Some gems provide "increase physical damage by x%" or "increase all damage by x%". I think that's the only way. These kind of skills don't scale very well.

ah ok, thanks.
It's a shame that it wont scale better.

Skills "deal X physical damage" scale with focus.

Anything that isn't weapon damage is magic damage, and even most weapon damage is also magic damage, except for the physical part. Focus increases all magic damage.

oh really? :D

Thats great!

So a berserker should probably build a lot of focus and find a weapon with elemtal type damage I assume. =)

So to make this clear in my head.

If a weapon has:
50 Physical Damage
50 Poison Damage

Strength would increase both physical and poison in that instance, correct?
Focus would increase only the poison part.

If a skill has:
Deal X weapon DPS

Using the above weapon, the dps would be increased using the same principle?

Then, if a skill has:
Deal X physical damage

Focus would increase this stat as it is not physical tied to a wepon?

Did I get all that correct?

When relying on a weapon, it's important to get strength up first for the critical multiplier, but after that focus is good too.

You got all the rest right.

Thank you ADEC Inc! =)

Focus will increase skill damage, no matter if it's physical or not. It will also increase +Physical damage from socketables.

It also depends on what weapon you're using. Strength works better with very slow weapons as it increases as %. 2% of a 100 damage per hit weapon is more than 2% of a 50 damage weapon. Yet, the dps is affected by speed too. Mind it if the skill is based on "DPS" and not "damage weapon".

About critical multiplier, unless you're playing a berserker or playing in normal difficulty, it is not worth. Better to do more damage everytime than 0.2% per point once every 20 hits.
You can find socketables too that would fairly increase critical damage. It also occurs on some rare weapons.

Originally posted by Demystificator:

It will also increase +Physical damage from socketables.

Flat out wrong. Physical weapon damage is never impacted by focus.

It also depends on what weapon you're using. Strength works better with very slow weapons as it increases as %. 2% of a 100 damage per hit weapon is more than 2% of a 50 damage weapon. Yet, the dps is affected by speed too. Mind it if the skill is based on "DPS" and not "damage weapon".

About critical multiplier, unless you're playing a berserker or playing in normal difficulty, it is not worth. Better to do more damage everytime than 0.2% per point once every 20 hits.
You can find socketables too that would fairly increase critical damage. It also occurs on some rare weapons.

Slow weapons are only good for the rare skills that use weapon damage instead of weapon dps. Strength is the most important attribute regardless, since it increases ALL the weapon damage constantly as well as the critical multiplier.

http://forums.runicgames.com/discussion/44975/how-stuff-works-damage/p1

Bear in mind that if you add elemental damage such as from Embers, it gets bonus damage from Strength AND Focus (and all other applicable bonus sources).

Wether you sould pick STR or FOC is up to gameplay.
If you play a lot with skills that deal "flat" damage, it's Focus all along.

If you play "DPS based skill" then it depends as STR can boost your dps.

About critical, you need to keep in mind 2 things about skills. They never fumble and critical rate may not be the same as your character.

Critical will only proc with your critical chance (which is very slow to upgrade with Dexterity).

If you're playing a berzerker, the charge bar doesn't prevent you from fumble.

The idea is basically that:
- if you fumble, you deal your fumble damage (if it’s an auto-attack, obviously)
- if you don’t, you have a chance to crit and deal crit damage (plus your crit damage bonus)

So the 100% crit of berserker is more like "if you don't fumble, you'll crit".

Focus also increase your mana (and mana regen), so if you just fight with skills, Focus will allow you to cast more spells.

So here's what you've to choose :
Focus : more skills, more skill flat-damage, more DPS based damage (as long as you play magical weapon or get gems)
Strength : less skills, more DPS based damage and little chance of doing a big critical (unless you upgrade your critical chance).

Focus also help execution. So it's a good way to go full focus with 2 socketed claws. Yet Execution has no effect on skill damage as it doesn't change weapon dps.

About weapon damage or dps. As I wrote, it depends on what difficulty and what character you're playing.
On Elite, a 100dps claw auto-attack will get you killed where a 100dps poleaxe auto-attack will clear the dungeon just cause you will one-shot some mobs.
Berserker has some skills for weapon damage (Cold Steel mastery, Storm Claw, Howl...).
Engineer skills has heavy lifting.
Dervish works better with high damage weapons.
So the Outlander charge bar.

Also, critical works better with high damage weapon. You'd need 2 criticals with a 50 damage per hit claw to do same damage as a 100 per hit damage greatsword. Considering the chance of doing 2 critcals in a row, high damage weapon has more potential dps on auto-attack.

The main reason you don't want to play high damage per hit weapons is DPS based skills.

How about we stay in the original context and not assume I don't already know the basics.

I prefaced all of this with "when relying on a weapon," meaning when the weapon is the primary source of damage, skill or otherwise. In such a case, strength is paramount, as it gives more benefits than focus, so it should be prioritized.

