Guild Wars 2

Have you ever been curious about the Skill Coefficients (SC from now on) of the Thief weapons?

I have been, so I made some tests to get those SC. The tests have been done using 3 different values of Power and 2 different values of final bonus damage, in order to get 6 values of damage and then making an average that fitted the most the usual formula about damage.

So, keep in mind that there can be some errors for the 3rd decimal digit, and even in this case the error would be in the order of +/-1 HP in respect of the actual damage inflicted (and since minimum HPs pools start at more than 10K, the error is in the order of the 0.01%).

The actual Power values were: 2286 – 2464 – 2639.
The actual damage increase were 5% and 15%.
Target armor was 2600 (Heavy Golem in the Mists).

When a skill makes multiple strikes, I added xN, with N number of strikes and the SC is relative to a single strike. For autoattack chains, (1-1) means the first skill in the chain, and so on with (1-2) and (1-3).

The legend is as follows: Skill name – Coefficient – Executing time – DPS (where applicable)

Many thanks to eduardo.4675 for retrieving all the executing times.

So, let’s see the SC of the various skills:

DAGGER

1-2-4-5 Skills
Double Strike (1-1): 0.2775 x2
Wild Strike (1-2) – Lotus Strike (1-3): 0.847
Autoattack chain: 2.249 – 2s – 1.1245
Stealthed – Backstab (front): 1.202 – 0s – N/D
Stealthed – Backstab (back): 2.405 – 0s – N/D
Heartseeker: 1 (>50%)/1.502 (25%-50%)/2.005 (<25%) – 0.75s – 1.33 (>50%)/2 (25%-50%)/2.67(<25%)
Dancing Dagger: 1.048 (per hit) – 0.5s – 2.096 (per hit)
Cloak & Dagger: 1.624 – 0.5s – 3.248

Dual Skills
Dagger off-hand – Death Blossom: 0.206 x3 – 0.75s – 0.824
Pistol off-hand – Shadow Shot: 1.378 – 0.25s or more (depends on distance of target, close targets almost 0s to hit) – 5.512

PISTOL
1-2-4-5 Skills
Vital Shot: 0.416 – 0.75s – 0.555
Stealthed – Sneak Attack: 0.249 x5 – 1s – 1.245
Body Shot: 0.547 – 1s – 0.547
Headshot: 0.26 – 0s – N/D
Black Powder: 0.285 – 0.75s – 0.38

Dual Skills
Dagger off-hand – Shadow Strike: 0.314 (Dagger strike)/1.251 (Pistol shot) – 0.5s – 3.13
Pistol off-hand – Unload: 0.248 x8 – 2s – 0.992

SWORD

1-2 Skills
Slice (1-1) – Slash (1-2): 0.801
Crippling Strike (1-3): 1.3
Autoattack chain: 2.902 – 2.4s – 1.209
Stealthed – Tactical Strike: 0.748 – 1s – 0.748
Infiltrator’s Strike: 0.748 – 0s+travel time (slightly affected by distance) – N/D

Dual Skills
Dagger off-hand – Flanking Strike: 0.76 (Dagger strike)/1.5 (Sword Strike) – 1.25 – 1.808
Pistol off-hand – Pistol Whip: 0.337 (Pistol shot)/0.372 x8 (Sword strikes) – 2.75s – 1.205

SHORTBOW

1-2-3-4-5 Skills
Trick Shot: 0.523 – 0.8s – 0.65375
Stealthed – Surprise Shot: 0.571 – 0.8s – 0.71375
Cluster Bomb: 1.385 – 0.5s+travel time – N/D
Cluster Bomb – Detonate: 0.475 each fragment
Disabling Shot: 0.523 – 0.5s – 1.046
Choking Gas: 0 – 0.5s+travel time (much less travel time than Cluster bomb) – N/D
Infiltrator Arrow: 0 – 0s+travel time (less than Cluster Bomb or Chocking Gas) – N/D

I hope you find this numbers useful, I’ll do in the future, eventually, the Harpoon/Spear ones.

P.S.: Oddly enough, the SCs of Trick Shot and Disabling Shot are the same, even though the tooltips on the skills indicate a different “base” damage. Bug maybe?

Edit: Added execution time, DPS and a couple of missing skills.

Thanks for this information!

Just to let you know, there aren’t any seperate"coefficients" for skills. Power is just a % dmg modifier based on a skill’s base dmg.

At lvl 80 918 power = 100% Dmg.

