Guild Wars 2

I’m wondering what people are using to determine that not using a rotation that shatters their phantasms is more DPS than shattering them. I see people throwing this around a lot, saying that it’s pointless to shatter (specifically mindwrack) if they have a bunch of phantasm’s up because the phantasm’s will output more DPS than shattering.

Is this conclusion perceived or is there hard data supporting this conclusion? While I can understand people saying “it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that this is the way it works”, unfortunately my brain works better when it has supporting evidence to look at before it reaches a conclusion.

Mindwark: Low damage, high CD.
Phantasms: High damage, low CD.

The hard data is the low damage of mind wrack, it hits for less than some of the mesmer weapon skills. I dont know how much better it gets when you trait into shatters however.

I would like to see mind wrack given a damage increase and/or make it count as a blast finisher.

Is this conclusion perceived or is there hard data supporting this conclusion?

Both.

Phantasms are very strong, however they are slightly overrated. They are pretty easy fire-and-forget mechanisms, but they are not exclusive with shattering.

Many players like to use their phantasms, and then summon more and pretend they are a squad of 3 pets. This is their initial error. Then they pick up 10 traits to buff phantasms, and they turn their error into reality: phantasms are too good to shatter [in a phantasm build with 4+ traits invested into phantasms living].

What most novice players miss, and you can see evidence of this in the “wah, my clones are overwriting my third phantasm!” threads, is that you can time your shatters and weapon swaps effectively to maintain very high phantasm uptime.

The constraints are thus:

1. You can maintain only 3 illusions regardless.
2. Your third phantasm constrains your clone abilities (clones will overwrite a third phantasm).
3. Two phantasms seems like a high point for effectiveness, to enable you to maintain your clone generation on cooldown.

4. You can summon two phantasms almost at the same time using a weapon swap.
5. With coherent timing, you can replace both phantasms that you have up immediately after shattering.
6. By maintaining a target of 2 phantasms, you can freely unload clone abilities without impacting your DPS target

This holds true for most builds in general unless, as I said, you have a build which is 100% centered on phantasms (+30% phantasm damage, retal, regen, prot on phantasms, phantasm recharge, SI). Naturally, this is a popular build because of its passive and generally easy play.

So much wrong with what you are saying EasymodeX…

You are right that you should not ignore shatter skills just because you specced phantasms, BUT:

1) Phantasms when traited deal more damage then anything else you can throw out. Saving 1 phantasm spot for skills like Decoy or Illusionary Leap would most definitly be a huge damage loss.

2) Phantasms work best in combination with the Illusionary Defender utility skill, as it stacks nicely with the boon trait combos (50% + 33% + 9% damage reduction). What this means is that you usually have 2 offensive and 1 defensive phantasms out at the same time and can summon all three at the same time.

Clone abilities are not nearly as powerfull as phantasm abilities right now, be it offensively or defensively. If you spec Phantasms, they can still be used for complementary utility, but in no circumstance will you ever want to give up 1 phantasm for a Decoy or a Leap. The best use for them is before putting all phantasms up, right after a shatter or if your phantasms are killed before their CD is up.

Meanwhile Shatters are still good, but you want to time it so you can resummon phantasms right after. Distortion is the one I find myself using most often.

Xfraze.1704:

I’m wondering what people are using to determine that not using a rotation that shatters their phantasms is more DPS than shattering them. I see people throwing this around a lot, saying that it’s pointless to shatter (specifically mindwrack) if they have a bunch of phantasm’s up because the phantasm’s will output more DPS than shattering.

Is this conclusion perceived or is there hard data supporting this conclusion? While I can understand people saying “it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that this is the way it works”, unfortunately my brain works better when it has supporting evidence to look at before it reaches a conclusion.

It’s never pointless to shatter, and you want your share of clones up. Clones don’t get enough credit for what they can do. Mine cripple the foe on shatter, apply a random condition, and apply vigor to allies. They can interrupt, they can cause damage when the foe uses their skills, they can flat out do some additional damage or they can prevent me from taking damage for a few seconds. Nah, screw max dps. Trait them puppies to be highly versatile and you’ll create these lovely little bundles of chaos and havoc. It’s fun popping them like popcorn and really taking advantage of all they offer.

