Guild Wars 2

Hi,
So I finally crafted 3 ascended weapons for my thief: Shortbow, and two pistols.

I run with zerk gear, and a zerk build with a bit of survivability built in. Either way, I have not changed my build in almost a year, so it has gone through a lot of patches.

Before crafting the ascended weapons, I used to be able to chain together two or three unloads for about 8 or 9k each. Now, I am chaining together 11-14k unloads.

I am not sure what has changed, or if the small stat differential between ascended and exotic is more than whats on paper. I am definately noticing bigger numbers since crafting my ascended pistols, and not by a small margin.

Just thought I’d share …

The stat margins are accurate except when accounting critical damage into the mix.

Because crit damage is a multiplier, it’s calculating the base damage of your hit with the improved ascended stats. Do you have ascended armor on as well? An additional 3k damage on just a weapon improvement seems high to me.

I’d be interested in your base numbers and recorded damage on target for just the auto-attack, instead of a multi-hit attack like Unload.

I have an ascended back piece, two rings, and amulet.

Then the 3 weapons, SB and P/P.

But I was getting 9k unloads for a year now, with the ascended gear I listed above. I then add in the ascended pistols, and Im getting 11-14k unloads. Thats an insane spike in damage. Everytime it happens, which is often, my jaw drops because the only class that I am used to seeing that kind of damage is a greatsword warrior(backstabbing thief aside).

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
So I finally crafted 3 ascended weapons for my thief: Shortbow, and two pistols.

I run with zerk gear, and a zerk build with a bit of survivability built in. Either way, I have not changed my build in almost a year, so it has gone through a lot of patches.

Before crafting the ascended weapons, I used to be able to chain together two or three unloads for about 8 or 9k each. Now, I am chaining together 11-14k unloads.

I am not sure what has changed, or if the small stat differential between ascended and exotic is more than whats on paper. I am definately noticing bigger numbers since crafting my ascended pistols, and not by a small margin.

Just thought I’d share …

So i take it your server is winning WvW now right? Because you saw a damage increase, WvW is now unbalanced and your server is leagues ahead of your 2 opponents?

The claims were true, this one guy has a stat increase and no other person on an opposing server has a similar stat increase. All balance is lost!

Disclaimer – this post is in response to the issue of ascended gear in WvW. I don’t know what else you could be talking about, so i apologize if i overlooked something.

For weapons it’s not the stats, it’s the increase in weapon strength. On the other hand if you were using a condition build then it’s pretty ‘meh’ since weapon strength isn’t used for conditions.

If you are staring at numbers all day it might make a difference but in actual play it doesn’t feel any different.

Khisanth.2948:

For weapons it’s not the stats, it’s the increase in weapon strength. On the other hand if you were using a condition build then it’s pretty ‘meh’ since weapon strength isn’t used for conditions.

If you are staring at numbers all day it might make a difference but in actual play it doesn’t feel any different.

The base dmg increase on the weapon dmg itself is only 80 I think (would have to check exact numbers). Of course, that 80 is tossed into some kind of invisible formula to calculate the delivered damage.

Gonna do some quick napkin math and then I’ll post some findings.

Ascended 1h sword: 950-1050 attack [1000 avg]
Exotic 1h sword: 905-1000 attack [952.5 avg]

As you can see, the ascended version has on average 47.5 higher attack, a whole 4.99% stronger than the exotic. This turns out to be a 4.99% boost in outgoing damage, because weapon attack is a multiplier in the damage formula. This 5% higher damage is before calculating in the extra 4 power, 3 precision, and possible 5 extra power or precision on the ascended 1h sword because of the infusion slot.

If you were hitting 8-9k before, you should expect to hit 8.4k-9.5k after upgrading to ascended. To get 11-14ks, you’d need to be running other boosts as well. Have you perhaps changed or added consumables, sigils, or other boosts?

Khisanth.2948:

If you are staring at numbers all day it might make a difference but in actual play it doesn’t feel any different.

That’s bull kitten. For very high damage builds, such as the OP’s Thief, the differences are very clear, and will make the difference between dropping your opponent in 3-4 attacks and giving them enough time to effectively respond after an ambush and surviving.

This is why the claims that ‘Ascended gear is only a 5% increase’ fall apart for WvW. When you add up all of those minor increases and multiply them by the critical damage increase, you end up with a gear imbalance that destroys the competitive nature that Guild Wars 2 promised.

RedShipRaider.9560:

Khisanth.2948:

If you are staring at numbers all day it might make a difference but in actual play it doesn’t feel any different.

That’s bull kitten. For very high damage builds, such as the OP’s Thief, the differences are very clear, and will make the difference between dropping your opponent in 3-4 attacks and giving them enough time to effectively respond after an ambush and surviving.

