Guild Wars 2

So with Steady Weapons testing I found that there is either an incorrect Tool Tip, or incorrect damage calculation for the Sword auto-chain attack Mind Spike. Tested on Heavy golems whose damage should match tool tip and don’t have boons.

The Tool Tip shows the chain damage kitten, 55, 82/109 (with boon/without boon)

What I got was 55, 55, ?/98 (couldn’t test on something with boon)

Two problems here:
1. According to your own patch notes https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-25th-2013/first#post2339673
-Mind Spike: Reduced the base damage by 20%. This skill does an additional 50% damage to targets with no boons.
Even if the Damage matched the Tool Tip, the increase from 82 to 109 is only a 33% increase, not 50%.

2. Actual Damage is only 98, up from 82 (according to Tool Tip) which is only a 20% increase in damage.

I am making assumption Tool Tip is correct for Mind Spike here because the Tool Tip for Mind Slash and Mind Gash both match perfectly every time.

Attached is Screen Shot of my Damage logs. I had to hit medium golem twice and use Mind Spike on Heavy because the first two apply vulnerability and affect the results.

It’s not that I cant do this. As I said above, it is quite possible to test the Damage, and work backwards to determine the Coefficient. The issue is that the phantasms don’t use steady weapons when you do. Say for instance your weapon Damage is between 900 and 1000, you have a chance to change your Damage by 100. The difference becomes more vast when its multiplied with Power.

To compensate you have to run multiple tests to get a sample size large enough. Say you run 1 test, and get the 1000 Damage, it is not representative of the population. Basic stats says a sample of 30 is comparable to a population if it’s randomly distributed . But to be accurate, 50+ would be required per phantasm. I just don’t want to sit there testing… I was wondering if anyone knew of a source to find the numbers. Looks like I have no choice because it’s just going to bug me now otherwise.

Getting stronger with power and traiting for them isn’t the issue. The issue is it is impossible to calculate True Base DPS without knowing all of the factors, mainly the Base Damage Coefficient. Without it, it is impossible to create a graph-able function or chart for DPS comparisons between the phantasms. Just doing random tests on Golems in Mists can not scale the DPS comparison to anything other than those specific stats, and even then then, your sample size has to be quite large to compensate for the evenly distributed random distribution of Damage between fixed Min and Max possibilities.

Xyonon.3987:

It doesn’t matter how much armor they got, does it? Lets say 1000 damage and 1333 damage (33%+) against 2600 armor. Against 1300 armor you should deal 2000 damage and 2666, shouldn’t you? The calculation was “/armor” in the end, so its a facor and allways %. Bad english i hope you get it :s

You are correct. Armour is an inverse multiplier. What ever % your decrease or increase armour will change the Damage the same % in the opposite way. Half Armor, Double Damage.
But the tool tip is based off of 2600 Armour, so unless you know the percentage difference on anything else, you can’t compare your damage to the tool tip. The Heavy Golem has 2600 Armor, so it is perfect for testing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-25th-2013

Posted By A-Net them selves:
Mesmer:
Mind Spike: Reduced the base damage by 20%. This skill does an additional 50% damage to targets with no boons.

So they are indeed shorting us 30% damage… In my pve power build, that could be between 1000-2000 dmg depending on armour… And pvp/wvw even though its less likely to attack things without boons, is a significant damage loss.

Curious how the Tool Tip shows a 33% increase, the Patch Notes show a 50%, and the actual damage calculator is using 20%. I could see an input error on one thing, but in 3 separate things…

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Works fine for me in dungeons. Stopped and checked, getting the same damage non-crit as it says it should be getting.

Here’s the problem, your weapon isn’t steady, so your Tool Tip is only an average of possible damage between certain numbers. It is possible your just getting lucky and your damage is getting the higher of the averages. But even then, the chances of getting the Exact same damage from a non-steady weapon is not going to happen often. Also Tool Tip is based off 2600 armor, and if the enemies have less, your damage will increase. Only true tests are possible in mists.

I will get some screen shots and post it in bug forum.

Yes, for one shot and channeling. The swordsman for instance, when it begins the attack, takes 1-1.5 seconds to jump in, hit, jump out. Once out it begins its recharge timer. So the chart does not account for this.

Don’t recall what patch it was. But they nerfed the sword damage and in exchange put in a +33% damage for enemies without boons. The issue was it was reading if the boons were on you, not the enemy, so the damage bonus never occurred. This was fixed, but the Damage is not matching up to what it should be.

Xavi.6591:

Phantasm recharge rates – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste

Yes, and they do appear to be quite accurate. But there is no numbers for all the attacking times. Zerker, Swordsman don’t channel, but my prelim tests show 1-1.5 seconds for attacking before recharge starts. These need to be added to calculate true DPS. So far my tests show:
4.5 seconds between attacks for swordsman
7 seconds between attacks for Zerker

The others have wiki channeling times that seem accurate so just need to add them to recharge rates.

