Guild Wars 2

Hello guys!

I am looking to transfer my main from warrior to elementalist, so I would like to know what PvE meta is currently in use!

I plan to use that build for everything, including solo gameplay.

Thank you in advance!

Either staff or d/f.

There is a chance the best stats/trait point allocations may change due to the huge damage nerf today, so be mindful of that.

Prior to today’s update the best trait point allocations for staff were:

66002, 64202, 64220, and in rare circumstances 66200 when you won’t be using meteor shower and the boss dies fast enough for tempest defense to be worthwhile. 64004 for when you need renewing stamina + blasting staff.

For d/f the trait point allocations are 66002 or 66200 depending on whether or not you need renewing stamina.

Purple Miku.7032:

Either staff or d/f.

There is a chance the best stats/trait point allocations may change due to the huge damage nerf today, so be mindful of that.

Prior to today’s update the best trait point allocations for staff were:

66002, 64202, 64220, and in rare circumstances 66200 when you won’t be using meteor shower and the boss dies fast enough for tempest defense to be worthwhile. 64004 for when you need renewing stamina + blasting staff.

For d/f the trait point allocations are 66002 or 66200 depending on whether or not you need renewing stamina.

What about gear, runes? Can you give me build editor link?

What huge damage nerf?

Welcome to the Elementalist family!

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Conjure

That should get you started.

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/

I’d recommend giving that a read. Staff builds are usually 64220 or 62222. You don’t need 6 points in Air for staff (you could argue 5 to help vuln stacking, but eh…up to you).

Gear is Zerker with either scholar or strength runes (depending on preferences). However, I run with Valk armor and Zerk everything else. That extra bit of HP has kept me alive just long enough to keep doing damage. (Rule 1 of DPS, dead DPS = no DPS).

Scepter is good for bursts fights, but is usually used to stack a ton of might and conjure weapons (which I find boring). D/F is fun (I also recommend searching on youtube for Zelhyn’s video for the rotation) if the rest of your group can keep bosses from eating your face. Otherwise, stick to Staff to learn the ropes. (Boring, but effective)

Purple Miku.7032:

Either staff or d/f.

There is a chance the best stats/trait point allocations may change due to the huge damage nerf today, so be mindful of that.

Prior to today’s update the best trait point allocations for staff were:

66002, 64202, 64220, and in rare circumstances 66200 when you won’t be using meteor shower and the boss dies fast enough for tempest defense to be worthwhile. 64004 for when you need renewing stamina + blasting staff.

For d/f the trait point allocations are 66002 or 66200 depending on whether or not you need renewing stamina.

What huge damage nerf? All they changed this patch was things related to stability, nothing else was changed, wat?

I guess Purple Miku talk about the scaling change that nerf for about 10-15% our damage in low level dungeon. I don’t think it will change build since it’s the scaling that changed, but who know.

There is three family of build for the Ele in PvE.

Staff : Highest dps, give a small amount of might and decent amount of fury to the group. It’s the simplest build to use.

S/D or S/F with LH : You sacrifice a bit of damage (about 8-10% less dps than staff) to give a high amount of might to your party. It’s a bit more complex to play since you gonna use jump attunement frequently and you have long rotation to memorize and use in combat.

D/F : You sacrifice even more damage (about 15% less dps than staff), but you gain a decent might and fury stacking capability while having access to a good amount of survivability skill, making it ideal for harder content like high level fractal. It’s also arguably the most fun and complex to play.

metabattle have a good starting base for the builds, but the nice thing about Elementalist pve builds (especially staff and S/X) is that several good option are available depending on the need of your party. Do you need more might? Do you need more fury? Do you need more vulnerability? Will your party freeze the boss?, etc.

Thaddeus.4891:

I guess Purple Miku talk about the scaling change that nerf for about 10-15% our damage in low level dungeon. I don’t think it will change build since it’s the scaling that changed, but who know.

I don’t think i would ever care about damage in PvE, especially not in lower level content.

Elementalist will always be useful in PvE, no matter how much damage he deals.

