Guild Wars 2

So with the upcoming buffs and the general complains that warrior DPS is so much better I took a closer look on the skill modifiers and the resulting power scaling/overall direct DPS.

Ranger GS

• 1: 0.58/0.58/0.69 ==> 0.73/s
• 2: 1.57 ==> 0.90/s [Old: 1.16 ==> 0.83/s]
• 3: 1.05 ==> 0.71/s
• 4: 1.36/1.05 ==> 0.76/s
• 5: 0.52 ==> 0.74/s

Warrior GS

• 1: 0.7/0.7/0.9 ==> 0.94/s
• 2: 4.4+1.1 ==> 1.22/s
• 3: 0.7 ==> 0.99/s
• 4: 0.75 ==> 0.94/s
• 5: 1.7 ==> 0.93/s

So the first numbers are the skill modifiers for every skill including the autoattack chain. The higher these are the more damage you will do with every point of power. The bold numbers are the actual DPS skill modifier (the damage you would do per second multiplied with the power and weapon damage you have and divided by the target armor). This factors in the animation times of the skills so for skills 2-5 this shows the DPS you would do if you use the skill between autoattacks whenever it is off cooldown. Attention: While I meassured the the duration of 1 autoattack chain myself I have to use the ingame tooltips for skills 2-5 because this is hard to accurately meassure. Arenanets tooltip tend to be very unprecise or wrong so take the bold numbers as approximations.

Example: Warrior autoattack chain has 0.7/0.7/0.9 skill modifiers and takes 2.44s to cast. This means the per second skill modifier is (0.7+0.7+0.9)/2.44s = 0.94/s. Skill 2 (Hundred Blades) has an overall 5.5 modifier but 3.5s animation time (<- ingame tooltip) so this means you are unable to autoattack during those 3.5s.

What does this tell us?

• constantly using the DPS skill (which is at position 2 for both weapons) increases overall DPS for the Ranger by about 20% (depending on you condition damage and armor of the target) and 30% for the Warrior
• overall untraited DPS of Warrior GS is about 30% higher than Ranger GS when autoattacking and 35% higher than Ranger GS when both maximixe damage using skill 2 (not including bleed damage of ranger)
• using Swoop when you already are in melee ranger does actually decrease your DPS
• Swoop and Maul tooltips are wrong because they state Swoop would deal more direct damage (actually Maul deals more direct damage)

First Edit: Thx to Tibbels who also did testings last year a confounding factor was revealed. I had a 10% more damage trait while flanking active when I did my initial tests (I forgot that heart of the mists saves different traits). I updated my values (which are still only approximate!). However this makes the difference between Warrior and Ranger quite a bit bigger.

Second Edit:
Solandri pointed out that using ingame tooltips for the autoattack animation time distorted my values by a lot. The autoattacks are actually way slower. I fixed this by meassuring the true autoattack speed ingame and updating my data.

Third Edit:
Included March 26 GS buffs. Overall Warrior still beats ranger by ~30% with the use of 100 blades. In a PvP scenario where hundred blades is way more unlikely to connect than Maul DPS advantage for warrior shrinks to propably less than 5%.

This is the coolest post I’ve seen in a long time. Most of my data comes from empirical testing because I never knew we had access to these coefficients. If you have time for a couple questions

1) Where did you get these coefficients and data

2) Have you compared ranger axe/axe to ranger greatsword?

3) Would you agree that this shows that 100 blades damage is perceived as being greater than the math shows?

Thanks for sharing!

You can calculate the coefficients yourself. The damage formula in GW2 is:

Damage = Power * Weapon Damage * Skill Modifier / Target Armor

1) If you now go into the mists you can look at your power and get one of these purple testing weapons that don’t have a range (f.e. 133-133 for GS it was I believe). Then you can attack a light golem (which has 2200 armor) with your skills and will always get the same damage numbers popping up (because weapon has no range). You then can change the formula for the skill modifier and voila!

2) Not yet but with the method above it is easy to do. Feel free to ask me if you have problems doing it.

3) I was very surprised about the 100 blades numbers myself but it seems to be true. Things might change a bit if you get traits that reduce skill cooldown but if my claculations are correct (and there is always a chance I made a mistake) then yes, autoattacking and using hundred blades only makes a minimal difference.

Edit: Oh and I only measured the Ranger GS numbers myself. Warrior was already done in this very imformative reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10o4mi/the_damage_formula_and_the_efficiency_of_sigils/

Edit2: Oh and also I took the skill animation times for Warrior from the wiki. If those are outdated or wrong this would also alter my results.

Ah, this is clear. Thanks again for the informative post and direction. Rock on!

Half of the reason warrior GS damage is so much better than everything else is all the damage traits that go with it.

• 12% damage bonus with full adrenaline*
• 9% crit chance bonus with full adrenaline*
• 10% GS damage bonus
• 20% reduced cooldown on all GS skills
• Gain might on crit when using GS (easily stack 10+might in a fight, going up to 25 when cleaving mobs.

Nugget.8031:

Half of the reason warrior GS damage is so much better than everything else is all the damage traits that go with it.

