Elemental damage completely dominates this game, physical remains useless

Elemental damage utterly dominates this game. There literally isn't a viable physical damage build in the game, the closest you get are things like physcleave where more than half the damage is still elemental from Hatred, Added Fire, and various sources of WED. Ele cleave is the best melee build, LA is the best ranged attack build, and the fundamental game mechanics fiercely discourage relying on physical damage.

Hell, the one single curse that directly increases physical damage does so by a fairly small amount and is a pure int gem that requires 150 int, making it unusable in most would-be physical builds. Meanwhile there's a curse for each element plus one for all of them and they can be stacked if your build enables dual curses. Then add the whole elemental ailment factor for which there's no physical counterpart; the closest thing would be the fact that some sources of life and mana leech are physical only, but most builds use the support gems that don't discriminate, and there aren't enough controllable sources of physical leech anyway for most builds to depend on it.

Physical damage is ruined by the way armour works in this game and by the fact that elemental damage stacks to absurd heights due to the fact that you can get hundreds of percent in bonuses from various sources. It's entirely possible to get +400% elemental damage between passives, items and support gems, and it comes so ridiculously cheap: 50% WED from three passives, ~80% WED from a single support gem, up to 30% WED on several gear slots, and so on. Additive bonuses favor elemental damage by a factor of like five, and multiplicative bonuses are at least twice as good as well. Physical damage has nothing remotely comparable. There's only one aura that has anything to do with physical damage at all and - you guessed it - it gives elemental damage. There is no aura that actually increases physical damage. There's one support gem that does so (two if you include the 'at full health' one that literally only works in one build). There's one curse. It's a complete joke.

It really should ring alarm bells that the best melee and archery builds are both builds that ignore physical damage in favor of stacking additive elemental damage. The only way to even make a physical-based build viable is to convert most of the physical damage into elemental damage. It utterly dwarfs physical damage in every single aspect of the game to the point where there literally isn't a build in existence that is designed to do more physical than elemental damage. Even the builds that people consider physical actually do about 75% of their damage as elemental, they just happen to not literally ignore physical damage.

And it just keeps getting worse as elemental damage is buffed by new uniques that are absurdly overpowered and clearly made for those particular builds. It's getting to the point where it'd be sensible to assume that GGG have a collective hatred of physical damage and are intentionally letting it remain crap while just allowing the game to revolve completely around elemental damage. It's just totally unprofessional and pathetic at this stage.

EK maybe?

Also, the way armor works makes sure that elemental damage pales in comparison to high phys damage.

I completely agree and there's alot of work that can be done. There are three things that I desperately want and think will do wonders for physical damage.

With regards to cleave, either nerf the elemental damage while DWing or buff the physical damage. It makes absolutely no sense that physical gets a pain cut in damage, when it's not very good in low amount. While elemental gets no additional reduction and depends more on high attack speed due to high mob res.

The other thing, which I'm getting so sick of waiting for is have it so physical damage rolls on off pieces (ring, ammy, gloves, quivers) is affected by IPD. If they did this physical bow builds would be opened up, sword and board would become much more interesting and these low damage uniques with interesting mechanics (darkscorn is the one that always comes to my mind) will be much better as a result.

Lastly, physical damage weapons are an all or nothing thing. Sticking to my last point, elemental builds can get big DPS boosts from off gear, they can use something like quill rain and put up good numbers. Who is using brightbeak on a physical build? With physical weapons you need 2 high IPD% rolls along with the flat damage roll or it's just garbage. This can easily be fixed by either raising the base values of the weapons while lowering the amount of IPD% you can get. Or just making the change I suggested above, allowing gear to make up for what your weapon lacks.

Mark has said they plan to fix it soon but it's been like a month or two and still nothing.

But when I think about "what exactly is wrong with melee" I think that there's no such thing as a pure physical build, it's either elemental or a conversion build, also their survivability.

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Faerindel a écrit :

EK maybe?

Also, the way armor works makes sure that elemental damage pales in comparison to high phys damage.

Yes but it's very hard to get the amount of damage needed for that to shine without crit. 3k average damage (not DPS) will pack a punch but 2k elemental at high speeds is just as effective and is centralized in an area that has easy access to crit.

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Moosifer a écrit :

I completely agree and there's alot of work that can be done. There are three things that I desperately want and think will do wonders for physical damage.

