Guild Wars 2

Introduction
Lately I have been theory crafting reaper builds to find an optimum between damage and survivability. The reason for this is that Reaper does not require berserker stats for its optimal damage and the rotation is easy.
(Sorry for the scientific report layout, but that makes it feel less like a wall of text.)

Setup
The four builds I calculated the DPS for are valkyrie, soldier, carrion and dire. All these builds use the exact same trait configuration. Spite for 25 stacks of might and damage boosters. Soul reaping for Dhuum fire and Reaper for 50% crit chance.

For these calculation I used:
- 2600 armor (too low for end game PvE?).
- 2 seconds per Gravedigger. 2.1 seconds for reaper auto attack (Including 15% speed boost).
- Close to death giving an average 10% direct damage boost.
- 100% shroud uptime.
- Fully self buffed is 25 might and 25 vul and target always burning. Also for Greatsword, even though this is not possible.
- Also included fury for the self buffed numbers.
- Flame legion runes and Balthazer runes in the combination they are optimal.
- Sigil of night, force, smoldering and bursting in the combination they are optimal.
- 20% condition Pizza.

Results
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CaiHdZF-YzC1yQbn9Y_XsgDc3-K_Hmp9nLG4T7ISbJM/edit?usp=sharing
Check spreadsheet for values after fixes

This shows that the highest DPS possible against 2600 armor enemies is 12.3k for greatsword and 10.7k for reaper shroud. Meaning that there is only a slight reason to spam greatsword 2 and not use the addition survivability for reaper shroud.

Moving on to Soldier (8.5k dps) vs Valkyrie (10.7k). There is a big boost for the addition ferocity (26%). This gap is even larger (30%) without party buffs . However due to Dhuum fire, this gap is smaller than expected.

Dire stats (9.0k dps) vs Carrior (9.9k dps) show Carrior is slightly stronger. But when taking into account the reduced Reaper uptime, then Dire will probably out damage Carrior.

Conclusion
So my conclusion is that reapers will cap their DPS at 12k average or 9k to 10k for much more tankier builds. So my question is how acceptable is this DPS compared to other classes?

Is it just me, or does Reaper allow for a good number of builds, but not any diversity in trait setup. Are there any reaper DPS builds that do not use Spite for solo play? The only reason it is included in the condition builds is to allow for 25 stacks of might (40% damage boost), which is the minor trait. All other traits from the Spite line are nearly useless for conditions.

Edit: Greatsword/dagger builds would not require Soul Reaping trait line.

Removed: – Including dungeon consumable (10% direct damage bonus).
Because this caused consumables to be applied twice.

I like what you’ve done here. One thing I would like to add as more of a set up error, in your spreadsheet you added the direct DPS for zerker under burn DPS. Not a big deal, just thought I would point that out. Personally, what I have found with the new content using my current build, is that I can generally dish out 3k-4k crits (shroud skill 1) with 98% crit in Reaper Shroud and 10k-15k gravediggers (Even hit a 22k once on a tiger), and at the same time still being able to tank a lot of damage. Could have better survivability, but I’m liking my build and will sacrifice some tankiness for that DPS.

You seem to have forgotten Strength of Undeath and Spiteful Talisman in your calculations? Or am I just missing something?

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

You seem to have forgotten Strength of Undeath and Spiteful Talisman in your calculations? Or am I just missing something?

I had Strength of the Undeath in an earlier version, but I removed it because I am mostly below the 50% threshold. However for now I added it just for greatsword.

Somehow I forgot to add Spiteful Talisman. Fixed this.

Did some testing of enemy armor in Verdant Brink and Auric Basin.
Raptors, mushrooms, jungle grub have around 2600 armor.
mordrem grant, Stoneheads and boars have 2900 armor
beetles (from front) 4200 armor
Beetles (back) and arrowheads have 6200 armor.

This means that power builds might also want to increase the enemy armor value for PvE.

