11 replies to this topic

[m1s3ri]

crossposting from reddit. I don't poke around here too much, but you all seem like the sort to make good use of this info.

http://www.mediafire...9pbf30723dyhq59 download link. no, it's not really FINAL. sue me, I thought I was lazy enough to be done.
http://i.imgur.com/YoIPD.jpg spreadsheet in action
I just built an extensive Excel spreadsheet and used FRAPS to get accurate timings on how long various skills took to cast back-to-back. I'm fairly comfortable with RPG combat math so doing rough estimates of runes, boons, and sigils was easy for me to work in when automating it was too cumbersome.

http://i.imgur.com/94CHX.png
One of the criteria I had when drawing that comparison was having 30 Tactics -- any difference in overall party DPS turned out to be, IMO, relatively minor, and the additional support it provides is invaluable if you don't always run with a dedicated/skilled group (which I imagine is the vast majority of players). It also helps it be a more equal comparison between weapons across the board.

Some other interesting lessons I've learned:

Axe is the top tier DPS weapon. Sorry GS -- you're actually the DPS with mobility option.

Mace and Hammer both are capable of maintaining respectable output even with all the control they bring to the table. This isn't Vanilla WoW where tanks did more or less nothing at all but take hits.

Burst skill damage seems mostly irrelevant in PvE. Axe autoattacks are just too damn strong for Eviscerate to change much, and GS will want to keep pumping out Vulnerability hits and big DPS from 1/2 and maintain Fury some other way. Flurry, on the other hand...



http://puu.sh/1LdDN
http://puu.sh/1LdDf
http://puu.sh/1Ldvl

Flurry is trash. DPS loss, no matter what you're wearing, and it roots you, and you lose any adrenaline-related trait bonuses. wtf.

[Zerikin Loukbel]

Flurry damage is all about the bleeding. With full adren and the +50% bleed trait it does 12 stacks for bleeding for 3s and hits multiple targets. Assuming a decent crit rate you also add another few stacks of bleed from the 33% chance to add a bleed.

[Black Autumn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a really useful test involve gearing and speccing for the strengths of each weapon (even if you keep the 30 in tactics)?  If you're doing Berserker's gear and testing swords, it makes sense the test would produce lackluster performance since swords seem to be all about bleeds for us.  Shouldn't you be gearing for that with say, Rabid gear or even maybe Carrion or Rampager's?

[m1s3ri]

Zerikin Loukbel, on 09 January 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

Flurry damage is all about the bleeding. With full adren and the +50% bleed trait it does 12 stacks for bleeding for 3s and hits multiple targets. Assuming a decent crit rate you also add another few stacks of bleed from the 33% chance to add a bleed.

With full adrenaline and +50% bleed duration, Flurry hits 11 times for 33 ticks of bleed, while Sword 1 deals nearly twice as much direct damage and 24 ticks of bleed while also being about 0.3 seconds faster. Unless your target has a ridiculous amount of armor and no vulnerability, Sword 1 will outdamage Flurry. And again, this doesn't into account any bonuses you get for having a full Adrenaline bar built up, which you're going to have if you're specced at all for DPS.

I will grant that Flurry edges Sword 1 out if you're geared full Condition Damage with no Power, but that would mean Rabid -- and Knight's with Exquisite Ruby Jewels will outdamage Rabid without being dependent on bleeds that can be removed while providing pretty much the same Toughness.

Black Autumn, on 09 January 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a really useful test involve gearing and speccing for the strengths of each weapon (even if you keep the 30 in tactics)?  If you're doing Berserker's gear and testing swords, it makes sense the test would produce lackluster performance since swords seem to be all about bleeds for us.  Shouldn't you be gearing for that with say, Rabid gear or even maybe Carrion or Rampager's?

If you check the spreadsheet you will see that full Berserker's produces significantly more more damage than any other stat set, even for the Sword/Sword with +75% bleed duration build. If you choose to mix and match (and you should at least be using Exquisite Ruby Jewels for any serious DPS setup), Carrion + Berserker's barely edges out Knight's + Berserker's at 2200 armor and no vulnerability (a couple percent at best) -- given that 30 Tactics provides much more in the way of group support than Defense does while giving you a solid raw HP pool, I'd rather stick with Toughness on gear as a survival stat since it makes your regen and healing that much more effective.

http://puu.sh/1LKS8 <- screenshot of my Sword/Sword calculator for lazy.

------

Also, I should probably note that all this was done purely from a PvE perspective -- I don't really have any interest in the PvP side of GW2 and therefore am not particularly well-versed in what needs to be considered there. Still, I would imagine that the only PvP targets you'd kill faster with bleeds would be high Toughness Warrior/Guardians built to delay people, and that those builds would have condition removals that would make any kind of condition damage significantly less attractive as well. /shrug

more edit: hurr I'm retarded, forgot I was posting in the PvE section so the fact that I'm talking about PvE should be obvious. /shot

