Sentry damage does increase all damage done by your sentries. Before 2.1.2, it was the best stat, to roll, since all your damage came from sentries, and you were using 3 spenders. Since 2.1.2, you run 1 spender in general (krider will use elemental arrow as generator, but lest ignore that). So now, getting your main spender as a roll is best. Lucky, in reality, this only changes your quiver. Get sentry on shoulders and chest (in the past quiver, not anymore), and spender on helm, boots and quiver. If you need other stats (like survivability), drop sentry damage now, where in the past you would drop spender damage.
Since sentries stopped having their own rotations/as breakpoints, they now mirror the spender you cast. So +sentry damage will effect only those mirrored shots (and sentry's standard bolts), while +spender damage will effect that spender+mirrors (but not the standard sentry bolts which is neglectable).
If you're aiming for a full offensive setup, +sentry% and +CA% don't roll on the same pieces (excluding quiver) so you can get both of them on your gear (spaulders/chest for sentry, helm/boots for CA).
You're going to lose an amount of toughness thogh to get all those affixes on your gear.
just an example. if my clusters do 1 mil damage shooting clusters (when mirroring me), when adding 15% to shoulders does that add 15% to the cluster damage (1.15 mil) ?
sorry just want to make sure that's all because there are so many opinions now
just a small tip its a higher DPS gain to get area dmg on shoulders as your casted Cluster arrow hits for about 1 billion compared to like 50M from the sentry so getting sentry dmg on the shoulders is a dps/dmg loss.
just a small tip its a higher DPS gain to get area dmg on shoulders as your casted Cluster arrow hits for about 1 billion compared to like 50M from the sentry so getting sentry dmg on the shoulders is a dps/dmg loss.
1 billion compared to like 50m? That has to be wrong. the sentries deal the same damage as you are if they are all hitting the same target. Sentry damage is still very useful and required for optimizing dps output.
Area damage is useful when you have a 0dog wd in group and you don't really need the RCR anymore so you go for area damage instead of RCR on shoulders and quiver only. On crossbow and gloves you go for attack speed.
Generally speaking though, all of this is unrelated to the OP. You want sentry damage on chest + shoulders. You want CA/MS damage on quiver, boots and helm. %Sentry damage boosts all of the damage done by your sentries.
The only reason why CA dmg is better than sentry damage is because for your own CA shot, you can accurately aim where you want it to hit and spam it, actively bringing down specific mobs. Sentry damage will only work that way if there is exactly one mob and all of the sentries are in range, shooting it. It can also work similarly if a group of mobs is bunched up together, as long as they are all inside the range of the CA shot which is about 15 yards afaik... When there are multiple monsters on your screen, the sentry damage becomes scattered and not as reliable as your direct CA shots.
In short, %sentry damage will boost all damage done by your sentries so that includes spenders too. Sentries will deal 50% of your total damage output if they are all hitting the same mob so %sentry damage is a good roll to go for on shoulders and chest.
You do more damage then your sentries do. Your own shot is 100% + 500% boost from each sentry placed on the ground. That is 600%. And 5 sentry hit for 5*100%=500%. So out of 1100% total damage you do about 55% and sentries about 45%. Getting CA on the offhand is smart because that way you buff bigger part of your damage and that is your own shots.
Also Attack speed on weapon is nearly useless in almost any type of setup.
@Jamoose the reason you don't want sentry dmg on shoulders is because im looking it at a point of view of aoe dmg> single target because that means you will clear faster the trash and the elites. Now because your sentry cant proc area dmg and they also only deal about 40% of ur dmg buffing that 40% by a further 15% is next to nothing compared buffing the other 60%, this is because this 60% dmg can actually cause area dmg which scales really well.
So for instance you have 70% area dmg and say you hit for say around 700M cluster arrow and there are no other mobs around area dmg does nothing as we know but the second there is 2 mobs and your hitting those 2 mobs for 700M and area dmg procs from both mobs that 700M cast goes from a total of 1400M dmg to 2380M dmg. Now lets make it 3 mobs 700M cluster arrow and area dmg procs from the 3 mobs thats 2100M with out area dmg and with area dmg its 5040M.
So this is why area dmg is a very good stat compared to buffing that 40% dmg from sentry, in reality that 40% dmg from sentry isn't actualy 40% is actualy like 20%. but its too hard to explain to people because they don't want to listen or take into account the area dmg affix.
