Guild Wars 2

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Challenge history

1) The Slave Driver with tied hands, the 20th of September 2013:
Kill the Slave Driver in Citadel of Flame explorable path 1 with only off-hand weapons equipped in your group.
All skills are allowed for as long as you do not have main hand skills available (so no conjured weapons, no transformations, for example)

Challenge completed by rT on the 21st of September
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDXFK3STFSE

Score board

Format:
points) name

Guilds
1) rT

Players
1) Agony.3542 Anubarak.3012 Element.5647 Molch.2078 Sanderinoa.8065

Excelsior comrades!

Hidden between two dusty tomes in the Durmand Priory’s library was a mysterious note. I found this piece of paper, hastily written, hardly decipherable. It appears as if it was a lost page torn out from a book long forgotten. Here is what it says:

Getting closer to the Gods, seeking their guidance, such is the meaning of Ascension.
Many heroes have tried and the tales of those who succeeded are few, for the blessing of the Gods is not bestowed upon the undeserving.
Are we ever truly ready to face the tests lying on the path to greater powers?
We are not prepared.

I looked everywhere. I asked the wisest of all the sages in Tyria, and none have given me an answer. But one thing is for sure: there will be a time when we will face great hardship, and when that time comes we must be prepared, we must be ready!
_

My friends, I hereby present you:

The Ascension Challenge
Volume 1

_

This is the time and place where you can engage the best players for a friendly test of your skills and imagination.
The Ascension Challenge is a very simple concept, there is a Challenge Master, he defines a Challenge and anyone can try to beat it to claim the title and become the Challenge Master instead of him.
To achieve a challenge you have to beat the test defined by the challenge master exactly in the terms that he has stated. You have to provide a video for proof. The community then decides if you have properly performed, and in the end it is the challenge master who validates or invalidates your achievement. If your claim is approved then you become the challenge master and you have to define a challenge. You can be as creative as you want when designing challenges (group solo, traits, camera angle .. you name it). The point is not to make it impossible, but to make it interesting and entertaining.

Current challenge

The Russian rabbit roulette
21st of September 2013

Challenge master: Sanderinoa.8065 [rT] :
Finish the Uncategorized Fractal’s champion fight (right after the first set of harpies) by killing the rabbit last.
The fractal level has to be at least 28.
No consumables allowed apart from nourishment.
Kiting the rabbit out of the room is not allowed.

Congratulations to rT for completing the first challenge!

rT (Sanderinoa) has suceessfully claimed the challenge master title for themselves.
I will publish this in a scoreboard very soon

With full buffs

Nope, only off-hand weapons

Hey Guang, take a look at this: this is the rotation that Sabull and I have found to be most optimal for staff on a human-sized target. The size of the target is important because it affects the probability of the meteor hitting the target.

The first rotation is for staff with no reduction in cd, the second is with reduction in cd but no persisting flames (simply add 5 * 0.8 = 4 to total coefficients to include it)

Note that meteor shower is definitely worth casting on a human sized target, so it is even more on a larger boss.

This sheet is not formatted, sorry, but I think you can easily understand that the left column is the time elapsed, the center column is the cast time of the spell and the right column is the coefficient of the spell (total).

The total time of the fully traited rotation has been empirically observed to be 31s. This is different from that 29.8 it theoretically should be.

The results for cd + persisting flame is a 1.36 coefficient per second. Which is 1.50 if you compensate for weapon strength (to compare with LH).

With this, I calculate a 12k+ dps with my new calcualtor (which is quite reliable) and you seem to find the same.

_

On the other hand the best LH build has a build damage modifier of 2.06 and a crit modifier of 2.87 for the duration it is active (I say 46s and not 47 because it is better to not use the last few charges after the last full chain and pick up the second hammer instead), so its damage can reach much higher as you can see in my new calculator (link in my sig).

Edit: written on a mobile device, sorry for the possible inconvenience.

Gaung you are doing your calculation wrong … you need to take hammer’s attributes, modifiers as well as staff’s rotation into account. If you can find my old spreadsheet (not the new calcualtor) on the elem forum then you will see what I am talking about. Otherwise I will have more time on Sunday evening to show you the maths that allow to say that LH can do 14k+ dps.

Yes it would, but I not been playing much lately, so I have not been able to find the time to set up this test.

