Gem wand question?

[CosmoxKramer]

Well, i was intrigued by the difference of Blizzard Stick and MM gemstone wand. I built a little emulator in excel to run through dps tests for each. I factored in the following
-Was Blessing of Might active
-Was Weakness active
-MM Gemstone wand proc at about 33% (after testing on some Djinn's it was <50% but probably better than 25%)
-Using the following forum post i derived the following as well - Advanced Mechanics in PL
-Enemy armor seems to reduce damage by 35%
-Crits are 2x damage of weapon/skill
-Hit has a cap that is ~85% even if you are well over 100 Hit

I also assumed the following
-You have no outside debuffs - if there was outside debuffs it would effect both weapons used so this may not cause too much of a swing either direction
-I built a macro that will fill in the Skills used to where you can use a skill every 1/2 second. I figured this because i was able to cause about 6 spells between each Lightning. This macro fills out the full column based on a skill priority (that you can set) as well as Firestorm ALWAYS follows Ice Storm.
-My priority was the following (This also doesn't not use Blessing of Vit, magic Shield, Resurrect, or heal so it is max dps)
1 Blessing of Might
2 Nightmare
3 Weakness
4 Ice Storm
5 Firestorm
6 Drain Life
7 Lightning
8 Frostbite

-I also have Firestorm Combo's if frozen and the base Firestorm spell hit/crit

Here are some screenshots and results with 1000xtests of 500 second tests for each Wand

If you'd like me to email you a copy of the document please PM your email address to me. It only has Blizzard Stick and MM Gemstone wand in it, but if you know a thing or two about excel you could change it.

[CosmoxKramer]

Oh I am wearing
55 MM helm
55 MM chest
55 Lowman's Gemstone Bracer
Fine Platinum Band of Bracery

[Royce]

That's interesting, but I have a couple of quick thing to note. You can't set armor reduction as a percentage. Armor mitigates damage in a point to point fashion, so if your target has 25 armor, you must subtract 25 points of damage from every strike of every weapon. This is why high DPS weapons that have low damage but high speed (like the blizzard stick) are more greatly affected by target armor than slower, higher damage weapons (like the gem wands). Also did you factor in the skill damage difference? Your skills when using the gem wand do a ton more damage than with the blizzard stick (about 40 points for lightning for example).

[CosmoxKramer]

hi Royce,

Ok, i updated the formulas quite a bit and caught a few errors in the calculation. After fixing it all i found the following results
Enemy with 60 armor (Nightmare maxed at 6) and no Archer hurts Blizzard stick
-Blizzard stick 537.7 dps
-MM Gemstone 519.0 dps
Enemy with 80 armor
-Blizzard stick 466.2 dps
-MM Gemstone 466.9 dps
Enemy with 100 armor
-Blizzard stick 394.9 dps
MM Gemstone 415.0

With a hunter, i think the 80 armor causing equal dps would be shifted closer to 110 armor.
The program may still need tweaking, but i could really use a hand from some other 'theorycrafter'

[Royce]

I'm not sure what formula you are using, but it shouldn't even be close with a target having 80 armor. Using that amount, just calculate the effective DPS of each weapon:

Blizzard Stick (with all other gear Mega Mage) 122-146 damage, average damage 133.5, speed 0.5 (twice per second)

Gemstone Wand (with all MM) 179-224 damage, 201.5 average damage, 1.0 speed

Effective DPS against 80 armor:
Blizzard stick does 133.5 - 80 = 53.5 damage twice a second, effective DPS of 107
Gemstone wand does 201.5 - 80 = 121.5 damage once per second, effective DPS of 121.5

And that's just the weapon damage alone. When you consider that skill damage is also much higher with the gemstone wand, overall DPS (weapon and skills combined) really shouldn't be close at all. Sure for a short period of time when nightmare is active, the BS will have higher DPS, but for the same period of time, when weakness is active, the gemstone will give you the drained combo damage on 1/3 of its hits.

