59 replies to this topic

[GuanglaiKangyi]

EDIT: I went and redid it the numbers again, using the tooltips this time for exact numbers.  They mostly match up with what I found in practical tests so I think they're accurate.

- Tooltips take into account power and weapon damage.  They do not account for crit chance, crit damage, or other damage boosts from sigils or traits that do not directly affect stats (i.e. Fiery Wrath).
- Trait damage boosts appear to be compounding, i.e. Fiery Wrath + Radiant Power = +21% damage, not +20%.
- Ergo, to find overall damage, I am using the formula [base damage] x [1 + (crit chance x crit damage)] x [trait damage bonuses].  I am not accounting for Force or Accuracy Sigils.
- Gear is Berserker's Amulet and Divinity Runes.  Traits as below for each weapon, optimized for maximum damage per weapon.
- Important traits are listed below.  I am assuming 5 stacks of might, or +7.5% damage, for Empowering Might.
- I am assuming Sigil of Force on 2H weapons, and Sigil of Force and Sigil of Accuracy on 1H.  I'm not sure if the Force sigils stack.

Greatsword (10/30/0/30/0) - Fiery Wrath, Writ of Persistence, Empowering Might
Auto: 645 + 645 + 968 = 903/s
WW = 3504 total, 1152 net, 92/s (WW actually hits 14 times but tooltip only shows damage for 9.  Number listed appears to be for the 7 spin hits plus 2 projectiles.  I've approximated the damage from the other 5 projectiles accordingly)
Symbol = 3101 total, 2160 net, 103/s
Bind = 3213, 2272 net, 73/s
DPS = 1171 base, 2553 overall

Scepter (15/30/0/25/0) - Empowering Might, Right-Handed Strength, Fiery Wrath
Auto = 501 per, 604/s
Smite = 3720 total, 3116 net, 445/s (assuming all hits connect)
DPS = 1049 base, 2506 overall

Hammer (10/30/0/30/0) - Writ of Persistence, Empowering Might, Fiery Wrath
Auto = 645, 726, 807, 1612 = 1053/s
MB = 1412 total, 359 net, 60/s
DPS = 1113 base, 2385 overall

Staff (15/25/0/30/0) - Writ of Persistence, Fiery Wrath, Two-Handed Mastery
Auto = 496/s
Orb = 992 + 496 = 146/s (second number is for detonation, non-detonated orbs have higher overall DPS)
Symbol = 2891 total, 2395 net, 184/s
DPS = 826 base, 1647 overall

Sword (15/30/0/25/0) - RH Strength, Empowering Might, Fiery Wrath
Auto: 601 + 601 + 1128 = 932/s
DPS = 932/s base, 2338 overall

Mace (10/30/0/30/0) - RH Strength, Empowering Might, Writ of Persistence, Fiery Wrath
Auto: 587 + 733 + 1026 = 704/s
Symbol: 2569 total, 1865 net, 187/s
Protector's Strike: 1026 total, 322 net, 20/s
DPS = 911 base, 2177 overall

For comparison:

Warrior GS (10/30/0/0/30) - Berserker's Power, Forceful Greatsword, Heightened Focus, Rending Strikes
Auto = 564, 564, 726 = 745/s
HB = 3544 total, 592 net, 168/s
Bladetrail = 1210 total, 465 net, 36/s
Rush = 1371 total, 626 net, 37/s
DPS = 968 base, 2877 overall

Note: Forceful Greatsword maintains 10 stacks of might pretty easily, and Rending Strikes usually maintains 8-10.  I've just assumed 10 stacks of might and 10 stacks of vulnerability in this case.
Note 2: Warrior maintains 100% fury uptime really easily.  I've factored this in as well.
Note 3: Whirlwind Attack has been given a very high number because that is its maximum potential damage output, but you have to be immobilized or chilled or the target has to be against the wall to actually land all hits without making you lose considerable time and damage running back.  However, this is about optimum damage potential, so that's the number I'm going with.

