Question about damage

It's a dumb one, but I'm confused and it's getting annoying. Read some threads about it but got nothing. Here's my problem:

My 55lvl Mechanic has 9194 - 11829 (min max) base damage and 8090 - 10410 Quick Shot, with no essence. But in battle he does like ~3600 - ~4600 dmg (quick shot, against sandlings and scorpions as an expample).

When I put Red Essence my stats become 18823 - 24220 (Base dmg) and 16565 - 21313 (Quick shot) and in battle is around 7100 - 9500.

Why? It's the same in Normal and Infernal III. Is it because of their armour? Uh, and now I see another problem. The Red Essence gives 300% more dmg, which is 3x as much as normal, right? Why do I get only 2x then? If I have 9k basic and give it 300% more it should grow up to 27k and yet I get only around 19k. What am I doing wrong, what am I not understanding right, why is this happening? It gets frustrating even more when somebody asks me for "dmg?" and I don't know what to say - should I say 10k, 9k or 4k (mean values, with no essence for example)...

Thank you!!!

 

Just like you ... monsters have armor, resistance and even block.
The damage you are dealing to them is getting reduced.

 

Yes, as Trakilaki has already pointed out, You are dealing less damage to creatures because of their armor and resistances.
You can somewhat overcome this by breaking their armor. Every class has armor break skills. In your case, SM has C-14 Micro Rocket which reduces the armor of creatures. So, use this on leader/champions or groups of creatures to kill them faster.

However, note that You cannot break armor of a boss and usually bosses have higher armor. So, You would do even less damage to a boss.

Second question: Red essence only multiplies damage on Your base damage and not total damage.
So, if you hover over your character stats damage section, You can see it will list Your base damage and a damage multiplier.
This base damage is what is going to get multiplied with Red essence or any other essence for that matter.

I believe Your base damage is around 3200-4100. So, reds would give 3 times of that in addition to what You already have.

If someone asks for Your damage, You usually tell the max damage with no essences.
In Your case, Your damage is 11.8 k

But nowadays, whites are freely available and You will always be equipped with them, so it is ok to give the damage with whites equipped, which in Your case You can say your damage is 12.9k with whites.

 

Thank you both! Things are clear now.

 

And if you want the "graduate level" explanation of how damage is calculated, I've written a thread just for that.

Just pay attention to the first half. The second half answers the question of "what are the best stats to put on a weapon?" Spoilers: You want pure %IDotI.