EDIT: Besides there is nothing of that sort mentioned in the March 16 patch, and even if that happens, doesn’t that mean that everyone will be affected by that change?

Is the sticky about dungeon builds no longer relevant? I found it helpful when starting out. All of the weapon combinations explained and builds hashed out really helped me play ele and decide what I like.

Lawful.5314:

Thaddeus.4891:

I guess Purple Miku talk about the scaling change that nerf for about 10-15% our damage in low level dungeon. I don’t think it will change build since it’s the scaling that changed, but who know.

I don’t think i would ever care about damage in PvE, especially not in lower level content.

Elementalist will always be useful in PvE, no matter how much damage he deals.

EDIT: Besides there is nothing of that sort mentioned in the March 16 patch, and even if that happens, doesn’t that mean that everyone will be affected by that change?

Man if you think that everything is mentionned in patch notes you have a lot to learn. Anet is the worst company when it come to patch notes.

Yup that’s why i’m not sure if that’s what Purple Miku meant. That’s the only damage nerf I can see, but I don’t think it’s gonna change much as everything will be equally affected by this.

rhapsody.3615:

Is the sticky about dungeon builds no longer relevant? I found it helpful when starting out. All of the weapon combinations explained and builds hashed out really helped me play ele and decide what I like.

Yes it’s still relevant. Don’t know if everything is up to date, but the basic intention behind is are still correct.

Guys, the damage nerf is in areas where you are downscaled.

This change should have arguably done a year ago when ferocity was first implemented because then there wouldn’t have really been the need to further nerf anything else, such as might/warrior weapon skills etc.

The nerf is across the board and affects everyone regardless of what class played and you will notice a drastic decrease in efficacy in places such as AC, CM, etc. Your crit chance is utter trash compared to what it used to be and your power is capped much lower to narrow the gap between a person actually at that level and a person being downscaled.

This is why it might actually be optimal to use assassin armor in some of the areas that you are downscaled in where it’s easy to achieve the maximum power without having power primary on your gear attributes.

However in level 80 areas berserker will still remain supreme.

And yes, Arenanet carelessly excluded this fairly significant change from the patch notes.

Suggestions:

- Staff 6/2/0/4/2
Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity, Persisting Flames or Pyromancer’s Puissant
Bolt to the Heart
Cantrip Mastery, Vital Striking
Blasting Staff

Ether Renewal, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave or Frost Bow, any Elite

Full Berserker and Scholar Runes, get your survivability from the massive Staff’s CCs and your two cantrips, learn to never get hit (to make sure your two 10% extra damage are always up) and enjoy your awesome damage and good healing for emergencies.

- Scepter/Dagger 6/4/0/4/0
Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity, Persisting Flames
Bolt to the Heart, Air Training
Cantrip Mastery, Vital Striking or Aquamancer’s Alacrity

Ether Renewal or Signet of Healing or Arcane Brilliance, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave.

Mix of Soldier or Valkyrie and Berserker, Strength Runes.
Use the Arcane Brilliance heal if you want to achieve maximum Might stacking. The full combo (Ring of Fire, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Earthquake, Churning Earth) gives 18 stacks of Might for about 30 secs and 1 min of Fury and that’s so ridiculous…

Personally I still leave the 4 in Water for some survivability but it’s manageable without.

For World Bosses like Teq and such (the ones you don’t crit), always use Frost Bow (#4 and #3 then throw it away) instead of Arcane Wave unless you really care about Might stacking.

For Sigils, Sigil of Force and Bloodlust for maximum damage. Your crit % should be pretty high already with Berserker’s and/or Fury, so get the extra damage.

Purple Miku.7032:

This is why it might actually be optimal to use assassin armor in some of the areas that you are downscaled in where it’s easy to achieve the maximum power without having power primary on your gear attributes.

However in level 80 areas berserker will still remain supreme.

Maybe. But it’s not like ppl will create Assassins gear just to optimize AC, CM and maybe TA. I guess for records run, but not for 99,9% of the players.

Danicco.3568:

Suggestions:

That can work if you have a hard time playing. But I wouldn’t touch this kind of build with a ten foot pole if you have the slight ambition of a good damage build.

