Guild Wars 2

I’ve been toying around with builds for my necro and I’ve been wondering when the AoE of the staff will cause it to out DPS the daggers auto attack? It’s quite clear that if five enemies are present then staff wins, but is that still true for two or three?

Also, I also believe that life blast with the pierce trait will out DPS the dagger if there is more then one target, but in an instance with four other people to benefit from your vulnerability and the sizeable self might (traited) does it win out on singe target damage as well?

Staff never wins in a power build unless you need the range or control. Staff is great as a secondary weapon or safety net. In every other case Dagger wins.

Life Blast = single greatest damage we have on a regular basis, and wins only if LF is greater than 50 and traited at least 25 points in Soul Reaping. If traited LB stacks might, pierces and stacks Vuln so it will usually win.

This is all about Life Blast vs Dagger 1

After a bit of preliminary testing, full dagger chains will out-damage life blast + might stacking alone.

I tested it in the Heart of the Mists with a berserker’s amulet, PvP dagger and just 10 points in Spite for the might stacking trait. The dagger chain gives me around 640 + 498 + 583 = 1721 damage (via the tooltips) every two seconds, while Life Blast gives me 996 damage (again, according to the tooltip) every 1.5 seconds. (I measured the times myself by chaining about 8-10 attacks together and dividing.) So that averages down to 860 dps on the dagger, and 664 dps on life blast.

Now those numbers don’t include the might stacking effect on life blast, but I calculated how much might is needed to close the gap. Since we need to boost the dps by 200 to be competitive, we need 200 dps x 1.5 seconds / attack = 300 damage per attack extra. (Again, as indicated by tooltips.) Every stack of might increases the projected damage for life blast by 18. So that’s 300 / 18 = 16.6 (We’ll say 16) stacks of might that have to be generated by life blast for it to be more powerful than the dagger auto attack chain. To match this, we need enough might stacks to increase the power to 130% of its previous value. I can’t remember what my power was at the time, but at level 80, a base value of 916 power would require 275 power, which is 275 / 35 = 8 (7.86) stacks of might. This figure only gets worse the more power you have, so if this is relevant at all you’ll probably need at least 11 might stacks anyways.

The problem is that 16 12 attacks with life blast takes a really long time, so even if you have the bonus boon duration required to prevent them from expiring as you reapply, you still need to sit in Death Shroud for 24 18 seconds. Death Shroud decays at somewhere around 4% per second (unless traited to 3%) so not only would you drop below the 50% threshold needed for any of these damage numbers to be relevant, but you would also be left with under 30% LF remaining. (Unless you traited for it, in which case you’d have closer to 50%.) And all of this is assuming you take no damage while in Death Shroud.

So… No. It’ll probably never out-damage dagger for single target. As soon as you add piercing and hit another target though, you’re golden. It may also be worth it to just add a few stacks of might here or there that you carry with you outside of death shroud. Plus you can use life blast from 900 range.

Necrotic Slash/Stab/Bite vs Necrotic Grasp

S/S/B’s chain is about 2 seconds, grasp uses about 1.3 seconds per attack.
By the tooltips, grasp gives about 521 damage (again, Berserker’s Amulet + 10 points in spite) where the chain gives us the same 1721 as before. So our averages are:
S/S/B – 860 dps, Grasp – 401 dps.
From there it’s multiplication. How many enemies do you need to hit? 2 with grasp puts you almost on par overall (dagger still wins), but 3 makes you far exceed the damage of dagger. Of course, this is spreading your damage out over 3 targets, which isn’t always desired.

Edit: Life Force wise, as soon as you’re hitting two targets, Staff out-does dagger. (In 4 seconds, you get two dagger chains or three staff attacks. Two targets is 3% * 2 * 3 = 18% for staff, but since dagger can only hit one, it’s 6% * 1 * 2 = 12%)

I’m really starting to reconsider my “No Staves” policy.

Using average power and armour and coefficients I’ve calculated my self along with attack speeds I’ve timed myself:

Dagger #1:
953 * 2400 * 0.6 / 1800 = 762
953 * 2400 * 0.4 / 1800 = 508
953 * 2400 * 0.8 / 1800 = 1016
This chain takes 2 seconds to complete so it ends up being 2286 / 2 = 1143 DPS

Staff #1:
1048 * 2400 * 0.45 / 1800 = 628
This attacks approximately every 1.15 seconds so it ends up being 628 /1.15 = 546 DPS

Death Shroud #1:
1000 * 2400 * 0.9 / 1800 = 1200
This attacks approximately every 1.6 seconds so it ends up being 1200/1.6 = 750 DPS

Staff would require at least 3 targets for it’s #1 to out damage Dagger #1 (Though Putrid Mark may mean 2 targets is all that’s needed, I’d have to calculate the DPS it brings)

While DS #1 would need at least 2 targets to do more DPS than Dagger #1 even including the Might and Vulnerability.

Thanks for the answerers everyone. It seems like the general consensus is dagger for 1 target, DS for >2 and staff only for >3 which seems about right from my experience. The only thing left to consider is that the staff marks do add a little DPS. I know its not much due to their long cooldown but it’s something.

On another note, if you there is a need for burst 2-3-4 of staff with apply a nice count of conditions (bleed,chill,weakness) while doing most weapon damage without specific traits in a pop, axe 2 being strong ranged burst that you can dish out at a consistent rate and on range. On a power crit build, axe does actually outdo dagger now because of how safe you are in comparison and spamability of 2 while on a tanky (knights or soldier) build daggers higher damage base and hit speed will make sure that you dont fall behind on damage even if there is downtime because of evades, healing or repositioning.

Andele, I respectfully disagree.

If you can’t maintain melee range for whatever reason (they’re faster than you, or you’re unable to be in melee range because of PBAoE) then axe is better.

If you can be in melee range, and maintain melee range, dagger utterly whups axe.

I tested it shortly after the patch on Orrian zombies… I averaged a kill in 6.5 seconds with dagger/focus, and 10ish with axe/focus. Also, you’ll build life force a lot more readily with dagger.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Andele, I respectfully disagree.

If you can’t maintain melee range for whatever reason (they’re faster than you, or you’re unable to be in melee range because of PBAoE) then axe is better.

If you can be in melee range, and maintain melee range, dagger utterly whups axe.

I tested it shortly after the patch on Orrian zombies… I averaged a kill in 6.5 seconds with dagger/focus, and 10ish with axe/focus. Also, you’ll build life force a lot more readily with dagger.

Well that was kinda my point, just saying what build works better with weapon setup (with zerker gear you really dont want to be anywhere close a mob at “end game”, while Knights/Soldier mix lets you facetank some things or at least be secure in melee range if you know whats going on) and that even with some downtime dagger can be a stronger hitter than axe, my general rule was if i cant be 70% or more in melee on a boss of a fights duration, swap it to scepter or axe before the fight (staff obviously holding the other weapon slot).