[BUG] Firewall Damage - Day 4

PC Bug Report
1

Updated after the patch yesterday and burning instinct buff

Based on the best available data, the damage calculation is as follows:
Weapon Damage x Skill Damage x Main Attribute x (1 + Sum of Additive bonuses) x ( 1 + Multiplicative bonus 1) x (1 + Multiplicative bonus 2) etc.

My current character calculation is

Weapon Damage 2,253.00

Skill Damage 336%
7,570.08
Int modifier 180%
13,626.14
Increased Mastery Skill Damage 139%
32,511.98

Additive Bonuses
All Damage 18%
Damage with Fire 185%
Damage with Burning 551%
Damage vs Burning 89%

Total Additive Bonuses 1 + 842%

Damage before Vulnerable 306,392.90
Damage Per Second 38,299.11

Additional bonuses:
Damage vs Close 53%
Damage vs Crowd Controlled 151%
Damage vs Immobilized 64%

I am currently hitting monsters for about 2,500 damage on the first tick. I have tested this at WT1, WT4, and WT4 nightmare dungeons and am doing the same amount of damage. I am currently level 81. I retested after the patch, no change in damage.

The damage vs Crowd Controlled enemies and/or damage vs immobilized enemies is working correctly, as my damage doubles to triples after CC’ing/immobilizing enemies.

For another point of reference, my tooltip damage is 60,515 over 8 seconds. I should be doing at least 7,564 damage per second based on the tooltip, and my understanding is the tooltip is always undercalculating damage.

Please let me know if you need any additional information. I have done hours of in game testing to validate this issue. I also have screenshots but I don’t know how to include those on the forum.

3 Likes
+dmg to chilled or +dmg to burning debate
2

I have a friend of mine trying a firewall build as well that seems like does very little damage despite having late game 775+ gear and an over 800+ damage staff, level 80+, etc.

They are doing like 3-4k per tick on their firewall which seems on par with my Barb damage at like level 55 with normal weapons.

Are you using the Crit Damage → Burning Damage conversion aspect or gear or w/e? That might be some of the reasoning that it just doesn’t work.

Maybe it would be better to describe your gear states and aspects.

2 Likes
3

The OP seems to have top gear based on the calculations provided. Burning Instinct legendary node, correct “burn” passives in skill tree, aspects to help… etc etc. I have to agree there is something not working right, at least from my testing as well. Hopefully devs can look at this more closely.

1 Like
4

I have all ancestral gear with almost BiS stats on them. The biggest driver for burning damage is Burning Instinct. I have is +Critical strike damage on my weapon, rings, and the node on the paragon board giving another +30% critical strike damage. I have a total of 197% critical strike damage, which I believe includes the base 50%.

The only aspect that might be applicable is the +damage to immobilized, frozen, or stunned enemies on my weapon. There is only one firewall aspect currently, which is +move speed after moving through which slots onto boots.

As Traedawg said, I have my paragon board set up for +non-physical damage, burning damage, etc etc to stack what I thought to be applicable nodes. Very sad state of affairs :frowning:

1 Like
5

3-4k per tick per firewall seems to be the norm. That’s very low.

You know what really increases my DPS? Damage againsy chilled/crowd controller target. I don’t have a lot of this yet, but it almost double my dps.

My firewall would tick for 3-4k by itself. When using the chilling boots and leading mobs through it, it hits for 4.5-6k now.

I can’t say whether it’s because the burning nodes do not work, but nothing afffects the tooltip of Firewall except +Firewall, +Non-Physical damage and +Fire damage.

Burning damage doesn’t increase it. In fact, burning damage doesn’t increase a single spell tooltip.

6

As for the tooltip, it doesn’t take mob defense into account. Their def reduce all damage by at least 60%, so you wouldn’t be able to use it to get an accurate idea of how much you would hit. For instance, my hydras show 7200 per hit on the tooltip, but it’s more like 3.1/3.5 per hit on average (except crits which are like 10k or so) against mobs of my level.

However, the tooltips do not even take Burning damage in consideration either. It looks worse for Firewall as it’s a pure DoT spell.

