Damage Buckets - How to fix Vulnerable

PC General Discussion
1

So now that we have had a few weeks to play the game, I thought having a forum post regarding the damage buckets would be a healthy conversation to help add more build variety.

The main problem I have identified in the current iteration of damage buckets is that vulnerable as a multiplier is just too good, but only some classes have a very niche way to apply vulnerable while others really struggle to apply it without branching off of their class playstyle which hurts build diversity.

The current buckets as far as I can tell and have read are as follows:
1- Weapon DPS
2- Main Stat
3- Vulnerable Damage
4- Critical Damage
5- Everything else (Damage To & Damage VS, Damage with)

So how do you solve the Vulnerable Damage issue? I actually think it is quite simple and I would love to have some feedback from the community on your thoughts!

Solution:

I would put Vulnerable into the “Damage To” bucket, but then I would split those three tags apart, thus we would have the following:

1-Weapon DPS
2-Main Stat
3-Critical Damage
4-Damage To
5-Damage With

By doing this, we keep 5 buckets of damage, while still allowing vulnerable to be important as it has more scaling overall than other modifiers. This allows for the current niche vulnerable builds to stay competitive, but also pulls them more into the crowd of people who would prefer to focus on things such as bleeding damage, or physical stacking, etc…

As stated, I would love to hear some good constructive dialogue on this as I feel it is a major issue but I would love for Blizzard to read a wide variety of opinions on the matter.

Thank you!

17 Likes
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Ya, I expect BLizzard will end up doing soemthing along these lines. Either moving some other affixes into vulnerable, or moving vulnerable into another bucket with some other stuff.

We’ll see.

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how about removing all these stupid damage modifiers so they can easily balance the game?

17 Likes
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Why not just lower the Vulnerable multiplier? :slight_smile:

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The problem with vulnerable isn’t how high the modifier is. AFterall, at base its only 20%. The problem is with the way damage calculations are handled it is inherently more valuable than almost any other modifier due to way it scales with your other sources of damage.

Nerfing vulnerable will simply lower everyone’s damage, not really change the inherent value of vulnerable damage, unless they nerf it so far it becomes useless. But if they adjust it so that it has a scaling that more closely aligns with toher damage modifiers, then it’ll be easier to balance and less out of control.

5 Likes
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I would like for Vulnerable be something that falls into the bucket with the ‘crit stuff’ honestly - or - given that Damage over time has no ‘crit’ effect in gear AND overpower cannot apply to Damage over time - make vulnerable the amplifier for DoTs and it doesn’t apply to other damage types.

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i think if you just lower it’s multiplier it’s still remain mandatory.

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I like all the modifiers because it really helps with build identity and allows for a lot of future growth. The issue with vulnerable is that it is a standalone modifier which makes it mandatory along with crit damage to get true peak damage. There needs to be more competition within the types.

This is a possible solution as well, but I feel like DOT is actually in the best state of anything damage roll wise. It actually just snapshots based on applications. So if you are close, the enemy is vulnerable, and you hit a crit on the hit that applies bleed, you do a lot more DOT than if you just apply the DOT before the other status effects. Thus Vulnerable already is a modifier for Dot’s.

Seluhir and SCRSCRSCR have really good responses to this. To add to their responses, the main problem I would like to avoid is that D3 issue where you just always get crit chance and crit damage on every single item. If we have legit competition within a handful or more buckets, it allows for maximum build creativity and fantasy.

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I thought the same but Vulnerable doesn’t sound Vulnerable if it’s at say 10% base… The problem could be its being its own damage bucket. OR… there are too many easy ways to make a target Vulnerable. Honesty, after playing diablo 4 all every day since early launch. I start to think about damage buckets and how damage works in Diablo 4. I can see why Vulnerable is like a ‘must have stat’. Which I think is actually good (especially early-game and mid-game PvP duels) and reminds me why fortify is almost like a must have stat as well (I play hardcore). The issue I see is that there shouldn’t be ways to increase from 20% base Vulnerable damage from multipliers on skills, passive, glyphs, or gear, and etc. What would be a better approach is to keep…

Solution: to damage buckets
1- Weapon DPS
2- Main Stat
3- Vulnerable Damage (base 20% never increases)
4- Critical Damage
5- Everything else (Damage To & Damage VS, Damage with)

Also, possibly reduce some accessibility that can always constantly apply Vulnerable. Either from skills or such. At least with this approach we can keep Vulnerable in its own damage bucket (as blizz intended Diablo 4 players to have access to alternative ways to high damage output than crit and such (good idea).

