Diablo – How is skill damage calculated based on weapon damage

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I understand that spell damage in based on weapon damage, but how? A weapon has both a damage attribute (e.g., 2-3 damage), and a damage-per-second attribute (e.g., 3.0 damage per second).

Let's say we have two scenarios:

  1. You equip an apprentice's wand: 3.0 Damage Per Second, 2–3 Damage, 1.20 Attacks per Second
  2. You equip a variation of this wand: 3.0 Damage Per Second, 1-1.5 Damage, 2.40 Attacks per Second.

Now if you cast a Magic Missile (110% weapon damage) in scenario one, would it deal 2.2-3.3 damage? And 1.1-1.65 damage in scenario two?

So this could be balanced by the fact that weapons with higher attacks per second allow you to cast spells faster. But in this case, it would cost more arcane power. Is arcane power adjusted with attacks per second? Is this mechanism explained somewhere ?

Best Answer

To answer the question posed in the initial question: Only if you had 0 intelligence and no other damage bonuses!

Base damage is simply weapon damage + any damage bonus from gear (+elemental damage is effectively "+damage" as far as the system is concerned).

The formula is roughly as follows

Base Damage =
        (weapon damage range + bonus damage from gear)
        × bonus from primary attribute†
        × other class bonuses from skills.

Ability Damage =
        Base Damage (as above)
        × % Weapon Damage listed on the ability.

†1 primary attribute = +1% bonus damage

Weapon speed doesn't come into play at all when calculating damage from abilities.

What this means is that weapon speed is balanced as a stat; either you deal more damage per hit (by picking a slower weapon), or you use more abilities (since weapon speed affects animation time). DPS is entirely useless as a comparison metric unless you're only auto-attacking.

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