Guild Wars 2

A few days ago I found myself in a debate about the highest possible burst in the game. I was told s/d elementalist would be the biggest bursters, and while I initially dismissed the idea due to my obviously superior 4 signet thief spike, I soon realized I actually have no idea how high elementalists are capable of bursting. Rather than making it a yet another pointless “Mine is bigger!” argument, I decided to just do the Math and find out.

That’s where I ran into a problem: I’m not familiar with the ways of elementalist burst. In order to do the calculations, I’ll need to know the build and all the damage sources used during the burst, as well as the amount of might stacks the build might be able to stack up before bursting. Just to be clear, we’re looking solely for pure damage here, so whether the build is actually practical is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned.

That’s where you, the greatest theorycrafters of the elementalist subforums come in!
- What is the highest theoretically possible elementalist burst build?
- What damage sources does the build use during the spike?
- How many might stacks can it stack up?

We’re talking about an approximately half a second burst here, starting from the first tick of damage done. No buffs from allies allowed, and no FGS flame trails because reasons :P

There was a post about this not long ago:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/One-shot-Ele

in short: 0/6/5/2/1 is probably the highest burst achievable by an elementalist.

Half a second is a tiny window Can you even CnD backstab in that frame?

Anyways, I’ll roll with it. The max burst attainable in a PvP setting would (probably) be this setup:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMaZWywzBdUBKABp+QBjOFnlEVB-TJRBwAX3fYzDAgcZAAnAAA

Now you can get all sorts of silly with weaponswaps to stack up to 25 might, but let’s not mind that.

Rotation is:

- dragon’s tooth, phoenix and churning earth in ring of fire for 9 might, glyph heal or arcane brilliance for another 3.
- pre-cast earthquake and start hurl
- Lightning flash as the first projectile from hurl hits (another 3 might from spell slinger)
- Attune to air, air 2, hydromancy proc, pop both arcanes and ride the lightning in melee range.

The last bulletpoint (the biggest chunk of damage) will benefit from:
-Scholar runes, vital striking, stone splinters, tempest defense, force sigil, 15 might, fury and bolt to the heart for the last few hits.

Obviously this is completely ridiculous and not applicable to pvp at all

Combos are drastically different if the window gets bigger. For example the stuff you could fit in your earthquake is at least double this.

Great, that’s what I was looking for! I added a Sigil of Bloodlust and went with LightningBlaze’s build. Can anyone think of any further improvements to this? http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMKZ25wlBdEBOABp6pfZijCSqA-TJRBwAX3fYxJAgcZAAPAAA

What about the rotation? Assuming this is the build we use, how would you squeeze the highest amount of damage out of it during a span of 0.5 seconds, and what preparations would you do to do so?

Well timed CnD should hit at the same time as steal, and that’s when the timer starts. After which you only have a 1/4 second backstab to worry about, so unless aftercasts wreck my timing it should work

Your post is pretty much perfect Gokil. We could increase the amount of time allowed slightly, but let’s keep it below the 1 second mark.

Do we need those points in arcane though? It’s only for fury as far as I can tell, and for our purposes we can just assume every skill crits.

We also have two builds to decide between now. Going in fire essentially gives us extra 205 power, going in earth gives us 10% and 5% extra damage. I’ll have to do some calculating first, but I think the earth build wins this round?

It’s a lot of hits, so assuming they’ll all crit would be a long shot. If you want to make that assumption, I believe 26520 would win yeah.

Do note there’s no bleeding in this setup, so the bleeding modifier won’t work.

I’m 80 percent certain that instant burst would beat anything a thief could produce. Even with a pre-casted cluster bomb within the burst window.

I made this note in the past post, but ill reiterate:

I would use runes of strength because it provides a guaranteed 7% damage increase, rather than a conditional 10% (from 90% health). Might stacks are up all the time with 50% duration increase and….. well…. ele.

You must use fresh air and not tempest’s defence. I think you may have just misclicked this trait though so I won’t get into it. If you need more explanation just look up ‘Fresh air’ build videos on youtube and you’ll get a pretty apt description.