With three phantasm up it’s not hard to guess whos’ the Mesmer.

With 1 phantasm up i will always outdamage mind wrack.
I’m level 80 with full berserker gear, on everything.

My weakest phantasm, the berserker does about 6-10k for 1 burst, my strongest does 35-45k(focus), my duelist does 20-30k and the swordsman is realyl weak and only does around 3k damage.

If i use mind wrack with the trait and crit, it will do about 3k with 1 burst, which is what the weakest phantasm i could have up does. The berserker outdamages this by far, and having 1 duelist up does the same damage as about 3x a mindwrack with 3 illusions up.

I haven’t looked at the maths, i just know that when i tried my different builds, shatterbuilds came all the way at the bottom.

The only time i ever shatter is if i know my phantasms will get killed, and i really don’t need them up. But what i usually do in that situation is keep 3 clones up for a 3s distortion for in emergencies on very difficult bosses.

Nikijih.1075:

1) Phantasms when traited deal more damage then anything else you can throw out. Saving 1 phantasm spot for skills like Decoy or Illusionary Leap would most definitly be a huge damage loss.

Phantasms generally deal 1150-1400 damage to a dummy every 6 seconds, assuming they stay alive, without traits, non-crit. They use up a sustained resource (illusion cap) and require the ability execution to create them. In PvP, they can be dodged, kited, blinded, killed separately from the player (or more importantly, you have little control over ensuring the attacks land).

Mind Wrack generally deals 1200 damage expending illusions, and requires no actual time to execute. It is “added damage”, as well as AOE. In many common builds, you automatically get at least a few stacks of confusion in the package as well, for an additional 400 damage in normal scenarios.

2) Phantasms work best in combination with the Illusionary Defender utility skill, as it stacks nicely with the boon trait combos (50% + 33% + 9% damage reduction). What this means is that you usually have 2 offensive and 1 defensive phantasms out at the same time and can summon all three at the same time.

Unless you have evidence support the additive damage reduction, I am assuming you are assuming, which makes it dubious since additive percentage damage reduction is a bad mechanic in general.

However, damage reduction stacking aside, your core statement that the approach synergizes with phantasms is incorrect: Phantasms have less durability than clones. Therefore, the damage reduction stacking actually works better with clones, not phantasms.

Clone abilities are not nearly as powerfull as phantasm abilities right now, be it offensively or defensively. If you spec Phantasms, they can still be used for complementary utility, but in no circumstance will you ever want to give up 1 phantasm for a Decoy or a Leap. The best use for them is before putting all phantasms up, right after a shatter or if your phantasms are killed before their CD is up.

Decoy or Leap? I was thinking of dropping a Mirror Blade that does more direct damage than a Phantasm attack, not including the 6 stacks of Might or vulnerability which will carry over to future attacks. Along with the clone, whose shatter is worth a decent fraction of a Phantasm’s damage.

Then you have Staff2, which doubles as a leap finisher to pick up fire shield or chaos shield, or other useful effects, but also generates a clone. You also have Sword4 and Scepter2, which offer very high damage (as much as a phantasm attack) along with the block.

Meanwhile Shatters are still good, but you want to time it so you can resummon phantasms right after.

Indeed, exactly as I said in my prior post.

Separately:

My weakest phantasm, the berserker does about 6-10k for 1 burst, my strongest does 35-45k(focus), my duelist does 20-30k and the swordsman is realyl weak and only does around 3k damage.

Learn to read your UI and revise your understanding of how much damage your phantasms are doing.

Still so many things that are wrong…

Phantasms generally deal 1150-1400 damage to a dummy every 6 seconds, assuming they stay alive, without traits, non-crit. They use up a sustained resource (illusion cap) and require the ability execution to create them. In PvP, they can be dodged, kited, blinded, killed separately from the player (or more importantly, you have little control over ensuring the attacks land).

Mind Wrack generally deals 1200 damage expending illusions, and requires no actual time to execute. It is “added damage”, as well as AOE. In many common builds, you automatically get at least a few stacks of confusion in the package as well, for an additional 400 damage in normal scenarios.

