60 replies to this topic

[Var]

CepaCepa, on 17 December 2012 - 06:27 PM, said:

Several Target Fight:
Warrior/Guardian > Elementalist/Engineer > Necro/Mesmer/Ranger/Thief

AoE Fight (none zerg):
Elementalist/Engineer/Necro >>> Guardian/Mesmer > Warrior/Ranger > Thief

I'm pretty sure these are the same thing, and I wouldn't put Guardian's AoE anywhere near the top unless we're talking pure AoE burst but its sustained is pretty abysmal when compared to other classes (prior to the GS nerf and restructuring, it'd probably would have been more true). None of the utilities can even deal damage directly (JI has a small damage spike attached to it), its all from burning or combinations. Mace has the best time keeping up all of its AoEs and bursting if hit through Protector's but its too slow on cast (those arcs are incredibly predictable) and the cooldowns are painful for such conditional spike capabilities. The greatsword has a great quick output on damage but the new cooldowns are looooong even if traited.

The tome is the most heavy AoE weapon we have and... it doesn't scale to weapon stats. Q.Q.

[CepaCepa]

Var, on 18 December 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure these are the same thing, and I wouldn't put Guardian's AoE anywhere near the top unless we're talking pure AoE burst but its sustained is pretty abysmal when compared to other classes (prior to the GS nerf and restructuring, it'd probably would have been more true). None of the utilities can even deal damage directly (JI has a small damage spike attached to it), its all from burning or combinations. Mace has the best time keeping up all of its AoEs and bursting if hit through Protector's but its too slow on cast (those arcs are incredibly predictable) and the cooldowns are painful for such conditional spike capabilities. The greatsword has a great quick output on damage but the new cooldowns are looooong even if traited.

The tome is the most heavy AoE weapon we have and... it doesn't scale to weapon stats. Q.Q.

By "several target fight", I mean something like 3 mobs standing together in a relatively short fight (such that engi/ele have a hard time getting optimal dps set up), in those situations symbols can cover all and cleave takes care of everything. For AoE fight, we'd be talking about LARGE amount of mobs, such as 5-15, that may or may not be concentrated (they'd be moving around in a general area, but not just standing there in a tight circle). The first scenario is often seen in dungeons where a guardian and warrior can charge in and effectively "tank" these 3 mobs while slashing away. the second scenario is common in later level fractals where zergs of mobs would appear and no one can safely tank them all --- So the melee dodge around to try to kite the mobs and the grenadier/elementalist try to kill them before they kill the group.

The point I guess, is to illustrate that cleave as a mechanism can benefit warrior/guardians in some situations, but notice I put >>> instead of > for pure aoe fights, to illustrate that for most multi target situations, ground target aoe is superior to cleave and/or bouncing attacks.

[CepaCepa]

Coren, on 18 December 2012 - 01:28 PM, said:

I guess you haven't played engineers much. True that grenades are a major dps asset, they're mostly there to spread conditions. A critical specced grenade engineer is a conditions maniac. Also, 2/3 hitting? Please, true sometimes not all hit, but most of the time they do.

Pure dps is mostly used with either FT or a bomb kit (although I use bomb kit for tanking).

Also, mesmers don't deal damage only with GS. Staff and sword+focus is more powerful to be honest. GS is just safer.

I've been a grenadier (amongst trying out other kits) engineer since BWE2, she's at lvl 30+ fractals now still going glass cannon and doing just fine. I've tested all of FT power build/FT condition build/Bomb Kit condition build/Grenade berserker/Grenade condition/Double pistol condition/Rifle power build in dungeons, and I went in and tested of few of them again after the wintersday patch. No other power spec comes close to grenade berserker before patch, and after the patch FT is now on-par with something like a 10 30 0 20 10 setup, as well as bomb kit with 30 30 0 0 10. However, survivability in both FT and bomb kit (if going full berserker) are much lower than grenadier, at least for fractals. That extra 200 toughness just doesn't help, the 1500 range however, is a god send.

But the direct damage of the engi after patch is nevertheless outshined by mesmer/warrior/thief/ranger direct damage setup, now it's only through grenade condition damage (and its aoe potential) that we can secure a seat as a "glass cannon". Trust me, I had to do a lot of proving in fractals, people always ask "don't you die as a grenadier", in which I answer "I'm good at dodging and I have lots of dodges", then they'd ask "is your damage worth it to take such risks?" and I need to prove to them that I kill things fast in the first fractal. Pugs become convince as soon as we do the first fractal and they can see me perform, but whenever I run with guildies there's always the question: should we switch my engi to bunker so that our ele can go glass cannon? Is the engi's dps justified as a glass cannon? And really, my guildies all agreed on one thing --- They'd "allow" me to glass cannon as grenadier, but not the other options.

Of course nades hit MOST of the time! That's why you see me putting engi near the top for many situations, but that statement you've quoted is for HARD FIGHTS. If we're already talking about fights where warrior and guardians can't melee, mesmer phantasms can't live through first attack, and ranger pet is dead half of the time, then it's not fair to assume "the target is moving either slowly or predictable patterns for grenade to hit". In particular, there are many fights where grenadiers need to stand at 1200+ range to avoid getting killed, yet the boss moves fast and switches target very often, add in the 1-2 second traveling time for grenade in the air means you'd be missing lots --- You can check this easy by seeing how many vulnerability stacks are on the boss, in some situations it drops by half as soon as the boss starts to move like a maniac. Those situations don't happen lots, and sometimes you can mitigate it by going into melee, but when they happen, you simply can't do much about it. (example: a few HotW bosses, a few fractal bosses).

