Noob Damage question

If I have a huge Elemental bonus, say a perfect topaz and ruby, or a bow that just gives gobs of elemental damage, and I use a skill that says a % of weapon damage, strafe and multishot, is all that elemental damage dealt or is that cut too?|||Strafe and multishot both cut the damage to 75%, including elemental damage. Since you're putting out a ton of arrows, though, you're still going to be putting out more total elemental damage than you would shooting one arrow at a time.|||Thanks, I was just kind of curious. I'll still be using this weapons when I get up to the right level because it's higher damage + an additional 1-150 lightning damage and +1 skills above the current bow I'm using.|||Thats absolutely untrue. The damage penalty on Strafe and Multishot applies only to the physical damage of the bow, after any bonuses like +damage from charms, War Travs, etc.

Elemental damage from any source - socketed jewels, charms, etc. - is unaffected by the skill penalty, just as its also unaffected by skill bonuses. The only thing that affects elemental damage on your bow attacks would be gear with +% (Type) Damage, like +25% Poison Damage on Trang's gloves.

Try it...equip an item with +elemental damage like Ravenfrost, and your Strafe damage will go up by the full amount, not by 75%|||As far as I can tell, the damage penalty applies to elemental damage, too. http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=773064&highlight=strafe+damage+pe nalty <-- this was the last time I answered a similar question, and someone agreed with me, but nobody disagreed. I haven't done any testing myself, though, and I haven't found anything really definitive anywhere.|||Ancalagon, here's a good rule to live by: if you are not sure of the answer, then don't provide one. If you can't reference a guide that has been stickied or a post where someone has examined the actual code or performed a test, then you're on thin ice. Many people can refernce such things -please let them answer the question.

The fact that the LCS calculates a damage reduction is certainly not authoritative -its not called the Lying Cheating Screen for nothing.|||AFAIK the strafe/MS penalty is akin to the one on Blade Fury, and applies to all forms of damage.|||Quote:








Ancalagon, here's a good rule to live by: if you are not sure of the answer, then don't provide one.




I disagree, at least for the purposes of Diablo Here, I usually live by the rule of if you think its so, say it, and let the OP decide for themselves if you're full of crap, or which side to believe. Your posts are just your opinion, you're not claiming any more expertise than anyone else here.

Otherwise no one responds to any questions except the same basic ones we're all tired of answering |||Ancalagon the black is actually correct (as is stephan): both Multiple Shot and Strafe only apply 75% weapon attack damage, which includes physical, magic, fire, lightning, cold and poison damage. Cold length is also reduced to 75%.

Since non-physical damage other than poison damage tends to be quite variable, the easiest way to test this in the field is to equip enough +Minimum Damage to ensure minimum=maximum physical damage, equip Prevent Monster Heal and a single source of poison damage, and attack a monster with no life variation like Griswold.

For example, a normal arrow fired from an Edge Short Bow (PMH, 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds, +280% Damage to Undead, 1-4 weapon damage) with +3 Minimum Damage, 120 Dexterity and no points in Critical Strike would apply 20 physical damage and approximately 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds to an Undead target before Resist % (although the character screen displays 83-84 damage because it incorrectly adds one to maximum physical damage and doesn't take into account +% Damage to Undead).

In Normal, Griswold has 412 life and Poison Resist 50%, so 20 physical damage and approximately 37.5 poison damage is applied by a normal arrow: it takes 8 arrows to kill him (although 7 is almost enough). If MS applied 75% physical (15) and 100% poison damage (37.5) then it would still take 8 MS arrows to kill him; if it applies 75% physical (15) and 75% poison damage (28.125) then it would take 10 MS arrows to kill him (it takes 10).


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The only thing that affects elemental damage on your bow attacks would be gear with +% (Type) Damage, like +25% Poison Damage on Trang's gloves.




The character screen may display the effects of +% Skill Damage, but it isn't actually applied to ranged weapon attack damage. Again, this can be (and has been) tested for verification.


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Try it...equip an item with +elemental damage like Ravenfrost, and your Strafe damage will go up by the full amount, not by 75%




While equipping a Short Bow with MS, character screen damage increased by 11-34 when equipping a Raven Frost Ring despite its 15-45 cold damage (although it will be higher with higher physical weapon damage since it also has +15-20 Dexterity). However, as has been pointed out the character screen isn't always accurate... although in this case, it is.