With regards to cleave, either nerf the elemental damage while DWing or buff the physical damage. It makes absolutely no sense that physical gets a pain cut in damage, when it's not very good in low amount. While elemental gets no additional reduction and depends more on high attack speed due to high mob res.

From an old post on Cleave or something, I think GGG mentioned that they didn't want DWing to be OP (DPH-wise) and so Cleave got hit with the phys dmg reduction. Of course, that reduction has been there for a while until recently they changed the description of the gem to reflect that.

TBH, I feel like DWing could use a general boost, at least in terms of gems. Buff Dual Strike to 120% damage effectiveness, and get rid of that phys dmg reduction on cleave. Then we're talking.

Back on topic, ele dmg has and will always be king in this game, but from what I've observed, only ranged/crit builds benefit from ele dmg. Melee builds that are non-crit are much better off going physical+conversion as high phys dmg will crush low-armor mobs. (Not that we can tell, but that's the general assumption.) But like you said Moose, phys dmg mods should be higher in amount to actually be on par of 3 separate ele mods. Why that isn't the case is beyond me.

I have a pure physical dmg shadow. I deal a lot of dmg with my spec. I don't use hatred, or added fire, or any physical-elemental conversions.

One thing I will say is that physical is 10000x harder to build for than elemental. It's very passive tree heavy leaving you with little, or none at all, points for path of life nodes that is the current game.

If you notice, most pure physical dmg builds have low life, around 3k-3.5k. There is a reason for this. Pure physical takes a toll on your passive tree like no other.

You also need godlike gear for pure physical. Especially your weapon. For physical, your weapon has to be crafted by Hephaestus himself. This isn't an option, it's mandatory. Don't even get me started on the useless physical dmg mods that add "6-12" physcial dmg, compared to 30% elemental dmg mods. Add that to the fact that the useless "6-12" physical can't roll on belts, but 30% elemental can practically roll on everything, including belts. I'm also ignoring how stupidly high elemental dmg mods roll on weapons.


Elemental is rather easy, too easy infact. All you have to do is weapon elemental dmg mods on gear it, weapon elemental dmg gem it, wrath it, hatred it, anger it, catalyze it, inner force it, and call it a day.

That's it. Same route, same process every time, and you'll deal a lot of elemental dmg.



I also don't like the current state of uniques. When they add dmg, they only add elemental. The Abyssus is the only physical one that comes to mind,
and the dmg you take with this helm is suicidal in maps. A kaoms would be necessary, and even then you would still get instagibbed quickly.


Why didn't the new unique gloves

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add 1-100 physcial dmg? Why doesn't shavronnes wrapping reflect 1-250 physical dmg? Why is every dmg giving unique always adding elemental dmg or converting physical to elemental.



Every damn unique is always elemental something.

Too much elemental everything, and it's getting tiring trying to make pure physical work.

NO, PHYSICAL CRIT EFECTS WILL NOT MAKE PHYSICAL TOLERABLE.

Physical needs to be less taxing, like elemental. I shouldn't have to invest 90% of my tree into offense, and have godlike gear just to deal good physical.



"but physcial to elemental conversions...."

Then that has to be addressed. Physical should not be punished because GGG doesn't want to balance physical to elemental conversions.

One thing I've always thought is that they need to buff physical damage values on slower weapons. I don't have a good argument for it, but it just seems like the DPS difference ends up being negligible. Sure, I might do 30% less physical damage per hit with the physical damage Thicket Bow compared to the Decimation Bow, but I'm hitting 40% faster. And hitting faster means less standing around in attack animations, which makes for easier kiting if you're ranged and more character control if you're melee. As a melee, if I get hit by a sudden spike of damage and need to pull back, as sometimes happens, it's better to not be stuck in a long attack animation.

Edit: I realize monster armor is more effective against lower damage, faster hits, but it never really seems to be that big of a difference. Sometime I should grab a white decimation bow and a white thicket bow and compare how many hits it takes to kill an enemy with normal attack.

And it always seemed strange to me that we have several elemental bonuses derived from physical damage, such as Hatred and Added Fire Damage, and no physical bonus derived from elemental damage. There's no 30% of lightning attack damage added as physical attack damage or anything else. And all damage conversions are from physical into elemental damage, but never from elemental damage into physical damage.

