Guild Wars 2

In another topic I was calculating a Power x Precision thing and ended up with some values according to the formulas I’ve set up, but I think the value’s off or there’s something I’m doing wrong.

Here’s the the formula:

Regular Hits: (Power x Coefficient + Base) x 100 – Critical Chance
Critical Hits: (Power x Coefficient + Base) x Critical Chance x Critical Damage

Regular Hits + Critical Hits = Total Damage

Coefficient being how much the tooltip value increases by each Power point you get (not counting the 916 base), and Critical Chance given by: 4 – Precision/21 (Precision from Attributes only), and using Strike (0.33 Coefficient, 296 Base), I can:

Power: (Power + At x 0.33 + 296) x 100 – 4 + ((Power + At x 0.33 + 296) x 4 x CD)
Precision: (Power x 0.33 + 296) x 100 – (4 + At/21) + ((Power x 0.33 + 296) x (4 + At/21) x CD)
At = Attribute Points spent

At 0 Power (base power) it’d need a 3.5+ Crit Damage for Precision to be worth more than Power, at 3000 Power it’d would need a 1.75~ only.
Can someone better elaborate on this please? When is Power/Precision better than each other based on Critical Damage, if ever?

The example better explained:

Power
Skill Damage: (Power + AttributePoints x 0.33 (coeff. from Strike) + 296 (base damage))

Regular Hits: Skill Damage x 100 (total hits) – 4 (critical hits)
Critical Hits: Skill Damage x 4 (critical hits) x 1.5 (critical damage)

Precision
Skill Damage: (Power x 0.33 (coeff. from Strike) + 296 (base damage))

Regular Hits: Skill Damage x 100 (total hits) – (4 + AttributePoints/21) (critical hits)
Critical Hits: Skill Damage x (4 + AttributePoints/21) (critical hits) x 1.5 (critical damage)

Question
When is (Power Total Damage) < (Precision Total Damage)?

Power has a much larger increase in damage than precision, but precision (especially for guardians) has a lot of procs (lifesteal, EM, Vigor, etc.). I don’t there are any achievable stat values for which the damage of precision will be greater than the damage of power.

Its hard just to compare power vs precision.

Ideally you want to compare skill damage / coefficient, critical chance, and critical damage.

If you had zero critical damage, then raising focusing on your power is a better idea to raise the skill damage.

If you had high crit damage with low critical chance then there could be a case the increasing your critical chance wins out over power (depending on how much power you have).

I think this is one of those situations where you’d need to punch your gear, skills, and traits into excel and see which stat you get the most damage from increasing. It’s probably going to be a case by case thing.

Ehra.5240:

I think this is one of those situations where you’d need to punch your gear, skills, and traits into excel and see which stat you get the most damage from increasing. It’s probably going to be a case by case thing.

This is exactly what I do.

As a rule of thumb Precision is better than Power to increase damage only if your Critical Damage is greater than 50%.

Let’s say you have 2k Power.
If you add 20 points you get to 2020 Power and your damage is increased by 1%.
On the other hand if you add those 20 points to Precision you add a little less than 1% Critical Chance. So, for every attack, you have 1% more chances to add to your damage the difference between a regular and a critical attack. This difference is [regular damage] x [0,5 + Critical Damage].

I said rule of thumb because the exact value of Critical Damage after which Precision is better than Power depends on your starting value of Power: the greater it is, the sooner Precision becomes good. In fact on damage Power is additive and Precision multiplicative.

Who has 3k power?

Yaki.9563:

Who has 3k power?

Thanks, you’re right, 2k is more realistic.

Possibel they mean 3k Attack. But 3k should be possibel. ~ 2250 with 30 Points in Zeal, 25 Stacks Might, 25 Stacks Bloodlust and 100 from Food. And at least Banner of Strengh (70 Power).

Codo.2860:

As a rule of thumb Precision is better than Power to increase damage only if your Critical Damage is greater than 50%.

Let’s say you have 2k Power.
If you add 20 points you get to 2020 Power and your damage is increased by 1%.
On the other hand if you add those 20 points to Precision you add a little less than 1% Critical Chance. So, for every attack, you have 1% more chances to add to your damage the difference between a regular and a critical attack. This difference is [regular damage] x [0,5 + Critical Damage].

I said rule of thumb because the exact value of Critical Damage after which Precision is better than Power depends on your starting value of Power: the greater it is, the sooner Precision becomes good. In fact on damage Power is additive and Precision multiplicative.

