Guild Wars 2

So I’ve seen a lot of misconceptions on the forums about scrapper being less DPS than the standard power build, so I’ve gone and done the complete DPS calculations for both builds with their optimal rotations.

Results:
Hammer: 20749 DPS
Rifle: 19314 DPS

Spreadsheets:
Hammer
Rifle

Builds:
Hammer
Rifle

Ofcource the p/p condition build is still going to be optimal for high level fractals (60+?) simply because mobs have increasingly higher toughness the higher you go. But if you like running power, Scrapper would be the way to go, having higher DPS than even a staff ele with the perfect rotation.

Awesome, thanks for modelling this out!

A few suggestions:

Superspeed is not needed for Dungeons/Fractals. I prefer having “recovery matrix” for better survivability and scholar rune bonus uptime.

“siege rounds” is as far as I know a slight DPS boost. However, combined with the Condi dmg boost from firearms Shrappnel should be better and taken all the time. I dont know exactly tbh.

DeoDose.4237:

A few suggestions:

Superspeed is not needed for Dungeons/Fractals. I prefer having “recovery matrix” for better survivability and scholar rune bonus uptime.

“siege rounds” is as far as I know a slight DPS boost. However, combined with the Condi dmg boost from firearms Shrappnel should be better and taken all the time. I dont know exactly tbh.

The first major trait in scrapper is really insignificant so pick whatever, i just like having the option to get some superspeed for repositioning and skips with Axe Toy.

Siege rounds is a dps boost (in short ish fights), however i took Shrapnel because Dragon Hunter has a 10% dmg bonus vs crippled and engineer can provide that easily without any significant loss with shrapnel. (Plus it’s a condition for Modified Ammunition).

so you are saying you are constantly dishing out 21k per second? i highly doubt that…

Bearbowforlife.9643:

so you are saying you are constantly dishing out 21k per second? i highly doubt that…

Umm…no one is saying that.

What is provided is a theoretical potential DPS.

If you don’t mind me asking, why shocking speed over recovery matrix?

Daralii.8940:

If you don’t mind me asking, why shocking speed over recovery matrix?

This question got already answered in this thread.
There is no specific reason, since neither of the adept traits contributes to dps.
Pick whatever you like in that row.

Dahkeus.8243:

Bearbowforlife.9643:

so you are saying you are constantly dishing out 21k per second? i highly doubt that…

Umm…no one is saying that.

What is provided is a theoretical potential DPS.

Umm… The OP is saying that.

What is provided by the OP is what he is saying is the DPS of his build. If it is potential best scenario dps, then he should say. There is NO way that he is doing 12k per second.

sckntoes.5963:

Dahkeus.8243:

Bearbowforlife.9643:

so you are saying you are constantly dishing out 21k per second? i highly doubt that…

Umm…no one is saying that.

What is provided is a theoretical potential DPS.

Umm… The OP is saying that.

What is provided by the OP is what he is saying is the DPS of his build. If it is potential best scenario dps, then he should say. There is NO way that he is doing 12k per second.

I provided spreadsheets showing that the calculations assumed 25 might, vuln, fury, banners, empower allies, 2k armor and with the perfect rotation without delay.

The problem is that people like you can’t read, and I’m not going to add disclaimers to every single calculation I do.

You rotation lasts 37s on the scrapper video. Is something different? Rotations won’t be faster in practise than on a training dummy.
Mistake on N23 of Hammer page. Lowering condition damage by 16k.

So actual DPS number should be closer to 17k if the rotation is indeed correct.

ocirne.7915:

sckntoes.5963:

Dahkeus.8243:

Bearbowforlife.9643:

so you are saying you are constantly dishing out 21k per second? i highly doubt that…

Umm…no one is saying that.

What is provided is a theoretical potential DPS.

Umm… The OP is saying that.

What is provided by the OP is what he is saying is the DPS of his build. If it is potential best scenario dps, then he should say. There is NO way that he is doing 12k per second.

