Non-Linear Damage gain.

[NewSorc]

Non-Linear Damage gain.

I've been building a sorceress lately and looking for the best order of skill point placement. In doing this I noticed that many of the damage gains are non-linear. The two skills I was interested in (Charged Bolt and Lightning) both had various breakpoints where the damage began going up at a faster rate than previous levels.

Lightning (assuming 20 LM):

Level Min       Max    Change
1	4	163	
2	4	195	32
3	4	228	33
4	4	261	33
5	4	293	32
6	4	326	33
7	4	359	33
8	4	391	32
9	4	440	49
10	4	489	49
11	4	538	49
12	4	587	49
13	4	636	49
14	4	685	49
15	4	734	49
16	4	783	49
17	4	865	82
18	4	947	82
19	4	1028	81
20	4	1110	82
21	4	1192	82
22	4	1273	81
23	4	1388	115
24	4	1502	114
25	4	1616	114
26	4	1730	114
27	4	1845	115
28	4	1959	114
29	4	2106	147
30	4	2253	147
31	4	2400	147
32	4	2547	147
33	4	2694	147
34	4	2841	147
35	4	2988	147
36	4	3135	147
37	4	3282	147
38	4	3429	147
39	4	3576	147
40	4	3723	147

Does anyone know know of any skills that are not affected by this?

Is there anyway this information can help optimize builds?

Is this only true for elemental skills?

I know in the past it was assumed that some combination of points into a skill and points into a synergy yielded the optimum damage. This seems to suggest that getting to the higher levels more quickly may be desirable over getting synergies for most skills.

It also appears single tree sorceress have an even more pronounced advantage over their dual tree cousins. Not only are your +9 skillers adding exponentially to Mastery and Base spell damage, they are pushing you into the territory of higher damage gains per level.

 

[Quickdeath]

Re: Non-Linear Damage gain.

The very short answer is that all skills differ.

Some skills increase linearly in damage with skill rate particularly after slvl 1. ex: Barb's Concentrate skill.

Some decline in incremental damage with skill level, e.g., many of the Amazon's Passive & Magical tree skills are like this as well as the Barbarian's Mastery Skills.

A few go up in damage at an accelerating rate. Off the top of my head, the Sorceress and Assassin have a few of these kinds of skills.

 

[cralz]

Re: Non-Linear Damage gain.

There's a very detailed post about this here, which explains how synergies (and masteries for the Sorceress) work together and how to maximize your damage output for various skill setups, although Cold spells are difficult to effectively maximize due to the nature of Cold Mastery. Still, interesting stuff.

 

[krischan]

Re: Non-Linear Damage gain.

Apart from that, many skills have increasing mana costs, so investing into synergies or mastery instead of the main skill might make more sense for a time during the leveling process if the mana bulb empties itself quickly, even if investing into the skill itself will lead to greater damage... but only if you are able to max the main skill as soon as your mana problems have been solved.

 

[NewSorc]

Re: Non-Linear Damage gain.

I've done the same calculations for Frozen Orb. Nearly linear damage gain.

This seems to suggest to me that Frozen orb as a skill can best be improved using faucets and items that directly increase damage, rather than more + skills.

Level	Min	Max	Change
1	170	183	
2	187	200	34
3	204	218	35
4	221	235	34
5	238	253	35
6	254	270	33
7	271	288	35
8	288	305	34
9	308	326	41
10	327	346	39
11	347	366	40
12	366	387	40
13	386	407	40
14	406	427	40
15	426	448	41
16	446	469	41
17	466	490	41
18	487	511	42
19	507	532	41
20	527	553	41
21	548	575	43
22	569	597	43
23	590	618	42
24	611	640	43
25	632	662	43
26	653	683	42
27	674	705	43
28	695	727	43
29	716	749	43
30	737	770	42
31	758	792	43
32	779	814	43
33	800	835	42
34	821	857	43
35	842	879	43
36	863	900	42
37	884	922	43
38	905	944	43
39	924	966	41
40	947	987	44

Craiz, that discussion has little to do with this phenomena. They are simply discussion the ratios between synergies and masteries.

 

[nurman]

Re: Non-Linear Damage gain.

I think every single skill goes like this.
Case 1: it rises for every point spent, increasing over multiple points
Case 2: it gains a fixed increase that does not increase or decrease no matter how many points you have in it.
Case 3: it increases in decreasing style, more points you have, the lower bonus you get from it.
Case 4:You gain higher bonuses first, but they cap in some point

Remember that the game rounds up(down sometimes?) the synergies of the skill, so if you get 5% first, 10% second time, and 16% third, it has a hidden 5.3 point increase (or something similar)

Also as example, sorc warmth and the manaregen uses this formula (Manaregen*Warmth) = final regen (please correct me if i am wrong with this)

 

[drool]

Re: Non-Linear Damage gain.

This has been researched at length. D2common.dll and skills.txt have parameters that define five tiers of damage calculation. D2common.dll configures the tiers to start at skill levels 2, 9, 17, 23, and 29.

In skills.txt, there are 24 columns that are labeled (E)min, (E)minLev(1-5), (E)Max, (E)maxLev(1-5), and these tell how much each skill shifts per level, per tier. The E denotes an elemental damage addition to the skill, whereas ones without it define physical damage. This only involves off-weapon damage, so it is rarely used by physical based skills. min and max define the skill at skill level 1, each one above it define the change done to the skill with each advancing point into the skill.

In your first example, lightning, Emax is 40, Emaxlev1 is 8, Emaxlev2 is 12...
The hitshift is 8, which means the multiplier is essentially equal to 1.
Base damage should therefore be 40.
Changes between levels 2-8 should be 8.
Changes between levels 9-16 should be 12.
And so forth.

As said before, each skill is different and will change a different way in each tier. For example, fire ball goes up by 5 each tier (with a hitshift of 7, this translates to 2.5 points of fire damage increase per level, per tier). This equals a 7.5 increase in tier1, and a 20 increase in tier5. On the other hand, fire bolt goes up fairly exponentially each tier, with a tier1 increase of 1.5 damage, but a tier5 increase of 28 damage. This increase ultimately leads to a higher damage for fire bolt at skill levels of 50 or higher. The same occurs between bone spear and bone spirit, with the former being weaker at low skill levels, but stronger at higher ones.