Guild Wars 2

Sword AA chain vs. a golem that has no boons (and no conditions, ex. no vuln) on it (HotM).

Tooltip

• Mind Slash – 392
• Mind Gash – 392
• Mind Spike – 588 [+50%] // vs enemy with boons
• Mind Spike – 783 [+100%] // vs enemy without boons

Observed

• Mind Slash – 396
• Mind Gash – 396
• Mind Spike – _ [_%] // vs enemy with boons
• Mind Spike – 884 [+123%] // vs enemy without boons

Interestingly enough, the calculated coefficient (from tooltip vs from observed) for Mind Slash/Gash match within 0.5% but Mind Spike is completely off, unless… we assume ANet uses exotic weapon strength for combat for all skills and uses RARE weapon strengths for the Mind Spike’s tooltip, in which case the number will match within 0.1% (!).

I did the same test for Swordsman/Duelist/Warden and if I assume phantasms use exotic lvl 80 weapon strengths in calculations then the coefficients calculated from the tooltips match the coefficients calculated from testing down to 0.1%, which is rather awesome given than ANet has a bad history with broken tooltips. Just have to equip the Empowered Illusions trait for tooltip numbers to make sense because otherwise Swordman’s tooltip is off by a few decimal places… lol

So what does all this mean? Phantasms completely ignore whatever weapons you’re wearing and simply use Exotic Sword (swordsman), Exotic Pistol (duelist), and Exotic AXE (warden) stats in calculating the tooltip dmg and actual damage dealt (aka whether you have a white or a legendary weapons, phantasms will hit equally hard given you kept the core stats the same). And also, if we assume the tooltip for Mind Spike using RARE stats instead of EXOTIC stats like everything else is not intended, then the actual damage dealt by the Mind Slash we observe is actually 13% higher than intended.

Solution? Fix the skill tooltips to show correct dmg numbers and not just random jumbo and, please, for the love of @#$% let our phantasms inherit our gear. Weapon quality, sigils, food, runes, etc… I’ll love you forever ANet if you at least give us that much <3 <3

Phantasms are already pretty strong, I don’t think they need a gear buff. Not when ranger pets and necromancer minions don’t, at any rate. The Mind Spike thing is pretty interesting though, I do remember the tooltip being off on it compared to how Anet advertised it when they first buffed it but I can’t remember how or if I ever updated it on my spreadsheet. I’ll have to take a look and see how that affects the mesmer DPS number, although it’s not like it matters even if it comes up super high since people seem to think that summoning phantasms is super hard and not realistic even for super elite haxx0r speedrunners like Dub.

Ok, in OP I went under assumption that Tooltip might be wrong and the damage dealt was correct. Naturally I did another round of testing under assumption that tooltip is in fact correct and it’s the weapon skill that’s broken. What do you know, I did catch something very interesting.

If we assume the tooltip uses lvl 80 Exotic Sword weapon strength to calculate the damage number then when I use the derived coefficient on the data set of actual damage dealt vs the golem, it would actually match up 100% if… wait for it… Mind Spike uses EXOTIC WARHORN weapon strength for combat. Yes, exactly 814 – 900, as opposed to Mind Slash/Gash which in my tests came out to use the proper exotic sword’s 905 – 1000.

frifox.5283:

Ok, in OP I went under assumption that Tooltip might be wrong and the damage dealt was correct. Naturally I did another round of testing under assumption that tooltip is in fact correct and it’s the weapon skill that’s broken. What do you know, I did catch something very interesting.

If we assume the tooltip uses lvl 80 Exotic Sword weapon strength to calculate the damage number then when I use the derived coefficient on the data set of actual damage dealt vs the golem, it would actually match up 100% if… wait for it… Mind Spike uses EXOTIC WARHORN weapon strength for combat. Yes, exactly 814 – 900, as opposed to Mind Slash/Gash which in my tests came out to use the proper exotic sword’s 905 – 1000.

Honestly, I think you’re reading way too much into the tooltips. I’d just leave it at the tooltips are not and will never be a reliable source of information.

The only reason I’m doing this is because I’m getting different numbers from my dps meter vs the Mesmer DPS spreadsheet that I made. My goal is to have spreadsheet predict my expected dps as accurately as possible.

I’m close. Just have to test another possible bug that I might be seeing in addition to one mentioned in OP. If that bugs comes out to be true then my spreadsheet will be able to predict expected sustained DPS with 0.5% accuracy compared what I see in my dps tests.

If you’re going by what the tooltip says and what the combat log shows, you’re going to have different numbers as not everyone is going to have 2600 armor.

You can predict any direct damage output now by calculating the following:

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Use the tooltip as a guide, not as a one-to-one ratio against players/mobs. Because it also doesn’t account for Vulnerability.

2,560 actually. If I use 2,600 then my calculations are off by few percent and coefficients seems like random numbers. Using 2,560 for tooltip and for indestructible golem then all math matches up 100% and all coefficients are nice round numbers.

we are in 06/05/2014 atm.. how many months/year already passed from gw2 beta.. so if there are uncorrect tooltips as this.. i should think, reason of them are,

• unresponsibility of anet, slacking..
• nontransperant policy, try to make opportunutiy them self to can make comfortable unseen buffs/nerfs
• being scrub/noob, uncapable of doing correcting tooltips..

requesting correction of tooltips is sound utterly ….. to me. anet shall do it.. not anyone/player of this game should.. or me.. noone in anet work without wage/for fun(imo, if they are.. nonethless i am customer and u should satisfy me/us)… dunno whats anet goal/mission about it, but i dont feel it respected.. from my view.. after more than 1 year u finnaly add skill co efficients to wiki, or detailed tool tips in game.. however the topic is not that.. we want exact/clear/as it should be numbered detailed tooltips..

havent tested any of the co efficients maybe for 2 monts.. but than earlier that phantasms have wrong skill co efficient, or dps is missing for aa, scepter #1 had unseen nerf after patch,and more others/and bugs

for anet,

• make objective/exact numbered/updated/filled up wiki and tooltips
• dont be shy :P