Guild Wars 2

Try lowering your resolution for the vid.

I’ve been reading this thread since it started, very entertaining read. Here’s the the thing. Everyone can see your argument has merit, but in cases like this you need a full, uncut vid. That’s just how it works. Strifey made another vid to refute your claims that his setup would be slower post-patch, he succeeded. He has the fastest time, you saying that your run was inefficient isn’t going to change that. You need proof, not words.

Also, anyone in the know, knows this isn’t a debate about the viability of thieves/warriors/whatever. It’s just who can do it faster, good ‘ol fun. Most speed run groups I end up with don’t mind thieves in there. Sometimes we’ve even specifically recruited a thief if a warrior drops out.

Just my 2 cents.

While farming CoF path 1, there are only 2 times DPS matters. First boss, Last Boss, and arguably the Acolytes.

The difference between running a “high DPS group” and a “max DPS group” come out to a few SECONDS.

The majority of the time you shave off speed runs comes from the mini-games and glitches.

I’m pretty sure 4 Theives 1 Warrior will beat out anything with a skilled enough group to not have to rely on a Mesmer (since quickness now lasts long enough for you to kill bosses.)

All kitten-waving aside, I’ve seen a massive decrease in class discrimination, which was the main point in the guide and arguments I threw out there on my guide thread.

so… wars are better than thieves in cof p1 then?

also phira, your rage is absolutely hilarious, especially when you had your time beaten. chill out bro, its just a game, try actually having fun.

Phira.3970:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Ah so the opening part no longer counts because it doesn’t benefit you. Got it. If you did that part 10 seconds faster than us somehow, I assume your position would be the same?

I never was even for the video idea. We are totally disadvantaged here because of our CPU specs (as evident in the difference in time the 2nd gate opens.) And the video idea was a pretty ridiculous idea to begin with. It just shows who’s more coordinated and who has better CPU specs. I’m sure most people here realize that these factors are completely irrelevant to team comp.

And that was your idea. You guys are trying to dodge the initial bullet and putting more burden on us because you guys couldn’t answer the initial questions of how GS warriors actually out damage thieves.

And for those just reading this, here is the original 8 segments I presented that they still haven’t yet answered of how GS Warriors would outperform thieves.

1) pulling Ferrah meaning you get her to follow you before you choose path to be able to skip the dialogue faster and then portaling the person pulling ferrah

2) pulling charrs to turret and aoeing them down

3) killing Slave Driver

4) Running to acolytes to trigger acolytes faster

5) Speed killing acolytes

6) Boulders

7) gating

8) last boss

And I actually gave GS Warriors a point here because they would outperform thieves only at the charrs-> turret part because of better AoE power. But I also said that in every other aspect (boss kills, running to acolyte, acolyte killing, etc…) thieves would outperform GS Warriors. I’m being 100% objective here. No phat warrior pride. No phat thief pride (I don’t even play thief, I’m the mesmer.)

Finally, to answer your question, we’re playing fair. We’ve played your game (by recording), and we still probably will be (even with our lesser CPU specs clearly evident at the start). But, since you guys still haven’t played my game, I wouldn’t say you guys are being fair at all to begin with. This whole vid. recording junk is just a cover-up for your guys inability to answer the questions above. But don’t worry. I’m sure the audience is more attracted to the videos than pure logical argumentation, which is why we’re even playing this game.

Ill go ahead and answer a few of your silly arguments.

1. Warriors have Sword leap, Greatsword whirlwind, greatsword rush, Bull’s rush, and 3 of those skills can be used on the way back as well as increasing their distance travelled with swiftness.

2. 4 Warriors Aoe burst > 2 warriors + 2 thieves aoe burst. Follow by eviscerate 2nd turret.

3. Killing slavedriver in 6-7s in both videos, nothing to compare

4. Running to other side of bridge, Banner #4 skill, Sword Leap, Whirlwind, Bull’s rush, Rush, and sword leap again. (Fyi, our warriors are not accustomed to mastering this rotation as compared to the people who actually farm cof which werent in the video, so they were slower at doing this).

