The Dumb ? of the Week #3 (no damage bonus for casters)

I have Google'd and forum searched, and I cannot find a proper answer to this question:

Why don't casters get the damage bonus on weapons primarily intended for casters, e.g. a staff? I understand that casters aren't intended to tank, but this is often a trivial amount of damage compared to what the stat bonuses on Defiant weapons add. If a rationale was given out during the early years of the game, before Defiant weapons existed, I can't find it.

That's simple - design choice. Melee do damage with weapons, casters with spells. If you're going to do any damage at all with a weapon it will be from those beefy procs on your weapons melee don't get. That's the balancing act in a nutshell.

I'll refine the question a bit. Casters all have a 2HB skill, but a paucity of 2HB weapons choices available at the lower levels. My attention was caught by this one, Luclin-era and a rare drop off grimlings in Acrylia Cavern:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=20662

No beefy proc, in fact no proc at all. The damage bonus looks fat, but in reality it scales down a lot because it's 2H. What is the design rationale for even allowing casters to equip 2H weapons to begin with if they're not supposed to be able to melee even in a jam and OOM??

They can melee in a jam. They just suck at it.

some one linked a weapon last night that was (NEC WIZ MAG ENC) only and had a mele bonus
from HH serb. the bonus was % damage I think (maybe 25%?) don't see it in allakhazam .

Not sure on weapon but the robe form jumpalot has that mod

The game has had over 120 developers since Luclin, each developer takes the game in a diffrent direction. You're using an example that is over 18 years old.

Yes, but as near as I can tell, this rule has been in effect unchanged from the beginning to present day. If someone can give me a link to a specific counter-example, I would be keen to know.

Not the robe? http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=128637

I'm talking about a "Damage Bonus" on the weapon itself, not a spell effect, as shown in my example linked above. This stat is ignored for casters, even when included on typical caster-type weapons.

yea it was the robe thanks that I saw linked.

the desc says mele damage

The damage bonus is the amount added to the melee hit. Casters get the same bonus on a 2HB hit as a monk using the same weapon.

A weapon's bonus damage should no more increase a caster's spell's damage than an improved damage III mask improves a rogue's backstab (and autoattack) damage.

This is not true, which was the whole point of the OP.

Damage bonus is for toons with muscles. Your wimpy caster can barely swing that 2hb, hence no bonus.

Bill Dyess

EverQuest initially differentiated between melee and casters by itemization and various players but most notably Bill showed how this was insufficient. Alex Afrasiabi tanked with a Rogue by virtue of itemization and stuns, this was something that could be addressed by adjusting (nerfing) itemization and/or stuns but Bill basically broke the intended game mechanics.

For the next dozen or so years, until the Devs were working on the Rain of Fear expansion, they followed the monolithic policy that if in doubt nerf anything related to caster melee either on offense or defense. The actual solution to itemization based differentiation was class specific combat tables and these were implemented but Bill had invoked so much fear in the Dev team that for a dozen years anything combat related casters got a lesser or no version of the enhancement such as Damage Bonus, Cleave, Ferocity, Weapon Affinity and Heroic Dex/Str.

After another dozen years and we are almost halfway through that, the Devs might even realize that casters can't dual wield and that their weapons should have Knight ratios.

You mean that Furor guy? I hear he plays on the progression servers from his office at Activision.

except he is correct, reread his post. a monk and a wizard of equal level swinging a fine steel great staff will both get the same damage added to the end of each hit from the damage bonus on the weapon (not including extras such as cleave, strength, and flat damage aas). monks just have more melee oriented aas, cleave on their arms (adds damage bonus after a certain rank) , generally more heroic strength, better skill with melee (higher skill cap? also double/triple attack) to make the weapon hit more per round and hit harder (before the damage bonus is applied, crits) than a wizard.

in regards to pure caster weapons not having a damage bonus, why do you care? almost all damage that casters get when they swing their weapon is from the proc on their weapon and any spells that add procs to melee swings (Lion, bard songs, rogue poisons, etc) and can actually benefit more from those than a pure melee due to better aas regarding direct damage.

me and Renotaki (a wizard friend of mine) were messing around and he decided to start swinging his weapon in a dummy with bard song and shaman Lion on and he was actually doing a decent amount of damage just from melee procs.

actually checking zam to compare the monk 2hb from ros (Veltar's Staff of Tranquility) to the worse of the caster 2hb (Rod of RI`zyr). the caster staff actually has more than 3 times the damage bonus of the monk staff.

Thank you! This is the answer I was looking for. It explains why my 25 MAG wasn't getting expected results with a Rec 35 2HB weapon. I'll try it again in a few more levels.

don't know bout anyone else but for me the only times I melee with my necro is 1 i need the skill up to max it for achivments. or the mob is a belly caster and I figure if I have to be that close I might as well use my weapon as well.