I provided spreadsheets showing that the calculations assumed 25 might, vuln, fury, banners, empower allies, 2k armor and with the perfect rotation without delay.

The problem is that people like you can’t read, and I’m not going to add disclaimers to every single calculation I do.

Did you even read what I wrote? None of the points you propose does not make anything I say untrue. You are providing POTENTIAL dps, not actual real world dps. Meaning what you are saying means nothing. We as players are not robots. This is the type of kitten that make people in game say – “you either go this build or GTFO”.

Sabull.5670:

You rotation lasts 37s on the scrapper video. Is something different? Rotations won’t be faster in practise than on a training dummy.
Mistake on N23 of Hammer page. Lowering condition damage by 16k.

So actual DPS number should be closer to 17k if the rotation is indeed correct.

I started counting time at the first hit, since you can pretty much use Orbital Strike up front in every single encounter without problems (1500 range + 2 second delay). Besides that i was slow on multiple executions of Flame Blast and Acid bomb in the video. I measured the rotation again without errors and it does fit within 30 seconds.

Also I fixed the condition error, thanks for that. Lowered DPS to 20.7k. With optimal food (Seaweed Salad) it’s still 21154DPS though, but realistically noone will use food that expensive for 450 more DPS. Also edited the OP.

sckntoes.5963:

ocirne.7915:

sckntoes.5963:

Dahkeus.8243:

Bearbowforlife.9643:

so you are saying you are constantly dishing out 21k per second? i highly doubt that…

Umm…no one is saying that.

What is provided is a theoretical potential DPS.

Umm… The OP is saying that.

What is provided by the OP is what he is saying is the DPS of his build. If it is potential best scenario dps, then he should say. There is NO way that he is doing 12k per second.

I provided spreadsheets showing that the calculations assumed 25 might, vuln, fury, banners, empower allies, 2k armor and with the perfect rotation without delay.

The problem is that people like you can’t read, and I’m not going to add disclaimers to every single calculation I do.

Did you even read what I wrote? None of the points you propose does not make anything I say untrue. You are providing POTENTIAL dps, not actual real world dps. Meaning what you are saying means nothing. We as players are not robots. This is the type of kitten that make people in game say – “you either go this build or GTFO”.

The actual DPS numbers are completely irrelevant, all I am trying to prove with my post is the comparison between hammer and rifle. If we are talking about actual real world DPS, hammer would be even higher compared to rifle and other builds since it’s offensive skills are also defensive, plus scrapper also has more stability.

Heck i could have just told you the DPS with 2600 armor and people wouldn’t have freaked out over a high number while still proving that hammer is a great option.

And nowhere I disagreed that it’s not realistic DPS. It is potential DPS, it is the only thing we can realistically calculate and compare, even if it doesnt hold up in practice, the relations between all the potential DPS numbers of all classes/builds should generally be fairly similar in practice. (A staff ele has higher DPS than a necro potentially, and also in 95% of the fights in practice).

Its about time ppl stopped believing spreadsheet dps without any proof whatsoever. Want to make a viable comparison that people can easily verify for themselves? Kill the target golem 10 times, stop the time and post your rotation as well as the buffs when performing. You don’t even have to make a video about it. People who are interrested will take the trouble to learn the rotation verify your claims.

Now im not saying that your lying or that your math is bad, but i think that these things should be accessible and less cryptic to the common player. This also strengthens the value of a true statement.

What’s the theoretical dps of sinister condi

ocirne.7915:

If we are talking about actual real world DPS, hammer would be even higher compared to rifle and other builds since it’s offensive skills are also defensive, plus scrapper also has more stability.

Even considering that you need to be closer in order to attack with the hammer, whereas with the rifle you can get enough fury to last over the course of the entire fight easily enough, and sit just in range of phalanx strength, backpeddal while DPSing to move out of the range of attacks, and only come forward to 250 range for blunderbuss (a 1/2 second cast) before backing up again while hammer has a much higher time in melee, needing to come forward for both rocket charge and electro whirl (1 and 1.75 second casts respectively, though other than the first electo-whirl into rocket charge combo you don’t need to remain at 180 for the full duration of rocket charge) thus increasing the chance that you may need to dodge instead of dealing damage for a portion of the fight?