I have also heard (but not confirmed) that Sigil of Air is better than Sigil of Force in terms of damage output.

Good luck!

Gokil.2543:

—Snip—

Could be. At any rate, I’ve long wondered how high I could theoretically push my burst, so I’m going to calculate it anyway.

26520 has one trait point more than it should though. I think 16520 is our best bet, though we will lose those 3 might, and you crushed my dreams of 5% bleed modifiers as well. Still, I think I’ll go with that unless someone can think of further improvements. It’s too late for math today, and I’ll be too busy tomorrow due to real life getting between me and my beloved computer, so I’ll do the damage calculations the day after that. Maybe I’ll finally have conclusive proof that people have no reason to complain about thief burst soon

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

—Snip—

We are talking about the highest possible theoretical burst under ideal conditions here though. Fresh Air does absolutely nothing for us during our sub 1 second time span, and we don’t care about guarantees. Tempest’s Defense and Scholar Runes are definitely the way to go, but Sigil of Air is actually a solid point. It’ll be a close call, but it might be higher.

You make a fair point for actually usable builds, but that’s not what we’re here for.

For 1 sec window the fire combo that starts with dragon tooth can be eliminated right away due to its animation. Lightning flash+Phoenix 3 strikes,
air attunement+air 2+auto proc from air sigil+the 2 arcane skills is much more possible if you are fast with your fingers or use macros. Fresh air is a must on prolonged encounters or when your initial burst fails or it is simply not enough. I’m assuming this is for pve or ambushing someone in WvW/spvp purposes. Within these scenario, tempest fits a lot more and so does sigil of air. If you go with tempest trait the combo: Earth 1 auto attack+ (earthquake & lightningflash)+ hurl+ air Att+air 2+air sigil+2 arcane skills. The combo is very destructive as a full glass Ele with this build. I have never timed it but I do believe it takes a bit more than 1 sec. For 1 sec do the same without earthquake and LF conjunction but tempest would be meaningless then.

As I said in the OP, this is for figuring out the highest theoretical burst in the game. Actual usability is irrelevant.

As for the rotations, the timer starts when the first tick of damage lands, so long animations are not an issue, so long as we haven’t hit the target with anything before that. If slow animation skills give us the most damage during our short time window, that’s what we should go with.

Which combo does the most damage?

if a build is usable or not is highly subjective in regards to player skill.

Necro lich form, 5.5k dmg every 3/4th second for 30 seconds… This is excluding any damage the minions can do in the process but I think its safe to say you could dps around 7k with it consistently.

But after trying out all sorts of burst builds the highest burst I could achieve was with my engineer. I met but a few that could survive the full burst rotation. But the true power of this burst was that it CC’d the target continually for its intire burst duration and if performed skillfully and quickly enough the target has no time to react at all.

before the teleport stopping rush glitch was fixed, Fiery Rush was undoubtedly the highest burst in the game, it still is if you have a corner or wall to run in to.

but for for the less gimmicky ultimate burst it is probably an ele popping a whole bar of arcane skills while multiple skills land at the same time. (phoenix, flame tooth etc)
not very practical though

Ele burst has reached well over 21k damage near instantly using fresh air/zephyr (for the 20% damage boost on knockdown) + lightning flash + arcanes on s/d. It annihilates everything, but then has no defensive cooldowns or real sustained offense.

Liewec.2896:

but for for the less gimmicky ultimate burst it is probably an ele popping a whole bar of arcane skills while multiple skills land at the same time. (phoenix, flame tooth etc)
not very practical though

Clearly you’ve never seen anyone playing burst ele. It’s very practical and really only requires quick use of skills.

@OP- if you’re not gonna go 5 into earth (for 10%, 5%,10% modifiers) you should go 5 into fire.

26221 (with one spare point) is lower burst than 562xx or 56×2x, simply because you trade 10% in earth to 10% in fire- which gives you power. (10% while burning)

Additionally, sigil of air hits higher than hydro so i’d suggest air/force on your weapons, although air/fire is very common lately.

All in all, in practice the highest burst would be 06521 and in theory the highest burst would be 16520 (assume all crits, +50power.)

