes away pretty rapidly, however. At just 58 strength the actual exponent is 0.193274 and by 97 it is down to 0.180913. So, in practice for
most strengths this will be accurate within 3%.
What would really help flesh this formula out is if people from different levels and different archtypes took some samples. All I need is your class and level, the max damage of your weapon, and a series of strength and damage value pairs and I can start trying to figure out how (or if) level plays a part.
Re: melee crit question..
