Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

Does the new ruins/orb buff (150 power at max) transfer to phantasms? Also, does the extra weapon damage on ascended weapons affect phantasms or do they use their own weapon?

Please only answer if you’ve actually tested it. No theorycrafting ;p. Have been condi for a while, thinking about going back to phant dmg though.

Marvel

The orb buff (power) will affect phantasms just like might will.

Weapon damage…indeterminate. I’m still testing that one. Suffice to say it doesn’t affec phantasms in a normal manner.

Hey Pyro, that’s good to hear that the orb buff works. I was worried it’d work like bloodlust sigil which (I don’t think) affects them?

Keep me posted on the increased weapon damage. It’s possible it’s so slight it wouldn’t matter/be apparent, but at least we get ~ 20 more power.

Also, do we know whether Guard Leech x5 affects phants?

Ty.

Ionus.5467:

Hey Pyro, that’s good to hear that the orb buff works. I was worried it’d work like bloodlust sigil which (I don’t think) affects them?

Keep me posted on the increased weapon damage. It’s possible it’s so slight it wouldn’t matter/be apparent, but at least we get ~ 20 more power.

Also, do we know whether Guard Leech x5 affects phants?

Ty.

Actually, I believe illusions are affected by bloodlust stacks. Anything that affects your stats with a set amount (ex. +250 power) will affect your illusions. Percentage boosts (like +%5 dmg from force sigil) do not affect your illusions. When you swap off a weapon w/ the bloodlust sigil you still keep that stat bonus even though you aren’t wielding it. I believe this is why the illusions are affected by the bonus stats is because the stats are added to you and not to the weapon. (confusing I know) Which brings me to your last questions which is your weapon strength does not affect the phantams. Phantasms are affected by your power stat NOT your Attack stat (Weapon strength changes your Attack).

Scizzor, you’re mostly right. The one thing you should know is that weapon damage does matter. The damage calculation for most skills is damage = weapon damage * power * skill coefficient / target armor.

With that calculation, weapon damage definitely matters. The ‘attack’ stat is useless though. That being said, traits that deal damage (halting strike) utilities (MoP), and phantasms all seem to more or less ignore weapon damage somehow sorta. Still unclear exactly what’s going on, but more testing is needed for sure.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Scizzor, you’re mostly right. The one thing you should know is that weapon damage does matter. The damage calculation for most skills is damage = weapon damage * power * skill coefficient / target armor.

With that calculation, weapon damage definitely matters. The ‘attack’ stat is useless though. That being said, traits that deal damage (halting strike) utilities (MoP), and phantasms all seem to more or less ignore weapon damage somehow sorta. Still unclear exactly what’s going on, but more testing is needed for sure.

Sorry, yea Attack dmg is important (for most skills), however for some reason phantasms aren’t affected by it. (Which is why I said ascended weapon strength won’t matter). I’ve tested this with the PvP sturdy sword (258 Weapon strength) and the PvP sword (905 – 1,000). Phantasm skills update after swapping weapons, but the phantasm still does similar dmg even though the weapon strengths are significantly different.

Scizzor.8137:

similar dmg

But not identical damage, and that’s what makes me so incredibly irritated while trying to figure out what in the hell the calculation is >_<

Scissor,

I’m aware of the logic behind why bloodlust stacks should work…but when I have tested it they didn’t affect my poor phantasms. The different between 250 power and not 250 power should be quite obvious when looking at average amounts of damage. I didn’t see any change. And I was able to see a difference between just switching off boots and no boots, roughly 25ish power. I still stack up to 250 anyway though just for my direct damage, before I unequip the stack-building weapon.

Anyway, hoping to see at least a little boost from the ascended weapon damage, but from what you’re saying I certainly shouldn’t expect much I guess.

Also AFAIK was tested 2 Patches ago, sigil giving +5% crit chance affected phantasms, while sigil of force did not.

Don t know if its true.

well gona compare my ascended staff with a common white one tonight.

I haven’t tested formulas in this game yet (seems like I got even lazier …). I always find stuff to do in GW2. But I try to get the general mechanics/ theories remembered by the forums.

@Byron
There was someone who claimed that the + 5% crtCh does affect the illusions now. Not the full 5% were added, but he got more crits with it. I assume Pyro hasn’t acknowledged it (yet). I’m also still curious about it, but there’re better sigils for me anyways.

@pyro
maybe some skills follow your formula

• dmg = wpnatk * power * skl_coeff / defense_

(defense or armor?)

