Skeleton mages atk speed

Hey can someone explain to me how weapon base atk speed affect the dps of skeleton mages? Is it better with 2h scythe (0.9) or 2h sword (1.0)?

I know scythe is preferable for the golem active but i dont use golem

Definitely go for 2H sword for mages. Also occult dominion on amulet outperforms all other aspects unless you manage to have almost permanent AotD uptime.

You lose an offensive aspect slot by putting occult dominion not on an armor piece.
In high pits and with Aphotic, you will have AotD ready for every elite pack, too.

Sword vs scythe doesn’t matter that much. The rolls are probably more impactful.

btw I tested weapon attack speed with another guy (basically I didn’t beleive his claim) and it 100% impacts the mages attack speed.

I tested with 1hand sword or dagger cant remember (1.2) and a scythe (0.9) obviously the scythe hit harder per hit, but the attack speed was much higher on the 1hander.

My test was, remove all other IAS mods except the 10% IAS from paragon, then click stop watch as I said “one” then counted 40 attacks, and hit the stop watch as I said “40”. the difference was something like 10s faster with the 1hander.

So my takeaway is, DPS now matters for minions, not base damage, at least for mages/skeletons and melee swings for golem. The question is how much does attackspeed/dps impact vs base damage. This I do not know, and im basically waiting for the “no lifers” to test this and do the maths LOL. I will then take the data and use it.

Unfortunately no one is talking about this, as it was not mentioned in the patch notes.

Yeah, the difference between a 2h scythe and a wand is very noticeable, even without measuring it.

so the question is, does the increased attack speed reflect the dps, therefore letting us making fairly easy calculations on which is better.
For example is a 2hand sword the same dps as a scythe for minions, because now minion attack speed takes weapon attack speed into account so should mean both weapon types should have the same output. This would potentially mean the end of scythes being BIS, except for red golems due to it being a single hit, therefore damage range matters.

I dont know… but this would be a nice change as I could play with an offhand for the first time ever potentially :open_mouth:

I used 1h+focus for my 109 clear during pushing. It feels like the dps is normalized. However, the blighted aspect at double effectiveness makes a large difference. On top of that, good luck getting three crits on max rolled double mage attacks on both slots :crazy_face:

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that’s exactly what i thought, i have 2 crits on extra projectiles on my scythe, and thats enough for me lol.
but I think 2sword or 2scythe should be more or less equal now.

Yeah same, chances for the third crit are so low that it’d have to be a 3GA weapon to even try.

This is new to me.

I always use 2 hand scythe, because everyone said minion atack frames has no impact with weapon speed.

If this is true, i can finally test 1 hand weapon with Shield (which has less damage than focus, but the affix +80% main hand weapon damage isnt bad, considering the damage reduction possibility).

Yo Battletag, whats your take on shadow mage upgrades? do you take #1 or #2? I am bad at maths, but I notice most players take the 3% increased shadow damage per mage.
I tested #2 and the 3rd attack is every 3rd attack regardless if its a weapon proc or an actual attack. So the 3rd attack is extremely frequent due to it effectively only needing 1 - 2 “real” attacks as proc’s count to this 3 attacks counter.

So my question is, #2 seems clearly superior to #1 upgrade if they stand alone, but not sure how #1 interacts with everything else… and given how multipliers scale off each other is this the reason for #1 choice over #2?

Anyway let me know if you have any insight into this, or if anyone else has input feel free to enlighten me :slight_smile:

the issue is, getting the extra mage attack with this setup, you cannot play shadow mages without having at least 80-90% chance of an extra attack on weapon, its absolutely insane extra damage.

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The extra projectiles are visually different. Depending on the source, they’re either behind the original or side by side with it.
Extra projectiles from the 2nd upgrade happen exactly every 3rd attack. The weapon temper doesn’t change that. BUT, the extra projectiles can double cast so their attack pattern can be 2, 2, 4, 2, 2, 4.

What this means is that you can calculate the DPS increases independently. The weapon temper is a 99% increase (duh), the 2nd mage upgrade a 33% increase and the 1st a 15% increase. More instances of damage also mean better blighted uptime.

If your mages comprise almost all your damage the double cast would be better, in theory. In practice that probably isn’t going to happen. As mentioned above 2nd upgrade does give more shadowblight triggers and blighted up-time though. So figuring it out definitively would require quantifying that gap plus the mage contributions with a 33% increase vs everything else with a 15% increase. Have fun with that. :slight_smile:

Damage sources other than the mages are negligible. My blight ticks for 2000 and shadowblight crits for 12k. My mages, on the other hand, deal about one mil per hit. Those numbers are base line, without conditional multipliers active. You do the math if adding about 1.2k average shadowblight damage to 2 mil hits (with unyielding commander) is worth anything.

It’s a bit hard to discern what the blight and shadowblight numbers get up to with everything active but your peripheral damage sources will pale in comparison to >50 mil mage hits.

Well, in that case you’d use the double bolt cast upgrade. It kind of depends on setup though. What build we talking here?

It’s not as if there is a shortage of options. Golem builds, mage builds, hybrid setups. Maybe you get brick walled in Pit but the mob life scaling there is a bad joke with no punchline. Eventually tiers don’t get harder. Mobs get tankier. And… yeah… that’s basically it. It’s similar to AoZ in this regard.

The point was one upgrade boosts Mages and provides some miscellaneous, harder to quantify damage. The other boosts all the things. Which is better depends on which one of those elevates your overall damage more. It’s reasonable to believe the boost to all the things is better unless Mages comprise the vast majority of your output. They very well may, depending on setup.

Actually my 2 hand scythe have 72% chance skelly mages do extra atack. Also i use the mage passive that do extra atack every 3 hits.

Dunno if the “extra atack” from passive can proc the weapon chance of extra atack.

I know is hard to test on pratice, but in theory you will proc faster shadowblight which matter for general damage. Also, i dont think (x) 15% extra shadow damage from first passive (considering 5 mages) is big deal vs extra atack (at least i didnt see big number changes)

In normal content (outside pit and tormented bosses), really dont matters since mobs die in 1-2 shots.

ok thanks for the responses, I had assumed the #2 was better even with my poor maths skills, so this just confirms it :slight_smile:

I understood the extra attacks as, the mage shoots normal projectile from right hand, the proc follows it from right hand, left hand was from the book of the dead upgrade, and if 2 from left hand its a book of the dead + weapon proc.
But I tested this for like 1min and was like “ok cool” so not very accurately hahaha

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Right, we were talking about shadow mage builds, specifically. For any build that scales something else, like the golem or bone spirit, the first upgrade will be better, obviously.

Dunno if the “extra atack” from passive can proc the weapon chance of extra atack.

Yes, it can. you’ll get two pairs of two projectiles on one attack.

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Yeah, we’re on the same page and all good. I just meant in a general sense. If mages are doing all the damage boosting them with the 2nd upgrade would be better. If not, the 1st upgrade is probably better.

I also assumed Ralph runs a golem because they’ve been hellbent on making the minion train run since… forever. What’d you do to your golem Ralph? Surely you didn’t sacrifice the poor fella. :slight_smile:

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Im shadow mages, but i run a golem for 30% damage reduction, i can sac it for 30% crit dmg but im currently not doing that. Basically my golem does no damage.

I just farm 100’s and with a bit of extra life i can do them very easily. I prefer the “not dying randomly” game play better then more damage but dying randomly.

But even with 54k life and insane DR i still die randomly in pit 100. if i run 2 elixir its fine htough.