5. Acolytes die from 1 eviscerate, no different than thieves backstabbing them. Difference in time versus a backstab versus eviscerate is <1s. Feel free to nitpick a instant cast attack versus and leap windup.

6. Boulder’s is irrelevant of class

7. Gate controller, time starts the moment the door opens (which strife casted bladetrail too late), not the moment you feel like smacking it, so no, thieves does not do it in 2.7s, in your video, thief took ~5s from gate open and strife took 5~6s.

8. Rushing + whirlwind + banner rushes will allow for the 2 back warriors to enter final boss room faster (which we didnt even use warbanner, only banner of str. and discipline, str. being used next to gate controller killer which was picked up by mesmer due to mesmer lack of leap/rushes). So one of our warriors in the back didnt have a banner rush to use. Final boss, strife got knocked down regardless of feedback reflecting (shaved 2s off his dps).

You don’t get to decide where you want your videos to start and end when you compare videos just because you can’t pull off the same speed/time. That’s just a poor excuse. I’m open to having our record being beaten, as it pushes us to go faster. We can still shave it under 5:40 if we polish up a few parts.

As far as my memory serves me, the acolytes spawn the same duration and the gate time hasnt been change. I’d love to hear a dev actually say “we tweaked aco spawns and gate timer by a few seconds” to believe it. If I am incorrect, then I’ll gladly accept it, but not a believer atm.

At the end of the day, our purpose for doing these is not to discriminate people from running other classes. It is to create a speed run. I reckon subbing an ele out would make it just as fast if not faster, or subbing out a purely glass cannon lichform necro. I dont care what I run with as long as I get 4 runs per food.

Now compare the video and see if your claim is true. ^

Then you’ll see that the only part we truly loss was at #2 (which I already conceded to on page 1) and how we got stuck in cinematic at #1 and before #8. We won in every other parts except for boulders (no relevance to thief or warriors) and gating (because of banner, but if we did the same, we’d get similar results.)

Phira.3970:

Now compare the video and see if your claim is true. ^

Then you’ll see that the only part we truly loss was at #2 (which I already conceded to on page 1) and how we got stuck in cinematic at #1 and before #8. We won in every other parts except for boulders (no relevance to thief or warriors) and gating (because of banner, but if we did the same, we’d get similar results.)

Stuck in animation is poor argument for part #1. If you wanted you can have your ferrah puller tell you when to enter dungeon so you aren’t holding it back. You’d have plenty of time to reach the gate before magg blows it up even after loading. (I’ve run with slow loaders, I make them wait outside till I tell them I’ve got the vote up). Ill compare both videos side by side when I get home from work.

You claim your run wasnt perfect, and neither was ours. Our imperfect run was faster than your imperfect run despite you theorycrafting our run after TW nerf would be 20s slower (not exclusive to only TW nerf, as you claim random stuff got changed, which I don’t believe).

I had to slot blink to the gate after our warrior pulled ferrah just because he was passing my portal before i can even drop the exit.

Again, 5:43 is not our best, but its still beating the record. When you guys broke our previous time, we suited up, went in and rerecorded without complaining or nitpicking. So just stop with all these excuses and complaining about what couldve been but didn’t.

#1, Pulling Ferrah

Strife’s vid: 0:00-0:55 [Excuse: Didn’t portal far enough]

Our vid: 0:00-1:02 [Excuse: Stuck 7 seconds in cinematic]

Conclusion: Phira’s cpu sucks.

—

#2, Turret and Godforged Charrs

Conceded on first page.

—

#3, Slave Driver

Strife’s video, 1:23-1:32 = 9 seconds [Strife’s excuse: Didn’t hit 25 might, lost a second or two]

Our’s, 1:33-1:41=8 seconds [Our excuse: boss got pulled causing us to lose a second or two]

Conclusion: Not accurate enough of data

—

#4, running to acolytes and triggering

Our’s 2:05-2:23=18 seconds [Excuse: Thief didn’t steal nor shadow step costing us about 2 seconds and did not use up initiation nor use up all stamina with roll costing around second]

Strife’s: 1:54-2:10 or 2:11 = 16 or 17 seconds [Excuse: Warriors not used to doing the run across bridge?]

