100 replies to this topic

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

EDIT: This post needs updating with the latest theorycrafting information. Take it with a grain of salt.

I wanted to make a thread about the mathematics of Warrior bleeds as I was unsure about the exact way certain things were stacking and I wanted some community input. Furthermore, I want to give some indication of how powerful bleeds are. Please note that the gear choices made in this thread have been made to illustrate the maximum damage of a single bleed or bleed skill. The build is not meant to be competitive or realistic.

Regarding Malice, Guild Wars 2 Wiki states that bleeds are separated in to one second ticks, and that 20 Malice adds one damage per tick. Source: Guild Wars 2 Wiki. Additionally, I would also like to note that bleeds can only stack up to 25, with long duration bleeds it might be possible to hit this maximum.

Runes, Sigils, Jewellery and Traits

Total Malice: 1507.
Malice damage per bleed tick: 1507 / 20 = 75.35
Condition/bleed duration increases: 50%, 30%, 15%, 15%, 10% and 10%. Additive total: 130%.
Sources of duration increases:

• Deep Cuts (Arms major trait), increases bleed duration by 50%.
  
• Expertise from the Strength tree, increases condition duration by 30%.
  
• Rune of the Afflicted (3 of these), increases bleed duration by 15%.
  
• Rune of the Krait (3 of these), increases bleed duration by 15%.
  
• Sigil of Superior Agony, increases bleed duration by 10%.

The Sever Artery example
Sever Artery, a sword chain attack that does 360 bleed damage over 8 seconds. Source: GW2tools.

Step 1: Calculate the maximum duration

50% + 30% + 15% + 15% + 10% + 10% = 130% duration increase
8 seconds * 2.30 (130%) = 18.4 seconds, 18 seconds rounded down

Step 2: Calculate the base damage per tick

360 damage / 8 seconds = 45 damage per tick (one tick per second)

Step 3: Calculate the extra damage from Malice per tick

1507 Malice / 20 (Malice needed for one damage per tick) = 75.35 damage per tick

Step 4: Add the damage from Malice and the base damage together (per tick)

45 damage per tick + 75.35 damage per tick =  120.35 damage per tick, 120 rounded down

Step 5: Multiply the total damage per tick by the duration (i.e. number of ticks)

120 damage per tick * 18 ticks (one per second) = 2160 damage over 18 seconds

Summary: With near maximum Malice and bleed duration the bleed component of a single Sever Artery will do 2160 damage over 18 seconds. DPS: 120.

The (quicker) Impale and Riposte example
Impale and Riposte, the off hand sword skills that do 2160 damage over 12 seconds. They each apply four bleeds. Source: Guild Wars 2 Tools.

1: 50% + 30% + 15% + 15% + 10% + 10% = 130%
12 * 2.30 = 27.6, round down to 27

2: (2160 / 4) / 12 = 45 // 4 bleeds remember

3: 1507 / 20 = 75.35

4: 75.35 + 45 = 120.35, round down to 120

5: 120 * 27 = 3240

6: 3240 * 4 = 12960  // remember there are four bleeds (extra step)

Summary: With near maximum Malice and bleed duration the bleed components of Impale and Riposte will do 12960 damage over 27 seconds. DPS: 480.

Something to note

At this point I'd like to note that the base damage of bleeds always seems to be 45 (credit goes to IOUmoney here). I find this relevant for two reasons:

• You can calculate an items/Traits default damage without it being listed. For example, Sigil of Superior Earth does 225 damage (45 damage * 5 second duration) by default.
  
• Bleed damage can be calculated quickly using: ((Malice / 20) + 45 ) * round(base duration * sum of duration increases).
  
• If you need to calculate the damage of many bleeds, the first bracket is always constant; therefore, if  you have worked out X = ((Malice / 20) + 45) you can just calculate the damage like this: X * round(base duration * sum of duration increases) for each bleed.

