Formulas to my understanding are as follows. Lets say you have a spell that does exactly 1000 damage, you have 75% potency and 65% crit bonus 125% crit chance and 1100 mod. Figure in the potency first: 1000 x .75 = 1750 Base crit amount is 1.3 x the top end damage of your spell, ascertain your crit bonus: 1.3 x .65 = 2.145 Apply crit bonus = 1750 x 2.145 = 3753.75 Apply ability mod = 3753.75 + 1100 = 4853.75 Seems all easy enough to do. Now here is the problem, why is potency the priority over crit bonus when if you swap your 75% potency and 65% crit bonus you get this... 1000 x .65 = 1650 1650 x 2.275 = 3753.75 3753.75 + 1100 = 4853.75 Same # indicating that potency and crit bonus both equally effect DPS output. Someone please enlighten me to my errors.
Your formula is flawed. Crit Bonus is figured as the base crit bonus of your spell type (for hostile spells, 1.5) plus any spell-related crit bonuses (like from Strike of the Magi). Also, ability mod is applied after Potency, but before Crit Damage formulas, and is also affected by the ability mod cap. So using your example of 1000 base damage, 75% potency, 65% crit bonus, 1100 ability mod. 1000 x 1.75 = 1750 base damage. Ability mod cap is base damage / 2 = 1750 damage / 2 = 875 ability mod. 875 + 1750 = 2625 damage Multiply that by your crit bonus of 1.5 + .65 => 2.15 x 2625 = 5643.75 Or to put it in the terms of a formula: Actual_Damage = (Base_Damage x (1 + Potency_Bonus + Specific_Spell_Potency_Bonus**) + Ability_Mod*) x (1 + Spell_Type_Bonus*** + Crit_Bonus + Specific_Spell_Crit_Bonus**) * Ability_Mod can never exceed (Base_Damage x (1 + Potency_Bonus + Specific_Spell_Potency_Bonus)) / 2 ** Specific_Spell_Potency_Bonus and Specific_Spell_Crit_Bonus is figured on a spell-by-spell basis. Some spells will utilize this, some won't. *** Spell_Type_Bonus varies from class to class and from spell-type to spell-type. For Necros, Hostile Spell Damage and Hate Adjustments have a bonus of 0.5, Melee Damage and Heal Bonus is 0.3. Actual_Damage = (1000 x (1 + 0.75) + 875) x (1 + .5 + .65 + 0) = (1000 x 1.75 + 875) x (2.15) = (1750 + 875) x (2.15) = 2625 x 2.15 = 5643.75 The reason Potency is more valuable than Crit Bonus is two reasons: It increases your base damage whether you crit or not (there will be fights where you aren't at 100% or higher crit chance due to debuffs), and it increases your ability mod cap (the higher your Potency, the higher your ability mod cap). So to use the above example, if you reverse Crit Bonus and Potency, you get this; Actual_Damage = (1000 x (1 + 0.65) + 825) x (1 + .5 + .75) = (1650 + 825) x (2.25) = 2475 x 2.25 = 5568.75 5568.75 is not as large as 5643.75 Also if you want to get technical, Crit Damage is always Normal_Damage x Crit_Bonus, unless the result is less than Max_Damage+1. So if you have a spell that does 500-1000 base damage and a crit bonus of 1.5, your crits will normalize to 1001-1500 (since 500 x 1.5 is less than 1001), with a tendency to hit for 1001 (thus significantly increasing your average damage). But if you have a spell that does 750-1000 damage and a crit bonus of 1.5, your crits will range from 1125-1500. The actual math behind figuring out your average crit damage is actually very, very messy when you have to deal with Max_Damage+1 calculations.
