Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow rangers,

After all the recent threads about crappy longbow damage, horrible greatswords and all-round bad performance of the ranger I felt it was time to try and get some solid numbers to either confirm (or deny) all our feelings.

As such I’ve tried to compare the auto attack DPS on (so far) four classes, the warrior, elementalist, mesmer and ranger.

The set up was as follows:
Tests were done in the Mists attacking the heavy training dummies
Every class was geared with the berserker amulet, 6 runes of the scholar and a +5% damage rune in their weapons.
Trait points were spent for maximum DPS (meaning full power / precision / crit damage traits). No traits themselves were selected and no skills were used, the only attacks done were the number 1 auto-attacks.

Positioning was done in the best way possible, meaning the shortbow for the ranger had rear positioning etc.

With every class / weapon combo I tested I killed 10 heavy training dummies and averaged the time it took for the kill.

For anyone wondering for the ranger the pet was kept on passive / not involved.

The DPS Comparison numbers can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AogEBO_JoiiBdDVyMTFGaDkzVXRhMjVRV0J3cnNPTHc&usp=sharing

The results were (to me at least) surprising.

I’d say my initial conclusion would be that the auto-attack DPS the ranger does is actually fine (with the longbow at minimum range needing work, as well as possibly the axe). So if the ranger is truly lacking so badly in DPS as we all believe they are it’s the abilities that need to be looked at more then the auto-attack of most weapons.

Comments and discussion are welcome, both about the results as as well as the method used to obtain them. If people are enthousiastic I’ll try and compare a few more weapon / class combo’s (I’m interested to see how a thief and a guardian would perform on auto-attacks).

As said, these are simply auto-attack damage comparisons on stationary targets. I realize that they’re in no way comparable to a WvW situation, but they can be food for interesting discussion.

Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t spam AA on any weapon. It must be a minority that does this. AA is just a get-me-by between skills on all my weapons. I know from experience it takes a considerable amount of time longer to take things down on a CC ranger than it does a Zerker Warrior in PVE.

Interesting. Numbers would change a bit if you used optimal skill “rotation” – GS and LB for ranger would be better, but also other classes would benefit on some weapons. Also, I takie it those numbers are without pet? (they are close to what I remmber from my tests). If so, adding cat (whos AA didn’t get nerf!) would boost ranger nicely.
Still, I love when ppl actually do something and not just “my dmg seems lower than yday, they ninja nerfed me by 9000%!”

Also, thing to remember: there is no auto attack in GW2. It is just another skill, that has no CD and is set on auto cast by default – you can mark any other skill to be “AA”.

I’m not entirely sure how you calculated it, but would you be able to narrow it down to a base damage-per-second stat from those times?

The comparison was done based on the time it took to kill a heavy armor dummy (10 times and then averaged).
I haven’t added up the amount of health a heavy armor dummy has (nor do I know his armor value) but if those two values were known a base-attack damage-per-second could be calculated.

Terkov, I’d be happy to try things with an optimal skill “Rotation”. I’m quite sure a class like the mesmer would benefit tremendously from actually shattering their clones instead of having them do their insignificant base damage.

As said in my original post the numbers are without a pet, I specifically tested without a pet because of the often heard argument such a large portion of ranger DPS comes from our pets.

But it sounds like you guys really want to see a comparison of the rangers AA skills compared to say a rangers longbow damage when using rapid fire, vulnerability, barrage etc

Interesting results. So our weapons are up to par? With pets, we can actually out-AA some classes?

If you have the time to actually determine how much DPS the pets provide with solid evidence, that would the main course for interesting discussion (your first test being the appetizer XD)

Something to note from my own (basic) tests: Longbow DPS actually goes down when using rapid fire at 1000+ range. It’s odd, but true. So if you do decide to go for full rotations, leave rapidfire out of the rotation at max range for a better idea.

What are the current pve and pvp splits? I ask this because DPS will be different because of pve and pvp splits not to mention nourishment. Ultimately, many will want to know how this translates to pve.

Another flaw in just simply basing decisions on these numbers is how the weapon is used. For example, axe ricochets so it’s time in a mob of two or three will look much better. This is similar to how you did two separate tests for longbow.