Thief dagger: (25/30/0/0/15) - Dagger Training, Exposed Weakness, First Strikes, Executioner, Side Strike, Flanking Strikes, Signet Use
Estimated initiative gain: Base = .75/sec, Opportunist = .24/sec, Signet Use = .17/sec, Infiltrator's Signet = .1/sec, Kleptomaniac = .08/sec, total = 1.34/sec
Auto = 442, 670, 670 = 912/s
HS = 788, 1182, 1576
C&D = 1182 (PvE version)
BS = 946, 1892

Backstab spam:
Initiative use: 6i/4s = basically maintainable
Rotation = Auto chain x1, C&D, Backstab = 1824 + 1182 + 1892 = 4898
1225 base, 2879 > 50%, 3455 < 50%

Heartseeker spam:
Initiative Use: 3i/s = usable 45% of the time
Heartseeker = [788, 1182, 1576] x .69 = 543, 815, 1087
1370 base, 3863 < 25%

Overall: Backstab spam > 50% = 2879, Backstab spam between 25% and 50% = 3455, Heartseeker spam < 25% = 3863 --> Average = 3019/sec

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 20 March 2013 - 09:35 PM.

[Itharius]

Is the 2.5/sec for symbol of wrath before or after the cooldown nerf?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Itharius, on 08 October 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

Is the 2.5/sec for symbol of wrath before or after the cooldown nerf?

After.

[paradiselight]

Mighty blow for hammer doesn't increase damage? I find that hard to believe. Even harder to believe is that its DPS is on par with staff.

Great thread by the way, it confirms my suspicion that sword is very weak in terms of DPS and one is way better off with mace. Protector's strike for mace could actually increase your damage significantly if you timed it right against opponents that actually fight back.

[Ketill]

This must be why when I switch to sword I'm never that impressed. There was a point during beta it seemed really great as a dps option, but I recall they nerfed it at some point and I guess it never really recovered.

Edited by Ketill, 08 October 2012 - 09:13 PM.

[Aetou]

I'm surprised Scepter deals the same as GS.  I suppose thats the joy of a stationary target that eats every tick of #2 - in the real world you're lucky if half hit.

[indure]

I find it incredibly hard to believe that Might Blow doesn't add any damage to Hammer's DPS. I've got it to crit for ~4K on target dummies and it has a next to nothing cast timer compared to the hammer's auto attack. Of course a "10 Zeal (Fiery Wrath), 10 Radiance, 30 Valor (Retributive Armor), 20 Honor (Writ of Persistence)" build isn't IMO an optimal damage build for hammer.

Edited by indure, 09 October 2012 - 05:14 PM.

[Necaust]

Hammer seems off. Test on something more sustainable perhaps?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Hammer chain takes 4s and deals as much as 8k if everything crits.  Mighty Blow deals about 3k on a crit and takes about 1.5s start to finish, so your damage is not significantly increased on average, if at all.  Also, using Mighty Blow resets your hammer skill chain, which decreases your overall DPS because the last hit of the hammer chain (Symbol of Protection) deals significantly more damage than the other two hits.  Thus, even if there is a slight edge on Mighty Blow (say 5-10%) this doesn't significantly increase damage since Mighty Blow only increases your DPS if you use it at the end of an auto-attack chain, which makes the cooldown effectively 8s.

I should, however, note that Hammer DPS may be skewed towards the low end, since there is a delay on the damage application of the third hit in the chain.  Just from eyeballing it, the hammer chain seems to deal about 50% of the golem's health in one 4s chain (i.e. 8s to kill), so the effective DPS of the hammer is probably actually around the same as that of the sword.

[MightyK]

I started testing AA dps on the golems using the steady PvP weapons.

first findings:
1H and 2H Sword are the same speed, ~2,5 sec/combo
1H Hammer is  ~3,2 sec/combo
2H Hammer is ~3,6 sec/combo

1H Sword does 128 dmg (51,2 dps) on Heavy, 170 (68 dps) on Med and 155 (62 dps) on Light(!) (5 Attacks, 1,0xVoJ passive per combo)
2H Sword does 134 dmg (53,6 dps) on Heavy, 175 (70 dps) on Med and 161 (64,4 dps) on Light(!) (all with might self buff) (3 Attacks, 0,6xVoJ passive per combo)

1H Hammer does 137 dmg (42,8 dps) on Heavy, 176 (55 dps) on Med and 162 (50,6 dps) on Light(!) (3 Attacks, 0,6xVoJ passive per combo)
2H Hammer does 196 dmg (54,4 dps) on Heavy, 255 (70,8 dps) on Med and 235 (65,2 dps) on Light(!) (6 Attacks with SoP! 1,2xVoJ passive per combo)

I dont know why all attacks did less damage to the light golem than to the medium one though...

