Guild Wars 2

Not entirely sure if this should be in the bug forum, or general. More of an open question then bug I think. as, it might simply be a design change.

The damage formula is as follows:

Skill coef*weapon damage*power/armor
Armor=toughness+defense.

Well the first thing is the game is lying to us. Open your character sheet and we see defense properly. but we have a stat called “attack”. This stat says, Power+weapon=attack.
Well, thats great, but that is not how damage is calculated. Its not added, its multiplied.

This means your effect of your power is directly proportional to your weapon damage.

And mathematically, toughness falls behind power because of this.

Example: engineer rifle 1.
.599 skill coeff. 1205 exotic rifle. 916 power. vs 916 toughness(level80 default) 1064defense. (note tooltips are based on max damage, and assumed 2600 armor target, aka heavy golems)

.599*1205*916/916+1064=333.9 damage
200power
.599*1205*1116/9161064=406.8 damage 22% increase.
200tough
.599*1205*916/11161064= 303.3 damage 9% decrease in damage.

Power is over twice as effective in increasing damage in this situation, then toughness decreases it. Then consider crit, crit damage.

Why?
power is being divided by toughness and defense.
Toughness is being diluted by adding into defense.
Lets change the formula.
A*B+C/D+E=x

.599*1205+916/916+1064= .599*2121/1980=641.6 damage
200power
.599*12051116/916+1064=.599*2321/1980=702 damage 9.4% increase.
200tough
.599*1205*916/11161064=.599*2121/2180= 582.7 damage 9.2% decrease in damage.
Note, the .599 was based on previous value of being multiplied by 969-1205. A new coeff value would be needed to give a number closer to the 333 balanced for.

Now, we have power and toughness can be added in the formula 1to1. The output is exactly equal as weapon damage and defense are not exactly equal either.
rifle is 1205 max, medium armor is 1064. heavy is more, light is less.(dont have those numbers atm)
Pistols are 1025 max, kits are 969, staffs 1111.

So again, was this a design change? or is this a bug? this is why power outscales conditions and toughness by such a large degree.

Other problems. power scales with 2 handers much much more then 1handers.
a 1205 rifle will deal CONSIDERABLY more damage then a 969 weapon kit, or 1025 pistol. your damage is literately, 2500*1205, vs 2500*1025. Thats a 17% difference in the effect of how much damage power deals.

Which brings us to a new question. Why do weapons have these different weapon damages? they have the same base attack speeds. Rifle does inherently 17% more damage then pistols.. even without even talking about skill coeffs. (granted this could be balanced by pistols having higher base coeffs.. but they don’t)

TLDR: If you double your Power, you double your damage. No other stat in the game scales this well. Power is overpowered.

Correct me if I did not get that right.

However, I do not quite follow you when you say that Power scales much much more for 2 handed weapons than 1 handed weapons. The same rule still applies when it comes to scaling: double your Power, double your damage, for both 1 handers and 2 handers. Yes, 2 handed weapons usually deal more damage, because of what they are: 2 handed weapons. The drawback is the loss of one sigil slot. Furthermore you are comparing rifles to pistols, from an engineer’s perspective I would assume, which is not a fair comparison in my opinion. Pistols are designed to deal a large share of their damage through Condition Damage, which scales less well then Power, as you indicated. This is what puts the pistols at a disadvantage compared to the rifle. If it were the other way around and the rifle’s damage output was largely based on conditions whilst the pistols did direct damage only, it would be the other way around and pistols would scale better than the rifle. It has nothing to do with the weapons being 1 or 2 handed.