Questions and Answers

Answered Questions

• Question: Does bleed duration stack additively or multiplicatively?
  ​Tentative answer: Boons appear to be stacking additively, therefore, conditions probably do to. Needs more confirmation. Source.
  
• Question: Does increasing the duration of the bleed also increase the damage it does (proportionately)?
  Answer: "Yes, bleeds are divided into one second ticks. Each tick has a base value, modified by Malice." Source: Mammoth's post on page one.
  
• Question: Is Malice applied before or after a duration increase?
  Answer: Malice is applied to each tick of a bleed. The duration of the bleed is irrelevant. Source: Mammoth's post on the first page of this thread.
  
• Question: Does the Malice modifier apply to every bleed that Impale applies?
  Answer: Yes it does. Source: IOUmoney's post on page one of this thread.

Unanswered Questions

• Question: Does Sigil of Superior Agony affect bleeds on both weapons?
  Assumption in calculations: Yes.
  
• Question: How does damage rounding work in GW2?
  Assumption in calculations: Always round down.
  
• Question: Do bleeds have a maximum duration?
  Assumption in calculations: No.

Edited by Ivarr_Ironfist, 22 June 2012 - 07:41 AM.

[Yourgrandmother]

Great thread.

I wish I could find that War sword condition video... He would pop flurry and then bam 25 bleeds and would die instantly. I really think that condition damage wars will be a viable spec especially in WvW. It may be more effective than flat out AoE DPS builds based on how well sigil of earth stacks with flurry/hundred blades/whirling axes. Add that with target assist and necromancer ability to transfer conditions from one foe to surrounding foes (large radius).

One thing about your tests though, no one would take 10% bleed ruation sigils hehe.

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

Yourgrandmother, on 23 May 2012 - 05:11 PM, said:

One thing about your tests though, no one would take 10% bleed ruation sigils hehe.

The build choices I made in this thread were merely to show the potential maximum bleed damage. The build was not meant to be realistic.

[Red_Falcon]

Fantastic job right there.
Warrior's condition damage seems pretty disappointing, with the exception of Impale that is.

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

Red_Falcon, on 23 May 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

Warrior's condition damage seems pretty disappointing, with the exception of Impale that is.

In PvP, I think it's most to do with professions having the ability to spec a little too much condition removal and not giving much up for it. In PvE though, I think there are no problems with bleeds and they will probably reign as king of damage (for Warriors).

[Raggok]

Ivarr_Ironfist, on 23 May 2012 - 06:06 PM, said:

In PvP, I think it's most to do with professions having the ability to spec a little too much condition removal and not giving much up for it. In PvE though, I think there are no problems with bleeds and they will probably reign as king of damage (for Warriors).

Yes, way too many anti-condition abilities out there to make a condition build consisently effective in PvP in my opinion.

Automated Response anyone?

[Scarlet_Blossom]

Raggok, on 23 May 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

Yes, way too many anti-condition abilities out there to make a condition build consisently effective in PvP in my opinion.

Automated Response anyone?

This doesn't affect conditions already on the target.

[Catenaccio]

I didn't like bleeding damage in pvp at all, it looks like being too slow to actually kill anyone. I didn't invest so much into condition damage, but used most of the time sword and rifle and an arms build.
It looks like putting a lot of our bleeding potential into crit procs forces us to spec heavy into arms/precision.
So if you plan to go for condition damage you need at least a 530 precision amulet, and the only one that grants also condition damage is the +901cond_damage, +530precision, +530toughness.
Not bad, but you'll sit there at 18k health, not so much for an attrition build. If you want that vitality you have to give up your prefision (and so less conditions) or condition damage (and you'll deal trash damage with your bleeding). To be honest this is a problem of all classes: there's not a +cond_damage +tough + vit amulet out there, so the CondiDmg Pre Tuf amulet seems to be a good choice.
Given you want to use weapons that provide bleeding you need to equip dual swords and a rifle. Anyway since this should be an attrition build you'd like to have a shield equipped to mitigate some damage from time to time, but that would take up the slot of you best bleeding weapon: offhand sword.