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The other thing, which I'm getting so sick of waiting for is have it so physical damage rolls on off pieces (ring, ammy, gloves, quivers) is affected by IPD. ...

I never knew that physical damage on rings, ammys, etc. weren't affected by increased physical damage modifiers. So you're saying that when I have 5-10 physical damage on a ring, am wielding a sword, and have passives that give 50% increased melee physical damage and 50% increased physical damage with swords, the ring wouldn't give 10-20 damage instead? Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

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StarlightGamer a écrit :

I never knew that physical damage on rings, ammys, etc. weren't affected by increased physical damage modifiers. So you're saying that when I have 5-10 physical damage on a ring, am wielding a sword, and have passives that give 50% increased melee physical damage and 50% increased physical damage with swords, the ring wouldn't give 10-20 damage instead? Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

If you have 10,000% IPD from tree, gear, and a shit load of hacking, a 5-10 physical damage roll on a ring will give you 5-10 physical damage on your stat sheet. Feel free to test it.

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Islidox a écrit :

Back on topic, ele dmg has and will always be king in this game, but from what I've observed, only ranged/crit builds benefit from ele dmg. Melee builds that are non-crit are much better off going physical+conversion as high phys dmg will crush low-armor mobs. (Not that we can tell, but that's the general assumption.) But like you said Moose, phys dmg mods should be higher in amount to actually be on par of 3 separate ele mods. Why that isn't the case is beyond me.

I'm melee physcial crit.

Lol melee pure physcial crit is funny. Know why? Your weapon needs

High flat Physical dmg
High Increased Physical dmg
High crit chance

Lol, talk about winning the lottery 3 times over. After that, you need to spec into crit chance, a lot of it, then you'll need power charge on crit support and probably 1 extra power charge, and you also need to spec into crit dmg multiplier.

Even without crit, a pure physical would spend so many points on offense in general.

Now you see why physical builds have such low life?

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SoujiroSeta a écrit :

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Islidox a écrit :

Back on topic, ele dmg has and will always be king in this game, but from what I've observed, only ranged/crit builds benefit from ele dmg. Melee builds that are non-crit are much better off going physical+conversion as high phys dmg will crush low-armor mobs. (Not that we can tell, but that's the general assumption.) But like you said Moose, phys dmg mods should be higher in amount to actually be on par of 3 separate ele mods. Why that isn't the case is beyond me.

I'm melee physcial crit.

Lol melee pure physcial crit is funny. Know why? Your weapon needs

High flat Physical dmg
High Increased Physical dmg
High crit chance

Lol, talk about winning the lottery 3 times over. After that, you need to spec into crit chance, a lot of it, then you'll need power charge on crit support and probably 1 extra power charge, and you also need to spec into crit dmg multiplier.

Even without crit, a pure physical would spend so many points on offense in general.

Now you see why physical builds have such low life?

I definitely see why. It's also the fact that going melee and crit in general will reduce the amount of passives you can spend on life/defense. Building up crit AND accuracy will seriously cut into your defense, and that can be killer. Otherwise, you'd grab RT, grab all the life nodes along the way and then some, call it a day, have a cold one.

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Moosifer a écrit :

If you have 10,000% IPD from tree, gear, and a shit load of hacking, a 5-10 physical damage roll on a ring will give you 5-10 physical damage on your stat sheet. Feel free to test it.

Hmm, my physical bow character gets 10-15 physical damage from a 7-11 physical damage ring. It would be 11.55-18.15 (11-18) if it was increased by my bow physical damage passives, so it's obviously not being affected by passives like you said. Actually, I'm not sure where the extra damage is coming from. It's being increased by between 43% (7 x 1.43 = 10.01) and 45% (11 x 1.45 = 15.95). My bow has 146% increased physical damage, which is close, but should give 10-16 damage because 11 x 1.46 = 16.06.

Edit: If I take off my quiver, the ring suddenly gives 10-16. If I switch to my other weapon set, it gives 10-16 there too, but the bow only has 85% IPD%. If I remove everything but the ring, it gives 7-13 damage. If I put my quiver on, which gives 1-4 damage from the intrinsic mod, it increases damage by 2-4? Ugh, I don't know how this figures. I guess there are truncated decimal places and a bunch of rounding going on behind the scenes.