I was doing some steady weapon testing and I noticed something with the phantasms.

1. They don’t do steady damage when summoned from a steady weapon (so they get new non-steady weapons at summon i guess)

2. The Tool Tip damage only adjusts with power on the Swordsman, Duelist and Zerker, not the Warden, Warlock and Mage

3. Only the Tool Tip damage on the Swordsman is remotely accurate

4. Power of the summoned phantasms is Fluid. If you gain a stack of might after summon, the power increase transfers to the Phantasms as you stack them, and do not need to be stacked before the summon.

5. Power is strictly based off of yourself. Any and ALL might stacked on a phantasm does absolutely nothing for it, the power will just be what yours is. Though other boons still do affect it.

Just thought that was interesting. But since I was trying to calculate Actual DPS of phantasms because of all this forum hype about weapons ( I like real numbers, not poorly tested ones with too many extraneous variables). I was wondering if anyone knew of a source code or Anything that provided a base coefficient of the their Damage. Otherwise I have to do naked testing and extrapolate the coefficient as an average based on Damage done. Which isn’t all that fun as to get a decent sample size, is 30+ tests per phantasm.

While doing some steady weapon tests in Mists I noticed the damage for the Mind Stab is still not performing properly. Instead of getting a 33% Damage boost when the enemy has no Boons, we are actually only getting a 19.5% boost.

Test: Tool Tip damage is based on average weapon damage on a 2600 Armor enemy. Steady Weapon vs Heavy Golem means tool tip will be 100% accurate all the time. Damage says it should be 109 from 82, which is the 33%. Actual damage is 98 which is only 19.5%.

So they fixed the whole no boon registry thing, but are cutting our damage by 13.5%…

colesy.8490:

Reflecting is better than destroying, it makes encounters end faster

I also offer 25 stacks of might and glamour. You don’t offer as much reflects as a phantasm mesmer which kills a lot of the point of even taking you along.

Reflecting makes encounters end faster than killing everything faster? HUH?

Where is your 25 stacks of might coming from? signet off of Guard? cool. just said that doesn’t last very long.

I have done dozens of runs in +40 fractals as both a phantasm mesmer, and as this shatter build. Both work well. OP asked if shatter builds were useless in PvE. My point is they are not.

Uncatagorized fractal, ya, sucks with less reflect. But Dredge and Ascalonian fractals, it works amazing. Conversely, your build shines in Uncatagorized, but I am willing to bet my build out performs yours for all the trash in the others.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Most teams are going to have 25 stacks of might for a good amount of time after you double them with the signet. All you need for that is 1 guardian with a staff.

Might duration is only 10s from staff plus what ever duration bonus they have. Great for opening spikes, but might is usually gone in middle of fight. Your also counting on having a guardian. Each weapons swap for me is 3 stacks for 40s. and the 25 stacks I get is for 20-25s.

LordByron.8369:

completely agree
Phantasm build suffers trash mobs…..but its way better at bosses

But there a single warden outdps shatter by a mile.

Just reflecting back damage in fractal you see 50K often plus the 13K of iwarden itself (each iwarden)+ bleeding.

Unfortunately phantasms dies a lot because they don t only dies when they are killed but also when your target dies :/

I still see that 50K reflect too with feedback. Just have to really watch animations to time your reflect since you don’t have as much.

colesy.8490:

So basically your only team support is signet, which all mesmers can use and apart from that you don’t have a traited focus or faster glamour cooldown/longer glamour duration, so you’re not even being that useful to your team, just leeching.

If you wanted to just do DPS, run a thief.

If you want to be a useful dungeon mesmer, you need to trait your focus.

25 stacks of Might every 45 seconds = kittens dies quicker = less need for reflecting.

I still run feedback. My warden still destroys projectiles. My Curtain still pulls mobs into balls. My null field still works just fine. So what? I lose 8 seconds of CD… or 2 seconds of duration….

I still run full team support, just instead of more glamour, I offer 25 stacks of Might.

AGAIN. Not necessarily better in all situations. But works just fine.

I run a shatter build for 40+ lvl fractals, CoE, CoF, explorable world and so on with no problems what so ever. Though this is really only super effective in Teams.

0/20/20/0/30. Bountiful Interruption + Might on Shatter + Illusionary Elasticity (for GS#2) + Sigils of Battle + Runes of Strength/Fire/Hoelbrak + 20% boon food = 100% Might Duration Increase for 25 stacks of Might almost all the time, usually for 20s.

Pyroatheist.9031:

In fractals, my zerker will generally do upwards of 4k-7k damage on mobs/bosses. This is roughly equivalent to 1 shatter. If the zerker attacks more than once, it has now out-dpsed shatter. Keep in mind that’s only 1 phantasm.

