Guild Wars 2

So I got my boots bursted off of me the other day in unranked sPvP, and it was probably somebody on here that did it. I wish I had taken a screen shot, but I didn’t.

I was at nearly full health and playing a D/P thief at the time.

They were using GS and hit me with the following, everything critically hit, dmg is approximate from memory.

Power Lock – 1K
Mirror Blade – 3K
Mind Wrack – 5K
Mind Wrack – 5K
Mirror Blade – 3K
Mind Stab – 3K
Spatial Surge – 2K

I’ve tried replicating the damage in the PvP Lobby using the power shatter build on Metabattle, but I’ve come nowhere near these numbers. What am I missing?

There was a similar question on here a while back and I wrote up a much more detailed response in that thread if you care (or anyone else for that matter) to find it. Basically, once you account for mental anguish (if you were hit with power lock it would be a 30% bonus to the damage), compounding power, having 3 illusions out, and might stacks (on top of vuln stacks and extra dmg per stack through the domination line), its doable to reach those numbers. At least in WvW.

Your memory is a bit faulty though, since power lock itself doesn’t deal any damage, so I wouldn’t be surprised if each hit was lower than that, it would still be plenty to kill a thief even if each hit was 1k less damage than what you remember.

SaltAndLight.4652:

So I got my boots bursted off of me the other day in unranked sPvP, and it was probably somebody on here that did it. I wish I had taken a screen shot, but I didn’t.

I was at nearly full health and playing a D/P thief at the time.

They were using GS and hit me with the following, everything critically hit, dmg is approximate from memory.

Power Lock – 1K
Mirror Blade – 3K
Mind Wrack – 5K
Mind Wrack – 5K
Mirror Blade – 3K
Mind Stab – 3K
Spatial Surge – 2K

I’ve tried replicating the damage in the PvP Lobby using the power shatter build on Metabattle, but I’ve come nowhere near these numbers. What am I missing?

What you get hit by is probably:

Mirror Blade
Mirror Blade
Mirror Blade
Mind Wrack
Mind Wrack
Power Spike
Mind Stab
(if you survived that, then maybe a followup of Power Spike, Spatial Surge)

I can’t speak for the damage numbers in sPvP but the best spike is to hit with Mirror Blade at point blank range (the closer you are, the closer to instant all 3 Mirror Blade hits will be) followed by Mind Wrack (which will be yourself and your GS clone, so 2 Mind Wracks) and Power Spike as soon as the the Mirror Blade first hit is applied followed by Mind Stab.

If it’s timed and aimed correctly all the hits should land “instant”. A poorly executed one will result in a slow Mind Stab followup or Mirror Blade bouncing thus delaying the burst. Some may run Power Lock combined with Power Block trait to achieve a similar burst if the Power Lock lands an interrupt at the time of the burst, but I don’t know how common it is in sPvP since I don’t play that game mode.

SaltAndLight.4652:

So I got my boots bursted off of me the other day in unranked sPvP, and it was probably somebody on here that did it. I wish I had taken a screen shot, but I didn’t.

I was at nearly full health and playing a D/P thief at the time.

They were using GS and hit me with the following, everything critically hit, dmg is approximate from memory.

Power Lock – 1K
Mirror Blade – 3K
Mind Wrack – 5K
Mind Wrack – 5K
Mirror Blade – 3K
Mind Stab – 3K
Spatial Surge – 2K

I’ve tried replicating the damage in the PvP Lobby using the power shatter build on Metabattle, but I’ve come nowhere near these numbers. What am I missing?

Helseth has a video (outdated but still shows the burst) on his youtube channel.

Thanks for the replies!

I distinctly remember seeing two mind wracks for a little over 5K damage each, which hit nearly simultaneously. My mind wracks never hit for that much =)

SaltAndLight.4652:

Thanks for the replies!

