Diablo® III

Does anyone have a link where I can read how the weapons are going to work? Due to lack of upgrades I equipped a lightning mace I found on my wizard and noticed that I suddenly hit for major damage.
This made me wonder how weapons affect the damage, like do I get bonus when using my "class" weapons or a penalty for using the wrong kind of weapon?

thanks

All of your (and of any other class) abilities that deal damage, are based on your weapon's damage.
That's why all the abilities damage is stated in a %.
So if you equip a higher dps weapon, your spells will deal more damage.
You also factor in the weapon's speed for your casting speed.
Of course Wand/Orbs have bonus affixes that are specific to the wizard and can therefore better increase your spells' damage than a mundane high dps two-handed weapon.

Especially at the start knowing that it is just the damage that matters is a big help, wasn't aware of that.Thanks for the info.
This leads to another question. Is a 2 hander better than a 2 1 hander (or 1 hander + offhand)?
And fast weapon vs slow? I see many abilities tied to Weapon damage, so a very slow but powerful weapon should be better for these types ... on the other hand a fast one seems to be better suited for monks ... hmh, this is all still a bit confusing a bit.
Does anyone have some suggestions where to find infos in this kind of stuff, basic gameplay, items, crafting, etc?

Thanks

Every class has spammable skills so fast weapons can be good for everybody, not only monk.

In general, when you equip dual weapons (monk, barbarian and demon hunter only), you gain +15% attack speed which is shown in character screen on the DETAILS button.

Choosing between faster weapons and slower or weapon/shield you have to factor A LOT of stuff actually. For example does your build revolve around attributes and skills that give something ON HIT - then you want speed > power. If not, consider flat damage rather. Also, if you have alot of modifiers which are strong (damage on rings and other items), faster attack will benefit more because +10 damage from rings on fast 20damage hits is better then +10 damage from rings on a slow 40damage hit.

Most helpful is the number on character screen which says DAMAGE (no need to open detail button). This is already calculated damage-per-second considering all item buffs. Use this and think about ON-HIT modifiers and your skills while chosing. Also use this to see if there is a big difference when you equip dual and if you switch those two around (switch hands).

*EDIT: important thing often neglected is also stat points on weapons. If you dual wield and both items have a big amount of +stats the damage may vary significantly (which will also be shown on the character screen). Just so you won't get confused why the damage is so different and you calculated all damage from weapons. Stats also give damage (each to different class).

Sorry to put it in here to but does anyone have a link where which weaposn are good or not people are talking about white/grey weapons and i have no idea what they are talking about are there many colours ?

Thanks for the info.

25/04/2012 23:04Posted by lXOl

Sorry to put it in here to but does anyone have a link where which weaposn are good or not people are talking about white/grey weapons and i have no idea what they are talking about are there many colours ?

White are non-magical standard weapons and gray are the same but can be "broken" or "superior" which means a bit worse or a bit better. Those 2 types are generally the worst and you should equip them only if their damage is way higher then magical which is mostly at the start of the game.

Blue items are magical and have - I THINK - up to 2 random properties. Like +elemental damage, +stats, Life steal, etc, etc.. they are based on white weapons but those added magical properties make them way better and way more valuable.

Yellow items are still magical but are labeled as RARE which basically means that they have - I THNIK - more then 2 magical properties (up to.. 5? i dont know how much exactly). This makes them even more valuable obviously and they have the potential (if you get exactly perfect properties) to be one of the best items in the game later on.

Purple items are Legendary items - they are unique and have a unique name. They don't spawn with random names and also have some fixed properties from which they are known for. There will be a list of all available unique items on the site when the game launches - and they range from lower to higher levels (meaning there are also lower level uniques, which are probably better then other low level items but worse then much higher Blue item for example).

Those Legendary items also have some randomization - they can have up to 6! (but not all!) random properties which can make them SUPER valuable or borderline sad if you get all of them wrong/not useful.