Anyway the ranking of "pure" AA dps seems to be: (vs. Light because its the real medium?!)

50,6 - 1H Hammer

62,0 - 1H Sword
64,4 - 2H Sword
65,2 - 2H Hammer

Maybe someone wants to do the others?
I did those with the standard PvP equip (not yet 80) so Guardian/Shamans, 916 Power, 916 Precision
No traits.

Edited by MightyK, 09 October 2012 - 08:41 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

MightyK, on 09 October 2012 - 08:20 PM, said:

I started testing AA dps on the golems using the steady PvP weapons.

first findings:
1H and 2H Sword are the same speed, ~2,5 sec/combo
1H Hammer is  ~3,2 sec/combo
2H Hammer is ~3,6 sec/combo

1H Sword does 128 dmg (51,2 dps) on Heavy, 170 (68 dps) on Med and 155 (62 dps) on Light(!) (5 Attacks, 1,0xVoJ passive per combo)
2H Sword does 134 dmg (53,6 dps) on Heavy, 175 (70 dps) on Med and 161 (64,4 dps) on Light(!) (all with might self buff) (3 Attacks, 0,6xVoJ passive per combo)

1H Hammer does 137 dmg (42,8 dps) on Heavy, 176 (55 dps) on Med and 162 (50,6 dps) on Light(!) (3 Attacks, 0,6xVoJ passive per combo)
2H Hammer does 196 dmg (54,4 dps) on Heavy, 255 (70,8 dps) on Med and 235 (65,2 dps) on Light(!) (6 Attacks with SoP! 1,2xVoJ passive per combo)

I dont know why all attacks did less damage to the light golem than to the medium one though...

Anyway the ranking of "pure" AA dps seems to be: (vs. Light because its the real medium?!)

50,6 - 1H Hammer

62,0 - 1H Sword
64,4 - 2H Sword
65,2 - 2H Hammer

Maybe someone wants to do the others?
I did those with the standard PvP equip (not yet 80) so Guardian/Shamans, 916 Power, 916 Precision
No traits.

http://www.guildwars...s-rankings-wip/

There's a link to the complete test that was done by a different site on that thread too.  Also, note that you can't use steady weapons because they deal minimal damage, and that means that condition damage will be disproportionately high.

[MightyK]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 10 October 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

note that you can't use steady weapons because they deal minimal damage, and that means that condition damage will be disproportionately high.

If you ignore the "how long it takes to kill something" but just write down the real damage numbers, of course you can use those wepaons.
As you can see I ignored condition damage. (Just added how much burning each AA adds.)

[Asshai]

Wouldn't it be interesting to compare one-handed weapons WITH their off-hand rather than by themselves ? Currently, you compare 3-skill weapons Vs. 5-skill weapons, it's not that surprising to see which one has the advantage. What's surprising though is the scepter can reach such high numbers on stationary targets.

I'd be curious to see what a scepter/torch ('d be very surprised if a focus or shield outDPS'ed the torch) does Vs. a stationary melee target. Hell, I'll bet that even the sword won't fare that poorly (especially on moving targets), once paired with a torch !

[SpelignErrir]

Scepter is a 3 skill weapon

GS is a 5 skill weapon

Scepter still does the same damage

I think I'm going to give scepter another try

[Whiskyjack]

You need to have 2 handed mastery for hammer. Mighty blow does up dps and having it up a second earlier helps dps.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Whiskyjack, on 11 October 2012 - 02:51 AM, said:

You need to have 2 handed mastery for hammer. Mighty blow does up dps and having it up a second earlier helps dps.

I would like to see the numbers you are using to support this claim.  I have not been able to get Mighty Blow to hit harder than the auto-attack chain regardless of the build I am running.  Maybe if you're not using Writ of Persistence.

[Milkshakez]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 11 October 2012 - 04:39 AM, said:

I would like to see the numbers you are using to support this claim.  I have not been able to get Mighty Blow to hit harder than the auto-attack chain regardless of the build I am running.  Maybe if you're not using Writ of Persistence.