Thaddeus.4891:

That can work if you have a hard time playing. But I wouldn’t touch this kind of build with a ten foot pole if you have the slight ambition of a good damage build.

So what do you define as a “good damage” build? Out of the builds I posted, there’s only 2 points that aren’t allocated for damage (2 in Water, which could be more useful in 2 Earth for another extra 10% damage if you’re close to the target or Air if you don’t care).

Blasting Staff is also an increase in damage of Meteor Shower, which is plenty used…

Danicco.3568:

Thaddeus.4891:

That can work if you have a hard time playing. But I wouldn’t touch this kind of build with a ten foot pole if you have the slight ambition of a good damage build.

So what do you define as a “good damage” build? Out of the builds I posted, there’s only 2 points that aren’t allocated for damage (2 in Water, which could be more useful in 2 Earth for another extra 10% damage if you’re close to the target or Air if you don’t care).

Blasting Staff is also an increase in damage of Meteor Shower, which is plenty used…

You also replaced 2 utilities usually used for Glyph of Storms/Signet of Fire/Icebow to support your 2 trait point deviation.

Purple Miku.7032:

Guys, the damage nerf is in areas where you are downscaled.

This change should have arguably done a year ago when ferocity was first implemented because then there wouldn’t have really been the need to further nerf anything else, such as might/warrior weapon skills etc.

The nerf is across the board and affects everyone regardless of what class played and you will notice a drastic decrease in efficacy in places such as AC, CM, etc. Your crit chance is utter trash compared to what it used to be and your power is capped much lower to narrow the gap between a person actually at that level and a person being downscaled.

This is why it might actually be optimal to use assassin armor in some of the areas that you are downscaled in where it’s easy to achieve the maximum power without having power primary on your gear attributes.

However in level 80 areas berserker will still remain supreme.

And yes, Arenanet carelessly excluded this fairly significant change from the patch notes.

You are actually right, i lost around 15% crit rate and maybe a bit of power, doesn’t seem like my HP took a hit, survivability seems the same.

Well generally, i still almost one-shot stuff in the lower content, compared to how hard it was to kill stuff when i was of that level, while leveling, still a breeze in all, nothing to really worry about.

Yeah I understand why this wouldn’t worry you, but keep in mind there are a lot of players (myself included) that enjoy running dungeons for the sole purpose of optimizing gameplay because we find it fun to try to compete for times.

It sucks for us.

I think the change was a little drastic, but still I understand why it was done. It’s just that combined with the might nerf, ferocity implementation along with the many other things taken away from us such as stacking sigils, it really is less fun compared to how it once was a year ago.

If theres one thing thats bugging me, its that in sPvP with Celestial we have 29.66%, its not 30% anymore so it keeps bugging me . uuuggghhh

But yeah, i would see how that 15% loss of crit is annoying, we used to have close to 60% in PvE while being underleveled, now we are barely over 40% , which limits the amount of crits quite drastically.

Then again, like i said previously, i’m not too worried about lower level performance because elementalist is always great to have in any group, and i never liked doing solo dungeons and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that with any class or gear.

Danicco.3568:

Thaddeus.4891:

That can work if you have a hard time playing. But I wouldn’t touch this kind of build with a ten foot pole if you have the slight ambition of a good damage build.

So what do you define as a “good damage” build? Out of the builds I posted, there’s only 2 points that aren’t allocated for damage (2 in Water, which could be more useful in 2 Earth for another extra 10% damage if you’re close to the target or Air if you don’t care).

Blasting Staff is also an increase in damage of Meteor Shower, which is plenty used…

A couple of little things put together. 4 pts in Water, Cantrip Mastery, Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Mixe of Soldier, Valkiry and Berserker.

Why Air Training? That make no sense, you don’t fight in air unless you want to put Vulnerability with Glyph of Storm and Icebow, but you take neither.

You say to never get hit, but you rather use 2 utilities + 1 trait for cantrip over 1 trait that can give you perma vigor?

No Lighting Hammer with your S/D?