Alternatively, 56xx1 is also a usable burst in practice but in theory the damage modifiers from earth are better.

hydro use to hit like a train with this build (looking at 4k damage easily in spvp, possibly higher in wvw) but the damage got nerfed for an unexplained reason.

To some of the posters: please read the OP before posting! We’re only interested in sub 1 second bursts here, and we’re looking for enough details for me to actually calculate how much damage they do.

So far, we’ve settled for this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMKZ25wlBdEBOABp6IT/yEHFkA-TlBEABMt/o8rN9AAcCAI4BAko6PbpEMAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLFQELjA-w

Our current burst rotation is:

- dragon’s tooth, phoenix and churning earth in ring of fire for 9 might, glyph heal or arcane brilliance for another 3.
- pre-cast earthquake and start hurl
- Lightning flash as the first projectile from hurl hits (another 3 might from spell slinger)
- Attune to air, air 2, pop both arcanes and ride the lightning in melee range.

Any improvements, or are we looking at the biggest burst know to elementalists here, FGS trails aside?

That combo will blow fgs trail right out of the water. People exaggerate its damage massively. In the 4 or so total seconds the trail lasts it does unrivalled damage, but you have to be terribly slow to actually die from it, even when ressing someone.

And yes I do believe that would be the highest near-instant burst. If the window were closer to 1 second, the combo would be something like cast dragon’s tooth and phoenix at range, lightning flash for the fire grab (all 3 fire spells will hit near enough simultaneously) and then proceed with the instant air and arcane burst. This loses the 20 percent tempest defense modifier, but has a lot more hard-hitting spells in its rotation. You can test the combo yourself, see if it is up to your standards time wise.

Highest possible burst: (assuming everything crits and hits)

Build: Fresh air s/d full berserker with bufffood and strengh runes
- stack 15 stack might (quite easy to achieve)

Burst: (on a 2200 armor enemy)
Hurl, precast earthquake, lightnigh flash to enemy, arcane blast, arcane wave, switch to air, air 2, updraft, switch to fire, dragon’s tooth, phoenix behind enemy, firegrab, switch to air
aand sigil of air and fire proc.

Total dmg: ~ 43000
—
this damage is without the damage multipliers of the build:
+ 10% vital striking
+ 10% air training
+ 10% stone splinters
+ 10% enduring damage
+ 7% strenght runes
(+ 20% bolt to the heart)
—-
This ist the highest possible burst ingame
(I realize that this will never actually happen, but the question was “What’s the highest possible burst”

Edit: this is done obv in over 1 second (but still fast enough to be considered a burst)
- the closest thing to a 1sec burst, that just hits a LOT harder than the earthquake burst would be this:
knockdown, phoenix, lightning flash dualarcana, air switch + air 2 + dual sigil proc
(phoenix hits SOOO hard if u get a tripple crit)

Skrill.6170:

Highest possible burst
(I realize that this will never actually happen, but the question was “What’s the highest possible burst”)

That’s exactly the kind of burst I was looking for – I want the highest theoretical burst, not a feasible one

There is a one second delay between swapping attunements though, so both of your rotations go beyond the one second limit, and since we started with a ½ second limit I’d rather not increase it beyond that.

Frost Bow: Water > #5 > Lightning flash > #4 > Air
This kill every light armor, 90% of mid armor and most heavi armor. Ignores stun break.

S/D: attune from water to fire > signet earth > #2 > #3 > #5 > Lightning flash > attune to air > #2.
obs: after attune to air, auto attack will start, increasing the amount of dmg.

S/D: attune from water to air > #4 > #5 > attune to fire > #2 > #3 > #4 > attune to earth > #1 > #2 (hurl) > lightning flash.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArIhMMKZW9wzhAIAh0sRbE3IQhiTPC-T5QBwA02fgcZAAPAAA

JETWING.2759:

Frost Bow: Water > #5 > Lightning flash > #4 > Air
This kill every light armor, 90% of mid armor and most heavi armor. Ignores stun break.

S/D: attune from water to fire > signet earth > #2 > #3 > #5 > Lightning flash > attune to air > #2.
obs: after attune to air, auto attack will start, increasing the amount of dmg.