Thaddeuz, on 18 December 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

I see your point, but still. My main is a Grenade Engineer and if at start i had some difficulty to land all my Grenade on target, i praticed enough to miss really rarely. In hard fight i never will miss 1/2 of my nade. Made it 3/4-4/4 for someone who play the grenade engineer often. And usually, a hard fight is not a Single target big Boss, but more a boss with a lot of mobs around who chase you. In this case, there is a good chance that you grenade will damage at least one of the mobs.

A simple example is fractal cliffside, where you need to be quite a distance away from the boss when he does the aoe or otherwise be ready to dodge. The boss moves fast and switches target, you basically gets windows of opportunity (when he stands still to cast circles on the ground) to land all your nades, and as soon as he starts moving it's half luck and half finger twitching time. I'm quite confident in my ability to aim, to predict, and to do everything on the run, I've been doing that everyday since August. But there are indeed situations that you feel very tempted to switch back to rifle/pisol because that boss just turned around and started chasing someone else right after you've casted a nade. And I think those are fair situations to compare to other professions, because a warrior may also argue "good warriors always have adrenaline ready when they switch to rifle to do kill shot, and they'll always find windows of opportunity to go in melee, 100B, and whirlwind out". We're talking about situations (which indeed exists) where naders will sigh to themselves, or warriors will sigh to themsevles, or mesmers will sigh to themselves ---- Because there's really limited things that they could do if they want to be alive as well.

[MordinArkham]

I've played a few class so far, and i think all of them can be the highest for some situations but always depends on the player and the situation. So this ranking is kinda pointless imo. But! Whoever puts necro nearly last, or the last on condition list, have clearly no ide what they are talking about... :/ When you have 20ish stacks of bleed on a boss with 2k condition dmg, belive me.. that's not last.. and as someone mentioned, the AoE you can do with Epidemic, plus those 10 might stacks from BiP, well i don't realy see that to be low..

About the elementalist, i think the only way you can realy just focus on dps with them is if you're team gives all the support that class have and they want you to just relax and go for it, other than that, kinda hard.. unless you use weapons that don't have that much support as the staff.

And while i never played engineer, a guildmate playes it from start, and he does realy good dmg with a rifle build, going nearly full bersker, with divinity runes and he does 7-8k crits with 1, so if you're not that interested in dealing  AoE dmg constantly, you can easily go for a build that does a lot of single target dmg,

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Thaddeuz, on 18 December 2012 - 07:53 PM, said:

The Necromancer Specter can stack about 8-10 stack of bleed. You had other attack you get up to 12-14 stack of bleed. Then you get to trait like the Barbed Precision that give you 66% chance of causing bleed on crits, the Hemophilia get you 20% condition duration on bleed, Lingering Curse get a 33% duration to the specter condition with is mainly bleed.

If you build your necromancer properly you can get between 20-25 stack of bleed and poison constant.

GuanglaiKangyi, on 08 December 2012 - 02:27 AM, said:

You just said it yourself.  Your numbers for necromancer bleeds simply aren't that impressive.  Let's take a look:

Assuming +90% bleed duration (+30% from prowess, +20% from hemophila, +40% from runes) plus another 33% for scepter skills:
Scepter Auto = 1x11, 1x8 per 3s = 6.33 ticks/sec
Grasping Dead = 1x15 per 11s = 1.36 ticks/sec
Enfeebling Blood = 2x19 per 22s = 1.73 ticks/sec

Then assuming 300 precision from traits and Rabid gear, you'll have 55% crit rate.  Assuming 1 attack per second:
Barbed Precision = 36% chance to bleed for 1s = .36 ticks/sec
2x Sigil of Earth = .462 chance to bleed for 9s = 4.4 ticks/sec

Total = 14.18 ticks/sec

Compared to the engineer, just spamming grenades (so not even accounting for rifle or pistol bleeds).  You throw one grenade volley per second, so 3/sec with Grenadier trait.  You can get +70% bleed duration and 60% crit chance with 20 in Firearms, plus Scope, so:
Shrapnel Grenade = 3x20 per 5s = 12 ticks/sec
Shrapnel (trait) = 6% chance to bleed for 20s per grenade, 3x = 3.6 ticks/sec
Sharpshooter = 19.8% chance to bleed for 3s, 3x = 2 ticks/sec

Total = 17.6 ticks/sec

According to that just Shrapnel Grenade alone is as much bleed as everything else Necromancer can put out.  To be fair I don't know necromancer that well so maybe there's more than can be done to optimize bleeds further?  The engineer number is low too, you can take rifle for Blunderbuss (4 stacks for 6s = 24 ticks per 9s = 2.67 ticks/sec) and Grenade Barrage (8 grenades = 14 ticks from Shrapnel and Sharpshooter per 25s = .56 ticks/sec), so their number is closer to 20 ticks/sec if you go into melee range.

Elementalists on the other hand pretty much beats everything with Eruption (6 stacks for 22s per 7s = 18.8 ticks/sec) alone.  Which is funny.

Here.  The number for Engineer is actually even higher now with Shrapnel bleeding 2.5x more and since you can include Sigils of Earth.  The actual number is, uh:

Shrapnel Grenade: 60 ticks/5s = 12 ticks/s
Sharpshooter: 5 ticks per, ~20% chance per hit, 3 hits/s = 3 ticks/s
Shrapnel: 20 ticks per, 15% chance per hit, 3 hits/s = 9 ticks/s
Sigil of Earth x2: 7 ticks per, ~50% chance per hit, 3 hits/s (max once per second) = 87.5% chance to proc per second = 6.125 ticks/s

Total = 30 ticks/sec

That's more than twice as much as Necromancer.