4 pts in water for a S/D, but no piercing shards?

It’s not a bad build, but OP asked for meta build. And you give him an personnal adaptation of meta build not to optimized dps in certain situation, but to increase your survivability how you prefer.

Lawful.5314:

If theres one thing thats bugging me, its that in sPvP with Celestial we have 29.66%, its not 30% anymore so it keeps bugging me . uuuggghhh

The hero panel has always rounded. The game engine doesn’t actually round.

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple of little things put together. 4 pts in Water, Cantrip Mastery, Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Mixe of Soldier, Valkiry and Berserker.

…

I suggested the S/D because of the utility of Might and Fury stacking, not personal DpS… why would you use anything other than Berserker if want full DpS?

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not a bad build, but OP asked for meta build. And you give him an personnal adaptation of meta build not to optimized dps in certain situation, but to increase your survivability how you prefer.

That’s why I said they were suggestions. I considered my personal experience, since I don’t expect all fights to be simply standing still and spamming skills like a DpS race.

I just questioned why did you consider it not a good damage build when it has nearly everything of the maximum damage build output you can with a few changes for survivability (and I’m talking about the Staff build if it’s about DpS).

Danicco.3568:

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple of little things put together. 4 pts in Water, Cantrip Mastery, Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Mixe of Soldier, Valkiry and Berserker.

…

I suggested the S/D because of the utility of Might and Fury stacking, not personal DpS… why would you use anything other than Berserker if want full DpS?

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not a bad build, but OP asked for meta build. And you give him an personnal adaptation of meta build not to optimized dps in certain situation, but to increase your survivability how you prefer.

That’s why I said they were suggestions. I considered my personal experience, since I don’t expect all fights to be simply standing still and spamming skills like a DpS race.

I just questioned why did you consider it not a good damage build when it has nearly everything of the maximum damage build output you can with a few changes for survivability (and I’m talking about the Staff build if it’s about DpS).

Not only does S/D have less might stacking potential than S/F, but you should never use scepter unless you’re using LH, with the exception of prestacking might before an encounter. Scepter has the absolute worst DPS out of all weapons for an ele and might that you stack isn’t put to good use. If you really want to stack might, use D/F.

Danicco.3568:

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple of little things put together. 4 pts in Water, Cantrip Mastery, Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Mixe of Soldier, Valkiry and Berserker.

…

I suggested the S/D because of the utility of Might and Fury stacking, not personal DpS… why would you use anything other than Berserker if want full DpS?

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not a bad build, but OP asked for meta build. And you give him an personnal adaptation of meta build not to optimized dps in certain situation, but to increase your survivability how you prefer.

That’s why I said they were suggestions. I considered my personal experience, since I don’t expect all fights to be simply standing still and spamming skills like a DpS race.

I just questioned why did you consider it not a good damage build when it has nearly everything of the maximum damage build output you can with a few changes for survivability (and I’m talking about the Staff build if it’s about DpS).

I know that S/D is for might stacking and fury, it’s also only 8% less dps than Staff if you use the right build. There is few reason to take something else than zerker/assassins for PvE in general.

If you stand still and spamming skills you will get killed, that’s not a DPS race, that’s just bad playing. Like I said, it’s ok if you can’t stay alive in a meta build. You are free to post your build when someone ask for meta build, but i’m free to call you out on it.

Purple Miku.7032:

Not only does S/D have less might stacking potential than S/F, but you should never use scepter unless you’re using LH, with the exception of prestacking might before an encounter. Scepter has the absolute worst DPS out of all weapons for an ele and might that you stack isn’t put to good use. If you really want to stack might, use D/F.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgYAfP1kqQI

I agree with you with most of that, but S/D have the exact same stacking potential than S/F. It’s just that to stack the same amount of might with S/D you need to use skill 5 Earth, which will decrease your dps. If you don’t use Skill 5 Earth, then S/D will have a bit less might stack, but will have a bit more dps than S/F. Both are good in certain situation (but I prefer S/F too). But like you said, he’s WAY better with D/F if he don’t plan on using LH.

