Guild Wars 2

Is sword/warhorn significantly stronger than GS? And if so, how much stronger. (assuming max buffs and meta build)

Completely depends on spec & what you are trying to achieve in which section of the game. Before they can be truely compared we need to wait until the new patch that allows 2h weapons to add 2xsigils

yes it is, sword dps is about 20% higher than gs

By stronger, you mean what?
Sword has better DPS than GS. But I find it’s only good against one target (I believe it cleaves but on a real short range) – so better for roaming/small scale or PvE.
GS allows to stack weakness, and tend to touch more targets, so I prefer it in big scale figts, or when I have to control where I am going at all times…

Theres more to it than just dps. GS cleaves, can engage from long range, and has a nice spike. Sword is a bit quirky to learn but rewarding once you do, since opponents will be equally confused by it.

sword has the better mobility than gs, so you can better engage and disengage.
only the second attack from the auto chain has no cleave, so even vs more targets you got the better dmg

Bambula.3649:

sword has the better mobility than gs, so you can better engage and disengage.
only the second attack from the auto chain has no cleave, so even vs more targets you got the better dmg

There is no sword engage (aka charge) skill. Only GS lets you pick a target across the field and immediately be on them. You can fudge sword#2 to get some hops in the right direction but its no substitute for immediate target and swoop/bash/maul. I’ve played both quite a bit.

Swords cleave is tiny compared to GS to the point its almost not worth mentioning.

Sword has strengths but GS is far superior in these regards.

3 target cleave is about the same DPS between the two. If you don’t have 25 vuln on your targets then GS pulls ahead on 3 target cleave.

The GS auto-attack chain hit for 1.09% more damage than the sword.

But the sword do it in 1.8sec, while the GS do it in 2.5sec. So the Sword auto-attack have 40% more DPS than the GS auto-attack.

Both weapons don’t really have great burst dmg skills. But the GS wont a bit on that. Especially with Maul.

Only two trait can benefice the GS over the Sword. Reduce cooldown work for both weapons, but don’t really bring anything good to the sword, while help with the better burst damage skill of the GS. But its really not in a good trait line so you gonna lose dps if you want to get it for your GS. The second trait is 5% dmg with a GS. Its also on a good trait line, so you gonna use it if you take you GS.

Also the GS have a range 20 more longer than the sword. It will help in some occasion.

So basically, the Sword win most of the time. But the GS can reach the same DPS as the Sword and even do more DPS in the right situation. But the major factor for that is the number of target hit by each weapons.

If you can attack the same number of target, then the Sword win by a 30-35% advantage. But if the GS allow you to get 1 or 2 more target, then the GS win over the Sword. If you can hit 3 more target with the GS, then the GS is far more superior than the sword.

Even if in theory the GS is better against numerous target, in reality the 20 more range won’t really help you that much. Most of the time we people stack, you will hit 5 target with the sword and the longer fight are usually against 1 boss.

Still it a good practice to have Sword/Warhorn and Sword/Axe for your weapons, while keeping a GS in your inventory for these moment when you feel that the GS give you an advantage against large group of mobs. For exemple, you will want a GS against the assassins right before the end of Path 2 CoF, but switch to Sword for the boss.

Yea, sword is the clear winner in PvE.

Sword advantages over GS:
– Higher DPS
– Scales better with quickness since DPS is entirely from auto attack
– Stacks might on pet
– Allows ranger to keep up Fury (warhorn + red moa)
– Flexible utility due to ability to swap offhand
– Active evade
– Isn’t reliant on condition damage to make up DPS
– Poison counters enemy healing

GS advantages over Sword:
– Passive evade from auto attack
– Projectile block
– No wonky mechanics that prevent dodge rolls
– Stun
– Better gap closer
– Larger cleave
– Slightly better burst due to maul

The GS isn’t without it’s advantages, but those unfortunately advantages rarely really matter in most PvE situations. Even in PvP, the sword often pulls ahead due to the combat mobility, poison, and flexibility with the choice of offhand.

Ranger GS is so disappointing, particularly in PvE, because it is primarily a defensive weapon.

Take a GS on any other class that uses one (guardian, warrior, mesmer, etc) and then try ranger GS again. You will want to salvage it afterwards. I stopped using a GS on my ranger over a year ago .

Sword/xx is the only viable PvE melee option for rangers.

bri.2359:

Ranger GS is so disappointing, particularly in PvE, because it is primarily a defensive weapon.

Take a GS on any other class that uses one (guardian, warrior, mesmer, etc) and then try ranger GS again. You will want to salvage it afterwards. I stopped using a GS on my ranger over a year ago .

Sword/xx is the only viable PvE melee option for rangers.

I actually like Ranger GS skill design better than the Guardian GS. If the Ranger GS actually did DPS close to the Guardian GS, it would be my clear favorite.

Also, if I was a ANet dev, I would make the GS a higher DPS weapon than the 1h sword since the 1h sword gives so much open utility by allowing the player to mix it with the offhand of their choice. Also, I’m generally not a big fan of a weapon being able to give max DPS with the auto attack alone.

……

From 4 months age :::

Chrispy.5641:

Uh….Lets use some math, so everyone can understand why the Sword does more damage.

