Guild Wars 2

The point of this tread is to put in evidence the difference in the Rampager and Berserker equipment, with the target in maximize the damage output.
So the idea is that with Berserker I make more damage than in other cases because I pump up the critical damage, but there is a downside in this approach, the Precision values with a Berserker equipment with respect a Rampager one.

We know that the critical damage is (1.5+bonus)*base, so now I’ll illustrate some example considering the fact that if I’ve an higher value of critical damage then I’ve a lower value of critical chance.
The base is a general guardian with:
- Full Valor Trait => Crit Dam 1.8
- 40% Crit Chance with a Rampager “generic” configuration" (reasonable, I’ve not performed the precise calculation, but this value is reasonable and used only to make a comparison)
- All the equip is exotic

Remove my Rampager Trinkets in favor to Berserker

Total Rampager Precision = 336
Total Berserker Precision = 240
Total Berserker Critical Damage = 16%
Ramp-Ber Precison = 96 about 5% less in Critical Chance; Berserker has 35% Critical Chance
Total Critical Damage = 1.8+0.16 = 1.96

The damage output is:
CritChance*CriticDam (you can see this model as a convolution of the probability to perform a critical shot and the correlated damage)

In this situation:

Rampager -> 40*1.8=72
Berserker -> 35*1.96=68.6

In this situation the improvement of the overall damage output is not what expected. In particular we lose about 5% of damage output.

Go on and…

Remove my Rampager Armor in favor to Berserker

Total Rampager Precision = 315
Total Berserker Precision = 224
Total Berserker Critical Damage = 16%
Ramp-Ber Precison = 91 about 4% less in Critical Chance; Berserker has 31% Critical Chance
Total Critical Damage = 1.96+0.16 = 2.12

In this situation:

Rampager -> 40*1.8=72
Berserker -> 31*2.12=65.72

In this situation the overall damage output is less than in the previous situation because we lose another amount of critical chance and with respect of Rampager configuration we lose about 9%.

The last thing to do is the weapon…

Remove my Rampager Weapon Set in favor to Berserker

Total Rampager Precision = 179
Total Berserker Precision = 128
Total Berserker Critical Damage = 10%
Ramp-Ber Precison = 21 about 2% less in Critical Chance; Berserker has 29% Critical Chance
Total Critical Damage = 2.12+0.10 = 2.22

In this situation:

Rampager -> 40*1.8=72
Berserker -> 29*2.22=64.38

In this situation the overall damage output is again less and with respect of Rampager configuration we lose an overall 11%.

This discussion is clearly partial, because I would like only to point out that the Berserker doesn’t mean directly “more damage”, but we have to probably choose the right Runes and Sigils and consumables to improve the critical damage to balance the loss of critical chance. In any case the improvement of critical damage grants single spikes but in the long period the critical chance wins (in other words you can do great damage with one shot but in the same time I make two critical shots and in this way I make more damage than you).
So we have to increase so much the critical damage to have an effective vantage in the damage output (e. g. the only trinkets do not assolve at this aim).
The other positive thing to have a Rampager tendency in the equipment is the high Condition Damage value that gives us the possibility to have another way to produce damage (I know that burn is not an efficient condition…).
We have also to not forget that high Critical Chance means high boon spamming in the Altruistic Healing build point of view.
The common thing of the both configuration is in any case the low survivability, but this view is also useful in choosing in which way we can make our “stable” build (Knight armor for example) more “aggressive”.

So am I doing wrong?
I am very curious to know your thoughts about it.

This is very useful, and i will put it to good use in my Crit/Lifestealing build.

Thanks for all the calculation, i think you’re right.

Your damage calculation seems wrong. The damage output should be: (CritChance%*CritDmg)+(1-CritChance%)

With your formula, a crit chance of zero would mean you do no damage, which is simply not true.

careful with those maths hehe

@Fabsm
Sorry but probably I expressed myself badly, but as I already wrote:

“CritChance*CriticDam (you can see this model as a convolution of the probability to perform a critical shot and the correlated damage)”

So this value is something proportional to the final real damage, and in particular is a quantification of the chance to do a critical hit and the increase of damage due to the critical damage. For example:
I make 100 hits with 40% crit chance and 30% crit damage, on average I’ll do 40 critical hits and my damage is base*1.80 -> for all the 100 hits the total critical damages are 40*base*1.80 -> (removing the base damage) 40*1.80.

About your hypothesis of 0% in crit chance is equivalent to 0 simply because you do not perform a critical hit.

I feel that we should not forget that power from berserker gear aids in normal and critical damage. In this context, a comparison isn’t straight forward because while rampager has 218 precision or approximately 10% of critical chance over berserker, berserker also has 218 power and 41% critical damage over rampager. There is also a ready synergy between power and critical damage.

Rampager has 592 condition damage that brings up our burning from 328 damage per tick to 476. To make full use of this synergy with precision, you may wish to use a superior sigil of earth for example that procs on critical hits. There are so many possibilities available and for all we know, this set up may beat a full berserker set.

Until the time comes when some genius is able to put everything together using formulas and kitten, I’ll put my money on berserker.