I’m expecting a more mathematical answer than a “rule of thumb”.
This isn’t really truth, but I was hoping to get to a formula where I can just input my Critical Damage, and it’ll tell me if Power or Precision is better.

But after some more tests it seems Power has a scaling of it’s own too, so I think the formula would be sorta complicated to get…

For example:
At 1300~ Power my GS hits: 434 – adding 51 power: 450 (a 0.31 increase per Power)
At 2300~ Power my GS hits: 743 – adding 51 power: 758 (a 0.33 increase per Power)

Using my current stats:
20% crit chance, 25% critical damage, 1977 Power untraited, 2277 Power with 30 in Zeal, attacking 100 times:

(Spent 30 in Zeal)
2277 Power hits: 735 × 80 (regular hits) = 58.800
2277 Power crits: 735 × 20 × 1.75 (critical damage) = 25.725
2277 Power total: 84.525

(Spent 30 in Radiance)
1977 Power hits: 638 × 66 = 42.108
1977 Power crits: 638 × 34 × 1.75 = 37.961
1977 Power total: 80.069

Same stats, but assuming a 80% Crit Damage:

(Spent 30 in Zeal)
2277 Power hits: 735 × 80 = 58.800
2277 Power crits: 735 × 20 × 2.30 = 33.810
2277 Power total: 92.610

(Spent 30 in Radiance)
1977 Power hits: 638 × 66 = 42.108
1977 Power crits: 638 × 34 × 2.30 = 49.891
1977 Power total: 91.999

By this, higher the Critical Damage, the higher Precision comes close to Power for damage.
I’m trying to come up with a formula so I don’t have to do this case-by-case.

I’m at work so I have not much time, however the formula is really easy (if wiki is correct) but has two variables, Power and Critical Damage, so you cannot get a single value as result but you get a function.

Increasing power by X your damage increase in this way:

DAMAGE INCREASE = OLD DAMAGE * [[OLD POWER + X] / [OLD POWER] – 1]

If you increase precision by X you get:

DAMAGE INCREASE = OLD DAMAGE * [0,5 + CRITICAL DAMAGE] * [ 0,01 * X / 21 ]

So you get the function:

[OLD POWER + X] / [OLD POWER] – 1 = [0,5 + CRITICAL DAMAGE] * [ 0,01 * X / 21 ]

You can draw it, this is the line where, for a given OLD POWER/CRITICAL DAMAGE pair, increasing power is as good as increasing precision. On one side of the line power is better, on the other side precision is better.

This is the plotted graph.
On the left you have Power, on the bottom you have Critical Damage.
As you see the higher Power is the lower the Critical Damage needed to make Precision the best solution.
Obviously I may have made some mistakes. :P

Im not sure about the damage increase with Prec, Codo, can you explain this formula? Let’s say old damage = 100 and crtical damage =0.5. I’ll put 2100 points into Prec., damage increase =100. Now I’ll put 1050 points into Prec, damage increase = 50, new damage = 150. Now i’ll put another 1050 points into Prec, damage increase = 75. I have 225 damage now instead of 200.

Another possibility:
Wolfram Alpha for the win
CCC is your Critical Damage ([The number in your Herointerface +50]/100)
AAA are the attributpoints you want to spent for power and precision in total.

x = the amount of points you have to put into Power, y into Precision.

Edit: The link can’t provide any graphics. You substitute AAA and CCC with your own numbers, click “=” and get (x , y)=(… , …) Thats the perfect distribution for Power and Precision.

First of all you’re making it WAY too complicated, and in the end it’s causing you to make some pretty large errors.

Your “coefficient” for power increasing tooltip damage isn’t the actual skill coefficient. You’re better off looking up the real skill coefficients and then comparing power versus precision on a skill by skill basis. I’ve posted a list of the Guardian coefficients on this forum, it’s probably around the second page.

Most skills have a coefficient between .6 and 1.5, for example. The true damage formula is Damage = Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor. Once you know the skill coefficient you can plug everything else in, multiply by critical hits, and actually compare precision versus power.

foofad.5162:

First of all you’re making it WAY too complicated, and in the end it’s causing you to make some pretty large errors.

Your “coefficient” for power increasing tooltip damage isn’t the actual skill coefficient. You’re better off looking up the real skill coefficients and then comparing power versus precision on a skill by skill basis. I’ve posted a list of the Guardian coefficients on this forum, it’s probably around the second page.