Finally, I think the pet should be involved. Spreadsheets like this not only make axe look bad, it makes ranger look bad. “ZOMG WARRIOR DEEEEEEPS IS TWICE THE RANGER” because no one actually analyzes data. That’s for noobs. Everyone knows warriors are most dps—twice rangers, it’s right there in the spreadsheet. :p

AFAIK, the only split we have so far is the cooldown on Search and Rescue. Anyone know other splits?

First of all, to the OP, good job on putting this together.

Jubskie, the main split between PVE and PVP is going to be the stats on your gear. Having more stat points makes differences in damage output grow. If there’s a resource out there that gives the maximum stats for both game modes, you could figure out how things will look in PVE without too much trouble.

The fundamental flaws with this test are that you aren’t selecting traits and you’re limiting yourself to the 1st skill on each weapon. Some classes have better placement of damage traits than others. Likewise, some classes have significant damage contribution from skills 2-5 while others don’t. Finding the optimal damage output for each weapon for each of these classes would be difficult and might take more time than it’s worth. I would recommend spot checking this on some weapons if you have time to do more. Greatsword would be a good choice because of maul and 100 blades. Warrior axe and ranger sword get the best damage from the auto attack. The warrior has his burst skill, but we aren’t counting the ranger’s pet either, so that might be a wash.

Also, I’m not sure when you did your testing, but I believe this last patch changed the health on the training dummies. If your testing took place before and after the patch, you might want to reevaluate.

Terkov.4138:

Interesting. Numbers would change a bit if you used optimal skill “rotation” – GS and LB for ranger would be better, but also other classes would benefit on some weapons. Also, I takie it those numbers are without pet? (they are close to what I remmber from my tests). If so, adding cat (whos AA didn’t get nerf!) would boost ranger nicely.
Still, I love when ppl actually do something and not just “my dmg seems lower than yday, they ninja nerfed me by 9000%!”

Also, thing to remember: there is no auto attack in GW2. It is just another skill, that has no CD and is set on auto cast by default – you can mark any other skill to be “AA”.

Sorry but yes the time to kill would decrease if you used skills on a ranger, but that would mean using 100b on the warrior. I don’t really think you want that in your comparison. It would just make it painfully obvious how far behind rangers are.

To go ahead and preempt the whole “you are just a complaining ranger” my main is actually guardian. You are welcome to check my posts in that forum. My second two would be warrior, and thief. I can’t even bring myself to finish my ranger.

This will probably kitten people off in this forum but to me rangers are just free bags right now. Oh and as a nonzerker guardian my AA will crit for a quarter of your life easily. Not that I care because if you ever get get a chance to AA then you are doing something wrong.

Still not a fair comparison because ranger has prec/critdmg together and the traits are affecting damage differently.

solrik.6028:

Still not a fair comparison because ranger has prec/critdmg together and the traits are affecting damage differently.

Not sure if serious. Every class except warriors in this comparison has prec/critdmg together.

jubskie.3152:

Interesting results. So our weapons are up to par? With pets, we can actually out-AA some classes?

That’s pretty much what I found when I tested ranger vs. warrior using only weapon skills against the heavy golem. That was about 4 months ago too, before LB was beefed up. In terms of raw weapon damage, ranger seems to be ok. That surprised me since my warrior certainly feels much easier to play than my ranger. It’s probably the trait synergy and utility skills where rangers are lacking. e.g. Might stacking on warriors is devastating, but it’s something rangers simply can’t do. Armor (defense) probably plays a role too – my ranger may have higher raw damage than my warrior, but I spend so much time dodging and evading it drops her DPS significantly.

I didn’t just use autoattacks in my tests either. I played around with the weapon skills to find the combo which seemed to produce highest DPS. Ranger (without pet) still won or tied with warrior.

Giavena.6013:

The set up was as follows:
Every class was geared with the berserker amulet, 6 runes of the scholar and a +5% damage rune in their weapons.
Trait points were spent for maximum DPS (meaning full power / precision / crit damage traits). No traits themselves were selected and no skills were used, the only attacks done were the number 1 auto-attacks.

Do note that this simply isn’t possible for all classes. The ranger, ele, and mesmer can get max power, precision, and crit damage with a 30/30/0/0/0 build – the second trait line boosts both precision and crit damage.