S/D: attune from water to air > #4 > #5 > attune to fire > #2 > #3 > #4 > attune to earth > #1 > #2 (hurl) > lightning flash.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArIhMMKZW9wzhAIAh0sRbE3IQhiTPC-T5QBwA02fgcZAAPAAA

Both these bursts are well over 2 seconds, which is not what OP is looking for

BTW piercing shards doesnt work with lingering attunements

yski.7642:

Skrill.6170:

Highest possible burst
(I realize that this will never actually happen, but the question was “What’s the highest possible burst”)

That’s exactly the kind of burst I was looking for – I want the highest theoretical burst, not a feasible one

There is a one second delay between swapping attunements though, so both of your rotations go beyond the one second limit, and since we started with a ½ second limit I’d rather not increase it beyond that.

Ok, if feasibility doesn’t matter then this is what you are looking for
(same build as before)

Burst: This is done in less than 1 sec, with good timing its like 1 hit
- Precast Dragon’s tooth (rest of the burst happens when it hits)
- precast phoenix behind your enemy, lightnigh flash in front of enemy (this makes phoenix hit 3 times), switch to air
- air 2, arane wave+ blast + rtl
- dual sigil proc

Dmg: assuming everything crits
~ 27000
(this is again without the ridiculous dmg multipliers you get with this build.. taking those into account, we’d be looking at smth over 30k)

Great, now all we need to do is to do the math and see what we end up with

How many might stacks could you stack before the burst though, and how? I’m counting 6 + another 6 during the burst, assuming you place a Ring of Fire next to the target without actually hitting it prior to bursting.

EDIT: As a side note, calculating damage for utility skills appears to be tricky – “utility strength” isn’t documented anywhere as far as I’m aware, and it seems to be randomized based on my tests.
(Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage_calculation)

Highest feasible burst is Frost Bow no.2 + no. 4 with arcane power and a whole bunch of damage modifier traits you can kill the heavy golem with just those three skills.

Good, but it’s not feasible we’re looking for here, just raw damage

EDIT: Wait a minute, are you calling a 5+ second combo burst?

I’m sure Darox/Zelyhn can help you with the math.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/Darox-8069

He is the author of 2 of our great stickies at the top of the forum. He put together all the cast times/aftercast list for elementalist.

I’m surprised he hasn’t chimed in to this thread. Maybe give him a PM for help.

562xx or 56×2x are both higher damage than 26221.

Why? They have the same dmg% modifiers but one has +150 power.

Your variation- 26221 (1pt still missing)
+20% tempest defense
+20% bolt to the heart
+10% scholar runes
+10% air training
+10% vital strike
+10% stone splinters
+100 power from fire traits

Vs: 562xx / 56×2x (1pt missing)
The exact same only replace stone splinters OR vital strike for +10% dmg vs burning foes, and add an additional 150 power from traits.

Also rotation would be stacking might, dragons tooth and phoenix into a ring of fire for might, arcane brilliance/glyph for more might, swap to earth, earthquake for another blast, put up the rock barrier, start casting churning earth (for an additional 3 might once it finishes the cast)
As churning earth is about it finish, hurl rocks +teleport onto your enemy with LF while swapping to air, double arcane +air2.

Im not sure if churning earth is better than the 20% modifier you give up on (tempest defense) someone would have to do the math / check it, otherwise maybe earthquake → LF insta phoenix → air+ arcane might be higher.

yski.7642:

Good, but it’s not feasible we’re looking for here, just raw damage

EDIT: Wait a minute, are you calling a 5+ second combo burst?

it still works better than FGS – 4 which I have seen to be also called a burst.

oZii.2864:

Maybe give him a PM for help.

Thanks, I did just that

Aiden.6483:

562xx or 56×2x are both higher damage than 26221.

What about 16520? It has an extra 10% from enduring damage.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMKZ25wlBdEBOABp6IT/yEHFkA-TlBEABMt/o8rN9AAcCAI4BAko6PbpEMAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLFQELjA-w

Aiden.6483:

Im not sure if churning earth is better than the 20% modifier you give up on (tempest defense) someone would have to do the math / check it, otherwise maybe earthquake -> LF insta phoenix -> air+ arcane might be higher.

