13

According to the spell description, Ray of Frost deals 215% weapon damage and disintegrate deals 155% weapon damage. However, if I enable the damage numbers in the option menu I can see that I deal more damage using Disintegrate (besides, enemies DO die faster). I've tried it with a few monster types on Act 3, and it's unlikely that all types were resistant to cold. While this makes sense (Disintegrate is a higher tier skill after all) I don't understand why the spell description says the contrary. The only thing that comes to mind is that Disintegrate is somehow "faster" and hits more times.

So why is Disintegrate doing more damage?

Improve this question
5
  • 1
    I think it's likely that Disintegrate has a faster innate tick rate. Equip both skills and alternate, and see if you can't figure out a difference in tick rates (use a slow weapon to expedite things).
    – Raven Dreamer
    Jun 16, 2012 at 1:53
  • Plus I think Disintegrate goes through mobs and Ray of Frost doesn't
    – Holger
    Jun 16, 2012 at 12:37
  • 2
    @Holger Going through mobs doesn't change the damage that it does, it just means it can damage more than one mob at a time.
    – Mr Smooth
    Jun 16, 2012 at 13:41
  • @Holger Yes it goes through. But I'm not questioning balancing here
    – Emiliano
    Jun 16, 2012 at 13:42
  • I first have to ask are you using any passives/skills that increases arcane damage? If so that could be it. But from my experience with both skills it has to be one of two things: 1.) Disintegrate fires at a faster rate then RoF 2.) Many mobs have a weakness/no resistance to Arcane
    – Xenogard
    Jun 21, 2012 at 0:23

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

I just tested this ingame and i'm definitely getting bigger numbers for Ray of Frost. Monsters die faster because disintegrate hits many of them, but the numbers are smaller.

There must have been some other circumstance that changed in your tests, or there's some kind of passive effect only affecting one of them.

Improve this answer
2

Disintegrate deals more damage overall over Ray of Frost due to the fact that it ramps up DPS as you channel, reaching 890% weapon damage, which is far more than Ray of Frost.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .