Hi. I’ve read around that it is, but I haven’t been able to get an explanation as to WHY.
Thanks for your time.
Almost everything you do as a Barbarian (including Bleed) uses Physical Damage. Sounds like a good choice to me (depending on build and availability of other things).
True power comes from stacking as many multipliers as possible. If it has an [x] in the tooltip, use it. Also, you want to keep all damage buckets as close to each other as possible in size. That means Strength is very valuable and should not be overlooked, to name one example.
Enjoy theory crafting and above all experimenting in game! That is the most fun 
I know it applies almost all the time, about multipliers, and that +x% Physical is additive. I’m just considering prioritising other other pretty useful stats, like +x% Total Armor or +x% Critical Strike Chance.
Right now, on Physical, I have 26% on chestplate, and 19% on one ring.
And I suck at noticing changes that aren’t enormous. Getting rid of all that +x% to Physical might go unnoticed, even if it IS significant.
Overall, I’d say I should prioritise defensive stuff like Total Armor. I recently sacrificed a +750 to armor, to socket three gems and improve my weakest elemental resists. So, I think I need some more armor.
Also, the +x% on critical chance would be an Enchant to keep that mod around in that gear type, while changing to another ring that aside from that… Would also give me more life and perhaps improve my fury. I recently sacrificed a 9% to life from a passive skill, to increase fury generation. I changed my key passive to Unbridled Rage, and it’s a good idea to keep up with the higher price of Upheaval now. It’s a change I’m probably gonna keep after all, Unbridled Rage. It’s made Upheaval my strongest attack.
In the end, I just wanna know how big a sacrifice I’m making, by abandoning that +x% to Physical.
Any double-digit % worth of Damage you’re giving up will be noticeable. It’s an interesting balance between DPS and Defense.
Physical damage is nothing magical, it’s just another form of additive damage.
You have to find a balance between damage and defense. Mobs needs to die quick, but you also need to be able to survive long enough to put them down.
I have a problem with that. Most of the time, I don’t notice changes to damage unless they’re REALLY big. So, I need to rely on the sheer math to know I’m improving.
I know it’s not really coherent, to compare offense and defense as they don’t have the same role. But within the whole of damage buckets, how important is +x% to Physical really? If you had to do a ranking of current damage mods, for a barb that has all significant damage as Physical… As I have no elemental damage, no thorns, and no damage over time worth mentioning (I do cause bleeding all the time, but it’s negligible; I use it mostly to trigger some other effects, like slow).
I don’t use it at all. For damage specifically (on gear) I focus on these things (I play a Berserk/Rend/Rapture build):
Strength
All Stat
Crit Chance
Attack Speed
Rank +4 for skill you want
Damage to Close Enemies
Damage while Berserking
And that’s it. Physical Damage is like any other stats, it’s just additive damage, it has no magical properties, it works just as well as “Damage to close Enemies” for example. Just take the damage stats that apply to your build and fighting style.
Physical applies to both direct damage from hits and bleed damage. I believe it also applies to dust devils and earthquakes. Unless you’re doing non-physical damage (Ghor’s, Azurewrath, Hellhammer, Andy’s, or Doombringer) it’s more beneficial than the other additive buckets.
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I personally prefer physical damage over critical chance. Critical chance is overrated. It’s probability and if you reach 30% in combos, skills, aspects and others, that’s more than enough.
It’s nice to always see critical on the screen, however, to reach more than 40%, you will sacrifice a lot of base damage. Base damage being low, critical will be low and ultimate DPS will be lower.
Obviously there are exceptions. If you are looking for a build to kill everything with one critical hit, securing the critical is essential but you need to study the mechanics that the game offers. There are a few options to secure the critical.
In general, and in this season, I personally prefer physical damage. Another source to increase my base damage.
I have 39.5% crit chance and pretty beefy flat damage. I take crit and lucky chance on both rings and on gloves. I also have 80% physical.
My flat on Frenzy is 64-78k with Inner Calm, Elements, and a level 17 Imbiber - without anything else active.
I don’t think physical is worth more than crit chance on rings, but I agree it’s much more valuable than the majority think it is. It’s all about balance.
Perhaps. I love to have a high crit chance on my Lunging Strike which then procs Berserk all the time which synergies with the Tuskhelm. I don’t care so much about Crit Damage per say, that’s just a bonus at this point.
I do like very much how we all can do a bit different things in this game and achieve good results, more or less. It’s great to see what others are doing!
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This.
To highlight that some skills like dust devils and earthquakes are not “core” type skills and hence it benefits from +physical damage. The new glyphs for those 2 skills means that they are now viable damage dealers (as tested on the dummy) and not just some filler stat.
Are you not using Blood Rage? Damage while berserking should be higher ranking on this list imo.
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I am and yes it should be ranked higher, but that list was not put together in any specific order. Blood Rage is a Paragon node, and that list was only about gear affixes. Still good advice
I believe he was just saying that DwB is a gear affix and should be the #1 priority now.