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You still need other types of damage to amplify the affects of vulnerable

Lets says you have 200% damage with 170% vulnerable and 100% crit damage
Then its 200 x 2.7 x 2 = 1,080% crit damage against vulnerable

Well you need that base as high as you can to reach a high end number. 170% vulnerable damage is nice but you cant neglect the rest

Now lets say i reduce my vulnerable damage significantly… from 170% to 100% because vulnerable damage in paragon and what not is much lower than other available

Lets say now im 350% x 2 x 2
Thats 1400%
So i sacrificed some vulnerable damage for normal damage but i was able to significantly increase damage output

I dont think there is any issue with vulnerable damage, just dont neglect your main bucket damage to chase only vulnerable and crit

1 Like
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Is overpower in its own bucket as well i never see that mentioned?

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I mean, sure you are right with this specific scenario, but it goes deeper.

The problem is that vulnerable as a single line on an item is worth 4 lines of everything else. This is directly because vulnerable is in its own bucket as a direct multiplier. Because of this any build that can apply vulnerable requires you to do so for max dps, and any build that cannot apply vulnerable will never compete in total damage output.

Thats what we need fixed.

Yes, but it is basically a crit on steroids, and is always the same flat chance to overpower.

There are some ways to manipulate the damage of overpower, or after doing several things ensure you overpower on your next hit, but it takes a lot of work and setup.

My feeling with it is that it is really fun to scale and play around with, but very inefficient.

1 Like
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They want you to spend gold on enchanting, and those affixes get in the way. Same for loot drops. They don’t want everything to have the perfect affixes. Half of these affixes are filler, intentionally

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Pretty much, every good ARPG needs to find a balance between finding the perfect item and the challenge therein.

I think the current drop rates are viable in this regard, but would be nice to see more ways to craft and create the perfect item as well, with obvious risks.

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There isn’t a problem with Vulnerable. Once you get enough +vuln damage, it’s not significantly better than any other bucket.

1 Like
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There’s a huge problem with it - since it is its own multiplier, you HAVE to get it in your build or you are massively gimping your dmg.

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The bucket system was disproved and Northwar and SnowRaven were found to be morons using the D4 builds website to carry the data over when they built the bucket system.

Problem you have is D4Builds DID NOT show the correct values for most of the Multiplicative or Additive values.

Damage VS as in Damage to and Damage with is all additive unless stated otherwise. Damage to Close, Damage to Far, Damage with is all Additive values, even damage to Vulnerable enemies is additive because your increasing your damage done to targets effected by the Vulnerable affix you’re NOT increasing the multiplicative value that would be “+% to Vulnerable damage”

You’re weapon DPS and your Main stat scale your Power level which effects your Skill damage multiplier.

Your opinion is moot because you don’t have any inclination on how anything you’re talking about even works.

1 Like
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The Vuln damage is applied last.

Base Damage + Additive modifiers = New Value
New Value x Crit Damage = Crit Value x Vuln dmg = Total damage

That would be how you calculate the damage.

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Yes but Overpower is Additive not multiplicative and certain nodes give multiplicative OP values which give diminishing returns. if you had for example 300% OP and a node that gave x50% OP you would do 300* 0.5 to get 150 + the original 300 to get +450% OP.

It’s just not good to build into hence why it falls off mid game.

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Okay, so people know what damage buckets are and the difference between multipliers and additive damage, but don’t seem to understand the implications of what it would mean to change how vulnerability works.

If you changed vulnerability to an additive bucket, every single class becomes significantly weaker. Nothing gets stronger by making vulnerability less good. It wouldn’t even be possible for majority of classes to kill lillith at level 100 if they changed vulnerability damage the way you’re suggesting. It would completely break the game balance and the designers would have to redesign all the health values of everything in the game.

It’s going to be a mess to sort out the problem with vulnerability being as good as it is. It’s not an easy fix. You can’t just shift vulnerability to a different bucket and have the game work well.

1 Like