Guild Wars 2

I’m helping my son out with his goal of making a minion master build. I decided to look at his damage in the logs to try to understand how helpful the different minions really were in damage.

I was testing in Sparkfly Fens killing moas. The tool tip for his bone fiend said:
(2x) 192

In the logs attacking the same moa, I saw four different entries:
Hit 2x each for 68
Hit 2x each for 172
Critical hit 2x each for 105
Critical hit 2x each for 250

It seems like it’s possible to have two very different base damage levels on the attack (68 and 172). Not much else was going on in the fight (I had the shadow fiend out also, but the only other thing going on was some necrotic grasp auto-attacks)

What’s going on here?

maybe god knows, but anet doesn’t….

honestly, the list of bugs and complaints about necro pets is never ending, and at this point, most of us would be happy if they just attacked when they were supposed to.

Bone Fiend and Blood Fiend work most of the time.
Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem regen their health after being out of combat a bit.

…bone minions make nice bombs.

Everything else is a mystery to me.

I’m pretty sure the high damage attack is its crippling attack that it’s supposed to use every ~10 sec. haven’t been paying too much attention to it outside of when it’s killing teq’s fingers (which is condition immune :/) so not 100% sure, but it definately occurs at very regular intervals.

Thx for the tip. I’ll try recording a combat sequence with FRAPS and see if I can connect the higher damage with the cripple.

Mostly, I’m just trying to understand how things compare in damage. So far in the build I made for him, putrid explosion on the bone minions, life blast, and the fire sigil I put into his weapons are the biggest damage entries in the logs. But I’m trying to do some more isolated testing.

Thx again!

Bone Fiend has three separate attacks, each of them using two projectiles and dealing the same damage for each projectile (including crits). His normal one that he uses on auto attacks, his crippling attack which is used instead of his auto attack every 10 seconds, and his active ability. They increase in base damage in the same order, and have the same crit chance, which is 4% afaik. So like someone else mentioned it was just his different auto attack.

As far as DPS, its fairly easy to compare minion DPS. Use the listed tooltip, 1.2 seconds per Flesh Golem auto, 1.5 for Shadow Fiend, about 3 for everyone else, and you can figure DPS. It is a bit weird that they don’t normalize Bone Fiend’s DPS though, which they do for Flesh Golem’s 3 attack chain.

So I went to Orr to play with my bone fiend and….

…all of these are called “bone shard” in the tooltip

(none of these hits were crits)
2x 343
2x 135
2x 145
2x 343
2x 150
2x 136
2x 373
2x 145
2x 141
2x 138

(these three had crits)
a 150 with a 225 crit
a 358 with a 537 crit
a 138 with a 207 crit

Tool tip says 2x 572

…looks like Situation Normal: Anet Fouled Up

Cheers for that info, Bhawb. Even though I’ve used MM since launch, you still learn something new every day.

I’ve only done a couple of tests with FRAPS recording the actual damage. My son’s character is only level 60, so I was testing on crabs in Bloodtide. In two tests, I got really different results depending on whether I used the bone fiend’s skill. Two samples is not a pattern, but I need to get some sleep. Still, if this is the case, it’s best to use the skill early. (All attacks happen at 3 second intervals)

Test 1: No skill use. Each line is one attack on the 3-second timer.
2×39
Crab blocks
2×38
2×43
2×42
2×103 (cripple effect as Bhawb said)
2×40
2×43
2×39
2×102 (cripple)
2×39
2×39
2×41
2×59 (critical hit)
2×98 (cripple)
crab blocks
2×40
2×41
2×43

Test two: Use bone fiend skill. Each line is one 3-second cycle
2×108 (cripple)
crab blocks
Use skill: 1×108, 1×162 (critical hit)
2×108
2×119 (cripple)
2×43
2×44
1×43, 1×64 (critical hit)
2×66 (critical hits)
1×47, 1×71 (critical hit)
crab blocks
2×45
2×44
1×43, 1×65 (critical hit)
2×114 (cripple)
2×47
2×47
1×44, 1×66 (critical hit)
2×45
2×45
crab blocks
Use skill: 1×118, 1×178 (critical hit)
1×109, 1×163 (critical hit)

The damage on Bone Fiend’s tooltip is the combined damage against a heavy armored target at whatever level is in question. The only question would be whether it is like other minions, and is the average damage over a sequence of attacks, or is the damage of the crippling attack only.

The question I’m trying to answer is what causes variability in the damage. I fully grant that given the sizes of the numbers, this is a pretty much just an academic exercise. And two sample runs is way too little to even say there is some other factor at play.

But…

If you look at the data, there a couple of interesting differences:
- using the skill always causes a pattern of one “bigger” hit and one critical hit
- only in the case of using the skill do you get samples of different damage on the two hits (in the first set of data, both hits in an attack always do the same amount)
- there are cases in the second set of data where a “big” (but non-critical hit) happens and no cripple is applied
- the crit rate is much higher in the second set (kind of improbable to get these results with a 4% chance, but a very small sample)

Here’s my crazy theory:
- Bone fiend attacks have a higher base damage when the target is under a CC effect (at least cripple and immobilize). This would be consistent with the cripple-applying attack causing a larger amount of damage. And it would explain some of the larger damage numbers in the second set because those attacks are happening while the immobilize from the skill attack is still on the target.
- (maybe) something about using the skill causes attack damages to be calculated separately thereafter (and possibly crit chances are rolled separately as well)

eldenbri.1059:

The question I’m trying to answer is what causes variability in the damage. I fully grant that given the sizes of the numbers, this is a pretty much just an academic exercise. And two sample runs is way too little to even say there is some other factor at play.

In what sense? The big differences in numbers are due to different attacks being used, the small differences within a single type of attack are due to how the game calculates damage (every attack has a range of “weapon power” it randomly chooses from). I’ve never seen any other variation, although it is possible it exists.

As for the other stuff, if I get some time this weekend I’ll look into it. It is entirely possible they did some funny coding.

I’m trying to determine the direction of the causality here

The operating theory goes like this:
- Every so often (about once per 10 – 15 seconds), the code chooses to apply a different attack which does more damage and applies cripple

I’m suggesting that possibly the code actually works like this:
- When the target has a CC effect on it (either cripple or immob), then generate a higher damage
- And there’s a built-in effect to apply cripple (once every 10 – 15 seconds) before damage is calculated

The difference is just that if the code actually works the second way, then players could affect bone fiend damage by maintaining CC on the target.

The numbers are small, so it really isn’t a big deal. But, I have to admit, it’s more fun than the long document I need to write

I tried the Bone Fiend on a Training Dummy, which is immune to CD and CC.

Dmg was ALWAYS the same, dmg from crippling attack was also the same.
The one thing that did influence the dmg was enabling/disabling Signet of Spite.
Meaning, the Bone Fiends dmg scales with the player’s power lvl.

Check if u (the player) has active boons or conditions that may influence power.
Also check if the mob uses any boons on itself or conditions on the Bone Fiend that may influence dmg done.