and more: some other somewhat disorganized thoughts I had while trying to optimize Swords (I really like the style, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to eke out whatever damage I could from them)
- Flurry's 2 second bleeds only gain an extra tick at +50% and +100% duration
- Power is still a good stat for Swords -- despite being lower damage per cast than Axe, the relatively fast cast time means you're still pumping out good direct damage. Rip is also pretty powerful -- I've gotten 4k+ crits in dungeons with my Knight/Berserker setup.
- With all that direct damage, you're going to take at least 10 points in Strength, because that 12% bonus damage is a pretty huge compared to a lot of other traits.
- That 10% condition duration goes well with a +15% bleed duration rune, which gets you a full 2 extra ticks on the Sword 1 bleeds while doing nothing for Flurry.
- Picking up another 25% to get an extra tick on Flurry's bleeds (without using foods) is difficult -- going further into the Strength traits doesn't really offer anything good except for +5% damage from Dual Wielding, and getting it all from runes means giving up a potential 4 Ruby Orbs -- a pretty significant amount of Power/Critical Damage.
- There's also the problem that at +100% bleed duration, you alone with Sword/Sword are going to be applying around 70-75% of the bleeds required to hit the cap. Given that bleeds are relatively common conditions even from builds that don't intentionally spec for them, you're running a big risk of losing bleed damage whenever you're in a group.

It sucks, because I really like the style of Sword/Sword -- I like the looks, I like being able to sit in a mob's face and alternate dodges with Ripostes and attracting a lot of hits without getting wrecked. I really hope that ANet takes a look at all these issues and reworks it at some point -- I can't deny that the axe MH build I'm using now is incredibly effective, but I'd very much like to be able to play with dual swords and not have that nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I'm choosing the less effective path.

Edited by m1s3ri, 09 January 2013 - 10:40 PM.

[Black Autumn]

m1s3ri, on 09 January 2013 - 09:35 PM, said:

http://puu.sh/1LKS8 <- screenshot of my Sword/Sword calculator for lazy.

Haha, that reads as 'lazy == Autumn.'  Which I am so it's okay.

Anyway, I'm almost purely PvE when I play.  I just really like bleeds.  Your post makes me sad.  Everything I've been reading for a while now advocates Berserker's gear (usually with some Knight's thrown in) with an axe mainhand for best performance.  Pretty soon, we're all gonna look an awful lot alike (amazing skins and color palettes not withstanding).

Mostly I'm sad that my only mostly exotic gear setup is a temple armor set (rabid stats) and sword with a set of Undead runes and Rabid crests.  What will REALLY be sad is if a rare Berserker/Knight set does better with my sword than the exotic condition damage set.  =/

[Zerikin Loukbel]

Nice spreadsheet, I appreciate the work that went into getting all the cast times, my own spreadsheet is missing all that data.

Checked my spreadsheet and assuming your cast times are correct flurry is indeed a general DPS loss on those numbers. You should file a bug report using those screen shots as flurry with full adren should hit 12 times not 11. Flurry does have the advantage of being much more burst since it does many short bleeds instead of long ones making it more useful for trash along with its CC effect.

[Zerikin Loukbel]

You can actually increase your optimum DPS for GS more. Take out one full 1 and add 5 bladetrails and 2 rush. Bladetrail will also hit twice for full damage because it will hit again on the way back. It also seems you didn't account for mace 4 in your axe/mace sheet.

edit: I also thought that +damage stacked additively, has your testing found otherwise?

Edited by Zerikin Loukbel, 10 January 2013 - 05:00 PM.

[m1s3ri]

Zerikin Loukbel, on 10 January 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

You can actually increase your optimum DPS for GS more. Take out one full 1 and add 5 bladetrails and 2 rush. Bladetrail will also hit twice for full damage because it will hit again on the way back. It also seems you didn't account for mace 4 in your axe/mace sheet.

edit: I also thought that +damage stacked additively, has your testing found otherwise?

Wasn't sure how to best handle GS -- specifically Whirlwind Attack. I probably should have added in Rush at least, but ... eh.

No idea on +damage stacking, honestly. I read somewhere that it was all multiplicative.

[TastySlop]

m1s3ri, on 08 January 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Axe is the top tier DPS weapon. Sorry GS -- you're actually the DPS with mobility option.

On the axe/mace build, it looks like you took Berserker's Power, Dual Wielding and Axe Mastery but you only put 20 points into Strength. If you take out one of those traits, greatsword has a higher DPS.

[m1s3ri]

TastySlop, on 10 January 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

On the axe/mace build, it looks like you took Berserker's Power, Dual Wielding and Axe Mastery but you only put 20 points into Strength. If you take out one of those traits, greatsword has a higher DPS.

I calculated Axe/Mace as having a Sigil of Force and a Sigil of Accuracy, initially. I'm actually playing Axe/Mace + /Warhorn at the moment though and Sigil of Strength is pretty ridiculous.

[TastySlop]

m1s3ri, on 10 January 2013 - 09:29 PM, said:

I calculated Axe/Mace as having a Sigil of Force and a Sigil of Accuracy, initially. I'm actually playing Axe/Mace + /Warhorn at the moment though and Sigil of Strength is pretty ridiculous.

OK, I think what I saw as Dual Wielding was actually the Sigil of Force since they are both 5% dmg, but I don't see the Sigil of Accuracy unless the spreadsheet is showing Sigil of Strength instead.

[m1s3ri]

TastySlop, on 11 January 2013 - 01:16 AM, said:

OK, I think what I saw as Dual Wielding was actually the Sigil of Force since they are both 5% dmg, but I don't see the Sigil of Accuracy unless the spreadsheet is showing Sigil of Strength instead.

I probably changed it around more since making that comparison chart; I re-upload when there's a change to the formulas and skill info but I don't usually set all the sheets back since it's really a tool I made for my own personal use.