[aguliondew]

Highest dps class hum that is a tough one. It will be a melee spec for a profession, since melee does more damage than range. Then you have to take into consideration the skill of the player, how many times they die, or if they can stay in melee for long period of time without taking a lot of damage. The question of highest dps class has been asked before http://www.guildwars...tput-question/.

CepaCepa, on 17 December 2012 - 08:48 PM, said:

The above reasoning that I gave focused on ranged characters having an edge in survival in dungeons --- and in general, that is true. But what makes ranger and necro better in those fights than the other ranged professions --- mesmer/engineer/elementalist? Well I've already talked about a part of elementalist dps loss due to support --- Due to attunement CD, it is often quite a big dps drop if an elementalist has to switch out of their dps cycle for support (for example, staying in water for a few extra second to get that healing rain/geyser on CD, because if he switches out then he can't come back for 15 seconds and the team mate might just be dead). Also, elementalist dps is either ground targeted, with a noticeable time delay, or up close and personal with the mob. That means in hard fights, a lot of skills would miss, and/or not being cast at all.

Not all elementalist use staffs. D/D elementalist does the most dps of any elementalist weapon. D/D elementalist can support melee with heals and might. Also this is a game where your deaths are your own fought not because other in your group may not heal you.

Edited by aguliondew, 19 December 2012 - 12:46 PM.

[CepaCepa]

aguliondew, on 19 December 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

Not all elementalist use staffs. D/D elementalist does the most dps of any elementalist weapon. D/D elementalist can support melee with heals and might. Also this is a game where your deaths are your own fought not because other in your group may not heal you.

D/D elementalist does more dps in general, however 30 30 10 0 0 staff elementalist in full berserker that never switches out of fire attunement is the highest sustained dps for elementalist --- And, of course, pretty much useless for anything but damage in ideal situations. If we're talking about pure dps build that is not completely useless otherwise, scepter/dagger is perhaps a better option. The reason that I was listing staff for harder fights is because, it's very easy to think about "hard situations" for D/D, in which case you'd be doing even less damage than staff. Remember we're talking about hard fights where warriors/guardians can't melee and there are big damage everywhere, so it's not fair to the other professions if we assume "OK only D/D elementalist can melee". As for scepter/dagger, you're suffering from similar situations with staff in that Dragon's Tooth and Phoenix may have a hard time landing, and you may not be able to go in and fire grab.

I should add though that fractals favor staff a lot more than D/D, with the exception of only a few encounters. Due to the fact that at higher levels even none-veteran mobs can one shot you easily, even with all the crowd control D/D will die lots, not to mention that sometimes it's simply impossible to melee and survive at the same time due to mechanism. For example, what does a D/D elementalist do in Svanir fractal first event when the group of ranged adds cast several overlapping rain of arrow? What does this elementalist do on the second event where the crystal is quite a distance away from bon fire? What does this elementalist do at the last boss, who needs to be kited half of the time? No doubt he can still do things, such as casting auras, casting heals, switch to water for the 600 range, and all that --- But it's still awkward and a damage loss. Similarly, volcano demands a lot of moving around, and D/D will be at a disadvantage, although not as bad. Raving asura, not only is D/D not able to gimp the harpies from below their platforms (a specialty to ground targeted aoe), it's going to have a hard time on both harpies as well as the poison volley golem boss due to lack of range. Of course, I think elementalists should always carry several sets of weapons or even armors due to our inability to swap weapon in combat, and we should be able to quickly switch between weapons if we know what battle is coming up --- But in general, fractal has been unfriendly to D/D, I've rarely gotten the chance to use my daggers (although, I have a few times, there are still some fights that are D/D friendly --- Scepter Focus though seems to be a better substitute for staff in many cases).

[Killyox]

Angelus359, on 08 September 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

my pistol pistol can put out 30 thousand damage in 16 seconds, without using quickness in spvp... is that good?

I can do 10 in 1-2 seconds with single skill if person is stupid (confusion )

As for engie bleeds.

Make 2 pistols with +10% condi duration (20% total) give each 10% bleed duration (20%) - now pistols give 20% all condi and 40% in total to bleeds. Eat pizza for +40% condi duration. You now have 80% longer bleed. 30% from 30 pts in explosives for a total of 110%. Get from runes anothr 15% and another 10% for a total 135%.

Base shrapnel nade bleed is iirc 12s. Bleed from trait lasts 12sec base as well (in explosives line that each expl has 15% chance to bleed) and minor from firearms has 33% chance on crit to bleed for 3 sec

So basically 12s bleeds become 28seconds, 3s becomes 7s bleed and 2s becomes 4s bleed.

With how low CD of shrapnel is (4s traited) and with 28s bleeds and bleeds on crits and 15% on explo you can stack veeeeryyyyy high bleeds:D

This part is for when stats are shared to kits as well. As of now only sigils work.

Edited by Killyox, 20 December 2012 - 10:16 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Killyox, on 20 December 2012 - 10:10 AM, said:

I can do 10 in 1-2 seconds with single skill if person is stupid (confusion )

As for engie bleeds.

Make 2 pistols with +10% condi duration (20% total) give each 10% bleed duration (20%) - now pistols give 20% all condi and 40% in total to bleeds. Eat pizza for +40% condi duration. You now have 80% longer bleed. 30% from 30 pts in explosives for a total of 110%. Get from runes anothr 15% and another 10% for a total 135%.

Base shrapnel nade bleed is iirc 12s. Bleed from trait lasts 12sec base as well (in explosives line that each expl has 15% chance to bleed) and minor from firearms has 33% chance on crit to bleed for 3 sec

So basically 12s bleeds become 28seconds, 3s becomes 7s bleed and 2s becomes 4s bleed.