I don’t trust these calculations. They are odd. 11k DPS? It is far to small. U should link your traits as there must be some misplaced traits

Ps. I am happy that Bers gear is still the best choose for dps.

Greatsword dps already went to 12.3k DPS (2600 armor) after some tweaks. Keep in mind that this is with 25 might and 25 vul. Which is impossible to stack by yourself without Reaper shroud. For most bosses I also notice that 2600 armor is too low.

On top of that is a greatsword build squishy. It does not build any life force and with the necromancer healing you also won’t survive or you lose DPS due to dodging. (Might compensate for limited death shroud uptime.)

If you don’t trust the calculation, try setting the stats and damage bonuses for heart of the mist settings and then compare the equal damage to the calculation.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQFARCN2YJXwividxxIVZYN8sgCANgVAA-TxRBAB6pDwS1fuZ/BsU+toSw8uAAA8AAIFwiKtA-e

Your calculations look about right at a cursory glance. If there even are errors, they are probably minor ones that doesn’t change your conclusion that reaper DPS is around 11k maxed.

I hope this puts to rest some of the insane claims around here of 20k+ DPS. I’ve seen people claiming to reach 30k -40k gravediggers on targets not named Operative Brie and that 30k gravediggers must have a DPS of 25k because they don’t understand aftercasts.

@chunx.9521 oddly I got a 40k gravedigger against a legendary wyvern.. I would like to reporduce this somehow… It was the heat of the moment so I didn’t know what was going on, all I know is I saw floating 40k crit and recording in combat log..

There is video evidence of gravediggers going up to 33.5k against Vale Guardian. It’s in LOD’s raid footage. Lots of hits for 28-29k too.
Which, given Gravedigger’s total cast time of 1.7s, pushes our DPS quite a bit when the enemy is below 50%. Likely not enough to save the class for PvE but it’s something.

EDIT: The hits against the legendary wyvern shouldn’t count for much. It takes massive damage when the breakbar is broken.

It’s worth stating that when I said that reapers could reach near 18k dps, that was under near optimal conditions. Stationary non interacting target, all debuffs already applies, perfect skill usage with optimal damage utilities, berserker gear, and the target below 50% health so all our damage modifiers kick in. Still stand by that value, but it should not be taken out of context and treated as the average fight dps, which is going to be significantly lower.

@Onerios.4962

I haven’t played too much of other classes, only Reaper/Necro and Chronomancer/Mesmer, my whole life but is the average fight DPS of other classes alot more? in which, the target is moving, not much debuff, berserker gear, and non perfect skill usage?

Because I watched alot of the DnT DPS videos.. all their targets are Stationary, or well, forced to be stationary. With optimal buffs and perfect rotations, to achieve such high DPS..

This is not to counter your post but I am genuinely curious as what I have believed may all be a lie after all lol.

CCLegion.5936:

There is video evidence of gravediggers going up to 33.5k against Vale Guardian. It’s in LOD’s raid footage. Lots of hits for 28-29k too.
Which, given Gravedigger’s total cast time of 1.7s, pushes our DPS quite a bit when the enemy is below 50%. Likely not enough to save the class for PvE but it’s something.

EDIT: The hits against the legendary wyvern shouldn’t count for much. It takes massive damage when the breakbar is broken.

33.5k damage per hit would mean that the Vale guardian has low armor. Because as far as I know I have taken into account every possible damage booster. And on top of that, sigil of night and dungeon consumable do not even work in the raid. So a raid boss with low armor (probably ~2200) is good news for power builds.

I updated the GS build for correct food and death magic power bonus instead of soul reaping line. I checked Gravediggers total cast time + after cast and it still is 2 seconds.

I could go and defend my other builds, but power builds win against low armored targets.

