Guild Wars 2

Hello all. I decided to take a moment and throw together some numbers on the ranger and examine the various weapon choices. I made some general assumptions and ignored certain variables, so these numbers are, of course, not perfect. I would just like to get the community’s thoughts, as I am using these calculations to determine my final gear layout.

I will start off by stating that I examined each weapon’s observed attack speed. I loaded up some videos and counted the precise milliseconds between each of the various auto attack animations. Below are my findings.

Short Bow – Crossfire – 0.52 seconds
Longbow – Long Range Shot – 1.00 second
Sword – Slash (Full Combo) – 1.79 seconds
Axe – Ricochet – 1.07 seconds
Great Sword – Slash (Full Combo) – 2.55 seconds

I used the power coefficients found on the Wiki. Below are the calculations I used for each weapon. I believe it is the same one floating around the forums and various other sites.

Weapon Strength = (Weapon Minimum Damage + Weapon Maximum Damage) / 2
Base Damage = Weapon Strength * Power * Coefficient / Target’s Armor
Critical Damage = Base Damage * (1.5 + Critical Damage Multiplier)
Effective Damage = (Base Damage * (1 – Critical Chance) + (Critical Damage * Critical Chance)
Damage Per Second = Effective Damage / Attack Speed

I selected the following gear layout to simply maximize damage and determine each weapon’s DPS.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJAVVnAVkFchFWVwaZgY9gQBaQNFaq/MFGiRA-jUCBYfBioIQJPMasJSAlhFRjVXDT5iIq2ebIaWepGA-w

I only factored in each weapon’s auto attack damage because most of the ranger’s weapon skills are utility and produce lower damage anyway. For short bow, I ignored the weapon’s bleed damage. For longbow, I used the medium range coefficient (0.65). For each weapon, I assumed only a single target that had 2600 armor. The calculations do not account for any traits that improve damage, as it would simply increase each weapon equally. Below are my findings.

Short Bow – Crossfire – 1,206 DPS
Longbow – Long Range Shot – 1,070 DPS
Sword – Slash (Full Combo) – 1,664 DPS
Axe – Ricochet – 700 DPS
Great Sword – Slash (Full Combo) – 1,183 DPS

Interesting findings, results pretty much line up with the general consensus of the community.

Would it be too much data if you included bleed damage from shortbows?

My only issue with counting the bleed is that I would not necessarily know how to quantify it. I would just give it an effectiveness of 25% because it may not be common that you will be flanking your target. The bleed on critical is a little more straight forward, as it is simply 66% of your critical chance.

Then comes how to include it in DPS. Do you simply take the entire damage that the bleed stack will eventually do and include that as a single second’s worth of damage? Eventually, if all goes perfectly, you will have that number of stacks on the target and they will, in fact, be taking that amount of damage per second.

I felt it would be unfair to include this fuzzy math in the comparison of the other weapons.

Including only the Short Bow flanking bleed, the DPS would increase to 1,260.

I didn’t include the bleed on critical because that would effect each weapon’s DPS.

Is the axe value for single target?

Yes. Considering the melee attacks cleave and the arrows could pierce, I only accounted for a single target.

Zanzer.6450:

The calculations do not account for any traits that improve damage, as it would simply increase each weapon equally.

This isn’t true and the DPS calculations are worthless without it. Builds are entirely geared around traits and specing them for things like being able to add vulnerable with a quick stealth shot or anything else, this entire calculation has no actual meaning in real time play.

tl;dr: checking base damage without using a build is pointless. It tells you nothing of what the weapon can actually do, since none of us run around with no traits.

Ars Valde.8693:

Zanzer.6450:

The calculations do not account for any traits that improve damage, as it would simply increase each weapon equally.

This isn’t true and the DPS calculations are worthless without it. Builds are entirely geared around traits and specing them for things like being able to add vulnerable with a quick stealth shot or anything else, this entire calculation has no actual meaning in real time play.

tl;dr: checking base damage without using a build is pointless. It tells you nothing of what the weapon can actually do, since none of us run around with no traits.

+10% damage increases every weapon by 10%, thereby making it meaningless to include in the comparison.

Zanzer.6450:

Ars Valde.8693:

Zanzer.6450:

The calculations do not account for any traits that improve damage, as it would simply increase each weapon equally.

