Damage Mechanics

Damage Sources

When calculating damage, it's important to consider the order of operations that takes place. There are two main phases to consider when understand the damage calculation: Raw Damage and Scaled Damage.

Raw Damage can be viewed in a vacuum, the only context necessary being the weapons stats and your stats. There are no defensive stats to consider at this stage, such as enemy resistances. This is the damage before it comes into contact with what will eventually be defending against it.

Scaled Damage is the damage after mechanics such as +% Total Damage Increase or enemy resistances are applied to it. This is the value that will be taken directly our of an enemy's health value. These two things happen in two distinctive steps.

Some of these multipliers are additive in certain parts of the process. Keep that in mind as they are outlined below.

Calculating Raw Damage

Base Weapon Damage

All weapons have a base damage value that can be raised and increased via two stats. It can be increased via the 'Adds x-x Weapon Damage' stat, and then further scaled by:

1. +% Increased Weapon Damage
2. +% Increased Physical Damage

+% Increased Weapon Damage is additive with a weapon's Weapon Stat Bonus.

Weapon Stat Bonus

Different weapon base types synergize differently with different amounts of your player's base stat spread (Strength, Dexterity, or Energy)

The amount of +% Increased Weapon Damage you get from your weapon's stat synergy differs between item types. The value shown on the item description in game is based on how much of that stat you have. In the case shown here, you get an additional +60% Increased Weapon Damage on top of other sources you may have.

In this case, added with the +231% Increased Weapon Damage given by the Ruthless Prefix, you get +291% Increased Weapon Damage.

Added Damages

The second part to this process are the Added Damages, which are (almost) all elemental in nature, with the exception of Added Physical Damage. The different Added Damage types are as follows:

Adds x-x Fire Damage to Weapon Attacks

Adds x-x Cold Damage to Weapon Attacks

Adds x-x Lightning Damage to Weapon Attacks

Adds x-x Magic Damage to Weapon Attacks

Adds x-x Poison Damage over x Seconds to Weapon Attacks

Adds x-x Physical Damage to Weapon Attacks

These stats are shown separately from the base damage of your weapon, as they are treated with different multipliers. The value shown on the item's description under "Added Damage:" are not scaled in the display. This allows you to better grasp how it all factors into the Raw Damage. The values of Added Damage sources are scaled with either +% Increased Elemenetal Damage, if they're an elemental type, or +% Increased Physical Damage if it's Added Physical Damage.

+% Increased Elemental Damage is present both on items and as an innate player synergy from the Energy stat. These sources are both additive. Do not, at any point, confuse % Increased Weapon Damage From Energy as a source of +% Increased Elemental Damage.

Skill Weapon Damage

Finally, when calculating Raw Damage, it's important to consider how this damage is going to be delivered. Skills are defined as being weapon based when they have a % Weapon Damage identifier on their description.

_{An exception to this rule is the basic attack skill, which is defined as always being 100% Weapon Damage, or full effectiveness.}

This percentage value is how much of our Raw Damage will be taken in consideration during the Scaled Damage calculation.

An Example Raw Damage Calculation

Consider the following weapon and character make-up for our example:

1. We are a barbarian
2. This barbarian has 39 strength total with the sword equipped, giving us +9% Increased Physical Damage
3. This barbarian has 13 energy total with the sword equipped, giving us +3% Increased Elemental Damage
4. We are using the default Attack skill

First, lets calculate our Base Weapon Damage. Our swords weapon damage is:

Min Damage:	4
Max Damage:	5

Our weapon provides a source of +% Increased Weapon Damage in the form of the Weapon Stat Bonus. When equipped to this theoretical barbarian, it provides 78%. We are also provided with +9% Increased Physical Damage from our 39 strength. Remember that +% Increased Physical Damage and +% Increased Weapon Damage are additive. This gives us a total of +87% Increased Weapon Damage.

4 * 1.87 = 7.48
5 * 1.87 = 9.35

_{Internally, these values are all in 256ths, though regular calculator calculations using floats and truncation will suffice here.}

Min Damage:	7
Max Damage:	9

In Annihilus, as well as Diablo II, floating points are not used in the damage, so they are truncated (or rounded down) to the nearest whole number. In the event that the skill you're using provides + Damage, you would add that value to the Min and Max values at this point.

That's all that needs to be done for the Base Weapon Damage! Simple, right?

Next comes the Added Damages.

In this item, we have:

Adds 73-98 Physical Damage to Weapon Attacks

Adds 74-98 Lightning Damage to Weapon Attacks

On the sword, we have +13% Increased Elemental Damage to consider, and our 3% bonus from our energy, totaling 16%. We'll apply the +16% Increased Elemental Damage to the Added Lightning Damage, and our 9% Increased Physical Damage from earlier to our Added Physical Damage.

Added Physical:
73 * 1.09 = 79.57
98 * 1.09 = 106.82

Added Lightning:
74 * 1.16 = 85.84
98 * 1.16 = 113.68

Adds 79-106 Physical Damage to Weapon Attacks

Adds 85-113 Lightning Damage to Weapon Attacks

Now, before we add all of our values together and see the end result, each value must be scaled by the active skill's Weapon Damage percentage. In the case of the 'Attack' skill, it's easy:

Min Damage
(1 * 1) + (7 * 1) + (79 * 1) + (85 * 1) = 172

Max Damage
(1 * 1) + (9 * 1) + (106 * 1) + (113 * 1) = 229

Min Damage:	172
Max Damage:	229

The 'Attack' Skill uses 100% of our damage, so it is shown 1:1. Once we have the values calculated above, depending on the skill you're using, you then scale them by the skill's % Weapon Damage individually and then sum them together. Lets say for example the skill used 125% of our Raw Damage:

Min Damage
(1 * 1.25) + (7 * 1.25) + (79 * 1.25) + (85 * 1.25) = 215

Max Damage
(1 * 1.25) + (9 * 1.25) + (106 * 1.25) + (113 * 1.25) = 286.25

Min Damage:	215
Max Damage:	286