Guild Wars 2

New builds posted by Nike that pure GS better than axe/mace
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83915-axemace-dps-build-for-dungeons-and-fractals-041514/

I’m gonna have to check that myself, its hard to believe. I can’t get the numbers to tie up just purely on a numerical calculation in favor of a pure GS build.

We are also assuming hundred blades fully go off in all calculations… hard to say. A pure GS build basically NEED that to happen, if you interrupt HB, your DPS falls through the floor.

I really want to see his calculations though, the assumptions used could absolutely make or break the calc.

I saw this too and I believe the math is correct but the assumptions the math based on are not. Just like the math was correct about DWA but the assumptions based on the math were wrong. They didn’t take into account of aftercast mainly and a 10% aspd bonus is not enough to overcome aftercast quickly. Where it only becomes better DPS given time to overcome aftercast. Which in practical use doesn’t happen often enough to justify using the trait.
As you can see the hits are faster but the time in between hits are not faster.

The reason I disagree with the data is mainly for the solo warrior but also under other circumstances where 10% of your DPS relies on bleeding to be on the mob. Warrior has a trait that will proc bleeding on crit but from my testing it is unreliable. So no all of your hits will always be modified by 10%

I also don’t see much point to go 30 into arms for a pure GS build other than the 50 precision and the 40 precision per signet. Doing so is under the assumption that you do not reach 100% crit chance with fury which I think that assumption is incorrect.

A lot of these math equations do not take RNG into account for example you may have 95 Crit chance or 100 crit chance in a small sample size the DPS will be no differ because the chance of a non crit getting through is extremely low. Low enough that it doesn’t make a huge difference.

Awesome. I’ve been playing pure GS so far anyway, I really hate using Axe…
Does anyone know what’s the rotation?

30 in arms is good if you dont plan to ever switch weapons, it works out to be better DPS than going the extra 5 in discipline.

What I want to see is if what he calculated assumes WWA against a wall. If it doesn’t, then from what I’ve worked out, they’re about the same. He talked about using blade trail. I’m slightly suspicious on that front because if you can double-hit with blade trail, you definitely won’t be able to WWA, because if you WWA against anything that’s not stacked next to a wall, its a DPS loss because you need to run back.

However, realistically, you won’t be able to pull off the full potential of GS as easily as axe. Axe has a lot of sustain, whereas GS doesn’t.

You probably won’t be able to do HB whenever its off CD constantly because not all bosses are that easy. Rush can be very awkward to pull off because you can’t interrupt it and you’re open to being attacked (and it was also bugged the last time I checked).

Whereas with an axe, pulling off constant rotations is a lot easier because its a lot more flexible and your main DPS skill isn’t an easily-interrupted attack on a CD.

So I’m still sticking with my old philosophy that GS is great for slow-paced (or really easy) fights with high need for burst potential and axe is great for everything else.

Calculating actual DPS in this game is really not as straightforward as say, WoW or TSW, because in those games, as a DPS I can pull of solid rotations constantly, whereas in this game you really can’t sometimes.

I really encourage people to test stuff out, both theoretically and practically. Nike is a smart guy, but:

1. He might be wrong, not saying he is, but we’re all human.
2. It might not work out for you.

Warlord.9074:

I saw this too and I believe the math is correct but the assumptions the math based on are not. Just like the math was correct about DWA but the assumptions based on the math were wrong. They didn’t take into account of aftercast mainly and a 10% aspd bonus is not enough to overcome aftercast quickly. Where it only becomes better DPS given time to overcome aftercast. Which in practical use doesn’t happen often enough to justify using the trait.
As you can see the hits are faster but the time in between hits are not faster.

The reason I disagree with the data is mainly for the solo warrior but also under other circumstances where 10% of your DPS relies on bleeding to be on the mob. Warrior has a trait that will proc bleeding on crit but from my testing it is unreliable. So no all of your hits will always be modified by 10%

I also don’t see much point to go 30 into arms for a pure GS build other than the 50 precision and the 40 precision per signet. Doing so is under the assumption that you do not reach 100% crit chance with fury which I think that assumption is incorrect.

A lot of these math equations do not take RNG into account for example you may have 95 Crit chance or 100 crit chance in a small sample size the DPS will be no differ because the chance of a non crit getting through is extremely low. Low enough that it doesn’t make a huge difference.

This was already settled in the dungeon forums with video evidence. You’re late to the party again. No one posts legit theorycraft in profession forums because it attracts know-nothings.

What I want to see is if what he calculated assumes WWA against a wall.