This is why the claims that ‘Ascended gear is only a 5% increase’ fall apart for WvW. When you add up all of those minor increases and multiply them by the critical damage increase, you end up with a gear imbalance that destroys the competitive nature that Guild Wars 2 promised.

And then when you add up the total stats for every player in WvW on your server, and then compare it with the total stats for every player in WvW on an enemy server, it evens out again.

WvW is balanced on the macro scale.

Malchior.5042:

Khisanth.2948:

For weapons it’s not the stats, it’s the increase in weapon strength. On the other hand if you were using a condition build then it’s pretty ‘meh’ since weapon strength isn’t used for conditions.

If you are staring at numbers all day it might make a difference but in actual play it doesn’t feel any different.

The base dmg increase on the weapon dmg itself is only 80 I think (would have to check exact numbers). Of course, that 80 is tossed into some kind of invisible formula to calculate the delivered damage.

Gonna do some quick napkin math and then I’ll post some findings.

The increase is around 5% to weapon strength. The value will differ depending on weapon type.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage#Direct_damage damage formula, also covers how the numbers on skill tooltips are calculated
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit average damage with crits factored in

Scrambles.2604:

And then when you add up the total stats for every player in WvW on your server, and then compare it with the total stats for every player in WvW on an enemy server, it evens out again.

WvW does not mean ‘zerg’. There are many other ways to compete in WvW, such as roaming and sneaking around to set up portals. When a couple of roamers in Ascended gear can ambush another roaming party in exotic/Ascended mixed gear and kill them before they have a chance to respond it creates an entirely different form of gameplay. In order to be competitive in this environment you either have BiS gear, which Arena Net said would be attainable for all players (and by ‘playing how you want’, which is an entirely different issue) or else you are feed for those who do.

RedShipRaider.9560:

Scrambles.2604:

And then when you add up the total stats for every player in WvW on your server, and then compare it with the total stats for every player in WvW on an enemy server, it evens out again.

WvW does not mean ‘zerg’. There are many other ways to compete in WvW, such as roaming and sneaking around to set up portals. When a couple of roamers in Ascended gear can ambush another roaming party in exotic/Ascended mixed gear and kill them before they have a chance to respond it creates an entirely different form of gameplay. In order to be competitive in this environment you either have BiS gear, which Arena Net said would be attainable for all players (and by ‘playing how you want’, which is an entirely different case) or else you are feed for those who do.

Yeah but your server isn’t the only one with small roaming parties geared out in all ascended. It evens out because all servers have access to the same stuff.

Your havoc team could wreck the map from 4PM to 6PM, but later that night the enemy server sports a similar havoc team that wrecks the map between 1AM and 3AM.

It is balanced on a macro scale. Your BIS roaming squad is a drop of water in a 10 gallon tank.

Working as intended

Ok…here’s some VERY ROUGH napkin math…

• Damage Formula according to wiki

Base Inflicted Damage = Weapon strength x (Power multiplied by skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor) Perform the operation of (Power x skill-specific coefficient first. Unload’s co-efficient is 0.3 according to wiki.guildwars2.com

So…let’s input Unload into the formula. Not knowing your power or crit damage, I’m just going to use 2000 power and Crit Damage of +200% (being a thief, i imagine you’re maxed on crit dmg)

920-1080 x (4800) / 2200 -unload hits 8 times. 600 is the base of 1 projectile of unload with 2000 power.

• 2200 is a base value for a medium armor target. May not be accurate, pulled it from gwskills.net 2000 base for light armor, 2200 base for medium armor, 2600 base for heavy armor. I guess they used the PvP golem targets for reference. PvE mobs may have even less armor.

Calculating at max possible weapon range of 1080 – Base Damage= 2356

Crit dmg will be applied to the end of the base formula above

• Base Inflicted Damage x 2 = Actual Inflicted Damage, where Actual Inflicted Damage is the number evidenced in the combat flash and the combat log. (x 2 is used as an easy representation of 200% crit damage [150% base along with +50% through gear, food, traits, runes, etc…])

Actual Inflicted Damage= 4712

Using the above formula – the largest factors to improving your output of damage (separate from crit damage) are Power of skill/Armor. More Power almost serves as a point of “Armor Penetration” since the goal would be to reduce the disparity of values in the equation of Power/Armor. The other key factor would be the Power Co-efficient within the skill, but for the formulas listed above, I can see why Anet would keep these coefficients hidden.

I know 4712 is nothing near the numbers you recorded, but with the above formula above, perhaps you can calculate what the damage total differences should be between your exotic weapon (which hopefully you still have one to test) and your ascended weapon.