My Zerker hits for this too when I have 25 Stacks of Might, my Warden hits up to 10k too. Plus 3.2k times 4 shatters. Totalling 18-20k Damage Spikes to each of up to 5 targets. Sure my Zerker gets shattered and won’t be hitting as often, but 25 stacks of might on every other attack! So I would say my sustained damage combined is about equal to the loss of the extra Zerker hit.

A Phantasm Build Can only sustain 9-12 stacks of might without sacrificing something. Want Bountiful Interruption? Wheres the 20 pts come from? go 10/10/20/30/0? No cool down on GS for zerker… No Illusionary Elasticity = 3 less stacks from GS#2. The only Might comes from Sigils of Battle. So Damage wise, I DO NOT think either is better!!! they probably even out.

Team Support you say? Well sure I don’t have as much reflect… and no Regeneration… But with Signet of Inspiration my whole team now has 25 stacks of might for 20s+! Tell me how you could possibly quantify the DPS increase of 4 party members with an extra 875 Power and 875 Condition Damage! I have seen my party melt mobs in lvl 48 Fractals with this.

But your phantasms hit with this much all the time and I have to get stacks of might up first? Well your right, but I open with Temp Curtain to try for an interrupt, do the whole clone shatter thing, swap to GS, GS#2, clones and shatter. Even without the interrupt, I just got 15 Stacks of Might in under 10s. With an Interrupt or 2, 20-25 stacks, Signet and watch kittens die.

Bosses are definitely the weakest part of the build because interrupts don’t work, but you can still sustain 15-18 stacks of might easily enough.

Disclaimer
I am not going to say this build is better than a phantasm build. Each has their strengths. But so far all I have read this thread was everyone claiming Phantasms were the better of the two. I ran phantasm builds for Months, tried soo many variations. But this one seems to work better for me atleast.

Pyroatheist.9031:

So, the effectiveness of precise wrack does depend on your crit damage and your overall play style. If you tend to use wrack more exclusively as opposed to sustaining with other hits, then it might be better. Also depending on your specific damage path you use, if you blurred frenzy before wrack, then compounding power will give you a boost. If the other way around, not so much.

Ultimately, this depends heavily on your play style, and additionally a bit on your crit damage.

Yes, if you are lazy, and don’t do absolutely anything but Mind Wrack, the Precise Wrack is always better. But, who doesn’t do anything else, even if its just auto attacking.

If your auto attack is doing 9% more damage than the base auto attack, then your ratio increase will always be 0.09 regardless of base damage or power. So any attack, at say 2000 Power will see an increase of 180 Damage. Pretty Close to the 230 Damage we had from Mind Wrack at same Power in the best case. But how many attacks can you get in between shattering every 10 seconds? 2-3 auto attacks? You just gained more damage with Compounding Power. And this was with 100% crit damage bonus with 1 clone. Most of the other times, 1 auto attack is all you need to increase damage.

Lastly, in PvP and WvW, its highly unlikely your using mind wrack every 10 seconds on CD unless you don’t know what your doing. You have to time your bursts, wait for their CD and defense to drop. So every attack you do in between the mind wrack is adding up more damage than the one burst damage increase Precise Wrack provides.

So a few of my Mesmer buddies and I were build storming, and a few of them said they prefered Precise Wrack over Compounding Power because it increases their spike damage. I have also seen a few posts in forums saying its better. I didn’t think the damage would be all that significant, so I broke it down and did some math and figured someone else might be interested.

This is only comparing the Damage of the mind wrack by itself, not anything else.

Precise Wrack adds 10% critical chance.
Compounding Power adds 3% damage per illusion, so Mind Wrack with 3 shatters and IP adds 9% to you and 1 clone, 6% to second clone, and 3% to last clone.

Using base Numbers because Power will scale both evenly, only Critical Damage will change the ratios.

+50% Crit Damage | Precise Wrack | Compounding Power | Ratio
Shatter 1 clone —-———536 —-———— 502——————— 0.067
Shatter 2 clones———— 623——————595———————-0.047
Shatter 3 clones————-721——————700———————-0.030

+75% Crit Damage | Precise Wrack | Compounding Power | Ratio
Shatter 1 clone————-549———————502——————— 0.092
Shatter 2 clones —-—— 637——————-595———————-0.071
Shatter 3 clones —-—— 738——————-700 —-—————- 0.053

+100% Crit Damage | Precise Wrack | Compounding Power | Ratio
Shatter 1 clone —-——- 561———————502 —-—————0.116
Shatter 2 clones———— 652———————595——————-0.095
Shatter 3 clones————-754——————-700 —-—————0.077

So as you can see the damage is slightly higher with Precise Wrack then it is with Compounding Power.