It was calculated off the wall, refer to the thread in dungeon forums where the rotation was shown. Against the wall it works out to be about the same since you lose bladetrail but you get faster WWAs. It’s mostly a wash.

Whereas with an axe, pulling off constant rotations is a lot easier because its a lot more flexible and your main DPS skill isn’t an easily-interrupted attack on a CD.
So I’m still sticking with my old philosophy that GS is great for slow-paced (or really easy) fights with high need for burst potential and axe is great for everything else.
Calculating actual DPS in this game is really not as straightforward as say, WoW or TSW, because in those games, as a DPS I can pull of solid rotations constantly, whereas in this game you really can’t sometimes.

As he said in the comments of his video, “play whichever weaponset you can pull off the cleanest rotations with.” The dps difference is like 400 dps out of a total like 13,000. That’s a small difference. You should play whatever weaponset works for you on a per encounter basis. Respeccing is free.

ICEing, probably don’t need to hyperbolize the thread title/OP it attracts trolls and try-hards.

And I thought the dungeon forums was a graveyard cos the devs left it since they disbanded the dungeon team.

I’m talking to Nike right this instant and we are in agreement. Basically, before you sell your axes, keep in mind that:

1) GS is best when the target is walled. Walled WWA makes GS the best DPS option by a fairly large margin (about 10% more than axe).

2) Pure GS is basically equal to pure axe IF you do not wall AND instead do a max range WWA AND the target is bigger than human size. If you space it right you can get all four hits on a larger-than-normal target, but you will end up outside of melee range so you will need to take an extra half second to run back. Any difference in DPS is basically nonexistent and dependent on how you choose to run the numbers. In my spreadsheet Axe is actually higher by like .02%, in Nike’s GS is higher by 1%.

3) If you CANNOT get all 4 hits of WWA for ANY reason, pure axe is better by a fairly significant margin.

Personally I’d say that if you want to take just one spread and not have to change constantly, 6/6/0/2/0 with Dual Wielding, Slashing Power, Forceful Greatsword, and Dual Wield Agility is your best bet. That way you can take both A/M and GS and swap depending on whether WWA works or not. You will get max DPS on the GS setup and the Axe setup loses about 4% DPS, so it’s not a bad trade-off.

Tree.3916:

This was already settled in the dungeon forums with video evidence. You’re late to the party again. No one posts legit theorycraft in profession forums.

I’m interested in what this party is you keep talking about? Who if your idea of posting theory on forums is a party I think we are never going to agree on anything. Your right it has been settled thats why people are not recommending it. Which I agree with you however don’t? Because you don’t post anything to any forums that help anyone just troll comments based on your low understanding of how things work in reality half the time.

“TheoryCraft” I am not interested in theory’s based on certain things to be optimal. Or based on hypothetical scenarios. In which under those the theorys work. I am intrested in what happens all of the time in real world. A theory is just a theory until its been debunked.

I think my biggest kitten with GS rotations is that you need to get HB off, which in a lot of fights can be quite troublesome. For example if your pugging fractals, that first set of minibosses in the harpie fractal is just dang impossible to use HB on constantly cos people will be running around, and the bosses move with them.

Ya thats why I thik NIKE was right the 1st time with the 6/5/0/0/15

GS/AXE-MACE becasue in those situations where you cannont land 100 blades or WWA it is better to weapon swap and use axe.

Trust me I understand peoples desire to change the meta a really do. Its stale and we got a few new traits and runes and sigils as well as a crit damage nerf. So people want to explore and see if they can come up with somthing better.

The thing is this debate is very old. What do you think we were debating before we settled on 30/25/0/0/15 We debated the same thing. So why are we debating it again just for the sake of change?

Honestly if somthing is not broken there is no need to fix it. None of the changes we got other that runes, sigils and a crit damage nerf changed warriors. None of the master traits beside Phalanx strength opened any new viable builds.

Tried to change the topic title a bit so it won’t cause too much of a storm.

If you’re going pure axe, I think Dual Wield agility is definitely something you want to take.

There’s a lot of cases in the game where you want to go pure axe really. Like the before-mentioned fotm fight in a pug, or Mossman in general at 40+, its a complete losing battle trying to land 100b in that mess, so GS DPS ends up on the bottom of the sea.

I don’t think the aim of the developers should be to change the meta. Heck, I hate the idea of a ‘metabuild’ which everyone should take. It should be different builds for different situations, you can never balance the game properly if you’re just going to put pretty much every build under the who-has-more-DPS game, because no matter what you do, there’s always a build which will have higher DPS.

