Guild Wars 2

Noticing a lot of new, or less knowledgeable players are having trouble with cumulative damage at the moment.

For example a warrior axe #5 may display 1000, 2000,3000,4000,5000 damage. But each time it is only actually dealing 1000 damage (total 5000). however I’ve lately met a lot of people who think they are dealing 1000+2000+3000+4000+5000 damage ( total 15000).
Some are even getting really defensive in the “fact” they are doing 15000 damage with this one skill.

The combat log shows the individual hit numbers.
Could the numbers on screen be changed so as to be less confusing to those who don’t know about the cumulative damage on skills?

Axe #5 can/does hit for 15,000ish damage though…

*Hint: it doesn’t just hit 5 times

As if my original post needed any more proof of concept. Tman is here to demonstrate my point. <3

So if I use my flamethrower and spam 1 real quick I can hit 150k dmg.
How much dmg do I do on each hit ?

Is it doing more damage over time?
I’m confused.

Sometimes I see my GS Skill 2 hit for 30K or Pistol Whip hit for 20K.
How much damage am I actually doing per hit ?

How can I tell how much damage I’m actually doing if these numbers are cumulative?
I’m confused can you explain this stuff to me?

What Artemis is saying (correctly, I believe) is the numbers that flash up are the cumulative total. So the Axe skill hits 5 times for 1,000 each, for example. Because it’s all one (series of) attack(s) – that is to say, the result of a single key press/click, the game tracks each individual hit and provides a visual “damage so far” total. The reason it tracks every individual hit is that any one (or more) of them can crit, or may have extra effects added on to it.

But, if you see this flash up on the screen:
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000

You’ve just done 5,000 damage total. Not 15,000

TPMN.1483:

I’m confused.

Sometimes I see my GS Skill 2 hit for 30K or Pistol Whip hit for 20K.
How much damage am I actually doing per hit ?

How can I tell how much damage I’m actually doing if these numbers are cumulative?
I’m confused can you explain this stuff to me?

That question is ironic .. isn’kitten

Nonetheless i answer : just look into the combat log .. also pistol whip has 9 hits
so one hit would more or less do 20k/9 .. or if you see 1000 – 2200 – 3500 on the
screen the first did 1000 .. the second 1200 and the third 1300 ..

Really so complicated ? (i still hope it was ironic)

Artemis is totally correct.

I’ve seen the cumulative damage counter many a time. I know how it works and I realise other people get confused over it. Heck- I used to think wrongly as well until I played something with a number 1 skill that hits multiple times per cast.

Here’s a quick explanation:
- I was on my tank engi in battle of khylo (pvp) just spamming 1 to slowly kill the enemy treb.
-The bar was going down steadily and evenly. (Let’s say for arguments sake that I was doing 1000 dmg each flamethrower hit)
-It counts up to 125k damage or more eventually on the counter, but the treb’s health bar is still moving evenly.
- If I was doing increasingly more damage each time I hit the treb, the health bar of the treb would decrease exponentially (increasingly faster).

If you don’t believe me, try for yourself with a number 1 skill that hits multiple times per cast (e.g. mesmer greatsword, engi flamethrower).

Good dps yo.

Taku.6352:

Good dps yo.

over a million damage?!?

Flame Thrower OP! Plz nerf Anet, K? Thanks!

/s

Taku.6352:

Good dps yo.

I thought they fixed that bug a couple of patches ago.

Tman.6349:

Axe #5 can/does hit for 15,000ish damage though…

You are absolutely right! Genius!

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Noticing a lot of new, or less knowledgeable players are having trouble with cumulative damage at the moment.

For example a warrior axe #5 may display 1000, 2000,3000,4000,5000 damage. But each time it is only actually dealing 1000 damage (total 5000). however I’ve lately met a lot of people who think they are dealing 1000+2000+3000+4000+5000 damage ( total 15000).
Some are even getting really defensive in the “fact” they are doing 15000 damage with this one skill.

The combat log shows the individual hit numbers.
Could the numbers on screen be changed so as to be less confusing to those who don’t know about the cumulative damage on skills?

Its called channeled skill and it was normal in all MMO and MOBA games, and in most RPG games I played.
Lets change the industry together.

Btw.: now i somehow wish i could see a cumulative healing value when i use pistol whip and signet of malice

Harny.6012:

Its called channeled skill and it was normal in all MMO and MOBA games, and in most RPG games I played.
Lets change the industry together.

The problem with that is pretty straight forward though..
Many times in interviews anet have marketed gw2 as such: " if you like mmos, you’ll like gw2. If you don’t like mmos, you’ll love gw2".