You do more damage then your sentries do. Your own shot is 100% + 500% boost from each sentry placed on the ground. That is 600%. And 5 sentry hit for 5*100%=500%. So out of 1100% total damage you do about 55% and sentries about 45%. Getting CA on the offhand is smart because that way you buff bigger part of your damage and that is your own shots.
Also Attack speed on weapon is nearly useless in almost any type of setup.
Pretty sure that's not how it works. With 5 sentries out, your damage is boosted by 500%, that's it. You don't deal 100% damage + 500%... You deal 500% of your original damage. Attack speed is the best roll on weapons and gloves when you have a 0dog wd in group and you are doing trials or 4p with a crusader too that can consistently pickup health globes.
@Jamoose the reason you don't want sentry dmg on shoulders is because im looking it at a point of view of aoe dmg> single target because that means you will clear faster the trash and the elites. Now because your sentry cant proc area dmg and they also only deal about 40% of ur dmg buffing that 40% by a further 15% is next to nothing compared buffing the other 60%, this is because this 60% dmg can actually cause area dmg which scales really well.
So for instance you have 70% area dmg and say you hit for say around 700M cluster arrow and there are no other mobs around area dmg does nothing as we know but the second there is 2 mobs and your hitting those 2 mobs for 700M and area dmg procs from both mobs that 700M cast goes from a total of 1400M dmg to 2380M dmg. Now lets make it 3 mobs 700M cluster arrow and area dmg procs from the 3 mobs thats 2100M with out area dmg and with area dmg its 5040M.
So this is why area dmg is a very good stat compared to buffing that 40% dmg from sentry, in reality that 40% dmg from sentry isn't actualy 40% is actualy like 20%. but its too hard to explain to people because they don't want to listen or take into account the area dmg affix.
If your numbers are correct, then it still means that sentry damage is better for the RG. Which means that your statement "means you will clear faster the trash and the elites" is wrong. In high gr the biggest obstacles are elites and the RG and often times you are left with just that one big elite with 20% hp after everything around it already died, this is a scenario where sentry damage will beat area damage by a 100 to 0...
It's off topic but i was talking about when you have a 0dog wd in group, you can give up on rcr on shoulders and go for area damage (also on quiver). According to a psot Shinna made where he tested what's better, ias or area damage, it is concluded that going for ias on gloves + weapon is better than area damage.
So in summary, sentry damage is more consistent throughout the rift including on single elites and the RG. Aread damage is an awesome dps stat roll but there are simply other stats that are too valuable for you to give up on in favor of area damage, that's why you usually don't see many people running it. It's not because "they don't want to listen or take into account the area dmg affix." but mainly because it's hard to get perfect quivers and on shoulders (in solo mainly) you really want both the rcr and cdr...
@dzajko: You're right when saying "some people don't listen or take into account the area dmg affix". I completely agree with you that people dismiss it too quickly. However, your math is a bit flawed. Area damage is better on shoulders *if you don't use enforcer gem*, and only for trash and packs of 5 mobs or more, but it's really really close (math below).
Area damage has a 20% chance to proc for the amount of area damage you have. In your example of 2 mobs, there are two times 20% chances that area damage procs for 70%. Let's look at an easier example of a group of 5 mobs: on average, one of them will proc area damage.
First of all, we need to check how damage is distributed among you and your pets. Let's assume a base hit of 100m just for simple math (it's low, but absolute numbers scale, we're just looking at percentages). So your sentries hit for 100m each, and you hit for 600m. Your sentries get either 15% bonus damage from sentry damage on chest, or 30% from chest and shoulders; in the first case that means sentry damage is 500*1.15=575m, in the second case it's 650m.
Setup 1: 20% area damage on shoulders instead of 15% sentry damage. You hit 5 mobs for 1175m damage, 575m of which are from pets so can't proc area damage. One of the mobs procs area damage (that's the average result, remember) and you get an additional 70% of your 600m hit as area damage, so the math: 5 mobs hit for 1175m, and 5 mobs hit for 600*0.7=420m from area damage, results in 7.975b damage.
Setup 2: 30% sentry damage (shoulders+chest), no area damage on shoulders (still 50% from paragon). You hit 5 mobs for 1250m damage, plus again one procs area damage, this time for only 300m. Overall damage: 7.75b.
So, in this setup area damage wins by 3%. However, area damage loses when...