(all damage numbers, activation times, and Cooldown taken from wiki)

Sword
Slash : 202 (1/2 sec)
Kick : 202 (1/4 sec) and a cripple
Pounce : 235 (3/4 sec) and might for pet

202 + 202 + 235 = 639 / 1.5 seconds = 426 DPS Gives might to your pet. Also a cripple

Hornet’s Sting : 235 (1/2 sec)
Monarch’s Leap : 336 (3/4 sec) and a cripple
also an 8 second recharge

235 + 336 = 571 / 9.25 seconds = 62 DPS

Serpent’s Sting : 235 (1 second) + 504 poison
Also a 15 second recharge
235 + 504 = 739 / 16 seconds = 46 DPS

Greatsword
Slash : 203 (1/2 sec)
Slice : 203 (1/2 sec)
Power Stab : 240 (3/4 sec)

203 + 203 + 240 = 646 / 1.75 seconds = 369 DPS Plus 1 second Evade

Maul : 434 (3/4 sec)
also a 6 second recharge

434 / 6.75 seconds = 64 DPS

Swoop : 327 (1 3/4 sec)
also a 12 second recharge

327 / 13.75 seconds = 24 DPS

First off, Autoattack is King when it comes to DPS, forget the other skills. Second, The Sword does more DPS, especially after you add in basic pet DPS for both, then add in the Might you can give your pet from the Sword’s auto attack. You pet also gains might for each enemy you hit on Pounce (up to three stacks each time). After you add the damage from the Torch or Warhorn, the Sword’s total damage will end up far outdoing the Greatsword.

Some other things to consider…..

- This is Base Damage, and at the time, I wasn’t considering powerscaling in the calculations (which I should have…). So, lets see which weapon does more damage at 2500 power, which is a common power level for many ranger players…..(also an exotic weapon with an average of 1000 weapon strength, and fighting an enemy with 2000 armor)

Sword
+Slash+_(0.6 coefficient)_ : 750 (1/2 sec)
+Kick+_(0.6c)_ : 750 (1/4 sec) and a cripple
+Pounce+_(0.7c)_ : 875 (3/4 sec) and might for pet

750 + 750 + 875 = 2375 / 1.5 seconds = 1583 DPS Gives might to your pet. Also a cripple

Hornet’s Sting(0.7c) : 875 (1/2 sec)
Monarch’s Leap(1.0c) : 1250 (3/4 sec) and a cripple
also an 8 second recharge

875 + 1250 = 2125 / 9.25 seconds = 230 DPS

Serpent’s Sting(0.7c) : 875 (1 second) + 504 poison
Also a 15 second recharge
875 + 504 = 1379 / 16 seconds = 86 DPS

Greatsword
Slash (0.55c) : 688 (1/2 sec)
Slice (.55c) : 688 (1/2 sec)
Power Stab(0.65c) : 812(3/4 sec)

688 + 688 + 812 = 2188 / 1.75 seconds = 1250 DPS Plus 1 second Evade

Maul : 1875 (3/4 sec)
also a 6 second recharge

1875 / 6.75 seconds = 278 DPS

Swoop : 1250 (1 3/4 sec)
also a 12 second recharge

1250 / 13.75 seconds = 91 DPS

Sword’s Auttoatack is higher (about 20% higher infact), but the Greatsword’s damage is in its burst, (not just through Maul, but through its other burst skill : Counterattack), because once you start calculating things like critical damage, and damage bonuses from signets, Maul and Counterattack will start to deal greater and greater damage, and will eventually out damage the sword in those type of builds.

The argument can’t go much farther than that, because these two weapons serve two entirely different purposes. The greatsword is going to take a DPS loss because of the 1 second evade. Try to keep that in your calculations as well.

TL;DR : Greatsword does not need a damage increase, its fine the way it is.

Also, Guardian GS autoattack deals 2333 dps with the same power and weapon strength calculations as I used above. Warrior’s does 1916 dps. Mesmer’s does 2363 when at maximum range, meaning, guardian definitely wins.

Chrispy.5641:

……
Sword’s Auttoatack is higher (about 20% higher infact), but the Greatsword’s damage is in its burst, (not just through Maul, but through its other burst skill : Counterattack), because once you start calculating things like critical damage, and damage bonuses from signets, Maul and Counterattack will start to deal greater and greater damage, and will eventually out damage the sword in those type of builds.

I’m going to call bullkitten on that. There is no way that is true, since Sword already outscales GS by a fair bit. (24.5% in my numbers). Critical Damage and Signets will also affect Sword the same way it affects GS.

That argument is like saying “Well, if I put a force sigil on GS but not sword it’ll start to close the gap between them”

Chrispy, you might want to recalculate because the autoattack animation is 1.8 seconds for sword and 2.56 for GS according to the wiki.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Chrispy.5641:

……
Sword’s Auttoatack is higher (about 20% higher infact), but the Greatsword’s damage is in its burst, (not just through Maul, but through its other burst skill : Counterattack), because once you start calculating things like critical damage, and damage bonuses from signets, Maul and Counterattack will start to deal greater and greater damage, and will eventually out damage the sword in those type of builds.

I’m going to call bullkitten on that. There is no way that is true, since Sword already outscales GS by a fair bit. (24.5% in my numbers). Critical Damage and Signets will also affect Sword the same way it affects GS.

That argument is like saying “Well, if I put a force sigil on GS but not sword it’ll start to close the gap between them”

(I said “ABOUT” 20%, the actual percentage is closer to 25~6%)

I’m going to call bull kitten on the rest of your statement. Let me know when the Sword auto attack hits for 15-20K+ damage, alright? There are plently of posts in these forums showing that Maul (and counterattack to a lesser extent) can deal that much damage)

Sarision.6347:

Chrispy, you might want to recalculate because the autoattack animation is 1.8 seconds for sword and 2.56 for GS according to the wiki.

What I used as a basis for my calculations was just the time it takes to complete the attack chain, by using the activation times of each skill.

also, on the wiki, those edits were put in place in the wiki by players, not Anet, most likely by hitting a golem in the mists while having a stop watch,…which is not that ccurate. If the numers were pulled straight from the game files, I might be inclined to believe them. There is absolutely no basis for the times for any auto attack chain on the wiki.

If you guys want to disagree, then post your own freaking numbers. Don’t just give me “well, its 24.5% according to my numbers!” (That you refuse to post!)

I would be interested to see some of the more adept theorycrafters compare a min/maxed Sword build (probably 30/25/0/15/0) to a min/maxed GS build (25/25/0/20/0) that has both Spotter and talented Frost Spirit.

Death and Taxes players on GW2Guru have pretty much agreed that Sw/W is higher DPS than Greatsword, but I haven’t seen all the details behind that consensus.