• 12% damage bonus with full endurance
• 9% crit chance bonus with full endurance
• 10% GS damage bonus
• 20% reduced cooldown on all GS skills
• Gain might on crit when using GS (easily stack 10+might in a fight, going up to 25 when cleaving mobs.

Yes, and given the baseline data Dojo has so generously provided, we can easily calculate how each of those bonuses affect the average damage. I’m on lunch break right now or else I would. If anyone cares to make this calculation I’d love to see it. Heading back into the shop guys, adios.

Nugget.8031:

Half of the reason warrior GS damage is so much better than everything else is all the damage traits that go with it.

• 12% damage bonus with full endurance
• 9% crit chance bonus with full endurance
• 10% GS damage bonus
• 20% reduced cooldown on all GS skills
• Gain might on crit when using GS (easily stack 10+might in a fight, going up to 25 when cleaving mobs.

This is definitely true. I only compare the pure untraited weapons in the opening post and obviously also utility is ignored completly. Still nice to have some unbiased numbers instead of “level 20 warrior does more damage than my ranger” posts.

The ranger GS damage will never compare to a warrior’s because A-Net is always factoring in our pet as a damage source (regardless of whether they actually survive long enough to be effective).

If we could actually rely on our dps pets (cats/birds) to stay alive then our damage with a GS would probably be on par with a GS warrior.

kidbs.8920:

The ranger GS damage will never compare to a warrior’s because A-Net is always factoring in our pet as a damage source (regardless of whether they actually survive long enough to be effective).

If we could actually rely on our dps pets (cats/birds) to stay alive then our damage with a GS would probably be on par with a GS warrior.

Ah! Baited me into another post! This is true, but isn’t learning the margins by which something is better useful? Note that if we could do this for pets—there’s got to be a way—we could even add the pet + ranger (waiting for someone to say “yeah but pets die” which is a valid complaint. Warriors have to heal sometimes and rangers dodge a lot. It sounds difficult to add all of that into Dojo’s baseline right now. What we’re doing here is abstracting reality into mathematical model and for initial versions of the model, it’s better to break the problem into pieces and use simplifying assumptions).

Also, in line with your post, note that comparing ranger weapons would be more useful than professions…or at least an easier comparison. Xsorsus and I disagree about axe/axe vs greatsword in a pve berserker build and many folks on this forum still like longbow. The problem, then, with this calculation is that we’re not factoring in piercing arrows or path of scars, who’s full damage is proportional to the number of targets hit.

But at least we’re getting some real, hard facts.

Keep in mind that the warrior is also able to have +20% crit all the time. You can’t really compare it even if you add the pets damage. And the pet may die, may run somewhere else.

So the theory is great – and i appreciate your effort – but ingame it is a huge difference.

raubvogel.5071:

Keep in mind that the warrior is also able to have +20% crit all the time. You can’t really compare it even if you add the pets damage. And the pet may die, may run somewhere else.

You can factor in average damage due to crit percentage by adjusting the calculation so I won’t comment on that point further.

Regarding your point on the validity of the model, note that no simplified mathematical models will perfectly represent every response a complex system gives. With that in mind, allow me to provide even more complexity: warriors have to heal and dodge roll too and are sometimes downed (as well as rangers). Why add all of that complexity into a baseline calculation? We’re still trying to baseline a few weapons before we address that kind of complexity—such as pet death and pet retreat—which varies drastically between builds, playstyles, and pet selection. That’s a complicated problem and gives us some insight into why ANET struggles with this challenge. It’s likely no one here has the tools to properly address that problem, actually.

Plus the fact that all pets besides Drakes don’t cleave…

Nice work. Do you have any videos to go with this?

Looking at your numbers let’s check out 3 different amounts of power: 1,000; 2,000; and 3,000.

Numbers are [Warrior] – [Ranger] = [Difference]

1000 Power

• 1530 – 1150 = 380/s
• 1550 – 1220 = 330/s
• 1560 – 1080 = 480/s
• 1500 – 1080 = 420/s
• 1460 – 1150 = 310/s

2000 Power

• 3060 – 2300 = 760/s
• 3100 – 2440 = 660/s
• 3120 – 2160 = 960/s
• 3000 – 2160 = 840/s
• 2920 – 2300 = 620/s

3000 Power

• 4590 – 3450 = 1140/s
• 4650 – 3660 = 990/s
• 4680 – 3240 = 1440/s
• 4500 – 3240 = 1260/s
• 4380 – 3450 = 930/s

Looking at this, the difference seems to reflect the Ranger having a pet. I think this does a good job of highlighting that fixing ranger pets’ ability to reliably hit a moving target would go a long way in helping with Ranger’s dps.

These would be the values for hitting a 1050 armor target because the full formula is:

damage = skill modifier * power * weapon damage/target armor

Maximum weapon damage for GS is 995 – 1100.

Minimum armor (full glass cannon gear) for light/medium/heavy is 920/1064/1211.

I tested each of the ranger weapon skills back in October.