With how low CD of shrapnel is (4s traited) and with 28s bleeds and bleeds on crits and 15% on explo you can stack veeeeryyyyy high bleeds:D

This part is for when stats are shared to kits as well. As of now only sigils work.

You don't get the weapon stats when kits are equipped, so Giver's weapons don't do anything.  Also, I think condition duration is capped at +100%.

[Killyox]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 21 December 2012 - 05:10 AM, said:

You don't get the weapon stats when kits are equipped, so Giver's weapons don't do anything.  Also, I think condition duration is capped at +100%.

That's very obvious.

Read the bold-underlined part... .

PS condi dur is not capped at 100%

Edited by Killyox, 21 December 2012 - 11:35 AM.

[Liquidzoil]

From what I read in the GW2 forums and in-game conversations in LA, Engineers and Warriors are the highest DPS class. Rangers and Mesmers are at the bottom.

I can't say much for the Mesmer, but for the Ranger, yeah, I think they are the lowest DPS class especially if their pet dies.

[SpelignErrir]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 18 December 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:

I think we already had this conversation.  Maybe it wasn't you.  Necromancer bleed damage is actually pretty low.  They have a lot of stuff that stacks on a bunch of different conditions but they don't really have any way to stack a lot of bleed at the same time.

That was me

Actually, I miscalculated when I was talking to you about Ele vs. Necro, accidentally counting lingering curses as an additive condition duration (It's multiplicative) and not counting the cast time for eruption

[Eelde]

I don't know why people place Mesmer so low. Whenever I see that, I know the author has not played a Mesmer.

A sword/focus sword/pistol Berserker Mesmer has to ramp up to DPS, but over time their DPS can match a Thief or Warriors. Thief and Warrior win a burst, though, hands down.

For instance, my Mesmer build is 30/30/0/10/0. I have PPT armor, but gemmed, wep, orn Berserker. I do not have Signet of Force or Bloodlust.

Sword Focus Set:
Attack: 3098
Crit Chance: 57%
Crit Damage: 72%

Testing in Orr on dirty risens:
Auto Attacking: 500-2k (average 1k) at .5 second channel
Blur - 4k - 5k at .5 second channel 8 sec CD, also because of Invulnerability illeminates need to dodge on bosses
Warden - 4-6k at 14 second cd, stack up to 3 (11 second CD with trait), also bleeds
Mind Wrack - 2-3k per image shattered every 10 seconds (less with trait)

And to boost the squad's damage....
Time Warp - 10 Second Quicken
Signet of Inspiration - You know that 13 stack of might your buddy gave us? How would you like a 25 stack instead? I'll also share it with my Illusions and your pets.

I am not full Berserker geared so this is not the maximum damage a Mesmer can do, but it far exceeds the damage my Ranger, Necromancer, Engineer (except maybe 'nade spamming), Ele, Guardian (duh).....

[Lemuux]

considering a ranger pets crits like 80% of the time for 1-2k and some 4k x2  (bird or lynx) every second (yeah they attack once per sec)

and a rangers SB while flanking crits for 1k+ every 1/2 sec  and i can have 2 secs of quickness every 20 sec

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Eelde, on 23 December 2012 - 03:17 AM, said:

I don't know why people place Mesmer so low. Whenever I see that, I know the author has not played a Mesmer.

A sword/focus sword/pistol Berserker Mesmer has to ramp up to DPS, but over time their DPS can match a Thief or Warriors. Thief and Warrior win a burst, though, hands down.

For instance, my Mesmer build is 30/30/0/10/0. I have PPT armor, but gemmed, wep, orn Berserker. I do not have Signet of Force or Bloodlust.

Sword Focus Set:
Attack: 3098
Crit Chance: 57%
Crit Damage: 72%

Testing in Orr on dirty risens:
Auto Attacking: 500-2k (average 1k) at .5 second channel
Blur - 4k - 5k at .5 second channel 8 sec CD, also because of Invulnerability illeminates need to dodge on bosses
Warden - 4-6k at 14 second cd, stack up to 3 (11 second CD with trait), also bleeds
Mind Wrack - 2-3k per image shattered every 10 seconds (less with trait)

And to boost the squad's damage....
Time Warp - 10 Second Quicken
Signet of Inspiration - You know that 13 stack of might your buddy gave us? How would you like a 25 stack instead? I'll also share it with my Illusions and your pets.

I am not full Berserker geared so this is not the maximum damage a Mesmer can do, but it far exceeds the damage my Ranger, Necromancer, Engineer (except maybe 'nade spamming), Ele, Guardian (duh).....

Mesmer auto is the same as most other melee autos, .8s per swing.  You need to count recovery as well as startup.  The mesmer sword auto is comparatively low as well.  Blurred Frenzy is 2.5s, it's .5s to wind up then you swing for 2s.  Also, I don't see how you're getting an 11s CD on Warden, unless you mean the Warden's internal recharge, in which case lol.  It takes a good 50 seconds to get three Wardens up even if they don't die.  Even assuming you could get all three up that's only 3 Wardens hitting for 5k every 11s which less than 500/s per.

Without phantasms mesmers hit for very low damage.  The sword auto is weaker than the guardian's or warrior's, and Blurred Frenzy isn't a whole lot of added DPS.  The extra hypothetical 1.5k/s from the phantasms isn't going to offset your otherwise super low DPS from your own sword.  Not enough to catch up with a warrior, anyway.  You might be able to catch up with a guardian possibly.