Also, speccing into arms you can get another condition, too bad it's vulnerability, that doesn't do damage at all and doesn't help other conditions do more damage.

I'm a bit disappointed by the state of the warrior as a condition based attrition class, I can see the potential, but the tools at his disposal don't synergize well. I'll try to see what happens with a rifle/bow setup, since bow also add burning to the table, and you're fully ranged so you can survive better/easier/longer and let conditions tick.

tl;dr: burst is definitely easier/better for warriors

[Raggok]

Scarlet_Blossom, on 23 May 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

This doesn't affect conditions already on the target.

That makes sense since Endure Pain and other similar abilities don't effect pre-existing conditions as well.  I guess it's fortunate that Engineers can remove conditions in other ways then.  

[IOUmoney]

Your question on the impale stacks
sever artery (1 stack)
360/8= 45 damage per second
1 stack of bleed for 1 sec = 45 damage

Bleed damage ticks are constant (same application in for necro bleeding damage calcs too)

impale
45(x)*12= 2160
x=4 stacks

Edited by IOUmoney, 23 May 2012 - 08:23 PM.

[tbox]

Seems like a bleed build has to find the right mix of + duration and + condition damage the longer the dots the  better chance your target is going to have a heal skill up. Vulnerability should also increase condition damage unless there is some other condition that increases condition damage.

Edited by tbox, 24 May 2012 - 02:03 AM.

[Nuu]

In case no one figured this out yet, the wiki says that bleeding, confusion, & vulnerability are the only conditions that stack multiplicatively (say that 3x fast lol). Everything else like poison, burn, etc stack in duration. As for boons, Might is the only boon that stacks in intensity. It's much easier to just remember that.

[UltimateFightingCarebear]

that's quite a few assumptions.  I don't believe that anyone's actually tested it yet.  And as some one once said "the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"".

IIRC, Condition damage bypasses Armor but I forget if it can critical.  I am assuming not based on the "Bleed on Crit" Traits.

How does this damage compare against health pools, healing and condition removing abilities of other classes?  I am certain a Guardian and Necromancer can create a build that completely shuts down a bleeder build.

Finally, what's the opportunity cost of a bleeder build?  How does it compare against Power builds?  If you are giving too much sustained and burst DPS by maxing bleeds then a optimal balance will have to be calculated.

Perhaps in the future someone will figure out which profession is the bleed champion - Sword Warrior or Earth Elementalist.

[CheeseThief]

Unless it's changed since I last looked, cleanse skills remove an entire stack and not just a single bleed, so I'd be treating bleeding as a secondary damage source. As a warrior none of the bleeding weapons are really capable of 'hiding' their bleed stack amongst other conditions so it'll be easily removed via skills or even automatically with all the passive cleanses around, and other than the off-hand sword skills the warrior isn't really capable of applying multiple bleeds in any great hurry, unless you count auto-attacking as a quick and effective strategy.


As far as I am concerned, a Bleed Warrior build is a power stacking one that makes maximum use of the 3rd Arms minor trait. Let the bleeds work in the background as you scare the opponent with big damage numbers, not be your primary and easily removed source of damage.

[Mammoth]

Ivarr_Ironfist, on 23 May 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

Question: Does bleed duration stack additively or multiplicatively?
Unsure. This was hard to test as my results were frustratingly inconsistent. Will try again next BWE.
Question: Does Sigil of Superior Agony affect bleeds on both weapons?
Unsure.
Question: How does damage rounding work in GW2? Assuming GW2 always rounds down.
Unsure. GW1 uses round to even. One test seems to show that in GW2, 1.52 rounds to 2, but I'm not sure about 1.50.
Question: Does increasing the duration of the bleed also increase the damage it does (proportionately)?
Yes. Bleeds are divided into 1 second ticks. Each tick has a base value, modified by malice.
Question: Is Malice applied before or after a duration increase?
See above.
Question: Do bleeds have a maximum duration?
Unsure, have not tested.
Question: Does the Malice modifier apply to every bleed that Impale applies?
Yes. See above.