There’s a one second delay between swapping attunements, so if we stick with my sub 1 second limit we only get to do that once. I’ll probably have to do the math on both Churning Earth start and Earthquake start though, and if we end up not using tempest defense, it might even be worth not traiting for tempest defence and going for something else instead. Elementalist traits are hard

Talking about traits, is there an internal cooldown on weak spot? If not, we’ll get +1% damage for every individual hit we land.

yski.7642:

oZii.2864:

Maybe give him a PM for help.

Thanks, I did just that

So I have been summoned
I thought I would reply to your PM in this thread so that everybody can see the answer.

How to calculate the damage from utilities
We are talking about arcane wave and arcane blast, since these are the only two utilities we could imagine being used to damage in a burst combo.
Based on my short research, these skills have a coefficient of power of 1.037
You must keep in mind the fact that they automatically hit critically (crit mod not included in the coefficient mentioned here).
For PvP, use the “inherent” exotic weapon strength of 952.5
For PvE, I need to test whether these skills actually scale with weapon quality like the conjured weapons. If yes then add 5% damage if you are wielding an ascended weapon. The weapon damage in itself is likely irrelevant, only the quality matters.

I hope this is useful

yski.7642:

There’s a one second delay between swapping attunements
is there an internal cooldown on weak spot?

No cooldown on weak spot
The base attunement swapping cooldown is 1.625 second, it is reduced by arcane points with the formula: 1.625 / ( 1 + arcane points * 5 / 100 )
The minimum recharge time being: 1.625 / ( 1 + 6 * 5 / 100 ) = 1.25 seconds

Thanks, that helps a lot!

I’m still a little confused on how that works though – the damage varies, so the utility strength must vary too. What I’m looking for is the absolute highest value it can get, but I have no idea where to find it. I take the value you listed is the average, but do we know the minimum and maximum values as well?

Looking at some weapon strengths, the inherent weapon strength you gave me seems to be the same as scepter’s average weapon strength. If that’s the case, could the maximum value utility strength can get be the same as maximum value scepter’s weapon strength can get?

At any rate I now have some numbers to work with, so I’ll at least get reasonably close to the real highest possible burst even if I just roll with the inherent exotic weapon strength.

For the sake of clarity to others reading this thread, the utility strength I’m refering to is the one in this formula:
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor
(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage_calculation)

That’s basically the problem I have with the calculations – I hadn’t been able to find any explanation on what it actually is until Darox came along.

Aiden.6483:

Liewec.2896:

but for for the less gimmicky ultimate burst it is probably an ele popping a whole bar of arcane skills while multiple skills land at the same time. (phoenix, flame tooth etc)
not very practical though

Clearly you’ve never seen anyone playing burst ele. It’s very practical and really only requires quick use of skills.

yeah i meant to get everything to hit, like dragon tooth+phoenix etc, against anyone with half a brain they will move out of dragon tooth, and now they’re moving it will be harder to land phoenix “there and back again” damage

The formula is correct but forget about the concept of Utility strength, it is more confusing than anything. Instead let’s consider the normal damage formula (Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor) to apply in all cases, and only the source of weapon strength varies. For most skills the weapon strength used is that of the associated weapon, and for utilities it is an “inherent” weapon strength" based on your level. Conjured weapons further scale with the quality of the weapon used. It is likely that other utilities also scale with weapon quality; but testing for this would take hours.

The strength of a weapon used is randomly generated. This is why you see varying numbers when you hit. It can take values between the boundaries displayed in the weapon characteristic. We usually describe it by using its mean: 952.5 for main-hand one-handed exotic, 1000 for ascended, etc. I think one of my guild members, Wethospu, once said that the randomly generated weapon strength is not normally distributed. This could be true, but it has too few practical implications to actually be worth testing.

This is the only part that can vary, and that is random, in the damage formula. All the rest is fixed. When we compute damage we usually use the mean weapon strength as it is the expected value. Technically, if you are looking for the highest possible burst then you can use the upper boundary for weapon strength, yes, but it would hardly have any implication in-game.