What about the retaliation proc, given that Mighty Blow acts as a blast finisher on the light field you've just put down with auto-3? Or is that accounted for?

[Dixa]

the only issue ihave with the above is how the greatsword uses 20s symbol but then does not use hammer 2 ability at all.

the 20s recharge symbol will not be up every fight, and i do believ with traits the symbol from hammer can be made perma?

Edited by Dixa, 11 October 2012 - 09:02 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

(Merged with OP)

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 24 November 2012 - 07:13 PM.

[Copenhagen23]

Thanks for this. I'm curious to see what kind of DPS Scepter/Torch or Sword/Torch will yield.

[Eon Lilu]

I still find the greatsword to be the best weapon with the 20% cooldown on 2 handed weapons trait. Plus because its skills work so well together when used in the right order to grant combo's for retaliation and condition removal, plus more combo's with elementalists and mesmers etc. Plus you can group up enemies in one blob for the whole group to AOE to death in seconds.

CC, combo's, condition removal, damage blocking, healing, fire / aoe damage while still doing alot of damage, this is where the guardian shines. It is very adaptable to what is needed at the time of play and is good at many things rather than only amazing at one thing.

Sceptor  / shield and Sceptor  / torch is pretty awesome as a 2nd set.

I always found hammer kinda slow and not as good skills for grouping up mobs.

Staff I always found really crap unless you went for a specific healing  / support build.

Never really liked focus either.

Sword is mainly for single target damage.

Mace is ok but again not something I use much.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 24 November 2012 - 06:32 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Part of the reason I included crit damage numbers instead of averaged values is because it lets you see how much "raw" damage an attack does at any given level of precision.  That means that even if you're running something like GS/Staff, which were calculated using different trait spreads (so lower precision for the staff), you can still compare relative damage output from your rotation.  For example, if you wanted to compare DPS on staff vs. scepter for a 10/30/30 build, you can just add up the numbers on the skills used in your rotation.  For example:

(GS) 5750 from symbol + 7700 from WW + 4320 from Bind + 14160 from autos + (staff) 2700 x 3 from orb + 5500 from symbol + 1350 from orb detonation + 7500 from autos = 54380 over 20 seconds = 41451 scaled for crits = 2072/sec.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Fixed numbers based on tooltips this time.  Should be 100% accurate now except where tooltips are wrong.

[CepaCepa]

Great work, thanks for sharing, we might be able to use this method to standardize across damage comparison of different professions, instead of going in there and grab numbers that many may argue to be too subjective.

Just one question though, how are you getting the "time" part of your dps from? Have you being able to test the animation time for the skills compared to their tool-tip cast time? The reason that I'm saying this is that testing on the dummies both in LA and in the Mist, some skills such as staff orb has such a long animation even though the "cast time" is short, that it is not a dps increase at all to cast it on CD right after #1 animation (versus just #1 spam). Something I haven't tested is whether if casting off the animation and immediately press 1 again can reset the animation, I know that this doesn't work for most of the other professions so I haven't tried it specifically for staff.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

CepaCepa, on 26 November 2012 - 08:36 PM, said:

Great work, thanks for sharing, we might be able to use this method to standardize across damage comparison of different professions, instead of going in there and grab numbers that many may argue to be too subjective.

Just one question though, how are you getting the "time" part of your dps from? Have you being able to test the animation time for the skills compared to their tool-tip cast time? The reason that I'm saying this is that testing on the dummies both in LA and in the Mist, some skills such as staff orb has such a long animation even though the "cast time" is short, that it is not a dps increase at all to cast it on CD right after #1 animation (versus just #1 spam). Something I haven't tested is whether if casting off the animation and immediately press 1 again can reset the animation, I know that this doesn't work for most of the other professions so I haven't tried it specifically for staff.

Every skill has a startup and a recovery.  You can cancel the recovery by weapon swapping but otherwise I don't think there's any way around it.  For all intents and purposes it's usually safe to assume 1s total cast time for most skills unless it's obviously more or less.

[TheKnox]

After about 30 minutes of testing with a stopwatch on the dummies in LA and the Mists, I have #'s for activation times for Hammer/GS/Sword that I'm pretty comfortable with.  All of the chain skills were timed from completion of chain to the completion of the next chain, so I don't have activation times for the individual skills, but I'm pretty sure the chain activation times should be correct.

