Guild Wars 2

When looking at popular builds you see one common theme. Especially in PvP builds tend to go for extremes. You either have full glass-cannons or bunker builds. Very few professions compete with balanced builds.

I believe partially responsible for this fact is the way stats scale in GW2 and that they seem to lack any kind of Diminishing Returns. Going from 1000 Power to 2000 Power will double your DPS, and going to 3000 Power will increase it again by the same amount.

I believe all stats (except Toughness) work this way and it encourages people to build for extremes. Diminishing Returns have the advantage that they limit the extent to which people can push into one direction (be it bunker of cannon) as increased investment into one stat will yield less and less benefit.

Most MMOs have some sort of Diminishing Returns built into their stat system but GW2 does not.

Maybe this is something that should be considered for the future, especially now that we’re getting a new tier of gear.

People do it because they want to be effective. If halfway builds were effective, people would do it. Diminishing returns would just limit the possibilities we have and for some classes, we already have limited possibilities in how many viable builds we have. I think ArenaNet has to work on that first before they worry about stat soft caps.

There are a couple problems with diminishing returns (DR).

First, it makes things more complicated for casual gamers. As you put in your post, if you double your power, you’ll about double your DPS. Pretty straightforward and easy to understand. If you put in a DR system, then theory-crafting guys like me who are good with spreadsheets will figure out all the optimums giving us a leg up on the casual gamers who just want to play the game.

Second, the game has already been balanced as is (I almost typed that with a straight face). Any implementation of a DR system would necessitate a rebalancing of most of the games more complicated fights to allow for lower damage and/or lower defenses. On the other hand, given just how out of whack some of the difficulties are in dungeons and story missions, that might not be a bad idea anyway

Ultimately, DR doesn’t actually do anything, even in other games. The game if it’s well designed accounts for optimums. It doesn’t matter if those optimums come from straight linear progression of stats or from a complicated DR system.

Toughness works the same way as the other stats, no diminishing returns, by the way.

A misconception in the top post: doubling power will not double your damage. To double your damage you need to double (power + weapon strength).

Given that weapon strength is about the same as your naked power, it would take a considerable amount of power on your gear to double that base. You’d need roughly 2k power on your gear to do it. (hint: you get 315 power from 6 piece exotic armor)

Bad idea. Let people play as they like.

I do awesomely with a 20/15/20/15 attribute spread, and amazingly well rounded stats in PvP…

If you’re going to revive a week-old thread, it bears noting that the top post has bad misinformation about how stats work in GW2. In particular the claim that you might double your damage going from 1k to 2k power on your gear is wrong.

mulch.2586:

If you’re going to revive a week-old thread, it bears noting that the top post has bad misinformation about how stats work in GW2. In particular the claim that you might double your damage going from 1k to 2k power on your gear is wrong.

The claim is correct, the Attack value in Characterscreen which show Weapondmg + Power is completely useless for the damage calculation.

When you go from 1k power to 2k power, you WILL do double dmg

As you can see in the damage formula, power is multiplied with weapon damage: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

andreasels.3918:

mulch.2586:

If you’re going to revive a week-old thread, it bears noting that the top post has bad misinformation about how stats work in GW2. In particular the claim that you might double your damage going from 1k to 2k power on your gear is wrong.

The claim is correct, the Attack value in Characterscreen which show Weapondmg + Power is completely useless for the damage calculation.

When you go from 1k power to 2k power, you WILL do double dmg

As you can see in the damage formula, power is multiplied with weapon damage: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

You linked it, but you’re drawing an erroneous conclusion.

Plug in the numbers from your character. You can go naked in the mists with a pvp weapon to try it out.

It’s (weapon damage + 916 naked + gear + traits) So naked your multiplier is about 2k. To double damage, you have to double that multiplier, i.e. add 2k of power with your gear. A whole set of zerker armor gets you just over 300.

mulch.2586:

andreasels.3918:

mulch.2586:

If you’re going to revive a week-old thread, it bears noting that the top post has bad misinformation about how stats work in GW2. In particular the claim that you might double your damage going from 1k to 2k power on your gear is wrong.