Chrispy: I see your point about scaling, but there’s still a big difference between the stats of a ranger by themself and a ranger using full food buffs, stacked bloodlust, and in a group that can keep 25x might, fury, banners, etc. up. Also, Hunter’s Call or Bonfire should probably be taken into since they will increase the DPS of a sword-user.

Chrispy, looking at your dps numbers, you need to fill in autoattacks during Maul’s recharge. Certainly while using “maul” people are not simply waiting to hit maul again and doing nothing in between.

Also it seems to me that the evade does not take away from GS damage dealing, it seems like its concurrent to dpsing in my experience (going from memory).

I’ve been wondering for quite a while now, is there ever a point where GS can out damage sword in PvE dungeon running? Any hypothetical scenario or part comp?

The question stems from that screenshot someone posted of mauling a thief for like 50k.

Chrispy.5641:

Snip

You’re focusing too much on the numbers I put, but the main point was that signets/crit don’t give GS an advantage over sword. I also said, outscales, which almost the same as DPS in this example.

You also can’t just add up the activation times. From 4 months ago in the same thread you posted:

The skill activation times don’t include after-cast and animation delays, so aren’t quite right for a DPS calculation.

And since you want reference numbers:
Solandri: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Sword-better-than-Greatsword-Explain/first#post3051627
Me: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Just-sort-it-I-am-confused/first#post3701782

Fluffball.8307:

I’ve been wondering for quite a while now, is there ever a point where GS can out damage sword in PvE dungeon running? Any hypothetical scenario or part comp?

The question stems from that screenshot someone posted of mauling a thief for like 50k.

3 target cleave with 2H training and 20 or Less Vulnerability stacks

Just scale Solandri’s equations to 9 and 7 “hits” if you want to see how I calculated that.
Edit: changed word “target” to “hits” to be slightly less confusing.

Kilger.5490:

Swords cleave is tiny compared to GS to the point its almost not worth mentioning.

Thaddeus.4891:

Also the GS have a range 20 more longer than the sword. It will help in some occasion.

How did you determine this? When I tested (granted it was over a year ago), I wasn’t able to find any difference in cleave range between sword and GS. I was expecting GS’ cleave range to be larger because it certainly feels that way, but I couldn’t find a difference in testing. Maybe I should re-test…

Thaddeus.4891:

The GS auto-attack chain hit for 1.09% more damage than the sword.

But the sword do it in 1.8sec, while the GS do it in 2.5sec. So the Sword auto-attack have 40% more DPS than the GS auto-attack.

Both weapons don’t really have great burst dmg skills. But the GS wont a bit on that. Especially with Maul.

A good chunk of GS’ DPS comes from adding Maul to the rotation. That’s what closes it from sword being 40% to about 20% better. The difference is even smaller if you take the Martial Mastery trait and Maul every 5.5 sec instead of 6.75 sec. (For most weapons with an autoattack chain, the highest DPS autoattack skill is at the end of the chain. But on GS that skill has an evade and takes longer, so interrupting it with Maul should actually increase your DPS more than the Maul itself.)

Chrispy.5641:

- This is Base Damage, and at the time, I wasn’t considering powerscaling in the calculations (which I should have…).

Weapon damage, power, crit %, and crit damage don’t matter. They’re all multipliers, so affect sword and GS equally.

• Damage = (weapon damage) * (power) * [1+(crit chance) * (.5 + crit damage)] * (skill coefficient) / (target armor)

For sword vs GS comparisons, all of these factors are the same except for skill coefficient, so you can ignore them. If sword has ~20% more DPS than GS, then it will have ~20% more DPS regardless of your weapon, power, crit chance, crit damage, or target armor. (I hope this is obvious from the equation, but I’ll show the math if anyone is having trouble seeing it.)

Sword’s Auttoatack is higher (about 20% higher infact), but the Greatsword’s damage is in its burst, (not just through Maul, but through its other burst skill : Counterattack),

Swoop is not bad too. And being a leap, it’s a great way to get combo buffs on yourself.

because once you start calculating things like critical damage, and damage bonuses from signets, Maul and Counterattack will start to deal greater and greater damage, and will eventually out damage the sword in those type of builds.

If sword is about 20% better, it will always be about 20% better regardless of crit chance or crit damage.

Single-hit buffs like Moment of Clarity or Signet of the Hunt with a burst skill can skew this in greatsword’s favor. However, as you say it’s entirely in burst. The cooldowns on triggering these single-hit buffs are long enough that they won’t appreciably increase long-term DPS.

Also, Guardian GS autoattack deals 2333 dps with the same power and weapon strength calculations as I used above. Warrior’s does 1916 dps. Mesmer’s does 2363 when at maximum range, meaning, guardian definitely wins.

Well, a guardian, warrior, or mesmer who does nothing but autoattack is barely tapping the potential DPS of their greatsword.

Solandri.9640:

Also, Guardian GS autoattack deals 2333 dps with the same power and weapon strength calculations as I used above. Warrior’s does 1916 dps. Mesmer’s does 2363 when at maximum range, meaning, guardian definitely wins.

Well, a guardian, warrior, or mesmer who does nothing but autoattack is barely tapping the potential DPS of their greatsword.

And, a Ranger isn’t…why?

Chrispy.5641:

Solandri.9640:

Also, Guardian GS autoattack deals 2333 dps with the same power and weapon strength calculations as I used above. Warrior’s does 1916 dps. Mesmer’s does 2363 when at maximum range, meaning, guardian definitely wins.

Well, a guardian, warrior, or mesmer who does nothing but autoattack is barely tapping the potential DPS of their greatsword.

And, a Ranger isn’t…why?

Ranger too. I’m saying that calculating just the straight autoattack DPS of GS isn’t really a good way to compare to sword’s DPS. Unlike GS, sword’s DPS is maximized by autoattack (well, you can throw in secondary weapon attacks too).