Edit: Current GS build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAodRn0ICV2gt0AO2Ac4gFcBTKH01CbxXxvYZEaAEAaBA-TBSBAB6pJwS1fua/BsU+toSQ80DoxpAAgnAApAiYrF-e

The spreadsheet shows the damage without taking into account any toughness party buffs (banner or guardian aura), which would add ~2% crit damage and 24 power. But it does take into account the buff from corrupter’s Fervor and Flesh of the Master (4 minions).

LOD Reaper footage

Gravedigger spam starts around the marked time.
As for its cast time, I’m going with the numbers DEKeyz posted a few months ago. It’s still the most up to date information I have regarding this.

Gravedigger damage (or any attack value for that matter) can become arbitrarily large for enemies with low armor. Because armor value is one of the sole divisors in damage calculations, for enemies with close to 1 armor, any build’s theoretical DPS would be in the tens of millions.

DEKeyz calculates her spreadsheets assuming an armor value of 2600 (see where she describes perfect conditions in here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first#post3436702) and so for the DPS numbers people are throwing around from DnT, we have to remember the 2600 armor assumption. It would be absolutely silly to compare hits on a light target and a heavy target. A build that has 10k DPS on heavy targets (assuming all power) would have be almost 12k DPS on light. This means that with the max Gravedigger Azzumy calculated of 26k would be reaching 30k+ on light, but such numbers are meaningless because the “standard” for DPS calculation is 2600 armor. If those 30k+ gravediggers are to be relevant, and you want to use those numbers to compare reaper DPS, then all classes must have their DPS calculated with lower armor values.

Therefore claims of 30k -40k Gravediggers are absurd and unhelpful. Yes they can happen when your enemy has like 2000 armor instead of 2600. No you cannot use that number to compare to other classes when we say something like “engineer has 18k DPS” because the DPS of the engineer was derived with the assumption of 2600 armor, and for the comparison to be fair, you must recalculate the DPS of other classes with those same assumptions. And then you’ll find that engineer has (making up arbitrary numbers to demonstrate a point) 23k DPS when readjusted, making your 40k gravediggers look a lot less impressive with its 20k DPS.

Onerios.4962:

It’s worth stating that when I said that reapers could reach near 18k dps, that was under near optimal conditions. Stationary non interacting target, all debuffs already applies, perfect skill usage with optimal damage utilities, berserker gear, and the target below 50% health so all our damage modifiers kick in. Still stand by that value, but it should not be taken out of context and treated as the average fight dps, which is going to be significantly lower.

Posts like these are equal to that of the “20k DPS ele” posts: they are useless. They are misleading and false. Not only is that number not achievable in any realistic scenario, the numbers aren’t even close. Because of these falsified posts people look at 10k DPS as weak compared to other classes, when other classes DPS is actually much closer to 10k DPS than these “theorycrafters” make it out to be. It seems people don’t truly understand how utterly incorrect they are claiming something like engi does 20k+ dmg/second. I don’t agree with everything Nemesis says, but I definitely agree with the fact all these imaginary numbers are pure bullkitten.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Posts like these are equal to that of the “20k DPS ele” posts: they are useless. They are misleading and false. Not only is that number not achievable in any realistic scenario, the numbers aren’t even close. Because of these falsified posts people look at 10k DPS as weak compared to other classes, when other classes DPS is actually much closer to 10k DPS than these “theorycrafters” make it out to be. It seems people don’t truly understand how utterly incorrect they are claiming something like engi does 20k+ dmg/second. I don’t agree with everything Nemesis says, but I definitely agree with the fact all these imaginary numbers are pure bullkitten.

They aren’t useless, they provide a theoretical starting point. He doesn’t try to mislead either because he states his assumptions as well, and so of course the number isn’t achievable in your “realistic scenario” because such a scenario doesn’t conform to the assumptions which he adopted and qualified for. His numbers may be right or they may be wrong, but there really is no conflict between his claim that reaper DPS is 18k under ideal conditions, and someone else’s claim that reaper DPS is under 18k in realistic conditions. The only conflict that could arise is through misinterpretation when people try to compare numbers that don’t use the same assumption.