I distinctly remember seeing two mind wracks for a little over 5K damage each, which hit nearly simultaneously. My mind wracks never hit for that much =)

They may have been using scholar runes to boost that burst as well. Keep in mind that dazing you with the mantra daze before the burst will also load up vuln stacks, further increasing the burst. Landing a point blank mirror blade will stack up 6 or so might, further increasing the burst. Additionally, using the mind wrack boost trait adds 30% damage if the target is not using skills, so executing the burst cleanly in the 1s duration of the daze is essential to achieving that maximum burst.

Basically there’s a ton of things that all have to be executed cleanly and precisely to pull of the massive burst that you see some Mesmers doing. You need to land mirror blade point blank, time the mind wrack perfectly after that, make sure that the daze lands just an instant prior to mirror blade hitting, and make sure that you’re over 90% HP for scholar bonus. A really good mesmer can pull off the whole thing in about a half second, but it’s extremely difficult to do.

SaltAndLight.4652:

Thanks for the replies!

I distinctly remember seeing two mind wracks for a little over 5K damage each, which hit nearly simultaneously. My mind wracks never hit for that much =)

Scholar runes 10%
Sigil of Savagery 3% (assuming Power Lock daze or stun on you)
Mirror blade gives you 6 might and target 9 stacks of Vuln (Domination line)
Daze applies 5 stacks Vuln (Domination line)
Interrupt applies 3 stacks Vuln (Domination line)
If running Mental Anguish 30% damage (while you are inactive/dazed/stunned)
17 stacks vuln adds 8.5% damage (Domination) and 17% from vuln itself

In total the Mind Wrack would have a potential damage multiplier of 1.815 from those. Ferocity multiplier means total multiplier of about 3.5211. You would need a 1420 damage on Mind Wrack before multiplier to achieve a 5k crit.

Damage formula is

Weapon Strength * Power * DamageCoeff / Armor

Assume Berserker and Scholar on Mesmer, you with similar armor (i.e. base armor):

Avg Greatsword weapon strength = 1047
Berserker amulet + scholar + 6 stacks might, power = 2555
Mind Wrack Coeff = 1.15
Medium armor (no toughness) = 2064

1047*2555*1.15/2064 = 1490.479
1490.479 * 3.5211 = 5249.6

Some numbers may be off but that seems to be over 5k each from the mesmer traits and skills alone.

Hackuuna.4085:

SaltAndLight.4652:

Thanks for the replies!

I distinctly remember seeing two mind wracks for a little over 5K damage each, which hit nearly simultaneously. My mind wracks never hit for that much =)

Scholar runes 10%
Sigil of Savagery 3% (assuming Power Lock daze or stun on you)
Mirror blade gives you 6 might and target 9 stacks of Vuln (Domination line)
Daze applies 5 stacks Vuln (Domination line)
Interrupt applies 3 stacks Vuln (Domination line)
If running Mental Anguish 30% damage (while you are inactive/dazed/stunned)
17 stacks vuln adds 8.5% damage (Domination) and 17% from vuln itself

In total the Mind Wrack would have a potential damage multiplier of 1.815 from those. Ferocity multiplier means total multiplier of about 3.5211. You would need a 1420 damage on Mind Wrack before multiplier to achieve a 5k crit.

Damage formula is

Weapon Strength * Power * DamageCoeff / Armor

Assume Berserker and Scholar on Mesmer, you with similar armor (i.e. base armor):

Avg Greatsword weapon strength = 1047
Berserker amulet + scholar + 6 stacks might, power = 2555
Mind Wrack Coeff = 1.15
Medium armor (no toughness) = 2064

1047*2555*1.15/2064 = 1490.479
1490.479 * 3.5211 = 5249.6

Some numbers may be off but that seems to be over 5k each from the mesmer traits and skills alone.

Wow! That is really good info. Thanks for the detail analysis.

Pretty sure if he slot power block (which give 1k damage on power lock) he won’t get the benefit of mental anguish though.