... there are 3 or less mobs around
... you're using Enforcer (which is being used by many many GR60+ DHs)
... you're moving to pick up healthglobes and your sentries should rockets
... you're standing only 5 yards (!) closer to the mobs than your sentries (Zei stone)
And there are probably more reasons. I'm not a DH, I'm just interested in theorycrafting. So what's the TL;DR? Sentry damage vs. area damage? Imho, it's both. We haven't even talked about RCR and CDR. It all depends on the setup; if you've got a 0dog WD in your group it's easy though, you want to get rid of RCR. In other cases, it's a tough choice.
In my personal opinion, sentry damage wins - because of the gems. You're either using Bane of the Powerful, which means you want to kill every elite pack - which means less trash in the rift you're aiming for and therefore less area damage to proc. Or you're using Enforcer, in which case it's a no-brainer for sentry damage.
Discussing Area Damage on shoulders is pretty retarded, tbh. Dex/CDR/AD/Sentry or Dex/RCR/AD/Sentry. Sorry to shut down discussion but why would you pick one or the other when you can have both?
Because you can have dex, cdr, rcr, sentry - which is ideal imo for most setups.
With all due respect, you need every bit of rcr and cdr without compromising direct damage stats.
All slots are reserved for smt more useful.
If you are bargaining for AD, sorry to say but you are doing it wrong.
Discussing Area Damage on shoulders is pretty retarded, tbh. Dex/CDR/AD/Sentry or Dex/RCR/AD/Sentry. Sorry to shut down discussion but why would you pick one or the other when you can have both?
I think it's pretty dumb to "shut down discussions". As soon as people do that you stop thinking and make wrong decisions. RCR/CDR can be translated into more DPS/utility - it's just super hard to do this. For example (just an example, not actual numbers!): You could argue that 8% more CDR means 8% faster Prep/Wolf cooldown and thus 8-10% more damage; 8% RCR mean 8% more hatred for CA before you need to regen, so also 8% more CA or whatever. Again - not actual numbers, just as an example. It's crazy difficult to do the math, so I don't know what the *actual, correct* numbers are. 20% area damage on shoulders means that every fifth mob will proc for about 10% of your damage (since half your damage, roughly, comes from pets). On huge packs (5+ mobs) area damage gives you probably more than that, but whenever you're fighting an elite pack, champions, or the RG, AD is a waste. So how do you compare those?
I think this discussion is very valid unless you provide the math why area damage is so much better. Note that I also said I'd go for both - area damage and sentry damage - but you didn't provide the answer what to drop then, RCR or CDR (let's assume non-0dog setup in which CDR becomes even more useful since Wolf/Prep are important sources of hatred). So, what is it? Let's discuss, provide math. But please don't make statements without providing any proof, it makes you look like a fool.
@Bagstone my math on area dmg was if both mobs 2 or 3 proc area dmg not just 1 mob to proc area dmg amongst them, but yes if only 1 mob does proc area dmg the dmg is not really as noticeable but when u have like 5+ mobs clumped up and in some cases area dmg procs from all of them the amount of dmg you do goes in the low 100 billion dmg range
@Bagstone my math on area dmg was if both mobs 2 or 3 proc area dmg not just 1 mob to proc area dmg amongst them, but yes if only 1 mob does proc area dmg the dmg is not really noticeable but when u have like 5+ mobs clumped up and in some cases area dmg procs from all of them the amount of dmg you do goes in the low 100 billion dmg range
But that's the thing, you can't compare 15% sentry damage with an example of 100% area damage procs. In 9 of 10 cases only 1 (or no) mob procs area damage, so in 9 out of 10 cases sentry damage wins in your example, what's this going to show us? Area damage has a fixed 20% proc chance, you can't argue that "every mob procs it", ever. You need to do the proper math, otherwise you make wrong decisions.
"Pretty sure that's not how it works. With 5 sentries out, your damage is boosted by 500%, that's it. You don't deal 100% damage + 500%... You deal 500% of your original damage. Attack speed is the best roll on weapons and gloves when you have a 0dog wd in group and you are doing trials or 4p with a crusader too that can consistently pickup health globes."
I am pretty sure you are wrong.
If you have 0 sentries out you can still fire and do damage that's 100% damage (original damage) I am talking about. For every active sentry you get 100% increased damage. For 5 it is 500% increased damage. If you increase 0 damage by 500% you still get 0. You are increasing your original damage that 100% that I talked about. The only possible question you could have is if that 500% is added or multiplied to/with 100% original damage and I am pretty sure it is additive if it was multiplicative it would be too much.
