Guild Wars 2

Me and a couple of others just started playing GW2 a few months ago and have all got our first L80’s. My friend was all excited about his thief switching from 2 daggers to the staff and doing a lot more damage. I’ve got matching greatsword and longbow for my ranger, and the greatsword clearly gets things dead quicker.

Started me thinking – Are straight-up weapon combos (all things being equal) basically equivalent in overall DPS between 2 weapons vs 2 handed weapons, or how should I compare?

Also, melee seems to do more DPS than ranged (as it should), but looking at identical (really identical) weapon stats, I’m wondering how to compare that too?

Obviously, skill choice is a major factor in choosing weapons, but I’d like to only talk about the weapons apart from class skills in this thread please!

Thanks!

1h sword and horn/torch will do more damage then greatsword if you can get used to the horrible auto attack on the sword

I’m not exactly sure what your question is, but generally, regarding dps what matters is: the weapon skill(its coefficient), the skill’s cooldown and the overall stats you have equipped. Basically you have your total stat pool towards which everything you wear contributes and from that stat pool each skill uses the relevant stats to do damage.

Changing weapon setup (from ranged to melee or from 2h to 2×1h) changes the way you play and your skills, but assuming said weapons are of the same rarity and stat combo, there is no difference at all in their stat contribution.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage
hope that helps

Linken.6345:

1h sword and horn/torch will do more damage then greatsword if you can get used to the horrible auto attack on the sword

1. Offhand Axe is better dps than either torch or Wh
2. Sword AA on ranger is actually pretty good nowadays since they went and fixed the horrible kick animation etc. a while ago.

Now to the OP: Ranger dps, no matter how disappointing it is is largely dependent on well timed weapon swaps to make use of Quick Draw on the most efficient skills. You seem to be comparing your performance to a thief, which I would not recommend since your dps will always seem lackluster in comparison(sidenote: D/D is more or less equivalent dps to staff on a thief if used correctly, aside from the extra cleave from staff).

The question here really does boil down to whether you reeeally want to min/max your dps or just do “a lot” of damage. Since in most open world PvE scenarios you’re honestly better off with the GS since it is more fun to use. Just keep in mind that a big number here and there(Maul) doesn’t make GS a good weapon(2nd sidenote: Best dps on a ranger is currently viper condi afaik). Also, open world PvE mobs are made of pudding so one big swing might be better than a lot of small ones in succession in that case anyways(different story if the thing you’re killing has a few million hp).

So are all weapons equal when it comes to damage? Short answer is no. As far as PvE goes you can comfortably run the highest dps weaponry. When faced up against other players the weapons that have the highest utility value(soft CCs, Evades etc.) are better.

Also if you wish to compare separate weapon dps by yourself(would not recommend btw) you can check the coefficients for the skills from the wiki, factor in cooldowns and whatnot and land on the exact same conclusion for weapons that most ppl run anyways.

http://qtfy.enjin.com/ranger

Few builds that you may want to look into. Note that the druid builds are mostly for support and highest pure damage option is SB/axe&torch core ranger build. All weapon sets are definitely not equal in terms of damage output if that was the question.

Since you’ve just started out, I’m going to give you some more general advice that I think answers your question.

All weapons essentially give you the same stats. If you look at the stats given by two axes versus the stats given by one greatsword, they will be the same. In order to figure out what does more damage, you need to look at the damage on the weapon skill tooltips.

You’re right that melee typically does more damage than ranged, and the way you could verify that is looking at the damage on your melee skill tooltips vs ranged skill tooltips. Also pay attention to things like attack speed and cooldowns.

Starting out, I recommend just using the weapons you enjoy. However if you want to get into higher difficulty content like raids and upper tier fractals, I recommend going off a guide. http://qtfy.engin.com/builds is my go to source for raid builds, and even for more casual content those builds can give you some good ideas because they are optimized for max damage.

Hope this helps