It would require at least two warriors, because we need 25 stacks to be able to notice a difference between additive and multiplicative behaviours (25% VS 28%). I’ll be back in game on Sunday evening so if anyone is willing to help me test this feel free to let me know!

mosspit.8936:

It is because Anet treats ascended weapons as a carrot for players to do other content. Even if the players do not actually enjoy doing the said content.

+1

Also: luck inflation

Guang you must have omitted something because I did the LH calculation many times and for the 46s/min you can use it the dps is definitely above 14k. I believe Dub also had this number.

Meteor shower is worth casting as well

Me? Editing? I would never do that!

I plugged in staff coefficient modified for weapon damage (1.50) in my calculator and I got a sweet 12k, so actually it’s nothing to laugh about (especially when you know that I calculated this coefficient for a human-size target)

And I retract what I didn’t edit: your staff spec is the best for a speed kill.

Also: gold, lots of it.

Staff if far from LH’s 13k+ dps. Check my Zalculator.

Sure, let’s talk about it

It’s not really like the TP is working well anyway

I doubt it ever was like that at any point

On a side note this is particularly interesting because it means that an All-damage Fresh air elementalist (10/30/20/10/0) would deal 95% of the damage of a warrior, under speedkill conditions.

But i’ll get back to you later on that since I need to polish my calculator before its results are to be trusted

Edit: and that’s not even a good speedkill spec I chose for elems …
Edit2: and I did not include the 70% burn uptime the fresh air elem can maintain …

I doubt that

Ok I figured it out:
- 100b has a coefficient of 5.5 over about 3.7s (3.5s + aftercast estimated at 0.2s)
= 1.48 c/s
- Axe AA has a c/s of 1.36
- GS AA anmation times are unknown to me but it does not matter because when you swap to GS you are always going to swap out after 5s, so the total GS use time is 5s, during which 3.7s are for 100b, which leaves only enough time for 2 GS AA single hits (maybe only one, please confirm for me) so the total coefficients = 5.5 + 0.7 * 2 = 6.9 over 5s so 1.38 raw c/s (1.51 modified for relative weapon strength: 1047.5 versus 952).
- two AAs in axe (full dps rotation) = 9.8 coefficient over 7.2s (c/s=1.36)

Therefore I get:
- GS: 6.9 (7.6 modified) coeff over 5s
- Axe: 9.8 coeff over 7.2s

Total coefficients: 17.4 (modified for relative weapon strength)
Total rotation time: 12.2s

Rotation c/s: 1.42 (modified)

Dub.1273:

But larger staff AoE’s?!?

I prefer the focus trait.

Hue

Yes, utility skills are allowed for as long as they do not give you main hand skills.
Thieves guild and Hounds of Balthazar are allowed.
Ranger’s pets are allowed, the ranger himself must use only off-hand weapons.
Death shroud is kind of in a grey area, I would say it is not allowed.

Consumables and other “stuff” are allowed, but keep it clean
Edit: afterthought, consumables are not allowed for this one!

Excelsior comrades!

For more than a year we have been wandering in dungeons, slaying monsters right and left. For more than a year we have been learning how to master these encounters, and we have become very good at it. So good that the only real way we can get better is by doing it faster. Speedrun records are definitely awesome. The feats of skill displayed by the top PvE players achieving them are truly amazing. Yet these speedruns often leave the viewer with a bitter after-taste. People want to see entertaining play, they want to see daring tactics, they want to see challenge … What if we could push the limits of our achievements and give the the performers as well as the viewers something to strive for?

_

My friends, I hereby present you:

The Dungeon Challenge
Volume 1

_

This is the time and place where you can engage the best players for a friendly test of your skills and imagination.
The Dungeon Challenge is a very simple concept, there is a Challenge Master, he defines a Challenge and anyone can try to beat it to claim the title and become the Challenge Master instead of him.
To achieve a challenge you have to beat the test defined by the challenge master exactly in the terms that he has stated. You have to provide a video for proof. The community then decides if you have properly performed, and in the end it is the challenge master who validates or invalidates your achievement. If your claim is approved then you become the challenge master and you have to define a challenge. You can be as creative as you want when designing challenges (group solo, traits, camera angle .. you name it). The point is not to make it impossible, but to make it interesting and entertaining.