First of all: no, just no. Phantasm duelist alone deals that much damage per hit, and hits x8 (if i remember correctly, might be x6). Saying Phantasms deal 1400 dmg every 6 seconds is borderline dishonest.

Second: Shatter skills do have a heafty time to execute: whatever time is required to summon three clones. Thats your casting time for Shatter. Sure, it can be used on the fly… but it requires setup, making it hardly instant.

Unless you have evidence support the additive damage reduction, I am assuming you are assuming, which makes it dubious since additive percentage damage reduction is a bad mechanic in general.

However, damage reduction stacking aside, your core statement that the approach synergizes with phantasms is incorrect: Phantasms have less durability than clones. Therefore, the damage reduction stacking actually works better with clones, not phantasms.

I didnt say it was additive, I was just naming the various bonuses and adding a + as a way to mean that you stack all three.

Also: phantasms have more hp then clones. Not sure how you got that clones were sturdier, but thats pure non-sens…

As for the rest of your post, I would take your own advice and revise your understanding of how much damage your phantasms are doing. Your claim that a single Mirror Blade does more direct damage then a phantasm is mindblowingly wrong. Its like you are playing a different game then the rest of us… FYI, Mirror Blade does about half the damage of a single Illusionary Berserker pass.

Now can you please stop spreading misinformation?

First of all: no, just no. Phantasm duelist alone deals that much damage per hit, and hits x8 (if i remember correctly, might be x6). Saying Phantasms deal 1400 dmg every 6 seconds is borderline dishonest.

I suggest you go to the Mist, right now, and pick up a Berserker amulet. Invest fully into Domination, along with the 15% illusion damage trait. Your iDuelist will do approximately 1400 damage, non-crit, to the heavy armor golem. Sit down.

You may be one of the poor players that are adding up each damage number you see from iDuelist as if they were separate. This is not the case. For multi-hit attacks, the game displays the accumulated damage. For example, if your iDuelist volley looks like:

175 350 525 700 875 1050 1225 1400

Then iD did 1400 damage. Not 1400+whatever. The game displays and refreshes the total damage of the multi-hit attack. This is likely a UI evolution/adaptation from SWTOR, WAR, Rift, and certain WoW UI mods where this display mechanism was introduced.

Second: Shatter skills do have a heafty time to execute: whatever time is required to summon three clones. Thats your casting time for Shatter. Sure, it can be used on the fly… but it requires setup, making it hardly instant.

What matters in this discussion is the additional time the player invests in order to execute one or another of the options.

In general Good Mesmer Gameplay, you will be spawning clones and phantasms all the time. Shattering requires 0 additional time. It also requires no additional resources (the context we are discussing includes superfluous illusions that are being generated). Summoning a phantasm requires the time execution of a specific ability. It also requires the maintenance of exactly 3 phantasms.

I didnt say it was additive, I was just naming the various bonuses and adding a + as a way to mean that you stack all three.

If it is not additive, then they do not stack with any special result than if you had the 3×3% trait alone. In other words there is no synergy. You may as well throw on some toughness and call it synergy.

Also: phantasms have more hp then clones. Not sure how you got that clones were sturdier, but thats pure non-sens…

Clone HP was buffed in a late stress test by 50%. Observe how many hits it takes for your phantasms to die compared to your clones. In my experience with only casual observation, my clones have generally always taken more hits to die than my phantasms in PvE (where I have something approaching a consistent and observable damage intake).

Your claim that a single Mirror Blade does more direct damage then a phantasm is mindblowingly wrong. Its like you are playing a different game then the rest of us… FYI, Mirror Blade does about half the damage of a single Illusionary Berserker pass.
Now can you please stop spreading misinformation?

Lol. A correctly traited mirror blade deals around 1600 damage non-crit, and adds 9% vulnerability (target takes more damage) and 6 stacks of might (210 power and 210 cdmg) in a 1v1.

Look, not trying to be rude here, but you have a long ways to go.

EasymodeX.4062:

For multi-hit attacks, the game displays the accumulated damage. For example, if your iDuelist volley looks like:

175 350 525 700 875 1050 1225 1400

Then iD did 1400 damage. Not 1400+whatever. The game displays and refreshes the total damage of the multi-hit attack. This is likely a UI evolution/adaptation from SWTOR, WAR, Rift, and certain WoW UI mods where this display mechanism was introduced.