Just take the values from your character stats and base weapon damage of your ascended pistols and compare to stats and values of exotic pistols. Whatever value you use for enemy armor, keep it the same for each equation.

All the stat bonuses etc. get increased further by traits etc. You could also have easily been hitting a more squishy target (there are more full tank/full glass and fewer inbetween in general from what I’ve seen).

Scrambles.2604:

WvW is balanced on the macro scale.

Implying that WvW is balanced?

Scrambles.2604:

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
So I finally crafted 3 ascended weapons for my thief: Shortbow, and two pistols.

I run with zerk gear, and a zerk build with a bit of survivability built in. Either way, I have not changed my build in almost a year, so it has gone through a lot of patches.

Before crafting the ascended weapons, I used to be able to chain together two or three unloads for about 8 or 9k each. Now, I am chaining together 11-14k unloads.

I am not sure what has changed, or if the small stat differential between ascended and exotic is more than whats on paper. I am definately noticing bigger numbers since crafting my ascended pistols, and not by a small margin.

Just thought I’d share …

So i take it your server is winning WvW now right? Because you saw a damage increase, WvW is now unbalanced and your server is leagues ahead of your 2 opponents?

The claims were true, this one guy has a stat increase and no other person on an opposing server has a similar stat increase. All balance is lost!

Disclaimer – this post is in response to the issue of ascended gear in WvW. I don’t know what else you could be talking about, so i apologize if i overlooked something.

Couldn’t be more off the mark buddy.

Just pointing out that I am seeing a 4-5k increase in dmg for an ability, which is cornerstone to a p/p build.

Malchior: ty for the effort

Maths aside, its just something that Ive noticed over the past week or so since Ive had the pistols. I’ve noticed it on world bosses and dungeon bosses.

The most recent example was dwayna, over 14k in one unload. Ive never seen anywhere near that before, and Im using the same spec and have completed dwayna countless times.

Are you sure you haven’t changed anything else about your build? Traits, consumables, sigils, runes, might stacks, vulnerability stacks, bloodlust stacks?

If you give your stats from the hero panel whilst wielding your Ascended weapon and also with your exotic that’d make it a lot easier for people to do the analysis.

cesmode.4257:

Malchior: ty for the effort

Maths aside, its just something that Ive noticed over the past week or so since Ive had the pistols. I’ve noticed it on world bosses and dungeon bosses.

The most recent example was dwayna, over 14k in one unload. Ive never seen anywhere near that before, and Im using the same spec and have completed dwayna countless times.

I would expect it on world bosses that aren’t structures (structured bosses being the dragons or large meta events).

If you saw 14k on avatar of Dwayna in Malchor’s Leap, I’ll just assume there was a large group and she had 25 Vuln constantly…(back to napkin math)

25% of 4712=1178

1178+4712=5890

Using your original dmg reports of 8-9k turning into 11-14k…

25% of 8000=2000

10,000+the additional 5% damage gained from asc weapon stats as defined by Sins=10,500 at the high end.

We’re getting close to the mythical 11k, and I don’t know the armor value of Avatar of Dwayna, so despite it’s weirdness, it may be accurate. If you’re really curious, go test it out on some guards or mercenaries in WvW (provided u dont have guard or merc damage traits).

And to everyone turning this thread about numbers and peculiar differences into a WvW derail rant…there are PLENTY of WvW threads for you to rant within the WvW forums. Thanks.

cesmode.4257:

Scrambles.2604:

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
So I finally crafted 3 ascended weapons for my thief: Shortbow, and two pistols.

I run with zerk gear, and a zerk build with a bit of survivability built in. Either way, I have not changed my build in almost a year, so it has gone through a lot of patches.

Before crafting the ascended weapons, I used to be able to chain together two or three unloads for about 8 or 9k each. Now, I am chaining together 11-14k unloads.

I am not sure what has changed, or if the small stat differential between ascended and exotic is more than whats on paper. I am definately noticing bigger numbers since crafting my ascended pistols, and not by a small margin.

Just thought I’d share …

So i take it your server is winning WvW now right? Because you saw a damage increase, WvW is now unbalanced and your server is leagues ahead of your 2 opponents?

The claims were true, this one guy has a stat increase and no other person on an opposing server has a similar stat increase. All balance is lost!

Disclaimer – this post is in response to the issue of ascended gear in WvW. I don’t know what else you could be talking about, so i apologize if i overlooked something.

Couldn’t be more off the mark buddy.

Just pointing out that I am seeing a 4-5k increase in dmg for an ability, which is cornerstone to a p/p build.

haha no worries, that’s why i added the disclaimer. Thanks for letting us know that gear with higher stats also puts out higher numbers, i had no idea.