Mummelmann said:
"Attack damage" bonuses/buffs are all forms of attacks except spells, it includes elemental attacks, AoE, Impact, Projectile, Physical etc. Ice Strike is AoE, Melee, Strike, and Cold. Boosting the various attacks that are listed below a skill boosts the total damage output. Elemental skills like the ones you and I use on our monks convert your weapon's physical damage to the corresponding elemental damage - usually a percentage. So a "Strike" might consist of different forms of damage types. Other bonuses are stacked on top of that base, meaning that your damage grows exponentially as you add bonuses and synergies to them (via support crystals, for instance). Like in my previous examples, where 20k becomes well over 30k from one boost (Charged Staff). Also, don't forget about Critical Hits, many powerful builds center around Crit Chance and Crit Damage. My Monk has around 28% Chance and 300% Damage, this is even more DPS that doesn't get tallied in the skill menus or descriptions the same way.
I generate Frenzy charges with the use of Combat Frenzy (a skill gem), every time I freeze or shock an enemy. This allows me to activate Charged Staff and use said charges to add lightning damage to my Ice Strike. On top of that, there's Unbound Avatar from the Invoker ascension, yielding even more elemental damage based on charges (and activated the same way). All that jazz, and the bell on top, is what gives me the insane damage output, even with a pretty poor weapon. My main weapon isn't even mainly cold-based, it has mostly lightning damage besides physical, this is why my Charged Staff gives such a big boost since it scales lightning damage. If I got a weapon with 400-500 physical damage, and as much cold damage as I have lightning now, my DPS would be hilarious, even at level 71. Even as is, the Act 3 final boss on Cruel was melted with three Bell cycles. The wait for the phase transition was nearly longer than the entire fight around it.
If you want to have more of a good time, I would recommend one Ranger or Mercenary paired with a Witch using minions. Safe distance, lots of distracting tanks that can also deal insane damage, and an overall fun play-style! |