This isn’t true and the DPS calculations are worthless without it. Builds are entirely geared around traits and specing them for things like being able to add vulnerable with a quick stealth shot or anything else, this entire calculation has no actual meaning in real time play.

tl;dr: checking base damage without using a build is pointless. It tells you nothing of what the weapon can actually do, since none of us run around with no traits.

+10% damage increases every weapon by 10%, thereby making it meaningless to include in the comparison.

Except trait lines and gear influence damage too. 10% Damage boost to the shortbow doesn’t matter as much because it’s a condi geared spec and Conditions don’t benefit from the flat boost, the same way that Sword doesn’t benefit from specing deep into the precision tree since the added DPS from the Condi boost is nearly worthless. 10% Damage buff is not the same for every weapon.

Your better bet rather than doing off the cuff theory crafting, is to actually take maximized builds and figure out optimal rotations ( ignoring that you stated things that other skills don’t influence damage when obviously sword can use a warhorn offhand that adds DPS while spamming it’s auto, same for axe. Also Maul for GS being better damage and adding vuln to further fuel the AA)

Ars Valde.8693:

Zanzer.6450:

Ars Valde.8693:

Zanzer.6450:

The calculations do not account for any traits that improve damage, as it would simply increase each weapon equally.

This isn’t true and the DPS calculations are worthless without it. Builds are entirely geared around traits and specing them for things like being able to add vulnerable with a quick stealth shot or anything else, this entire calculation has no actual meaning in real time play.

tl;dr: checking base damage without using a build is pointless. It tells you nothing of what the weapon can actually do, since none of us run around with no traits.

+10% damage increases every weapon by 10%, thereby making it meaningless to include in the comparison.

Except trait lines and gear influence damage too. 10% Damage boost to the shortbow matters much least because it’s a condi geared spec and Conditions don’t benefit from the flat boost, the same that Sword doesn’t benefit from specing deep into the precision tree since the added DPS from the Condi boost is nearly worthless. 10% Damage buff is not the same for every weapon.

The calculations were considering a power spec. They also show that short bow is heavily dependent upon power gear as it outperforms longbow without ever considering the bleed. Sword too heavily benefits from power and critical as it is the ranger’s strongest weapon for direct damage.

Good thread.

Just a question; at any point, when equipped with Eagle Eye (I know you weren’t quantifying traits to begin with, but Eagle Eye affects a single out-of-water weapon uniquely), does the longbow out DPS the shortbow?

My impression is that somewhere above 3000 attack, the longbow is capable of achieving the shortbow’s DPS with the use of rapid fire, and outdamaging it at 1000+ range. If this is the case, I’m assuming it’s because of the longbows better coefficients.

Just curious is all.

Calculating longbow on medium range is just wrong. Noone normal would use it this way for longer than few secs before swapping weapon or gaining distance.

Also, I have to agree with Ars. Some weapons are more affected by traits than others (for example LB with remorseless). Skipping traits gives some results, but they aren’t any better than just reading tooltips.

jcbroe.4329:

Good thread.

Just a question; at any point, when equipped with Eagle Eye (I know you weren’t quantifying traits to begin with, but Eagle Eye affects a single out-of-water weapon uniquely), does the longbow out DPS the shortbow?

My impression is that somewhere above 3000 attack, the longbow is capable of achieving the shortbow’s DPS with the use of rapid fire, and outdamaging it at 1000+ range. If this is the case, I’m assuming it’s because of the longbows better coefficients.

Just curious is all.

Eagle Eye would bring longbow to 1,123 DPS (however, you would then need to weigh the loss of Piercing Arrows or Spotter). Rapid fire also does more DPS than long range shot, so including that in the DPS rotation would be of benefit. As would the vulnerability stacks it applies.

Just as I would need to go back to short bow and include bleeds and poison to further enhance its DPS calculation.

I was merely trying to keep the calculations simple.

As to your other point about the coefficient, I’d argue that short bow has a higher coefficient because of the attack speed. You are getting that 40% of power almost twice in the same second it took for the longbow. Mathematically, short bow would have a 0.77 coefficient if it took 1 second per attack.

Terkov.4138:

Calculating longbow on medium range is just wrong. Noone normal would use it this way for longer than few secs before swapping weapon or gaining distance.

Also, I have to agree with Ars. Some weapons are more affected by traits than others (for example LB with remorseless). Skipping traits gives some results, but they aren’t any better than just reading tooltips.

