SDI and diminishing returns and power creep oh my

so my SDI mage sits at 174 SDI how much of this is overkill with no real value ? she carries 13 or 14 slayer books because more damage better! this brings us to power creep i think ?? will the monsters just not stop getting more and more HP and do more and more damage??

Personally I view the addition of SDI items as the developers finally bringing casters offense to be on par with warriors and tamers.  This has been needed for quite some time.... now if they would just remember to include the gargoyle race we would be getting somewhere.

You can't really have diminishing returns and power creep at the same time. Adding that Pirate shield to my caster, who had about 150 SDI before that, made no noticeable difference with regular spells. I am sure I would notice a small difference with WoD, but that's it. Ultimately these two items will be more useful in bumping up resists or other stats (by dropping some of the SDI items with the worst stats) than having any meaningful impact on the damage output.

Every 1 SDI=3 increase to WoD damage. It does also give more damage when casting "regular" spells. The damage increase varies with conditions, of course. But, in my opinion, it IS worth it. As an example, the shield with 10 SDI and the earrings with 15 SDI equals 75 more damage with every WoD. It is a little tough to put together a viable suit with all the arties, but, it can be done! My Spellweaver/Mage/Tamers deal out MASSIVE damage!

KHAN said:

As an example, the shield with 10 SDI and the earrings with 15 SDI equals 75 more damage with every WoD.

I am pretty sure the actual damage increase depends on your overall SDI. A shield with 10% SDI will bump you damage by 10% if that shield is the only SDI item you are wearing. Add that same shield to someone who is at 170 SDI, and the actual damage increase is nowhere close to 10%.

Sliss said:

KHAN said:

As an example, the shield with 10 SDI and the earrings with 15 SDI equals 75 more damage with every WoD.

I am pretty sure the actual damage increase depends on your overall SDI. A shield with 10% SDI will bump you damage by 10% if that shield is the only SDI item you are wearing. Add that same shield to someone who is at 170 SDI, and the actual damage increase is nowhere close to 10%.

I tried it with 3 different characters with different amounts of SDI. The 25 SDI increase was a straight 75 points on all 3. 

My sdi total is 174 it could be even higher if i used pendant of magi and spell woven britches it goes up or down depending on if i am using the 50sdi invasion book or a slayer book of varies amounts on sdi my point or question is that if once above XXX# i am getting 2 extra points of damage what's the point ....

Like Merus said, bringing Mages maybe closer to warrior damage output in pvm.

Our warriors do the quest in say 30 minutes, my 1st try was 2 hours, my 2nd try was 1 hour 45 minutes. My killing ability nothing like theirs - I have max SDI.

“Sdi is not subject to diminishing returns, there is no cap in PvM, though I cannot seem to deal more than 666 with word of death.”

Sdi is capped 250

Chrille said:

Sdi is capped 250

where is this posted officially?

On the character status sheet. It won't go any higher then 250, even if you have items giving you a higher sdi.

Chrille said:

On the character status sheet. It won't go any higher then 250, even if you have items giving you a higher sdi.

This property is capped at 20% for Player vs. Player combat only.
https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/magic-item-properties/

The character sheet is just a UI, and some of these displayed info can be modified. E.g. We were just discussing about some wrong info in the spellbooks in the bugs section. We should stick with the official wiki.

KHAN said:

Sliss said:

KHAN said:

As an example, the shield with 10 SDI and the earrings with 15 SDI equals 75 more damage with every WoD.

I am pretty sure the actual damage increase depends on your overall SDI. A shield with 10% SDI will bump you damage by 10% if that shield is the only SDI item you are wearing. Add that same shield to someone who is at 170 SDI, and the actual damage increase is nowhere close to 10%.

I tried it with 3 different characters with different amounts of SDI. The 25 SDI increase was a straight 75 points on all 3. 

The diminishing returns thing only kicks in past a certain SDI. How high were your characters' SDI?

Sliss said:

KHAN said:

Sliss said:

KHAN said:

As an example, the shield with 10 SDI and the earrings with 15 SDI equals 75 more damage with every WoD.

I am pretty sure the actual damage increase depends on your overall SDI. A shield with 10% SDI will bump you damage by 10% if that shield is the only SDI item you are wearing. Add that same shield to someone who is at 170 SDI, and the actual damage increase is nowhere close to 10%.

I tried it with 3 different characters with different amounts of SDI. The 25 SDI increase was a straight 75 points on all 3. 

The diminishing returns thing only kicks in past a certain SDI. How high were your characters' SDI?

The highest was 156 before adding the earings and shield. I did 768 with WoD. I added both items, and my SDI went to 181. At that point I cast a WoD for 843. Which was 75 points more than before. I will recheck it again tomorrow if I get a chance.

I capped out at 1207 word of deaths, with 250 sdi, then added 10 sdi from shield and still 1207 damage then I added grape of wrath for another 15 sdi and still 1207 damage. So what I wrote earlier holds true sdi is capped at 250.

Chrille said:

I capped out at 1207 word of deaths, with 250 sdi, then added 10 sdi from shield and still 1207 damage then I added grape of wrath for another 15 sdi and still 1207 damage. So what I wrote earlier holds true sdi is capped at 250.

Please share. What items and buffs did you use to get to 250 sdi before the shield and grapes?

Chrille said:

I capped out at 1207 word of deaths, with 250 sdi, then added 10 sdi from shield and still 1207 damage then I added grape of wrath for another 15 sdi and still 1207 damage. So what I wrote earlier holds true sdi is capped at 250.

1698 Word of Death. 🙂

You may or may not be right on the 250, I'll try soon.

True that the paperdoll in classic client is capped at 250 SDI.

Hard one to test re change in damage. I believe everything you have said, just would like to see for myself 🙂

Will keep trying at a later point.

Yoshi said:

“666 with word of death.”

Clever, I believe you 😂

I killed an uev, they have enough hitpoints for you to cast at least 4 wod.

I use a suite with 183 sdi, halo, pendant of the magi, cuffs, crystalline ring, 18 sdi bracelet, Yukio's earrings, spell woven britches, jumu's hide, hawkwinds, 5 sdi totem, protector of the battle mage, 50 sdi spellbook, hooks shield. I don't use the gloves could be 2 higher, then to reach 250 I use reaper form, bard prov songs, town bonus and arcane empowerment.

Cookie said:

Chrille said:

I capped out at 1207 word of deaths, with 250 sdi, then added 10 sdi from shield and still 1207 damage then I added grape of wrath for another 15 sdi and still 1207 damage. So what I wrote earlier holds true sdi is capped at 250.

1698 Word of Death. 🙂

You may or may not be right on the 250, I'll try soon.

That looks like it was taken in Blackthorns Dungeon. WoD does, in some cases, DOUBLE damage to the Captains. So not a fair comparison of WoD damage. 

Exactly. I can get 1600 on captains with just 135 SDI.

This is me 8 years ago. Could probably hit for 2500+ now

Fair points, I'll try harder 🙂

And @Chrille - nice.