Conclusion=Not accurate enough of data. Neither did it perfectly. But it would probably be around the same.

—

#5, Acolytes,

Strife’s vid: 2:10-3:56=1:46 [Excuse: Strife messed up on 1 acolyte losing second or two]

Ours: 2:23-4:06=1:43 [Excuse: Mesmer’s fault for trying to kill with GS instead of Double Clone Summon + f1 for insta-killing losing1 or 2 second slower per 1 acolyte kill.]

Conclusion: Thieves definitely outperform here. Instant disengage from combat with stealth. And by the time Strife killed 1 acolyte, Shadow Espada killed one and a half.

—

#6, boulder

agreed

—

#7, Gating

Strife’s vid: 4:57-5:02=5 second gate [Excuse=Blade Winded late]

Our vid: 5:01-5:10=9 second gate [Excuse=No Banner of Strength]

Conclusion: Conceded unless Shadow Espada has another excuse that would explain his/her uber slow gating.

—

#8,

Strife’s vid, 5:02-5:43=41 seconds [Excuse: Strife kd’ed losing 2 seconds]

Our’s: 5:10-5:53=43 seconds
[Excuse:
-One thief got stuck in cinematic and the other was just.. idk. Two thieves late to fight shaving around 3 seconds off our main hitters.
-Mesmer didn’t land feedback losing a second.]

Conclusion: Not accurate enough data.

—

Final conclusion: Need more accurate data. Phira needs a better CPU. You’ve proved to do gate faster (unless Shadow Espada has something else to say). We’ve proved thieves do acolytes better.

I’d also like to ask what gear every person is using as couple of our players were being cheapasses. Runes / sigils / etc.

I do agree that the difference in acolyte speed is backstab speed versus eviscerate speed which is fractions of seconds accumulated 3 times. Only 2 acolytes need to be killed instantly (and same 2 after every spawn) to get the fastest time possible on acolytes.

For point #1, there is no “not portalling far enough”. The only way to speed it up any faster is to get absolute perfect timing on when to vote and taking portal which both our groups are not 100% perfect on.

phira nobody cares about those second deviation excuses. We are all impressed with your run but if you want to prove a point then but it down in video form. If you need someone else who can record for you then you can most likely find someone else with a better pc than you. I AM very interested in seeing just how fast you can pull off a run. Please don’t diminish what you can do with how you’re acting now.

This thread lost its meaning, apparently.

People are thinking this is an argument between who is the better team.

This isn’t what we were arguing on, and arguing between whose’s team is better takes into account of:
-CPU specs
-Coordination
-Available people to record with to do dungeon

Let me clarify: This thread is an argument for which team composition is best, which luck, coordination, and CPU specs have no role in.

Distinguish between the two. My methodology (breaking CoF into segments and arguing which class performs best) is better for determining which team composition is actually better rather than whose team is actually better (which would be a full run video).

Obviously, it’s more likely that a team does a segment of CoF perfectly rather than the whole run perfectly (obviously, we all had mistakes at every point in the video). Therefore, it’s best to edit out only the best of the team’s recordings. This would take out lots of factors including high coordination, CPU specs, luck, etc… out of the picture. This would end the argument more efficiently rather than both of us just keep beating each others time w/o ever hitting a perfect run. Nevertheless, I’ll play both games.

In theoryland, I don’t think there’s more than a 0.5 second diff at acolytes. Both kill acolytes in 1 hit, so the only difference is the animation time. The rest is player based delay, i.e. being at the right spot at the right time and time to select/attack target. I would also make the point that it only matters how fast you kill 2 of the 4 acolytes, so neither Strife nor the Mesmer should have made a difference if the other teammates played optimally.

