So, I'm writing a small program to test out some theories I had about this concept of a faster weapon in the main-hand always.
I believe this is false. If we take the damage calculation from the Wiki as how damage is actually calculated on the server:
[Max Damage] = ([Mod] x [Weapon Damage]) + [Main Hand Bonus]
It's actually kind of hilariously simple. There's really just a missing part of this equation:
(([Mod] x [Weapon Damage]) + [Main Hand Bonus]) / [Delay] = [Damage Ratio]
Let's use the Wiki's example of 250 STR and 200 Skill in the weapon at level 50:
Jade Mace
((3.75 x 9) + 8) / 18 = 2.32
Stave of Shielding
((3.75 x 17) + 8) / 28 = 2.56
We can see that at this threshold SOS just beats the Jade Mace at level 50. Let's try 60 with 255 STR and 252 Skill.
Jade Mace
((4.2 x 9) + 11) / 18 = 2.77
Stave of Shielding
((4.2 x 17) + 11) / 28 = 3.02
So basically, what I learned out of this is that with enough strength higher damage and better ratio matters more than the speed of your main-hand. That it's really not optimal to put your best ratio in your off-hand at all times.
Interesting stuff (to me at least haha). I just previously assumed that the weapon damage bonus was a big enough deal to give faster weapons an edge across the board. Once you have close to max strength however, you almost want something that hits harder and slower to take more advantage of that strength modifier unless the faster weapon's ratio is sufficient enough to overcome the STR bonus.
A good example is the one that Raev mentioned. The Epic fist main hand and SOS offhand. The SOS actually has a better raw ratio and it's -very- close to the epic damage ratio after modifiers, but the substantially faster epic fist makes the damage bonus matter.
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