If you want to see how much Damage that actually adds up to, take your Power and Multiply it to the ratio for your Crit Damage % and the result is the increase in damage.

2000 power * 0.116 (best ratio in sample) = 232 Damage.

Not a whole lot of bang for your buck. 232 damage increase for Precise Wrack. Especially when the ratio shrinks as the clones increase because Compounding Power increases its effectiveness as it goes. 3 clones only provide 154 damage increase at same Critical Damage.

Now take into account you have a shatter build, so you always have 2-3 illusions up except right after shatters. Mind Wrack is only usable every 10 seconds when you could be doing +9% damage with every other skill (except phantasms) all the time which should result in more sustained damage. Choice has to be Compounding Power.

TLDR
Either take both traits, or take Compounding Power because math said so. (with the exception of someone who only uses Mind Wrack and no other skill in between…)

In a shatter spike it can be a nice close to finish off the spike and if lucky, get an interrupt on heal combined with bountiful interruption for follow-up damage.

I find its only useful with self shatter, not with 2 or 3 clones out. Unless the clones are staggered, the daze doesn’t stack up, so they get wasted. Assuming your running +3% damage per illusion, then the damage output is more beneficial with them alive and waiting on the next mind wrack.

Panicore.9035:

Hi, Im trying to get this achivement now, but I cant survive his attacks, I just die to fast for my heal to go of CD. Afaik they fixed him right? Any new possible tactic known to complete this now?

I have do not know how they patched him so I can not say if it is still possible. I just used a lot of stuns to prevent his Head Shot back then and let phantasms work on him.

It may now be easier to do the 5 gambits on Subject 7 as mentioned above. Take wardens feedback and glamour specs. between feedback, wardens reflect, temporal field, blurred frenzy and shatter 4 (last resort), you should be able to negate 100% of their attacks as you kill it. Just need to time them just as the last one is stopping. Phantasmal haste would be a good idea to shave 1.8 seconds off the warden combined with IC to have a couple wardens out during fight.

I would just suggest full zerker so your damage is maxed. with all the damage negated, survivability shouldn’t be an issue.

I really want an anomaly too, but I use focus a lot in wvw. Since clones don’t have off hands, I would be standing out too much. Not that I can’t have two and only use it in pve, but I would want to show it off….

I will have to wait and see how much it changes when I get one. Who knows how my times a clone has saved my life by taking a burst being mistaken for me.

If your running a phantasm build, you may want to drop deceptive evasion for blade training or far reaching manipulations. In fights where it isnt 4v1 (showcased in your video) you wont notice phantasms being overwritten by it, but they can be, and it isn’t necessary for you to have as many clones up if your not constantly shattering. Survivability is no longer dependent on how many clones you can produce, but how well you can use the ones you have out.

Also, try shattering in between phantasms. I didn’t did you shatter much at all other than distortion. Shattering for a Phantasm build is like a Shatter build not waiting for the phantasms to strike before shattering. Two sides of the same coin where Damage can be added substantially. Granted the damage is a lot less than in a shatter build, but it is by far more than just wisping into butterflies because you got overwritten.

I run a very similar build, with 15/30/0/25/0 so I can have sword training and duelist discipline in Dueling as well as fury. I spend more time on sword so it works for me. My rotation starts with GS, pop phant, swap, pop duelist, go about my business, and I wait till duelist CD is off, not Weapon Swap CD. and i can F3 Shatter for 10-15 extra stacks of Vuln with Daze. pop duelist, swap and pop berserker. Situations pending, this rotation has worked extremely well for me in tPvP and sPvP. 1v1 and 1v2.

Dastion.3106:

Subject 7 is also extremely easy for Gambits, I’d say easier because you don’t need to worry about interrupts.

Drop a Warden on him and hide inside it’s protective bubble while you MH Sword attack him. After the first channel throw up Feedback to protect you while it recharges, by time the warden channels a second time you can summon a second and just take turns hiding in each.

Subject 7 was easy for taking triple threat on, but when i added in the other two became a lot harder with such low vit/toughness. especially since your on fire and cant dodge roll.. (wasting my sigils of energy)

This one was literally standing there spamming phantasms and auto attack and a few interrupts during animation. You have Pistol 5, 2 mantras, and 2 signets, blurred frenzy and distortion to avoid a kill shot while phantasms work away. I Killed him before even using my signets, but if your not pure Zerker, you can still do it. Other than missing a Kill Shot interrupt, you can’t fail this way.

Just thought I would pass on the easiest way to do the achievement for 5 gambits in a teir 3 fight. This also gets you Triple Threat, Risk Taker and Humble Victor in one go

Do it vs Deadeye Dunwell and take all of the gambits but the Crowd Favorite.