Not very helpful I know, but at least it gives an idea of what needs to be tested next BWE. Unless someone else already has the answers.

CheeseThief, on 24 May 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

As a warrior none of the bleeding weapons are really capable of 'hiding' their bleed stack amongst other conditions so it'll be easily removed via skills or even automatically with all the passive cleanses around, and other than the off-hand sword skills the warrior isn't really capable of applying multiple bleeds in any great hurry, unless you count auto-attacking as a quick and effective strategy.

A warrior who is using conditions will be in a team that is using conditions. 'Hiding' them won't be a problem the majority of the time. Autoattacking for 2.5k seems like a fairly quick and effective strategy. Add ~700 for final thrust and you're looking at nearly 6k damage from one autoattack chain without crits. You have to keep in mind, sword autochain does more direct damage than greatsword or mace autochains, and obviously more than the rifle or bow. Only axe and hammer do more, but that's before you consider the bleeds. I'm not saying bleeds will be great for structured pvp, but it's way too early to decide they are inferior. There were a lot of people raging about 'overpowered bleed stacks' in the first BWE, so the potential is there.

Edited by Mammoth, 24 May 2012 - 03:26 PM.

[Keaghan]

Very interesting speculation, I wonder if what you say will hold true in the next BWE. Also, younggrandmother, how does one apply 25 stacks of bleed that quickly? Seems impossible.

Sounds like a fun build to harass people though, I will admit.

[Delillo]

Keaghan, on 24 May 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

Also, yourgrandmother, how does one apply 25 stacks of bleed that quickly? Seems impossible.

I'm guessing fury+flurry+http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Superior_Earth (+60% chance to bleed on crit).

Also from a mechanics point of  view, doesn't a skill like impale or riposte express its damage as multiple stacks of bleed? So just 2 skills could get you 8 stacks of bleed to start out with.

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

The original post has been updated with better formatting and answers to some of the questions. The calculations have also been changed due to IOUmoney's answer. As a result, the damage numbers are actually slightly smaller than they were before.

Delillo, on 24 May 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

Also from a mechanics point of  view, doesn't a skill like impale or riposte express its damage as multiple stacks of bleed?

Yes.

Keaghan, on 24 May 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

Very interesting speculation, I wonder if what you say will hold true in the next BWE. Also, younggrandmother, how does one apply 25 stacks of bleed that quickly? Seems impossible.

I managed to hit 25 bleeds with Flurry a couple of times on the Monday stress test. Most of the time though, it wasn't that helpful as a full Flurry to the face already had people on pretty low health.

Edited by Ivarr_Ironfist, 25 May 2012 - 05:02 AM.

[Catenaccio]

Ivarr_Ironfist, on 25 May 2012 - 05:01 AM, said:

I managed to hit 25 bleeds with Flurry a couple of times on the Monday stress test. Most of the time though, it wasn't that helpful as a full Flurry to the face already had people on pretty low health.

Don't you think that theese bleeds are kinda lame in pvp? If you manage to stack a lot of them on the target you already killed him or are very close to. It would be more helpful to have a system to spread disease or to do some kind of spike damage based on the number of bleeds on the target. I know, i'm just leninng toward the necro ^^
In pve I can definitely see more use of the bleed mechanic, expecially on bosses since you have more time to let ticks go.

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

Catenaccio, on 25 May 2012 - 09:49 PM, said:

Don't you think that theese bleeds are kinda lame in pvp? If you manage to stack a lot of them on the target you already killed him or are very close to. It would be more helpful to have a system to spread disease or to do some kind of spike damage based on the number of bleeds on the target. I know, i'm just leninng toward the necro ^^
In pve I can definitely see more use of the bleed mechanic, expecially on bosses since you have more time to let ticks go.