But a warrior would need a 30/30/0/0/30 build to accomplish the same thing since those attribute boosts are spread across three trait lines. A bunch of people used that as an excuse to dismiss my tests as biased towards ranger, when it’s simply not possible to give the classes perfectly equivalent builds.

For anyone wondering for the ranger the pet was kept on passive / not involved.

The AI change a couple months back really helped pets. Now that mobs will actually stop to fight our pets, they’re actually contributing damage. I’m leveling up a new ranger and it’s considerably easier than when I leveled up my first ranger. I realize now that all the time the mob was chasing me and I was strafing/dodging, the pet wasn’t really doing much if any damage. (Also, signet of the hunt only gave a 10% speed boost when I leveled up my first ranger so I never used it, meaning the pet did even less damage against moving mobs.)

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Terkov.4138:

Interesting. Numbers would change a bit if you used optimal skill “rotation” – GS and LB for ranger would be better, but also other classes would benefit on some weapons. Also, I takie it those numbers are without pet? (they are close to what I remmber from my tests). If so, adding cat (whos AA didn’t get nerf!) would boost ranger nicely.
Still, I love when ppl actually do something and not just “my dmg seems lower than yday, they ninja nerfed me by 9000%!”

Also, thing to remember: there is no auto attack in GW2. It is just another skill, that has no CD and is set on auto cast by default – you can mark any other skill to be “AA”.

Sorry but yes the time to kill would decrease if you used skills on a ranger, but that would mean using 100b on the warrior. I don’t really think you want that in your comparison. It would just make it painfully obvious how far behind rangers are.

To go ahead and preempt the whole “you are just a complaining ranger” my main is actually guardian. You are welcome to check my posts in that forum. My second two would be warrior, and thief. I can’t even bring myself to finish my ranger.

This will probably kitten people off in this forum but to me rangers are just free bags right now. Oh and as a nonzerker guardian my AA will crit for a quarter of your life easily. Not that I care because if you ever get get a chance to AA then you are doing something wrong.

Huh? With my 1800 toughness and 1500 vit even GS warrior doesn’t hit that much with AA, so gg. Not to mention, if guardian isn’t speced for movement, I can just run in circles and he will hit me only with his gap closers. My only alt is guardian, so I have some idea about them.
About kill times: wtf do you want? I clearly said “but other classes would benefit on some weapons”. I don’t know what you like on guardian forums, but here we like REAL data, so I don’t mind “painfull” info.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Sorry but yes the time to kill would decrease if you used skills on a ranger, but that would mean using 100b on the warrior. I don’t really think you want that in your comparison. It would just make it painfully obvious how far behind rangers are.

Actually, I ran exactly that test earlier in the year. Ranger with shortbow or sword/torch (no pet) beats warrior with GS spamming 100 blades. Ranger with pretty much any weapon + pet won.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Did-some-ranger-weapon-tests/first#post1533544

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Terkov.4138:

Interesting. Numbers would change a bit if you used optimal skill “rotation” – GS and LB for ranger would be better, but also other classes would benefit on some weapons. Also, I takie it those numbers are without pet? (they are close to what I remmber from my tests). If so, adding cat (whos AA didn’t get nerf!) would boost ranger nicely.
Still, I love when ppl actually do something and not just “my dmg seems lower than yday, they ninja nerfed me by 9000%!”

Also, thing to remember: there is no auto attack in GW2. It is just another skill, that has no CD and is set on auto cast by default – you can mark any other skill to be “AA”.

Sorry but yes the time to kill would decrease if you used skills on a ranger, but that would mean using 100b on the warrior. I don’t really think you want that in your comparison. It would just make it painfully obvious how far behind rangers are.

To go ahead and preempt the whole “you are just a complaining ranger” my main is actually guardian. You are welcome to check my posts in that forum. My second two would be warrior, and thief. I can’t even bring myself to finish my ranger.

This will probably kitten people off in this forum but to me rangers are just free bags right now. Oh and as a nonzerker guardian my AA will crit for a quarter of your life easily. Not that I care because if you ever get get a chance to AA then you are doing something wrong.

I play ranger. 99.99% of the encounters I have in wvw where I’m not vastly outnumbered I get the “W”. You should practice more at gw2, especially if you beat rangers on your guardian. The only way I see that happen in Tier 1 is if the guardian can hammer the ranger off a cliff. That’s literally his only chance…clearly I play too much gw2.