Since the weapon_attack has a variation, it directly affects the damage. But without that (steady weapons), it’s always the same. Yet, phantasms still do random damage. That means they have their own part of weapon_attack, which is not independent from the mesmers weapon_attack (as pyro said).
Then there’re skills/ abilities, which use the attack (sub)stat from the player instead of wpn_atk * power. Attack = f(max(wpnatk),power)_. In those cases, their damage could be calculated

• dmg = wpnatk + power * skl_coeff2 / defense_

Maybe phantasms use both of those formuals ?

• phdmg = phatk * (wpn_atk + power) * skl_coeffP / defense_

and since ph_atk and skl_coeffP are equal, you could use a coefficient towards the atk with variation …

difficult.

[ Edit ]
how I love this forums formatting …

@Nretep: I’ve never actually found a skill or ability that uses the ‘attack’ stat. Every single weapon skill follows the normal damage formula exactly. Perhaps the utilities and traits and phantasms use attack though, I’ll test it out.

Ionus.5467:

Scissor,

I’m aware of the logic behind why bloodlust stacks should work…but when I have tested it they didn’t affect my poor phantasms. The different between 250 power and not 250 power should be quite obvious when looking at average amounts of damage. I didn’t see any change. And I was able to see a difference between just switching off boots and no boots, roughly 25ish power. I still stack up to 250 anyway though just for my direct damage, before I unequip the stack-building weapon.

Anyway, hoping to see at least a little boost from the ascended weapon damage, but from what you’re saying I certainly shouldn’t expect much I guess.

Not sure how you tested it, but I am 100% sure bloodlust stacks affect phantasms. Tested it again today in the mists on dummies with no crit hits. Even recorded the before and after. The difference is noticeable when I did it with 1081 power(no lust) and after with 1331 power.

Video I just recorded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73F5ypWlZwQ

Wow great test, Scizzor.

In the future I will copy what you did and just use the 1 hit phantasm, and strip all my traits, etc. I think there was too much variation muddling my data using my typical phantasms, izerker and duelist.

Thanks so much. I <3 clear and direct data. Glad to know bloodlust helps!! Viva la phantasms!

I’m also curious about weapon damage on phantasms. I’ve already made an ascended GS for my mesmer and an axe for my necro. My plan was to make a sword for my mesmer very soon. From what I understand, calcs for abilities use weapon strength based on the weapon in that slot (mh vs oh). So in our case, it’s a no brainer to get a mainhand sword. The added damage from sword 2 alone would be worth it. That brings me to offhand weapons. Since all of our off hand weapons have 1 phantasm and a utility of some sort, I’d like to figure out if the phantasm actually scales to the ascended weapon damage before investing resources into making the offhand. If not, then I’m not sure it’s worth the investment to gain a measly 4+5inf/3/3 stats (or 9/3/1% crit if zerker).

Thats something I’ve gonna test “soon” too. Probably gonna undo my traits, pick my ascended weapon and shoot some dummies and take some notes. Then I’ll use a common white weapon and increase my power with traits and do the same. I should now deal less damage – I hope I will :s

Nretep.2564:

@Byron
There was someone who claimed that the + 5% crtCh does affect the illusions now. Not the full 5% were added, but he got more crits with it. I assume Pyro hasn’t acknowledged it (yet). I’m also still curious about it, but there’re better sigils for me anyways.

I tested this awhile ago and my initial results were promising. However, after firing off about 1k shots per set up and looking at bleeds (I tested with 0/20/0/0/0 and duelist) I reported that the sigil does not seem to work. I think the sigil group actually had a 2% lower chance to crit. I never ran statistical analysis on it but I’m assuming that it’s basically no difference.

I do remember someone saying they tested it and it worked but they never showed any data.

For the weapon strength, what always annoyed me is that steady weapons don’t give steady phantasm dmg. I’ll try to do some testing on how ascended weapon strength factors in.

I wanted to post an update on this. Since I last posted, I made my ascended sword. I then went to dummies in LA with dual swords (ascended in MH) and tested the damage of my sword phantasm. After determining the peak damage over the course of testing, I swapped the 2 weapons and resummoned the phantasm with the ascended in the offhand. I saw no increase in damage by having the ascended weapon in the offhand slot, thus verifying that the weapon damage has no effect on Phantasm damage. Since ascended 1h weapons don’t increase the crit % stat, and only increase power by 4 (9 with infusion) and precision by 3, I see no reason to invest the gold on ascended offhand weapons.

Afaik it doesn’t matter which hand is using what weapon. The stats are added anyways and the weaponAtk … dunno. The only difference in carrying two swords is, that the effect of the sigil in the main hand is applied first.

The only way to check if the weaponAtk affects the damage is to go into the mists and check normal and steady weapons. They have “the same” stats except weaponAtk.