twisty

hi all,

I'm just starting to look into the finer points of game mechanics. So please be gentle if some of the questions seem naive.

I'm looking at the gear thread here:
http://www.eq2flames.com/necromancer...lable-rok.html

crafted Pristine Majestic Swiftcloth Cloak ( Allakhazam.com: EverQuest II: Item: Pristine Majestic Swiftcloth Cloak ) is listed as a pretty good noobie choice and is very easily accessible. +2dps and +2% base damage are the stats.

question: +2dps doesn't help necroes in any way, correct? just a melee stat.

so how does 2% base damage stack up vs +25 spell damage found on Mana Threaded Cloak ( Allakhazam.com: EverQuest II: Item: Mana Threaded Cloak )?

when i take off my Mana Threaded Cloak, 1st tick of SoulRot goes down by 25, as expected. and yet Abate Life (the DD) goes down by only 13 - what gives? do DDs get only half +spell benefit?

Abate Life hits for about 1.6k, but that's modified by my INT and +spell damage. how do I find out its base damage? is taking off all my gear good enough?

let's take SoulRot - a 5tick dot. what is the base damage here? sum up all the ticks or just 1st tick?

If base damage of SoulRot is 650 and of Abate Life 1.1k (numbers i get naked), then the +25dmg cloak seems to pull out ahead of the 2% base damage cloak. Is my thinking correct or am I missing some key mechanic that makes the 2% cloak much better?

many thanx in advance.

Davngr

life drains split spell bonus between heal and dmg ie. +25 spell dmg = +12.5 for dmg and +12.5 for heal

edit. +spell dmg cap is calculated by the entire dmg of the dot ie. 5 ticks of 200 = 1000 thus the cap is 500(non crit).

nemesizzz

base damage increase the damage of the spell before any other modifiers are applied, dont be fooled by the spell reading more damage via + spell damage because the damage resulting from + spell damage is not increase due to mobs resistances.
Crit and base damage is however increased due to mob resistsances and + spell damage cap is increased due tothe increases from crit and base.

twisty

great to know about the life-drain 50-50 split.

i lack the knowledge to understand the rest of the comments, however. can you please clarify the following:

>> +spell dmg cap is calculated by the entire dmg of the dot ie. 5 ticks of 200 = 1000 thus the cap is 500
are you saying that there is a spell dmg cap equal to 1/2 of base damage of spell? this re-brings up the question of how do i find out base damage of a spell? does getting naked / cancelling all buffs tell me the base damage of my spells on-mouse-over? then if i understand your example correctly, for a 5tick dot of 200dmg per tick, the 1st tick can be no higher than (200+500)=700 even if i have +800spell dmg from gear? thus if i'm past the +spell dmg cap the +2% base dmg modifier is naturally superior?

Shrilla

Yes

Sometimes :P I would actually examine each spell since mouseover gets randomly broken sometimes

Exactly! You even knew that all +spell damage applies to the first tick of the dot which is absolutely correct.

Other important facts:

lifetaps have + spell damage halved (since 1/2 goes to spell damage, 1/2 to heal)

aoe's only benefit from +spell damage / 3 (this is the arbitrary number picked by SOE when they introduced this game mechanic).

So take pandemic, you're encounter ae. If you have 600 spell damage mods, it will be modified as if you only had 200. Of course this hits every mob though.

The above mechanics are all taking place at the same time as well. So since bloodcloud (your ae lifetap) is both a lifetap and an ae, it only benefits by your spell damage / 3 / 2 (or 1/6 your spell damage). So if you had 600 +spell damage bloodcloud would be modified as if you had 100 +spell damage. This is generally partly why bloodcloud is such a shitty spell :P it still does okay on groups of 3 or more though.

Sabutai

unless you have the mathematical representation of how INT is calculated into spell damage and the curve they use for diminishing returns its impossible to know the actual base damage of any spell.

However you can extrapolate how more spell gear effects your spells by equipping unequipping certain pieces, trying to keep the INT stat as constant as possible. Dot ticks are calculated so that all the possible damage the spell can do, ie the number of ticks, is the base of that spell. So the example that was given 200/tick for 5 ticks or 1000 damage the most spell gear you can wear and have it be effective is 500. That 500 will be cast like you said on the first tick, with the 200 from the first dot tick.

Base gear will take that 1000 and increase it, thus allowing you to use more spell gear to further enhance your spells. So wearing gear is dependant on what you have already. If you don't have very much spell gear its best to use that, maintain a high crit rating and then worry about base.

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twisty

many thanx, all. im starting to see the light.

shrilla, loved the "btw here's some more random gotchas". thanx. probably would've taken me months to notice them.

if ya can think of some more esoteric infos like those that make a huge difference, please do share

Shrilla

Anytime

twisty

i mispoke earlier and it slipped thru the cracks; just now noticed that what i said earlier appears to be incorrect.

the spell dmg cap appears to be 1/2 of effective damage of spell, not 1/2 of base damage. i have 350 +spell dmg. stripped naked SoulRot ticks are about 125. if cap was applied to base, then i wouldn't see all of +350 on my 1st tick of SoulRot with my gear on, but i do.

Shrilla

Actually, if you want to know how messed up some of these mechanics are, there is a theory going around that spell damage caps are really calculated on base + INT modifier, even though they display as if they are not. Those are pretty minor impacts though for the average person and really only matter to the top end raider. I believe the general rule that + base damage > all pretty much still applies.