Spec full zerker, run any variation of a phantasm build you want, and take x/P and what ever you want. Trick is bringing mantra of distraction, signet of domination, signet of midnight.

Cast phantasms, and just walk to center (no point in chasing when he blinks, your phantasms will do the running). Use an interrupt or Blind every time you see the Head Shot animation, and your phantasms will work him down for you. Got achievement first time I tried with relatively no difficulty. GS S/P would probably be the fastest way to do it.

Feedback and any reflects/blocks do not stop the Head Shot. But distortion and Blurred frenzy do avoid it. From what i have seen its a channeling move, so it still targets you if you try to stealth and avoid it.

@Osicat, Does the Remove Condition finisher work on you, or your phantasm whose using the projectile?

I also use a similar Phantasm Build. 15/30/0/25/0 with 15 in domination to stack vuln with shatter f3 right before new phantasm burst. I like the +50 Power, 5% duration for Vuln and Minor Trait more than I like or need a grandmaster/3rd trait in Inspiration. Personal preference I suppose since it suits my style better even if it might not be the best on paper.

Osicat.4139:

Also remeber, leap thru veil for chaos armour.

It’s a sad day when you realize Osicat hasn’t read the patch changes that have been out for over a day.

Veil has been fixed to be a light field as it shows in description. Leap will grant retaliation, which is also good. (I am making assumption they actually changed it and not just said they did…)

Edit: lol, reading post he made 6 min later where he notes the changes to veil…

Helicity.3416:

DS is your survival tool, gap closer and crowd

This is my point. The only time I want to be in DS in my condition build is in a panic survival situation, if I need some slight crowd control, and when I swap to my staff and spam my marks leaving 5-6 seconds before I can swap back to scepter. If I am on swap CD from scepter then the auto attack is way more useful than DS because of lingering curse stacking bleeds. So I don’t need the life force pool gains and I don’t need DS CD reduction.

Terror is a condition and obviously works in condition builds, but I don’t want spectral wall, and that leaves staf skill 5, and DS 3 for terror. But that puts me back into DS which I don’t want to be and staf skill 5 has long CD. Lastly the stat buff from soul reaping isn’t useful either.

My power is super low with full rabid, so bonus damage to nothing is still nothing. The way I see it is vampiric is like a condition (armor ignoring and not reliant on power). It flows with my high crit build better. The 200 vitality and healing power added also work with the build for just tanking and spamming conditions.

Traiting for terror feels like a waste for all of the 3-4 extra seconds I get out of 2 skills. It’s not like terror isn’t useful enough as a stun skill without traiting for it. I am just not feeling the synergy for traiting in soul reaping. I could trade the curses major for terror over corruption cd though.

What I find though is most traits in soul reaping and spite are aimed at power and damage. The condition duration from spite is nice, but none of the traits increase condition abilities. DS itself is more for power, every time I am in it I am losing bleeding I could be stacking with scepter. Torments is just bleeding essentially so not worth going into DS for it. Skill 2 is ok, and 3 for fear for control, but its not overly synergistic with a pure condition build.

Although blood magic which vampiric traits isn’t very condition orientated, I can justify it with the high crit rate from fury in DS making it more viable to pop quickly, burst and get out of it. Do vampire skills take the health from the target at the same rate it heals you?

That’s a terror build. Which I already know and use, and was not what I was asking about. My question was the effectiveness of the blood magic traits for life siphoning in a condition build.

If they are not that effective I will put the 20 pts into spite.

So I was trying to work out a condition build and what I was thinking was 0/30/20/20/0 with full rabid on everything. With staff/scepter-dagger
Utility as blood is power, epidemic and and exchangeable 3rd one depending.

Hemophilia/corruption CD/lingering curse for curses lines
Staff CD/greater marks for death magic
The question I have is the effectiveness of the last two traits for blood magic. Would the bloodthirst and vampiric precision be effective? Rabid gear and curses offer a high crit rate and with sigils of accuracy can stack up to 70% crit rate. Would this be good for extra survivability and dmg, or am I wasting my traits on this. It seems to synergize with the bleeding on crits and in DS with fury has a really high chance to crit multiple times to steal life. I am jus unsure of their effectiveness.

Any suggestions?

hmm, I didnt consider the sigils not applying to phantasms, but it makes sense as it is a bonus multiplier to your base dmg, and not theirs, but a stacking sigil will change the stats the phantasm starts with. I was working on a new spreadsheet for stacking sigil comparison but I will need to do some more research and make an abridged post on it.