And while we’re on the topic, the Oct 15 patch notes say they increased Maul’s damage by 7%.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-15-2013/first#post3079024

The wiki updated its damage from 406 to 434. This would correspond to its skill coefficient increasing from 1.5 to 1.6. But the wiki still lists the coefficient as 1.5.

Has anyone tested this to see if the wiki is in error, or if we never got the damage increase?

Solandri.9640:

Chrispy.5641:

Solandri.9640:

Also, Guardian GS autoattack deals 2333 dps with the same power and weapon strength calculations as I used above. Warrior’s does 1916 dps. Mesmer’s does 2363 when at maximum range, meaning, guardian definitely wins.

Well, a guardian, warrior, or mesmer who does nothing but autoattack is barely tapping the potential DPS of their greatsword.

And, a Ranger isn’t…why?

Ranger too. I’m saying that calculating just the straight autoattack DPS of GS isn’t really a good way to compare to sword’s DPS. Unlike GS, sword’s DPS is maximized by autoattack (well, you can throw in secondary weapon attacks too).

And while we’re on the topic, the Oct 15 patch notes say they increased Maul’s damage by 7%.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-15-2013/first#post3079024

The wiki updated its damage from 406 to 434. This would correspond to its skill coefficient increasing from 1.5 to 1.6. But the wiki still lists the coefficient as 1.5.

Has anyone tested this to see if the wiki is in error, or if we never got the damage increase?

Oh, we got the damage increase it’s been pretty apparent, however the wiki is often outdate (or even flat out wrong) when it comes to ranger abilities, ESPECIALLY if they deal with the pet!

The thing I’m curious about sword dps is that it’s based on the assumption you constantly autoattack, and you rarely get to do so unlike gs.

Yeah sure, if someone else has aggro and you can spam auto without worries I’m sure sword will out-dps gs, but usually you have to press 1 carefully or not at all for a second or so when you see a hard hitting attack coming so you don’t get dodge locked, which will lower your dps considerably. Then there’s pvp, but there are too many factors in that mode so I guess they even out.

Of course there’s the issue of axe or warhorn offhand, which increases sword dps through the roof in comparison. :P

The sword attacks are fast enough that as long as you aren’t button mashing you can attack as fast as possible and still be able to dodge. You just have to know the rhythm.

Then there is the fact that most dungeon bosses won’t one shot you. I often get drunk, button mash and just eat the hits because there really isn’t much danger (like CoF1, the slaver and effigy can’t kill you even as a full zerker.)

Fluffball.8307:

The sword attacks are fast enough that as long as you aren’t button mashing you can attack as fast as possible and still be able to dodge. You just have to know the rhythm.

Then there is the fact that most dungeon bosses won’t one shot you. I often get drunk, button mash and just eat the hits because there really isn’t much danger (like CoF1, the slaver and effigy can’t kill you even as a full zerker.)

Drunk pve is significantly more fun. Also another thing I think people should consider is that sword builds will get significantly more might onto your pet. Between sword auto and Companion’s Might your pet should ideally have max might stacks most of the time (including what they get from Fortifying Bond). Everyone has seen videos of ranger pets (jaguar especially) hitting like a truck. Just saying this is something to consider in the sword vs. gs debate.

Solandri.9640:

How did you determine this? When I tested (granted it was over a year ago), I wasn’t able to find any difference in cleave range between sword and GS. I was expecting GS’ cleave range to be larger because it certainly feels that way, but I couldn’t find a difference in testing. Maybe I should re-test…

Note that I might be wrong on that :
GS range : 150
S range : 130
I believe S only cleave on the first attack (pretty sure it don’t on kick, not so about the leap)

gpassucc.5961:

Fluffball.8307:

The sword attacks are fast enough that as long as you aren’t button mashing you can attack as fast as possible and still be able to dodge. You just have to know the rhythm.

Then there is the fact that most dungeon bosses won’t one shot you. I often get drunk, button mash and just eat the hits because there really isn’t much danger (like CoF1, the slaver and effigy can’t kill you even as a full zerker.)

Drunk pve is significantly more fun. Also another thing I think people should consider is that sword builds will get significantly more might onto your pet. Between sword auto and Companion’s Might your pet should ideally have max might stacks most of the time (including what they get from Fortifying Bond). Everyone has seen videos of ranger pets (jaguar especially) hitting like a truck. Just saying this is something to consider in the sword vs. gs debate.

Sword can only keep 3-5 stacks of might up from auto attack alone, so you’ll need outside help to boost your pets might

I have come to realize, after reader this thread. I see a heavily biased towards Sword, and not one mention about Vuln and stacking. Also, isn’t Greatsword have higher base stats than Sword? just saying.

WilliCalifornia.1837:

I have come to realize, after reader this thread. I see a heavily biased towards Sword, and not one mention about Vuln and stacking. Also, isn’t Greatsword have higher base stats than Sword? just saying.

People are biased towards sword because it does more damage.

My posts mention vuln and I have two of them in this thread.

Higher base damage doesn’t mean much when it takes longer to complete the auto attack chain and the negligible increase in base damage doesn’t make up for the extra time needed to complete the auto attack chain.

There shouldn’t be a bias, there should be simple math.

Unfortunately for GW2 as a whole, the whole “survive” aspect is negligible, so GS is negligible. The devs are at least aware of the problem.

So what I understand so far from this thread:
1. For single targets, sword has superior DPS.
2. Sword auto-attack #2 does not cleave.
3.(?) For cleaving GS has superior DPS.

From the calculations above I keep seeing that sword is ~25% stronger than GS on single targets. Is that 25% including pet damage? If not the gap would be considerably smaller assuming that your running 2 felines.

Clumsy.6257:

So what I understand so far from this thread:
1. For single targets, sword has superior DPS.
2. Sword auto-attack #2 does not cleave.
3.(?) For cleaving GS has superior DPS.

From the calculations above I keep seeing that sword is ~25% stronger than GS on single targets. Is that 25% including pet damage? If not the gap would be considerably smaller assuming that your running 2 felines.

