Guild Wars 2

I am interested in defining a method to determine DPS or relative damage output of different builds and weapons. I would like some input from the Thief community to come up with a standard test method that we could use and possibly apply to other classes.

My goal here is to quantify effectiveness of different weapons and builds for PvE. I want to start with damage output but I do realize that survivability, player skill, player preference, and up time are also factors in effectiveness. Although it hasn’t happened to me I’ve heard of Thieves being dropped from groups because they don’t contribute like other classes do. I don’t agree with this but I’m looking for a way to prove or disprove it.

Since we don’t have DPS meters here (glad we don’t) how do we determine DPS or relative damage output? So far ‘Time to Kill’ seems to be a legitimate data point. I’ve also done some napkin math but I’m no mathematician and my napkins are small. I have used Mists golems for some testing but they die quickly and I don’t feel that these are adequate test subjects for sustained damage output as Bleeds have a ramp up time and burst will skew data. Single target vs. AOE is another factor.

1. Are Mists golems our best test subjects or can we look at something else to gather ‘Time to Kill’ data?

2. Is there another method to determine DPS or relative damage output?

3. What do you feel our top 3 sustained single target damage builds are currently? D/D Backstab>D/D Conditions>S/P?

Input is appeciated,

Blood~

A lot of the mechanics in GW2 are very discrete, so it seems like simply getting the damage and animation time of each ability in question can be used to make a simple and effective model for measuring DPS.

It’s not like half your skill bar affects the other half of the skill bar, with traits and trait line affecting different skills in synergistic ways. It’s mostly … pretty straightforward / simple / direct.

Edit: For more holistic testing, with no precise combat log / parsing capability, yeah, well. Good luck.

One of my friends basically did a multiple trial of killing all 3 golems. The benefit is that you get a decent spread of armor, along with a decent spread of “real combat events” like target switching and movement. The downside of course is that it’s all artificial on 3 chained target dummies, with random variables like AOE/cleave effects.

But, in controlled methods, it’s useful enough. He was able to determine that Warrior Hammer 111111 spam was actually pretty kitten strong. Also that Warr Sword 1h 11111 spam was pretty strong with a pure power setup (no condition damage).

First of all, you need to know the damage formula. It is as follows:

Power * Weapon Damage * Skill Modifier * Compound Multiplier * (if crit, 1.5 + Critical Damage) / Armor

Where:
Power -> Your power at the time of calculation
Weapon damage -> The randomly rolled number on your weapon’s damage range
Skill modifier -> The number associated with each damage skill that determines how hard it’s going to hit
Compound multiplier -> Modifiers from traits and other sources, which are all added together here (i.e. 5% damage sigil + 10% bonus damage while target has a condition equals a compound multiplier of 1.15, or 15% bonus).
Critical damage -> The crit damage stat
Armor -> Your target’s total armor, or toughness + defense (the stat on armor pieces)

To figure out DPS, you need to know two other key pieces of information:
1. The cast time of the ability
2. The aftercast delay of the ability, or, how long after the cast finishes until you can cast another ability.

From there, you can model it all however you please.

As for top 3 sustained single target, it’s probably D/D, P/P, Shortbow, all direct damage based, but that is considering consumable buffs on top of it. Completely unbuffed, it’s probably D/D, Shortbow, P/P. I haven’t actually verified any of this, but it’s pretty easy to get a feel for it. The damage per initiative is obviously highest on daggers, and on a single target, it’s pretty close for dual pistol and shortbow.

Thank you for the input so far. I like the 3 golem multiple trial as a ‘Time to Kill’ test method. And thank you for the formula Pinch. For some standards to look at is the Armor of each Mist golem listed anywhere or can we define ‘light’ ‘medium’ and ‘heavy’ with Armor values?

Also, what are your thoughts on the accuracy of tooltips and paper doll values? It seems that sigils, runes and traits aren’t calculated in some cases. Consumables however seem to be calculated.

TYVM
Blood~

Paper doll is a bit misleading as the “attack” stat does absolutely nothing and is not used in the damage formula. The “power” displayed is accurate, and is the value used.

Tooltip values are an equally leveled heavy armor target. At level 80, skill tooltips are calculated against 2200. I have all of the armor values written down at home, but I’m not at home at the moment.

Compound modifiers are a bit strange, because some are calculated based on the target you’re attacking (20% more damage to targets under 50% HP). These types of traits won’t appear on the tooltip value, but things like +5% damage will.

You can download and use my spreadsheet if you’re interested in all that work; ull need Microsoft Office or Open Office, but it has some areas that will help with the “relative dmg”. Link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aq3EsiG75NPNdHo2U2J0dnVFYXZNSmVCZDNVUFhyS3c#gid=4

Oh, also one important thing:

Bigger number is better.