Guild Wars 2

Here’s my data:

I use two characters, an average size female human and a max size norn male.
I did the tests on two golems, heavy and light (due to their size differences).
After 50 tries on each golem per character, my data shows that there’s no differences between the two races. Both of them got the maximum14 hits from Whirling Wrath out of all the attempts ( a total of 200 attempts, all 14 hits).
Note that I positioned both of my characters right on top of the golems, as precise as possible.

I need to do more tests on a different target since the two golems could possibly have the same hit box. Now, off to find an asura to let me beat on.

@Trungalung

The main point of this thread was that there is a difference when people use Melee Assist Turned ON. This prevents me from getting inside enemy and when this is on, there is a damage difference about 10%. Try it with Melee Assist on and post the result please! I have already posted sample size of 30 on page 1. As I mentioned like million times in this thread alone, I prefer it being in turned on for numerous reasons.

.
As for the “Steady Greatsword” argument the problem is that the actual weapon in game is NOT STEADY. If a sample size of 30 had a difference of 10% in damage, it certainly means there is a statistical difference between the two race when you are playing PvE or WvWvW.

If you used a “Steady Greatsword”, that would eliminate a variable in your experiment, thus producing more accurate results for what you’re trying to test. An exact number will always yield more accurate results than RNG.

Offcourse by using Steady Greatsword, it will remove variability from my experiment. However, Aseyhe has statistically proven that the difference in my result occurring by pure chance is 1 in 15000.

In PvE and WvWvW you use a weapon that is NOT STEADY thus by using non steady weapon, you can see the difference when you are actually playing the game not just under test setting and PvP. After 30 tries using non steady weapon, the average damage difference between the two race was a little more than 10%. Surely, after 30 tries using unsteady weapon, if two races have absolutely no difference, they should have similar average damage.

Maybe you haven’t read my data from previous page so I will re-post it here again

Human – Norn
1054 – 1141
1061 – 1111
1017 – 971
1077 – 847
1100 – 1147
952 – 817
931 – 1130
1010 – 833
1054 – 910
1068 – 1094
1135 – 860
1095 – 774
966 – 1032
1062 – 1240
1088 – 804
1096 – 747
995 – 704
1038 – 660
1128 – 972
1025 – 695
1051 – 892
1015 – 854
973 – 938
1029 – 1079
1045 – 748
1199 – 1301
1080 -720
1064 – 799
1118 – 956
988 – 841

Human Average for 30 tries: 1050
Norn Average for 30 tries: 912

Human damage range: 973 – 1199
Norn damage range: 660 – 1301

If you still think that all this differences are caused solely by the variability of non-steady weapon, I don’t know what to say. Again, we use non-steady weapon in PvE and WvWvW, and this data shows the difference when playing anything other than PvP.

Nismoz, you’re chasing ghosts. There is no difference between Norn and Human.

You can use statistics to provide whatever ‘evidence’ you need to pad your argument, but the fact of the matter is that when you remove all variables, Norn and Humans do the exact same amount of damage. End of story.

I ran a few tests on both a Norn and a Human (smallest Female of each).

Standing inside the Medium Golem (Melee Assist off), each race had exactly 14 hits: 7 swings and 7 projectiles. This occurred every time. I only did this 10 times on each race as there was no deviation from this pattern.

I then turned Melee Assist back on to test, and these are the results: (Projectiles that hit the Golem only, each race continued to have exactly 7 swing hits)

I stood each character in the same location, directly behind the Golem.

Norn	-	Human
0	-	1
2	-	1
1	-	1
1	-	1
2	-	2
0	-	1
0	-	0
1	-	0
1	-	1
0	-	1
3	-	1
2	-	1
2	-	1
0	-	1
2	-	1
1	-	2
0	-	1
1	-	2
2	-	0
1	-	2
2	-	1
2	-	1
0	-	1
1	-	1
1	-	1
2	-	1
0	-	0
0	-	2
0	-	3
1	-	2
0	-	1
3	-	3
0	-	0
0	-	0
0	-	1
1	-	0
1	-	2
1	-	1
1	-	1
0	-	1
0	-	2
2	-	2

Random values from these numbers—
Total Sample Size: 42 Whirling Wrath Activations per Race
Average Projectiles: 0.952 (Norn) — 1.143 (Human)
Mode: 0 (Norn) — 1 (Human)
Count of 0s: 16 (Norn) — 7 (Human)
Count of 1s: 14 (Norn) — 24 (Human)
Count of 2s: 10 (Norn) — 9 (Human)
Count of 3s: 2 (Norn) — 2 (Human)
Average without 3s: 0.85 (Norn) — 1.05 (Human)

These numbers are fairly within the range of randomness, though the Human sample did show a strong bias towards 1 projectile per activation.