Maybe it’s only a tooltip bug and Firewall is supposed to be a mob clearing spell mostly (and subpar at that), but maybe Firewall doesn’t even get any of our +Burning damage stat in consiseration at all. That would be ridiculously bad, but wouldn’t surprise me considering how bugged Combustion (and Burning Instinct, to a extent) was.

I’ll test it again once I get the chance.

7

I have basically Top 1% perfect gear rolls on every piece, including all Uniques, minus Harlequin Crest.

Level 88
689 Int
1840 Weapon dmg
24% Dmg +25% with barrier +20% dmg vs resources
140% Fire Dmg
32% Dmg vs Elites
174% Dmg vs Crown Controlled +48% Damaged to immobilized, stunned, frozen
70% dmg to burning
122% dmg to Close
250% Vulnerable damage + 20% with barrier
181% Crit Dmg
184% Overpower
42.1% CD Reduction
49.5% Crowd Control Duration
30% Lucky Hit +48.2% Lucky Hit With Barrier
19.7% mana cost reduction
1-300% Damage Fists of Fate
Level 12 Firewall
Level 7 Glass Cannon Passive
All Glyphs Capped at 21

My damage doesn’t even come close to the Ice Sorc Build. Fire wall will tick for 5k white damage, 25k when fully CCed I will have stunned mobs standing in 7-10 firewalls and actually watch their health bar go up. Something is seriously wrong with how Firewall interacts with mobs. Do mobs standing still actually take damage or only when they move?

1 Like
8

I can’t believe there is another 80+ playing firewall! Crazy haha.

Mobs standing still should take the same damage as moving. The fact you’re even asking that question is both hilarious and indicative of the problem. This is unrelated, but your weapon damage seems pretty low. Maybe you’re using a unique, but base weapon damage is one of the most important factors for damage scaling in D4. You might want to test out an 800+ item power staff and see how it performs, you’re missing out on ~700 base weapon damage or almost ~40% total damage. I can DM you a google sheets damage calculator that works well if you’re interested.

I’m going to continue posting these bug reports every day on the forums until I get some traction and/or a response from blizzard. Feel free to come back every day and add some visibility with comments and what not. It is absolutely, 100% broken.

1 Like
9

I loved Firewall Sorc in Diablo 2 and was really excited to play it in D4. I’m currently using 790+25 Wand and a 737+25 Codex that I got the first day I started WT4. They both rolled with perfect secondaries and I have yet to see anything even drop remotely close close in power parity. Everywhere I read says 1H+OH is better than 2H Staff due to attack speed and lucky hit passives.

1 Like
10

Personal opinion here, staff is better for firewall. Attack speed isn’t that important, I have more mana issues than I do the speed with which I cast firewall, and 55% crowd control damage as an implicit is a huge damage boost. I also wouldn’t get too caught up on what the internet says. Part of what I love about my firewall build is how tanky I am. I am more tanky than both my barb and druid bros that I play with frequently. Or, well, played with since I stopped playing after the realization that my damage is ~5% of what it should be. But everything online talks about how sorcs have no survivability and that has not been the case for me at all.

11

Resources aren’t an issue for me. Once I get 1-2 Firewalls down, the tick rate procs my 80% lucky hit chance to restore resources and I basically have infinite mana as long as mobs remain burning. My understanding is that the rational behind the 1H is higher attack speed equals more firewalls, which theoretically should stack burning damage faster from multiple sources.

I suspect, that the game currently doesn’t treat individual firewalls, as individual burning sources, therefore the burning damage isn’t stacking. Meaning adding additional firewalls to something already burning from firewall doesn’t do increased damage. This is the only explanation I can think of how a monster can stand on 7 firewalls, yet regen health faster than the burning damage.

When pushing high nightmare dungeons, if I fail to apply vulnerable to a target, Firewall doesn’t do enough damage to overcome the natural health regen of the monsters, so their health bar will actually go up even though the entire room is on fire.

1 Like
12

"I suspect, that the game currently doesn’t treat individual firewalls, as individual burning sources, therefore the burning damage isn’t stacking. Meaning adding additional firewalls to something already burning from firewall doesn’t do increased damage. "

I actually know this is not the case because my damage is so low :smiley: . I see increased damage stacking up from multiple firewalls, like legit I will see ~2,500 → ~5,000 → ~7,500 on the first, second, and third casts of firewall for me. I also see a large damage increase when I CC, so I know that portion is working. I.E. my 7,500 damage will suddenly become 20,000 damage when my lucky hit procs immobilize or I apply immobilize with the fire shield aspect.