For the skills with cooldowns, I timed from skill activation until it was no longer on cooldown and subtracted the cooldown number to produce an activation time.

Hammer
1 - 3.6 sec.
2 - 1.75 sec.
3 - 2 sec.
4 - 2 sec.
5 - 2 sec.

GS
1 - 2.5 sec.
2 - 2.75 sec.
3 - 1 sec.
4 - 1.75 sec.
5 - 2.25 sec.

1H Sword
1 - 2.5 sec.
2 - .75 sec.
3 - 2.75 sec.


Also, from the OP:
Hammer (10/0/30/30/0)
Auto = 645, 726, 807, 805 = 795/s
MB = 760 total, 0 net, 0/s
DPS = 795 base, 1555 overall

This doesn't match up with my #'s in game at all.  
My #'s in game look like this (assuming that you take the Symbol #'s and multiply by 3/4 to make up for the 3 ticks compared to the tooltip's 4?)
Auto = 594, 668, 742, 1113 = 865/s   (x3/4)
Auto = 594, 668, 742, 1484 = 969/s
MB = 1299 total, 742/s 0 net, 0/s

These numbers aren't exactly the same as the OP's because the gear is different, but the relative scaling should be the same.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

TheKnox, on 27 November 2012 - 02:35 AM, said:

After about 30 minutes of testing with a stopwatch on the dummies in LA and the Mists, I have #'s for activation times for Hammer/GS/Sword that I'm pretty comfortable with.  All of the chain skills were timed from completion of chain to the completion of the next chain, so I don't have activation times for the individual skills, but I'm pretty sure the chain activation times should be correct.

For the skills with cooldowns, I timed from skill activation until it was no longer on cooldown and subtracted the cooldown number to produce an activation time.

Hammer
1 - 3.6 sec.
2 - 1.75 sec.
3 - 2 sec.
4 - 2 sec.
5 - 2 sec.

GS
1 - 2.5 sec.
2 - 2.75 sec.
3 - 1 sec.
4 - 1.75 sec.
5 - 2.25 sec.

1H Sword
1 - 2.5 sec.
2 - .75 sec.
3 - 2.75 sec.


Also, from the OP:
Hammer (10/0/30/30/0)
Auto = 645, 726, 807, 805 = 795/s
MB = 760 total, 0 net, 0/s
DPS = 795 base, 1555 overall

This doesn't match up with my #'s in game at all.  
My #'s in game look like this (assuming that you take the Symbol #'s and multiply by 3/4 to make up for the 3 ticks compared to the tooltip's 4?)
Auto = 594, 668, 742, 1113 = 865/s   (x3/4)
Auto = 594, 668, 742, 1484 = 969/s
MB = 1299 total, 742/s 0 net, 0/s

These numbers aren't exactly the same as the OP's because the gear is different, but the relative scaling should be the same.

I believe the second number on Symbol of Protection's tooltip is the damage from both symbol and hammer swing combined.  I just subtracted the first number (which is definitely the hammer swing alone) from the second to get the symbol damage.  This is my best explanation for why the second damage tooltip is listed as x4 when the symbol actually only hits three times.

[TheKnox]

When I use the hammer chain, the 3rd hit hits for around 900 and the symbol ticks 3 times for about 400 each.  I think the numbers with the 3/4 scaling are probably correct.

[TheKnox]

Hammer (10/0/30/30/0)
Auto = 645, 726, 807, 1614 = 1053/s
MB = 760 total, 0 net, 0/s
DPS = 1053 base, 2060 overall

That should be the correct values for the hammer with your power levels in the OP.

This puts the hammer roughly 10% below the Greatsword in raw damage. The extra symbol tick added roughly 110 raw dps to that number. But the 2h mastery doesn't actually add damage with the hammer.

[GSSB Lunaspike]

Could you add a note to the thief part that this is only in Spvp/Tpvp. In wvw/pve the numbers for thief are actually higher.

As far as I know guardians don't have any abilities that deal less damage in the mists, but thieves do.

Edited by GSSB Lunaspike, 03 December 2012 - 10:14 AM.