This is completely new to me, I totally didn’t realize that’s how it worked. TBH, I wasn’t really paying attention, but still, I feel like a terribad for not noticing it sooner.

You may be one of the poor players that are adding up each damage number you see from iDuelist as if they were separate. This is not the case. For multi-hit attacks, the game displays the accumulated damage. For example, if your iDuelist volley looks like:

175 350 525 700 875 1050 1225 1400

Then iD did 1400 damage. Not 1400+whatever. The game displays and refreshes the total damage of the multi-hit attack.

Do you have a source to back that up or is that just pure conjecture? Been trying to research it and nothing of the sorts comes up.

I don’t understand how people can talk about Phantasm “DPS” when their attack rate is so low. It’s what, like 5 seconds? That’s an eternity in this game.

It feels to me that this is one of those “beta orthodoxies” that solidifies early in an MMO’s life before a bigger cross-section of players have been able to get the measure of it the class so that a true consensus emerges.

Nikijih.1075:

Second: Shatter skills do have a heafty time to execute: whatever time is required to summon three clones.

i.e. instant, with Mirror Images plus a weapon clone summoner.

Nikijih.1075:

Do you have a source to back that up or is that just pure conjecture? Been trying to research it and nothing of the sorts comes up.

Well … if the damage numbers were separate, then iDuelist would 1/2-shot enemy players in PvP and there were be about 847 threads crying about it in this forum. iDuelist would also do more tooltip damage than Hundred Blades.

Oh, and iWarden would be able to kill siege units in 1 attack. That would be sweet.

Edit: Generally speaking it’s pretty obvious if you watch your target’s healthbar and use different attacks.

Nikijih.1075:

You may be one of the poor players that are adding up each damage number you see from iDuelist as if they were separate. This is not the case. For multi-hit attacks, the game displays the accumulated damage. For example, if your iDuelist volley looks like:

175 350 525 700 875 1050 1225 1400

Then iD did 1400 damage. Not 1400+whatever. The game displays and refreshes the total damage of the multi-hit attack.

Do you have a source to back that up or is that just pure conjecture? Been trying to research it and nothing of the sorts comes up.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

This provides an overview of how damage is calculated based on what people have noticed so far, but nothing in it backs up EasymodeX’s claim…

That being said, I logged in and went to HoM to hit a target dummy and looked at my combat log. The skill I used was confusing images and consistently hit for 447 on each hit, the damage not adding itself up overtime. The same thing happened for the scrolling combat text. I believe EasymodeX is incorrect based on my observations.

edit: just read the post above mine, further comments result

Maybe it only works this way for certain attacks? Confusing images is the only skill I tried, I’ll load out a pistol and reply back.

Shrug, measure iDuelist’s damage on the dummy. Guess I shouldn’t have said “all multi-hit attacks”.

Edit: To clarify, get low precision so the damage can be more easily observed on the dummy.

iW, iB, iD function in this way. I know Ranger volley attacks function in that manner, as well as Warrior HB.

Edit2: You could also try Blurred Frenzy.

EasymodeX.4062:

Nikijih.1075:

Do you have a source to back that up or is that just pure conjecture? Been trying to research it and nothing of the sorts comes up.

Well … if the damage numbers were separate, then iDuelist would 1/2-shot enemy players in PvP and there were be about 847 threads crying about it in this forum. iDuelist would also do more tooltip damage than Hundred Blades.

Oh, and iWarden would be able to kill siege units in 1 attack. That would be sweet.

Edit: Generally speaking it’s pretty obvious if you watch your target’s healthbar and use different attacks.

i can also confirm this, if it worked that way then elementalists scepter1 can stack into the 10s thousands if you did it right, per hit.

edit – lightning scepter1

then iDuelist would 1/2-shot enemy players in PvP

Except that is pretty much what I see happening… granted, not on warriors or guardians, but if I can hit an elementalist or a thief with 1 full iD + my sword’s #2, he is usually under half health

I believe EasymodeX is incorrect based on my observations.