1 and 2 are true.

3 is situational. Under ideal conditions they’re about the same (IIRC GS was about 1.6% better on 3 targets, but that doesn’t factor in the might you’ll give to your pet). The two things that skew it in the favor of GS are 2H training and lack of 25 vulnerability on the 3 targets. Even with the advantage, you should not use the GS for trash because you should be double stacking bloodlust/perception with your Sword/offhand.

25% does not include the pet damage because your pets with either weapon will do roughly the same amount of damage, with the sword having a slight might advantage.

Edit: Forgot about weapon strength and recalculated.

I have come to realize, after reader this thread. I see a heavily biased towards Sword, and not one mention about Vuln and stacking. Also, isn’t Greatsword have higher base stats than Sword? just saying.

If you click my post that TurtleDragon linked, I included Maul’s vulnerability in the damage comparison. Sword still wins, even if you take martial mastery to reduce Maul’s cooldown.

GS wins is against multiple targets – because the second autoattack on Sword does not cleave, while all of GS’ attacks cleave. (The primary target still dies faster with sword, though.) To summarize:

Sword weapon strength = 952.5
Sword 1 target = 1.056 coeff/sec => 1005 DPS
Sword 2 targets = 1.056 + 0.722 coeff/sec = 1.778 coeff/sec => 1693 DPS
Sword 3 targets = 1.056 + 2 * 0.722 coeff/sec = 2.50 coeff/sec => 2381 DPS

GS weapon strength = 1047.5
GS + Maul + vuln 1 target= 0.900 coeff/sec => 943 DPS (94% of sword)
GS + Maul + vuln 2 targets = 1.800 coeff/sec => 1886 DPS (111% of sword)
GS + Maul + vuln 3 targets = 2.700 coeff/sec => 2828 DPS (119% of sword)

Add Martial Mastery (lowers cooldown on Maul, which also increase vuln stacks) and this becomes:

GS 1 target = 0.948 coeff/sec => 993 DPS (99% of sword)
GS 2 targets = 1.896 coeff/sec => 1986 DPS (117% of sword)
GS 3 targets = 2.843 coeff/sec => 2978 DPS (125% of sword)

Two hand training increases the GS figures by 5% + an unknown amount due to the fury (exact amount depends on your crit chance %).

(Actual numbers for GS will be slightly different because Maul will interrupt and reset your autoattack chain. I suspect it’ll actually increase GS’ numbers because unlike most chain skills, the 3rd GS autoattack skill is actually lower DPS (since it has an evade and takes longer). But I find it hard to spam Maul the moment it comes off cooldown. I want to position myself first to put it to best use.)

BUT, this ignores that you can have an offhand weapon with sword. Both Call of the Wild and Bonfire are fantastic skills that affect multiple targets. CoW’s effect is unknown because it depends on your crit chance . Bonfire is a little easier to quantify (assuming 0 condition damage), but it too scales differently depending on armor. But roughly speaking it increases sword’s DPS by 10-15%. (i.e. 110%-115% of sword alone).

So add in the pet getting might stacks from sword, and varying between 1-3 targets and they’re actually very closely matched. Closer than I thought before I caught my error (forgot to account for different weapon strength in 2h vs 1h weapons). My single target test data of the two weapons comes within 3% of the above theorycrafting once I make that correction. For some reason I hadn’t thought the missing cleave on sword made as big a difference as it does. I’m gonna have to revise my opinion of GS to it being just fine (relative to other ranger weapons) if you spam Maul.

TurtleDragon.3108:

you should not use the GS for trash because you should be double stacking bloodlust/perception with your Sword/offhand.

While I do like using trash mobs to stack Bloodlust, it is a PITA. They die so quickly you’re frequently jumping all over the place due to losing your target. I usually switch to GS as soon as I max out the stack. Then I can just point my character where the mobs are and spam skills. Don’t have to worry about hitting tab or jumping off of cliffs.

Solandri.9640:

snip

Interesting…

Hate to nitpick, but have you considered the scenarios where you do not benefit from the extra vulnerability (Target already has 25 vuln) or when the target has Unshakeable (half vuln duration, but don’t forget 20-30% condi duration from Marksmanship).

Optimal Conditions (25 Vuln):
1047.5( (0.689)(6) + (2.133)(.75) ) / 6.75 = 890DPS (88.5% of sword’s DPS) for single target
I’m assuming you can just scale this number by 3 to get the 3-target cleave DPS = 2670 DPS (112% of Swords DPS). So it appears the cleave DPS is noticeably better, even if you don’t need the vulnerability from Maul.

I do find your finding a bit hard to believe (Can’t argue with math though), or to at least translate into real play. I used to play GS exclusively and always felt it was very far behind sword. The main question is “How do I fit martial mastery, into a Meta Spotter/Frost Spirit build.” The answer I’ve found for that is you don’t, and you take 2H training instead.

And by far, the main issue with maul is that you need it to crit. Non-crit mauls feel much much more punishing than auto attack or channeled non crits since maul is on a 6s cd. You have 1 chance for your single maul hit to crit, while channeled attacks such as Rapid Fire and Hundred Blades don’t suffer from the same problem because you have like 10 chances to crit and each crit is worth a smaller amount. Unless it’s not really a problem and just something I’m imagining it as a problem.

And yeah, I like to switch to the GS for trash as well, after I hit 25 stacks of bloodlust.

Edit: Also just realized the other issue that makes the gap bigger outside of theory are sigils. Sw/Offhand gets an additional modifier that GS can’t get until the April patch.

Clumsy.6257:

From the calculations above I keep seeing that sword is ~25% stronger than GS on single targets. Is that 25% including pet damage? If not the gap would be considerably smaller assuming that your running 2 felines.

I’ve brought this up in other threads too. If you include pets dps the difference in damage gets closer to negligible. I know from experience playing necro, rangers dont melee dps in the sense a necro can do with a dagger so it all seems a bit trivial to me which weapon you go with, looking at it strictly as dps.

