Picked up GW2 again a few days ago. This time around, I’m playing purely for PVE since I’ve got other games I enjoy more for PVP. Figured I’d run my warrior Sword/Sword with 0/20/20/30/0 Shouts as a very easy and forgiving build to get back into things.
Being a rather analytical player, I wanted to figure out what stats I should be looking for on this build. Looking at cast times, I figured it’d be reasonable to say that in 1 minute, you can get:
- 20 Sever Artery/Gash/Final Thrust chains (50 seconds)
- 3 Impale/Rip chains (~4-5 seconds)
- 1 Riposte (~2 seconds)
- 3-4 seconds of dead time (dodge rolls, out of range, lagging, etc)
I assumed a 2600 armor target (tooltip damage).
Power/Precision/Critical stats will become more valuable against targets with lower armor, or if you manage to sneak in additional Sword 1 hits.
Condition Damage will become more valuable if you successfully Riposte more often, or if you rune for (and can make use of) additional Bleed duration.
With that out of the way, see results below, or here in image format.
Math done in OpenOffice.org Calc; .xls @ MediaFire here.
Damage at 100% Bleed
Carrion 116344 100%
Rampager's 115473 99%
RabidCarrion 111740 96%
CarrionZerker 108291 93%
Rabid 106043 91%
Berserker's 104036 89%
CarrionKnight 100271 86%
KnightZerker 94810 81%
Knight's 84238 72%Damage at 80% Bleed
Rampager's 101330 100%
Carrion 100391 99%
CarrionZerker 96115 95%
Berserker's 95643 94%
RabidCarrion 95557 94%
Rabid 89632 88%
CarrionKnight 88096 87%
KnightZerker 86418 85%
Knight's 75845 75%
Damage at 60% Bleed
Berserker's 87251 100%
Rampager's 87188 100%
Carrion 84438 97%
CarrionZerker 83939 96%
RabidCarrion 79373 91%
KnightZerker 78025 89%
CarrionKnight 75920 87%
Rabid 73222 84%
Knight's 67452 77%
Damage at 40% Bleed
Berserker's 78858 100%
Rampager's 73046 93%
CarrionZerker 71764 91%
KnightZerker 69632 88%
Carrion 68485 87%
CarrionKnight 63744 81%
RabidCarrion 63189 80%
Knight's 59059 75%
Rabid 56812 72%
Stats like “CarrionZerker” mean Carrion armor/weapons with Berserker’s accessories.
Problems:
Mixed stats not done efficiently when Critical Damage involved. Solution: be less lazy.
Tooltip cast times not indicative of real gameplay. Solution: Timed attacks with FRAPS + Vegas Pro.
Also I realize Sword/Sword is not a particularly popular build for anything. Still, wanted to share for anyone else in a similar situation, and maybe encourage others to take a little deeper look at builds.
P.S. napkin math done on the side says Condition Damage Sword/Sword is basically on par with Power/Crit Axe/Axe, even accounting for the fact that Eviscerate hits pretty kitten hard while Flurry is near-worthless. Take that how you will.