Its not that I don’t want to believe you, but by the very same token as your declaration that its obvious, it would be pretty obvious that if my sword #2 only did 1.2kish and my iD another 1.2k, that would mean my highest burst combination should only tickle an opponent and be barely noticeable, which is just not the case.

if my sword #2 only did 1.2kish and my iD another 1.2k, that would mean my highest burst combination should only tickle an opponent and be barely noticeable, which is just not the case.

The numbers I posted above in this thread are non-crit numbers on the heavy armor golem. If you’re using the build I assume you’re using, you’ll have a 50%+ crit rate, with resulting ~3k Blurred Frenzy and 2k iD on a glass thief/elementalist, with bonus Sharper Images procs for about 600 damage over 5 seconds. Those classes also have rather low base HP, so a full combo would do around 6k, which is about half their glass cannon health.

A 6300 iD attack (using incorrect damage numbers) non-crit on a heavy armor golem would do over 11k damage on said thief/elementalist, which is what Hundred Blades does in a full glass cannon build, lolol.

Okay, for starters, I think the combat log may be bugged. When I summoned the duelist, it’s damage did not appear in the log.

That being said, the tooltip reads Damage (8x) 404. The final number was 1534

188, 303 570, 1074, 1534 were the numbers I got. I probably missed 3 of the attacks since it’s a x8.

That being said, when I used confusing images, it displayed the same number consistently, it didn’t add them up and display the final number in the scrolling combat text.

I still find it hilarious that there’s an actual discussion on something that’s pretty obvious when you play the class in game and pay any attention to the numbers.

Did a test with blurred frenzy. The combat log showed each hit at 223 but the total figure in the scrolling combat text was additive. It looks like there is an issue with some abilities functioning this way and others not. I suspect it has to do with the channeled nature of some spells. Blurred frenzy animation locks you, but it is not channeled. By that same token, the iD’s attacks must not be considered channeled.

Confusing images is channeled, so the damage is displayed individually for each hit. I’m not sure if that’s intended or not, but I suspect no.

EasymodeX.4062:

I still find it hilarious that there’s an actual discussion on something that’s pretty obvious when you play the class in game and pay any attention to the numbers.

I’m sure it’s obvious to a lot of people, I had guildies laugh at me when I mentioned it. The fact that there is some inconsistency in how the damage is displayed depending on if the ability is channeled or not may be the reason there is confusion as to how it works.

I use shatters all the time.

What seems to be missing from this thread is

1) phantasms tend to get aggro very fast, so their uptime is limited.

2) Secondary effects from shatters specifically confusion.

3) Downtime between phantasm attacks versus recasting a phantasm. (i.e. duelist attacks every 6-8 seconds so there is dps downtime)

In SWTOR there was a separate data flag called something like “isFlurryAttack” which determined whether the attack displayed as an aggregate damage amount, or individual.

I’m guessing ANet either assigned a similar designation per ability, or the aggregate display is a function of how “spammy” the ability is (for example, Scepter’s confusion beam ticks somewhat slowly compared to the “flurry”-ish attacks).

I still find it hilarious that there’s an actual discussion on something that’s pretty obvious when you play the class in game and pay any attention to the numbers.

You are trying to use empirical data as a substitution for factual data. This is why there is an actual discussion: what may seem obvious can still be completely wrong. What you are doing is the same thing the church did in the 1600s. Doesnt it seem so obvious that its the sun turning around us? Oh wait…

Like I said: its not that I dont want to believe you, but if you have no proofs, then I will go look for some before I do. Also, it is far from obvious when the behavior of the display system is not constant, as was described by the few testers up here.

The numbers I posted above in this thread are non-crit numbers on the heavy armor golem. If you’re using the build I assume you’re using, you’ll have a 50%+ crit rate, with resulting ~3k Blurred Frenzy and 2k iD on a glass thief/elementalist, with bonus Sharper Images procs for about 600 damage over 5 seconds. Those classes also have rather low base HP, so a full combo would do around 6k, which is about half their glass cannon health.

A 6300 iD attack (using incorrect damage numbers) non-crit on a heavy armor golem would do over 11k damage on said thief/elementalist, which is what Hundred Blades does in a full glass cannon build, lolol.

Actually no im not using that build, as I prefer to build a bit more tanky then offensive. That being said, if you want to make a point, try not to pull numbers out of thin air, it hurts your credibility.