I came to different numbers than you did, although I used slightly different assumptions as well. (This was back before they fixed the armor values of the medium PvP target golem and before they buffed the direct damage on GS#2 Maul.)
Here’s my full testing data, with a summary below:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjK4QtqFi-4ddHBodk4yYmszeDR4cWhRQmRFVEk1ZEE&usp=sharing

Summary of Results:
http://i.imgur.com/RliRtfs.png

Assumptions:

• The damage coefficients are probably round numbers, probably to the nearest 0.025. (i.e. 0.403 is probably actually 0.400)
• The target golem armor values are not necessarily round numbers. My starting assumptions are listed below (however they were refined as I tested multiple weapon skills against them):
  - Light: 2200
  - Medium: 2400 (off by quite a bit)
  - Heavy: 2600
• Note about the medium golem: Initially, its armor was below that of the light golem. (This was the case at the time of this testing, which found the armor value to be in the range 2016-2017.) However, it was changed in a more recent patch to an armor value in between that of the light and heavy golems. Subsequent testing results in an armor range of 2318-2322.
• Note about GS#2 skill, Maul: The direct damage of Maul was buffed since this testing was performed. These results showed a coefficient of 0.800 for Maul (pre-buff), and the patch notes for the change stated a 40% buff. Informal testing (performed using the same methods here, only with data not recorded here) has confirmed that the buff was indeed the stated 40% (up to a new coefficient of 1.120).

Method:

• Use the PvP steady weapon to perform each of the attacks against each of the golems, and record the non-crit damage value as reported in the combat log.
• Since the reported damage values are all integers, the “true values” must have been either rounded or truncated. If rounded, the true value would lie within -0.5 to +0.5 of the reported value, or if truncated, between +0.0 and +1.0. In order to be acceptable, all test results must fall within this expected range for each of the skills tested.
• Using the above technique, three ranges of possible true values are generated (one from each golem), each of which is very close to a round number, e.g. 0.501- 0.507. In this case, the round number, e.g. 0.500, is assumed to be the true value. In the datasheet linked above, the limits of these ranges are shown as “Coef. min.” and “Coef. max.”.
• From the round coefficient, the original armor assumption is adjusted so that the coefficient ranges from each golem and each skill enclose their respective round numbers. This adjustment includes a range of possible assumed armor values so that, for example, the damage range from above is in the range of 0.494-0.500 up to 0.500-0.506. There is a “makes sense?” column which tests whether this is possible for the given armor assumption. This range of possible armor values is shown in the bottom right of each tab of the datasheet.
• Since the GS#4 skill Counterattack requires a successful block, a different method was required. Once the coefficients for GS#1 skill Slash was found, it was used against each of the PvP NPC opponents (the NPCs that have class names back in the rear area), and the damage difference was used to find their armor values. Then GS#4 was used and a successful counterattack was triggered against the NPC, and the NPC’s armor value was used to narrow in on the skill’s coefficient.

Other Findings:

• Damage numbers are truncated, not rounded. If an attack “should” hit for 99.8 damage, it actually hits for 99, not 100.
• Axe skill #4, Whirling Defense, applies its stack of vulnerability before its damage applies (so its first tick of damage benefits from the first stack of vulnerability, its second tick benefits from the second stack, etc).
• I also performed testing on the attack speed of bow auto-attacks. The longbow #1 skill, Long Range Shot, fires 1 shot per 1.24s. The shortbow #1 skill, Crossfire, fires 1 shot per 0.52s
• Quickening Zephyr increases the attack rate of the shortbow #1 skill, Crossfire, from 1/0.52s to 1/0.32s, or an increase of 62.5%.

In case you’re interested, I tested warrior longbow coefficients in the same way:

1. Dual Shot (single hit): 0.300
2. Fan of Fire (single hit): 0.400
3. Arcing Arrow (single hit): 2.350 (yes, really)
4. Smoldering Arrow: 0.200
5. Pin Down: 0.400
   Burst skill, Combustive Shot (single hit): 0.450

Tibbel, your answers are very different. I’m not disagreeing or whatever, just trying to get to the bottom of it. Why are you calculated coefficients different? I might be missing something.

One reason could be patches. One reason could be that I made a mistake (I doubt he did given his very clean spreadsheet). Now that I think about it I could have dealt additional flanking damage due to the grandmaster skirmishing trait. I will go validate my values instantly.

Edit: Yup, seems I had a +10% dmg modifier. Sorry about that one guys. Will update my stuff.
Edit2: New values are much closer to Tibbels testings except Maul (buffed) and Swoop (nerfed) due to patches.
Edit3: This really increased the gap between Warrior and Ranger quite a bit making Warrior deal about flat 50% more damage. Well guess the damage buff is even more justified then.

Yeah, I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but I did all the testing with no traits, runes, or sigils, and I filtered out crits and condition damage, so the only variable was the power from jewelry (which was accounted for in the data sheet).

I didn’t remember that Swoop was nerfed. Do you remember when that happened (or have a link to the patch notes, by chance)?

No. Might have been a stealth nerf but I assume it must have happened at some point comparing our data. It is nearly as if they just swapped Maul and Swoop damage around, haha.