Replacing the point blank blunderbuss procs with the 550 range ones, replacing jump shot with overcharged shot+1 autoattack, and removing 10% crit chance from traits still ends up with 17408 damage, if you can’t manage to maintain 84% melee dps uptime, you’d have been better off using the rifle and never getting closer than 550 range, even if you ignore the benefit that heavy armour exploit will make it easier for your group to maintain those 25 stacks of vulnerability.

But, even if we are going by a melee vs melee approach, you’re ignoring many of the important aspects of the fact that rifle runs tools instead of scrapper.

Your rotation isn’t including the .55 coefficient bouncing attack from static discharge on every toolbelt skill use (Which should trigger at least four times, orbital strike, the toolbelt skills from elixir gun and the flame thrower are instant cast, and the bomb kit’s is definately worth using), as well as ignoring the automatic 1.138 coefficient attack upon equipping the grenade kit with streamlined kits active, or if that isn’t take, the 1.5 coefficient bomb planted by takedown round.

Assuming there are no targets for the static discharge to bounce to and then return to the target a second time, thus adding another 2.2 coefficient, and takedown round applies itself twice with a .75 coefficient (Halved as it only applies on enemies above half health, though, in practice it should apply slightly more often as groups will try to burst a boss once it drops below 50% with spells like time warp as there are more traits/abilities that increase damage on targets below 50% health than those above it above it meaning more time spent targetting enemies above half hp than ones below it) your sheet ended up with 21072.25493, not accounting for the bleeds due to critting with the additional 0 cast time attacks.

Obviously, that damage would be lowered against moving bosses due to the delayed charges, but, since you wanted to throw out the theoretical damage rather than trying to account for what a typical player can reasonably maintain…

Eponet.4829:

wall

I agree with most of your comment, everything depends on the encounter. If you cannot stay in melee range for a sufficient amount of time, then obviously a more ranged build is better. Though I personally never had problems with staying at melee range in any of the current content that is meleeable, this build is more suited for people that don’t have problem’s with that.

Static discharge is never taken because it’s been bugged for a long time now. Static discharge messes up your skill queue after using a toolbelt skill which makes doing optimal rotations annoying/impractical.

Also takedown round is bugged or the wiki is incorrect, it doesn’t have the coefficient stated by the wiki, it has about a 1.04 coefficient. (halfed is 0.52)

In practice, people never drop Streamlined Kits, since having swifness always available in/out of combat is something that usually speeds up runs more than a small proc. Builds need to be practical, highest theoretical damage is not the goal here. I could be adding the Rocket Turret toolbelt skill and Throw Wrench before every fight too, but thats not practical.

ocirne.7915:

If we are talking about actual real world DPS, hammer would be even higher compared to rifle and other builds since it’s offensive skills are also defensive, plus scrapper also has more stability.

i would say the opposite. the rifle rotation includes significant autoing, which is just filler and doesnt hurt as much to miss out on. using 3 high damage skills every 6 secs leaves less room for autoing, so when you have to react to a boss you have bigger dps losses. im assuming hammer 3 and 4 are used on cd (or nearly so) because they do in fact add to dps, yes? then theyll be on cd when you need them. the cc that comes with rifle isnt part of the rotation, so its available when needed (but unfortunately cc is now generic).

insanemaniac.2456:

ocirne.7915:

If we are talking about actual real world DPS, hammer would be even higher compared to rifle and other builds since it’s offensive skills are also defensive, plus scrapper also has more stability.

i would say the opposite. the rifle rotation includes significant autoing, which is just filler and doesnt hurt as much to miss out on. using 3 high damage skills every 6 secs leaves less room for autoing, so when you have to react to a boss you have bigger dps losses. im assuming hammer 3 and 4 are used on cd (or nearly so) because they do in fact add to dps, yes? then theyll be on cd when you need them. the cc that comes with rifle isnt part of the rotation, so its available when needed (but unfortunately cc is now generic).