I submitted a /bug in regards to the scrolling combat text. I don’t know if it is honestly considered one, but it doesn’t hurt to have consistency. I also submitted one for the phantasm’s not showing up in the combat log.

This thread is hilarious, people actually think we have 2 phantasms that can burn through a vit stacking Warrior/Necros health and a good portion of their down state with one volley and nobody has complained that Mesmer is OP? That would make it the most OP skill in the history of gaming but people still won’t believe that is how the damage is displayed?

I needed this laugh.

Nikijih.1075:

I still find it hilarious that there’s an actual discussion on something that’s pretty obvious when you play the class in game and pay any attention to the numbers.

You are trying to use empirical data as a substitution for factual data. This is why there is an actual discussion: what may seem obvious can still be completely wrong. What you are doing is the same thing the church did in the 1600s. Doesnt it seem so obvious that its the sun turning around us? Oh wait…

Like I said: its not that I dont want to believe you, but if you have no proofs, then I will go look for some before I do. Also, it is far from obvious when the behavior of the display system is not constant, as was described by the few testers up here.

The numbers I posted above in this thread are non-crit numbers on the heavy armor golem. If you’re using the build I assume you’re using, you’ll have a 50%+ crit rate, with resulting ~3k Blurred Frenzy and 2k iD on a glass thief/elementalist, with bonus Sharper Images procs for about 600 damage over 5 seconds. Those classes also have rather low base HP, so a full combo would do around 6k, which is about half their glass cannon health.

A 6300 iD attack (using incorrect damage numbers) non-crit on a heavy armor golem would do over 11k damage on said thief/elementalist, which is what Hundred Blades does in a full glass cannon build, lolol.

Actually no im not using that build, as I prefer to build a bit more tanky then offensive. That being said, if you want to make a point, try not to pull numbers out of thin air, it hurts your credibility.

I already told you why your idea of the damage being additive is wrong. Elementalist scepter1 on air attunement will keep stacking into thousands and 10 thousands if you did it right. By your logic, that would be 10 thousand per hit, which it obviously isn’t true. There doesn’t need to be any empirical data to see that you’re clearly not doing 10 thousand damage per on screen number tick.

Levetty.1279:

This thread is hilarious, people actually think we have 2 phantasms that can burn through a vit stacking Warrior/Necros health and a good portion of their down state with one volley and nobody has complained that Mesmer is OP? That would make it the most OP skill in the history of gaming but people still won’t believe that is how the damage is displayed?

I needed this laugh.

You are stupid. No one ever said this, in fact I quite specifically said i was NOT talking about warriors. Good job sounding like a tool with the reading comprehension of a 10 years old.

That being said, if you want to make a point, try not to pull numbers out of thin air, it hurts your credibility.

1. The numbers I pulled were not from “thin air”. I’ve tested iD, iS, iWarlock, and iB damage with the same setup to determine how much damage they all did. Warden and Mage were different and irrelevant to my test.

2. I’m pretty sure that credibility on the official forum isn’t worth much. Especially when the other side of this argument is “my iDuelist does over 9000 damage”. If credibility were part of this discussion, this tangent would have ended 10 posts ago.

That aside, I do not consider the display characteristic a bug. When you hit quickness + 100b on a Warrior, it’s much more effective to show a total damage number.

I’d also like to note that for the attacks in question, the damage display is literally replaced. 175 is replaced by 350. Intuitively, the 175 “grows into” 350 as the damage accumulates. The 350 and 175 do not show up as “separate” numbers if you’re paying close attention, although this does get staggered a bit when you crit, because the graphical animation will change.

Agrias.2391:

I already told you why your idea of the damage being additive is wrong. Elementalist scepter1 on air attunement will keep stacking into thousands and 10 thousands if you did it right. By your logic, that would be 10 thousand per hit, which it obviously isn’t true. There doesn’t need to be any empirical data to see that you’re clearly not doing 10 thousand damage per on screen number tick.

You may want to refresh on your vocabulary lessons from high school. Empirical data is any information you got by observation: anything you saw, heard, tested, etc. You do need empirical data to see because something that was seen IS empirical data.