But why? How? How can you win with guardian and how can I win with ranger? I’ve said it all along: gw2 is a SKILL GAME. Recenty, I beat durzlla’s ele with my ranger. What’s that mean? That ranger always beats ele? No! This isn’t tic tac toe.

Just because you beat a profession a lot in wvw is no indication of balance. You just face a lot of bad rangers.

One more thing about warriors: they have crit dmg in last tree and this is not excuse, this is their weakness. They can’t have maxed prec, power and crit trees, just as ranger can’t have max pet dmg and max own dmg.

Raven.9603:

solrik.6028:

Still not a fair comparison because ranger has prec/critdmg together and the traits are affecting damage differently.

Not sure if serious. Every class except warriors in this comparison has prec/critdmg together.

You missed second part.

Ranger:
Starts fight with 5 vulnerability stacks and 100% guaranteed critical hit.
Has 10% extra damage when flanking.

Elementalist:
5% extra damage to burning foes
60% chance to apply vulnerability on crit

Mesmer:
Illusions bleed on crit

Warrior:
66% chance to bleed
10% against bleeding foe

As you can see everything is chance-based. The least chance-based is the Ranger

OP should have bought Steady weapons, have no trait points allocated and berserker amulet. No runes/sigils

But then he’d compare pure weapons. Class isn’t just weapon, but also traits and how they work in specific combinations. One of few advantages ranger has over warrior, is having crit dmg in precision tree, while warrior has to put points in last tree, that gives lame bonus to burst skill. Also, I may be wrong, but ranger seems to be most postioning-based class: flanking bonus from traits and on SB, range bonus on LB, hp>90% bonus from traits, full endurance bonus from traits.

If you’re not behind the boss melee’ing the crap out of him with ranger, you’re doing it wrong. When he aggros you, Hornet’s Stike leap away. Throw torch, Monarch’s Leap, and Serpent’s strike. You are again behind the boss. TEAR HIM APART

One thing to note about the warrior’s crit damage tree is that they have a grandmaster trait that gives a 15% bonus crit chance with full adrenaline. That’s equivalent to 315 precision. It does require them to keep their adrenaline full, but that’s usually not much of a problem.

I think one of the big things the data could use is specifying which weapons are ranged and melee.

For instance:
-Of course warrior axe beats ranger axe, ranger axe is a 900 range weapon
-Of course ranger greatsword beats mesmer greatsword, mesmer greatsword is a 1200 range weapon

It would have been more interesting to see the mesmers greatsword autoattack ranges broken down and compared to the ranger longbow ranges (short, med, long comparisons) since they are the only 2 weapons that share that range based damage mechanic. Then there would actually be able to be some discussion as to how bad/good the rangers longbow mechanic actually is right now, with something solid to compare it to.

Oops! I forgot to add this to the compilation thread :P

It’s there now

Delbaeth.2739:

Something to note from my own (basic) tests: Longbow DPS actually goes down when using rapid fire at 1000+ range. It’s odd, but true. So if you do decide to go for full rotations, leave rapidfire out of the rotation at max range for a better idea.

I was wondering about that recently. Makes sense.

I’m doing some testing now with my ranger and warrior with traits assigned. My warrior is killing the heavy dummy in 11 seconds with greatsword and 9.5 seconds with axe. Ranger is killing the dummy in 13 seconds with a greatsword and in 11 seconds with the sword. I compared these weapons because axe vs. axe is melee vs. ranged.

My warrior’s attack was 3223 and my ranger’s attack was 3219. Crit damage was 62% for every weapon except warrior axe, which was 72% (trait).

I left utility skills out because it adds too much complexity to the testing. Warrior could get a fairly consistent damage boost with shouts or signets while ranger could get 50% extra damage on one attack every 24 seconds and 25% extra damage for 8 seconds every 48 seconds with SotW.

Also keep in mind that the health on this dummy was buffed to 20k I think.

In PVE the much larger health pools amplify the difference in killing times. Against something with the same armor and 200k health, the difference in times goes up an order of magnitude as well. It is proportionally the same, but the absolute time is what matters.

Also note that in real circumstances, the ranger will have more trouble getting his damage bonuses in melee range. He needs to be flanking, have full endurance, and be above 90% health. The warrior just has to avoid using adrenaline.