Lemuux, on 23 December 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

considering a ranger pets crits like 80% of the time for 1-2k and some 4k x2  (bird or lynx) every second (yeah they attack once per sec)

and a rangers SB while flanking crits for 1k+ every 1/2 sec  and i can have 2 secs of quickness every 20 sec

Most ranger pets actually attack once every 1.25s or slower.  The bird pet attacks once every 2s.  Also pet damage is nowhere as high as 4k per hit, especially not on a bird.  They hit about 600 base on the target golem with max power.  Even with a full 25 stacks of might that only goes up to about 1k per hit.  With a 1.8x modifier on their crits with the one trait, that's still only 1.8k per crit.  Nowhere near 4k.

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 23 December 2012 - 03:58 AM.

[Lemuux]

so...in other words, phantasms > ranger pets? :S

[Eelde]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 23 December 2012 - 03:44 AM, said:

Mesmer auto is the same as most other melee autos, .8s per swing.  You need to count recovery as well as startup.  The mesmer sword auto is comparatively low as well.  Blurred Frenzy is 2.5s, it's .5s to wind up then you swing for 2s.  Also, I don't see how you're getting an 11s CD on Warden, unless you mean the Warden's internal recharge, in which case lol.  It takes a good 50 seconds to get three Wardens up even if they don't die.  Even assuming you could get all three up that's only 3 Wardens hitting for 5k every 11s which less than 500/s per.

The base damage difference from Warrior greatsword auto to Mesmer sword auto is only 50 points. The mesmer chain end actually hits 6 pts harder, if you really want to count. As they hit at the same speed, the damage difference is negligible until you count in traits, where Warrior clearly wins with a sheer damage % increase vs a crit rate increase. Guardian greatsword increase is only 5%, but their base GS damage is considerably higher than both warrior and mesmer. Without traits, the damage is nearly identical between Warrior GS and Mesmer Swo. Warden has an 11 second skill interval CD with trait, which is important in damage consideration as that's the interval you can expect the Wardens to cast at. I did say it takes time to get your Phantasms up, but it's not as if you can't swap and cast your other Phantasm while waiting for Warden CD, which, is only 40 seconds with CD reduction trait.

Without Phantasm, a Mesmer's DD is slightly less than the average Warrior due to traits, not "very low damage" or "super low DPS". Go read the damage coefficients for yourself, factor in traits and the builds required to use those traits, and do the math. And phantams DPS is far from hypothetical. Even with one up I'm getting an extra 500 damage per second minimum. With two, which is incredibly easy to maintain, I'm increasing DPS by 1k per second. Three might be a stretch in some situations, but adding 1.5k is doubling my sword base attack and far surpassing Guardian and Warrior both.  With just auto attack damage that is only slightly less than a Warrior/Guardian, acceptable spike damage, phantasms and shatters, we keep up just fine.

Denying that is simply exhibiting ignorance.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Eelde, on 23 December 2012 - 05:43 AM, said:

The base damage difference from Warrior greatsword auto to Mesmer sword auto is only 50 points. The mesmer chain end actually hits 6 pts harder, if you really want to count. As they hit at the same speed, the damage difference is negligible until you count in traits, where Warrior clearly wins with a sheer damage % increase vs a crit rate increase. Guardian greatsword increase is only 5%, but their base GS damage is considerably higher than both warrior and mesmer. Without traits, the damage is nearly identical between Warrior GS and Mesmer Swo. Warden has an 11 second skill interval CD with trait, which is important in damage consideration as that's the interval you can expect the Wardens to cast at. I did say it takes time to get your Phantasms up, but it's not as if you can't swap and cast your other Phantasm while waiting for Warden CD, which, is only 40 seconds with CD reduction trait.

Without Phantasm, a Mesmer's DD is slightly less than the average Warrior due to traits, not "very low damage" or "super low DPS". Go read the damage coefficients for yourself, factor in traits and the builds required to use those traits, and do the math. And phantams DPS is far from hypothetical. Even with one up I'm getting an extra 500 damage per second minimum. With two, which is incredibly easy to maintain, I'm increasing DPS by 1k per second. Three might be a stretch in some situations, but adding 1.5k is doubling my sword base attack and far surpassing Guardian and Warrior both.  With just auto attack damage that is only slightly less than a Warrior/Guardian, acceptable spike damage, phantasms and shatters, we keep up just fine.

Denying that is simply exhibiting ignorance.

You want math?  Here you go:

30/30/0/0/10, full zerker/divinity:

Auto: 484 + 484 + 807 = 740/sec
Blurred Frenzy: 1936 total, 1196 net, 114/sec
Bonuses: Compounding Power (+9%), Empowering Mantras (+16%), Wastrel's Punishment (+5%)
Total: 854 base, 1794 overall

Phantasmal Warden: 73 x 12 = 876/14s = 63/sec base, 131/sec overall
NOTE: I think the tooltip is incorrect.  It looks like the phantasm actually hits 3x as much per hit as what the tooltip says.  If that's the case the actual damage would be 393/sec.

So basically, IF you can keep three Wardens up, and not counting the 70+ seconds to takes to actually put them up (since you can't take focus trait with a full zerker specced build), you deal 2973/sec.  That's pretty decent... but still lower than warrior.  For reference, a GS guardian is about 2.5k/sec and a GS warrior is about 3k, given conservative estimates on how much might those two classes will be stacking.  In reality you'd probably average about 15-20% more from the additional might/vulnerability stacks you'd get.

So there's ignorance for you.

[Eelde]

Most mesmer tool tips are incorrect in some way shape or form, and they are constantly breaking everything, so I understand why it's harder to estimate this stuff. Wardens actually hit 3.1 - 4.1 on the Test Dummies which as you know don't take crits, something you didn't factor into your maths at all, but I will ignore for the sake of science. They have never quite gotten the hang of Phantasm tool tips, it seems.

