Guild Wars 2

So my friend recently told me his DPS numbers, and I was shocked to hear his Kill Shot (Rifle Burst) dealt 15k+ dmg whereas mine only dealt 6k to risen mobs. So I’m concerned my setup prevents me from dealing much damage and being useful to my team in dungeons.

At the moment, I am using Condition Dmg + Toughness + Precision exotic armor with Superior Rune of the Undead, with Emerald accessories (Power+Precision+Toughness). My rifle is Berserker with Sigil of Earth (bleed on crit)

So every equipment piece except for the rifle increases both precision and toughness. With the armor increasing condition damage and accessories increasing power.

My trait setup is 20 Strength, 30 Arms, and 20 Discipline. This supposedly allows me to have a balance of condition damage and raw damage.

My bleed hits around 102 dmg per tick and my rifle usually averages 10 bleeds on a tough foe before I can use my killshot. Comparing with a non-condition damage spec, this is about a 50 dmg difference per tick, and at 10 bleeds I deal 1020 dmg versus 500 (approx a 500 dmg increase PER SECOND!)

The 1 skill of my rfile averages 600 raw dmg on crit whereas Volley deals an average of 4k.

With an average 80% crit rate, warrior traits, and Sigil of Earth, I SHOULD be stacking up lots of bleed with virtually any weapon. However, I am still concerned that I do not deal enough damage for dungeons.

Can any DPS-pros here help me figure out whether I should ditch my current armor set in favor of Berserker armor+Berserker accessories? Thanks!

Rifle bleeds are slightly lackluster, mainly because the autoattack chain is a little slow. That coupled with the fact that nothing else on the rifle does condition damage means that condition damage gear is slightly wasted if you’re using a rifle.

If you want a condition build, try sword/shield/longbow or sword/sword/longbow with condition traits. Swords are the warrior’s bleed weapon (you can stack a lot with flurry and impale is non-removable, I think) and longbow does some good burning damage. Otherwise, if you want to run a rifle and another weapon other than a mainhand sword, then I think you should probably forego condition damage stats and go for more power/prec/critdmg with some toughness/vitality somewhere in there. Sigils of Earth don’t really make up for a weapon set that is not focused around conditions.

Thank you for the advice, Shadowscamp. However, my problem here is whether or not the damage I deal is actually substantial in conjunction with my survivability? I am worried I am speccing too much into survivability rather than damage?

And is maintaining 10 bleed on a foe really that inferior in damage to others?

It’s more so a comparison question to see if my damage is lackluster compared to other warriors here, since I feel almost an obligation to equip a Ruby set.

Speccing as much toughness as you do is not really an issue. It’s more toughness than I have, as I run Soldier’s armor and Berserker’s jewels.

Personally, condition damage seems a bit lackluster on a warrior, though I have never tried to fully spec into it. I’ve heard on the forums that condition damage can be done better with another class, but I’m pretty sure that condition damage is viable on a warrior. If you really want to use condition damage, try a mix of Rampager’s gear and Knight’s gear, maybe full Knight’s armor and Rampager jewels (or vice versa since you already have the knight’s jewels. Knight’s armor can be used in more builds, however, but that’s just me). Rampager’s gear is Power/Precision/Condition damage and you have Knight’s accessories. Either that or Rampager’s gear and Carrion (Power/Vitality/Condition Damage) gear for complete condition damage.

Unfortunately, there is not a set of Power/Toughness/Condition damage gear out there currently, and I would always recommend toughness over vitality, but unless you go full glass condition damage with rampager’s gear, Carrion’s probably your next best bet.

Of course, you could also use your set of armor with Condition Damage/Precision/Toughness, but I never like to be without Power in any build, but that may be just me. I think the issue is that you’re not focused enough into a spec. What I said about the weapon choice I think still holds true. Any pure warrior condition spec (I think) runs a sword and a longbow, just because those two are kind of the only condition focused weapons for the warrior right now.

Also, maintaining bleeds isn’t “inferior”, per se, but talk around the forums seems to be that other classes can do it better, and if you’re in a big fight against a boss, bleeds will cap at 25 anyway, so if you have a lot bleeders in a group, your damage will fall off due to the cap.