My main hypothesis is firewall isn’t being counted as fire damage OR burning damage somehow, but who knows. My damage is so far below what it should be that there have to be multiple layers of damage not being considered. The mastery skill damage glyph and skill damage from my 800 intelligence alone is more than what I’m actually doing. No additive bonuses considered.

Edit: I didn’t even respond about the weapons. I might give main hand / off-hand a try then! I have the lucky hit gives resources back obviously, so maybe with a bit more investment I will see the endless mana you see and can utilize attack speed. I think my perception is skewed since damage vs CC is one of the only things actually working, so I leaned into it as much as possible.

1 Like
13

I tested Firewall with and without Burning Instinct on. I left every CC or situational aspect out so it wouldn’t contaminate my testing.

I couldn’t always get a single target only, but here’s the gist of it :

  • With Burning Instinct (475%) on, my second and following ticks would vary between 3.5 and 4.5k, depending on the target.
  • With Burning Instict off, these same ticks would be between 2.1 and 2.6k on average.

So, Burning damage does increase Firewall damage, which is a good thing. There might be some interactions that do not work well though.

14

That’s fair. I notice a difference too actually and specifics are important. I will change my language going forward. Good point there. But something about the whole thing feels clearly off.

I’m not sure what level you are, but if you’re getting 475% from BI I’m going to assume it’s pretty high. Given that, you should be doing way more damage than that almost no matter what. Something about the damage calculation is fundamentally broken. You can look at DonTheCrown’s Comparison tool for instance. I can’t post a link here, but youtube “MAXIMIZE your DAMAGE with this tool!” and you can find it there. The most basic weapon damage * skill damage, assuming weapon damage of 2,000 and firewall level 12 at 336%, is 840 damage per second. 840*(1+475%)=4,830 damage per second. Assuming that is the only damage benefit you are getting, you are still underperforming on your damage.

15

I agree that it’s lacking at a whole and yes, I’m level 90. So far, it’s very effective at clearing mobs with or without vulnerability in sub NM50 dungeons (in a hit and run through the dungeon strategy), but in group play, even by stacking firewalls on a boss, its too slow to be competitive and it offers next to no benefit to your group. No vulnerability, no damage reduction, nothing.

I really hoped we would get a significant buff on a wide range of currently lacking spells, but this is Blizzard. They won’t buff the currently most played class, even if it’s rock bottom.

16

This video pretty much sums it up.

2 Likes
17

Hey so I finally hit 99 on my Sorc and the disappointment is real. Fully geared, max paragon, 99% maxrolled gear and my firewall is only ticking for 67k normal, 160k on staggered bosses. Considering I have over 200 hours into this character I feel like I just wasted the last month of my time. Can’t clear anything higher than a 60 because everything is instant death without permanent invulnerability. Hands down would recommend avoiding Sorc until they fix the class.

18

So I’ve been a firewall sorc since about lvl 45ish and i’m 93 now. I started with a few builds i found online and then modified to my own play style.

My stats are around 230% vuln damage, 99% dmg while things are cc’d. 925ish intel, 11k hp… I’ve got a rainment chest and pretty much vuln/crit damge on everything. My burning instinct node is at 365%.

In order for a fw build to work right now… You have to have crit dmg % and vuln dmg % on every piece of gear. My rotation… Teleport to the enemies, frost nova for vuln debuff… and then do your firewalls… keeping frost shield up as much as possible.

I can clear T48’s and 50’s with ease at level 93. Damage with shield/frost nova will jump from 20k to 150k+ per second easily… With longer fights being in the 200-500k per tick range (like on elites in a party or bosses)

19

Now compare this to videos of endgame builds ticking for 5-20 million damage for other builds and classes. Firewall is fun to mess around with in helltides, but it will never be a competitve endgame build when Frost is ticking for 4 million damage. :rofl:

20

You must be invested in all damage. And that’s all well and good for you, but it doesn’t address the post you are respond to at all. How does the math above make any sense?

My burning instinct node is over 400%. I still do dogsh!t damage.