And as a side note, optimal reaper DPS is pretty easy to achieve. It’s literally just reaper shroud 1 spam until 50% hp, and then gravedigger spam until the target is dead. Not even close to the player inefficiencies that come with playing engineer in which it is extremely hard for a mistake-prone person to perform the optimal rotation. And so, at least for reaper, theoretical DPS will be a lot closer to actual DPS than for many other classes.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Posts like these are equal to that of the “20k DPS ele” posts: they are useless. They are misleading and false. Not only is that number not achievable in any realistic scenario, the numbers aren’t even close.

They are useless if you don’t know what to do with them.

Posts like these serve, for example, to compare the sustained damage of the gs with the dagger, and decide that the gs sucks big time when the enemy is above 50% health.

And then, even below 50% health, you can compare damage and see that lich#1 is stronger than gravedigger, and you don’t have to stay in melee with you terribly slow skill that makes you waste a lot of dps if you have to dodge.

Also, posts like these serve to realise that if you trait dhuumfire and spam reaper shroud#1 you can out dps anything else you have if you enemy’s armor is above 2600 (in the case you are wearing berserker in a fight with high armor foes. Not recommended, but sometimes, specially in open world, you run into foes with high armor and cannot change your gear).

Come on, go and tell Gauss that his maths are only theory and the real world knows better…..

Be careful with Patchwerk-style analysis. When it comes to conditions, the peak DPS performance occurs when they hit the upper bound of their condi stacks and it rolls. If any fight disruption causes those to drop, how long does it take to get back to that point? Ramp-up time should be a serious consideration in a game that has the potential to be more active like GW2. You might be dodging, the boss might go invulnerable, etc. Gravedigger spam does not give a single lick about ramping back up, because it is constantly balling at its most outrageous. Dhuumfire stacking will take a few seconds to ramp up, as will might/vuln self-stacks (if they are necessary).

I really liked how you specifically mentioned all of your assumptions, but you also have to realize they are dangerous assumptions to make. I am sure your plan is to overestimate to see where we land against other classes, but you also cannot take the numbers from those other classes just at straight-up face value. They have their own considerations with respect to assumptions, ramp-up time, etc.

Nice work! =) Would be cool for comparison though if we’d have the numbers for a cookie-cutter Berserker’s/SR build.

Something like this maybe: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAodRnMbCN2gt0AubCc4glcBLeK2FHjUlh1wzCKA0AWBA-ThRBABXt/o8DP9B5dKAA4JAQp6PmpEkUARMsC-e

Cogbyrn.7283:

Be careful with Patchwerk-style analysis. When it comes to conditions, the peak DPS performance occurs when they hit the upper bound of their condi stacks and it rolls. If any fight disruption causes those to drop, how long does it take to get back to that point? Ramp-up time should be a serious consideration in a game that has the potential to be more active like GW2. You might be dodging, the boss might go invulnerable, etc. Gravedigger spam does not give a single lick about ramping back up, because it is constantly balling at its most outrageous. Dhuumfire stacking will take a few seconds to ramp up, as will might/vuln self-stacks (if they are necessary).

I think you got it backwards….

if you dodge and you cannot keep applying conditions, it will be so for 1 sec and you will only lose 1 or 2 stacks, not all your stacks.

If you have to interrupt gravedigger to dodge or heal, you lose 100% of the damage for that second, plus whatever time into the animation you were at.

Conditions benefit from fights where you can’t keep hitting the boss 100% of the time.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Be careful with Patchwerk-style analysis. When it comes to conditions, the peak DPS performance occurs when they hit the upper bound of their condi stacks and it rolls. If any fight disruption causes those to drop, how long does it take to get back to that point? Ramp-up time should be a serious consideration in a game that has the potential to be more active like GW2. You might be dodging, the boss might go invulnerable, etc. Gravedigger spam does not give a single lick about ramping back up, because it is constantly balling at its most outrageous. Dhuumfire stacking will take a few seconds to ramp up, as will might/vuln self-stacks (if they are necessary).