Weapon strength is uniformly distributed.

haviz.1340:

Weapon strength is uniformly distributed.

Roger that, thanks

Well, I am looking for the theoretical maximum burst, so one of the assumptions is that everything goes perfectly. When you think about it, if I used the mean value, around half the hits would actually end up being higher than my supposed “highest possible” burst.

So, my only remaining question is, what is the highest possible value that the inherent weapon strength can get?

From my short research, that is subject to mistakes and inadequate sample sizes, I find that the maximum inherent weapon strength possible is 1000, and the lowest is 907. This is with an exotic weapon equipped, so it may change based on weapon quality. This means that the range of the inherent weapon strength is roughly 20% larger than 1h weapons. That is if the exotic weapon strength is actually what the tooltip says it is … With Anet, you never know.

Thanks a lot!

Does weak point apply its vulnerability before or after the damage from the hit lands? I assume it’s after, but it would give me an extra 1% damage if it was before :P

Same goes for might combo’s – if we place a fire field next to the target and blast the field, I’ll assume the might comes after the damage is done.

For ascended highest weapon strength is 1060. For exotic it is 1010. This is only for scepter, as different weapons have slightly larger/smaller ranges. I assume you are calculating this for pvp so you should use the exotic value.

yski.7642:

Does weak point apply its vulnerability before or after the damage from the hit lands? I assume it’s after, but it would give me an extra 1% damage if it was before :P

Same goes for might combo’s – if we place a fire field next to the target and blast the field, I’ll assume the might comes after the damage is done.

Most skills apply the condi before the damage. I think its safe to assume its the same in this case.

Not sure about boons though. Some blasts have a delay before you get the combo effect, so the damage clearly happens before you see might on your UI, but that doesnt mean you dont get its benefits. Im sure someone else can answer this one more accurately.

Yes Spoj, you are right, but we are talking about inherent weapon strength. This is the value used for the damage of utilities, not weapon skills. I guess we could come up for a more appropriate name for it: how about “inherent strength” ?

I did some experiment in game (in pvp) and I found that this inherent strength has a range larger than weapon strength’s tooltip. I Found the maximum to be 1000 but since there is a chance of only about 1% to observe the actual value I would need to collect a very large sample. With 15s and 24s cooldowns for each skills it would take hours. Since this has hardly any implications for theorycrafting I’ll let anyone with too much spare take to take care of this

Edit: hah you edited your post! Yes I guess maybe the inherent strength is that of the scepter, this could very well be possible It looks more like the distribution of the sword though (905-1000) !

Well, I did the math with the “additional effects after the damage” assumption and using the following rotation:
Lightning Flash, Phoenix, Phoenix, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Electric Discharge, Lightning Strike, Arcane Wave, Arcane Blast, Ride the Lightning, Sigil of Air

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMKZ25wlBdEBOABp6IT/yEHFkA-TlBEABMt/o8rN9AAcCAI4BAko6PbpEMAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLFQELjA-w

Might stacks were as follows (Fire field next to the target for stacking during the burst):
Start: Churning Earth + Earthquake -> 6
After Phoenix 2nd hit: 9
After Arcane Wave: 12

The target was my 20k health 1804 armor glass cannon necromancer with the magical ability to heal back to 1 health should his health drop below 0. All hits critted and scored the highest possible weapon strength value.

The result: 77 836 damage. Dragon’s Tooth would’ve been the killing blow. Not bad for our first try!

I’ll make a separate thread for the actual calculations, redo the math with the vulnerability happening before the burst and do the same with 2 more elementalist rotations, a thief rotation and perhaps a warrior rotation later (though I’ll need to make a highest warrior burst thread for that), but I thought you might find this sneak peek interesting

Hmm, really nice dmg. But as for this sigil of air, take into consideration that it cannot crit (hydromancy or force would be better i guess), but if you want to get highest damage, the sigil of the night is the way (10% more dmg during the night time).
PS. I hope anet doesnt see this, they can nerf ele by that XD

Oh, good point. My sigil did indeed crit – Sigil of Night it is when I recalculate this!