Guild Wars 2

*EDIT*with the below recommendations I have revised the damage list with more notes*EDIT*

With no gear or traits on I evaluated the tool tips of each weapon as well as went to a target Golem in the mists to count the number of ticks of damage and time between each attack to see which attacks were faster or slower (namely for chain type attacks with no cooldown)

I combined all the skills from each weapon, to include chain attacks as a total number of damage, then I took a 300 second time line(5 minutes) and totaled the number of times each weapon could fire off their individual skills based on cooldowns. So the following list is theoretical damage, since in reality you cannot do all the skills at the same time.

Weapon/Skill1/Skill2/Skill3/Skill4/Skill5/Total in 300 sec(Strikes causing burning damage from VoJ every 5 hits) (total with burning)

Sword/1042/67/888/49588 dmg in 300 sec 276 hits doing 18040 burning (67628 w/ burning)

(Sword 1 attack will always do 5 strikes, thus giving burning on a full rotation. Sword 3 has 8 strikes)

Mace/1075/840/470/55600 dmg in 300 sec 123 hits doing 7872 burning (63472 w/ burning)

, but target needs to stay in field for full effect

Scepter/224/1665/60180 dmg in 300 sec 420 hits doing 27552 burning (87732 w/ burning)

(this one is hard to determine since there is a travel time for the first attack, theoretically it is 1 second per a strike, but distance changes that time. The cooldown used is 1 second per attack for a melee range strike. Additionally I notice that scepter 2 never hits a single target for all 15 strikes, so the actual damage differs in use)

Staff/222/444/925/44400 dmg in 300 sec 168 hits doing 10824 burning (55224 w/ burning)

(staff 3 has 5 strikes, initial hit and 4 second field. Needs target to stay in field for full effect)

Staff Burst/222/222/925/36260 dmg in 300 sec 138 hits doing 8856 burning (37716 w/ burning)

Greatsword/1035/925/1251/406/1969/77824 dmg in 300 sec 258 hits doing 16728 burning (94552 w/ burning)

(Greatsword 5 attack has a dot associated with it which does a surprisingly good amount of damage. Also Greatsword 2 has a 5 strike field but target needs to stay still and greatsword 3 has a 9 strike attack but added projectiles can push damage higher)

Hammer/1739/647/296/370/71842 dmg in 300 sec 106 hits doing 6888 burning (78730 w/ burning)

(Hammer 1 attack does really good damage by itself, but has a 3 second field that hits 4 times. Need target to stay in field for full effect)

Shield/302/1208 dmg in 300 sec 4 hits doing 0 burning (1208 w/ burning)

Focus/151/756/2539 dmg in 300 sec 6 hits doing 328 burning (2539 w/ burning)

(Focus 5 damage is based on if no one hits you and the block wears off)

Torch/3280/1000/34240 dmg in 300 sec 88 hits doing 5567 burning (39816 w/ burning)

(Torch 4 damage is based on letting the burn apply and not pressing 4 again for a ranged attack, burn lasts for 5 seconds and reapplies as self burning buff wears off, for a total of 10 seconds of burning)

Torch Burst/681/1000/12737 dmg in 300 sec 14 hits doing 656 burning (13393 w/ burning)

(Torch 4 can do a ranged attack that increases cooldown)

While the above list shows a damage comparison of all the weapons, what you do not get is the utility of each weapon. Some weapons have none damage components that make them very powerful, such as pushback on the shield, or teleport/blinds on sword and focus. Do not take those lightly as they have huge impact on combat.

Hopefully the compiled information here will help people make good choices for weapons they want to use.

It’s an interesting approach but it’s slightly flawed. You should take a longer time for your damage analysis. At 30 seconds, there is going to be a bias towards weapons that squeeze in those extra hits in that short time.

For instance, say you have a weapon X has an attack with a 20 second recharge that hits for 200 and weapon Y has an attack with a 15 second recharge that hits for 100. With your approach, they look like they do equivalent damage in 30 seconds. Now, take those values over 1 minute: Weapon X will do 600 and weapon Y will do 400.

Obtena has a point. It isn’t just recharge times that throw off numbers, but also Virtue of Justice. Even without a single point in Condition damage, Virtue of Justice on passive grants a significant damage bonus to weapons with more frequent attacks (sword, torch).

Also, for Scepter damage, you might want to consider just doing it at melee. Weapons which change recharge properties on detonate (Staff, Torch) will also yield different numbers.

Still, some pretty interesting results, all things considered. I don’t know how far your gear skews the numbers, but you did demonstrate that despite a slow attack chain, Hammer hits quite hard, and Greatsword 5 is often overlooked for its damage properties.

Revised the damage list and updated the original post.

Take aways that I can gain from initial look:

-Scepter is pure dps
-Mace is defensive with low dps
-Sword is mid ground with moderate dps and defense via blinds

-Greatsword is highest dps
-Staff is pure defensive with lowest dps
-Hammer is the mid ground with good dps and good defensive via protection and knockbacks

-Shield is group oriented defense
-Focus is self oriented defense
-Torch is pure dps

Using “burst” abilities like staff attack 2 or torch attack 4, will lower overall damage but you gain a “utility” out of it. Either a heal or a ranged attack.