Let’s assume for a second that you could keep the 5% vulnerability up 100% of the time. That would boost long range shot to 1,123 DPS. However, Hunter’s Shot, alone, does significantly less damage than a regular auto-attack. There is some damage loss. The shot also causes you to stop attacking and stealth. There is another damage loss. In the long run, I would argue that this is a detriment to your sustained damage.

I understand the utility of the skill is to stack vulnerabilities high and attempt to burst the target down. My calculations were focused only on constant damage per second.

I may attempt to get a rotation and spec for each weapon and try some additional math.

Zanzer.6450:

jcbroe.4329:

Good thread.

Just a question; at any point, when equipped with Eagle Eye (I know you weren’t quantifying traits to begin with, but Eagle Eye affects a single out-of-water weapon uniquely), does the longbow out DPS the shortbow?

My impression is that somewhere above 3000 attack, the longbow is capable of achieving the shortbow’s DPS with the use of rapid fire, and outdamaging it at 1000+ range. If this is the case, I’m assuming it’s because of the longbows better coefficients.

Just curious is all.

Eagle Eye would bring longbow to 1,123 DPS (however, you would then need to weigh the loss of Piercing Arrows or Spotter). Rapid fire also does more DPS than long range shot, so including that in the DPS rotation would be of benefit. As would the vulnerability stacks it applies.

Just as I would need to go back to short bow and include bleeds and poison to further enhance its DPS calculation.

I was merely trying to keep the calculations simple.

As to your other point about the coefficient, I’d argue that short bow has a higher coefficient because of the attack speed. You are getting that 40% of power almost twice in the same second it took for the longbow. Mathematically, short bow would have a 0.77 coefficient if it took 1 second per attack.

Good point, I didn’t factor in the attack speed for the coefficient.

I completely understand why only the autoattacks were used, without factoring in the bleeds or skill rotations as well. Especially because once you start factoring those in, the next step people start asking about is “practicality,” like how often you actually expect to meet certain conditions or land attacks on players to make calculations viable.

Thank you though. At the very least, you semi-confirmed that if I’m getting that impression, that there may be some basis for it. I’m just happy that I’m not entirely crazy, or so completely biased towards wanting the longbow to be viable that I start creating these ideas in my head to make the weapon seem better haha.

Thanks you for taking the time to measure this, it will serve as a valuable resource for theory crafting.

Zanzer.6450:

Terkov.4138:

Calculating longbow on medium range is just wrong. Noone normal would use it this way for longer than few secs before swapping weapon or gaining distance.

Also, I have to agree with Ars. Some weapons are more affected by traits than others (for example LB with remorseless). Skipping traits gives some results, but they aren’t any better than just reading tooltips.

Let’s assume for a second that you could keep the 5% vulnerability up 100% of the time. That would boost long range shot to 1,123 DPS. However, Hunter’s Shot, alone, does significantly less damage than a regular auto-attack. There is some damage loss. The shot also causes you to stop attacking and stealth. There is another damage loss. In the long run, I would argue that this is a detriment to your sustained damage.

5 vuln AND 100% crit And before they boosted LB aa rof, I could easily use hunters shot between aa’s, losing maybe 0,1s. Not sure how it’d look now, coz I don’t use 3. in “rotation” anymore. Stealth also isn’t problem, you just click 1. just after 3. It eats some time, but not full 1 cast. I guess we won’t know exactly until it’s tested :/
And yeah, I forgot to mention rapid fire, but you already did.

You’ll never manage to keep +1000 range in real fight so I think that LB average damage is about richochet damage without AoE bouncing.

These numbers look about right, given your assumptions. I would suggest adding DPS values for the other two Longbow ranges, e.g.

Longbow – Long Range Shot (1000+ range) – 1,481 DPS
Longbow – Long Range Shot (500-1000 range)– 1,070 DPS
Longbow – Long Range Shot (0-500 range) – 823 DPS

There’s a big difference between a well-played Longbow and a poorly-played one. Power builds should swap in and out of it constantly based on the situation. You do have stealth and point-blank shot to help maintain distance as well.

Rathore.9348:

These numbers look about right, given your assumptions. I would suggest adding DPS values for the other two Longbow ranges, e.g.