Using my current gear and stats, stated above, since this is what I've been stating damage based on to begin with. No boons/food/oils, tested on dummies. Using your times. Bolded the active bonuses listed.

Auto: 630 + 630 + 1000  (808/sec)
Auto w/ EM: 700 + 700 + 1100 (893/sec)
Blurred Frenzy: 2409 average (963/sec during cast - w/ CD 229/sec - )
Blurred Frenzy w/ EM: 2800 average (1120/sec during cast - w/ CD 266/sec)

Bonuses: Compounding Power (+9%), Empowered Mantras (+16%*), Blade Training (20% CD reduction), Warden's Feedback (unavailable in this build, further reduces spawn time by 20% for max 40% reduction in CD), Wastrel's Punishment (+5%)

*Empowered Mantras seems to not be working at the proper 16%. I only observed a 10% damage increase with 4 mantras loaded. Interesting.

In reality due to crits, multi hit attack sweeps, broken piercing (which is what caused the massive iZerker break), and traits, Phantasms in general do much more damage than their tool tips say. Wardens should be doing around 300 per hit with the 15% damage increase on my build based on observation as clearly there is some hoodoo with the tooltip. How Warden behaves is interesting, the 14 second timer starts at the beginning of their 5 second attack, not after. So it does not attack for 9 seconds.

Warden : 300 x 12 =  3.6k / 14 sec = 257 / sec
Warden x 3 = 771 added damage / sec
Warden including Phantasmal Fury = 450 damage / second (due to 75%+ crit rate)

Ignoring the smaller damage traits such as Compounding Power, Phantasmal Fury (illusions 20% crit rate increase, 75% crit total), Sharper Images (bleed), your estimate is on the low end, even ignoring crits. With crits included of course that number goes up, but due to the large amount of channeled multi hit skills in the build, the range is quite big as each hit has a chance to crit seperately. Add in Phantasmal Fury and the real DPS is probably closer to 3k, which is why I said we can keep up with warriors in my original post.

Note that you can max out at 30% damage increase with Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength, but since I cannot use them for my build I am not including this in calculation.  They can also be traited up to 40% CD reduction with 20% skill refresh rate. This means you can cast one every 15 seconds and it will cast every 11 seconds for 5 seconds. With this trait set up, by the time the first one starts its second attack, you can cast another. This equates to 3 wardens in 45 seconds and 3 iZerkers in 36 seconds. I used to have this build but got rid of it when they broke iZerker for the umteenth time. Should they fix it I might return. But I digress.

I hope you can see now even in a conservative estimate how Mesmers can keep up the deeps. Obviously this relies on Phantams generation, but we are excluding shatters entirely in these estimates, which can hit for up to 3.5k each x 3 illusions for 9k possible spike damage. I like to do this when a vulnerability stack builds, dodge twice and use decoy to make 3 sacrificial illusions then go back to endless Phantasm spawning. A fun thing to note though is when you have a 25 stack of might, Wardens will wack away for 9k each x 3 which in addition to your own increased damage is quite the sight.

Mesmers have to work much harder at it, but its definitely possible.

Edited by Eelde, 23 December 2012 - 08:47 AM.

[Korra]

So according to thread Rangers and Guardians have more dps than D/D thief.

Only with the Autoattack and HS under 50% Thief Outdps almost all the classes in the game at single target dmg and however dont agree with this is either a fool or blind.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Eelde, on 23 December 2012 - 08:44 AM, said:

Most mesmer tool tips are incorrect in some way shape or form, and they are constantly breaking everything, so I understand why it's harder to estimate this stuff. Wardens actually hit 3.1 - 4.1 on the Test Dummies which as you know don't take crits, something you didn't factor into your maths at all, but I will ignore for the sake of science. They have never quite gotten the hang of Phantasm tool tips, it seems.

Using my current gear and stats, stated above, since this is what I've been stating damage based on to begin with. No boons/food/oils, tested on dummies. Using your times. Bolded the active bonuses listed.

Auto: 630 + 630 + 1000  (808/sec)
Auto w/ EM: 700 + 700 + 1100 (893/sec)
Blurred Frenzy: 2409 average (963/sec during cast - w/ CD 229/sec - )
Blurred Frenzy w/ EM: 2800 average (1120/sec during cast - w/ CD 266/sec)

Bonuses: Compounding Power (+9%), Empowered Mantras (+16%*), Blade Training (20% CD reduction), Warden's Feedback (unavailable in this build, further reduces spawn time by 20% for max 40% reduction in CD), Wastrel's Punishment (+5%)

*Empowered Mantras seems to not be working at the proper 16%. I only observed a 10% damage increase with 4 mantras loaded. Interesting.

In reality due to crits, multi hit attack sweeps, broken piercing (which is what caused the massive iZerker break), and traits, Phantasms in general do much more damage than their tool tips say. Wardens should be doing around 300 per hit with the 15% damage increase on my build based on observation as clearly there is some hoodoo with the tooltip. How Warden behaves is interesting, the 14 second timer starts at the beginning of their 5 second attack, not after. So it does not attack for 9 seconds.

Warden : 300 x 12 =  3.6k / 14 sec = 257 / sec
Warden x 3 = 771 added damage / sec
Warden including Phantasmal Fury = 450 damage / second (due to 75%+ crit rate)

Ignoring the smaller damage traits such as Compounding Power, Phantasmal Fury (illusions 20% crit rate increase, 75% crit total), Sharper Images (bleed), your estimate is on the low end, even ignoring crits. With crits included of course that number goes up, but due to the large amount of channeled multi hit skills in the build, the range is quite big as each hit has a chance to crit seperately. Add in Phantasmal Fury and the real DPS is probably closer to 3k, which is why I said we can keep up with warriors in my original post.