Hi Phira, awesome video man never seen anything like it. I myself play a healing power/bleeding thief, i didnt follow any build advice from anyone i just speced into what i thought worked best for me, but man, seeing this makes me want to switch. Once i get enough money ill try to make a spike build like this. I do have 2 questions tho, do you have any WvW video’s? id love to see you in action there and somewhere back you said:

Phira.3970:

I accept almost all classes for CoF farm whereas others accept only GS warriors

When you say “almost” do you specificaly mean the GS warrior or are there more classes that you wouldnt invite? Id like to be the first guy to convince you otherwise about that class

I accept all classes (except for 1). I’ve decided this after having calculated the DPS of the highest damage weapon of each class. What I’ve discovered is that many classes can do about equal damage to Axe Warriors or even better. And in addition, every class brings something new to the table to contribute to CoF runs.

Warriors are good because:
-They bring banners.
-They have empower ally trait (+70 power to each ally)
-Have a great ability to apply vuln. with On My Mark and Axe/Mace set.
-Have great ability to apply Might especially with the Longbow f1 and blast combo finisher.

Rangers:
-Spotter trait for +70 precision to each Ally
-Quick Vuln. Stacks (Longbow 3 + Pet F2)
-Spirit of Frost (As of this patch, 70% chance to apply +10% damage = +7% damage increase for the team)
-Uber signet that gives pet and user +25% damage which gives them damage that equals Axe Warriors

Elementalists:
-Summons Lightning Hammer for him/herself and for Mesmer. As a Mesmer, I’ve critted for 11k on Slave Driver with 1 chain combo. It basically makes the Mesmer as high damaging as a Warrior while the ELementalist him/herself hits as hard as a Warrior.

Guardians:
-Hard to do but you can maintain aegis for +20% damage with trait giving Guardians the ability to actually out damage Warriors with sword/focus.
-Blocks and stability for the team
-Because of all the aegis and blocks, it works well with a team with scholar runes.
-Stacks of might from Staff 4

Necromancer:
-Uber high 1 spam damage with Lich Form that out damages Axe Warriors (but currently bugged).
-Can pre-mark for Slave Driver giving fast Slave Driver kill
-Can summon wells before Slave Driver fight starts

Thief:
-Good for acolyte part
-Higher single target damage than Warrior

Engineers:
…
-Nothing lol except for easy Vuln. Stacks.

So basically, I just meant I accept all but engineers.

I’m not convinced on the ele/mesmer. 11k in 1 chain means you need to get 4 chains off in the space of one HB, and 2 chains off in the space of one WW. Might make up a bit of time during GS cooldown, but switching to axe keeps sustained damage up (+ tons of vulnerability) for 5 seconds, maybe 2 chains, before getting off another burst.

Emissary.3792:

I’m not convinced on the ele/mesmer. 11k in 1 chain means you need to get 4 chains off in the space of one HB, and 2 chains off in the space of one WW. Might make up a bit of time during GS cooldown, but switching to axe keeps sustained damage up (+ tons of vulnerability) for 5 seconds, maybe 2 chains, before getting off another burst.

Elementalist can easily hit over 10k+ per auto attack (not per chain) with lightning hammer. Giving a mesmer a lightning hammer will also increase the mesmer’s dps after his initial shatter burst but I dont think itll actually hit as hard as an ele’s auto attack due to mesmer not having as many modifiers as an elementalist does.

Ioflux.4369:

Emissary.3792:

I’m not convinced on the ele/mesmer. 11k in 1 chain means you need to get 4 chains off in the space of one HB, and 2 chains off in the space of one WW. Might make up a bit of time during GS cooldown, but switching to axe keeps sustained damage up (+ tons of vulnerability) for 5 seconds, maybe 2 chains, before getting off another burst.

Elementalist can easily hit over 10k+ per auto attack (not per chain) with lightning hammer. Giving a mesmer a lightning hammer will also increase the mesmer’s dps after his initial shatter burst but I dont think itll actually hit as hard as an ele’s auto attack due to mesmer not having as many modifiers as an elementalist does.

I easily hit 11k as a mesmer on Slave Driver with Lightning Hammer on the 3rd combo of the chain. However, this is under 25 might, 25 vuln. (rather easy to achieve though with just two warriors) and scholar runes and Mantra set up (+4% damage per mantra). I only use Healing Mantra and Mantra of Pain for bossing (Signet of Inspiration not needed because we hit 25 might regardless) for total of +8% damage.