Beyond that I think we are passed wether its additive or not and trying to figure out which skill works which way. Keep in mind, there could be different explanations, like a display bug.

This is why people who know what they are doing look for factual data, they dont just extrapolate on what they see.

Nikijih.1075:

Agrias.2391:

I already told you why your idea of the damage being additive is wrong. Elementalist scepter1 on air attunement will keep stacking into thousands and 10 thousands if you did it right. By your logic, that would be 10 thousand per hit, which it obviously isn’t true. There doesn’t need to be any empirical data to see that you’re clearly not doing 10 thousand damage per on screen number tick.

You may want to refresh on your vocabulary lessons from high school. Empirical data is any information you got by observation: anything you saw, heard, tested, etc. You do need empirical data to see because something that was seen IS empirical data.

Beyond that I think we are passed wether its additive or not and trying to figure out which skill works which way. Keep in mind, there could be different explanations, like a display bug.

This is why people who know what they are doing look for factual data, they dont just extrapolate on what they see.

also, replace “empirical” with “factual” in my previous post, which was clearly a brain fart as i was probably reading your post while typing. but keep going picking on words instead of working on your actual argument to prove your point.

Factual data like observing NPC HP bars where your iD does not do 4 times the damage of a full Blurred Frenzy?

EasymodeX.4062:

Factual data like observing NPC HP bars where your iD does not do 4 times the damage of a full Blurred Frenzy?

Why would it do 4 times the damage of a BF? Seriously man, you keep pulling numbers out of yourkitten to the point where, even if you turn out to be right, I cannot take you seriously.

How many times will I have to say it? Conjecture based on non-standardised observation = useless. Thats empirical data, good enough to formulate a hypothesis, not good enough to be used as proof to support one. For crying out loud, have you guys never had a science class in your entire lives?

Nikijih.1075:

Levetty.1279:

This thread is hilarious, people actually think we have 2 phantasms that can burn through a vit stacking Warrior/Necros health and a good portion of their down state with one volley and nobody has complained that Mesmer is OP? That would make it the most OP skill in the history of gaming but people still won’t believe that is how the damage is displayed?

I needed this laugh.

You are stupid. No one ever said this, in fact I quite specifically said i was NOT talking about warriors. Good job sounding like a tool with the reading comprehension of a 10 years old.

If we are going to throw the word stupid around then I think it applies to you not me.

The conversation started because a guy claimed his iWarden could do 45k damage and Duelist could do 30k. I could not care less if you mentioned warriors or not I mentioned them because along with Necros they have the highest base health. If our attacks could hit for that much we could one shot these two classes with just one skill.

I love when people accuse me of not being able to read when quite obviously they can not.

Nikijih.1075:

EasymodeX.4062:

Factual data like observing NPC HP bars where your iD does not do 4 times the damage of a full Blurred Frenzy?

Why would it do 4 times the damage of a BF? Seriously man, you keep pulling numbers out of yourkitten to the point where, even if you turn out to be right, I cannot take you seriously.

How many times will I have to say it? Conjecture based on non-standardised observation = useless. Thats empirical data, good enough to formulate a hypothesis, not good enough to be used as proof to support one. For crying out loud, have you guys never had a science class in your entire lives?

Like I said, I do not need any factual data or theories, or tests to figure out my elementalist basic auto attack isn’t stacking to 10,000 damage per tick. The fact you’re still arguing about the method to prove it rather than just applying common sense is astoundingly stupid.

The conversation started because a guy claimed his iWarden could do 45k damage and Duelist could do 30k.

Reading comprehension is weak in this one….

Dude, scroll back up will you? I started this conversation with EasymodeX, THEN some guy chimed in with these numbers, and they were not mentionned again.

Yes, I accuse you of not being able to read. Probably because you dont seem able to follow a conversation.

Why would it do 4 times the damage of a BF?

Because if the damage numbers were separate, then it would do 4 times the damage of BF.

Simple, isn’t it?

How many times will I have to say it? Conjecture based on non-standardised observation = useless. Thats empirical data, good enough to formulate a hypothesis, not good enough to be used as proof to support one. For crying out loud, have you guys never had a science class in your entire lives?

I didn’t know that watching the sun rise in the east and set in the west required a full scientific proof. Some things in this world are pretty obvious.