I think that there is not much, if any, difference between races for this particular skill.

I can replicate this test for a largest Norn model, as well.

Ok I did some pretty in depth testing on this and the results were rather shocking. It turns out nismoz was on to something. This is gonna be a long rant so if you want to skip to the bottom I’ll put a tl/dr for you lazies out there.

I used male norn max height and male human max height. Passed the tutorial quests and then proceeded to heart of the mists. Cleared traits and picked up a greatsword from the vendor. I got the normal one (not steady). Left the other gear on default (shamans amulet and 6 rune of gaurdian). Went to heavy target dummy with melee assist on, got as close as possible, and cast 30 whirly twirly’s with each character. Recorded detailed data into a spread sheet, including the damage shown on the scrolling combat text as well as the data from the combat log.

First some basic stuff. You always hit 7 times with non projectile attacks when you do this. You hit with between 0 and 3 projectiles. The damage range from the weapon gets RNG’ed only once, so if you get the top of the range then every single tick will be high, and if you get low range every tick will be low.

Like yraen, my human hit with slightly more projectiles than the norn. Norn averaged 1.13 per whirl and human averaged 1.33 per whirl. The difference is an extra 0.2 projectile hits, which is similar to the difference that he got, although both my results were higher than his. The conclusion to draw from this is that humans > norns, and tall males > short females. This seems to stem from how close melee assist will let you get slightly different based on your model. This is rather minor though. Each whirl did a total of about 1000 damage with each projectile hitting for about 50. Getting 0.2 extra projectiles would have added about 10 damage, or a 1% increase in damage.

It only gets weirder though. The damage thats shown in the scrolling combat text over your targets head is different then the damage that you get by totalling all the hits in the combat log… but only for norns. For humans it would add up just as you would expect, the sum of the combat log hits is equal to the big number on top of your targets head. For norns, it sometimes added up right, sometimes the scrolling combat text number was bigger, but the majority of times the combat log number was bigger. This raises a question: when the two numbers disagree, which one is right?

Another thing I came across, crit chance. For both characters the character sheet listed 4%, which is the base crit chance for a level 80 with no +crit chance of any kind. The norn did crit about 4.2%, but the human was closer to 6.7%. I really want to just chalk that up to sample size being too small, but I have doubts. Thats from a total of over 200 hits.

Here is some more data I got: Norn – Human
Average combat text damage per whirl: 1003.6 – 1072.5
Average combat log damage per whirl: 1045.7 – 1072.4
Average projectile hits: 1.13 – 1.33

Please feel free to recreate these tests and/or do more tests, I’m really tired and I may have just made a simple error somehow. Either way, we need more glorious tests for the sake of science and to make GLaDOS proud

TL/DR: model size does have a slight affect on how close you can get if you have melee assist turned on. Norns combat log damage often times differs from the damage shown above your targets head, but for humans it is the same (for whirling wrath at least). Human crit chance also may be slightly higher for this skill at least.

AlphaDuck.7592:

Another thing I came across, crit chance. For both characters the character sheet listed 4%, which is the base crit chance for a level 80 with no +crit chance of any kind. The norn did crit about 4.2%, but the human was closer to 6.7%. I really want to just chalk that up to sample size being too small, but I have doubts. Thats from a total of over 200 hits.

I wouldn’t read too much into that. If the crit chance were 4.4% (which would still round to 4%), the probability of getting 6.5% or more crits in 200 trials would be about 11% — not unlikely at all.

Thanks Aseyhe, you are probably right. Btw what is it called that you are doing there? I never took a statistics class so I’d like to look it up but not sure what to search for.

The conclusion I would draw from this thread isn’t anything to do with Norns or Humans but instead it’s melee assist that’s broken.

AlphaDuck.7592:

Thanks Aseyhe, you are probably right. Btw what is it called that you are doing there? I never took a statistics class so I’d like to look it up but not sure what to search for.

In that case I used the binomial distribution; specifically, I took the distribution with probability p=.044 and number of trials n=200. To find the probability of attaining 6.5% crit or higher (i.e. 13 crits or more), one computes the cumulative distribution function at the value 12 — this gives the probability of attaining 12 or fewer crits, from which the former quantity is readily found.

Nismoz.4836:

Results:
Human – Norn
…
931 – 1130
…
Human damage range: 973 – 1199
…
I am not sure why my data is different from BAMBOO’s data though. I don’t know why his average damage was in the range of 700-800 while mine was around 1000.

Just pointing out that the damage range for human is incorrectly listed by the data you supplied us. Its a minor error, but really backs up what i’m going to suggest.