Ascalonian fractal lvl 28, on final boss, Pug clearly doesnt get the whole go to range thing and don’t clump under meteor shower… so they either wipe from agony blast or fire balls from the sky, and there I am with the GS at my safe 1200 range. The squire couldnt tell if it wanted me or my phantasms and ran back and forth not doing anything and with blink I was able to kite, stay out of Agony/Fire blast and his whirlwind (zerker so 1 hit KO with those). 25 minutes of kiting and dmg and I solo’d the boss from about 60% HP (stupid NPC wouldnt aggro on him for 2 minutes…). 2 of the people in group said they wanted to make a mesmer now… Not OP, just pure skill

Consumables
Utility and Food! but do you want power or precision? Sharpening stones or Maintenance Oil. Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup or Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup. It has to be one of these foods as the +10% Crit Dmg is essential! Remember we are going for Dmg, not worrying about the cost of the consumables. High level fractals offer enough returns to make up for cost and I only use them on when I really need to DPS.

How I did the Calculations
Everything really boils down to this formula: Average damage = Base damage * (Bonus Mutiplier + Critical Hits) . The Base Dmg is changed by the Power, the Bonus is changed by the Runes and Sigils and the Critical Hits are based on Crit Dmg and the chance it will hit (Factoring = Base Dmg * Critical % Bonus / Critical Chance). Big thing to notice is the Bonus Multiplier adds to the critical instead of multiplying to it. So Sigil of force adding 5% dmg means when you Critical for 200% Dmg, you do 205% of your Base Dmg. The same goes for the Rune of the Scholar/Eagle bonuses too.

I didn’t Factor in Armor of your enemy so the Dmg will be way higher than what you will actually do, but that falls under the same assumption as Weapon Dmg and isn’t really needed to do this comparison. It effects all the Dmg evenly so the increased Dmg still applies.

I used http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator to calculate the changes on each set so Huge thanks to them for the ability to do this without spending a fortune in game or spending hours writing down the stats to add them up.

I put everything into an excel sheet and calculated it based on the Runes, and then which Consumables to use. The sigils of Force and Accuracy are already built into the stats. Here is the sheet in PDF format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/chgj7ay2e1a3ynl/Mesmer%20Damage%20Stats.pdf

I notice I didn’t calculate the the Utilities without the +10% Crit the food gives, but since nothing changes drastically in the end results, Essentially if it comes down to having food or utilities, the food with +10%Crit makes it worth way more.

Quick Reference
Upower = Utility Power and so on
Fpower = Food Power and so on

Conclusion and Summary
Highlighted in Yellow is the Highest Dmg possible for that set of Runes. It’s not really surprising that the highest Dmg set without consumables is also the Highest with, but what is surprising is the consumables needed to balance out the set.

In Absolutely no circumstance was it better to use both Power Utilities and Power Food. You either need high precision to balance the Power from the Runes, or a mixture of both.

So what I plan on using from now on. I am leaning heavily on the Rune of the Eagle for a few major reasons. I rarely spend a lot of time above 90% HP, so my first spike would be nice with Scholar runes, but more consistent with Eagles 5% for enemies under 50% HP. The overall increased Crit chance is nice for have Critical Infusion (Vigor on Criticals) as well as Sharper Images (Illusion Bleeds on Criticals). With Phantasmal Fury, my phantams would have a 93% chance of Crits, and seeing as 2x Precision consumables is not very far behind in the Dmg, 98% Chance of Critical with Fury would make up for it with the bleeds.

As for the Sigils, I tinkered around with it, and have Accuracy and Force still are worth more to me then others, but hey if you can get 25 stacks of either and keep it, then its definitely worth it.

Lastly, the reason I say this might not apply to you, is because of the Optimization of it. Notice some require 2xPrecision, but others need both Power and Precision. If you trait more into Domination, or less into Dueling, your Optimal point might change. Especially in Dueling with the loss of the Crit % and that devalues the effectiveness of Precision.

I would love to hear what you guys thought about this, and feel free to PM me in-game if you have a question or so on.

Shinigami Curse.5940
Guild – [SotD] Shadow of the Darkside
Server -Darkhaven

Although I did this as a Mesmer, the application applies to any class trying to run full zerker.

I have been going through forums and Guru and Wiki trying to find out what is better to put stats into and I could find nothing definitive. So I made my own excel calculation and broke it down, and here are the results.

Theory and Thoughts
So most of what I have read has said that for pure damage, go for Power. It’s true that it has a Direct Linear increase effect on the damage done, but the catch is in Critical Damage. I figured there would be an optimization where the % increased chance for critical hits would be worth more than the increased base damage from Power. That is to say, Doing double Dmg more often makes up for doing less Base Dmg.

I play a Zerker Phantasm Mesmer so everything needs to be full zerker for maximum damage, but the runes/sigils/consumables are up to you. Zerker armor/trinkets treat precision/power/crit as non-exclusive so it is the most useful for high damage, but the runes/sigils/consumables do make them mutually-exclusive so this is where changes can have effects (with exception of Ruby Orbs).

