by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

Hello, everyone! My Name is Dannie “IAmDir23” Ray, and I’ll be here every Saturday explaining all things theorycrafting in an effort to allo everyone to better understand the finer aspects of Diablo 3. Lets hope you haven’t forgotten all the math you learned in school because we will finally have a chance to put it to good use.

DPH; what does those 3 letters mean, and why are they the key reason that Two-Handed Weapons aren’t as bad as everyone makes them up to be?

Damage per Hit, it is basically the amount of damage that you can deal on a single blow. While DPS factors in your attack speed, DPH only cares about the raw damage that a blow can deal.

Why is DPH Linked to 2-Handers?

There are two alternatives to using a 2-Hander weapon. Depending on your class, your option is either dual-wielding or using an off-hand. We know that off-hands are OP, and to avoid nerfing them down we could use passive skills that benefit the usage of Two-Handers on Witch Doctors and Wizards. So lets focus on Dual Wielding for a second.

Dual Wield has three big advantages over Two-Handers. The first is an extra socket, the second 375 extra main stat, and last but not least a 15% IAS bonus.

Those three advantages have most of the people thinking that 2-Handers are pretty much useless if you aren’t a Crusader, but despite all of their shortcomings, Two-Hander do boast an advantage of their own. That’s where DPH comes into play.

Two-Handers are naturally slower, their base speed is in the 1-1.15 APS range. Meanwhile, One-Handers go from 1.2-1.5 APS. Two-Handers have a higher natural DPS to boot and with slower attacking speeds, their DPH advantage is pretty significant.

Dual Wield’s three advantages might give them the DPS edge, but Two-Handers still boast a significant DPH advantage to defend themselves.

What is DPH Good For?

Ok, so we have higher DPH. Now What? We are still doing less damage per second, so what is the point of this?

The point of this, is that not every skill is meant to be spammed at a high attack speeds.

While you can endlessly hit opponents with fists of thunder, harder hitting abilities like Seven Sided Strike are constrained by a cooldown. That cooldown is not affected by your attack speed, and while your attack speed might reduce animation times, that is not as significant.

So theoretically, you could take advantange of a high DPH by using a lot of these abilities and heavy CDR.

The Physical Monk seems like a perfect fit.

A DPH Based Build

Crippling Wave – Breaking Wave: Our basic attack, we will be using this mostly for the 10% damage increase and to proc Mystic Rhythm.

Seven Sided Strike – Sustained Attack: This will out-right wreck bosses and elites alike, all you need is to catch someone alone and proceed to gang-bang him with your 6 friends.

Mantra of Conviction – Dishearten: I hate when enemies run away just before I can Seven Sided Strike them, this should help with that. Also, we are going to have Spirit to Spare to activate this.

Mystic Ally – Earth Ally: Rolling Boulders all day long! Decent AoE Skill to cover the fact that 7-Sided Strike is mostly a single target skill.

Serenity – Unwelcome Disturbance: Another source of Decent AoE , the immunity is awesome as always.

Dashing Strike – Barrage: Some more heavy damage and a good tool to get out of a tight spot.

Passives: One with everything, Mystic Rhythm,  Combination Strike, Beacon of Ytar.

Beacon of Ytar and Mystic Rhytm are your core passive, the rest are personal preference. Chant of Resonance can allow you to keep Mantra of Conviction activated most of the time.

The Numbers behind it

Out of the skills we chose, only Crippling Wave is DPS based. The other are all influenced most heavily by DPH.

We are going to test our Theoretical DPS using Dual Wield and Two-Handed Weapons. We will be using 2.1 numbers and will consider Ramalandi’s Gift.

Without Considering Weapons, our numbers will b, 7500 dexterity, 50% Critical Hit Chance,  200% Critical Hit Damage, 50% Physical Damage, 30% Seven Sided Strike Damag, and 67% Cooldown Reduction.

Dual Wield: 

• 1515-2075 Damage.
• 1.2 Attacks per Second.

260% extra Critical Hit Damage, 2 different 10% Cooldown reduction affixes, 10% Damage on each Weapon, 375 extra dexterity, 15% extra IAS.

This leaves us with 519,639 Weapon DPH and  717,101.9 Weapon DPS.

Two Handers:

• 2448-2896 Damage.
• 1 Attack per Second.

130% extra Critical Damage, 10% CDR, 10% damage.