Longbow – Long Range Shot (1000+ range) – 1,481 DPS
Longbow – Long Range Shot (500-1000 range)– 1,070 DPS
Longbow – Long Range Shot (0-500 range) – 823 DPS

There’s a big difference between a well-played Longbow and a poorly-played one. Power builds should swap in and out of it constantly based on the situation. You do have stealth and point-blank shot to help maintain distance as well.

I have to agree. Power build longbow can deal a massive damage. Long bow at 1000+ range should deal more than burst shot (taking account of bleed).

And if you really want to take into real game play, it’s hardly anyone will actually use LB. Let alone the first skill. Normal situation, swap to LB skill 5, skill 2, swap out. Or if position is good (which is rarely) skill 4. Skill 3 is totally underrated (3s stealth and it need to be hit) and by the way, your pet can still be seen. So if you try to retreat, your pet follow.

Except when running a full berserker ranger you can down enemies in WvW with the Longbow before they even have a chance to get close to you. With a proper build the LB autoattack can hit up to 13k on upleveled people and easily 10k on lvl 80s. That followed up with Rapid Fire usually guarantees a kill, if not then use Hunters Shot and swap to GS to either Maul them to bits or Swoop away to safety.

Taku.6352:

Except when running a full berserker ranger you can down enemies in WvW with the Longbow before they even have a chance to get close to you. With a proper build the LB autoattack can hit up to 13k on upleveled people and easily 10k on lvl 80s. That followed up with Rapid Fire usually guarantees a kill, if not then use Hunters Shot and swap to GS to either Maul them to bits or Swoop away to safety.

10k auto with longbow? WTF are you smoking?

Sube Dai.8496:

10k auto with longbow? WTF are you smoking?

You can spike that high by using multiple utilities with long cooldowns. If your high-damage arrow misses then you’re SOL on that damage spike for at least a minute, IIRC.

Wow. Second time I get asked what I’m smoking when i mention LB power build.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/beserker-ranger-and-where-it-needs-to-be/first#post2836492

I run LB/GS build over a year now, and belive me, I rarely shoot from less than 1k range Against good enemy it just means that I mostly use GS in fight, but average one can be kept away for big part of fight.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Sube Dai.8496:

10k auto with longbow? WTF are you smoking?

You can spike that high by using multiple utilities with long cooldowns. If your high-damage arrow misses then you’re SOL on that damage spike for at least a minute, IIRC.

Well that’s hardly an auto attack then is it.

Just finding auto-attack DPS does little when it doesn’t account for skill rotations. GS in particular is highly reliant on burst damage from skills 2-5, which shouldn’t be surprising since GS in general tends to be a skill-burst weapon for all classes.

Finally, thank you for chiming in Guanglai. Please talk some sense into this thread.

Okay guys. I have done some more math to include skill rotations. This required me to use the skill’s effective damage and only calculate the DPS once I knew how long the skill rotation would take. So far, I have only calculated short bow and longbow numbers.

First up is short bow. I included the Sharpened Edges trait in the calculation. I used 108 (2 bleed ticks) * 66% application * 51% critical chance for an effective damage of 36.353 per shot. For poison volley, I assumed that only 3 of the 5 shots would land on the target. This would allow the addition of Sharpened Edges 3 times and a Poison duration of 7 seconds while calculating the effective damage.

SHORT BOW SKILLS
Crossfire – 717.335 effective damage
Poison Volley – 1,328.295 effective damage

SHORT BOW ROTATION
Crossfire (x14), Poison Volley (x1)
Total Delay – 8.113 seconds
Effective Damage – 11,370.988
DPS – 1,401.576

Now for the longbow. I increased the damage of long range shot to assume that you would always have the 10% vulnerability from rapid fire. I also increased the damage of rapid fire to include the additional 1% vulnerability from each consecutive shot. I included the Sharpened Edges trait too.

LONGBOW SKILLS
Long Range Shot (1000+) – 1,665.723 effective damage
Long Range Shot (500+) – 1,213.120 effective damage
Long Range Shot (0) – 941.559 effective damage
Rapid Fire – 6,813.120 effective damage

LONGBOW ROTATION
Long Range Shot (x8), Rapid Fire (x1)
Total Delay – 12.500 seconds

Effective Damage (1000+) – 20,138.906
DPS (1000+) – 1,611.112

Effective Damage (500+) – 16,518.083
DPS (500+) – 1,321.447

Effective Damage (0) – 14,345.589
DPS (0) – 1,147.647

Please feel free to multiply the final numbers by 1.10 if you’d like to include the 5% vulnerability from Remorseless and the 5% from Eagle Eye.

