a nukemage?

[lilbyrdie]

Here is the skill damage comparing the two (mega mage sets):

Gemstone Wand + Bracer:

Min, Max, Average
Weapon DPS 179 224 202
Heal 133 271 202
Frostbite 209 267 238
Ice Storm 159 195 177
Firestorm 275 389 332
Lightning 262 394 328
Drain Life 305 450 377.5

Gemstone Staff:

Min, max, average:
Weapon DPS 226 264 223
Heal 131 267 199
Frostbite 253 310 281.5
Ice Storm 204 239 221.5
Firestorm 318 430 374
Lightning 306 435 370.5
Drain Life 348 490 419


I'm going to be putting all of this together. I had been planning a guide last week, but I was too busy.

This is the sort of comparison you have to do when comparing sets. Weapon damage is such a small percent of total damage of a mage that it's very important to carefully consider the effect of the sets on total skill damage.

You can use a calculated DPS to help, by adding up all the DPS of all the skills and the weapon, but doing so at several estimated mob armor levels. The higher the mob armor, the more obvious the effect of a low base damage on a fast weapon becomes -- not to mention the massive loss in damage from skills. Then, once you have all of that in place, add in the differences due to hit% (if under 85%) and crit% -- both of which also apply to attack skills. For instance 10% more hit and 5% more crit translates to about 15% more overall damage.

For a nuke mage, you want the maximum combination of all of that. dodge, armor, regen, and all the rest are gravy -- as others have said, a max damage nuke mage is going to be more fragile because of the typical item trade-offs.

Another minor point: although a 50-150 and a 95-105 damage item at the same speed should add the same base damage to skills and, statistically, do the same damage to mobs, the 95-105 is a "safer" bet. You can't _just_ look at the averages...