Solandri.9640:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Sorry but yes the time to kill would decrease if you used skills on a ranger, but that would mean using 100b on the warrior. I don’t really think you want that in your comparison. It would just make it painfully obvious how far behind rangers are.

Actually, I ran exactly that test earlier in the year. Ranger with shortbow or sword/torch (no pet) beats warrior with GS spamming 100 blades. Ranger with pretty much any weapon + pet won.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Did-some-ranger-weapon-tests/first#post1533544

For rangers, pet choice = weapon choice.

ranger dps gampelay just feels soooo slow and bad, weapon skills are reason.
and less self skill use. also pet is huge problem, because ranger only is for bunker atm.

when i go ele or thief in pvp its so more fast and rly strong hurting bursts.
at ele because much skills, at thief because nice weapon skills but same less skills like ranger.

with thief i port out after burst and also dodge much like ranger.
with ele i safe myself with updraft, ports, knocks, blinds, earth armor and water skills (freeze, heal, armor) and and and…

dont know how anet should give us a strong dps ranger.
the mesmer also hurts much more and survive better then a dps ranger on melee or range.

for me ranger mechanic is lost, thats because im back on my guardian.
when ranger was viable, it was just a stupid bunker build, nearly every class can play this way,
but for them dont the pet have make dmg…

I made some calculations like this by myself (that’s the reason why i use axe in my critbuild) and i was just surprised like you.
We got good autohit-attacks, but other classes have more effective skills on 2-5 than we do.
Every class has at least 1 burst ability on every weapon, often also a defense. the “burst” of rangers is just funny, i’ve seen thieves just ignoring my rapid fire or hunter’s call (the skills of other weapons could barely called bursts..).
It’s heavy for me, because i really loved the Ranger, but actually i’m just sick of having no chance against other classes in WvW and just try to get away as quick as i can.
Maybe i go for warrior, since the last patch they have nearly better movement than the ranger… and a lot more potential than petkeepers.

I find this to be a Derailment from the real issue of Group DPS. Same reason there’s still so much prejudice against Thieves despite the spreadsheets saying they also have “Good DPS”. …. to borrow a popular phrase: “It’s the Buffs Stupid”. Ours are very selfish to begin with. We’re also severely limited on how much and of what kind we can generate. Can we grant Stability even just for our Pets in Dungeons? How much Fury can we really put out without taking a HUGE hit in the base DPS we ourselves put out? Might?? How many stacks of it? lol 1-3 for a quick burst? WHO CARES!. We need … really really NEED, trait compression, and redundant Boon sources just so we can apply boons twice & cover everyone in the team along with our Pets who reportedly “Steal group Buffs” o_0

Did you know that? This whole AOE’s can only affect 5 targets things is STUPID AS HELL in Dungeons but we’re paying the price more than most classes do. So next time you’re kicked out of a party & don’t know why… well don’t blame yourself. It’s not you, it’s Anet’

Well, I had something of a different take on this spread sheet. To me it really highlights the split in ranger’s state I guess. One segment of the community is going to be your min/maxer who runs their character in an optimized manner. For this player resonance doesn’t really matter. Its all about effectiveness. This segment isn’t all that confused or surprised by the results. My ranger running sword/ warhorn with a heavy DPS build does just as well as, oh say, my guardian or Mesmer. Sure those classes may have a bit more passive survivability but my ranger has much more evasion and escape mechanics. (Mesmer excluded) So yeah, ranger is good in melee. One might say real good.

The other segment of the community is attracted to the idea or character of the ranger. A superb marksman and excellent archer. Resonance is everything to this segment of the community. They want to feel strong and powerful from range, punishing their enemies from a distance and preventing them from gaining ground lest they die horrible bloody deaths. This sheet shows why that segment is so unhappy with the class. The ranged DPS is… bad.

Unfortunately not everyone wants to play a melee class but for the most part, AOE caster types excluded, it seems that is the way GW2 is slanted. Ranged archers aren’t all that viable or powerful and a full glass melee ranger has a pretty steep learning curve, even more so in a competitive environment.

It’s not even just the fact that ranged dps is bad, it’s also that most rangers who are trying to do ranged dps take pets that do kittenty melee dmg.