This is great information Thanks much for this!
I find the Effective Damage value of Longbow to be very high though. Even from closer range, it seems quite good.

To achieve this target,though, so many things need to be optimal.

Whereas a warrior needs to be geared (berserker gear) with one weapon (Greatsword), with one skill (hundred blades) off cooldown and perhaps a buff, and he can match that or come very close. Or he can trait for the Axe and hack away with his autoattack and come close.

It feels as though we are chasing a DPS target that our class was not designed for. All of this ignores our pet, which is where our real damage and/or support is supposed to come from.

Basically if we want to do incredibly high damage from our own weapons, we should all be playing warriors.

A comparison of DPS against other classes, or even within our own class focusing solely on weapons doesn’t give a true impression of the Ranger and what it’s about.

It’s about the pets. All 20+ of them.

Just because I already had the auto-attack numbers:

Warrior Axe – Chop (Combo) – 2,079.056 DPS
Thief Dagger – Strike (Combo) – 2,469.400 DPS

Guess I will check into the pet’s DPS to get the total output of a Ranger.

Can you pls calculate the Shortbow dmg with 8 stacks of bleed maintained with power gear? (that’s about normal for a flanking shortbow)

Sina.9208:

Can you pls calculate the Shortbow dmg with 8 stacks of bleed maintained with power gear? (that’s about normal for a flanking shortbow)

Using the same gear and numbers:
100% Flanking – 1,681.128 DPS
75% Flanking – 1,587.944 DPS
50% Flanking – 1,494.760 DPS
25% Flanking – 1,401.576 DPS (number I previously posted)

Here’s how I am calculating bleed with the gear I posted:
3 second base + 30% from traits + 10% from runes = 4.2 seconds
4 ticks of 54 damage totaling 216 damage

I simply added the flanking percentage of 216 to the total effective damage.

Zanzer.6450:

Sina.9208:

Can you pls calculate the Shortbow dmg with 8 stacks of bleed maintained with power gear? (that’s about normal for a flanking shortbow)

Using the same gear and numbers:
100% Flanking – 1,681.128 DPS
75% Flanking – 1,587.944 DPS
50% Flanking – 1,494.760 DPS
25% Flanking – 1,401.576 DPS (number I previously posted)

Thanks, useful to know!

Zanzer.6450:

Okay guys. I have done some more math to include skill rotations. This required me to use the skill’s effective damage and only calculate the DPS once I knew how long the skill rotation would take. So far, I have only calculated short bow and longbow numbers.

First up is short bow. I included the Sharpened Edges trait in the calculation. I used 108 (2 bleed ticks) * 66% application * 51% critical chance for an effective damage of 36.353 per shot. For poison volley, I assumed that only 3 of the 5 shots would land on the target. This would allow the addition of Sharpened Edges 3 times and a Poison duration of 7 seconds while calculating the effective damage.

SHORT BOW SKILLS
Crossfire – 717.335 effective damage
Poison Volley – 1,328.295 effective damage

SHORT BOW ROTATION
Crossfire (x14), Poison Volley (x1)
Total Delay – 8.113 seconds
Effective Damage – 11,370.988
DPS – 1,401.576

Now for the longbow. I increased the damage of long range shot to assume that you would always have the 10% vulnerability from rapid fire. I also increased the damage of rapid fire to include the additional 1% vulnerability from each consecutive shot. I included the Sharpened Edges trait too.

LONGBOW SKILLS
Long Range Shot (1000+) – 1,665.723 effective damage
Long Range Shot (500+) – 1,213.120 effective damage
Long Range Shot (0) – 941.559 effective damage
Rapid Fire – 6,813.120 effective damage

LONGBOW ROTATION
Long Range Shot (x8), Rapid Fire (x1)
Total Delay – 12.500 seconds

Effective Damage (1000+) – 20,138.906
DPS (1000+) – 1,611.112

Effective Damage (500+) – 16,518.083
DPS (500+) – 1,321.447

Effective Damage (0) – 14,345.589
DPS (0) – 1,147.647

Please feel free to multiply the final numbers by 1.10 if you’d like to include the 5% vulnerability from Remorseless and the 5% from Eagle Eye.