Bleeds worked pretty well in the BWE because people weren't bringing enough condition removal, if any at all. Post release, people will probably clue up a bit more and take more condition removal, meaning that condition builds probably won't be choice for 1v1.

I'm still undecided about whether condition builds will have a place in SPvP as part of a condition team, though. If you have a team that has many different types of conditions they act as a cover for each other, meaning they are harder to remove unless you have a skill that removes all conditions. I don't think anyone has enough information (except devs) yet to guess at whether this will be viable or not.

[Catenaccio]

Ivarr_Ironfist, on 25 May 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

Bleeds worked pretty well in the BWE because people weren't bringing enough condition removal, if any at all. Post release, people will probably clue up a bit more and take more condition removal, meaning that condition builds probably won't be choice for 1v1.

I'm still undecided about whether condition builds will have a place in SPvP as part of a condition team, though. If you have a team that has many different types of conditions they act as a cover for each other, meaning they are harder to remove unless you have a skill that removes all conditions. I don't think anyone has enough information (except devs) yet to guess at whether this will be viable or not.

Yep, maybe the BWE was too much self-centered to actually have any sort of team-play or strategy.

Edited by Catenaccio, 25 May 2012 - 10:36 PM.

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

I've been looking in to Burning and Poison maths as well, and I now have serious doubts about whether a condition damage team will work with the current state of things. The problem with Burning and Poison is that as duration stacking conditions they gain very limited damage scaling from Malice in comparison to Bleeds. For example:

1507 Malice on Bleeds. 75.35 DPS (1507/20) from Malice per Bleed. So 1507 Malice gives you a benefit of between 75.35 DPS (one bleed) and 1883.75 DPS (25 bleeds). If you have a 9 second bleed it will do 405 damage total, with 0 Malice. With 1507 Malice it will do 1083.15 damage, an increase of 170%.

1507 Malice on Poison. 150.7 DPS (1507/10) from Malice. This benefit doesn't increase, 150.7 DPS is the maximum benefit 1507 Malice can provide. If you have a 9 second poison it will do 1440 damage total, with 0 Malice. With 1507 Malice it will do 2796.3 damage, an increase of 94%.

1507 Malice on Burning. 37.675 DPS (1507/40) from Malice. This benefit doesn't increase, 37.675 DPS is the maximum benefit 1507 Malice can provide. If you have a 9 second Burn it will do 2880 damage total, with 0 Malice. With 1507 Malice it will do 3579.075 damage, an increase of 24%.

Summary of maths: 1507 Malice will provide you between 75.35 DPS and 1883.75 DPS on bleeds,  150.7 DPS for poisons and 37.675 DPS for burning.

This to me means that the Malice attribute is extremely broken and really needs changing in the next iteration. Some other professions (such as Ele) use Burning is a very major way and the fact they can't get it to improve DPS in a major way isn't very good.

Other professions not stacking Malice for Poison/Burning does not bode well for Warrior condition builds. Condition builds only work well with lots of conditions on the target, as they cover each other from removal.

[CheeseThief]

Quote

I've been looking in to Burning and Poison maths as well, and I now have serious doubts about whether a condition damage team will work with the current state of things.

Depends on the team.

A ranger can stack 24~ bleeds in about 5 seconds, as can a necro. Two rangers and a necro is looking at an almost 80 deep stack of bleed. Necro hits Epidemic and the enemy team is either very quick on the cleanse or you just rolled them in a team fight. I'm not entirely sure where the warrior fits into this bleed spike but keeping some heavy hitters around so the enemy doesn't completely swap out their defence skills for more cleanses come respawn can only help the tactics longevity in the match.

Poison reduces a players ability to heal which is always useful, while it's not going to do anything special in the damage department it may reduce the time to kill by reducing the targets mid combat heal. Burning usually comes with it's own combo field so that's always handy, but hard to theory craft around. Niether are going to stack up to bleeding in damage but they will help, even if it is just keeping your bleeding stack safe from passive cleanses.