Most people don’t factor churning earth into the equation because it’s pretty much established that it’s never worth using mid-fight and only for precasting :P

You technically have less might stacking potential with it either way because the time it takes to wait for churning earth removes the possibility to blast in your fire field with your first autoattack chain on LH. With S/F all of the blasts are either instant or nearly instant cast, so you have time to perform 1 autoattack chain with LH after using all of your blasts before your flamewall disappears but ring of fire doesn’t last that long so you can’t stack as much might with it.

This is the best guide for PvE Ele in my opinion:

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/

Read this one.

also traits really don’t matter much for pve as long as you wear zerk or valk gear.

6/6/2/0/0 vs 6/6/0/0/2 D/F, is that extra 10% dmg modifier really going to make your dungeon/fractal runs better compared to having perma vigor which most other classes don’t have anymore?

I believe damage modifiers are multiplicative rather than additive in this game. So that 10% more damage (which is always active on a Dagger) is a bigger increase overall.

In reality, for a Dagger use, perma-vigor would be better in most situations outside of hardcore speedruns. (You also have a bit more breathing room for fury upkeep as well).

I do have to disagree about traits not mattering. When you play with a dagger and go 66XXX, that 2 seconds on burning rush fire field duration + having the reduced cooldowns so its CD is done before or around the same time as fire attunement gives a much smoother playstyle as opposed to not putting 6 points into fire. Also, Fire Staff (in dungeons) is only so good because traits let you kit out damage to a ludicrous degree with a constant upkeep of Lava Font + hard hitting fireballs.

10% is 10%. Math is simple.

rotten.9753:

10% is 10%. Math is simple.

Yes, but it’s multiplicative. So the more damage modifier you have the higher their impact will be.

If i do 100 damage and I put a 10% modifier, I now do 110 damage. I i take another 10%, I now do 121 damage, which is 21% more damage than originally. When you add up two sigils, runes, vulnerability and trait that number can go really high.

Their impact is always the same, e.g. 10%. That’s just how percentage works.

rotten.9753:

10% is 10%. Math is simple.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/page/7#post3150470

I think I’ve been here too long

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/page/7#post3150470

I think I’ve been here too long

10% is still 10%.
4 times 10% isn’t 40%.
Math is simple.

So clearly we are saying the same thing rotten. Still can’t figure out why you had to make your post in the first place.

10% = .1, so 4*.1 is .4…which is 40%

Now, if you start doing the correct order of operation which is x+x*.1 (alternatively x*1.1) and repeat that as necessary, then yes, you are correct.

Math is simple. Using incorrect terminology and rhetoric is makes it not so simple!

rotten.9753:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/page/7#post3150470

I think I’ve been here too long

10% is still 10%.
4 times 10% isn’t 40%.
Math is simple.

Pretty sure its 10%, and pretty sure its 40%.

The game doesn’t multiply 10%x10%x10%, it just adds them up to 30% then multiplies your damage rating from there.

10%^3 is .1%

What we mean by that the percentages are multiplicative is that say an ability does 100 damage and you have 2 10% modifiers. First it increases the damage by 10% to 110 damage. Then it increases that damage by 10% to 121 for a total of 21%.

But let’s take the preferred 64220 staff build attacking a target with >33% HP, in fire attunement, at a range less than 600, that’s burning, while we’re above 90% HP and wearing scholar runes.

Assume (for the sake of easiness) that Fireball does 100 damage. And we take the 20% from condition 1, 10% from condition 2, 10% from condition 3, 10% from condition 4, 10% from condition 5, and 10% from condition 6.

Now if the percentages were additive, then it’d be 170 damage from fireball under those conditions. However, since it’s multiplicative, first step gets us to 120. Second 132. Third is 145.2. Fourth is 159.72. Fifth is 175.692. And last is 193.2612. The difference is about 23 so in the end it does end up being a much higher damage boost. (By 23% of the original damage)

Though, that is a hypothetical using a glass cannon staff build.

Lawful.5314:

rotten.9753:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/page/7#post3150470

I think I’ve been here too long

10% is still 10%.
4 times 10% isn’t 40%.
Math is simple.