So what do you do (in PvE and WvW anyway) if you factor in the Save Yourselves buff with increased boon uptime?

@Carlos
Good point. I’ve forgotten to consider the power increase!
The increase of damage is connected to power changes considering it in its totality. In particular I calculate the values of power due to the equip plus 916 (the base power value), so:

Trinkets
Berserker 336+224+128+916=1604
Rampager 240+224+128+916=1508
Diff=96 -> Berserker has 6% more damage
Damage is 68.6*1.06=73 vs 72

Trinkets+Armor
Berserker 336+315+128+916=1704
Rampager 240+224+128+916=1508
Diff=196 -> Berserker has 13% more damage
Damage is 65.72*1.13=74 vs 72

Trinkets+Armor+Weapon
Berserker 336+315+179+916=1746
Rampager 240+224+128+916=1508
Diff=238 -> Berserker has 16% more damage
Damage is 64.38*1.16=75 vs 72

So this is the real situation. If we can’t to increase the critical chance using runes, sigil or consumables we can’t improve so much the damage output.

Sorry for the oversight in the first post.

Gimme your opinions!! Please!!

I think that the improvement in Condition Damage actually brings all to par.

Then, all that’s left is the opportunity to crit. If you like a more linear, steady damage with less spikes, you get Berserker Armor+Trinkets and Sigil of Force (+ 5%damage). If you like spikes, and burst damage, you get Rampager Armor + Trinkets and a good sigil to proc on crit, or simply the sigil of Accuracy (+ 5% crit %).

The first choice will always produce the best results, because the upped damage is on condition damage too, and so it will add over time to all hits (not only crits).

I would rather prefer the second choice though, just because there are few fights (champion, bosses) that let you hit steadily long enough to bring the better average in play.

If you have 0% crit chance, you will do 100% base damage.
If you have 100% crit chance, you will do (150% + crit dmg) base damage.
If you have 40% crit chance, and 30% crit damage and do 100 hits, you will crit (on average) 40 times and on those 40 hits you will do (150+30) = 180% base damage. The other 60 times will still do 100% base damage.

Crit chance * total crit damage only accounts for the damage done through criticals. What about the other hits?

Example using berserker vs rampager trinkets:

You had:
Rampager → 40*1.8=72
Berserker → 35*1.96=68.6
Notice these damage numbers are actually percentages of the base damage. But they are less than 100% of your base damage. This is because it is missing the 60% normal hits for rampager and 65% normal hits for berserker. So adding those on will actually give

Rampager → 40*1.8 + 60*1= 132% of your base damage overall
Berserker → 35*1.96 + 65*1 = 133.6% of your base damage overall

So actually berserker gives more overall damage, even without accounting for the power difference.

@kowolo
Good point. Now put together all these informations and what we obtain is:

Trinkets
Berserker -> 1604*0.65 + 1604*1.96*0.35 = 2143
Rampager -> 1508*0.6 + 1508*1.80*0.40 = 1991
Diff = +7.5% for Berserker

Trinkets+Armor
Berserker -> 1704*0.69 + 1704*2.12*0.31 = 2296
Rampager -> 1508*0.6 + 1508*1.80*0.40 = 1991
Diff = +15% for Berserker

Trinkets+Armor+Weapon
Berserker -> 1746*0.71 + 1746*2.22*0.29 = 2364
Rampager -> 1508*0.6 + 1508*1.80*0.40 = 1991
Diff = +19% for Berserker

Now the picture is much more clear and probably near to what append in the game.
For my point of view these number says that with the only use of trinkets we do not obtain a great vantage. To obtain the best from a Berserker setup we have to consider the fact that is necessary to have at least trinkets+armor, and the consequent decrease of survivability.
I’ve only to put in evidence what stated by Carlos about Condition Damage:
“Rampager has 592 condition damage that brings up our burning from 328 damage per tick to 476.”
This means that the Rampager set can produce 45% more Condition Damage than the Berserker set…

Now it’s not trivial to put the Condition Damage inside the model produced, but in any case seems that with both setup we can perform a huge amount of damages and probably the Rampager setup gives a more flexible situation because offer two different possibilities to produce damage.
Looking at this numbers, what is your preferences and what is the best environment where use Rampager and Berserker?? :P

Great job guys!

For me is Rampager.

I am theorycrafting a Lifesteal build, and i need alot of Critical chance for it to be effective.
With the additional crit chance of Rampager (that gives me more lifestealing) i count to more than make for the loss of survivability due to lack of toughness.

All the calculations are well confirmed by the table (that I’ve never seen before ), in the wiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_chance).

By the way, if we consider the max difference between the Rampager and Berserker setup (Trinkets+Armor+Weapon), we obtain an interesting result:

Berserker → 29% crit chance; 72% crit damage → 1.35*base damage
Rampager → 40% crit chance; 30% crit damage → 1.32*base damage

So this means that I make 35% and 32% more damage with Berserker and Rampager setup respectively. The conclusion is that the power makes the difference!
From this analysis the other conclusion is that I can stabilize my build introducing some Valkyrie equipment, that will help in power and vitality (and crit damage) loosing noto so much in precision and so in critical chance.