Also for my modifiers scaled per second with cooldowns and animation times. Here is the formula I used:

(Chain1 modifier + Chain2 modifier + Chain 3 modifier)/(Chain1 animation time + Chain2 animation time + Chain3 animation time)

So this would be the skill modifier per second for just autoattacking and we call it X. For the other skills we can now calculate the skill modifier per second for using them whenever cooldown allows it and autoattack otherwise:

((Cooldown – Animation time)*X + Skill modifier)/Cooldown

Can you check if this makes sense or did I make a mistake?

Men, great post. Hope a dev sees this.

If I remember, back in october the heavy golem had the armor of the medium one, and the medium the heavy’s one.

Krugan.7901:

If I remember, back in october the heavy golem had the armor of the medium one, and the medium the heavy’s one.

I remebered this aswell. This is why I decided to test on the light one. Didn’t prevent me from making an other mistake.

Dojo.1867:

No. Might have been a stealth nerf but I assume it must have happened at some point comparing our data. It is nearly as if they just swapped Maul and Swoop damage around, haha.

The Swoop bug has been there as long as I can remember. I always felt that Swoop didn’t provide the damage it should and noticed comparable damage measurements between the crippling throw and Swoop skills (While Swoop should’ve been way higher). But the buff Maul received made it clear that the damage Swoop dealt wasn’t the same as what was listed in the tooltip.

Dojo.1867:

No. Might have been a stealth nerf but I assume it must have happened at some point comparing our data. It is nearly as if they just swapped Maul and Swoop damage around, haha.

Your saying this made me double-check the image I linked, and I saw that the image actually had the Maul and Swoop coefficients reversed. (D:) Maul is actually 1.120 and Swoop 1.000, at least as far as I have tested. I’ve fixed it now.

Dojo.1867:

Also for my modifiers scaled per second with cooldowns and animation times. Here is the formula I used:

(Chain1 modifier + Chain2 modifier + Chain 3 modifier)/(Chain1 animation time + Chain2 animation time + Chain3 animation time)

So this would be the skill modifier per second for just autoattacking and we call it X. For the other skills we can now calculate the skill modifier per second for using them whenever cooldown allows it and autoattack otherwise:

((Cooldown – Animation time)*X + Skill modifier)/Cooldown

Can you check if this makes sense or did I make a mistake?

That formula seems right, although the attack animation times shown on the in-game tooltip are not an accurate indication of time between attacks. For example, the longbow #1 skill tooltip shows an animation time of 0.75s; however, we have shown that the actual time between attacks is more like 1.24s. I have not done any attack speed testing on ranger skills other than shortbow #1, longbow #1, and longbow #2; and I haven’t done any attack speed testing for warriors at all.

No direct comparison with a Ranger to any Warrior… Warriors don’t have pets. Frivolous exercise.

NargofWoV.4267:

No direct comparison with a Ranger to any Warrior… Warriors don’t have pets. Frivolous exercise.

90% of the time, neither do rangers… at least ones that are alive and contributing anything worthwhile ever.

And if you want a pet that survives in most dungeons, cats ad birds will not be it, so you’ll never be at peak DPS unlike a warrior.

Also, cleaving only happens for drakes, and the projectiles of ranged pets are painfully slow.

You also need to be able to calculate the impact of food buffs/shaperning stones. For any additional stats you get, a hefty source of your damage does not benefit from it, while the warrior does.

It’s why a warrior can 100b for 30k AoE damage, and you will never see any class, let alone the ranger come remotely close to that burst.

It’s also easy to frame 100b as only slightly better than autoattacks, when it isn’t used with frenzy, and particularly when we fail to discuss just how much stronger warrior atuoattacks are to begin with. The mainhand axe even has far more potent autoattacks.

This is a brilliant topic! Thank you Dojo!

How come a warrior being more precise than a ranger btw?!?!?!

This math is great and all, but we are forgetting one important thing here and that’s the Greatsword evades every 3rd autoattack (as well as has a 3 second block for added defense) making it easily the best damage mitigation weapon in the game. Putting the damage on par with Warrior GS would be ridiculous with that considered as there would be no reason to use any other weapon and Rangers would actually go back to being completely overpowered like they were in beta.

Tibbel.3450:

I tested each of the ranger weapon skills back in October.

I came to different numbers than you did, although I used slightly different assumptions as well.

I’ve been way too busy to play or test the past few weeks. But the ranger GS skill coefficients Dojo got match the ones I calculated when I tested in February. His are all within 0.01 of mine.

Bear in mind that Maul also inflicts bleed (4 stacks at 3 ticks, or 12 ticks of bleed total). With zero condition damage, that’s 43*12 = 516 additional damage to the skill, which is about a 50% increase in its DPS for most builds.

Dojo.1867:

Also for my modifiers scaled per second with cooldowns and animation times. Here is the formula I used:

(Chain1 modifier + Chain2 modifier + Chain 3 modifier)/(Chain1 animation time + Chain2 animation time + Chain3 animation time)

I never believe the tooltips so I just counted and timed a long string of GS autoattack hits (you can use either the steady weapons on the golems, or the test dummies). I got 455 hits (i.e. 151 chains and 2 extra attacks) in 383.3 sec, for an average of 2.53 sec per chain.