Pretty sure its 10%, and pretty sure its 40%.

The game doesn’t multiply 10%x10%x10%, it just adds them up to 30% then multiplies your damage rating from there.

I haven’t tested at all, but from what others are saying it’s not that.

It’s say X is your base, A, B, C are modifiers, so you’re doing ((((X)A)B)C), where each consecutive modifier is affecting the previously applied modifier, giving an overall bigger effect than if it were X(A+B+C).

Lawful.5314:

10% is still 10%.
4 times 10% isn’t 40%.
Math is simple.

Pretty sure its 10%, and pretty sure its 40%.

The game doesn’t multiply 10%x10%x10%, it just adds them up to 30% then multiplies your damage rating from there.
[/quote]

No you are completely wrong. Damage modifier are multiplicative not additive.

If you do 100 base damage and you have a sigil of force, a sigil of night and a rune of scholar for exemple. Your damage won’t be 100 x (1.05 + 1.1 + 1.1) = 100 x (1.25) = 125.

It will be 100 × 1.05 × 1.1 x 1.1 = 127.05. This was confirmed like 2 years ago.

Lawful.5314:

Pretty sure its 10%, and pretty sure its 40%.

The game doesn’t multiply 10%x10%x10%, it just adds them up to 30% then multiplies your damage rating from there.

If that would be the case, adding another 10% dmg modifier wouldn’t actually increase anything by 10% but by about 7.6% (in case of the 4th dmg modifier).

Really, math is simple, don’t try to make it harder. Adding 10% more damage has to increase your damage output by 10%. Otherwise it wouldn’t be 10%.

Fade.1743:

10% = .1, so 4*.1 is .4…which is 40%

Now, if you start doing the correct order of operation which is x+x*.1 (alternatively x*1.1) and repeat that as necessary, then yes, you are correct.

Math is simple. Using incorrect terminology and rhetoric is makes it not so simple!

It’s actually plus 10% not just 10%. And that’s 1.1 which multiplied 4 times gives 1.4641.

Thaddeus.4891:

So clearly we are saying the same thing rotten. Still can’t figure out why you had to make your post in the first place.

Because of this:

Fade.1743:

I believe damage modifiers are multiplicative rather than additive in this game. So that 10% more damage (which is always active on a Dagger) is a bigger increase overall.

It doesn’t matter how many damage modifiers you have, adding another one will increase your damage output by 10%. Always.

Rotten, that’s EXACTLY what I’ve been saying. they are MULTIPLICATIVE for guild wars 2.

however, there have been MMO’s and RPGs in the past where they add all the percentages and then multiply at the end so you don’t have these strange cases where the true damage modifier is really weird.

I’m not arguing that Guild Wars 2 is additive. Period. You’re right for Guild Wars 2. However, not every game does that and not every theorycrafter started with such requirements. 10% is not ALWAYS 10% like you’ve said. It’s true in GW2. It’s not true in other games. We’re making the distinction that GW2 is multiplicative rather than additive. A few of the people (myself included) that you’ve quoted have said the EXACT thing. You’re arguing with people you agree with.

I’m arguing with your initial statement. 10% more damage is 10% more damage.

Fade.1743:

I believe damage modifiers are multiplicative rather than additive in this game. So that 10% more damage (which is always active on a Dagger) is a bigger increase overall.

And if other games have additive modifiers it means their programmers have no clue how percentages work as well. You don’t add them like you would add normal integeres or floats. 10% more damage isn’t 10 more percentage point which is what other games are using.

can we all agree 10% looks cool

Okay….programming info-dump time.

When using floating point numbers (AKA decimals), depending on the value there will always be slight inconsistencies with the decimal to binary transformation. Less of these exist when you are using larger data types for floating points (such as double and long double), but they exist regardless.

While MATHEMATICALLY you are correct, our decimal based mathematics does not always translate into binary-based mathematics. The reason that percentages were additive in some games was for two reasons: 1) Adding is cheaper than multiplying (any number). 2) Adding is more precise than multiplying decimals (aka, floating point numbers).

