Damage vs Overpower damage in staves and life per hit question

Sorcerer
1

Greetings.

I have two staves, both max level: one (normal) with 56% damage, max life, and life per hit. I got another staff with 2 GA affixes (max life and 180% overpower damage) and intelligence (normal). I have two royal Critical damage gems slotted in the staff (in total I have 19% CC and 240% CD). I am using a full cold damage (blizzard + ice shards) build.

Now, I normally would not choose overpower damage over normal damage but in this case, I am tempted to use the new staff (with the GA 180% overpower damage). I don’t know whether overpower damage (180%) is worth it, and if it may be better than normal weapon damage (56%). I can test it, of course, but I don’t understand the underlying mechanics: will 180% overpower help me with pit/NMD bosses or will 56% normal damage be better? As a sorcerer, I have issues with high-health single targets, not mobs.

I can reroll the normal affix to % damage but in this case, I will lose the life per hit slot. And since enchanting can get way too costly, I cannot mess up too much with this. Is life per hit useful for a sorcerer or can I forgo it for % damage? I don’t have any other life per hit / kill affix in my build, only life per second.

Thank you.

2

I don’t think Overpower will help you at all.

Damage over time effects can’t OP so the base damage of Blizzard won’t be affected. OP also applies to skill casts, not individual damage sources, so I would be inclined to suspect that it doesn’t affect Ice Spikes since they’re not actually part of the Blizzard skill (they can’t lucky hit, for instance); they’re more like their own non-skill source of damage.

I’d still use that GA staff but reroll OP into some other damage affix. You’ll lose the GA on that affix, but it’s just useless so no loss.