The sum of the skill coefficients in a chain are (0.58+0.58+0.69) = 1.85. So the DPS in terms of coefficients works out to an anemic 0.73 DPS, not the 1.06 you calculated.

This is why everyone criticizes ranger GS as having been over-nerfed in beta and hitting like a wet noodle. Right now the only way to really make ranger GS viable is to spam Maul, which does decent DPS if you factor in the bleed.

For comparison, ranger sword autoattack’s chain is 1.80 sec for the 3 attacks. With skill coefficients of .61, .61 and .73, that works out to 1.08 DPS in terms of coefficients. And pretty much everyone agrees it’s the ranger’s best autoattack DPS weapon.

My timings for warrior kill times showed it be pretty close to ranger’s (ranger actually won if you included the pet). So I suspect the tooltip times you’re using to calculate warrior DPS are similarly off. This was without all the goodies warriors get like might stacking, adrenaline damage bonus, etc. I’ve been meaning to test with those when I get some time.

So this would be the skill modifier per second for just autoattacking and we call it X. For the other skills we can now calculate the skill modifier per second for using them whenever cooldown allows it and autoattack otherwise:

((Cooldown – Animation time)*X + Skill modifier)/Cooldown

If you accept that you can’t just use the times on the tooltips, the skills with cooldowns are trickier to calculate. The only way I’ve been able to think of doing it is to get a kill time with just autoattack, then measure a kill time spamming the skill as often as possible while you’re autoattacking. The difference then will tell you the skill’s DPS relative to the autoattack’s.

The only weapon I started doing this for is longbow. Unfortunately, LB’s autoattack can be interrupted, which messes this all up. I was planning on doing GS and sword next, but got too busy to play.

AIMonster.8236:

This math is great and all, but we are forgetting one important thing here and that’s the Greatsword evades every 3rd autoattack (as well as has a 3 second block for added defense) making it easily the best damage mitigation weapon in the game.

I’ve actually been trying to quantify this. It’s difficult because I tend to kill off my test subjects, and I have to try to keep myself alive. But the preliminary figures I got before I got too busy to play says the auto-evades mitigate less than a third of the hits.

AIMonster.8236:

This math is great and all, but we are forgetting one important thing here and that’s the Greatsword evades every 3rd autoattack (as well as has a 3 second block for added defense) making it easily the best damage mitigation weapon in the game. Putting the damage on par with Warrior GS would be ridiculous with that considered as there would be no reason to use any other weapon and Rangers would actually go back to being completely overpowered like they were in beta.

That’s not the purpose of the thread but I’ll bite anyway. The warrior is a heavy armour class. Their base stats are built to survive better in melee and damage mitigation is naturally higher on a warrior, not to mention several tools to maintain melee viability. Rangers are a medium armour class that use a great sword to go toe to toe with warriors, but they obviously don’t enjoy the natural durability of a warrior. To make a viable melee ranger (one which isn’t dramatically inferior to warriors) the ability to DPS while having damage mitigation/evasion in the form of auto-attack evades is simply one tool the ranger is given on this weapon to make up for their otherwise lack of durability. If warriors wore medium armour, it wouldn’t be surprising to see an evade on their great sword as well.

Rangers need superior damage mitigation/evasion to make up for their lack of durability, otherwise they would either have horrible survivability in melee or they would be stupidly tanky at range. It’s just a different style of being a melee fighter offered by a different class. Personally I think the warrior’s shield is far better damage mitigation than the ranger’s great sword.

Lets get the base line. You dont need to calculate evade and pet death. If raw damage is what were are looking for then that what should be calculated. No traits no quickness no rune. The pet base line should be calculate and consider for other testing aswell.

Not everyone keeps thier pet dead and not everyone can keep them alive but raw numbers should be considered. the variables can be calculated later. It’s widely accepted that pets should do 40% of our damage but is this number correct. Is this with or without points in BM and if so how much.

Pets are meant to be a core part of the ranger I just think that both raw weapon damage and pet damage should be considered even if they are not presented side by side.

Solandri.9640:

I’ve actually been trying to quantify this. It’s difficult because I tend to kill off my test subjects, and I have to try to keep myself alive. But the preliminary figures I got before I got too busy to play says the auto-evades mitigate less than a third of the hits.

Less than 33% would be expected, but if it’s anywhere near that figure (say, even 20%), that’s potentially pretty huge in terms of mitigated damage, even assuming you intentionally Dodge or GS Block big hits.

The difference in damage mitigation between Medium and Heavy armour is not enormous, and I would suspect it is considerably lower than the extra mitigation GS3 gives – then again you won’t always be auto-attacking.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Not everyone keeps thier pet dead and not everyone can keep them alive but raw numbers should be considered. the variables can be calculated later. It’s widely accepted that pets should do 40% of our damage but is this number correct. Is this with or without points in BM and if so how much.