Your base Power (918) means = 100% base dmg. Adding +918 power makes it 200% base dmg (double).

I’ve tested this multiple times myself, it’s really that simple.

Say Heartseeker does 500 base dmg and Backstab 800. Using Zerker Amulet giving +923 power (101% increase), your Heartseeker goes to 1005 dmg, and Backstab to 1608 dmg. Then add any dmg from % dmg mod’s from traits/sigils such as (10% more dmg on targets conditions) making them 1105.5 Heartseeker, and 1768.8 Backstab, then throw in Crit modifier.

Knote.2904:

Just to let you know, there aren’t any seperate"coefficients" for skills. Power is just a % dmg modifier based on a skill’s base dmg.

At lvl 80 918 power = 100% Dmg.

Your base Power (918) means = 100% base dmg. Adding +918 power makes it 200% base dmg (double).

I’ve tested this multiple times myself, it’s really that simple.

Say Heartseeker does 500 base dmg and Backstab 800. Using Zerker Amulet giving +923 power (101% increase), your Heartseeker goes to 1005 dmg, and Backstab to 1608 dmg. Then add any dmg from % dmg mod’s from traits/sigils such as (10% more dmg on targets conditions) making them 1105.5 Heartseeker, and 1768.8 Backstab, then throw in Crit modifier.

Weapons have their own power atribute, which is summed to the total and it is most times around 1000. If base power means 100% damage, then a 918 increase should mean around +50% instead of +100%, unless the weapon numbers are just there for decoration (which would make lvl 3 weapons as powerful as lvl 80 weapons).

Maybe you got double damage with the amulets and tests, but those experiments are missing the weapon power number. During betas I got my own “critical damage” theory that was proved correct on many of my experiments, but then it was wrong with a small change.

that’s amazing, any chance you might do one accounting for the condition damage? running a CD-centric build, raw power doesn’t quite concern me, so those coeficients aren’t as helpful to me.

The formulas for poison and bleed damage are on the wiki.

Poison: 4 + Level + (0.1 * Condition Damage) per second
Bleeding: 2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage per stack per second

Knote.2904:

Just to let you know, there aren’t any seperate"coefficients" for skills. Power is just a % dmg modifier based on a skill’s base dmg.

At lvl 80 918 power = 100% Dmg.

Your base Power (918) means = 100% base dmg. Adding +918 power makes it 200% base dmg (double).

I’ve tested this multiple times myself, it’s really that simple.

Say Heartseeker does 500 base dmg and Backstab 800. Using Zerker Amulet giving +923 power (101% increase), your Heartseeker goes to 1005 dmg, and Backstab to 1608 dmg. Then add any dmg from % dmg mod’s from traits/sigils such as (10% more dmg on targets conditions) making them 1105.5 Heartseeker, and 1768.8 Backstab, then throw in Crit modifier.

No, it’s not really this simple, you’re just completely wrong.

The actual formula for damage is:

Power * Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient / Armor

If it was as you said, than a lvl 1 weapon would do the same amount of damage of an exotic lvl 80 weapon. Which is utterly ridicolous.

Weapon Dmg just determines your base dmg. The only coefficient there is, is what determines your base dmg. Like Heartseeker base dmg = 110% Weapon Dmg, Backstab base dmg = 160% Weapon Dmg.

Power still is just a multiplier off said base dmg.

Go in the mists and test it, equip a steady weapon, 50 dmg, +918 doubles it to 100 dmg. Get a regular weapon, 450 dmg, +918 power = 900 dmg.

Your “attack” stat, which is just Weapon Dmg average + Power means absolutely nothing.

Some things also don’t use weapon dmg whatsoever, dmg from Utilities, such as Wells on Necro, have their own base dmg based on level, and engineer kits, only increased by power, not weapon dmg.

You can test it just with trait stats as well, add 100 power = About 11% dmg increase.

Knote.2904:

Weapon Dmg just determines your base dmg. The only coefficient there is, is what determines your base dmg. Like Heartseeker base dmg = 110% Weapon Dmg, Backstab base dmg = 160% Weapon Dmg.

Wait, are you talking about 110% Weapon Dmg which means, MATHEMATIC wise, Weapon Dmg x 1.1? So is 1.1 not a coefficient? Tied to Heartseeker? Which is a skill? So it’s a SKILL COEFFICIENT?

I’m amused, please go on.

Yes but my point was the coefficient only has to do with Weapon Dmg and determining a skill’s “base dmg”.

