How does +damage / healing items work?

[Vineri]

Hello there. Information of this seems sparse. I'm looking at fine details, not just matter-of-fact.

I'm wondering how damage/healing items work.

Specifically:

What does this do: [up to 40 damage / healing] ?
What does this do: [+40 damage]?
What does this do: [+40 healing]?

I believe these are based on cast times for the maximum effect ... but "up to X damage"? does that mean 1dX RNG? Up to 40 damage is 1d40 damage? AVG~20?

Cast time matters. An instant cast, as a wand, cannot expect those rewards. But what about wands with +damage or +healing? Healing wands are very sought after.

Is there a difference between [up to] damage vs +damage .. or [up to] healing vs direct +healing

Anyways, an explanation of +damage +healing items would be appreciated. It's probably simple, yet elusive to me. Thanks!

[Deleted]

depends on if you mean spellpower, +healing, or attack damage.
spellpower gives your spells higher numbers, like im pretty sure each spelldamage is 1 more damage your average frostbolt does.
each point of +healing should give your healing spells 1 point higher.

[Vineri]

Spellpower is not Vanilla. But thank you anyways.

[Tehterokkar]

I'm pretty sure it is just straight up +1 damage to spells/heals per 1 point of +damage/healing.

Spells in Pre-Cataclysm WoW were very straightforward. +1 spellpower meant that you did 1 more damage with each spell. DoTs would get a random +1 damage boost on 1 of their ticks. There was no spell power scaling of spells like we have today with spells scaling with "240% of spellpower", it was just flat additive.

There were some random talents scattered across talent trees that gave +% spellpower scaling to certain spells, off the top of my head the first one I can remember is Empowered Corruption(not 100% if it existed in Vanilla) that gave something like 12% of total spell damage as extra spell damage at max rank to Corruption.

Everything above applies to +healing also(as well as +Element spell damage, which Vanilla was full of).

[Deleted]

If i remember correctly the "up to" and "+damage/healing" are the same thing, the first is usually written as a secondary stat (in green text) while the +damage/healing one is written in white alongside primary stats like stamina and intellect. The latter one can only appear on items that generate random properties. Predefined items always use the "up to" green text, like Azuresong Mageblade for example.

Regarding their effect it's based on cast time, i believe 3.5 is the default for 100% of benefit while instant casts act as they are 1.5 sec receiving ~43% of the benefit.

[Loxotron]

Different spells have different ratios, on normal 3.5 cast spells it goes as 100% damage and healing done, and reduces according to the casting time of the spell (note: talents that decrease the casting time don't affect the ratio).
Instant spells like shocks receive 53% of damage and healing done if i am correct, also there are some specific values for paladins SoC proc and fiery/frost weapon for shaman (if i remember right it was around 11%).

[coprax]

It pretty much works like AGI/INT/STR now, which was spellpower/attack power which was seperated in dmg and healing in vanilla.

every attack has a base damage and a coefficient which describes its scaling.

so if you have a spell with 100 base and 50% of spellpower scaling you will do 120dmg with your +40 item.

keep in mind, in vanilla many spells had different ranks and skillable points in your talent tree, which reduced cast time. So the base spell is only the untalented one with the longest cast time. A cast with reduced time also had a lower coefficient.

[Segus1992]

I'm pretty sure it is just straight up +1 damage to spells/heals per 1 point of +damage/healing.

Spells in Pre-Cataclysm WoW were very straightforward. +1 spellpower meant that you did 1 more damage with each spell. DoTs would get a random +1 damage boost on 1 of their ticks. There was no spell power scaling of spells like we have today with spells scaling with "240% of spellpower", it was just flat additive.

There were some random talents scattered across talent trees that gave +% spellpower scaling to certain spells, off the top of my head the first one I can remember is Empowered Corruption(not 100% if it existed in Vanilla) that gave something like 12% of total spell damage as extra spell damage at max rank to Corruption.

Everything above applies to +healing also(as well as +Element spell damage, which Vanilla was full of).

This isn't true. The spell coefficients may be less advanced than today, but if you were correct everyone would just be using rank 1 of spells with good gear to avoid going oom ever.

[Echocho]

Different spells have different ratios, on normal 3.5 cast spells it goes as 100% damage and healing done, and reduces according to the casting time of the spell (note: talents that decrease the casting time don't affect the ratio).
Instant spells like shocks receive 53% of damage and healing done if i am correct, also there are some specific values for paladins SoC proc and fiery/frost weapon for shaman (if i remember right it was around 11%).

Channeled spells is even lower for some reason I believe. Mind flay for example get almost nothing out of your +dmg which kind of puts shadow in a weird position since mind blast generates a lot of aggro and sw may not be allowed due to the debuff limit. I found it better to try to stack as much mp5 as possible in order to be able to use max ranks all the time and get a more smooth threat generation and stable damage on longer encounters.

[Zka]

I think these are normalized for 3.5s spellcasts.
http://et.worldofwarcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_power

[Vineri]

I think these are normalized for 3.5s spellcasts.
http://et.worldofwarcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_power

I read the article twice, and got a pretty good look at damage mechanics pre-Catalysm. Thanks!

This isn't true. The spell coefficients may be less advanced than today, but if you were correct everyone would just be using rank 1 of spells with good gear to avoid going oom ever.

This part is vague. I'm not sure either, even having read the cooeficients wiki article above, how different spell ranks work. With awesome gear, it may be more advantageous to grind with lower spell ranks (same cast time, same duration). Level 20 and under spells seems to be the only category that has penalties. The max damage would be less, but the mana consumption would be significantly less.


Thanks everyone for your responses! I learned stuff today