TL;DR
Your build currently seems a bit unfocused. I don’t think the full toughness is the issue with your damage. Precision is a stat that’s meant to boost your DPS through crits, but without power, those crits won’t do that much damage in the first place. What’s left, then, is condition damage, but you aren’t running full condition damage gear either. Sacrificing precision is fine if you go condition damage as crits won’t be your main source of damage. Try one or the other. I think bleed spec is perfectly fine, but it has to be more focused in order to notice a difference.

If someone else more experienced with a bleed spec wants to correct anything I said, that’s fine. I haven’t tried much with bleeds as of yet.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Precise_Strikes
33% chance to cause bleeding on critical hits.

*Benefits from Deep Cuts and Strength, extending bleed duration to 5 seconds.

It’s because of that one trait you stack 80% precision. I am able to get off 3-4 ticks of bleed with one volley, and sometimes 3 ticks of bleed at once with the 1 skill. Hence, I can maintain 10-16 bleed with rifle alone on a boss.

The idea with my build was to hybrid damage and condition damage, but I really want to compare with other’s numbers to know if my build is actually a master of none.

If you’re trying to do a hybrid of damage and condition damage, I’d suggest not sacrificing power for it. Also, as far as critical chance goes, I think the noticeable threshold of diminishing returns for critical hits is about 55%, so sacrificing a bit of precision won’t hurt that much as you’re going to want to do base damage as a hybrid in the first place.

Other than that, I can’t tell you much more.

I run 20/30/0/0/20, with soldier armor and berserker jewels. I hit 1500-2000 criticals with a zerker axe and 800-900 criticals with a zerker rifle on normal Orr mobs. A full adrenaline bar killshot also hits for base 7000-8000 with a critical hit and volley hits for around 4000-5000 on normal Orr mobs depending on how many crits I get in the chain. Keep in mind these numbers vary a bit depending on my adrenaline level because of Berserker’s Power. I can’t give you DPS numbers, so that’s the best I got.

Shadowscamp.8065:

Personally, condition damage seems a bit lackluster on a warrior, though I have never tried to fully spec into it. I’ve heard on the forums that condition damage can be done better with another class, but I’m pretty sure that condition damage is viable on a warrior.

Just curious and chiming in about this comment.

I’m actually playing a War right now and wondering if this is fully true. My Warrior is Asuran so, in DPS situations, I have sword/shield for bleed, hammer for control and bursts, Pain Inverter for Retaliation and Confusion and Radiation Field for Poison and Weaken. I was thinking of specing him for condition damage/duration (make bleeds, poison and confuse do more damage + lengthen weakness duration) but perhaps those utilities are overshadowed by other warrior utilities?

To me, either are no slouch since Pain Inverter recharges pretty quick and Radiation Field lasts for a good while for its recharge. In dungeons (so far only AC as the warrior is only 53 right now), the conditions have serviced me well but maybe later they’ll turn out as lackluster?

I’ve decided his weapons will be sword/shield, hammer, greatsword and longbow…no idea about traits. Sword+shield/longbow really puts down the condition damage with poison, bleed, burn, confuse and can apply AoE weaken with shield bash; SSh/hammer is his standard setup with more weaken and I throw in greatsword somewhere because hundred blades on Asuran just looks more awesome than on any other race :P

I think one of the reasons people say that the warrior can’t do conditions quite as well as some other classes is because of Necromancers. Necros have so many skills that have to do with conditions, and they can change boons into conditions and transferring conditions and other stuff like that, whereas warriors can only stack bleeds and occasionally set people on fire. Mesmers also have confusion and stuff, which is an incredibly powerful condition.

I suppose you have a few condition things with your Asura racials, but I think it was said somewhere that racials were designed to be a bit weaker than normal skills so that one race would not be dominant in terms of a class due to its racial skill. I would definitely not go without Fear Me as part of my build, just ‘cause it’s so useful. Again, I’m not really good with conditions, since it’s kind of hard to tell how much damage you’re doing as it ticks.