Both sword and GS have advantages. Sword has a bit higher sustained while GS has a really nice spike, especially up front. Swoop+maul gives GS a really good spike head start in WvW that is priceless.

I’m pretty much sure the 1hSword does more single target DPS (I don’t have the mats…).

The GS has some advantage too:

1, you don’t have to lock a target to keep damaging or if you loose your target (gets into stealth, dies, etc…) you are safe from some stupid leap what reduces your overall DPS.
2, the mobility spell is heading forward (GS leap) rather than backward (Sword leap). So you can position yourself better. Also leaping through an enemy gives you 0,5-1 second advantage until the foe can turn after you. With the sword’s leap you don’t have this automatically. Sure, you can turn before the backleap, but it takes time and/or DPS loss.
3, the GS has basically evade uptime 1/3 – 1/4 of the battle by simple autoattacking.

My opinion: the GS has a very good place right now. The sword does more damage in melee, the LB does more at range, but the GS has very good and versatile skills. It’s a very solid choice whatever build you run… As a SECONDARY weapon.

Apart of the MoC-opening strike-SotH-SotW-Maul-LOLoneshot build a GS is a bad choice as a MAIN weapon. But pretty kitten useful as a secondary… in almost every build.

Kilger.5490:

Clumsy.6257:

From the calculations above I keep seeing that sword is ~25% stronger than GS on single targets. Is that 25% including pet damage? If not the gap would be considerably smaller assuming that your running 2 felines.

I’ve brought this up in other threads too. If you include pets dps the difference in damage gets closer to negligible . I know from experience playing necro, rangers dont melee dps in the sense a necro can do with a dagger so it all seems a bit trivial to me which weapon you go with, looking at it strictly as dps.

I don’t understand your logic/reasoning/math. The sword does have a distinct advantage in terms of pet DPS, due to faster might stacking from Skirmishing V and pet might on the auto attack chain.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I do find your finding a bit hard to believe (Can’t argue with math though), or to at least translate into real play. I used to play GS exclusively and always felt it was very far behind sword.

Yes, I find it hard to believe too. I plan to test it when I get some time. But the cleave damage for extra targets is pretty straightforward (100%, 200%, 300% for GS against 1, 2, and 3 targets; 100%, 168%, 237% for sword). And like I said, the calcs come within 3% of my existing single-target test data. For some reason I’d only used that data to compare to warrior damage. Never thought of comparing ranger sword and GS in cleave situations. I just glanced, saw that sword was better, and compared ranger sword to warrior GS (and axe).

The main question is “How do I fit martial mastery, into a Meta Spotter/Frost Spirit build.” The answer I’ve found for that is you don’t, and you take 2H training instead.

You don’t. I switch between the two depending on what I’m going to be doing, my mood, phase of the moon. If I want to be tanky or explore, I’ll go with 20 or 25 WS and take Martial Mastery (exploration = shorter cooldown on Swoop). If I want to do damage, I’ll go with 20 or 25 NM and take 2H training.

Martial Mastery just lends itself to an exact damage calculation. The damage increase from 2H training depends on your crit chance % and crit damage %. That’s the only reason I was thorough with MM but not 2HT.

And by far, the main issue with maul is that you need it to crit. Non-crit mauls feel much much more punishing than auto attack or channeled non crits since maul is on a 6s cd. You have 1 chance for your single maul hit to crit, while channeled attacks such as Rapid Fire and Hundred Blades don’t suffer from the same problem because you have like 10 chances to crit and each crit is worth a smaller amount. Unless it’s not really a problem and just something I’m imagining it as a problem.

It’s not your imagination. Probability distribution functions (PDFs) become narrower as the number of trials increases. If you think of a bell curve for (say) rolling AD&D dice, a 1d100 is a flat line PDF – all numbers have an equal chance of occurring. A 2d50 is triangle (two straight lines) peaking at 50.5 – so 50 and 51 have the highest chance of occurring. A 3d33 starts to form a bell curve and the results are biased even more towards the peak. A 5d20 is a narrower bell curve. And a 10d10 is narrower yet. The more dice you roll (more trials you have), the narrower the bell curve becomes and the more likely you are to get a result closer to the average.

So the more hits there are in a skill, the more likely it is to do closer to average damage. It’s less likely to fizzle and do minimum damage (but likewise it’s less likely to do maximum damage). Maul being a single hit means it’s completely random – it has a flat PDF. The chance of it doing minimum or max damage is the same as the chance of it doing average damage. In statistical terms, its standard deviation as a % of its average is bigger. The damage from Rapid Fire and 100 Blades is more consistent.

So it’s consistent damage vs higher risk/reward burst

Skills like Rapid Fire are going to deal a more predictable amount of damage than Maul, but Maul has more potential with since it’s a harder hitting attack. Each portion of Rapid Fire has a chance to crit, ramping up the overall damage done. But with so many hits, it becomes consistent. Maul however, will either crit or it won’t, giving you a hard hitting attack or a crushing attack.

Solandri.9640:

Martial Mastery just lends itself to an exact damage calculation. The damage increase from 2H training depends on your crit chance % and crit damage %. That’s the only reason I was thorough with MM but not 2HT.

Two hand training increases the GS figures by 5% + an unknown amount due to the fury (exact amount depends on your crit chance %).

Since we’re just comparing weapons, couldn’t you just go with the target dummy/structure scenario (no crits) or ideal scenario (permanent fury). Sword has access to fury too, with better uptime so it’s not really an advantage. My reasoning is is similar to the Sigil of Force example I mentioned earlier.“Well, if I put a force sigil on GS but not sword it’ll start to close the gap between them.” It seems like it’d be unnecessary to calculate the DPS increase due to 30% uptime of fury.