Note that you can max out at 30% damage increase with Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength, but since I cannot use them for my build I am not including this in calculation.  They can also be traited up to 40% CD reduction with 20% skill refresh rate. This means you can cast one every 15 seconds and it will cast every 11 seconds for 5 seconds. With this trait set up, by the time the first one starts its second attack, you can cast another. This equates to 3 wardens in 45 seconds and 3 iZerkers in 36 seconds. I used to have this build but got rid of it when they broke iZerker for the umteenth time. Should they fix it I might return. But I digress.

I hope you can see now even in a conservative estimate how Mesmers can keep up the deeps. Obviously this relies on Phantams generation, but we are excluding shatters entirely in these estimates, which can hit for up to 3.5k each x 3 illusions for 9k possible spike damage. I like to do this when a vulnerability stack builds, dodge twice and use decoy to make 3 sacrificial illusions then go back to endless Phantasm spawning. A fun thing to note though is when you have a 25 stack of might, Wardens will wack away for 9k each x 3 which in addition to your own increased damage is quite the sight.

Mesmers have to work much harder at it, but its definitely possible.

First of all, I should note that I am factoring in crits.  Of course in PvE you get much more crit damage but the relative comparisons should be the same.  If anything they will favor warrior more because warriors get a higher base crit rate thanks to fury uptime and their traits.

As for your other numbers, I'd like to see your stat spread?  I'm guessing you're looking at actual numbers, which are a bad comparison since we can't be sure what the armor of your target is.  From the tests I did, though, the mesmer damage tooltips are correct, except for the phantasm damage, which I estmated based on what I saw as well.  So I don't see any reason to believe my numbers are incorrect, barring running a subpar damage build.  If you have a better suggestion for that, I can run the numbers for you as well.

Also, you keep saying stuff like "up to" based on the max damage you can hit with any given skill, which isn't an empirical way to determine damage.  A guardian can hit "up to" 12k damage on a single Whirl, but it's exceeding rare and depends on having tons of might and getting super lucky with crits.  You have to look at average damage (after crits) and cooldown, plus whatever you have to give up to get that number.  For example, a warrior can hit massive crits on Eviscerate, but you can't just assume Eviscerate is free damage, since you lose the +12% damage and +9% crit rate from the traits.

At any rate, getting 3 phantasm stacks isn't really realistic.  I don't think I've ever gotten 3 Wardens up on anything except for the one boss in CM path 3, who doesn't even really fight back.  In fact in a lot of cases I'd be wary of even assuming that the Warden's going to be alive for long enough to do a full attack, much less for you to cast the skill three times to get three on one mob.

[iLag]

Korra, on 23 December 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:

So according to thread Rangers and Guardians have more dps than D/D thief.

Only with the Autoattack and HS under 50% Thief Outdps almost all the classes in the game at single target dmg and however dont agree with this is either a fool or blind.

Thieves have highest burst damage with Warriors at highest sustained. Maybe rangers are tied with warriors

[Korra]

iLag, on 24 December 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

Thieves have highest burst damage with Warriors at highest sustained. Maybe rangers are tied with warriors

Clearly you don't play a glass cannon thief. While warriors have really good sustained dps, maybe apar with the thieves there is just no way a ranger comes even close to whata thief or a warrior can put out there.

[MrTastix]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 17 December 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

It's pointless to debate about shit like BUT YOU COULD SUPPORT SO YOU MIGHT NOT ALWAYS BE DPS because if you're supporting you're probably a bad player anyway.  Support is useless in this game.

I don't understand your point in this.

If the idea of a "support build" didn't exist then why would anyone bother choosing anything past Warrior's and Engineer's (for direct and condition damage respectively, as stated by you)?

Remember that we're not including any form of PvP in the equation here, since this is the PvE board, so I absolutely refuse to believe that "support" doesn't exist in some manner or another. It highly depends on how you define "support".

Of course every class will deal damage to some degree, my argument is that if support is non-existent as a group role then, according to you, the primary and only goal in PvE is to deal as much damage as possible, and if that's true then everyone should be choosing the top DPS class in either direct or condition damage (depending on personal preference) to achieve it.

As it stands, that's clearly not the case.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

MrTastix, on 24 December 2012 - 08:10 AM, said:

I don't understand your point in this.

If the idea of a "support build" didn't exist then why would anyone bother choosing anything past Warrior's and Engineer's (for direct and condition damage respectively, as stated by you)?

Remember that we're not including any form of PvP in the equation here, since this is the PvE board, so I absolutely refuse to believe that "support" doesn't exist in some manner or another. It highly depends on how you define "support".

Of course every class will deal damage to some degree, my argument is that if support is non-existent as a group role then, according to you, the primary and only goal in PvE is to deal as much damage as possible, and if that's true then everyone should be choosing the top DPS class in either direct or condition damage (depending on personal preference) to achieve it.

As it stands, that's clearly not the case.

The warrior doesn't necessarily have the highest direct DPS.  The greatsword is the strongest weapon in the game but there are lots of bosses (especially in Fractals) where standing still for 4s to channel HB isn't the best idea.  In those instances, a guardian is probably better since they are less reliant on being rooted in front of the boss, and also because if ranged DPS is needed the scepter is highest ranged direct damage in the game.  Also, they have better AOE might stacking for an overall party damage boost.

Ideally, yes, you'd want to have a party of 4 DPS-specced warriors/guardians and 1 engineer.  I don't really see a whole lot of incentive to take anything else, unless there just aren't any better choices.  I suppose there might be some dungeons where slightly tankier builds are ideal but offhand I can't think of any.