Nothing to do with Power, except that Power increases that base dmg. I’m just trying to clear up any confusion, since alot of people still think skills scale differently with Power when they don’t.

It just looked like you were over-complicating it, and there’s not much use for knowing a skill’s coefficient, except seeing a skill’s dmg relative to one another.

“there’s not much use for knowing a skill’s coefficient, except seeing a skill’s dmg relative to one another.”

Which, incidentally, is way more worth knowing than actual variable damage numbers.

Knote,u gotta be freaking kidding me…
The formula generally accepted (wich was leaked in reddit a loooong time ago), states this: dmg is equal to ur power multiplied by ur weapon dmg (wich has a variation between highest dmg and lowest) times the skill multiplier associated with every skill, after uve found this number, divide that by the targets sum of defense + tufness,in other words => dmg=P*W*SC/A.

Lets use one of the sc’s for one of the auto attacks, and consider that u have 2000 power, 50% crit rate, and + 50% more crit dmg (wich turns ur crits in double hits);
In order to find how this precision+prowess influences the final DPS, first we must know what this means first;
at 50% crit rate, this means that half of ur attacks will crit, since crits with 100% more dmg are equal to a double hit, this leaves us, in a sample of 100 hits with that skill, with 50 normal hits plus 50 crits that are the same as double hits; this translates into this formula:
Average dmg = 50 + (50*2)/100
Now, lets use vital shot, wich has a SC of 0.416, apply the dmg formula on a target with 1980 armor, and the above mentioned power of 2K, and consider the average dmg for pistol ( wich has an interval of 876-1029,with average being 952.5);

Dmg= 2000*952.5*0.416/2000 = 400.242 dmg to a thief with no tufness, for every hit, non critical; with my premiss of a 50% crit rate + 50% more crit dmg, ull get this:

(50*400.242))/100 = 600.364… this is the average dmg done to a thief applying the rules ive set above; since vital shot has a hit rate of 0.75 secs, this leaves us with a DPS for vital shot of 800.484; now lets use the dps galandil has set there initially, 0.555:
Dmg=2000*952.5*0.555/1980 = 533.977;
(50*533.977)(50*(533.977*2))/100 =; 800.966… as you can see, the very minimal discrepancy is not enough to invalidate my previous calculations,as this discrepancy is due to slight differences in decimals, i use a spreadsheet, with only 3 decimals rounding, but the spreadsheet still uses the left over decimals in its calculations.

The formula Dmg=P*W*SC/A also allows prediction on dmg reduction by armor, its actually a direct switch between Dmg and A, wich is: A=P*W*SC/Dmg; to find SC, its a bit more complicated, but we get there: SC=A*Dmg/(P*W).

An easy way to find how much ur armor will reduce incoming direct dmg, without having to call steven hawking to assist us, is this method, wich anyone can do in secs: consider your default armor, lets say 1980 coz ur a thief, now add some armor, lets say u added a soldier amulet, wich adds 569 armor; now, ull have a grand total of 2549 armor, now that you have this, to find out how much reduction this has given to you, all you need is divide the added armor (wich is 569) by the grand total armor (2549, as we’ve seen before), this will give us a result of 0.223, or 22.3% dmg reduction;lets plug this figures in the example above:
Dmg=2000*952.5*0.555/1980 <=> 533.977 => Dmg=2000*952.5*0.555/2549 <=> 414.780 =>> 414.780/533.977=0.777, wich means,, 414.780 is 77.77% of 533.977, or, in dmg reduction language, ur dmg was reduced by 22.23%!!
As you can see, maths are easy in GW!!

Oh, i forgot to add knote, if things were as you say, and since a pistol is a pistol, wheter used by a thief or a engie, all skills by pistols would do the same dmg, as long as this thief and this engie had the same specs in power, crit chance, crit dmg, etc.

My post was horribly truncated by the awful code used by this forum, geez anet,use normal code, kitten #8230; i cant eve edit it, what a fail ….

pLikT.9761:

The formulas for poison and bleed damage are on the wiki.

Poison: 4 + Level + (0.1 * Condition Damage) per second
Bleeding: 2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage per stack per second

i meant accounting that data plus the damage of the attack for the total damage you get with each attack, but thanks for the data.

Great information! The coefficients do not factor in condition damage, correct?

About conditions: they’re handled in a total different way from standard direct damage, think of them as a parallel world, no stat/coefficient influences the conditions except condition damage (as posted by Plikt).

Good to know. Even though the coefficients might be lower for condition abilities, you can assume a higher total. You you mind posting a link to Plikt’s thread?