Agrias.2391:

Nikijih.1075:

EasymodeX.4062:

Factual data like observing NPC HP bars where your iD does not do 4 times the damage of a full Blurred Frenzy?

Why would it do 4 times the damage of a BF? Seriously man, you keep pulling numbers out of yourkitten to the point where, even if you turn out to be right, I cannot take you seriously.

How many times will I have to say it? Conjecture based on non-standardised observation = useless. Thats empirical data, good enough to formulate a hypothesis, not good enough to be used as proof to support one. For crying out loud, have you guys never had a science class in your entire lives?

Like I said, I do not need any factual data or theories, or tests to figure out my elementalist basic auto attack isn’t stacking to 10,000 damage per tick. The fact you’re still arguing about the method to prove it rather than just applying common sense is astoundingly stupid.

Astounding? Hardly. You say you are seeing 10.000 ticks displayed on your screen. Prove it. Show me those 10.000 ticks.

You cannot call something proof if you dont actually show any proof.

EasymodeX.4062:

I didn’t know that watching the sun rise in the east and set in the west required a full scientific proof. Some things in this world are pretty obvious.

Tell that to the church. They thought it meant the sun moved and they were immobile. Turns out its the opposite.

Applied to this case: who knows, maybe we are BOTH wrong and damage is calculated/displayed completely differently. But we wont know that without doing some standardized testing.

No, he said that if the damage numbers were separate, then the total of damage on Elementalist 1-spam would exceed 10k.

Nikijih.1075:

Applied to this case: who knows, maybe we are BOTH wrong and damage is calculated/displayed completely differently. But we wont know that without doing some standardized testing.

You don’t KNOW that a meteor won’t hit the earth tonight, or that you won’t be struck by lightning.

You don’t KNOW that you’re not in the Matrix, and that everything you see or hear is reality or make-believe.

But I think it’s reliable enough to work with.

At this point, I think we can safely conclude that the scrolling combat text behaves differently depending on the ability used. If what I posted isn’t considered actual proof, then please test it out yourselves for those of you who don’t believe. That being said, if the thread continues in this direction it will no doubt be locked.

EasymodeX.4062:

Nikijih.1075:

Applied to this case: who knows, maybe we are BOTH wrong and damage is calculated/displayed completely differently. But we wont know that without doing some standardized testing.

You don’t KNOW that a meteor won’t hit the earth tonight, or that you won’t be struck by lightning.

You don’t KNOW that you’re not in the Matrix, and that everything you see or hear is reality or make-believe.

But I think it’s reliable enough to work with.

Actually…
1) we know a meteorite wont hit the earth tonight, as we can track those things down pretty thouroughly.

2) we know that everything is make-believe, as what we call reality is no more then the interpretation your senses make of various energy frequencies (Thanks Einstein).

Funny that you would choose those 2 exemples rofl. Nonetheless, be satisfied with your answer if you want, I’ll go look for more information and testing.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/41011-arc-lightning-working-as-intended/

My weakest phantasm, the berserker does about 6-10k for 1 burst, my strongest does 35-45k(focus), my duelist does 20-30k and the swordsman is realyl weak and only does around 3k damage.

Learn to read your UI and revise your understanding of how much damage your phantasms are doing.[/quote]
Excuse me?
I tested it in orr, the level 80 zone, sat there and looked at the damage. The tooltips are wrong -_-

As a side note, I think I now have my answer as to why people think phantasm’s are more useful if you don’t shatter them. I’m wondering how many other people were like me and didn’t realize that the damage numbers being displayed were stacked for certain abilities.

I never really thought phantasm’s were better off not shattered, but this explains a bit.

Nikijih.1075:

The conversation started because a guy claimed his iWarden could do 45k damage and Duelist could do 30k.

Reading comprehension is weak in this one….

Dude, scroll back up will you? I started this conversation with EasymodeX, THEN some guy chimed in with these numbers, and they were not mentionned again.

Yes, I accuse you of not being able to read. Probably because you dont seem able to follow a conversation.

Whatever, you are the idiot who thinks we have a skill who can one shot bosses. I’ll leave you to play a game in which you have no grasps of the basics.

I’ll just carry on laughing.