Why Zerker?
I mostly do dungeons(fractals), and with a few exceptions, more damage is more useful despite being squishy. I find its more of an L2P issue when you down a lot and not to do with having no toughness. So when you learn, the Damage speaks for itself.

Disclaimer
These stats apply to these traits only as changing the traits will change the Optimization of your choices. I will explain further down in the calculations part.

Traits
I run a lot of fractals and I find running more Utility is better for the team and therefore better for the run, Glass Cannon traits could be useful in a group you run well with, but in Pugs I like being safer. So I use 10/30/0/30/0. Dueling, although I don’t like any of Grandmaster traits, the extra 10% Crit Damage and 100 precision is so hard to say no to. 25 of the Inspiration Phantasmal Strength (15% damage on phantasms) and I just put it to 30 because of the extra Utility you can bring with it. 10 in Domination is for Empowered Illusions (15% more damage for phantams!!).

Weapons and some formulas…
Doesn’t matter what weapon you use for this calculation as long as it is Zerker stats. The Sigils do matter, but we will explain them below. The reason the weapon doesn’t matter is it’s damage is exclusive to the changes in Power or Precision. The damage for each weapon is fixed in a set range and can not change. The formula for Damage is Damage =(weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor). In the formula Power is made up of your Stat Power and your Damage Bonus Multiplier. These are the only two things we can drastically change (Stat Power is directly increased by more power, and Damage Bonus Multiplier is increased by Rune bonuses, Sigils and Critical Damage % which is increased in chance by Precision).

Sigils
Stacking Precision or Power, Force for 5% Dmg, Accuracy for 5% Crit Chance. Which to choose? Well, when i was running a shatter build, i liked having a sigil of Energy for the added dodge clone production, but for Phantasm, I chose the sigils of Force and Accuracy for my main and offhand and Accuracy for my two handed weapons. Running Zerker I don’t Down too often, but enough that stacking sigils don’t get the chance to add up. That means they’re out, especially when you can get the 5% bonus right up front all the time. This can be up to you, but again, it will change your optimization. For my calculations I ran with the added 5% of each stat.

Runes
Goal is Damage, so the only real choices are Runes of the Mesmer/Scholar/Eagle/Ranger and Ruby Orbs. I don’t like/need the 6th trait from Mesmer or Ranger so I would just stick a Ruby Orb on one piece (For calculation purposes I left Ranger out as having Eagle gives way better 6th trait and is same stats without it). Considering the condition to get the +Dmg Bonus on Scholar and Eagle, I factored them in separately too (hard to keep over 90% as a zerker…) The majority of the calculations revolve heavily on these runes.

Consumables
Utility and Food! but do you want power or precision? Sharpening stones or Maintenance Oil. Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup or Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup. It has to be one of these foods as the +10% Crit Dmg is essential! Remember we are going for Dmg, not worrying about the cost of the consumables. High level fractals offer enough returns to make up for cost and I only use them on when I really need to DPS.

How I did the Calculations
Everything really boils down to this formula: Average damage = Base damage * (Bonus Mutiplier + Critical Hits) . The Base Dmg is changed by the Power, the Bonus is changed by the Runes and Sigils and the Critical Hits are based on Crit Dmg and the chance it will hit (Factoring = Base Dmg * Critical % Bonus / Critical Chance). Big thing to notice is the Bonus Multiplier adds to the critical instead of multiplying to it. So Sigil of force adding 5% dmg means when you Critical for 200% Dmg, you do 205% of your Base Dmg. The same goes for the Rune of the Scholar/Eagle bonuses too.

I didn’t Factor in Armor of your enemy so the Dmg will be way higher than what you will actually do, but that falls under the same assumption as Weapon Dmg and isn’t really needed to do this comparison. It effects all the Dmg evenly so the increased Dmg still applies.

I used http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator to calculate the changes on each set so Huge thanks to them for the ability to do this without spending a fortune in game or spending hours writing down the stats to add them up.

I put everything into an excel sheet and calculated it based on the Runes, and then which Consumables to use. The sigils of Force and Accuracy are already built into the stats. Here is the sheet in PDF format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/chgj7ay2e1a3ynl/Mesmer%20Damage%20Stats.pdf

I notice I didn’t calculate the the Utilities without the +10% Crit the food gives, but since nothing changes drastically in the end results, Essentially if it comes down to having food or utilities, the food with +10%Crit makes it worth way more.

Quick Reference
Upower = Utility Power and so on
Fpower = Food Power and so on

Conclusion and Summary
Highlighted in Yellow is the Highest Dmg possible for that set of Runes. It’s not really surprising that the highest Dmg set without consumables is also the Highest with, but what is surprising is the consumables needed to balance out the set.

In Absolutely no circumstance was it better to use both Power Utilities and Power Food. You either need high precision to balance the Power from the Runes, or a mixture of both.