Seras.5702:

So it’s consistent damage vs higher risk/reward burst

Skills like Rapid Fire are going to deal a more predictable amount of damage than Maul, but Maul has more potential with since it’s a harder hitting attack. Each portion of Rapid Fire has a chance to crit, ramping up the overall damage done. But with so many hits, it becomes consistent. Maul however, will either crit or it won’t, giving you a hard hitting attack or a crushing attack.

The issue is more that Maul is going to be incredibly inconsistent in PUGS or unorganized groups where your crit chance is going to vary alot due to questionable fury uptime, bosses taking much longer than usual and warriors not running discipline banner. The other issue is that If I don’t have a persisting flames ele or multiple warriors, then the group needs my warhorn for perma fury.

I prefer GS over sword because when stacked with other players, I can’t see my target and don’t need to worry about it as long as its in range with GS. When not stacked I think shortbow is better for the flexibility of moving where I want and not having to stop dpsing. Sword definitely gives more DPS but you have to select your target if you don’t you will be jumping all over the place. At least for dungeons and fractals I think GS is better only because you can autotarget without being thrown all over the place. Personally though I wish the weapons were more balanced so you can choose what you like not what does a substantial amount of higher DPS.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I don’t understand your logic/reasoning/math. The sword does have a distinct advantage in terms of pet DPS, due to faster might stacking from Skirmishing V and pet might on the auto attack chain.

Its more to do with the fact that any damage is diluted by the pet damage if you throw it in the same pie. If melee is 70% of our damage (30% pet – reality varies of course but this ratio has been tossed around) then a 20% difference between sword and GS is less .7*20% = 14% difference in total damage. Basically we’re saying that any actual difference is in fact further reduced by pet contribution.

The might add on pet adds maybe 5% (depends on a lot of variables like pet used, buff duration and how much enemy evades). Also GS with attack of opportunity adds lots of damage via pet too, so many ways you can add this up.

Just for the sake of coordinated groups, how do they compare if might is irrelevant? In my usual groups we maintain constant 25 might stacks and between 15-25 vuln. We also have permanent fury. So, since sword’s might stacking is useless in this scenario, would GS be better overall sheerly for the vulnerability stacking from maul?

Kilger.5490:

Snip

Oh, yeah I know that. Earlier you said:

I’ve brought this up in other threads too. If you include pets dps the difference in damage gets closer to negligible.

The way you phrased that implies you were saying that the difference between GS and Sword is negligible if you include pet DPS since you were responding to a question that asked if the gap included pet damage. Then you say a small amount of pet might makes a very small difference that is basically negligible, hence the confusion. Also, assuming this is for PvE, I am ignoring any single hit modifiers as they are not useful for long term DPS and more of a PvP thing.

Clumsy.6257:

Just for the sake of coordinated groups, how do they compare if might is irrelevant? In my usual groups we maintain constant 25 might stacks and between 15-25 vuln. We also have permanent fury. So, since sword’s might stacking is useless in this scenario, would GS be better overall sheerly for the vulnerability stacking from maul?

Are you talking about might on the ranger or pet?

If ranger, you still want to use sword as it’s higher DPS. If sword is ~12% better with 0 might, then it’ll still be 12% better with 25 might. Solandri is ignoring the effects of Unshakeable in his analysis, which I feel is a very important factor so you won’t even maintain 5 vuln with 100% uptime on bosses. It might be okay if you use 20/25/0/25, but I haven’t ran the numbers on that or including Path of Scars into the rotation.

Clumsy.6257:

Just for the sake of coordinated groups, how do they compare if might is irrelevant? In my usual groups we maintain constant 25 might stacks and between 15-25 vuln. We also have permanent fury. So, since sword’s might stacking is useless in this scenario, would GS be better overall sheerly for the vulnerability stacking from maul?

In that case the might from sword is useless only if you have at least 15 NM (for the trait which gives a copy of your buffs to your pet). Nearly all buffs have a 5 target limit and prioritize players. So if you’re in a party of 5, it’s only the players who got 25 might stacks. Your pet got nothing. So if you don’t have 15 NM, your pet still benefits from sword’s might.

However, even if you don’t have 15 NM:

Maul gives 5 stacks of vulnerability lasting 8 seconds. The skill takes 0.75 sec to fire with a 6 sec cooldown, so it’s a 6.75 sec cycle time. That means on average it’ll give 5 * 8 / 6.75 = 5.9 vulnerability stacks. So ideally over a long fight, it’ll increase DPS by 5.9%. If you take Martial Mastery, this improves to 5 * 8 / (4.8 + .75) = 7.2 vulnerability stacks, or 7.2%

Sword autoattack gives your pet one stack of 5 sec might every cycle. A cycle lasts 1.8 sec so on average it gives your pet 5 / 1.8 = 2.8 stacks of might. That’s roughly 97 power (and condition damage). A cat has 1374 power, so an extra 97 power is 7% increase.

A 7 % increase in damage for your pet vs a 5.9% or 7.2% increase in damage for everyone. Easy decision there. Even the extra ~5% DPS of sword against a single target gets overshadowed by the benefit of the vulnerability to the entire party. The real trade-off in this case is probably GS’ vulnerability vs warhorn’s fury if you’re using s/w. But since in your case everyone has perma-fury, that doesn’t matter. Since you’re not maxing out on vulnerability, GS all the way.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Solandri.9640:

Martial Mastery just lends itself to an exact damage calculation. The damage increase from 2H training depends on your crit chance % and crit damage %. That’s the only reason I was thorough with MM but not 2HT.

Two hand training increases the GS figures by 5% + an unknown amount due to the fury (exact amount depends on your crit chance %).

Since we’re just comparing weapons, couldn’t you just go with the target dummy/structure scenario (no crits) or ideal scenario (permanent fury). Sword has access to fury too, with better uptime so it’s not really an advantage.

Heh. Those two cases are identical. If you can’t crit the target, then the extra fury from 2HT does nothing. If you already have permanent fury, then the extra fury from 2HT again does nothing. So all you’d get from those two cases is the extra 5% damage. It’s the intermediate cases which are of interest. I’ll run the calcs since you insist, but bear in mind Anet said they’re gonna tweak how crits work. So all of this will be obsolete when that happens.

