Witchdoctors: Misconceptions about 10% Damage on a weapon.

A lot of people in the Gear Advice thread and otherwise ask about rerolling their weapon to 10% Damage. It obviously sounds like a really good roll.

It is a good roll, but it is usually not the best roll for a weapon.

Jade

• For a Jade build, 10% CDR is always better than 10% Damage.
• 10% Damage gives you a 10% dps increase.
• 10% CDR gives you an 11.11% dps increase, and reduces the cooldown on Spirit Walk.

The dps increase from CDR comes from faster Harvests, based on this formula: 1/(1-0.1) = 1/0.9 => 11.11%

Carnevil

• For a Carnevil build, 7% AS is always better than 10% Damage
• 10% Damage gives you a ~8% dps increase
• 7% AS gives you a 14.49% dps increase and gives you 7% faster fetish procs

The 10% Damage only gives you ~8% dps increase because it only affects the damage on your weapon, not the damage on your mojo. Your weapon contributes about 80% of your damage, so you only get roughly 8% damage increase.

The 7% AS gives you an incredible 14.49% dps increase because of the unique mechanics of the Carnevil build. The base damage of your pets is affected by your attack speed, and then they attack at your speed, meaning you benefit twice. 1.07*1.07 = 1.1449 => 14.49% increase.

Also, it's worth noting that AS on a weapon is independent of AS on your other gear. It is applied as a separate multiplier, so even if you already have a lot of AS on your gear, the weapon AS does not suffer from diminishing returns.

Pet

• For a Pet build, 7% AS is slightly better than 10% Damage, in my opinion.
• 10% Damage gives you a ~8% dps increase
• 7% AS gives you a 7% dps increase and gives you 7% faster fetish procs

The 10% Damage only gives you a ~8% dps increase, as discussed under Carnevil.

The 7% AS gives you a straight 7% dps increase.

In my opinion, it's worth giving up 1% dps for a 7% increase in fetish procs. However, this one is not as obvious as the others, and you're not necessarily making the wrong choice if you choose Damage.

Summary

Note that this doesn't mean you should never roll to 10% Damage. If your weapon already has an 8% CDR roll, or a 6% AS roll, you probably want to add a 10% Damage roll instead of increasing the other roll.

However, any time you have to choose between 10% Damage and CDR/AS, Damage is probably not the best choice.

In summary, if you're rerolling a weapon, make sure you don't get misled by the 10% Damage stat, there are often better options.

Posted in: Witch Doctor, Witch Doctor build