[Ivarr_Ironfist]

CheeseThief, on 28 May 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

Depends on the team.

A ranger can stack 24~ bleeds in about 5 seconds, as can a necro. Two rangers and a necro is looking at an almost 80 deep stack of bleed. Necro hits Epidemic and the enemy team is either very quick on the cleanse or you just rolled them in a team fight. I'm not entirely sure where the warrior fits into this bleed spike but keeping some heavy hitters around so the enemy doesn't completely swap out their defence skills for more cleanses come respawn can only help the tactics longevity in the match.

Poison reduces a players ability to heal which is always useful, while it's not going to do anything special in the damage department it may reduce the time to kill by reducing the targets mid combat heal. Burning usually comes with it's own combo field so that's always handy, but hard to theory craft around. Niether are going to stack up to bleeding in damage but they will help, even if it is just keeping your bleeding stack safe from passive cleanses.

It's theoretically possible for Warriors to stack this amount of bleeds in 5 seconds as well, although I don't know if we can do it as easily as Necromancers or Rangers. With Flurry, the Sword burst move, we can hit 16 times over the course of a few seconds. With the trait Unsuspecting Foe we can achieve a 100% crit rate for the duration. With two Sigils of Earth and the minor trait Precise Strikes that's 23 bleeds on average. With our utility skill Frenzy, we can also decrease the channel time significantly. Oh, and the direct damage component of Flurry hits massive amounts of damage itself at adrenaline level 3.

Outside of Flurry, we also have to of the hardest hitting bleed abilities, Riposte and Impale. They both stack 4 bleeds each, over the course of a few seconds.

Without Unsuspecting Foe we can still achieve somewhere in the region of between 80-90% crit. If I remember correctly I had either 61% or 67% crit, going full out glass cannon precision in the last stress test. Obviously add 20% to that for fury.

Edited by Ivarr_Ironfist, 28 May 2012 - 11:49 AM.

[Mammoth]

Ivarr_Ironfist, on 25 May 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

Bleeds worked pretty well in the BWE because people weren't bringing enough condition removal, if any at all. Post release, people will probably clue up a bit more and take more condition removal, meaning that condition builds probably won't be choice for 1v1.

If the conditions are strong enough they remain viable. The example we're talking about here is 2.2k bleed damage being applied every second or so. There's only so much impact condition removal can have on that. Removing a stack of bleeds only takes away around half the damage, because by the time you have a 'stack', some of those bleeds have ticked quite a few times already. Unless someone has very spammable condition removal (and some profs do), it won't be the universal panacea for condition damage that people seem to believe occasionally. Anything with a cooldown equal to your bleed duration (18s in the example) will approximately halve your bleed damage if it is used purely to counter bleeds and they just power through your teams chills, poisons, and weaknesses. Longer cooldowns, less impact, shorter cooldowns, greater impact. It does swing further in favour of the remover when you consider that you won't have 100% uptime on applying bleeds, but you can still do significant damage through most condition removals.

Edited by Mammoth, 28 May 2012 - 02:48 PM.

[FrogReaver]

Mammoth, on 28 May 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

If the conditions are strong enough they remain viable. The example we're talking about here is 2.2k bleed damage being applied every second or so. There's only so much impact condition removal can have on that. Removing a stack of bleeds only takes away around half the damage, because by the time you have a 'stack', some of those bleeds have ticked quite a few times already. Unless someone has very spammable condition removal (and some profs do), it won't be the universal panacea for condition damage that people seem to believe occasionally. Anything with a cooldown equal to your bleed duration (18s in the example) will approximately halve your bleed damage if it is used purely to counter bleeds and they just power through your teams chills, poisons, and weaknesses. Longer cooldowns, less impact, shorter cooldowns, greater impact. It does swing further in favour of the remover when you consider that you won't have 100% uptime on applying bleeds, but you can still do significant damage through most condition removals.