Fumble is a non issue considering almost everyone wil be using skills anyway, and if you were dedicated to autoattacks, you can build to reduce fumble chance to zero.

Originally posted by Demystificator:

About weapon damage or dps. As I wrote, it depends on what difficulty and what character you're playing.
On Elite, a 100dps claw auto-attack will get you killed where a 100dps poleaxe auto-attack will clear the dungeon just cause you will one-shot some mobs.

Except the claw starts off ignoring half enemy armor and you most likely would also have Shred Armor. And this still changes nothing as far as strength is concerned, since anything that increases damage also increases dps for obvious reasons.

Also, critical works better with high damage weapon. You'd need 2 criticals with a 50 damage per hit claw to do same damage as a 100 per hit damage greatsword. Considering the chance of doing 2 critcals in a row, high damage weapon has more potential dps on auto-attack.

The main reason you don't want to play high damage per hit weapons is DPS based skills.

Critical hits are such a large damage multiplier that even with fairly low chance to critical they are worthwhile. Again you ignore the context of the question which was about a berserker, but even if you did have a low chance to crit, a faster attack speed creates more opportunities to crit.

You can add so much damage to a weapon via enchants and sockets, and comparatively you can add very little attack speed, so faster weapons are better unless weapon damage is the only consideration for your skill. As always however, this is irrelevant to the attribute discussion as strength would be the most beneficial attribute for both.

Once again. It depends on you playstyle.

If you think shred armor on STR claw work better than Focus Executioner build, it's your preference.

For I have tryharded so much the Elite mode without farming Grell eyes, I gave up idea of fast weapon builds. Even if I build a skill based character, I end with putting focus points for mana.

Cold Steel Mastery = 4 points in strength per level, so I prefer get focus points to spam my Raze. Even on Elite, Cold Steel Mastery on poleaxe is enough to one shot many mobs even without crit where claws, you gonna take 3s to fight, praying for a crit meanwhile, the ennemy can attack you and therefore, crit you.

And the subject was about "flat physical damage skill" not about "str or focus for a zerk".

Obviously you can add however much focus for mana you're comfortable with. That doesn't change the effects of str on weapon damage. There are other ways of managing mana regardless. Likewise there are other means of raising execute chance.

What it boils down to is this. The skill determines the appropriate weapon type to use. If you're autoattacking instead, faster is generally better because you have more opportunities to crit and to proc effects like Glacial Spike, Thunder, Lightning, Shred Armor, Shadowbind, etc. The faster animation also makes it easier to move in between attacks if you need to escape.

Originally posted by Demystificator:

And the subject was about "flat physical damage skill" not about "str or focus for a zerk".

Which you still got mostly wrong at first, and then responded to this exchange:

Originally posted by Ratty:

So a berserker should probably build a lot of focus and find a weapon with elemtal type damage I assume.

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

When relying on a weapon, it's important to get strength up first for the critical multiplier, but after that focus is good too.

By that point the subject of discussion had changed.

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

You can add so much damage to a weapon via enchants and sockets, and comparatively you can add very little attack speed, so faster weapons are better unless weapon damage is the only consideration for your skill. As always however, this is irrelevant to the attribute discussion as strength would be the most beneficial attribute for both.

Another reason I like faster weapons (even large ones if they are near a second) with investments into a 20% Crit Chance is that some Affix, Skill and Socketable Effects are more likely to activate on a Critical.

Originally posted by Demystificator:

I have tried hard so much on Elite mode without farming Grell eyes, I gave up idea of fast weapon builds. Even if I build a skill based character, I end with putting focus points for mana.

Cold Steel Mastery = 4 points in strength per level, so I prefer get focus points to spam my Raze. Even on Elite, Cold Steel Mastery on poleaxe is enough to one shot many mobs even without crit where claws, you gonna take 3s to fight, praying for a crit meanwhile, the ennemy can attack you and therefore, crit you.

And the subject was about "flat physical damage skill" not about "str or focus for a zerk".

Elite is so cruel to close range combatants without Grell Eyes that I often use fast ranged weapons to keep distance between foes.

If I had to use Berserker Melee weapons on Elite shorter than a Polearm then I'm always choosing to use them parallel with the Skills of Blood Hunger, Howl, Shadow Burst and Wolf Shade to increase my survival chances.

I often take Cold Steel just for the boost to Physical Damage which almost always increases Weapon Damage which then enhances Dps and Skill Dps with the fail safe of boosting Flat Skill Damage with the bonus if it happens to include Ice.

I also want to add that I often invest 100 Focus points for Engineer with the same intention of keeping my Skills available since the extra Mana Regen often saves resource leaving room for other Socketables besides Mana Embers.

Thank you very much for the detailed conversation, much appriciated!