This leaves us with 591,914.6 Weapon DPH, and 591,914.6 Weapon DPS.

Skill Breakdown

Mystic Ally:

Dual Wield

has 74.3% CDR, that gives Mystic Ally a 8 second cooldown and 100% uptime on Mystic Ally.

That’s 380% of your WDPH dealt every second, 519,639 * 3.8 = 1,974,628.2 

But we have to factor-in 50% Physical Damage, so 1,974,628.2 *1.5= 2,961,942 Total DPS.

Two-Handers are left with 70% CDR and a 8.9 cooldown, this in turn leads to 90% uptime on Mystic ally.

That’s 380%*0.9 =342% of your WDPH per second,  591,914.6* 3.42*1.5 = 3,026,522 Total DPS.

Serenity – Unwelcome Disturbance:

Dual Wield has 74.3% CDR, that gives serenity 5.14 second CD and 58.4% uptime on serenity.

That’s 438%*0.584 = 255.8% of your WDPH dealt every second, 519,639 *2.558*1.5= 1,993,854.8 Total DPS.

Two-Handers have 70% CDR , a 6 second serenity CD, and 50% serenity uptime.

That’s 438%*0.5 = 219%of your WDPH dealt every second. 591,914.6* 2.19*1.5 = 1,944,439.4 Total DPS.

Dashing Strike:

Dashing Strike is simply, it is basically 1055% of our WDPH every 6 seconds as Physical Damage.

so, Dual Wield gets 519,639*1.5 *10.55/6= 1,370,547.86 Total DPS.

and Two-Handers get 591,914.6 *1.5 *10.55/6= 1,561,174.76 Total DPS.

Seven Sided Strike:

How, lets considerer our Physical, Seven Sided Strike, and Mystic Rhythm bonuses.

5677%*1.4*1.5*1.3= 15500% of our Weapon DPH.

Dual Wield has 74.3% CDR, a Seven Sided Strike CD of 3.6 seconds

But since we want to have Mystic Rhythm up, we need at least 3 normal attacks. Seven Sided seems to have an animation time of at least 1.4 seconds, regardless of attack speed. At 1.38 attacks per second, we have 0.725 seconds per attack, and our 3 attacks would take us 2.174 seconds.

2.174+1.4= 3.574, so we are just able to deal our 3 attacks before the CD comes off.

That’s 15500%* 519,639/3.6 = 22,373,345.8 Total DPS.

Two Handers have 70% CDR, and a Seven Sided Strike CD of 4.2 seconds

At 1 APS, we need 3 seconds to deal all of our 3 attacks. adding up the 1.4 second animation time we are at 4.4 seconds between Seven Sided Strikes so we would have to wait a little after the CD comes off.

That’s 15500%* 591,914.6 /4.4 = 20,851,537 Total DPS.

On both scenarios DPS might go a little bit down when we use Dashing Strike, but the animation time on that doesn’t seem very long at all.

Crippling Wave:

We are basically hitting 3 Crippling Waves per rotation. That’s 175%*3*1.5 = 787.5% considering that it is physical damage.

Dual Wield has a 3.6 second rotation, so 787.5%*519,639/ 3.6= 1,136,710.3 Total DPS

Two-Handers have a 4.4 second rotation, so 787.5% * 591,914.6 /4.4 =1,059,392.6 Total DPS.

Adding Up

Dual Wield = 2,961,942 + 2,961,942+ 1,370,547.86 + 22,373,345.8+ 1,136,710.3= 30.804.488 Total DPS.

Two-Handers = 3,026,522 + 1,944,439.4 + 1,561,174.76+20,851,537+1,059,392.6= 28,443,065.7 Total DPS.

Now we just have to consider the bonuses from the Crippling Wave Debuff and Combination Strike and we would be set, both setups are clocking around 35 Million DPS. It is interesting to note that you should be immune to damage with nearly 100% uptime, as long as you hit Serenity just after you come out of Seven Sided Strike, you should be able to hit Seven Sided Strike again just as Serenity goes off. With its faster rotation, Dual-Wield is more likely to lose some ticks of Unwelcome Disturbance.

Dual Wield is theoretically 8% stronger in this scenario, but the Monkey King Set might just be the difference maker that Two-Handers need.

This just reinforces what I’ve been saying all along. Two-Handed Weapons do need a buff, but their greater DPH makes it so the buff they need is much smaller than most think.