We recently made some posts pertaining to “black weapons” (i.e. weapons with the MinMaxDamage affix), and mentioned that if we considered making adjustments to how black weapon damage was calculated, we would let you know.

First Things First

We’re not going to be changing how the MinMaxDamage affix calculates bonus damage on weapons in 1.0.7, nor do we have any immediate plans to do so. We’re okay with the way black weapons are now and we don’t feel the bug, as it exists currently, is severe enough to warrant an urgent fix. It’s still a bug we want to fix at some point in the future, but we have no intention of making any changes to items that currently have or might drop with the MinMaxDamage affix between now and then (i.e. once we do fix the bug, only new items that drop from that point on would roll with the revised calculation).

So, now that we've cleared that up…

Changes to Rubies in 1.0.7

In patch 1.0.7, Radiant Square Rubies, Star Rubies, Flawless Star Rubies, Perfect Star Rubies, Radiant Star Rubies, and Marquise Rubies are all receiving a buff to their damage ranges. This change should already be live on the PTR.

Due to the bug with how bonus damage is calculated on black weapons, however, the bonuses received from the new Ruby values are currently much larger than intended. So, to help with this issue, all the Rubies which received a damage buff will also be switching to a new calculation, one that better matches what you would intuitively expect. (As KirusAlufras pointed out, Rubies don’t work consistently between physical damage weapons and non-physical damage weapons, and we’d like to correct that.)

The new buffed Rubies will do exactly what the tooltip claims. If a tooltip says +80 to Minimum Damage and +80 to Maximum Damage, then the damage on the weapon will go up by those amounts when the Ruby is socketed.

So, for example, if you have a weapon with 150 - 200 damage and your Ruby adds +80 Min/+80 Max then your weapon will do 230 – 280 after inserting the Ruby.

As another example, you have a “black” physical damage weapon that does 300-450 damage. If you insert a Ruby with +80 Min / +80 Max then your weapon will do 380 – 530 damage.

One more example: You have a Fire damage weapon that does 150 – 200 damage and an extra 50-100 Fire damage. If you insert a Ruby with +80 Min / + 80 Max then your weapon will do 230-280 damage with an extra 50-100 Fire damage.

Note: Emeralds, Amethysts, and Topaz will remain unaffected. Chipped quality Rubies through Perfect Square Rubies will also be unaffected and will continue to use the current (bugged) calculation.


Why We’re Making This Change

Philosophically, this change is important because the MinMaxDamage affix doesn't work the way that you'd expect when it comes to bonus damage. It's not intuitive. If you see one thing on the tooltip, socket a ruby, and then get an unexpected result, that’s confusing. Additionally, physical damage weapons already have some mechanical advantages, such as interacting directly with “Adds X% elemental damage” affixes. In small amounts these advantages can be cool, but we feel that letting the black damage bug be compounded by powerful gems would take it to an extreme we aren’t comfortable with.

For those who have already been playing around with the Rubies on the PTR, thank you for your feedback so far. In light of our decision to change how damage bonuses of the new and improved Rubies are calculated, combined with your feedback, we’ll be re-evaluating the numbers on the Rubies before 1.0.7 ships. Ultimately, we want to ensure that some (but not all) builds and play styles will still favor using the new and improved Rubies.

This change will be implemented in a future patch 1.0.7 PTR build, so you’ll get a chance to test it out and theorycraft before patch 1.0.7 goes live.