If a class can consistently apply max bleed stacks in a short duration then condition removal will have little effect.  Take this example: let's say each attack on average applies 5 bleeds and each bleed does 100 damage.

1: 0 dmg (hasn't had a chance to tick yet).
2: 500 dmg
3: 1000 dmg
4: 1500 dmg
5: 2000 dmg (and all bleeds have been applied just the last stack hasn't started ticking yet).
6: 2500 dmg
7: 2500 dmg
8: 2500 dmg
9: 2500
10: 2500
...

So in this 10 seconds my damage is 17500
(1750 per second but it will approach 2500 per second the longer I keep them bled).


So after their 5th attack if i apply condition removal then I am taking
1: 0
2: 500
3: 1000
4: 1500
5: 2000
6: 0
7: 500
8: 1000
9: 1500
10: 2000

My damage in these 10 seconds is 10000.  In 10 seconds that 1 condition removal hasn't even halved my damage and it's even worse if he doesn't use it at exactly the right time.  Basically against builds that rely on really high timer skills to get their bleeds off then condition removal plays a big part.  Against builds that use a #1 skill to apply multiple stacks of bleeds fast then condition removal isn't as big of an issue.

DPS: 1000 per second for the first 10 seconds (and will still approach 2500 per second since most condition removal is on 20+ second timers).

Basically the first 5 seconds of a fight against any condition build that can't easily be countered by condition removal is going to consist of maybe maybe an average of 1000 dps in the first 5 seconds (add a little more on from your low power weapon attacks and it still looks pretty pathetic to a non condition damage build).  Basically  my conclusion is that most every condition build is goint to suck the first 5-10 seconds of a fight and the ones that don't can be easily countered with a high timer condition removal.

I have a few additional question: if you die do your condition you put on a target go away?  If a target goes down does he stop bleeding?

Edited by FrogReaver, 28 May 2012 - 03:54 PM.

[Mammoth]

FrogReaver, on 28 May 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

DPS: 1000 per second for the first 10 seconds (and will still approach 2500 per second since most condition removal is on 20+ second timers).

Basically the first 5 seconds of a fight against any condition build that can't easily be countered by condition removal is going to consist of maybe maybe an average of 1000 dps in the first 5 seconds (add a little more on from your low power weapon attacks and it still looks pretty pathetic to a non condition damage build).  Basically  my conclusion is that most every condition build is goint to suck the first 5-10 seconds of a fight and the ones that don't can be easily countered with a high timer condition removal.

If you consider 1000 dps low. If you drop someone by 5000 health in the first 5seconds, and you're just getting warmed up, while they're starting to use defensive cooldowns instead of pressuring you back or trying to gain control, I'd say you're in a good place. Peoples perception is getting a little warped by highlight videos I think. Since the base damage of the chain is higher than most weapons, it's a question of whether gearing and traiting in favour of DD will add 1000 dps. If it does, it's a question of how long you expect fights to last. If you expect them to last >10s, it's about whether gearing and traiting for DD adds 2500 dps, and I really don't expect that to be the case. As an educated guess, I'd say you'd need at least 5000 power for that to even be possible.

So then it becomes about whether you favour damage compression or higher sustained, and that's where I would consider it to be balanced.

Edited by Mammoth, 28 May 2012 - 04:11 PM.

[FrogReaver]

Mammoth, on 28 May 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

If you consider 1000 dps low. If you drop someone by 5000 health in the first 5seconds, and you're just getting warmed up, while they're starting to use defensive cooldowns instead of pressuring you back or trying to gain control, I'd say you're in a good place. Peoples perception is getting a little warped by highlight videos I think.

1000 dps is very low.

Besides that, you can't get any #1 skill that does on average 5 bleeds per attack.  Hello to even less dps!  You want to run the numbers through with 3 or 4 stacks of bleed per attack and see how much lower your damage is going to be after 10 seconds?  It's going to  be pathetic.  Bleed builds are great when you look at bleeds being at max or near max stacks.  When you look at how poorly they start the fight (besides maybe the bleed ele which still cant get an average of 5 bleeds per second) then you realize the numbers just aren't in favor of these builds.