If you spend all your time looking for a specific outcome, you are going to find find that outcome eventually and overlook or dismiss the evidence to the contrary. This happens in statistics all the time…just look at network news polls for an example. The fact that your data directly contradicts one of your points only leads me to this conclusion.

The reason your data differs from mine could be any number of reasons. I deliberately unset all of my traits, kept all character’ gear identical and only tested with the characters for my tests to eliminate some RNG. Also, I ensured that all of my tests had the same testing environment…such as no buffs, debuffs or other people attacking the golem while i was recording and ensured that I stood in the exact same position each trial. Your data indicates that one of more of these circumstances did not happen for you to reproduce my test accurately.

If you re-rolled and are happier for it, That’s good. It’s a game, and enjoyment is the reason we should do this. I personally based my race selection for professions on appearance and racial skills for funzies.

@ AlphaDuck – You are very correct, I did note in my earlier post that displayed damage and ‘combat log’ damage do not agree with each other.

As I said before, many of us could run these tests; but the end result is ultimately the same. Only internal tests where every variable can be controlled really matter. I’m confident in my tests that there was only a minimal difference in the results and nothing of statistical merit.

Anybody mind summarizing? Is this effect entirely due to melee assist range variation?

ens.9854:

Anybody mind summarizing? Is this effect entirely due to melee assist range variation?

Sure.

Play with Melee Assist off, ignore this thread.

Danicco.3568:

ens.9854:

Anybody mind summarizing? Is this effect entirely due to melee assist range variation?

Sure.

Play with Melee Assist off, ignore this thread.

Yup!

So the tl:dr of this thread is that smaller races can get closer using melee assist and therefore hit more of the projectiles, but the difference minor and for some reason the bigger difference is that norns don’t display the full damage they do for some bizarre reason while humans do?

i am currently experiencing this issue right now. anet please…. fix this issue

Jeez, digging up 1 year old threads XD

I have two Guardians, one just happens to be a Norn and the other a Human. I took everything off, removed all traits and equipped basic white GS. Both characters had the same stats and tooltip. After several Whirling Wraths I concluded that they do the same damage. There were times my Norn had more damage, and times my Human had more damage, but nothing groundbreaking.

I have both a charr guardian and human guardian. Same gear and same exact numbers. This is a non issue.

Been wondering about this myself but I have so many norns i have little way to compare. GW2 skills is tied a lot more to animations than in other games, I mean you can’t even chat while the gathering animations play, only between them.

Also I get it’s all about personal preference but I couldn’t ever play with melee assist, putting you farther from the enemy for more miss chance vs moving targets and being blocked in narrow spaces. I highly suggest practice without!

Anyway, good to get some clarity from this thread on it!

anet should clarify this issue. i’ve been playing my norn since day 1 and i really felt something is not right with my damage. i was searching for a wvw build for guardian and i found a clip on youtube. the guard in the vid was a human guard. we both have the same gears and stats i noticed how he can dish out 3-4k crits easily even when he is not in between the players. i did hundreds of tests and the results really tell that there is something wrong with norn’s whirling wrath. i already sent anet a report on this issue 3 days ago. and this was anet’s reply…

GM ImaginaryPixel (Guild Wars 2 Support)
Jun 07 05:03

" Thank you for contacting us once more regarding the issue you were experiencing.

Issues like the one you reported often are complex to resolve, and the time it takes to fix them can vary widely based on the severity and complexity of each issue. Because of this we are unable to provide a timeframe in which the issue might be resolved.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us.

Regards,

GM ImaginaryPixel
Guild Wars 2 Support Team "

and say what? non-issue?

i hope this issue will get fixed on the next patch..

Nismoz.4836:

Melee assist was both turned on so that we cannot go inside the enemy.

I stopped reading after this point, and at the risk of repeating other posters, the above quote is where your problem lies. With Melee Assist turned on, skills like WW are very random in how they hit with the projectiles. This is why most people recommend turning it off so that you can hit all projectiles. By the skills nature, it randomly throws out the projectiles and if you notice, its not always the same twice.

In your case, your human counterpart got lucky in how the projectiles hit and that more of his hit the target because it was aimed at it. Try doing 1,000 tests and you’ll see both hit the same damage in average.

Your Norn was just another victim of the RNG.

It is an issue of perception. All hitboxes are equal. And the norn is required to stand in the mob to get max hits. This means that all races do the same damage but the problem is one of relative perception. A smaller race like human being right up on the target at arms length is closer to the center of the hit box. a larger race like norn looks like it is at the same distance (at arms length) but because it is larger it is actually further away from the center of the hitbox. the solution is to stand “closer” to the target on your norn to be the same distance as the human is from the target.