Pets are meant to be a core part of the ranger I just think that both raw weapon damage and pet damage should be considered even if they are not presented side by side.

Given the wide disparity of damage between pet types, and that on a single target pets will be doing a larger percentage of one’s damage, and that BM certainly factors in, there’s no way 40% is anything but the roughest of ballparks.

I just wanted to say thanks for the great discussion so far. It’s refreshing to just talk about numbers and concepts on this forum without a ton of negativity. Thanks and keep up the positive discussion / testing / math. Rock on!

Good to see the damage is at about the 50% mark where the developers think it should be.

The problem now is how do you justify the Ranger’s handicapped DPS for a pet when you have so many variables involved with the pet itself like the type of pet, their expected uptime vs their real uptime, and the fact that the pets don’t scale properly from gear.

I really do think the best thing to do would be to build all pets to do the same raw damage and just give their F2 abilities the burst, utility, and defensive abilities depending on the type of pet. This in combination with pet attacks being based off a % of your power and we may actually start getting somewhere with this class.

Solandri.9640:

Tibbel.3450:

I tested each of the ranger weapon skills back in October.

I came to different numbers than you did, although I used slightly different assumptions as well.

I’ve been way too busy to play or test the past few weeks. But the ranger GS skill coefficients Dojo got match the ones I calculated when I tested in February. His are all within 0.01 of mine.

I hope you don’t mind if I ask about your methodology, then.

Specifically, what was the target armor that you assumed for your tests? I’m also curious whether you used runes, sigils, or traits, or accounted for rounding-vs-truncation. It seems like the numbers you and Dojo got are right around 5% higher than mine, which seems like it could be due to one of these factors.

Chopps.5047:

kidbs.8920:

The ranger GS damage will never compare to a warrior’s because A-Net is always factoring in our pet as a damage source (regardless of whether they actually survive long enough to be effective).

If we could actually rely on our dps pets (cats/birds) to stay alive then our damage with a GS would probably be on par with a GS warrior.

Ah! Baited me into another post! This is true, but isn’t learning the margins by which something is better useful? Note that if we could do this for pets—there’s got to be a way—we could even add the pet + ranger (waiting for someone to say “yeah but pets die” which is a valid complaint. Warriors have to heal sometimes and rangers dodge a lot. It sounds difficult to add all of that into Dojo’s baseline right now. What we’re doing here is abstracting reality into mathematical model and for initial versions of the model, it’s better to break the problem into pieces and use simplifying assumptions).

Also, in line with your post, note that comparing ranger weapons would be more useful than professions…or at least an easier comparison. Xsorsus and I disagree about axe/axe vs greatsword in a pve berserker build and many folks on this forum still like longbow. The problem, then, with this calculation is that we’re not factoring in piercing arrows or path of scars, who’s full damage is proportional to the number of targets hit.

But at least we’re getting some real, hard facts.

If possible, bring an ally into the mists, guardian or something with ridiculous defensive buffs, and simply make your pet tanky, then let it rip that golem apart.

Solandri.9640:

Dojo.1867:

Also for my modifiers scaled per second with cooldowns and animation times. Here is the formula I used:

(Chain1 modifier + Chain2 modifier + Chain 3 modifier)/(Chain1 animation time + Chain2 animation time + Chain3 animation time)

I never believe the tooltips so I just counted and timed a long string of GS autoattack hits (you can use either the steady weapons on the golems, or the test dummies). I got 455 hits (i.e. 151 chains and 2 extra attacks) in 383.3 sec, for an average of 2.53 sec per chain.

The sum of the skill coefficients in a chain are (0.58+0.58+0.69) = 1.85. So the DPS in terms of coefficients works out to an anemic 0.73 DPS, not the 1.06 you calculated.

This is why everyone criticizes ranger GS as having been over-nerfed in beta and hitting like a wet noodle. Right now the only way to really make ranger GS viable is to spam Maul, which does decent DPS if you factor in the bleed.

For comparison, ranger sword autoattack’s chain is 1.80 sec for the 3 attacks. With skill coefficients of .61, .61 and .73, that works out to 1.08 DPS in terms of coefficients. And pretty much everyone agrees it’s the ranger’s best autoattack DPS weapon.

My timings for warrior kill times showed it be pretty close to ranger’s (ranger actually won if you included the pet). So I suspect the tooltip times you’re using to calculate warrior DPS are similarly off. This was without all the goodies warriors get like might stacking, adrenaline damage bonus, etc. I’ve been meaning to test with those when I get some time.

So this would be the skill modifier per second for just autoattacking and we call it X. For the other skills we can now calculate the skill modifier per second for using them whenever cooldown allows it and autoattack otherwise:

((Cooldown – Animation time)*X + Skill modifier)/Cooldown

If you accept that you can’t just use the times on the tooltips, the skills with cooldowns are trickier to calculate. The only way I’ve been able to think of doing it is to get a kill time with just autoattack, then measure a kill time spamming the skill as often as possible while you’re autoattacking. The difference then will tell you the skill’s DPS relative to the autoattack’s.