Warlord.9074:

Ya thats why I thik NIKE was right the 1st time with the 6/5/0/0/15

GS/AXE-MACE becasue in those situations where you cannont land 100 blades or WWA it is better to weapon swap and use axe.

Trust me I understand peoples desire to change the meta a really do. Its stale and we got a few new traits and runes and sigils as well as a crit damage nerf. So people want to explore and see if they can come up with somthing better.

The thing is this debate is very old. What do you think we were debating before we settled on 30/25/0/0/15 We debated the same thing. So why are we debating it again just for the sake of change?

Honestly if somthing is not broken there is no need to fix it. None of the changes we got other that runes, sigils and a crit damage nerf changed warriors. None of the master traits beside Phalanx strength opened any new viable builds.

Except 30/25 is significantly worse dps than either pure option now. DWA puts pure axe ahead, and the second dps sigil in GS puts pure gs ahead because it makes the benefits of swapping to axe after the gs burst a less valuable proposition.

If you think the extra utility of Fast Hands is worth 10% dps compared to pure GS or 6% vs Pure Axe, then by all means run it. Just don’t be confused about what you’re giving up for it.

edit: you weren’t around when strife created the 20/25/0/10/15 original gs+axe build, but I was. Strife assumed it was better dps than pure greatsword or pure axe. Strife didn’t have accurate dps calculations, he didn’t do accurate video analysis to inform his non-existent dps calculations. He went with his gut. He was close, but not quit. Pure GS was actually better dps then, too, but the difference was a bit less than it is now. So back then the utility of fast hands didnt require as much of a sacrifice. But make no mistake, the dps of pure gs was better then too, but no one then had today’s sophisticated methods of testing to even challenge it at the time, we just sorta listened to Strife.

Well now we can record dps rotations and plug the coefficients into a calculator and get 100% accurate dps measurements. There is no need to wonder about it or speculate. I can tell you with 99.9% certainty what build has better dps than another. The only thing that is subjective at this point is whether or not you want to trade away a higher dps build for a lower dps one that has extra utility. And that’s a personal call based on whatever content you’re doing.

Tree.3916:

edit: you weren’t around when strife created the 20/25/0/10/15 original gs+axe build, but I was.

Strife didn’t create that build though and nike didn’t create the 30/25 build either. Being an advocate for a build is one thing creating is another thing, You cant compare the two builds. One build is based on Berserkers power and heightened focus being a 10 point investment. The other is post nerf based on nerfed /buffed zerkers power in the 30 point posistion. Its not even a fair comparison they are builds based on what was availible at the time.

And don’t assume I have not been around. I have been around since BWE and Id be willing to wager I have more time logged on my warrior than anyone you know.

As you refer to something as being “significantly” different better or what have you is far fetched to say the least. A better word for what you consider “significantly” half the time is minute as in fractionally tiny or in some cases non existent outside of a vacuum chamber.

Warlord.9074:

Tree.3916:

edit: you weren’t around when strife created the 20/25/0/10/15 original gs+axe build, but I was.

Strife didn’t create that build though and nike didn’t create the 30/25 build either. Being an advocate for a build is one thing creating is another thing, You cant compare the two builds. One build is based on Berserkers power and heightened focus being a 10 point investment. The other is post nerf based on nerfed /buffed zerkers power in the 30 point posistion. Its not even a fair comparison they are builds based on what was availible at the time.

Strife most certainly came up with the gs+axe/mace build, even if the traits were no brainers. Before he did it, people played pure axe or pure gs. Dispute that if you want, but I don’t particularly care if you don’t agree. I don’t think Nike claims to have invented the 30/25 build, but if you can find a quote saying otherwise go for it.

And don’t assume I have not been around. I have been around since BWE and Id be willing to wager I have more time logged on my warrior than anyone you know.

I don’t care if you have 6k hours on your warrior, doesn’t mean you’re the least bit good at the game. If you want to impress me, you won’t do it by quoting hours played. If you weren’t trying to impress me, why did you bring up your playtime?

As you refer to something as being “significantly” different better or what have you is far fetched to say the least. A better word for what you consider “significantly” half the time is minute as in fractionally tiny or in some cases non existent outside of a vacuum chamber.

10% is significant to me. Especially when we are splitting ever finer hairs and build refinement gets more precise. Heck, 5% is significant to me. If you want to have a semantic debate over the use of the term “significant” then you might as well stop arguing, because you’re going down the sad road of someone who has nothing to dispute but semantics.