I would like to reiterate the point of this thread: Am I doing enough damage? How much damage should a warrior be doing?

xD

I guess the point of my posts is that I think you’re losing out on a bit of damage by overstatting precision and not having enough power in your build.

Kain Francois.4328:

I would like to reiterate the point of this thread: Am I doing enough damage? How much damage should a warrior be doing?

I don’t know without solid dps numbers but my general rule of thumb is that if you are not capable of doing 30k damage in a spike within 10 seconds, accounting for at the minimum 2 countered attacks (via dodge which all classes have standard) then your damage is too low. I say 30k because the high end of most average builds (non-“tank”) you will run into is between 20-25k (necro/warrior) and you want to account for at least 1 heal. 10 seconds because I figure you want to account for being faster than a major cooldown which might get blown during the assault being used again in the same fight (heal, defensive utility, etc).

It’s just my rule of thumb though and others will probably have their own and disagree with mine. Take from it what you will.

Shadowscamp.8065:

Rifle bleeds are slightly lackluster, mainly because the autoattack chain is a little slow. That coupled with the fact that nothing else on the rifle does condition damage means that condition damage gear is slightly wasted if you’re using a rifle.

If you want a condition build, try sword/shield/longbow or sword/sword/longbow with condition traits. Swords are the warrior’s bleed weapon (you can stack a lot with flurry and impale is non-removable, I think) and longbow does some good burning damage. Otherwise, if you want to run a rifle and another weapon other than a mainhand sword, then I think you should probably forego condition damage stats and go for more power/prec/critdmg with some toughness/vitality somewhere in there. Sigils of Earth don’t really make up for a weapon set that is not focused around conditions.

God if you think the warrior’s rifle is lackluster, you should try a Pistol thief. There’s something wrong with the ranged weapons in this game.

Einlanzer.1627:

Shadowscamp.8065:

Rifle bleeds are slightly lackluster, mainly because the autoattack chain is a little slow. That coupled with the fact that nothing else on the rifle does condition damage means that condition damage gear is slightly wasted if you’re using a rifle.

If you want a condition build, try sword/shield/longbow or sword/sword/longbow with condition traits. Swords are the warrior’s bleed weapon (you can stack a lot with flurry and impale is non-removable, I think) and longbow does some good burning damage. Otherwise, if you want to run a rifle and another weapon other than a mainhand sword, then I think you should probably forego condition damage stats and go for more power/prec/critdmg with some toughness/vitality somewhere in there. Sigils of Earth don’t really make up for a weapon set that is not focused around conditions.

God if you think the warrior’s rifle is lackluster, you should try a Pistol thief. There’s something wrong with the ranged weapons in this game.

Oh God no. I love the warrior rifle. I just meant that the bleed on rifle 1 is lackluster. Everything else is great, just the bleeding shot is out of place.

Kain Francois.4328:

I would like to reiterate the point of this thread: Am I doing enough damage? How much damage should a warrior be doing?

As far as your damage, the first thing you need to remember is your friend (sounds like) has a kill shot build. He might be doing 15k, but your damage is more sustained. How long does it take him to build up to that 15k shot? How much survivability does he have? His 15k shots aren’t much good from downed state. Meanwhile your damage is steadily ticking away. If you can find a way to see how much damage you both do over 30 seconds for example, then I think you have a clearer comparison.

Shadowscamp.8065:

xD

I guess the point of my posts is that I think you’re losing out on a bit of damage by overstatting precision and not having enough power in your build.

I agree with Shadow though about power. I’m about 25% below you in crit because I stack power. My bleeds tick for ~100 damage, and with Fury i’m easily over 70% in crit chance. I might crit 10% less often, but my crits hit harder, as well as my other attacks.

You just have to remember no matter what, your damage is done over time. Not in bursts.

if you want to add a dash of berserker to your gear setup. Gems are great if you don’t have a rune set in mind. Options that are less bad are Shoulder, Glove, and Boots since they are just a little worse than average. And if you want to add even more, Amulet and 1 hand weapon aren’t terrible. Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever use any of the other berserker pieces because the combined total of stats is actually below average to other sets impart because of the crit damage takes up a good chunk of stats.

