Guild Wars 2

In his latest video Mugi is using celestial gear which caught my attention. Wish discussed that topic some time ago and proved that zerk+soldier>anything. However, I have done some maths(yes, yet another theorycrafter) and I feel that my setup is slightly better than Wish’s and far better than valkyrie or Mugi’s.

Note that all these builds have the same runes and sigils as well as food (only in Mugi’s setup food of his choice is used since using Truffle Ravioli would be an armour-overkill).

To the point, four specs and each of them delivers 200 hits (against sample target) – 100 backstabs and 100 slices (from sword’s AA chain). The reason for including slices is that I play SD/DD, Mugi DD/SP, Wish played SD/DD and full valk thieves*cough*. 100 hits rounds up nicely to compute DPS with crit chance.

Spreedsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnexGITiW3CvdExLd2pBUmFyOWhWVjA4OWl1NnFiM1E&usp=sharing#gid=0

Builds:
Standard Valkyrie
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQJAoYlUmSOHdy9E/5Ey2DfqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-j0BB4fBksAkKAI3sIasVNFRjVXDT5iIqWIAdbBA-w
Wish’s
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQJAoYlUmSOHdy9E/5Ey2DfqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-jECB4fBksAkKAIzUZN1UQsqpIas6aYKXER1CBobLA-w
Mugi’s
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQJAoYlUmSOHdy9E/5Ey2DfqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-jUCBojBksAkKAIzUZNRVQsqpIas6aYaXDpWFDSKgH2CA-w
Mine
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQJAoYlUmSOHdy9E/5Ey2DfqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-j0BBojBksAkKAI3sIasVNFRjVbDT5iIqWIAdbBA-w

Mugi’s spec falls short compared to Wish’s and my spec. Mind you, power has more impact on the backstab damage than critdmg. Valkyrie obviously has damage on its credit side, however surivivability is its weak point – HP difference will be taken out by a single AA, thus let’s dispense with Mugi’s and Valkyrie specs. My spec has slightly more punch than Wish’s even though it maintains a bit lower overall DPS. I don’t want to judge whether Wish’s HP-Armour or mine is better, because it depends whether you face cond or power specs. On a side note, this topic is not meant to criticise anyone but to brainstrom and min-max a bit.

Feel free to discuss and kudos to Mugi for his latest video!
Three Jackdaws

You don’t seem to have taken Mugi’s food into account in your calculations. The build editor does not give the +200 Power. If you throw even a Butternut Squash in there, the math changes.

Oh, I have. It’s very situational and unreliable though. When fighting among mobs, you will get it once or twice at best as mobs will die from cleave. During 1v1 or 1v2 you won’t experience it at all, as nothing will die and you won’t benefit from that buff whatsoever. It’s not +200 power, it’s 200 power for 30 seconds on kill. It’s like mentioning those charge sigils.

PS Calculator did include critdmg boost.

Your idea of a reasonable estimate is to treat the food as giving zero Power? I should have known better than to click on an optimization thread.

What about Traveler runes?
How would you optimize the armor with them? (i know that the other ones give better stats, but i love the so much)
Why theifiltrator signet?

Divinity to Traveler is 1-to-1 trade. You lose stats but get speed, cond duration(blinds and poison) and boon duration. Inflitrator’s Signet, imo, can be used in 3 ways with that trait setup:
1) Gap closer
2) Gap opener (step to the person further away or a mob)
3) Might stacker
I use Trav runes and BP instead of Inf’s Sig and I instead of II in Critical Arts but for the sake of the comparison I used the same trait distribution as it’s of no difference for the calculations.

And on more thing about food in Mugi’s spec. If we ignore the fact that Squash is twice as expensive (four times the cost, double the duration) as his current food(Truffle steak) – indeed it is the best spec out of all 4.
Ravioli 9,4s/h
Steak 20s/h
Squash 40s/h
Cheers

Thanks for the post scab. As a fairly casual player who really like WvW, it’s awesome to get some insight into the finer tweaks. I have a few questions though, if you don’t mind.

1. You mention Wish’s HP-armor. What exactly does that mean?
2. You say that yours and Wish’s are different and wether you face a power spec or a condition spec, one or the other may be better. I understand the specs, but what exactly is the difference between your sets that makes you say one is better against condition specs for instance? And which spec is better against what?