Also, you should not be on shatter spec. for CoF since the majority of damage comes from 1 spam. Going 30/10/0/0/30 rather than 30/30/0/0/10 will drop your crits by about 1-2k just for a small initial burst that doesn’t make up for the net damage. Rather than shattering, you should be maintaining those clones/illusions for +3% damage per clone trait and shattering only to finish the boss off.

My friend mesmer who wasn’t convinced of these differences.. well, he used Lightning Hammer on a shatter spec. and crit. for only 7k and he thought that was impressive.

As for the actual damage difference, I’ve already done the math. A Mesmer or Elementalist with Lightning Hammer slightly out damages the Axe chain auto chain. I also know this is true (tested many times) because whenever a GS Warrior leaves and is replaced by my friend Elementalist, our Slave Driver kill time drops dramatically by about 2 seconds.

Phira.3970:

I also know this is true (tested many times) because whenever a GS Warrior leaves and is replaced by my friend Elementalist, our Slave Driver kill time drops dramatically by about 2 seconds.

So dramatic lol

Everything is dramatic in a speed clear. That’s why it’s called a speed clear.

A usual 20-30 min run without the SC setup vs. 6 minutes could also not be deemed dramatic, since for some people at 30 min time investment is not that big of a deal.

Phira.3970:

I easily hit 11k as a mesmer on Slave Driver with Lightning Hammer on the 3rd combo of the chain. However, this is under 25 might, 25 vuln. (rather easy to achieve though with just two warriors) and scholar runes and Mantra set up (+4% damage per mantra). I only use Healing Mantra and Mantra of Pain for bossing (Signet of Inspiration not needed because we hit 25 might regardless) for total of +8% damage.

Also, you should not be on shatter spec. for CoF since the majority of damage comes from 1 spam. Going 30/10/0/0/30 rather than 30/30/0/0/10 will drop your crits by about 1-2k just for a small initial burst that doesn’t make up for the net damage. Rather than shattering, you should be maintaining those clones/illusions for +3% damage per clone trait and shattering only to finish the boss off.

My friend mesmer who wasn’t convinced of these differences.. well, he used Lightning Hammer on a shatter spec. and crit. for only 7k and he thought that was impressive.

As for the actual damage difference, I’ve already done the math. A Mesmer or Elementalist with Lightning Hammer slightly out damages the Axe chain auto chain. I also know this is true (tested many times) because whenever a GS Warrior leaves and is replaced by my friend Elementalist, our Slave Driver kill time drops dramatically by about 2 seconds.

Are you saying you’re hitting 11k per hit, or total for the full chain? Also, based on your last sentence I can’t figure out if you’re talking about GS dps, Axe dps or the optimized rotation using fast hands.

Just let this thread die. It’s been concluded that warriors/mes>others in CoF. This thread no longer has any meaning.

Chop: 252
Double Chop: 538
Triple Chop: 858

Time to complete chain: 3.5 seconds
DPS = 470.857

vs.

Lightning Swing: 358
Static Swing: 358
Thunderclap: 586

Time to complete chain: 2.5 seconds
DPS = 500.7692307692307692

Conclusion: Lightning Hammer chain > Axe chain

This is not calculated with GS->Axe. But you should also see that Elementalists have a better trait tree for pure damage (precision+crit. dmg stat in same trait line) and tons of +dmg% traits.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1g.h3.8.1g.h2|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.cg.67|p53.k6a.p67.0.0|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e
25/20/25

Effective Power 6655.49

In comparison to warrior pure damage traiting

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1g.h2.9.1g.h3|1.1g.h3|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.cg.67|u598.p00.0.0.f5|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

Effective Power = 6082

^It’s actually a bit less than that because the site counts the GS and axe towards effective power, but in reality, you are only using one of them at a time. Once you swap away from GS, you get the +5% dmg trait instead of +10% trait. So the actual effective power may look something more like 6082/1.05=5792.

In comparison to the Ele.’s effective power, the damage difference is that the Ele. is doing about 6655.49/5792=1.149007645511344952 or about +15% more damage trait-wise.
—-

So taking into account of traiting with a difference of about +15% damage, the Lightning Hammer dps = 500.76*1.149=575.38

in comparison to Axe chain =470.857

Lightning hammer 1 chain does 575.38/470.857=1.22 or about 22% more damage.

