Source
r/Diablo3witchdoctors•
truthd

Area Damage: Why? Give me your pitch

So I'm fairly new to D3, and this is my first season. The guides on icy veins I've been following don't put a huge priority on area damage. However, it seems to be really popular here. Why is it so good and what priority do you put it on your gear?

As I understand it, area damage is a flat 20% chance on attack. Does it only proc on my attacks, or those of my pets as well? How about things like haunt or other DOT effects, does it have a chance to proc on every tick or only the initial hit?

For example lets say I have 150% area damage and I hit some mob and it procs, I assume all other mobs in 10 yards take 150% damage from the initial hit. It doesn't have a chance to chain additionally right?

For reference I mainly play Hardcore HT-garg (some Zuni and starting to play around with Arachyr), up to GR 72.

Posted May 4, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

910
brianb2014•

As long as you're hitting 6+ monsters area damage is arguably the most efficient damage stat in the game.

This video explains the mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydMEhQaULu4

11
Jaur0n•

I think it comes down to thinking about it like this. If Haunt suddenly attacked everyone within 10 yards of your target, it is a much better skill not only to spam but to use. The number of haunts you would use to kill 1 mob now kills maybe 10, increasing your efficiency greatly, in clear times and in mana costs.

Now consider, whatever number above that killed the first mob, actually kills the other 9 in fewer haunts, say half the haunts, and you are just left with one mob to either kill or move on from. It's possible with high enough AD damage, to kill everything else close to the mob you are targetting than the actual mob, gaining you even more efficiency and even more mana conservation.

Now imagine your pets apply this same thing, yeah it doesn't save you mana, but they kill faster and more effectively which means you clear the rift or GR faster.

Where this fails is the GR Guardian or when mobs are spread out too far. So lots of builds have talents that group up mobs and then lets AD burn them down. In extremely high GR, this is what allows teams to kill elites, by putting them in the middle of a trash group and letting AD burn them down. Some trash lives but everything else dies faster.

2
Amateratzu•

Honestly if you are not pushing high GRs it will not benefit you very much.

Let me see if I can simplify it:

Do NOT worry about Area Damage if this you - When pushing GR's you find yourself fighting Elites without any white mobs.

Do worry about Area Damage if - When pushing GR's you skip Elite's when no white mobs are around.

Super simplified but it might help you.

1
miKeyGilmore4L•

DoTs activate it

AD isn't affected by Crit chance or Crit dam

It has a chance to activate every time you deal damage

It doesn't activate against the monster that activated it (RG's)

Edit: seen you are running garg and from what I gathered pets dont procc AD

0
RedBowNL•

A few patches ago they did enable area damage on wd pets so yes they do proc AD

5
miKeyGilmore4L•

Cool must of been old info.. thanks for heads up

1
Jaur0n•

RE: crit chance and crit damage, are you saying crits can't become AD or that if it does it only does non crit damage against the other mobs?

Asking for clarity because I do not see where OP asked about crit so I have no reference to understand what you mean.

1
miKeyGilmore4L•

Sorry, it said give me your pitch so that's exactly what I did. I also struggled to figure out AD so I listed some things I found useful.

AD is already filtered through your damage once so you will never see your AD pop up as orange/yellow damage... just was a helpful tip. Crits can become AD but AD will never Crit because it already did before the "splash".

3
Jaur0n•

Gotcha, that makes total sense. If for some reason it was something else, it changed a lot for high crit builds. :)

2
KudagFirefist•

AD itself will not crit to prevent "double dipping", but the damage it deals is based on the damage of the attack that procced it. If it procs on a crit, it does damage based on the increased damage dealt by the crit.

Watch Quin's video posted here in the top comment.

1