Question on might aura

Question on might aura

I just found out that a might merc's aura would increase the magic damage of a Berserker. I had always thought that might would only increase physical damage. So now I am wondering exactly what damage does might increase. Does it increase melee damage, ranged damage, elemental damage, spell damage, etc?

Also, for any answers given I would be curious as to how you came to know that. Did you read it on the forum or did you observe something in the game or do you have some means to look under the hood of the game? (I know, I am being skeptical.) :xrollseye

 

Well if you look at the Berserk spell it says that it adds a certain percent of magic damage...but what in heck does it base that percentage off of? The only logical answer is that it would base that percentage off you physical damage. So if the might aura increases you physical damage then it increases the damage that that percent is based on, therefore you get a higher Berserk damage. Same goes for Vengeance too, elemental damage % is applied to physical damage. How do I know this? Quite simply it is the only logical answer, and anyone else here will tell you the same thing. That percent of magic damage has to be applied to some hard number, it is only logical that it is applied to your current physical damage. I mean, what else could it be based on?

 

Yes it adds to the physical damage. However skills that "convert" your physical damage to elemental or magic damage take the original dmg from the weapon only, so might doesn't add to that elemental/magic damage at all, but it does add to the overall damage by adding more physical damage, thus allowing you to leach more with the skill.

 

so the might merc basiclly improves your magic damage when using beserk as your attack skill... never knew this, i thought it would only improve the physical damage :scratch:

robin

 

The amount of magic damage Berserk does is tied to the amount of physical damage you do, so if your physical damage is increased, then the magic damage from Berserk is increased. Perhaps an example:

Your char does 200-500 physical damage and Berserk adds 100% Magic Damage. That 100% to applied to the hard numbers from your physical damage, so that means Berserk adds 200-500 magic damage.

Now lets say your char has a base physical damage of 500-900 and a Berserk that adds 100% Magic Damage. That 100% is again applied to your physical damage, so Berserk adds 500-900 magic damage.

The amount of magic damage added by Berserk is linked to the amount of physical damage you have. So when Might increased your Physical Damage, and Berserk's magic damage is based on Physical Damage, then Might is indirectly increasing Berserk's magic damage.

The percent of magic damage has to be based on some solid number, otherwise the percent means nothing. It just happens to be that this solid number the percent is based on is your physical damage, so the higher your physical damage the larger the amount of magic damage that is churned out when the percentage is applied.

 

it's based on the weapon's damage, not the damage it has after other skills affect it...like I said before

 

That is true for veng, but what bout zerk any one know for sure...

 

that's based in the very same thing, you can easily test it by adding an item to use that raises your mastery for example.

 

So I wasn't completely off-base because might increases physical damage as I thought. However, Berserk's magical damage is based on the physical damage and so indirectly might increases the magic damage done by Berserk. For that matter, might can amplify the damage done by other skills if they are based on the physical damage done. Thanks for the clarifications.

 

I can only support what Borlag said. Generally speaking, Might adds to your damage after calculations for skills etc. are done. At least it is that way for every skill I know (Vengeance, Strafe - though that may be a bad example because there are some issues with the damage it should give dpending on the skill info and the damage it actually adds, or I miscalculated - , etc...), I don't see why it would be different with Berserk. I guess such an exception should be known by now. But if you want to be completely sure, go to Nightmare Act 2 and hire a might merc (make a backup of you d2s file before if you don't want to lose your old merc), and compare the numbers. I don't have a barb character at the moment... Oh, and report if you do so
I think it should be the same for Amazon's magic arrow, only converting a % of your damage to magical before might, but does anybody know for sure? I can't think of a way to test it...

 

what you say sounds good, borlag, but Nightfish played a zerker not too long ago (and maybe he can say it with his own words) and Might indeed increased the zerk damage.