The claim is correct, the Attack value in Characterscreen which show Weapondmg + Power is completely useless for the damage calculation.

When you go from 1k power to 2k power, you WILL do double dmg

As you can see in the damage formula, power is multiplied with weapon damage: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

You linked it, but you’re drawing an erroneous conclusion.

Plug in the numbers from your character. You can go naked in the mists with a pvp weapon to try it out.

It’s (weapon damage + 916 naked + gear + traits) So naked your multiplier is about 2k. To double damage, you have to double that multiplier, i.e. add 2k of power with your gear. A whole set of zerker armor gets you just over 300.

If it should be additive and not multiplicative, then why are you the only one who says so?
Why did so many ppl test it and got to the conclusion that double power = double damage?

I thought we had DR anyway, or are the drops just garbage in general?

andreasels.3918:

mulch.2586:

andreasels.3918:

mulch.2586:

If you’re going to revive a week-old thread, it bears noting that the top post has bad misinformation about how stats work in GW2. In particular the claim that you might double your damage going from 1k to 2k power on your gear is wrong.

The claim is correct, the Attack value in Characterscreen which show Weapondmg + Power is completely useless for the damage calculation.

When you go from 1k power to 2k power, you WILL do double dmg

As you can see in the damage formula, power is multiplied with weapon damage: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

You linked it, but you’re drawing an erroneous conclusion.

Plug in the numbers from your character. You can go naked in the mists with a pvp weapon to try it out.

It’s (weapon damage + 916 naked + gear + traits) So naked your multiplier is about 2k. To double damage, you have to double that multiplier, i.e. add 2k of power with your gear. A whole set of zerker armor gets you just over 300.

If it should be additive and not multiplicative, then why are you the only one who says so?
Why did so many ppl test it and got to the conclusion that double power = double damage?

So honestly, you can equip a weapon in the mists, take off your amulet and runes, and smack a golem to see what you get. They even have “steady” weapons so you don’t have RNG from the weapon.

You have 916 in every stat while completely naked as providence at lvl 80. If we’re looking at direct damage on regular hits, to double the damage you have to double it all. So naked with a 2-h weapon I have about 2k (depending what the traits are). It’s simply not possible to get an additional 2k power from your gear. The largest amount on a stat from any of the karma exotic kits is 236. I think full berserker gives you ~320 power.

Do you see it now? You’re not gonna get high enough to do even double damage of a naked character.

Add to this there’s so far +11 power going from exotic to ascended ring or backpiece. The grand total is approx 1.25% increased damage for a typical character if you get all 3 pieces in zerker form.

Yes +11 to the main stat seems like a lot. But it’s 1/10 the variability from RNG, and about .004 of your total damage.

You identified the problem, but don’t think proposed workable solution.

Again, the problem is level of specialization required to make one thing work. For example, basic fear is 1.5 seconds, you can gear and spec to make it ~7 seconds. One extreme is nearly-useless, while other extreme is broken. This design ideology present throughout the game – whatever you chose to do, burst, crits, conditions, freezing, bunkering – you have to ultra-specialize into it to make it work.

Burst wouldn’t be a problem if people could make viable choices in-between glass cannon and full-blown bunker. Currently you can’t – half-bunker half-glass cannon has nether survivability nor burst.

Underlying design problem is stacking multipliers – be it % crit damage, condition duration or protection duration. They are not flat +effect, they all combine and multiply off each-other, so the more you stack, the more each additional one contributes.

Another example – might stacking. Goes up to 25 stacks for +900 power/cond. You can’t eve make it that far unless you stack +might duration, but when you do you can easily ride at ~30 second might duration that lets you sit at 25 stacks.

the only thing where DR is needed to be added is the player’s tolerance towards the game’s direction