Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing for almost a week now and I’ve picked the game up fairly well I just cant find any information on why some classes hit like trucks. I can see when I get caught inside a combo field in pvp and take 10 stacks of burning or something but some physical dps classes & Mesmer in particular I cant seem to grasp.

Is Might stacking or vulnerability stacking a massive boost to DPS? Enough to kill people in a few hits.

I pick things up faster in PvP but eventually I’ll focus more on PvE. Maybe I’m missing something entirely.

Some abilities are instant cast that don’t have an animation, and you can link several of these together.

In the case of a Mesmer: they can use sword 3 to create a clone, if they already had 2 clones up, they’ll use sword 3 again to root you AND teleport to you. From there, they’ll activate a shatter (hits 4 times, each clone and the player), while using sword 2, and if they had Mantra of Pain charged up, they can also cast that at anytime during this rotation without interrupting themselves.
The combo can result in a huge burst.

Dagger/ Pistol Thieves can also do a combo like this: they use pistol 5, then dagger 2. This makes them leapt through the smoke field to gain stealth AFTER THE ANIMATION (this is important to remember). Then,, they can use steal to teleport to you mid animation.
This combo results in the damage from mug(if traited, steal does damage), dagger 2. They gain stealth right on top of you, since stealth is gained after the damage, then they will throw a backstab in before you can roll away.

All classes can do this to some extent, but the classes that can do this the most are thief, ele, and Mesmer.

There’s a whole set of variables that go into play for both PvE and PvP, though it looks like you already noticed a few items.

In short: Yes, might and vulnerability are a massive boost in damage potential universally speaking for all classes.

Beyond that, every class can trait for conditional damage modifiers to further their damage. To name a few:

• Ele: Player must be attuned to fire (10%). Target must be burning (10%)
• Guard: Player must be under the effects of Retaliation (10%). Player must be under the effect of Aegis (20%)
• Mesmer: Additional damage for active clones in play (3% per clone). Use of a Mantra grants additinal damage for the next few seconds (3% per mantra, up to 5 stacks).

Some classes offer group wide buffs to further damage (more common in PvE). To name a few:

• Ranger: Nearby allies are granted 150 precision
• Revenant: Nearby allies are granted 150 Ferocity
• Warrior: Players around banner are granted an additional 170 Power and 170 Condition Damage.

In PvE and WvW, players can consume nourishments to add various attirbutes or additional effects:

• Raw attribute increase
• Increased condition duration
• Increased boon duration
• Lifesteal (health leeching) on a critical strike

After all that is said and done, it ultimately comes down to the skill of the player. Even if a player has all the right skills and buffs slotted, all of that is wasted if the execution isn’t delivered effectively (e.g. player blows skills in inefficient sequences).

There’s a whole lot more that I could probably mention, but a lot you will learn naturally from just experiencing the game. If you have class specific questions you may get more direct answers in each class’s subforum.

That explains alot. Thanks for the help