 

I never said it doesn't, I said it adds to the physical part, not the magical part

 

but zerk converts all physical damage into magic IIRC Fishy could zerk while IM'ed and receive no harm

 

Yep. Let's take vegeance and some rounded numbers as an example:
I have a weapon that does 100-150 (base) damage. Additionaly, I have 100 strength and the weapon is of the type that gets damage bonus from strength (most melee weapons), so my damage for a standard attack would be 200-300. Vengeance gives me +100% fire, cold and lightning damage; so it would add 300-450 damage (100-150 of every element), because it only looks at the base weapon damage. My vengeance damage would therefore be:
100-150 (base) + 100-150 (strength bonus) + 300-450 (elemental) = 500-750 total.
If I had a might merc who would give +50% damage, it would add another 50-75, because it also looks at the weapon base damage only, which would give me 550-825 total. The elemental damage from vengeance was calculated before, so it isn't affected by the might aura.

 

thanks for the example, now I see my mistake :teeth:
Considering this, I dont think that a might merc would help a lot a zerker

 

I would love to try it out, but my Berserker is far from Act 2 Nightmare at the moment. What started the question for me was, in fact, reading Nightfish's Berserker guide. He said that a might merc did indeed increase the magic damage from Berserk. I guess what I am not sure about, now, is by how much.

 

QUESTION: How many points should I put in Berserk? I am leaning on being a WW barb okay, and I figured 1 point is already great.

Second is I want somebody to really confirm this (since I am now in hell normal trying to kill Diablo): If I used berserk Iron Maiden will be rendered useless???

Sorry to hijack the thread a bit...

 

Okay, I found a softcore barb on my computer that I had not played in a long time who was a good fit for testing some of this out. I hired a might merc in Nightmare and took a look at the results. The merc was level 45. My barb only had level 1 Berserk which according to Arreat Summit gives +170% magic damage. For my test I was using a Giant Axe of Slaying which was listed as 22 - 50 damage. I used this in order to avoid the confusion of a weapon which did elemental damage. My barb has a strength of 137.

Here's the resulting damage displayed in my character stats:

Ordinary attack was 52 - 118 damage.​

Berserk listed 89 - 203 damage.​

Ordinary attack with might aura was 74 - 168.​

Berserk with might aura was 111 - 253.​

In both the ordinary attack and the berserk attack the might aura increased the damage by 22 - 50 which is equal to the base damage of the axe. From this I assumed that the might aura was level 7 which gives a 100% increase.

From this it appears that might aura does only increase damage based on listed weapon damage. So while might will increase the damage done by a Berserker, it is solely dependent on the weapon and has no relationship to the level of the Berserk skill.

If I did my research correctly, it raised two questions. First, the Mercenaries Guide by Darkness says that the level of Act 2 merc's auras can be calculated by multiplying the merc level by 10/32. Using this formula my level 45 merc should have had a level 14 aura which gives a 170% increase, but the results above seem to indicate a level 7 aura.

Second point is that Arreat Summit shows level 1 Berserk giving +170% magic damage. Well, the 89 - 203 Berserk damage is 170% of the ordinary attack damage of 52 - 118. So does this mean that the ordinary damage is converted to magic damage?

Hopefully, this all makes sense. I still intend to use a might merc with my Berserker as my barb will be making use of a Bonesnap which has a high base damage upon which to base the increase of the might aura.

 

Your test shows that Berserk multiplies weapon damage only:

your weapon: 22-50 damage
berserk: +170% magic damage

1.7*22 = 35
1.7*50 = 85

if you add these numbers to your listed damage of 52-118, you get 89-203 as berserk damage

similarily for the might example, 74-168 plus 35-85 = 109-253 (almost what you got, perhaps some rounding error)

 

Yes, you can use Berserk and not worry about Iron Maiden...but remember that your defense rating becomes 0 when using Berserk, thus rendering you vulnerable to any melee attack...at high levels, it doesn't matter, because you get a lot of one-hit kills, but as a i-point wonder, you may need to enforce some crowd control so you aren't battered by Doom Knights while Zerking.

Steve