The “best case” scenario – where the trait has the biggest effect – is ~100% crit damage, 4% crit chance, 0% fury uptime. That would correspond to valkyrie’s or cavalier’s armor, which isn’t all that popular so I doubt many people will hit that best case.

2HT gives a 50% chance to grant 3 sec of fury, on a 10 sec cooldown. The 3 GS autoattacks take about 0.85 sec each, Maul 0.75 sec. So on average it’s one attack every 0.83 sec.

I’m not even gonna try to explain the next part. Look up the terms in Wikipedia if you’re really curious. The chance of the trait procing isn’t a normal (gaussian) distribution. It’s a Poisson distribution. Or since we’re pretending the attacks are at fixed 0.83 sec intervals, it can be modeled as a discrete Poisson process – a Bernoulli process. You can figure those out using a binomial distribution. The net result of all that gibberish is that the trait will fire in an average (mean) of:

1 target = 2 attacks (1.66 sec)
2 targets = 1.33 attacks (1.10 sec)
3 targets = 1.14 attacks (0.95 sec)

That’s the mean. You’re gonna have a few times when you go 4-6 attacks at the start of the fight without it procing, they’ll just be really rare so won’t affect the mean much. Since there’s a 10 sec cooldown, that means an average fury interval and fury uptime of:

1 target = 11.66 sec (25.7% uptime)
2 targets = 11.10 sec (27.0% uptime)
3 targets = 10.95 sec (27.4% uptime)

The damage increase when you have fury is:

(1 + (.2 + .04) * 1.5) / (1 + .04 * 1.5) = 1.283

Or a 28.3% damage increase. Multiply by the fury uptimes (assume it’s your only source of fury) to get a sustained damage increase of:

1 target = 7.3% damage increase
2 targets = 7.6% damage increase
3 targets = 7.8% damage increase

These increases are roughly halved if you had 80% base crit chance (so fury took you to 100%). Likewise, the percentages drop a bit if you have some other source of fury.

So for most berserker builds where you have another source of fury but aren’t hitting 100% fury uptime, it’s probably fair to characterize the fury from the trait as an extra ~3% damage, so the trait overall is giving you about 8% extra damage.

MM in comparison is about 6.6% extra damage. However about 1% of that is increased damage for the entire party, not just yourself. And the value of the reduced cooldowns on the defensive skills can’t really be quantified.

So, I was really bored and tested out GS for a bit in CoE.

2 things before I link the videos:
-The test is heavily biased towards the GS build, and were not under the same conditions
-My laptop has FPS issues while fraps-ing so it’s not smooth.

Unrealistic GS numbers
Realistic sword numbers

The goal with GS was to get unusually high (but not maximum possible) maul crits with a sustained damage build.

Greatsword:
20/25/0/25/0 Full ascended berserker with scholar runes, force sigil and 2H mastery
Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup (100 power, 10% crit damage)
Destroyer Slaying Potion
25 stacks of perception (Fully buffed crit chance = 100% or 99% couldn’t remember)
25 stacks of might
Strength Booster (gemstore item)
Frost Spirit
Both Warrior Banners
100% uptime of Steady Focus, Flanking and Scholar modifiers
Average of 15 stacks of vuln.

To increase this damage further, I would need a Night Sigil, bloodlust instead of perception, untraited Frost Spirit and traited Signet of the Wild. My group would also need to sustain 25 stacks of vuln for the two mauls in the fight. You could prolly get it over 20k if you tried hard, but 9-11k Mauls are more realistic, with the ocassionally 2333 hit when you don’t crit. I’m also ignoring single hit modifiers, as they are not useful for sustained DPS, otherwise I would have done 30/25/0/15/0 for the biggest hit possible. Instead, I was aiming for Sustained DPS.

In a 14s fight, there is only room for 2 Mauls. The first one hit for 14 187, the second one hit for 14 364 (It wasn’t captured on video, because slow laptop). I also believe that GS builds needs to stack crit chance all the way up to 100% because of the random nature of Maul.

Sword:
30/25/0/15/0 Full ascended Berserker with scholar runes, force sigil and night sigil
Dragon’s Breath Bun (no 200 power bonus)
Maintenance Oil
22 stacks of might
0 bloodlust or perception stacks
Signet of the Wild
No scholar bonus
~33% uptime of Steady Focus
100% uptime of Flanking Bonus
No destroyer slaying sigil/potion
25 stacks of vuln

So basically, I played that fight pretty poorly and was using cheap food. I was also not using a gem store booster, but that is a very unrealistic modifier to have in dungeons. Very few people are also going to carry a destroyer slaying potion, which works on 2 bosses in the game.

bri.2359:

Ranger GS is so disappointing, particularly in PvE, because it is primarily a defensive weapon.

Take a GS on any other class that uses one (guardian, warrior, mesmer, etc) and then try ranger GS again. You will want to salvage it afterwards. I stopped using a GS on my ranger over a year ago .

Sword/xx is the only viable PvE melee option for rangers.

People are different-I like sword a lot, but prefer Greatsword on Ranger than on my Guardian, and even more, my Warrior. I have no reason to salvage it, and would do so on my Warrior if I was forced to choose. Guardian Greatsword is really useful (pull skill) and powerful, but on Warrior it’s so boring (the way it’s commonly used, as a mobility tool with occasional hundred blades, though effective, is not a compatible playstyle with me.) Not saying that Greatsword is “superior” to sword, but it’s quite different and I reach out for it for some builds.

In short, your comment should read “Sword/xx is the only viable PvE melee option for the way I prefer to play my Ranger”, rather than “for Rangers”, in case a new player may take your word as 100% scientific fact rather than just play with both and find out what they like/dislike on different situations (no offense intended either.)

I have no complaints about sword auto-attack and #2 skill though-it’s the nature of the beast, and it has among the coolest animations in the game.