The only weapon I started doing this for is longbow. Unfortunately, LB’s autoattack can be interrupted, which messes this all up. I was planning on doing GS and sword next, but got too busy to play.

Ok I already worried that the tooltips are inaccurate. I indeed based my assumptions on those animation times: i.e. Ranger chain being 0.5s + 0.5s + 0.75s = 1.75s. This is far away from they 2.53s you actually measured so this will boost the use of non autoattack skills quite a bit.

I put a disclaimer into my first post stating that I relied on ingame tooltip (something you really should never do it seems) and will see if I can update the values anytime soon. I think just updating my X with your values would bring things closer to reality because the influence of wron animation time tooltips of the other skills shouldn’t be that big (depending on their cooldown). Maybe we can get some better values together. Having to meassure stuff manually makes this quite a bit more difficult though.

Updated my data. Thx again to Tibbels and Solandri for pointing out my mistakes. It is always easier to get stuff like that together when people help you. My current numbers should be way closer to reality.

Overall the difference between Ranger and Warrior remains at ~30-40% less DPS. However the updated values show that 100 blades and also Maul are the skills that boost DPS by quite a bit when constantly using them. (Chopps you asked that and I am sorry my original values created a wrong impression.) The other skills rather work in a way that they offer utility without losing DPS compared to autoattacking.

For the armor class discussion:
According to the max armor values stated by the wiki(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor) heavy only has 147 more base defense than medium. That should only mean about 14% less damage taken if I am doing this right and this becomes less the more defensive stats both classes get.

So, if pets are supposed to do roughly 30-40% of the Ranger’s damage, then Ranger GS is working like its supposed to… about 30-40% less damage than a Warrior with no pet. Correct?

Taran Redleaf.7912:

So, if pets are supposed to do roughly 30-40% of the Ranger’s damage, then Ranger GS is working like its supposed to… about 30-40% less damage than a Warrior with no pet. Correct?

That’s assuming the pet actually makes up for that 30-40% damage gap, and burst.

It’s not just about sustained damage. The ability to burst in pve and pvp environments is very important. Grawl shaman fractal for example it is key that you bring burst for elementals.

They said they will buff Maul and some of the Cooldowns. Cooldowns of Maul and Swoop are actually already very low so I believe this will hit 4 or 5 mainly meaning we get even more utility.

The one thing that helps our pets dealing damage is if we CC or immobilize the target for them and 4 and 5 do that. Also I can see myself use Moment of Clarity grandmaster trait even more often. Hitting that buffed Maul for an additional 50% damage will be sweet.

The Attack of Opportunity granted to your pet by this trait replaces, and is replaced by, the Attack of of Opportunity granted by Hilt Bash and by Signet of the Hunt, according to which is applied last. They do not stack.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Moment_of_Clarity

The trait would be much better if it stacked and the daze/stun duration was increased by 100%

Tibbel.3450:

I hope you don’t mind if I ask about your methodology, then.

Specifically, what was the target armor that you assumed for your tests? I’m also curious whether you used runes, sigils, or traits, or accounted for rounding-vs-truncation. It seems like the numbers you and Dojo got are right around 5% higher than mine, which seems like it could be due to one of these factors.

Heavy golem, 2600 armor.

No runes, sigils, or traits for the timing and calibration runs (steady weapons). Critical hits (4%) are easily eliminated because the steady weapons always do the same damage. You can just see which damage number pops up the most and use that.

Yes, roundoff or truncation is an issue. I hadn’t addressed it yet, which is why I hadn’t posted the skill coefficients I calculated prior to this thread. The regular weapons have a bigger damage range so roundoff affects their results proportionately less. I was gonna whack on the golems a whole bunch of times, pick off the min and max damage, then figure out if the coefficients are rounded up or truncated or what. I just haven’t had time to do it yet.

The GS autoattacks with the steady weapons in this minimal config (916 pow) were 27, 27, 32. So with truncation the maximum error in the calculated coefficients should be 1/27 and 1/32 = 3.7% or 3.1%. If it’s being rounded off, the maximum error should be half that. I figured that was close enough for a preliminary analysis, and put figuring out the roundoff part on the back burner.

Zenith.7301:

Taran Redleaf.7912:

So, if pets are supposed to do roughly 30-40% of the Ranger’s damage, then Ranger GS is working like its supposed to… about 30-40% less damage than a Warrior with no pet. Correct?

That’s assuming the pet actually makes up for that 30-40% damage gap, and burst.

At 1710 pow, 2189 pre, 944 cond damage (pow pre rampager build), a flanking shortbow autoattack + bleed provides about 63% of your DPS. The jaguar autoattacking provides the other 37%. Within a few percent.

So yeah it’s in the right ballpark, at least for our highest DPS pet with zero BM. The jaguar’s burst is pretty darn good too, at least it was before the critical damage bug basically stopped its highest-damage skill from criticaling.

I suspect though that all the other goodies warriors get from traits and skills (might stacks, adrenaline damage bonus, etc) are what tip things far in their favor.