Most skills have a coefficient between .6 and 1.5, for example. The true damage formula is Damage = Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor. Once you know the skill coefficient you can plug everything else in, multiply by critical hits, and actually compare precision versus power.

Damage without Crit = Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor
Damage with crit = Damage without crit * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage)
= Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage)
= Skill Coefficient * [Power * Average Weapon Damage / Armor * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage)]

Damage is proportional to Power * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage), therefore the Coefficient is irrelevant for maximum damage. Same goes for Average Weapon Damage and Armor.

I’ve spent a lot of time crunching the numbers for my current setup (this was for the sake of ’if I gained 250 power or precision from their respective stacking sigils, which would allow me to do more damage?) as a berserker engineer. The 250 power (comparing a scaling coefficient on my abilities) improved the tooltip number by ~10%, which, given that has no impact on critical hits, would provide an overall damage increase of 10%.

On the other hand, I analyzed that convenient chart on the wiki for precision and critical damage, and how they increase your damage overall. I currently sport 108% critical damage, and after analyzing the graph, adding 250 precision increased the old damage increase by about 11.x% (this was taking my original, pre-precision-increment increase as the graph states, of, for example, 150% more damage, and comparing it to the new value of 168%, not just saying 150% to 160% is a 10% increase, as that’s obviously incorrect). These values of my memory aren’t exact, except for the 10% and 11.x%. This wasn’t taking into account on-crit effects for the engineer, like the minor bleeding trait, but the trait is almost negligible anyway. But it did show a difference for my case – with high crit damage (as in, full berserker gear), precision outweighed power by a minimal, but provable amount.

Yaki.9563:

Power has a much larger increase in damage than precision, but precision (especially for guardians) has a lot of procs (lifesteal, EM, Vigor, etc.). I don’t there are any achievable stat values for which the damage of precision will be greater than the damage of power.

Actually it’s quite much preferable to get precision rather than power in my current guardian setup that has mostly berserker pieces (which I have counted to be most efficient in this build). Now, I don’t know for sure if the build is the very best you can have but it’s very mainstream with 30 in valor and honor~. This is without even taking into consideration the procs that are possible on crits, so oils rather than sharpening stones is obvious. Ah, not counting potential might stacking that decreases the relative increase that power does for you either.

Precision. Empowering Might/Omnomberry Pie

Molch.2078:

Im not sure about the damage increase with Prec, Codo, can you explain this formula? Let’s say old damage = 100 and crtical damage =0.5. I’ll put 2100 points into Prec., damage increase =100. Now I’ll put 1050 points into Prec, damage increase = 50, new damage = 150. Now i’ll put another 1050 points into Prec, damage increase = 75. I have 225 damage now instead of 200.

Another possibility:
Wolfram Alpha for the win
CCC is your Critical Damage ([The number in your Herointerface +50]/100)
AAA are the attributpoints you want to spent for power and precision in total.

x = the amount of points you have to put into Power, y into Precision.

The problem with the formula lies in the fact that with OLD DAMAGE I meant the damage without taking critics into account. So when you add 1050 and then 1050 again you get a 50+50 damage increase, that is correct.

In your link sadly I can’t see the graphic but the formula is surely right.

Molch.2078:

foofad.5162:

First of all you’re making it WAY too complicated, and in the end it’s causing you to make some pretty large errors.

Your “coefficient” for power increasing tooltip damage isn’t the actual skill coefficient. You’re better off looking up the real skill coefficients and then comparing power versus precision on a skill by skill basis. I’ve posted a list of the Guardian coefficients on this forum, it’s probably around the second page.

Most skills have a coefficient between .6 and 1.5, for example. The true damage formula is Damage = Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor. Once you know the skill coefficient you can plug everything else in, multiply by critical hits, and actually compare precision versus power.

Damage without Crit = Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor
Damage with crit = Damage without crit * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage)
= Power * Average Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage)
= Skill Coefficient * [Power * Average Weapon Damage / Armor * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage)]

Damage is proportional to Power * (1 + Critical Hit Chanche * Critical Hit Bonusdamage), therefore the Coefficient is irrelevant for maximum damage. Same goes for Average Weapon Damage and Armor.

Yes, damage-wise in the choice between Power and Precision only two things matter: your current Power and your Critical Damage.
I would say that most guardians have at least 1800 Power: so if your Critical Damage is at least 70% Precision should be better than Power.

Codo.2860:

The problem with the formula lies in the fact that with OLD DAMAGE I meant the damage without taking critics into account. So when you add 1050 and then 1050 again you get a 50+50 damage increase, that is correct.