So what I plan on using from now on. I am leaning heavily on the Rune of the Eagle for a few major reasons. I rarely spend a lot of time above 90% HP, so my first spike would be nice with Scholar runes, but more consistent with Eagles 5% for enemies under 50% HP. The overall increased Crit chance is nice for have Critical Infusion (Vigor on Criticals) as well as Sharper Images (Illusion Bleeds on Criticals). With Phantasmal Fury, my phantams would have a 93% chance of Crits, and seeing as 2x Precision consumables is not very far behind in the Dmg, 98% Chance of Critical with Fury would make up for it with the bleeds.

As for the Sigils, I tinkered around with it, and have Accuracy and Force still are worth more to me then others, but hey if you can get 25 stacks of either and keep it, then its definitely worth it.

Lastly, the reason I say this might not apply to you, is because of the Optimization of it. Notice some require 2xPrecision, but others need both Power and Precision. If you trait more into Domination, or less into Dueling, your Optimal point might change. Especially in Dueling with the loss of the Crit % and that devalues the effectiveness of Precision.

I would love to hear what you guys thought about this, and feel free to PM me in-game if you have a question or so on.

Shinigami Curse.5940
Guild – [SotD] Shadow of the Darkside
Server -Darkhaven

So I have been going through forums and Guru and Wiki trying to find out what is better to put stats into and I could find nothing definitive. So I made my own excel calculation and broke it down, and here are the results.

Theory and Thoughts
So most of what I have read has said that for pure damage, go for Power. It’s true that it has a Direct Linear increase effect on the damage done, but the catch is in Critical Damage. I figured there would be an optimization where the % increased chance for critical hits would be worth more than the increased base damage from Power. That is to say, Doing double Dmg more often makes up for doing less Base Dmg.

I play a Zerker Phantasm Mesmer so everything needs to be full zerker for maximum damage, but the runes/sigils/consumables are up to you. Zerker armor/trinkets treat precision/power/crit as non-exclusive so it is the most useful for high damage, but the runes/sigils/consumables do make them mutually-exclusive so this is where changes can have effects (with exception of Ruby Orbs).

Why Zerker?
I mostly do dungeons(fractals), and with a few exceptions, more damage is more useful despite being squishy. I find its more of an L2P issue when you down a lot and not to do with having no toughness. So when you learn, the Damage speaks for itself.

Disclaimer
These stats apply to these traits only as changing the traits will change the Optimization of your choices. I will explain further down in the calculations part.

Traits
I run a lot of fractals and I find running more Utility is better for the team and therefore better for the run, Glass Cannon traits could be useful in a group you run well with, but in Pugs I like being safer. So I use 10/30/0/30/0. Dueling, although I don’t like any of Grandmaster traits, the extra 10% Crit Damage and 100 precision is so hard to say no to. 25 of the Inspiration Phantasmal Strength (15% damage on phantasms) and I just put it to 30 because of the extra Utility you can bring with it. 10 in Domination is for Empowered Illusions (15% more damage for phantams!!).

Weapons and some formulas…
Doesn’t matter what weapon you use for this calculation as long as it is Zerker stats. The Sigils do matter, but we will explain them below. The reason the weapon doesn’t matter is it’s damage is exclusive to the changes in Power or Precision. The damage for each weapon is fixed in a set range and can not change. The formula for Damage is Damage =(weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor). In the formula Power is made up of your Stat Power and your Damage Bonus Multiplier. These are the only two things we can drastically change (Stat Power is directly increased by more power, and Damage Bonus Multiplier is increased by Rune bonuses, Sigils and Critical Damage % which is increased in chance by Precision).

Sigils
Stacking Precision or Power, Force for 5% Dmg, Accuracy for 5% Crit Chance. Which to choose? Well, when i was running a shatter build, i liked having a sigil of Energy for the added dodge clone production, but for Phantasm, I chose the sigils of Force and Accuracy for my main and offhand and Accuracy for my two handed weapons. Running Zerker I don’t Down too often, but enough that stacking sigils don’t get the chance to add up. That means they’re out, especially when you can get the 5% bonus right up front all the time. This can be up to you, but again, it will change your optimization. For my calculations I ran with the added 5% of each stat.

Runes
Goal is Damage, so the only real choices are Runes of the Mesmer/Scholar/Eagle/Ranger and Ruby Orbs. I don’t like/need the 6th trait from Mesmer or Ranger so I would just stick a Ruby Orb on one piece (For calculation purposes I left Ranger out as having Eagle gives way better 6th trait and is same stats without it). Considering the condition to get the +Dmg Bonus on Scholar and Eagle, I factored them in separately too (hard to keep over 90% as a zerker…) The majority of the calculations revolve heavily on these runes.