The hammer rotation is significantly easier to do since the cast times are quite long which makes it way easier to think about your next skill. In general gameplay I can pretty much always do a near optimal rotation with hammer simply because theres almost always a decent skill off of cooldown. Even just using hammer 2345 in a row is not something you can mess up and its still better than camping grenades.

And a big part of playing optimally is adjusting your rotation to the encounter. If you know archdiviner will be using his aoe in the next few seconds, you don’t waste your block skill on DPS and use it instead to block the skill and do damage at the same time instead of dodging, and with many more skills available there is always plenty of stuff to swap around in your rotation without any significant loss.

First of all: Thank you for the calculations. Saves me time.
Second a disclaimer: I am not a fan of the ‘meta’ stuff and I am not ecouraging this with this post.

Okay I hope I’m safe to post now: I think since the DPS of both hammer and rifle are pretty close to eachother they both offer their uses.

In fights that require heave pressure I think rifle is better off. This is due to alot of dodging. Altho hammer has a block that allows you to keep DPS’ing, rifle offers you better burst. This is better in situations where you have to go in ‘defensive mode’ a bit more often.

Anyway, thats just how I feel about the hammer/rifle comaprison

Still curious about your calculations on the theoretical DPS of Vipers armor / Sinisters accessories, the P/P/Grenade/Bomb Kit build…

As to how it “theoretically” compares to these 2.

ocirne.7915:

In general gameplay I can pretty much always do a near optimal rotation with hammer simply because theres almost always a decent skill off of cooldown. Even just using hammer 2345 in a row is not something you can mess up and its still better than camping grenades.

hmm are 234 really all such a similar dps. (5 isnt obviously)

plus im under the impression that if you arent spamming 2 as frequently as possible then youre going to take a significant dps hit because youll have to auto at some point. 2345 on hammer isnt a good way to be optimal.

insanemaniac.2456:

ocirne.7915:

In general gameplay I can pretty much always do a near optimal rotation with hammer simply because theres almost always a decent skill off of cooldown. Even just using hammer 2345 in a row is not something you can mess up and its still better than camping grenades.

hmm are 234 really all such a similar dps. (5 isnt obviously)

plus im under the impression that if you arent spamming 2 as frequently as possible then youre going to take a significant dps hit because youll have to auto at some point. 2345 on hammer isnt a good way to be optimal.

Its not optimal, I just was saying it’s better than camping grenade auto.

Malpractice.7850:

Still curious about your calculations on the theoretical DPS of Vipers armor / Sinisters accessories, the P/P/Grenade/Bomb Kit build…

As to how it “theoretically” compares to these 2.

I don’t really want to put my time into calculating that, especially considering the builds have totally different strengths and weaknesses.

ocirne.7915:

insanemaniac.2456:

ocirne.7915:

In general gameplay I can pretty much always do a near optimal rotation with hammer simply because theres almost always a decent skill off of cooldown. Even just using hammer 2345 in a row is not something you can mess up and its still better than camping grenades.

hmm are 234 really all such a similar dps. (5 isnt obviously)

plus im under the impression that if you arent spamming 2 as frequently as possible then youre going to take a significant dps hit because youll have to auto at some point. 2345 on hammer isnt a good way to be optimal.

Its not optimal, I just was saying it’s better than camping grenade auto.

still not enough 2 spam. maybe you should call this the heartseeker scrapper build. in honor of the heartseeker heroes we will replace. at least it gets the point of the build across: use 3 2s on cd to avoid ever pushing 1.

but dont you see, when youre forced to dodge — what you miss out on in a scrapper build is a 2 somewhere. what you miss out on in a rifle build is a 1, because it has slack in its cds and some of the time is dedicated to pushing 1 for meh dps. thats whats making it pull ahead in your spreadsheet, and thats why itll feel like a wash in a real situation.