Order In Which Damage Bonuses are Applied?

[iothestorm]

Does anyone know in what order the bonuses from spell damage gear as well as talents are applied. I have been looking at the new mage talents for BC and see that there are talents to increase your spell damage, however I am getting hung up in the way in which the formula might be applied. The results can be different depending on the order of operations used. Can anyone help?

Here are the formulas that seem to be plausible to me, yet they will yield different results with the same numbers applied.

Assume Base Spell Damage for fireball is 500.
Assume Bonus From Gear is 100.

For fire tree.

Base Spell Damage + (.13 x Base Spell Damage) = new damage (firepower and playing with fire)
new damage + (1.15 x Bonus From Gear) = more damage (empowered fireball)
more damage + (.15 x more damage) = final damage (scorch)

500 x 1.13 = 565
565 + 115 = 680
680 x 1.15 = 782

This formula would add to the base spell damage the 10% damage from Fire Power and the 3% damage from playing with fire, then add Bonus Damage from the gear being worn + 15% of that bonus from Empowered fireball, and then lastly assumining scorch were stacked 5 times would add another 15% of new spell dmage.

However, If these bonuses are applied in a different order and a new base damage is calculated, then the scorch bonus would go up more, instead of using a base spell damage. Likewise, if the bonus from the gear is added before applying the 13% damage to fire spells, then the numbers will again be different.

Base Spell Damage + (1.15 x Bonus From Gear) = new base damage (empowered fireball)
new base damage + (.13 x new base damage) = more damage (firepower playing with fire)
more damage + (.15 x more damage) = final damage of spell (scorch)

500 + 115 = 615
615 x 1.13 = 694.95
694.95 x 1.15 = 799

As we can see there would be a 17 point difference assuming the damage gear bonus were only 100. The greater bonus damage from gear the more distant the results from the two forumlas will become. So, if anyone knows the order in which each bonus is applied to the base spell, I would greatly appreciate knowing that information.

Thanks!

[FodderCannoned]

someone answer this please

[Havoc Jack]

By "Scorch" I presume you mean the talent "Improved Scorch" which debuffs the target for up to 15% more fire damage taken?

Going by the traditional method of applying these modifiers, the first example is correct. Take the base damage, multiply it by the +% damage spells, Then adding the damage effects. Once it's determined how hard your fireball hits, then we take into account the target's resistances, and buffs and debuffs. By which I mean that the improved scorch damage ought to buff the total damage from talents and spell damage.