Now lets take a look at sentry damage. Marauder set increase damage only for your own shots. Sentry shots are not buffed by marauder set bonus so each sentry will fire at 100% original damage unbuffed (you can buff that with %CA/%Sentry on gear but I don't talk about that now). Five sentry will shoot 5*100%=500%.
So it is clear that you do more damage then sentries do.
And about attack speed..... With crusader AS buff and WD AS buff there is basicly no difference between AS weapon or no AS weapon if you only look at attacks per second stat. Also with as many HP globes there you would still run out of hatred. When you use wolf all HP globes are gone for example. On boss you cant spawn that many globes anyway. Now difference between 18 shots *if you use RCR) and 15 shots (if you don't) ( 1 hatred pool, wolf and preparation) is: 15/18 = 0.8333 1-0.8333=0.16666 about 16%.
Damage to elites is better on weapon then AS also.
"Pretty sure that's not how it works. With 5 sentries out, your damage is boosted by 500%, that's it. You don't deal 100% damage + 500%... You deal 500% of your original damage. Attack speed is the best roll on weapons and gloves when you have a 0dog wd in group and you are doing trials or 4p with a crusader too that can consistently pickup health globes."
I am pretty sure you are wrong.
If you have 0 sentries out you can still fire and do damage that's 100% damage (original damage) I am talking about. For every active sentry you get 100% increased damage. For 5 it is 500% increased damage. If you increase 0 damage by 500% you still get 0. You are increasing your original damage that 100% that I talked about. The only possible question you could have is if that 500% is added or multiplied to/with 100% original damage and I am pretty sure it is additive if it was multiplicative it would be too much.
Now lets take a look at sentry damage. Marauder set increase damage only for your own shots. Sentry shots are not buffed by marauder set bonus so each sentry will fire at 100% original damage unbuffed (you can buff that with %CA/%Sentry on gear but I don't talk about that now). Five sentry will shoot 5*100%=500%.
So it is clear that you do more damage then sentries do.
And about attack speed..... With crusader AS buff and WD AS buff there is basicly no difference between AS weapon or no AS weapon. Also with as many HP globes there you would still run out of hatred. When you use wolf all HP globes are gone for example. On boss you cant spawn that many globes anyway. Now difference between 18 shots *if you use RCR) and 15 shots (if you don't) ( 1 hatred pool, wolf and preparation) is: 15/18 = 0.8333 1-0.8333=0.16666 about 16%.
Damage to elites is better on weapon then AS also.
Still, i think that you are wrong. When you have 0 sentries out you deal 100% of your damage which is the normal damage you deal... You don't deal 0% damage, you deal 100% of your damage... If you take into account CA and sentry damage on gear, the CA benefits both you and the sentries, and sentry damage benefits only sentries, that's why, if the sentries are all shooting at one target, they will deal more damage than you are, to that specific target.
This "With crusader AS buff and WD AS buff there is basicly no difference between AS weapon or no AS weapon" is simply wrong. Where do you get that information from? And no, in trials with 0dog you don't run out of hatred and no elite damage in trials is useless. 0dog does not spawn more or less globes when fighting an RG so no, that's not true. the stat priority between ias, ad, ed, rcr on wepaon / gloves or whatever, is different for various setups. For 2 players (wd + dh) i found that you still need quite a lot of rcr. For 4 player groups (wd+crus+2dh) you can totally give up on rcr and rely only on the health globes. For any other setup that doesn't involve 0dog, you want as much rcr as possible.
Just put the values in an excel sheet (Area Damage vs Sentry Damage) with following assumptions:
45% Cluster Arrow dmg (Helmet, Boots, Quiver)
15% Sentry Damage (Torso)
20% from Steady Aim
50% Area Damage (Paragon)
No matter with how many targets and how many sentries placed I calculated it, I came to those results:
- 20% additional Area damage are always somewhere between 1 and 2% damage increase (except on 1 target ofc)
- 15% additional Sentry Damage are always somewhere between 3.8 and 4% damage increase
This means: Sentry Damage is always preferable over Area Damage
Edit:
Formula used:
Total Damage = (1+Sentries)*(1+Cluster%+dibs%)*(Targets+(0,2*Area%*(Targets-1)))+Sentries*(1+Cluster%+Sentry%+dibs%)*Targets
thanks for the help
Sentry damage does increase all damage done by your sentries. Before 2.1.2, it was the best stat, to roll, since all your damage came from sentries, and you were using 3 spenders. Since 2.1.2, you run 1 spender in general (krider will use elemental arrow as generator, but lest ignore that). So now, getting your main spender as a roll is best. Lucky, in reality, this only changes your quiver. Get sentry on shoulders and chest (in the past quiver, not anymore), and spender on helm, boots and quiver. If you need other stats (like survivability), drop sentry damage now, where in the past you would drop spender damage.