1) You need to include Barrage in that rotation.
2) Rapid Fire is worse than just auto-attacking at 1000+.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

1) You need to include Barrage in that rotation.
2) Rapid Fire is worse than just auto-attacking at 1000+.

Barrage is great damage, yes. However, if someone stands in it for the full duration then you probably wouldn’t need to worry about your DPS against them anyway.

Rapid Fire is actually better than a max range auto attack. Without rapid fire, you would need to drop the effective damage I listed by 10% because you would no longer have that 10% vulnerability.

even with rapidfire and vul your do better dps with auto atk

Bambula.3649:

even with rapidfire and vul your do better dps with auto atk

You tested it?

Bambula.3649:

even with rapidfire and vul your do better dps with auto atk

Math begs to differ.

Using the same gear, Long Range Shot has an effective damage of 1,517.599. Given the 1 second attack animation, that’s also the DPS.

The damage I listed in the skill rotation that included rapid fire is better.

I would be happy to update my calculations if you can provide some information why I am wrong.

1) barrage is only for aoe, on singel target you lose dmg
2) yes i tested it sometimes in pve and in HotM

i dont have the numbers in mind and i dont find my notes, but with every rapid i lost in pve about 2-3k dmg, with the stacks of vul i cant reach the dmg i lost.
on the other hand i have to say, i turned my pet on passiv so i dont know how it would be with the 10% more dmg on target with a pet. In group when you dont have perma vul 25 stacks it should push the dmg but for the weapon alone.

if you test it in the mists you get a bit other numbers cause of power scaling.

Rapid Fire is 1320 over 5s, or 240 per second while you channel it. Long Range Shot is 317 per second at max range. Rapid Fire’s vuln boosts the damage by 5% on average across all shots so you deal 1388 for the entire channel, plus an average of +7% on your next ten Long Range Shots, or +22 damage per shot. All together that is worth 1608 for a 5 second channel which is worth 321 per second, so it’s almost break-even. You will end up losing damage if the target has Defiant, condition-removal, or if you don’t land all ten LRS after your Rapid Fire.

Barrage is also considerably better for single-target than either LRS or Rapid Fire, it deals 1692 over 3 seconds, so I shouldn’t even need to explain why that is good.

Rapid fire is kitten .

@edit
wtf? “4 and half of sec” got cenzored -.-

OP,
Be careful about drawing conclusions from your math, especially when you acknowledge you’re ignoring certain angles. It’s fine to try to keep your math simple, because honestly this stuff is ridiculously complicated, but that also means you’re limited in what information you can glean from it.

If you’re looking for something more helpful to say, try going more specific and less general with heavy abstraction.

4 and a half secs
four and a half secs
secs secsy sex
…The heck did you type to get censored, Terkov?

Does rapid fire have a half second aftercast delay?

Also, I bet it was kitten that was typed.

Edit: Yep, 4 point 5s. Hits the censor for being a “leetspeak” adaption of “donkey.”

I’m both impressed in your ability to piece that together, and disturbed that l33tspeak for donkey is apparently some kind of a diss.

My last run on Longbow was months ago.
But start to finish Rapid Fire was taking me 4.8 sec. I actually haven’t much looked at it since the overhaul, so I can’t put my confidence behind that number.

Lol it’s because the censor hits me for trying to save time in typing out time increments like that all of the time. So now I just go through the trouble of typing out “seconds” every single time, or otherwise any suggestion I make ends up looking like “I think they should change that skills kitten cast time to kitten.”

For the rapid fire cast time thing, all I can really do is stopwatch it or guesstimate it, so I’m holding off saying something like “Rapid fire isn’t a 5 second cast time” because the aftercast on it could very truly be a half second aftercast making the skills total time until you can make another attack 5 seconds.

I just use a little hotkey driven stopwatch program I randomly goggled, in conjunction with the secondary hotkey assignment slot in GW2 to trigger my attack and the stopwatch at the same time.

I still have to rely on human reflexes and animation guesswork to turn it off at the start of the next attack, though. So if I’m being honest, my process isn’t much better.

Zanzer.6450:

+10% damage increases every weapon by 10%, thereby making it meaningless to include in the comparison.