Legendaries and Rare item should be the items you seek the most for - and they both have the potential to be the best items in the game - depending on what properties they spawn with of course.

* there are also GREEN items which are SET items - they act the same way as Legendary (have a fixed name, are unique, and have also some random properties) but they form a set bonus if you collect all of the same set. Some sets are bigger then others (multiple body parts) and some are just 2 (both rings or both weapons for example). The more items you get from the same set and equip them, the more bonuses you get. High level sets also have, i think, the potential to be the best items in the game.

Link to item database (not updated until the launch, dont take for granted): http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/item/

You can see from the list that blue and yellow items can also be crafted (also some legendaries) from the blacksmith. But those crafted are not all options that can drop randomly i think...

Thanks for the write-up, very useful information.

If a weapon has for example +8 strength or +2-5 damage, can I trust the "DPS" stat on the character screen to take everything into account and see which one if the better one or do I have to take playstyle/talents/runes into account?

I am really becoming excited about the game.

Everything adds up in the DPS stat on the Character screen (below armor stat). Even +str (or intelligence in case of casters). So yeah, trust that number with your life. :)

The only thing you should be aware of is, i think, weapon speed when considering spells with long cooldown. Because spells with cooldown are not affected by the speed of a weapon (spammable skills are). And if you use almost only those spells, then consider powerful and slow weapons before the actual DPS. But still, if the DPS is way lower, the weapon is not good, because there aren't such huge differences in speed afterall.

Generally faster weapons are a bit better IMO, because when you have for example 2 rings with +4 damage, this added off-weapon damage is used more often.

Thanks for the post

Sure, bro. :)

Hmmm .... I've just been doing some tests on dual wield vs two handers. Take my Monk (since that's the character I've open at the moment - also checked this on the Barbarian). He's currently wielding two daggers .. he's got a 14.2dps rare in the main hand, and a 12.8dps blue in the offhand. His Damage attribute is 24.24.

Now .. first test is swapping the weapons over, so the main hand becomes offhand, and vice versa. Damage attribute is still 24.24.

Now we unequip the 12.8dps dagger .. my damage attribute now drops to 22.23, a massive 2.01 difference! Incidentally I get the same results regardless of whether my weapon is in my main or off hand!

--

Even stranger .. my barbarian has two rare swords; one's 13dps, the other is 9.4dps. My Damage attribute is 20.49.

However, if I unequip the 9.4dps off-hand sword, my Damage attribute goes *UP* to 20.70, an *increase* of 0.21 just from un-equipping my off-hand!

I suspect there's some kind of relationship between your level, the level required to use the weapon, and the effect it has on your Damage attribute ... the bigger the difference between levels, the less effect it has.

--

As a final test, I've got a lvl 10 two-handed sword .. I'll have to try and find a pair of lvl 10 one-handers to compare. If I find some I'll post here.

Fist thing to know is when you dual wield, attack speed goes up by 15%

Secondly, when the damage went UP (when you unequiped), it's because that weapon was actually dragging the damage down. Why? Because it was most likely too slow and had low damage so when you lost the 15% speed buff you still had more damage. Remember, you kept the high damage weapon and unequiped the low damage one. The low one dragged the damage down - while now you only hit with high damage.

It gets even more complicated when weapons have stats and you gain/lose stats when equiping. And often a slower weapon lowers the damage because without it you would hit only with the powerful one..

Bottom line: if you are equipping dual wield, make sure the weapons have almost the same damage or close. If one has lower damage then you "single wield" weapon, it may drag the combined damage down.

Hmm, cheers for that info, Indigo. The two one-handers I have are both the same speed (1.44aps), but there's quite a difference in their DPS. I suspect for levelling at least, I'm better off sticking to two-handers as much as I can.

Thanks again! Jsut crafted some nice weapons, was happy to see that the dps, and damage range was random, too ... was able to craft a super weapon this way.