You're going to lose an amount of toughness thogh to get all those affixes on your gear.
sorry just want to make sure that's all because there are so many opinions now
thanks
Area damage is useful when you have a 0dog wd in group and you don't really need the RCR anymore so you go for area damage instead of RCR on shoulders and quiver only. On crossbow and gloves you go for attack speed.
Generally speaking though, all of this is unrelated to the OP. You want sentry damage on chest + shoulders. You want CA/MS damage on quiver, boots and helm. %Sentry damage boosts all of the damage done by your sentries.
The only reason why CA dmg is better than sentry damage is because for your own CA shot, you can accurately aim where you want it to hit and spam it, actively bringing down specific mobs. Sentry damage will only work that way if there is exactly one mob and all of the sentries are in range, shooting it. It can also work similarly if a group of mobs is bunched up together, as long as they are all inside the range of the CA shot which is about 15 yards afaik... When there are multiple monsters on your screen, the sentry damage becomes scattered and not as reliable as your direct CA shots.
In short, %sentry damage will boost all damage done by your sentries so that includes spenders too. Sentries will deal 50% of your total damage output if they are all hitting the same mob so %sentry damage is a good roll to go for on shoulders and chest.
You do more damage then your sentries do. Your own shot is 100% + 500% boost from each sentry placed on the ground. That is 600%. And 5 sentry hit for 5*100%=500%. So out of 1100% total damage you do about 55% and sentries about 45%. Getting CA on the offhand is smart because that way you buff bigger part of your damage and that is your own shots.
Also Attack speed on weapon is nearly useless in almost any type of setup.
So for instance you have 70% area dmg and say you hit for say around 700M cluster arrow and there are no other mobs around area dmg does nothing as we know but the second there is 2 mobs and your hitting those 2 mobs for 700M and area dmg procs from both mobs that 700M cast goes from a total of 1400M dmg to 2380M dmg. Now lets make it 3 mobs 700M cluster arrow and area dmg procs from the 3 mobs thats 2100M with out area dmg and with area dmg its 5040M.
So this is why area dmg is a very good stat compared to buffing that 40% dmg from sentry, in reality that 40% dmg from sentry isn't actualy 40% is actualy like 20%. but its too hard to explain to people because they don't want to listen or take into account the area dmg affix.
And regarding IAS on weapon, he was talking about 0dog setup where you have unlimited hatred, in which case IAS is just amazing.
If your numbers are correct, then it still means that sentry damage is better for the RG. Which means that your statement "means you will clear faster the trash and the elites" is wrong. In high gr the biggest obstacles are elites and the RG and often times you are left with just that one big elite with 20% hp after everything around it already died, this is a scenario where sentry damage will beat area damage by a 100 to 0...
It's off topic but i was talking about when you have a 0dog wd in group, you can give up on rcr on shoulders and go for area damage (also on quiver). According to a psot Shinna made where he tested what's better, ias or area damage, it is concluded that going for ias on gloves + weapon is better than area damage.
So in summary, sentry damage is more consistent throughout the rift including on single elites and the RG. Aread damage is an awesome dps stat roll but there are simply other stats that are too valuable for you to give up on in favor of area damage, that's why you usually don't see many people running it. It's not because "they don't want to listen or take into account the area dmg affix." but mainly because it's hard to get perfect quivers and on shoulders (in solo mainly) you really want both the rcr and cdr...
Area damage has a 20% chance to proc for the amount of area damage you have. In your example of 2 mobs, there are two times 20% chances that area damage procs for 70%. Let's look at an easier example of a group of 5 mobs: on average, one of them will proc area damage.
First of all, we need to check how damage is distributed among you and your pets. Let's assume a base hit of 100m just for simple math (it's low, but absolute numbers scale, we're just looking at percentages). So your sentries hit for 100m each, and you hit for 600m. Your sentries get either 15% bonus damage from sentry damage on chest, or 30% from chest and shoulders; in the first case that means sentry damage is 500*1.15=575m, in the second case it's 650m.