I think you got it backwards….

if you dodge and you cannot keep applying conditions, it will be so for 1 sec and you will only lose 1 or 2 stacks, not all your stacks.

If you have to interrupt gravedigger to dodge or heal, you lose 100% of the damage for that second, plus whatever time into the animation you were at.

Conditions benefit from fights where you can’t keep hitting the boss 100% of the time.

It really just has to do with attack speed. Doesn’t matter if condition or direct damage.

AA does some set amount of DPS. This dps is either applied instantly or over time, but it is roughly the same for both power and condition weapons. If you dodge you essentially miss 1s worth of attacks. This is 2-3 bleed stacks, 2-3 dagger AA’s, or 1 gravedigger.

Grave digger is hit harder by this since it occurs much less frequently so missing 1 attack is a much larger portion of the total number of attacks that you do.

Now we’re thinking! These are important points. For Gravedigger, we’re looking at potentially missing attacks. With a lower number of total attacks factoring into damage, each one missed has a larger impact on total damage done. With smaller, faster attacks, missing an attack or two is minimally impactful.

However, what if a boss has a transitional phase, or temporary invulnerabilities? This has already been demonstrated with certain boss phases, where the boss vanishes from the fight or otherwise cannot be hurt for a period of time. How much condition damage is lost when all of the stacks you’ve put on tick away/are removed suddenly? Everyone’s damage drops to 0 during a phase like this, but the potential for a condition build dropped by potentially thousands of damage. In the grand scheme this might not be a big deal, but any raids that involve any sort of cleansing shouldn’t be ignored.

In general, DPS from fast attacks has almost always been more reliable than DPS from slow attacks. Your sample size for hits increases, the randomness from crits/misses/whatever other RNG (which I understand isn’t always present for a Necro, but still) is more normalized, and you generally have a more consistent experience.

All of these are variables that shouldn’t just be ignored. Fights need to be analyzed alongside to really evaluate effectiveness in a game like GW2. Simulations only go so far even in a game like WoW.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think you got it backwards….

if you dodge and you cannot keep applying conditions, it will be so for 1 sec and you will only lose 1 or 2 stacks, not all your stacks.

If you have to interrupt gravedigger to dodge or heal, you lose 100% of the damage for that second, plus whatever time into the animation you were at.

Conditions benefit from fights where you can’t keep hitting the boss 100% of the time.

Or things like Block, Evade, Blind, Chill (does not affect AA).

My personal opinion is that Gravedigger spam is a bit of a red herring. Big numbers sure but slow.

To me Scepter abuse shows the biggest potential. The new Viper gear means getting +100% duration to Bleed, Poison and Torment is doable. Combine that with the extra 50% duration on top of that and you got some very powerful, ranged DPS with a very basic rotation. Compare that to the stupid Sinister Engie rotation and it might actually come somewhat close to its spreadsheet DPS.

Quickness scales with it extremely well.

This is just making me wish there was a power/ferocity/condition trio of gear. That would be a hefty increase in damage because of dhuumfire.

Unfortunately, ferocity seems to be a rather hard stat to get.

Even with full Berserker/Valkyries, looks like crit rate is at .9, can you update the sheet to include Sinister and Viper? Viper in particular is what I am interested in.

Have you considered Rune of the Elementalist as well? — keep in mind, we can apply bleed (33% chance on crit) /poisons (Reaper 4 — can put up 22 stacks if there’s a poison field) as well.

And on that note, I know you’re assuming Reaper’s Onslaught for the 15% attack speed, but with a lot of condition power, might also want to take a look at Deathly Chill as well. While chill damage doesn’t stack in intensity, it does have a decent coefficient with +condition.

Maxzero.4032:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think you got it backwards….

if you dodge and you cannot keep applying conditions, it will be so for 1 sec and you will only lose 1 or 2 stacks, not all your stacks.