Just read his post in this thread, he gave the formulas for bleeding and poison and how they’re affected by the Cond Dmg stat.

Eduardo.4675:

Knote,u gotta be freaking kidding me…
The formula generally accepted (wich was leaked in reddit a loooong time ago), states this: dmg is equal to ur power multiplied by ur weapon dmg (wich has a variation between highest dmg and lowest) times the skill multiplier associated with every skill, after uve found this number, divide that by the targets sum of defense + tufness,in other words => dmg=P*W*SC/A.

Lets use one of the sc’s for one of the auto attacks, and consider that u have 2000 power, 50% crit rate, and + 50% more crit dmg (wich turns ur crits in double hits);
In order to find how this precision+prowess influences the final DPS, first we must know what this means first;
at 50% crit rate, this means that half of ur attacks will crit, since crits with 100% more dmg are equal to a double hit, this leaves us, in a sample of 100 hits with that skill, with 50 normal hits plus 50 crits that are the same as double hits; this translates into this formula:
Average dmg = 50 + (50*2)/100
Now, lets use vital shot, wich has a SC of 0.416, apply the dmg formula on a target with 1980 armor, and the above mentioned power of 2K, and consider the average dmg for pistol ( wich has an interval of 876-1029,with average being 952.5);

Dmg= 2000*952.5*0.416/2000 = 400.242 dmg to a thief with no tufness, for every hit, non critical; with my premiss of a 50% crit rate + 50% more crit dmg, ull get this:

(50*400.242))/100 = 600.364… this is the average dmg done to a thief applying the rules ive set above; since vital shot has a hit rate of 0.75 secs, this leaves us with a DPS for vital shot of 800.484; now lets use the dps galandil has set there initially, 0.555:
Dmg=2000*952.5*0.555/1980 = 533.977;
(50*533.977)(50*(533.977*2))/100 =; 800.966… as you can see, the very minimal discrepancy is not enough to invalidate my previous calculations,as this discrepancy is due to slight differences in decimals, i use a spreadsheet, with only 3 decimals rounding, but the spreadsheet still uses the left over decimals in its calculations.

The formula Dmg=P*W*SC/A also allows prediction on dmg reduction by armor, its actually a direct switch between Dmg and A, wich is: A=P*W*SC/Dmg; to find SC, its a bit more complicated, but we get there: SC=A*Dmg/(P*W).

An easy way to find how much ur armor will reduce incoming direct dmg, without having to call steven hawking to assist us, is this method, wich anyone can do in secs: consider your default armor, lets say 1980 coz ur a thief, now add some armor, lets say u added a soldier amulet, wich adds 569 armor; now, ull have a grand total of 2549 armor, now that you have this, to find out how much reduction this has given to you, all you need is divide the added armor (wich is 569) by the grand total armor (2549, as we’ve seen before), this will give us a result of 0.223, or 22.3% dmg reduction;lets plug this figures in the example above:
Dmg=2000*952.5*0.555/1980 <=> 533.977 => Dmg=2000*952.5*0.555/2549 <=> 414.780 =>> 414.780/533.977=0.777, wich means,, 414.780 is 77.77% of 533.977, or, in dmg reduction language, ur dmg was reduced by 22.23%!!
As you can see, maths are easy in GW!!

Point is this is still just over complicating it. You can leave crit/armor to the side since they’re both a % modifier anyway. If someone wants to find out how much dmg each point of power gives them running this formula for each and every skill for each armor type is just a waste of time rather than just knowing : Each additional 100 Power = 11% base dmg increase.

Eduardo.4675:

Oh, i forgot to add knote, if things were as you say, and since a pistol is a pistol, wheter used by a thief or a engie, all skills by pistols would do the same dmg, as long as this thief and this engie had the same specs in power, crit chance, crit dmg, etc.

I didn’t do a good enough job making myself clear, but I didn’t mean there are no coefficients, just that power scales the same for every skill, and it is simple.

“I didn’t do a good enough job making myself clear, but I didn’t mean there are no coefficients, just that power scales the same for every skill, and it is simple.”

After this, i dont even know why u posted… what was ur point? that dmg scales linearly with power? thanks, captain obvious…
But whats more worrying is this: “Just to let you know, there aren’t any seperate”coefficients" for skills. Power is just a % dmg modifier based on a skill’s base dmg."
Now, i have this strong feeling uve just said that these separate coefficients dont exist… whats it, after all? i only replied coz you appear to dismiss the existence of skill modifiers in this sentence, when in fact any dmg skill, in any game, needs this dmg modifiers to establish a differenciation between skills, without them, we would only have one skill,scatered across multiple names,but all doing the same thing.

