I have a general question about casting attacks versus weapon attacks.
I am leveling a Deceiver, and am using Dreeg’s Evil Eye as my main attack, but with the transmuter Focused Gaze. Now I know that Dreeg’s Evil Eye is a spell and therefore is affected by casting speed and that weapon damage on any weapons I use does not apply. However during that 3.8 seconds skill recharge, do the strikes I make then become weapon attacks, (they appear to visually), and during that time is attack speed and weapon damage being applied?
I’m using a one-handed scepter at the moment, but should I be using a weapon that has weapon damage and attack speed instead to boost the damage of my strikes when the Evil Eye isn’t active? And are those strikes during the recharge period capable of triggering proc’s because they are basic attacks?
Yes, a weapon with %weapon damage will boost your damage as will AS. As far as procs go, only if there’s a skill like Cadence, Primal Strike, Savagery, etc. Otherwise there’s no skill to attach the proc to.
However, while waiting for someone to respond to this question, I did a little testing to see if I could find the answer myself, and this is what I discovered:
When using Dreeg’s Evil Eye as your main attack (left mouse button), along with the transmuter Focused Gaze;
Your character first casts the spell with the increase damage showing the visual of a cast spell without the use of the weapon in hand
Then there is a 4 second cool-down before you can cast again
During this cool-down period I observed that my character moves forward to the target and strikes it with my weapon which deals base damage, which is the definition of a basic attack, and during that cool-down period if you have any skills that proc off basic attack they do go off, along with any devotions attached to those procs also triggering accordingly.
I also tested this with Forcewave with the cool-down (not the transmuter) and it does the same thing. You see the visual of the spell being cast, then the character moves toward the target and hits it with the sword dealing base weapon damage, temporarily reverting to a basic weapon attack until the cool-down ends and it’s time to cast again.
All of this led to another question: Are casting attacks also considered range attacks, since they are being cast from a distance from the target?
Unless it’s a part of your build (like using WPSes to inflict more Poison), you would likely be better off finding other skills to support and use in-between your Dreeg Evil Eye casts such as Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze. You won’t do much weapon damage with a single sceptre compared to a dual wield or 2-handed build that is made for it.
generally if you go caster you don’t mind about weapon damage because you will most likely use a scepter or dagger which has a low base damage, and you will use spells which often don’t have any %weapon dmg or a low one.
with DEE if you overcap the first modifier you’ll reach 18% wpn damage which is negligible. your basic attack won’t do much damage either.
the good point is that you can use a no-cooldown spell (like non-transmuted DEE) to replace your basic attack. the bad point is that i don’t see how Inqui will benefit to your build unless i miss something :undecided:
I’ve just been sampling the various build combinations. And I was exploring survivability of 15% physical resist from Inquisitor and 12% from Occultist, along with Summon Familiar health boost and Word of Renewal, and Blood of Dreeg, and also Inquisitor seal for damage reduction.
So, basically I was going for an acid based face tank with some ranged capability of the Dreeg’s Evil Eye for when I have to run off a bit from mobs, but also using the Ranged Expertise proc skill to boost my weapon damage if I’m surrounded and have to rely on my weapon during cool-down, which was why I was asking about the transmuter allowing me to trigger proc skills, and whether using a ranged weapon rather than scepter might be advisable since Ranged Expertise requires a ranged weapon. But that also led into my other question if casting was considered a ranged attack by itself.