If you have to interrupt gravedigger to dodge or heal, you lose 100% of the damage for that second, plus whatever time into the animation you were at.

Conditions benefit from fights where you can’t keep hitting the boss 100% of the time.

Or things like Block, Evade, Blind, Chill (does not affect AA).

My personal opinion is that Gravedigger spam is a bit of a red herring. Big numbers sure but slow.

To me Scepter abuse shows the biggest potential. The new Viper gear means getting +100% duration to Bleed, Poison and Torment is doable. Combine that with the extra 50% duration on top of that and you got some very powerful, ranged DPS with a very basic rotation. Compare that to the stupid Sinister Engie rotation and it might actually come somewhat close to its spreadsheet DPS.

Quickness scales with it extremely well.

Hopefully they fix viper’s gear soon, I think it has good potential.

There are also a number of new rune sets that are VERY interesting for condition reapers. I am going to have to look more closely at them soon.

Right now i’m going to start with Viper’s weapons and armor and see how it goes. Might be worth it to switch to viper’s trinkets and replace my runes with something else. That will give me higher overall duration so I can take more damaging stats and less duration on the runes.

We already get 20% bleed and 20% chill duration. Add in 30% from food and utilities now and we are at:

50% bleed
50% chill
30% Burn
30% Poison
30% Torment

Not sure what a full set of Viper’s gear gives you. If it could get 50% duration then you could take the new poison runes to max poison as well, or take the new berserker runes for more power/condition damage.

Conditions ramp up linear. This means that the ramp up damage loss is half the ramp up time multiplied by the DPS.

9k dps and 6 seconds Dhuumfire duration results in 0.5 * 9k * 6 = 27k damage loss per start or invulnerable phase. Or easier said, the fight would effectively take 3 seconds longer.

This is assuming that all buffs do not have a ramp up time, which is a wrong assumption. So in practice the fight would take around 2 seconds longer due to ramp up time. This is increased by 2 to 3 seconds per invulnerable phase.

Also keep in mind that gravedigger has a 7 seconds cooldown if you hit a boss that just went invulnerable, even if it is just a single block or evade.

Cogbyrn.7283:

… I really liked how you specifically mentioned all of your assumptions, but you also have to realize they are dangerous assumptions to make. …

Almost all these assumptions have effect on the power builds. The raid (as of beta) was during day time. Fury has more effect on power builds. Scholar runes (GS build) requires 90% hp, while the other builds only require a burning target.

The biggest assumption made in the spreadsheet is that all builds have to same uptime. Which depends a lot on the encounter and player skill.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Hopefully they fix viper’s gear soon, I think it has good potential.

There are also a number of new rune sets that are VERY interesting for condition reapers. I am going to have to look more closely at them soon.

snip
Not sure what a full set of Viper’s gear gives you. If it could get 50% duration then you could take the new poison runes to max poison as well, or take the new berserker runes for more power/condition damage.

What’s broken about Viper’s? I’m thinking of doing similar with the berserker rune and a viper’s/sinister mix

Narenek.9085:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Hopefully they fix viper’s gear soon, I think it has good potential.

There are also a number of new rune sets that are VERY interesting for condition reapers. I am going to have to look more closely at them soon.

snip
Not sure what a full set of Viper’s gear gives you. If it could get 50% duration then you could take the new poison runes to max poison as well, or take the new berserker runes for more power/condition damage.

What’s broken about Viper’s? I’m thinking of doing similar with the berserker rune and a viper’s/sinister mix

The condition duration applies to the tool tips but doesn’t actually apply to the condition themselves.

Same for the boon duration stat.

This is a bit of a late addition to the thread but forgive me if I’m mistaken, you can’t have both Death Perception (50% crit chance) and Dhuumfire in one line, you can only take either/or.
Death Perception and Dhuumfire are both in Soul Reaping not Reaper, of which the only crit stacking effect is Decimate Defenses.