I made that huge post also, (and that was my main motto anyway) to inform ppl that are less familiar with how things work damage wise, basically its comunity service, hence including armor mitigation processes, a lot of ppl dont have any idea of what to expect when they add a certain amount or armor,for example… and damage wise, u just cant go simply by using the flat % increase given by each 100 power, wich is 10.92%, when in relation to the original base power (916), because that relation is misleading, the way you put it, some ppl might think that by adding 100 power they gain 10.92% more dmg, because in fact that only happens once, when u go from 916 to 1016… Consider this: i have a build, ive chosen my equipment, and this equipment is beserker set with runes of the scholar (max dmg possible equipment available, if ur above 90% HP), ive also chosen to go 30 points in acrobatics just because i like the traits, and ive put 20 in tricks, for bountiful theft and a 15 initiative pool, i now have 20 points left to spend, and i want to make them count only towards maximizing my DPS, what do i chose? all 20 into power? all 20 into critical? a split 10/10? This is where critical chance and critical dmg must be weighed against a more simplistic view of “base power” increase with flat gains; what adds more here? Lets see:

For this, we dont need skills, or skill modifiers, or weapon dmg, or armor, since these will allways be the same wichever route we choose; instead, lets use a imaginary skill and a imaginary target, and this target takes 1 dmg per each point you have in power, per second; this means that this target will take 2000 DPS if ur power is 2K and u have no crits, this is pretty straightfoward, its a 1:1 ratio of power/dmg.
Now, the example above, we have 2004 power, 35% crit rate and +28% crit dmg, with that equipment; the dmg done by a crit proc will be 178% that of a normal hit, so a normal hit will do 2004 dmg and a crit will do 3567.12 dmg, for a DPS of 2551.09, the formula for this will be: (2004*65) + ((2004*1.78)*35)/100;
1) investing 20 points in the power line, ull get, using the procedure above, a DPS of 2805.69, wich is 9.98% more damage;
2) investing 20 points into critical strikes, ull get 2868.12, wich amounts to 12.43% more dmg;
3) spliting 10/10, we get 2826.09, an increase in damage of 10.78%.

As you can see, taking only power into account, ull never get to know exactly what is ur best choice, because power has diminishing returns built into it,critical chance on the other hand increases its effectiveness the more frequent and more penetrating are the critical hits, in fact above 2000 power any increase of 100 points will add less than 5% more dmg, whereas critical hits will add more per 100 points the more u get closer to 50% crit chance and 50% more crit dmg, however, note that this happens when dealing specifically with traits, as in most professions crit rate and crit dmg are tied in the same trait line.

@eduardo

the problem is crit chance and crit dmg are two different things, so you cannot combine the two and then compare to power as your comparison suggests… sure the trait line has both, but most dps thiefs use 30 crit anyway…. alot of us want to know what gear/sigils/runes to use, and in this case, crit chance and precision are separate.

oh.. thanks Galandil for the post, nice reference to refer to

oh.. thanks Galandil for the post, nice reference to refer to

Bomber, u havent understood a single bit of what i put in there… and thats a pity,makes me feel i wasted my time. When it comes to dmg, all 3 things combine to up ur final dmg output, and u can definetely compare them, its obvious,just read it and do the maths urself. And in most situations precision and prowess are entangled, ur “but we all go 30 in critcal strikes anyway” is lulzy coz those thieves also use the zerker set, wich combines exactly POWER, PRECISION AND PROWESS… its the sum of all 3 parts that makes that the most dpsing amulet set in the game, for every profession. And as for runes, the scholar set, the divinity set and the rune of the shreck are also the most used runes,precisely because they combine power/precision/prowess.
All this maths exposed here have been used by me for months now, since march/april, and i dont need any test dummies or steady weapons to know whats the best for maximizing dmg, this is all i need to know, the inner mechanics that affect dmg output, the Dmg=P*W*SC/A formula combined with a formula to obtain the “pondered average” between power crit and prowess… Ive taken the time to compare the different sets of runes with the dummies, as have many other ppl, and we all got the same result, best dps is scholar, followed by shreck, then mesmer runes, pack runes, divinity runes, etc. All this runes are the ones that rate higher, and that is because they combine at least power with one other dmg modifier, be it precision, prowess, direct dmg modifier (shreck runeset),watever.