Game is being marketed at mmo noobs. They are probably not familiar with the concept of cumulative damage.

I’m fine with cumulative damage showing for one use of a skill. I’m not fine with repeated uses of the same channel (e.g., Flamethrower Flame Jet) showing cumulative damage across multiple channels. This was still happening last night, so afaik has not been fixed.

Wouldn’t it be easier if there was an option to not show cumulative damage as default..

Then when I hit something – I really understand what the actual damage I really did for that hit was.

This would probably enlighten a lot of people how much damage things do in a clearer way without having to peer into the combat logs?

If they want to see as a menu option:
1) cumulative damage done per skill
2) damage done vs a particular foe from you (cumulative total- resets to 0 when you swap for).

This would probably make things a lot clearer for everyone to see what’s really going on.

TPMN.1483:

Wouldn’t it be easier if there was an option to not show cumulative damage as default..

Then when I hit something – I really understand what the actual damage I really did for that hit was.

This would probably enlighten a lot of people how much damage things do in a clearer way without having to peer into the combat logs?

If they want to see as a menu option:
1) cumulative damage done per skill
2) damage done vs a particular foe from you (cumulative total- resets to 0 when you swap for).

This would probably make things a lot clearer for everyone to see what’s really going on.

and then try to read all the numbers flying around the screen? -_-

Khisanth.2948:

TPMN.1483:

Wouldn’t it be easier if there was an option to not show cumulative damage as default..

Then when I hit something – I really understand what the actual damage I really did for that hit was.

This would probably enlighten a lot of people how much damage things do in a clearer way without having to peer into the combat logs?

If they want to see as a menu option:
1) cumulative damage done per skill
2) damage done vs a particular foe from you (cumulative total- resets to 0 when you swap for).

This would probably make things a lot clearer for everyone to see what’s really going on.

and then try to read all the numbers flying around the screen? -_-

But that was my absolute favorite thing about an SS necro in gw1. Was glorious if you set it off on a large enough group.

I must say that having played since beta, this thread is the first I realized the numbers were cumulative, not increasing per hit. Now, I don’t actually pay attention to my damage numbers much (I have no idea how one of my guildies can keep talking about his crit amounts in a dungeon run, I’m too busy fighting to see numbers, also I’m not a min-maxer and I don’t really care for numeric details).

I’ve played MMOs for many years (DaoC, Horizons, WoW, AoC, LotRO, Rift, Aion, to name a few). And I had no idea this was how damage readouts were structured. So yes, I believe it could be quite confusing to new players as well.

I was discussing something with a friend in a dungeon the other day, critting for X amount on sword 3 the other day.
One of the other warriors in the team perked up and said "but I hit for like 20k per hit on hundred blades.
A lot of people don’t understand it’s actually counting up the 5k every time, it’s not an obvious concept and I’m surprised gw2 has this sort of thing in it considering the NPE is meant to dumb down make Guild Wars 2 easier to understand and play.

So what skills show cumulative damage?

Is there a full list.

I’m starting to think it may be better to show non-cumulative damage by default.

TPMN.1483:

So what skills show cumulative damage?

Is there a full list.

I’m starting to think it may be better to show non-cumulative damage by default.

Yes, there is full list
https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=ikG-VPCzB8Sq8weAx4CgBQ&gws_rd=ssl#q=channeled+skills+gw2

I would much prefer to have every individual hit show its damage. An option to toggle cumulative damage on/off would be great.

EDIT: Never mind, I see what you’re saying now.

Maybe have the option to replace the numbers altogether with a graphical indicator, e.g. show the health bars of any targets you hit prominently, and color a section of the bar corresponding to the damage you dealt, with critical hits in a separate flashing section.

I love it when Hunter’s Call does this lame cumulative 5k damage only to have my pet also hit for roughly 5k and cover it up so I have a hard time figuring out which was which.

DarkWasp.7291:

I love it when Hunter’s Call does this lame cumulative 5k damage only to have my pet also hit for roughly 5k and cover it up so I have a hard time figuring out which was which.

So why are you refusing to use the combat log?

Khisanth.2948:

DarkWasp.7291:

I love it when Hunter’s Call does this lame cumulative 5k damage only to have my pet also hit for roughly 5k and cover it up so I have a hard time figuring out which was which.

So why are you refusing to use the combat log?

Because I’m in a dungeon/fractal and I need to use/see party chat.

In addition, digging through that log is not an easy task in the middle of a battle as it keeps updating.