Hundred Blade is more difficult to calculate. Tooltip says it’s 3.5 second to cast, but delay will make it around 3.8 seconds.

But you can make a comparison:

-In 3.5 seconds, axe does 1648
-While in about 3.8 seconds, Hundred Blade does 2030 damage.

Factoring in delay, assuming we can spam Hundred Blade 24/7, the dps in 3.5 seconds would be about 2030/(3.8/3.5)=1869.74.

And factoring in the +10% GS trait that will take place (net damage% difference of +5% dmg) = 1963.227

The damage difference between Hundred Blade and Axe 1 chain is about 1963.227/1648=1.19 or a 19% difference in damage.

Conclusion: Now compare that 19% damage difference to elementalists superior 1 chain combo (+22% more damage than axe combo).

Using gw2 wiki stats and the trait-set up, and assuming all conditions are met to get all the +dmg% with Ele. traits, Lightning Hammer actually outdamages a Warrior that spams Hundred Blade 24/7 nonstop (calculating sigils in, this may not be the case. I’ll make that calculation below this post)

In addition to the superior damage, elementalist have the ability to buff mesmers DPS by about 50%. Clearly, you’re getting much more damage on net by substituting a GS warrior with an elementalist.

And here’s a post to factor in the final factor, sigils in CoF. Let’s assume Superior Sigil of Smothering and Superior Sigil of Night stacks for +20% damage and it works only for actual weapons, unlike summoned weapons.

470.857*1.2=565.0284

And the damage difference would be 575.38/565.0284=1.018= Lightning Hammer does about 1.8% more damage.

And comparing GS and axe dps with same sigil scenario.:

-In 3.5 seconds, axe does 1648
-But assuming we can stack smothering+night sigil for +20% damage, axe would do 1648*1.2=1977.6
-While in about 3.8 seconds, Hundred Blade does 2030 damage.
-With night sigil, 2030*1.1=2233

Factoring in delay, assuming we can spam Hundred Blade 24/7, the dps in 3.5 seconds would be about 2233/(3.8/3.5)=2056.71

And factoring in the +10% GS trait that will take place (net damage% difference of +5% dmg) = 2056.71*1.05=2159.5455

The damage difference between Hundred Blade and Axe 1 chai (with these freak-ish sigils) is about 2159.5497/1977.6=1.092 or a 9.2%+ dmg difference in damage.

In this freak-ish sigil scenari,o Lightning Hammer only does about 1.8% more damage (than axe) while Hundred Blade being spammed non-stop would do 9.2% more damage. In this case, Hundred Blade being spammed non-stop would do a bit more damage. But Hundred Blades cannot be spammed non-stop and the fact that it swaps back to Axe after Hundred Blade would decrease that damage difference. The difference in damage, in this scenario, would be that GS→ axe Warrior would do slightly more damage than Lightning Hammer elementalist. But even then, with the mesmers damage buffed by about +50% damage, elementalists still contribute more damage on net.

It doesnt seem you took into account Whirlwind Attack, which is an easy 20k+ damage in half a second before swapping to axe (assuming boss is on a wall ofc).

In a practical sense, the warrior will always outperform the thief and thor ele in any dungeon where adds are factored in, and where there is substantial AoE fields or dangerous anti melee mechanics that force repositioning.

The warrior’s design is self sustaining, whereas other classes need ideal circumstances to start competing with the warrior.

Warrior in pve is just absurd. Even if their damage is slightly lower than a thief, you have shout heals and condition clears, group fury, group might, vulnerability for a group, and group rez. You can throw in one banner that gives an absurd amount of stat bonus.

That amount bonus of two stats groupwide is just dumb utility to give a warrior. Especially the precision and critdmg banner, critdmg is among the most powerful stats in the game.

Guys, if you’re going to pop a 4 minute cd skill TWICE per run we are now talking about EIGHT minute runs at best(less than 4 per omnomberry bar, worse than a below average pug’s time). As this is something you are trying to FARM and that is the only reason for wanting to do it fast, you should really limit your runs to rotations that will be sustainable from one run to the next and your times would be from a given point in one run to the same point in your NEXT run.