3. Just an unrelated question. Is it impossible to create a viable balanced spec, where you have condition damage, power, crit chance and crit damage. I tried today and ended up with 1700 power, 47 crit chance, 57 crit damage and 1170 condition damage. I’m just pondering the dps. If the total of what you do with direct damage and condition damage can match up to a specialized spec.

Cheers for the post again :-)

Not sure what’s the point of this. The reason why Wish’s build uses S/D is to ensure that the damage output is rarely mitigated by stripping boons, while if using D/D, you suffer when your target puts up their defenses — effectively reducing your damage output.

Using D/D with this build you’re relying that your target will not put up a fight. Wish’s build is reliable and keep things somewhat predictable and consistent by having a lot of control using S/D.

@Gallows
Spreedsheet says it all. One spec has more toughness and the other more vitaity (this is what I meant by HP-Armour). I can’t think of a hybrid spec that puts up enough pressure while maintaining decent survivability. Power specs need 3 stats (power, prec, crtdmg) to be effective so once you start adding cond dmg it gimps one of the power-stats. Not to mention adding any form of defense.
@vinc
How you play with the weapons is off the topic. I included only DD in the calc for the convenience and I mentioned what weapon sets each spec uses (exactly the same in Wish’s and my spec *wink*wink*).

Just wondering since I saw a apothecary condition build. Could a power build benefit from taking cleric gear instead of soldiers gear seeing as it would work well with the shadow trait line and the healing/regen there?

scabrous.7835:

@vinc
How you play with the weapons is off the topic. I included only DD in the calc for the convenience and I mentioned what weapon sets each spec uses (exactly the same in Wish’s and my spec *wink*wink*).

Yes, I see that, but I am talking about the application of this build. It might look like it will deal a lot of damage, but without having a solution to bunker builds, you’re leaving yourself out to dry.

So even with the same build, but different weapon set, D/D is inferior to S/D when it comes to application.

Darn you theorycrafters

I’m assuming you tested this without bloodlust stacks or guard stacks. I know having 3 piece celestial makes me lose nearly 100 power (in exchange for an extra 3% crit damage and other stats). It may be a bit “cheesy” to some people but the reason for me having celestial gear is because I incorporated guard stacks into my build (250 vitality/100 power). This makes up for the loss of power. Otherwise without guard stacks I would’ve just went 3 piece Valk. I wanted to keep my armor near the 2800 mark while maintaining 125% crit damage and 40%+ crit chance at the same time. I couldn’t figure it out until I tested with celestial. Trying retesting this out incorporating those stacks? (I’m hoping it makes a difference)

P.S I didn’t do any spreadsheets or comparisons to other people’s builds. :| I only compared the build that I currently run now to the old build that I used to run

OLD BUILD: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQJAoYlUmSOHdy9E/5Ey2DfqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-jkCB4fgojAkFgUBAZmFRjtqpIas6aYaXER1WzJyieY1SB8wWA-w

Thanks for the kudos ^.^

I find having only one piece of celestial gear, more specifically the helm, Mixed with Soldier on legs and chest while the rest full zerker, to be the best thing to have. Food is Steak Fritters.
But this thing could have changed with ascended armor: now going zerk or valk legs could be really profitable.
I’m not a fan of using crit dmg gear on chest and helm.
Cheers

What do you think of my actual build? Compensate the low hp with wvw vitality bonus and guard buff. Usually I have around 18k hp and like 2.7k armor while seeing really big numbers on c’n’d and backstabs.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmKOHdy9E/5Ey2DfqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-jkDBYfCiYLIEEQEFgUBA5mCi5oKrlhFRjVXDT5CS7KwqYJ1ceQrW0JWKgIWGB-w

I didn’t count in WvW buffs in any of those builds. I know that you have them and so do I but once again – I add them in one spec and I have to add them in others as well. I have to agree, though, that 350-360(depending on the amount vit and prec that boost power via hardened stone) power gain from stacks and bloodlust gives your spec (@Mugi) the highest benefit because of the already high crtdmg.

@Rage
Please don’t post spec that includes higher tier Sharpies, different runes or stat infusions. I have adjusted that and your spec has less precision, toughness and crtdmg while having more power. However, in this scenarior power boost in Mugi’s spec was not taken into account so once we add that 100 or 200 power it will outstrip in every category the one that you’ve posted. But don’t get discouraged, all those specs are in fact ridiculously similar and differences are really minor. For future reference, just use the calc and then put your data in the spreadsheet to compare stats and DPS.
TJ