You said that I wasn’t around when such and such happened. What difference does it make if I was or wasn’t and how do you know who is around and who isn’t. I wasn’t even talking about strifes build however you assumed I was. I was talking about how we get to point a to point b. Why is it that eventially people settle on the “best” build. Its never because one person says something is best. Its because something just is and that doesn’t have everything to do with damage as much as it has to do with it working.

I suppose now that we can change traits whenever we wantt the argument can be made that builds don’t have to work great, they just need to work for the content they are designed for and thats it. Well thats great.

Lastly I could care less about impressing anyone, I don’t even care if I am liked. Maybe you think that I think I am a pro or something lol. Don’t try and get into my head becasue you wouldn’t like what you find there. And the last thing I would ever want to be labled as is pro pver in GW2. That is ultimately what people argue over is PVE in GW2 give me a break man. Maybe PVE matters to some people a lot more than others that’s fine to me. For now on I will let them argue over what build kills AI that just sits there and takes it or is highly predictable to the point were there is a guide on how to beat every encounter with 100% success rate and you can do it even if you are bad..

So… Changing subject away from this fight… I saw a warrior get kicked last nigh for using gs, when I asked why he was kicked the leader told me because he wasn’t running Nikes build, I wonder how that jerk feels today.

Waldir.2571:

So… Changing subject away from this fight… I saw a warrior get kicked last nigh for using gs, when I asked why he was kicked the leader told me because he wasn’t running Nikes build, I wonder how that jerk feels today.

Its quite saddening when things like that happen. People are just following others like sheep, not testing it out, not looking for answers themselves. I bet if Nike said tommorow that mace-shield is the new DPS build people will just blindly follow that as well.

GW2 PvE lol…..good lord.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Waldir.2571:

So… Changing subject away from this fight… I saw a warrior get kicked last nigh for using gs, when I asked why he was kicked the leader told me because he wasn’t running Nikes build, I wonder how that jerk feels today.

Its quite saddening when things like that happen. People are just following others like sheep, not testing it out, not looking for answers themselves. I bet if Nike said tommorow that mace-shield is the new DPS build people will just blindly follow that as well.

If that’s true it’s just sad. At very least the guy is a jerk since I am 100% sure he didn’t put “must run _ build” in the LFG description.

Now if the guy had been wearing Ruby Orbs, maybe he would have deserved it. huehuehue

Blackjack.2083:

GW2 PvE lol…..good lord.

What of it?

Blackjack.2083:

GW2 PvE lol…..good lord.

Agreed. The drama is mesmerizing.

SrebX.6498:

Awesome. I’ve been playing pure GS so far anyway, I really hate using Axe…
Does anyone know what’s the rotation?

Should watch the vid he explains it but basically is use 2-5 on cd auto in between with one trick to increase dps trying to get the 1st auto chain inbetween skills.

Xae Isareth.1364:

If you’re going pure axe, I think Dual Wield agility is definitely something you want to take.

There’s a lot of cases in the game where you want to go pure axe really. Like the before-mentioned fotm fight in a pug, or Mossman in general at 40+, its a complete losing battle trying to land 100b in that mess, so GS DPS ends up on the bottom of the sea.

I don’t think the aim of the developers should be to change the meta. Heck, I hate the idea of a ‘metabuild’ which everyone should take. It should be different builds for different situations, you can never balance the game properly if you’re just going to put pretty much every build under the who-has-more-DPS game, because no matter what you do, there’s always a build which will have higher DPS.

Meta just means its a widely accepted build in fact if you really want to get down to it if everyone was a smart player and understood that there are different situations which call for different builds THAT would be the “meta”.

I definitely agree that pure axe is more practical than pure GS. If you are walling it is a different story but you need to hit perfect HBs and WWAs precisely on cooldown every time just to beat the damage output from just AFK auto-attacking with axe by less than a couple of percentage points, but apparently sitting on that axe auto is harder than maintaining a perfectly uninterrupted greatsword rotation 100% of the time.

Ultimately it boils down to what is personal preference. Most of these “meta” guys have been running only GS builds since launch and it’s just what they’re used to. Meanwhile they constantly harp on ranger DPS being impractical because you have to press two buttons to dodge (instead of just one) or whatever but laugh if you suggest that sometimes warriors might have to interrupt their HBs or delay their WWAs.

I find pure GS build more practical for most of the dungeons with GS/sw+wh combo. Superior mobility+swiftness+weakness+vigor because of many stacking places, GS WW attack is great.

While for fractals the old meta GS/axe+mace (axe+wh for higher levels) is better for me.

Somehow I cannot get used to pure axe build, miss mobility and WW too much…

Basically it all boils down to one thing.

Press 2 to win. That is all warrior is.