Edit: The damage numbers I listed are with a +5 damage ring equipped that I didn't think to remove, but that only serves to help the blizzard stick. Without the ring, BS effective DPS would drop by 10 (so 97 in the example) while GW effective DPS would only drop by 5 (so 116.5 in the example).

[Xymorg]

The idea is fine and thought provoking, but I suspect we'll find that the best PL emulator is PL itself. I remember Physiologic going down this line of reasoning & I think he ended up with avg speed-to-clear-the-same-board-solo as the key performance indicator that encompassed all these factors you are looking to account for in your macro.

Even that approach is flawed in the sense that all it really shows is the best gear for a certain mode of play: killing stuff you can solo as fast as you can. If you like your Blizzard Stick and feel you get good results with it, don't let anyone talk you out of it, not even your own simulator. PL is sufficiently deep that we can disagree and both be partially right about choices like this.

My opinion based on the posts of Phys, Royce & others & informed by what I see in game is that when it matters most(i.e. Killing the goblin king's totem with an underpowered group) top line dmg >> dps based on weapon speed.

[CosmoxKramer]

Hi Royce, I tried to reply last night on my phone but after typing out a long reply the box popped up saying i wasn't signed in (but i was) and then i lost everything i had typed.
A couple things, first, yes i didn improve skill damage based on the weapons. I initially unequipped my weapons completely to get a based damage with armor equipped, then i equipped them one at a time and found that the Blizzard stick give about 51 dam and MM Gemstone gives 96. Thought i just checked it this morning and somehow that modifier was removed from the damage calculation (had it in originally). so i fixed it. And you are right that in probably most cases MM is better. The place Blizz stick is better is when Armor is <about 30

For every 20 Armor decreased on the enemy the Blizz stick went up about 71 dps, and MM went up about 52 dps. I think most mobs are around 60-70 in the sewers right now before any debuffs. If you don't have an archer in the group you can most definitely use MM, but with a good archer that debuffs armor, Blizz stick may be better.
Xymorg- i know playing is the best emulator. I just wasn't sure why the hate for the wand because i've been using it for so long and still was pulling aggro on bosses with all 55's

[CosmoxKramer]

If i turn off the Gemstone/Weakness combo it kills the MM wand dps too making blizz stick better. I'm not sure i would use the other wand, i think Gem Star, with the same dps but no proc over Blizzard stick

[Royce]

Definitely if you think your weapon is working for you, feel free to go with it. I'll just make one final point. There are two primary types of combat situations you find yourself in in PvE, fighting hordes of weak mobs and fighting bosses. Against the hordes your skill damage is far more important than your weapon damage since your AOE skills can hit many targets at once, and really do most of the work of clearing for you. Against bosses, weapon DPS plays a much more significant role, but you have to remember that bosses also tend to have much higher armor.

[CosmoxKramer]

agreed. I think i just needed to talk my self out of the Blizzard stick. I've been using it way too long and have wanted to switch. I just wish there was another fast weapon option besides switching to Dex and getting a talon

Like Xymorg said though, i may hold onto it just for the Goblin King's Totem

[CosmoxKramer]

Has anyone tested to see if the Gemstone wand Combo consumes the Weakness debuff, similar to Firestorm consumes Frozen?

[Royce]

Has anyone tested to see if the Gemstone wand Combo consumes the Weakness debuff, similar to Firestorm consumes Frozen?

I haven't tested it but highly doubt that it does. Obviously fire melts ice, but the drained combo is more like execute which does not consume hellscream. It might be worth trying, but I can't imagine it works that way.

[Hullukko]

Like Xymorg said though, i may hold onto it just for the Goblin King's Totem

And even against the totem you're probably better off with a wand that has better base damage due to the increased spell damage.

[CosmoxKramer]

Royce is right, the Gemstone wand doesn't consume Weakness. The procs for a free instant attack actually makes this wand awesome even on the Totem. plus if the proc is >33% the i don't think the Blizzard wand can touch this in damage unless armor can go into the negative.

The totem is really easy if you time your BoM.