Phira proved that M/W/T/T/T is viable in speed runs, and can get close to the fastest times.
Strife proved that M/W/W/W/W is currently the fastest time.

/end

Phira.3970:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1g.h3.8.1g.h2|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.cg.67|p53.k6a.p67.0.0|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e
25/20/25

Effective Power 6655.49

In comparison to warrior pure damage traiting

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1g.h2.9.1g.h3|1.1g.h3|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.cg.67|u598.p00.0.0.f5|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

Effective Power = 6082

^It’s actually a bit less than that because the site counts the GS and axe towards effective power, but in reality, you are only using one of them at a time. Once you swap away from GS, you get the +5% dmg trait instead of +10% trait. So the actual effective power may look something more like 6082/1.05=5792.

---

In comparison to the Ele.’s effective power, the damage difference is that the Ele. is doing about 6655.49/5792=1.149007645511344952 or about +15% more damage trait-wise.
—-

So taking into account of traiting with a difference of about +15% damage, the Lightning Hammer dps = 500.76*1.149=575.38

in comparison to Axe chain =470.857

Lightning hammer 1 chain does 575.38/470.857=1.22 or about 22% more damage.

---

[…]

In addition to the superior damage, elementalist have the ability to buff mesmers DPS by about 50%. Clearly, you’re getting much more damage on net by substituting a GS warrior with an elementalist.

You did a lot of math on that topic but the basics are skewed.
First off the calculator website for effective power (which you use as base for following math comparisons) is too easily tricked by damage modifiers.
Sigil of Night and Force dont stack; the calculator doesnt account for that.
For Warriors 10% GS dmg and 5% Axe dmg gets added in 1 package allthough they can only use 1 at a time. You even state that later in your post but conveniently dont do the same for the Ele (since you want the conclusion that ele does more dmg…).

So now the imporpant part of how messed up Ele’s effective power from your link is:

You use +10%dmg traits while in earth and while in air in the same build. You can only be in 1 attunement at a time, so if you decide to run hammer dps you want to grab 20 into water for Piercing Shards and Vital Striking.
Bolt to the heart is only active under 33% target hp which is not accounted for(just means that the EP is even more skewed, its still a good trait for the spec).
You need to trait for 10 extra conjure charges if you want to sustain your hammer auto attack. Even more so if Time Warp is used and the conjure stacks deplete faster.
So you have to give up another +5%dmg to burning foes or rely on your team to keep burning up (which doesnt happen in most cof speedrun groups).

This would be a more realistic hammer build: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1g.h3.8.1g.h17|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|4s.0.3s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0.2s.0|p58.a6.a4.p46.0|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

Math comparisons are well and nice but please dont base them on arbitrary and easily manipulated effective power numbers from such a website.
It just looks like you started your post planning to make the hammer ele out dmg the warrior and slammed into the calculator whatever was needed to get the result, without considering realism.

Allthough i still agree that hammer eles are a worthwile addition to cof 1 or dungeon groups in general but for different reasons than plain dps. Since it is true that Mesmer benefit hugely from the conjure and while the blast finisher/blind may not be needed/wanted in cof 1 it is certainly worth mentioning for other dungeon runs.

If thieves become the most optimal for CoF P1. I’m all for it. My thief is my main. But I still play warrior when doing these runs. Both are fun.

Just FYI about the “effective power” thing from buildcraft. It is only a valid comparison for builds in the same profession using the same weapon. It doesn’t take into consideration skill coefficients, and doesn’t take into consideration dps roations. So without those two things, comparing the results is idiotic. He even points out in the notes that you are only to use that number to compare two builds of the same profession using the same weapon. Reading comprehension FTW.

I just want a video of a group with thieves in it seemingly doing it faster which was suppose to be 2-3weeks ago.

Found this forum while clearing out my bookmarks lol
Also found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWQ-39_C8LI

Nice thread necromancy, you should go work for Anet.

Maybe then necromancers will become viable in this game.

Death…. good.