I loaded my toon down with over 450 points worth of +spell damage and really didnt see much difference in DPS. Only a couple of spells were affected (shadow coil was doing like 1k+ damage). I also have a +50 disease damage item, and it only seems to affect like one or two of our attacks. Seems that adding more strength will give me better damage as it will up a lot of combat arts damage. Anyone have any definitive information on what is best for us? + Combat art, + spell damage, + disease, or what?
Sk is designed to succeed through Crits.... Melee Crit, Spell Crit, and Double Attack..... Our AAs give us great spell crit and decent melee crit, building off of those (particularly melee) will net us the most benefit. I find that having a higher percentage of crits is the best way to maximize DPS output. Of course crits are based on chance so it may cause DPS to be a little bit inconsistent, but it has netted me the most success thus far As far as stats go Shadowknights are about 60-40 Spells CAs so INT for higher spell damage is your most important .... followed by STR for you CAs and STA for max health. Keep in mind there is a softcap for stats... meaning at a certain point, increasing one stat is almost menial ... With the new X-pack a non-raiding SK should aim for about 700 INT and 600-650 STR .... self buffed.... It is believed that the new stats softcap is between 750 and 800 So that getting both damage stats to about that level would be ideal.
Considering we only have, what - 4,5 CAs? We're more like 80/20 Spells/CAs and about 65/35 Casting/Melee. SK wasn't designed around crits or DA because neither existed at launch. The way to success though, is indeed through crits. DA I would use, but never over crits or at the expense of a stat. We don't auto-attack enough to justify it. +Spell damage is awesome.
If you look at your spells, almost all of them have some sort of disease component to them. the + to disease damage has to be working, but 50 points in damage is hardly noticeable. I dropped all my + spell damage for a while and noticed alright damage. then I put all the + to spell damage stuff I had in the bank (approx +200 damage) on all at once and noticed a marked improvement in all damage spells. I'd say + to spell damage is a great thing, but not if that's the only good thing about a piece of equipment. + to spell damage is added damges across the board for all spells so definitely worth it if it's attached to something you'd normally want to wear anyway.
