Standardize Weapon Damage

Soulrend:
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9433

Shar’Zul’s Worldeater:
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9434

These two items have physical base damage, but then convert a large portion of it. However:

Soulrend has 70 flat cold damage in the weapon tooltip (above attacks per second), and so is fixed item to item.

Shar’Zul’s has 72-84 flat fire damage, but in the body of the item, and so it can vary item to item.

My suggestion is not that they have the same bonus damage, but just that these, and every other item like this, has the damage in the same place. Either move it out of the top tooltip (Soulrend --> Shar’Zul’s style), or vice versa. Having both ways of adding flat damage just seems slightly unnecessary / confusing.

[EDIT]: This item is even more bizarre - it has flat damage in both places: https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9399

Tbh, I just wished they’d have better base conversion. Increase it from 45% to 60%.

I agree - I find it odd how some items use Physical + conversion, and others just have all their base weapon damage as the damage type to be - e.g. https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8700 vs https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9377

(Dallagon’s Annihilator vs Exonerator)

Physical conversion is useful on certain skills. I’d for one keep it there.

For example, if shar’zuls dealt only fire damage, and had 0 conversion, then the flat physical damage on skills like FW would remain unconverted (assuming of course you’re not using things like the justice set).

True. It’s not that I am against some weapons with one type and some with the other, just that it seems arbitrary and inconsistent, really.

Weapon damage is standardized.

There is a budget difference between Soulrend and Shar’Zul’s Worldeater in regards to the flat magic damage and it was deliberate.

Thank you for your reply, Zantai.

Could you elaborate by what you mean with this statement? Is it that there is some minor difference that is intentional? And might I ask, why has it been decided that some items roll different flat damage values, and others have them fixed?

All weapons at least have some fixed damage values. Whether they have any more with variance is up for debate. Stats listed in the top portion of the item are fixed, those in the bottom can change.

Edit: For damage types as a whole…

Cold is usually static (frozen, get it?)
Fire usually has a slight range
Lightning usually has a very large range (courtesy of Diablo)
Acid usually has a lot of flat damage scattered all over the place. Kind of like Chaos, too.
Aether tends to have a range like Fire’s
Vitality tends to have smaller fixed values or with a very slight range
Piercing tends to have smaller fixed values that are all over the place

I know, I’m just trying to understand the decision behind doing so. My guess at the moment is that some items need a minimum number of stats to vary, and moving all flat damage into the top tooltip would reduce variables.

In truth, it makes little difference in gameplay (I’ll never farm multiples of an item for a slightly better roll, personally), but it is more a curiosity thing, or if it was some strange TQ relic…

The values in the top part can still give a range - this is more a variance on the values that can appear on the item as opposed to giving a damage range. Otherwise, all items could just do x = (a+b)/2 damage instead of a-b damage (which I don’t mind how it currently works).

Soulrend has lower base Physical damage, which was turned into Cold damage.

Worldeater has standard Physical damage and a Fire damage stat as part of its budget.

I see.

So it goes as follows:

Soulrend: Base damage of x (where x:= a+b, a being physical, b being cold).

Worldeater: Base damage of y (where y:=a)

Separately, it has been decided that Soulrend will have stats i, j, k, and Worldeater stats I, J, K. It just so happens that one of those stats for Worldeater is additional damage.

It’s a little strange to me but I understand it now.

Thank you Zantai.

Right, and it just so happens that one of those stats for Soulrend is additional frostburn damage.