I run full rampagers all the prec i can get my hands on, why because it abuses blood sigils and 33% chance to stack another bleed trait. my rifle crits for 700-900 auto and 3-4.5k volly,4-6k kill shots.

don’t concern yourself with big numbers, with full adren and 8 stacks of might i crit 850+ and bleed for 113 a sec, at 11 stacks of might its 900+ and 120-130 on bleeds. in WvW i have no problems without huge crit numbers because bleeds ignore protection boon and armor so its a trade off for more well rounded damage over large numbers with less much less chance to crit comparing zerkers to rampagers.

6k is pretty standard, it also depend how much utilities/boon/debuff you pumped on your shot to boost the damage. You can be sure the guy claiming those 15k, is doing it in very peculiar situations, he probably dropped a pack of mobs to have maximum damage buff, like 10+ might, have full vulnerability (25 stack) on the mob he is attacking because a bunch of people are stacking them and so on and so. But yes the game is set up so you need to work for it if you want to apply good damage and not “waste” your best skills, this is all the combat is about. If you use your utilities and skill well (good sequence), then you will significantly raise your dps, this is valid for any class, not only warrior.

Well, the cold hard numbers are pretty simple to figure. Take an average of your heavy hitter (Kill Shot, 100 Blades, w/e), add in the average agregate damage of a full round of cond. dmg., when a full stack has the time to run it’s course, and subtract it from 15k. The answer is how much better or worse you’re pumping out damage compared to your friend’s build. Strictly in a very basic numeric sense though. If you want to consider which build and method of damage is more efficacious….

… then, in a nutshell, I’ve always kind of assumed that high cond. dmg. builds are great for say, a WvW zerg battle kind of situation. Tab through and pass out a bunch of bleeds or fire DOTs. Kind of “the poor man’s AoE” but it has the easy potential of dealing greater damage, both flatly and per resources used, and using up a bunch of your opponent’s cleanses.

Solo or in small groups for basic clearing or farming for example though, high powered direct damage is the way to go, I.M.H.O. You seem to be dishing out significant damage you just won’t ever see that dramatic HUGE chunk of an opponent’s health bar wiped away. Which also tends to produce an “OH KITTEN!” response in PvP opponents which can freak em out, kind of like winging a fastball by the batter 1 mm in front of their nose, that a DOT usually doesn’t.

My personal opinion would be to leave the DOTs to the classes whose skills and general design lend themselves to it. I think for dungeons, events, sPvP (although that could possibly be debateable depending on group makeup), and small hit squad style tactics in WvW, massive direct single target damage and as significant an amount of TUF and VIT as you feel comfortable rollin with is the way to go.

I’m assuming a bit saying this, but if he’s popping off 15k Kill Shots regularly it’d be my guess that your defensive stats are far and away greater than his but hey, it’s all in what you feel comfortable with. If you feel comfortable with your “hit it and quit” 1 shot combo or that you can haul kitten if anything does go wrong then more power to ya.

I’m not nearly that confident in MY skills though . So I pack on as much def. stats as I can without leaving myself with kitteny damage. Buffed up, I can pull off an 8 – 10k crit and my DOTs (exclusively bleed, I still can bring myself to use a Bow over my Rifle) tick for around 70. I’m satisfied with this general kind of setup because the large majority of opponents I face can’t just stomp me into the ground either and there’s room for me to kitten up once or twice maybe, heh.

I’m certainly no authority on the Warrior or all the flavors our diff builds can offer. Can’t say I’ve ever given a full on DOT specific build a fair shot either so this is just my unvarnished lay-man’s subjective opinion. In general, if most mobs are dying before your DOTs can tick for a full round, seems like wasted DPS to me though.

Honestly my only beef with bleeds is the 25 stack maximum… For dungeons, bosses, veterans, the team stacks 25 in an instant and then your build is rather useless… While a DPS build keeps hacking away with better damage… It seems to me conditional damage is very situational… While DPS can work for just about any situation… Its just more versatile…