In your link sadly I can’t see the graphic but the formula is surely right.

Ah ofc, that makes sense. So you could say OLD DAMAGE ~ Power.

The link can’t provide any graphics. You substitute AAA and CCC with your own numbers, click “=” and get (x , y)=(… , …) Thats the perfect distribution for Power and Precision.

Please keep in mind that Power also increases damage dealt by Retaliation.

Molch.2078:

Codo.2860:

The problem with the formula lies in the fact that with OLD DAMAGE I meant the damage without taking critics into account. So when you add 1050 and then 1050 again you get a 50+50 damage increase, that is correct.

In your link sadly I can’t see the graphic but the formula is surely right.

Ah ofc, that makes sense. So you could say OLD DAMAGE ~ Power.

The link can’t provide any graphics. You substitute AAA and CCC with your own numbers, click “=” and get (x , y)=(… , …) Thats the perfect distribution for Power and Precision.

Awesome, with Wolfram it’s easy win indeed!
By the way there’s a fault in my formulas so better stick to yours.

Unless my math is wrong I can’t think of a realistic situation where precision would increase damage by more than power. For example, with 2500 power and 40% crit rate, with +50% critical damage (for 200% crit damage):

+105 power increases damage by 105/2500 = 4.2%
+105 precision is 5% crit. If base damage is 1.4 * 2 + 0.6 * 1 = 3.4 then the new damage would be 1.45 *2 + 0.55 * 1 = 3.45 which is a 1.48% damage increase.

It’s not even close, even with very high power and medicore crit with decent crit damage.

BTW all these formulas are far too complicated. If the formula is power * [a bunch of other numbers blah blah blah complex crap] then damage increase from power is simply % = (change in power) / (original power) as everything else divides out.

Yaki.9563:

Unless my math is wrong I can’t think of a realistic situation where precision would increase damage by more than power. For example, with 2500 power and 40% crit rate, with +50% critical damage (for 200% crit damage):

+105 power increases damage by 105/2500 = 4.2%
+105 precision is 5% crit. If base damage is 1.4 * 2 + 0.6 * 1 = 3.4 then the new damage would be 1.45 *2 + 0.55 * 1 = 3.45 which is a 1.48% damage increase.

It’s not even close, even with very high power and medicore crit with decent crit damage.

BTW all these formulas are far too complicated. If the formula is power * [a bunch of other numbers blah blah blah complex crap] then damage increase from power is simply % = (change in power) / (original power) as everything else divides out.

I think that your formula that gives 1,48% damage increase is wrong, why 1,4 and 1,45 instead of 0,4 and 0,45?
A bit of precision is needed to maximize dps, but with only 50% critical damage it’s only a bit (300-400 points maybe).

Codo.2860:

Yaki.9563:

Unless my math is wrong I can’t think of a realistic situation where precision would increase damage by more than power. For example, with 2500 power and 40% crit rate, with +50% critical damage (for 200% crit damage):

+105 power increases damage by 105/2500 = 4.2%
+105 precision is 5% crit. If base damage is 1.4 * 2 + 0.6 * 1 = 3.4 then the new damage would be 1.45 *2 + 0.55 * 1 = 3.45 which is a 1.48% damage increase.

It’s not even close, even with very high power and medicore crit with decent crit damage.

BTW all these formulas are far too complicated. If the formula is power * [a bunch of other numbers blah blah blah complex crap] then damage increase from power is simply % = (change in power) / (original power) as everything else divides out.

I think that your formula that gives 1,48% damage increase is wrong, why 1,4 and 1,45 instead of 0,4 and 0,45?
A bit of precision is needed to maximize dps, but with only 50% critical damage it’s only a bit (300-400 points maybe).

Oops.

+105 power increases damage by 105/2500 = 4.2%
+105 precision is 5% crit. If base damage is 0.4 * 2 + 0.6 * 1 = 1.4 then the new damage would be 0.45 *2 + 0.55 * 1 = 1.45 which is a 3.6% damage increase.

That’s better, I was wondering why the gap was so large. Power is still better than precision for increasing damage though, and you’d pretty much have to make up some unrealistic or contrived scenario to make that not the case.

Yes, usually Power is better, I have to agree.
But you shouldn’t put every point there: in your case, for example, with 2k points to spend you should put 366 points in precision and the rest in power.
If you had 100% critical damage you should have put 716 points in precision instead.

Well ranger gets +10% critical damage too in traitline. I guess there it is much stronger than putting 100 into power line.