Setup 1: 20% area damage on shoulders instead of 15% sentry damage. You hit 5 mobs for 1175m damage, 575m of which are from pets so can't proc area damage. One of the mobs procs area damage (that's the average result, remember) and you get an additional 70% of your 600m hit as area damage, so the math: 5 mobs hit for 1175m, and 5 mobs hit for 600*0.7=420m from area damage, results in 7.975b damage.
Setup 2: 30% sentry damage (shoulders+chest), no area damage on shoulders (still 50% from paragon). You hit 5 mobs for 1250m damage, plus again one procs area damage, this time for only 300m. Overall damage: 7.75b.
So, in this setup area damage wins by 3%. However, area damage loses when...
In my personal opinion, sentry damage wins - because of the gems. You're either using Bane of the Powerful, which means you want to kill every elite pack - which means less trash in the rift you're aiming for and therefore less area damage to proc. Or you're using Enforcer, in which case it's a no-brainer for sentry damage.
All slots are reserved for smt more useful.
If you are bargaining for AD, sorry to say but you are doing it wrong.
I think this discussion is very valid unless you provide the math why area damage is so much better. Note that I also said I'd go for both - area damage and sentry damage - but you didn't provide the answer what to drop then, RCR or CDR (let's assume non-0dog setup in which CDR becomes even more useful since Wolf/Prep are important sources of hatred). So, what is it? Let's discuss, provide math. But please don't make statements without providing any proof, it makes you look like a fool.
"Pretty sure that's not how it works. With 5 sentries out, your damage is boosted by 500%, that's it. You don't deal 100% damage + 500%... You deal 500% of your original damage. Attack speed is the best roll on weapons and gloves when you have a 0dog wd in group and you are doing trials or 4p with a crusader too that can consistently pickup health globes."
I am pretty sure you are wrong.
If you have 0 sentries out you can still fire and do damage that's 100% damage (original damage) I am talking about. For every active sentry you get 100% increased damage. For 5 it is 500% increased damage. If you increase 0 damage by 500% you still get 0. You are increasing your original damage that 100% that I talked about. The only possible question you could have is if that 500% is added or multiplied to/with 100% original damage and I am pretty sure it is additive if it was multiplicative it would be too much.
Now lets take a look at sentry damage. Marauder set increase damage only for your own shots. Sentry shots are not buffed by marauder set bonus so each sentry will fire at 100% original damage unbuffed (you can buff that with %CA/%Sentry on gear but I don't talk about that now). Five sentry will shoot 5*100%=500%.
So it is clear that you do more damage then sentries do.
And about attack speed..... With crusader AS buff and WD AS buff there is basicly no difference between AS weapon or no AS weapon if you only look at attacks per second stat. Also with as many HP globes there you would still run out of hatred. When you use wolf all HP globes are gone for example. On boss you cant spawn that many globes anyway. Now difference between 18 shots *if you use RCR) and 15 shots (if you don't) ( 1 hatred pool, wolf and preparation) is: 15/18 = 0.8333 1-0.8333=0.16666 about 16%.
Damage to elites is better on weapon then AS also.
This "With crusader AS buff and WD AS buff there is basicly no difference between AS weapon or no AS weapon" is simply wrong. Where do you get that information from? And no, in trials with 0dog you don't run out of hatred and no elite damage in trials is useless. 0dog does not spawn more or less globes when fighting an RG so no, that's not true. the stat priority between ias, ad, ed, rcr on wepaon / gloves or whatever, is different for various setups. For 2 players (wd + dh) i found that you still need quite a lot of rcr. For 4 player groups (wd+crus+2dh) you can totally give up on rcr and rely only on the health globes. For any other setup that doesn't involve 0dog, you want as much rcr as possible.
45% Cluster Arrow dmg (Helmet, Boots, Quiver)
15% Sentry Damage (Torso)
20% from Steady Aim
50% Area Damage (Paragon)
No matter with how many targets and how many sentries placed I calculated it, I came to those results:
- 20% additional Area damage are always somewhere between 1 and 2% damage increase (except on 1 target ofc)
- 15% additional Sentry Damage are always somewhere between 3.8 and 4% damage increase
This means: Sentry Damage is always preferable over Area Damage
Edit:
Formula used:
Total Damage = (1+Sentries)*(1+Cluster%+dibs%)*(Targets+(0,2*Area%*(Targets-1)))+Sentries*(1+Cluster%+Sentry%+dibs%)*Targets