Edited by FrogReaver, 28 May 2012 - 04:17 PM.

[Mammoth]

FrogReaver, on 28 May 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

1000 dps is very low.

Sure, if you're comparing to a guy who has the '1s recharge on bulls' edition. Let's say a weapon swing takes 1s. Let's say it has a coefficient of .200 (I haven't seen one this high, but for the sake of argument, since I haven't seen many). To increase your dps by 1000 with power alone, you need 5000 power. If you have 100% chance to crit and a 2.00 crit modifier, you need 2500 power. You're the one who figured this stuff out man

FrogReaver, on 28 May 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

Besides that, you can't get any #1 skill that does on average 5 bleeds per attack.  Hello to even less dps!  You want to run the numbers through with 3 or 4 stacks of bleed per attack and see how much lower your damage is going to be after 10 seconds?  It's going to  be pathetic.  Bleed builds are great when you look at bleeds being at max or near max stacks.  When you look at how poorly they start the fight (besides maybe the bleed ele which still cant get an average of 5 bleeds per second) then you realize the numbers just aren't in favor of these builds.

You don't need to. You're autoattacking for 2.5k, it's really that straightforward. If they have a relatively spammable condition removal, they can make a dent on that, it's a question of whether that dent is large enough. Since it doesn't even seem to reduce the 2.2k bleed component by a half, you're talking about pretty decent autos, in the 1.4-1.7k range. Have a look here for GS autos from a full offensive warrior:


700. On a light golem.

The main difference is obviously that when the greatsword warrior has a knockdown/stun/immobilise up, either from himself or his team, he makes the sword warrior look like a schoolgirl, because he has a 4000 damage ability on a 6s cooldown

Edited by Mammoth, 28 May 2012 - 04:28 PM.

[FrogReaver]

Mammoth, on 28 May 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Sure, if you're comparing to a guy who has the '1s recharge on bulls' edition. Let's say a weapon swing takes 1s. Let's say it has a coefficient of .200 (I haven't seen one this high, but for the sake of argument, since I haven't seen many). To increase your dps by 1000 with power alone, you need 5000 power. If you have 100% chance to crit and a 2.00 crit modifier, you need 2500 power. You're the one who figured this stuff out man

I've been taking average #1 weapon DPS on an axe warrior to be around 1500.  (This may be low or high) but it fits best with my experience.  This was with a high power and decent chance to crit warrior.  What I said in regards to the skill was that power increases both the damage in your damage screen and the actual damage by 1% per 1% power increase.  The damage from your skill screen doesn't necessarily correspond to the actual damage you are doing and so basing how much damage I am doing to you off just that skill multiplier is either dishonest or shows a lack in understanding.

Now getting back to the main point.  I used unrealisticly high numbers in my condition damage example.  Your dps is probably going to be a little better than half of 1000.  Maybe 600 or 700.  The point for my example was to illustrate that condition removal doesn't really mean condition damage is worthless assuming you can proc enough bleeds fast enough.  What my example was not meant to illustrate was that a condition build can achieve 1750 uninterrupted dps over the first 10 seconds or even 1000 dps with a well placed condition removal.

FrogReaver, on 28 May 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

1000 dps is very low.

Besides that, you can't get any #1 skill that does on average 5 bleeds per attack.  Hello to even less dps!  You want to run the numbers through with 3 or 4 stacks of bleed per attack and see how much lower your damage is going to be after 10 seconds?  It's going to  be pathetic.  Bleed builds are great when you look at bleeds being at max or near max stacks.  When you look at how poorly they start the fight (besides maybe the bleed ele which still cant get an average of 5 bleeds per second) then you realize the numbers just aren't in favor of these builds.

BUMP for Mammoth.