So I’m wondering just how much dps ranger pets provide compared to other class abilities. I can understand that rangers would take a personal dps hit because of the pets. But if you’re telling me that the combined dps of the ranger and the pet is about equal to the warrior before considering the warrior’s own f2 abilities, that kind of sucks. ’Cause, you know, 5 digit killshots are non trival.

Wars GS hits 100% max damage on the target.
Ranger GS hits 70% max damage on the same target and wait for the other 30% damage from pets 2 days later.

Solandri.9640:

The GS autoattacks with the steady weapons in this minimal config (916 pow) were 27, 27, 32.

I’ll have to see if I can replicate those results.

Solandri.9640:

So with truncation the maximum error in the calculated coefficients should be 1/27 and 1/32 = 3.7% or 3.1%. If it’s being rounded off, the maximum error should be half that.

I agree with this, but keep in mind that the truncation error is only one-sided, whereas the error for rounding is on both sides. This means the size of the uncertainty range for both cases is exactly the same. For example, using your data, Power Stab’s “true” damage value is in the range 32.00 to 33.00 if truncated, or 31.50 to 32.50 if rounded.

From my results, the coefficient uncertainty ranges for each skill at varying amounts of power did not overlap unless the numbers were assumed to be truncated rather than rounded.

Dojo, great post! Thank you for this!

As for the buffs coming in the next patch, I really don’t expect to see anything that puts ranger melee dps anywhere close to what warrior dps is, but I’d be happy to at least see it high enough to make melee a viable choice for a dps focused build in PvE whereas right now you’re almost always better off going with the short bow.

Now if its not painstakingly obvious to some people, the GS is a GTFO of danger weapon.

If you take the entire class into focus and not just the weapon you will see that Rangers have incredible ranged damage and relatively crappy melee. The GS is the weapon that allows you to run away from melee very effectively.

GS 4 blocks melee attacks and interrupts allowing for a hastey retreat with GS 3. Hell, GS 3 without auto target will get you out of any combat situation. Combined with extra speed for carrying a melee weapon, you are pretty much home free if you have condition removers to remove those pesky rooting skills. The Cooldowns are also very low for such an effective single target control weapon (block knockdown and stun plus evade every 3 swings)

You are also not looking at what you can do with this class in its entirety. Advanced kiting. Shoot from ranged inflict stupid amounts of damage. If they get close, run away. GS3 your escape mechanic right there. When enough distance is made, turn around and shoot. All this whilst your pet is chasing your enemy (hopefully you have picked the speed traits for your pet so then can run faster than your enemy as your enemy will be running in a straight line after you) Your pet will also be hitting them now and again chipping away at their HP if not actually crippling them and making them move slower.

Now here is the other aspect of the ranger melee which funnily enough I used last nit in WvW to face tank a warrior and totally destroy him. Signet of stone is a 6 second invurnerability. “Protect me” is a second health bar. so in total you have about 12 seconds of you not getting any damage what so ever. You also have an elite which gives you stability and swiftness for 20 seconds. To put it bluntly, you cant be hurt you cant be CC’d for at least 10 seconds. This is enough time to kill anyone, burst or not.

There are viable ways to play the class using what we are given. Numbers means nothing is other mechanics are not factored in.

KensaiZen.3740:

Now if its not painstakingly obvious to some people, the GS is a GTFO of danger weapon.

If you take the entire class into focus and not just the weapon you will see that Rangers have incredible ranged damage and relatively crappy melee. The GS is the weapon that allows you to run away from melee very effectively.

GS 4 blocks melee attacks and interrupts allowing for a hastey retreat with GS 3. Hell, GS 3 without auto target will get you out of any combat situation. Combined with extra speed for carrying a melee weapon, you are pretty much home free if you have condition removers to remove those pesky rooting skills. The Cooldowns are also very low for such an effective single target control weapon (block knockdown and stun plus evade every 3 swings)

You are also not looking at what you can do with this class in its entirety. Advanced kiting. Shoot from ranged inflict stupid amounts of damage. If they get close, run away. GS3 your escape mechanic right there. When enough distance is made, turn around and shoot. All this whilst your pet is chasing your enemy (hopefully you have picked the speed traits for your pet so then can run faster than your enemy as your enemy will be running in a straight line after you) Your pet will also be hitting them now and again chipping away at their HP if not actually crippling them and making them move slower.

Now here is the other aspect of the ranger melee which funnily enough I used last nit in WvW to face tank a warrior and totally destroy him. Signet of stone is a 6 second invurnerability. “Protect me” is a second health bar. so in total you have about 12 seconds of you not getting any damage what so ever. You also have an elite which gives you stability and swiftness for 20 seconds. To put it bluntly, you cant be hurt you cant be CC’d for at least 10 seconds. This is enough time to kill anyone, burst or not.

There are viable ways to play the class using what we are given. Numbers means nothing is other mechanics are not factored in.

Yea, you made me reconsider my idea about underpowered rangers(I knew about all of this, but just forgot, cause GS is so bad that made me lost my mind)
Now yes, upgrade the gs for god sake. And make pets smarter and with more health/defense. Thanks.