Guild Wars 2

I didn’t check during the period after ascended weapon update but currently it is 969 like before after the nerf, so unless theres a tooltip bug, apart from eles and engineers who were shafted, are mesmers also now comparatively weaker?

Using a steady weapon vs a normal pvp weapon in Heart of the Mists indicate that phantasms do have their own weapon strength since non-phantasms skill deal massive lower damage as stated on the tooltip while phants just deal pretty much the same damage irrespective of weapon strength.

Tests against dummies in LA by summoning an iSwordsman in s/s then swapping to s/f to achieve a slightly lower weapon strength without impacting other stats showed no difference. However when the same experiment was done with using cleric vs zerker, a difference does occurs (phantasm damage scale according to stats dynamically rather than their stats being determined at the moment of casting, but not to weapon strength.)

ed: DISREGARD I’M DUMB

Huh.. nope! Weapon strength is being used!
Check the formula on the wiki.
skills have no base damage

As for the weapon strength of phantasms, isn’t 969 the exact same as that of elem conjures? If I remember correctly conjures were buffed from 925 to 969 to match ascended stuff.

Of course weapon strength is used in almost all damage calculations. I’m not sure about reflections here, though.

Of course Conjures were buffed from 969 by 5% but that was unintentional and was patched right away.

Dub.1273:

Of course Conjures were buffed from 969 by 5% but that was unintentional and was patched right away.

Hm that’s not exactly what I understood: if I am not mistaken they were buffed quite some time ago, around the dragon bash patch. Then the 03/09 patch had a bug and they just fixed the bug.
I have not tested any of this however, so I could very well be wrong.

Dub.1273:

Of course weapon strength is used in almost all damage calculations. I’m not sure about reflections here, though.

Maybe I’m thinking of the Attack stat that’s not used, but isn’t that just Power + Weapon Strength?

Yeah attack isnt used but weapon strength is. Not sure about how you calculate with utilities though. Do you just use the mainhand weapon strength?

spoj.9672:

Yeah attack isnt used but weapon strength is. Not sure about how you calculate with utilities though. Do you just use the mainhand weapon strength?

ah well boo on me for being dumb then

iirc phantasms’ power depend solely on traits

I think utilities scale with the level of the player

Thats what it says on the wiki yeah but how does that alter the formula then? subbing in 80 instead of 969 is going to produce some pretty weird results.

Not all of the wiki is accurate or up to date.

There is a formula for the damage of utilities, but I don’t know it. All I know is that they scale on the level of the character.
So instead of putting " coefficient * weapon damage / target armor" in the formula, you just take the lvl 80 damage as stated on the wiki, divided by 916 (base lvl 80 power) and multiplied by default target armor (2600) to get the damage component you need.
To calculate final damage you just multiply that component by all modifiers, by your power, and divide it by your target’s armor.

Edited to mention armor.

Edit2:
so for glyph of storms
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Storms
lvl 80 damage is 122
Therefore with my 2200 power I would deal: 122 / 916 * 2200 = 293 (on a 2600 armor target)

Zelyhn.8069:

Dub.1273:

Of course Conjures were buffed from 969 by 5% but that was unintentional and was patched right away.

Hm that’s not exactly what I understood: if I am not mistaken they were buffed quite some time ago, around the dragon bash patch. Then the 03/09 patch had a bug and they just fixed the bug.
I have not tested any of this however, so I could very well be wrong.

afaik it has always been 969 apart from the ascended update where it was higher shortly before they ‘fixed’ it.
The first recorded of conjure weapon strength value of 969 was back in December 10.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Conjure&oldid=458596

Wukunlin.8461:

iirc phantasms’ power depend solely on traits

Phantasm damage is also dependant on the mesmer’s power and crit damage, they just do not inherit +damage modifiers from traits/runes/sigils except for the traits that specifically states for their damage. Gaining and losing Might stacks dynamically makes your phantasms deal more damage or less as you gain or lose them. Putting might on the phantasm itself is useless though.

Phantasms inherit your crit-chance but fury has to be applied on the phantasm, fury on mesmer does not make the phantasm crit more.

Illusions inherit your toughness but not your vitality.

Afaik they haven’t changed this one either:
Condis dealt by illusions deal damage based on your condi damage but cannot be extended by condi duration.

In Puandro’s spreadsheet I found a “conjure weapon damage” of 925. But then his spreadsheet is unfortunately not always accurate, so it could be that conjures always had a 969 weapon strength. I just remember that around the dragon bash patch it was said that conjures started dealing more damage.

Sounds like Phantasm are a huge mess!

Is it true that phantasms don’t count for Compounding Power as well? Just another stupid broken-butt trait for Mesmers, if so.

Nah, that was fixed lately… stealth fixed.

Regarding reflects and utilities, indeed they do not use weapon strength. This is obviously seen when you kill something with utilities or reflects; Arcane skills for ele count as sword, reflected projectiles count as rifle/pistol/bow/staff etc depending on the reflected skill; in these cases something else is being used as weapon strength and not your own. They still scale with your power/crit damage and have your crit chance however, i.e. having might and fury while you reflect does help, if in PuG for Arah p1, it would be faster if you solo’ed the Jotun boss than have tank/heal guardian reflecting.