Ethereals seem cool and all, but I’ll pass on the next season.
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I think that means it’s probably additive, because many additive bonuses (like Brawler for instance) show up in your sheet damage, while multipliers like the EW set bonus do not.
I guess I’m confused then. If you double your sheet damage does that not double your total damage? I thought sheet was a global value, independent of any bonus to skills. The hover text says it’s based on “weapons, attributes (main stat?), attack speed, CHC, CHD, passive skills, and dual-wielding attack speed increase”.
I guess I don’t know what it’s theoretically additive or multiplicative with? Are we talking about skill rolls on gear? Orange text legendaries?
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Yes, it’s a bit confusing. Maybe you’re right that the “doubled sheet damage” in this case amounts to a multiplicative increase. The issue with sheet damage is that it sometimes goes up via adding things that don’t actually increase the damage of certain attacks, like Attack Speed with EQ or Rend. And of course it doesn’t go up at all from most multipliers. Question: do you know if they have other additive bonuses active when they equip the ethereal that doubles or triples their sheet?
For instance, if your sheet says 10000 damage, and you have no additive buffs, then you equip Brawler, your sheet will go to 12000, a 20% increase. If you then equip Berserker Rage, it will go to 14500, a total 45% increase over the 10000 but only a 20.8% increase over 12000. In other words, the sheet correctly reckons the additive damage sources. But, y’know, if you had no additive buffs, and equipped an ethereal weapon that tripled your sheet damage, this might still be additive- you’d have to add some other additive sources to see where you end up.
The easiest way to check is using Rend, I can explain how to do it if somebody wants to run a test. I’m not going to do it myself since I’m not really playing this PTR.
If it is indeed multiplicative, then there is basically no doubt that carrying Grandfather will be the best option for basically all builds in the coming season, at least for pushing. Grimmershreds might be good for lower speeds, from the modest move speed bonus, and Doombringer for supports, due to the 25% damage reduction on hit.
Even if the buff is additive, Grandfather will still be the best option for most builds. The exceptions might be R6 HOTA and MOTE Slam, which might run into mitigation or cooldown problems running a 2H weapon.
It’s pretty exciting. Every streamer I watch said it’s sheet damage.
The doombringer / ambo combo is nice for rend. The Grandfather hits like a truck, but it’s slow so your cooldowns take longer from zodiac, fury regen is slower, etc. Great at high clears Im sure, but from a quality of life view its a pain in the azz.
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I don’t know.
I’m sure you’re right though with being additive with things like brawler and berserker rage. If my math is correct, a 200% bonus gets diluted to 166% by brawler and to 137% by brawler plus berserker rage.
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Lol, well, I’m not sure it’s additive… but, I’d just like to see an actual damage test to determine for sure how it works.
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Yeah, agreed. The fact that it jacks up sheet damage normally points to an additive bonus, but it could be multiplicative in a way that we haven’t seen yet.
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Dunno if it’s sheet or not.
What I do know is levelling is easy.
I think if you’re lucky to get the right combo of skills these things will be good fun.
Side note. You cant dual weild the axe and the sword.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise, as it’s in the PTR 2.7.1 Blog
- Only one Ethereal can be equipped at a time.
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Yeah I missed that bit lol.
Any updates on whether the bonus is additive or multiplicative (or something new altogether)? Rage and I don’t play Seasons so we need someone else to test it.
Its certainly not multiplicative. But lol you can feel a big difference.
Are you certain? I mean, multipliers generally don’t change sheet damage, so that points to the bonuses being additive. Super-large additive bonuses are going to make a build feel more powerful, especially early on or for speed-farming, but their worth in pushing end-game GRs is something else.
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I was just about to point out the fact that this 2handed rend build will lose a minimum of 48% area damage, 30% damage from istvans, 130 CHD from one less socket. I can see this being better for speeds but not so much in max push situations. 48% area damage is a lot.
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Well, dw setup will also be short 24% AD since neither Doombringer or Grimmershred rolls AD.
So that’s only 24% more AD for DW. Grandfather has something like 120% more damage when spinning and 60% more damage from hard-casting.
The one caveat I can think of is that Doombringer reduces mob damage by 25% and also rolls LpH, so maybe at 4k paragon or something like that you could drop StP for ItF.
Those numbers, btw, are assuming the buffs are additive. If multiplicative, Grandfather is even further ahead.
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A question guys, my first impression was that we can only use one ethereal. Have you tested dual wielding the two one handers? Just curious 
As stated in the blog and as tested in game, you can not equip two ethereals at once even if they are different 1 handed weapons.
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I’m not sure if it’s straight up sheet damage. You are clearly doing more than that.
A few posts earlier.
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