Now that’s only taking into account the damage modifiers. The damage of every attack in an RPG is based on a pseudo-random number generator. Taking into account both the randomness of the amount of the attacks and the inconsistency inherit to the system, it is now more difficult to balance encounters for both players and mobs.

By using an additive percentage system, you can more easily balance because the damage multiplication will be significantly more consistent and precise. ((I only mentioned cheaper because older games have less hardware to work with so that’s not relevant in this day and ages))

I’d assume that Anet either has the inconsistencies that WILL occur in this translation accounted for and put into an error range or the calculations are all done in binary before the numbers are reported on our skills.

The point of all that above is this. In a perfect world where we can translate every real decimal number into a real binary number, multiplication using floating point numbers would work exactly like it does for the decimal world of mathematics. But it doesn’t. We don’t exist in that world. So some broken math has to be implemented in order to get the code to work in more consistent and measurable fashion.

Guys, I couldn’t read through all the posts because it would give me a headache, but allow me to settle whatever debate there is:

Damage multipliers stack multiplicatively, I tested this myself when the first DPS calculators were made. The game rounds some numbers.

So in the post I quoted from Jon, he said 5 occurrences of 10% multipliers would give a 50% damage boost while it is in fact a (1.1)^5-1=61% damage increase. But let’s be fair: he probably used the additive method for the sake of simplicity. He was wrong about the argument though

I like the GW2 way of dealing with damage modifiers. I find it much more intuitive than the way of most other games: if you pick +10% you get +10% in every case. This makes decision making simple and effective. I wish every aspect of the game followed this philosophy, but many things are hidden behind a superfluous wall of complexity (skill animation times for example).

Fade.1743:

Okay….programming info-dump time.

When using floating point numbers (AKA decimals), depending on the value there will always be slight inconsistencies with the decimal to binary transformation. Less of these exist when you are using larger data types for floating points (such as double and long double), but they exist regardless.

While MATHEMATICALLY you are correct, our decimal based mathematics does not always translate into binary-based mathematics. The reason that percentages were additive in some games was for two reasons: 1) Adding is cheaper than multiplying (any number). 2) Adding is more precise than multiplying decimals (aka, floating point numbers).

Now that’s only taking into account the damage modifiers. The damage of every attack in an RPG is based on a pseudo-random number generator. Taking into account both the randomness of the amount of the attacks and the inconsistency inherit to the system, it is now more difficult to balance encounters for both players and mobs.

The most accurate decimal representation of 32 bit number 1.1f is 1.10000002384185791015625. If they use double precision it’s 1.10000000000000008881784197001. Do you really argue about the imprecision of this?

Both fmul and fadd have comparable speed on present cpus. Any operation on a floating point number is complicated — both addition and multiplication basically require steps that add and multiply or shift the component parts of the float.

By using an additive percentage system, you can more easily balance because the damage multiplication will be significantly more consistent and precise. ((I only mentioned cheaper because older games have less hardware to work with so that’s not relevant in this day and ages))

I’d assume that Anet either has the inconsistencies that WILL occur in this translation accounted for and put into an error range or the calculations are all done in binary before the numbers are reported on our skills.

The point of all that above is this. In a perfect world where we can translate every real decimal number into a real binary number, multiplication using floating point numbers would work exactly like it does for the decimal world of mathematics. But it doesn’t. We don’t exist in that world. So some broken math has to be implemented in order to get the code to work in more consistent and measurable fashion.

Additive percentage system is actually not consistent. Adding a 10% damage modifier doesn’t always increase your damage output by 10%. For a user, it makes it confusing. Precision hardly holds any merit here when eventually all numbers are most likely cast to comparable small integers.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

I like the GW2 way of dealing with damage modifiers. I find it much more intuitive than the way of most other games: if you pick +10% you get +10% in every case. This makes decision making simple and effective. I wish every aspect of the game followed this philosophy, but many things are hidden behind a superfluous wall of complexity (skill animation times for example).

Exactly, it’s simpler and more easy to understand than additive percentage points.