[lmaonade]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 17 December 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

Uh.

The answer to OP's question is:

Direct: Warrior > Guardian > Thief > Elementalist > Ranger > Mesmer > Engineer > Necromancer
Condition: Engineer > Elementalist > Thief > Warrior > Mesmer > Ranger > Necromancer > Guardian

A few of the individual placements might be debatable but for the most part I think that's accurate.  It's pointless to debate about shit like BUT YOU COULD SUPPORT SO YOU MIGHT NOT ALWAYS BE DPS because if you're supporting you're probably a bad player anyway.  Support is useless in this game.  The only thing that should be factored into effective DPS is how practical it is to achieve the necessary conditions.  I.e. Thief would be higher in direct DPS but he needs to be in melee range with dual daggers and constantly attacking from behind the target with a Berserker's set which isn't really possible to maintain 100% of the time.

I think you have the wrong idea of support. It isn't just Healing Power and tanky builds.

I play a "support" guardian, I take 2 shouts and a consecration as my usual build in dungeons, I take Altruistic Healing because I have eyes and can read and can process in my head that it's an amazing trait. I mitigate tons of damage and provide tons of boons and save lives on a regular basis. I take staff as one of my weapons because Empower grants my entire party 60 total stacks of might. I have 50% critical chance without fury, and each critical hit grants my entire party another stack of might, I can basically solo maintain 7 to 12 stacks of might all the time on everyone.

But I also take full berserker's gear, and I use a Berserker Greatsword as my second weapon so my DPS isn't exactly dismal.

Does that make me useless?

Boon support is still support and is definitely NOT useless

Edited by lmaonade, 25 December 2012 - 10:28 AM.

[The Prestige]

The people who think Thieves do more damage than Warriors have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. You can do 35k+ damage with hundred blades with a glass cannon warrior in PvE.

[Eelde]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 23 December 2012 - 06:07 PM, said:

First of all, I should note that I am factoring in crits.  Of course in PvE you get much more crit damage but the relative comparisons should be the same.  If anything they will favor warrior more because warriors get a higher base crit rate thanks to fury uptime and their traits.

As for your other numbers, I'd like to see your stat spread?  I'm guessing you're looking at actual numbers, which are a bad comparison since we can't be sure what the armor of your target is.  From the tests I did, though, the mesmer damage tooltips are correct, except for the phantasm damage, which I estmated based on what I saw as well.  So I don't see any reason to believe my numbers are incorrect, barring running a subpar damage build.  If you have a better suggestion for that, I can run the numbers for you as well.

Also, you keep saying stuff like "up to" based on the max damage you can hit with any given skill, which isn't an empirical way to determine damage.  A guardian can hit "up to" 12k damage on a single Whirl, but it's exceeding rare and depends on having tons of might and getting super lucky with crits.  You have to look at average damage (after crits) and cooldown, plus whatever you have to give up to get that number.  For example, a warrior can hit massive crits on Eviscerate, but you can't just assume Eviscerate is free damage, since you lose the +12% damage and +9% crit rate from the traits.

At any rate, getting 3 phantasm stacks isn't really realistic.  I don't think I've ever gotten 3 Wardens up on anything except for the one boss in CM path 3, who doesn't even really fight back.  In fact in a lot of cases I'd be wary of even assuming that the Warden's going to be alive for long enough to do a full attack, much less for you to cast the skill three times to get three on one mob.

Sorry for the delay in response, been busy.

My quotes are without crits. As I stated I tested on the Test Dummies in Lions Arch, which I believe have 0 Armor Value but do not take Crits or condition damage. Unless their armor is negative, which I don't believe is possible, the actual values should be an accurate reflection of the maximum damage.

The "up to" situation I mentioned was purely an example. Spike damage is not what we were calculating per say.

CoE has many bosses that stand still or would benefit from most of the squad meleeing. Some even glitch and cease to attack due to lack of movement. I routinely have 3 wardens up during this instance on multiple paths. Others I can think of off hand are f/f Nightmare Tree in TA and CoF path 1 and 2 bosses. I'm sure there are more but I'm not familiar with SE or certain paths of Arah.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Eelde, on 26 December 2012 - 12:26 AM, said:

Sorry for the delay in response, been busy.

My quotes are without crits. As I stated I tested on the Test Dummies in Lions Arch, which I believe have 0 Armor Value but do not take Crits or condition damage. Unless their armor is negative, which I don't believe is possible, the actual values should be an accurate reflection of the maximum damage.

The "up to" situation I mentioned was purely an example. Spike damage is not what we were calculating per say.

CoE has many bosses that stand still or would benefit from most of the squad meleeing. Some even glitch and cease to attack due to lack of movement. I routinely have 3 wardens up during this instance on multiple paths. Others I can think of off hand are f/f Nightmare Tree in TA and CoF path 1 and 2 bosses. I'm sure there are more but I'm not familiar with SE or certain paths of Arah.

The CoF path 1 boss does an AOE on a regular basis.  He'll kill any phantasms before you get them out.  Same with the path 2 boss, it spits fire everywhere.

In fact, pretty much any boss with AOE = bye phantasms.  The only boss I've ever gotten 3 wardens up on is the bomb guy in CM, the one in the barn.

[Sokonawareta]

A glass cannon 10/30/0/0/30 Mesmer does insane sustained damage with 3 iDuelists up. Add blurred Frenzy and dps from your off weapon set. (confusion etc)

Golem's gatling gun effect on top of this is very insane.

Not even adding the bleed on crit full stacks, as that has DR in a party.