The same is true for most of your other calcs:

Zanzer.6450:

Weapon Strength = (Weapon Minimum Damage + Weapon Maximum Damage) / 2
Base Damage = Weapon Strength * Power * Coefficient / Target’s Armor
Critical Damage = Base Damage * (1.5 + Critical Damage Multiplier)
Effective Damage = (Base Damage * (1 – Critical Chance) + (Critical Damage * Critical Chance)
Damage Per Second = Effective Damage / Attack Speed

If you’re just comparing different weapons and ignoring condition damage, (weapon strength)*(coefficient)/(attack speed) is all you need. Stuff like armor, power, crit chance, crit damage are just multipliers, so they affect every weapon the same. They don’t change the ratio of DPS between two weapons for any given build.

You only need to go so far as to calculate DPS if you’re including condition damage, or comparing different builds (i.e. different crit chance, crit damage, traits). So you really should be including the +10% if that trait is in the build.

Zanzer.6450:

Yes. Considering the melee attacks cleave and the arrows could pierce, I only accounted for a single target.

Axe bounce scales differently than cleave and pierce.

1 target = cleave and pierce 1x DPS, bounce 1x DPS
1 target + environmental target = cleave and pierce 1x DPS, bounce 2x DPS
2 targets = cleave and pierce 2x DPS, bounce 3x DPS
3 targets = cleave and pierce 3x DPS, bounce 3x DPS

That’s still not enough to make Axe’s autoattack competitive. But if you include the bleed damage from Splitblade (30 ticks of bleed on a 6 sec cooldown), it’s not as bad a weapon as your DPS calcs say it is. Especially on a condition build.

Zanzer.6450:

Just because I already had the auto-attack numbers:

Warrior Axe – Chop (Combo) – 2,079.056 DPS
Thief Dagger – Strike (Combo) – 2,469.400 DPS

Guess I will check into the pet’s DPS to get the total output of a Ranger.

Ranger easily beats warrior if you include the pet (especially a cat). In my tests on the heavy golem (sword + torch + cat), I hit over 4000 DPS with a build that wasn’t even optimized (trait points assigned but no traits selected). Problem is in real gameplay, the pet hardly ever hits as often as it does against a test golem, or is dead.

Zanzer.6450:

Here’s how I am calculating bleed with the gear I posted:
3 second base + 30% from traits + 10% from runes = 4.2 seconds
4 ticks of 54 damage totaling 216 damage

I simply added the flanking percentage of 216 to the total effective damage.

While it’s tempting to add the full damage of the bleeds to the DPS, bear in mind that the target will die with bleeds on it. So the DPS you calculate is (for condition weapons) a maximum DPS. In real gameplay DPS will be less. Slightly less if the target takes a long time to kill (bosses), substantially less if the target dies quickly.

Sube Dai.8496:

SynfulChaot.3169:

You can spike that high by using multiple utilities with long cooldowns. If your high-damage arrow misses then you’re SOL on that damage spike for at least a minute, IIRC.

Well that’s hardly an auto attack then is it.

People are just referring to it as autoattack instead of its skill name (long range shot). On other weapons, you do spike damage with a different skill than the autoattack. e.g. on greatsword you stack up attack buffs, then use Maul (skill #2). But on longbow your best damage-per-hit skill is the autoattack skill, so that’s what you use to spike .

Bambula.3649:

even with rapidfire and vul your do better dps with auto atk

This used to be true before they moved vulnerability to Rapid Fire. If you ignore the vulnerability, RF has almost the same DPS as autoattack at long range. It wasn’t worth using back then because autoattack has an activation bar. If you interrupted it to use RF, you’d lose a fraction of a second and lower your DPS. So RF was really only useful at short and medium range (where autoattack’s damage is reduced).

The vulnerability changes that. It’s now worth spamming RF at all ranges. Though my gut feeling is you’re still losing DPS if you interrupt autoattack near the end of its activation bar. (Diff between 8 and 8.9 autoattacks is ~10% DPS)

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Barrage is also considerably better for single-target than either LRS or Rapid Fire, it deals 1692 over 3 seconds, so I shouldn’t even need to explain why that is good.

Yes barrage is only 3 sec to activate. But its damage is spread out over about 7 sec (I need to revisit this when I get some time – I think they tweaked the mechanics of how it works when they redid the longbow skills). And it telegraphs its arrival by drawing a big red circle a second or two before it actually starts to do damage. When I did the calcs earlier in the year, if the target rolled out of the barrage circle within about 4 or 5 sec, barrage actually did less DPS than autoattack.