I will keep track of who has managed to claim the challenge master title for themselves. A scoreboard will be published and updated as the chain of challenges goes on. Do you want to make a name for yourself? Beat the challenges, claim the title, and you will know fame like no one has known since the last gladiators.

Let’s not keep you waiting any longer. Here is the first challenge:

Challenge 1, the 20th of September 2013:
Kill the Slave Driver in Citadel of Flame explorable path 1 with only off-hand weapons equipped in your group.
All skills are allowed for as long as you do not have main hand skills available (so no conjured weapons, no transformations, for example)

Good luck!

Challenge completed by rT on the 21st of September

Current challenge

Challenge master: Sanderinoa.8065 [rT] :
Finish the Uncategorized Fractal’s champion fight (right after the first set of harpies) by killing the rabbit last.
The fractal level has to be at least 28.
No consumables allowed apart from nourishment.
Kiting the rabbit out of the room is not allowed.

Score board

Format:
points) name

Guilds
1) rT

Players
1) Agony.3542 Anubarak.3012 Element.5647 Molch.2078 Sanderinoa.8065

As for the 10 arcana points for elems, I think any non-speedrun build requires them for dps itself: you need the first 5 points for 70% uptime in fury and then the elemental attunement do a very good job a both increasing group dps and providing support. Take a look at it: 1 stack permanent stack of might is usually more than a 1% dps increase, so if you can buff all your allies as you swap to fire that is a 5% total increased damage for the group. It is also nice to have the option to take vigor, although not usually necessary.

So the first 10 points in arcana are for dps.
However, anything past that point is completely useless.

I enjoyed that second video

Fractals anyone? no? not even …? ok back to dunduns and 111 world bosses.

Lingering elements? never heard of that.

You would choose to discard bolt to the heart (20% dmg on <33%hp targets) indeed. But the additional fury uptime and the buff from boons likely result in a self damage increase in the end, as well as a substantial damage boost group-wise anyway.

So it’s an exploit for a tenth of a second and a tiny bit legit

@DeathPanel

Let’s not get into a personal argument. I dismissed the “kit” idea because this has been proposed before, talked about over and over, and covered thoroughly.
Elementalists simply won’t have kits.

Now, I don’t disagree that conjures do need some buffs, especially to be viable in PvP, but in PvE there are countless situations where they become very desirable.

Let’s forget about 360 degree changes because the devs will not do that. We have to stick with the initial concepts, and that includes both charges and duration limits. We have to focus on what we can realistically do to make them more attractive.

Hey but at least you can use those weapons to go and face word bosses since we can’t crit them anyway, and this helps you to ascend faster!!

I’m fairly sure copy pasting a mechanic from an other class is less imaginative.

I think the developers want us to use our weapon skills, and situationally the conjures, not the other way around. I think they are right, because bypassing class mechanics and locking ourselves into one skill set is very boring.

You killed me with the use of the word “dedicated”

You are right: they are not accurate. Also if I remember correctly the coefficient for the axe AA were split between PvP and PvE, weren’t they?

spoj.9672:

axe auto coef is 0.7 for all hits except the last which is 1.502

The wiki states the following damages: 252, 538, and 858.
This gives the following coefficients: 0.75, 1.6, and 2.56
The total coefficient over the 3.6s animation is therefore: 4.91
This makes the warrior’s axe AA have a coefficient per second (c/s) value of: 1.36
(equal to elem’s LH AA)

How to find a coefficient from the tooltips:

coefficient = damage displayed * default armor / lvl 80 power / weapon damage

-default armor: 2600
-lvl 80 power: 916
-weapon damage: 952.5 for most 1h / 1047.5 for most 2h (exotics, haven’t had time to 1111 enough WB yet to ascend)

I disagree utterly.

They should not be like kits, because using dedicatedly them is boring as hell.
They are fine as situational weapons.
I would like to see one more trait affecting them, likely in the earth trait line. Something like: when the two weapons are wielded (one in your hand and one you can share) then you get a buff, or the cooldown rate of the conjure is doubled.

There is a lot of information I cannot find:

-100b’s coefficient (the wiki state 1.78, but it also says 1642 damage which is a 4.48 coeff)
Edit: I didn’t include the last blow in what I just said. Anyway I really have no reliable figure for the coefficient.
-100b’s exact animation duration

I can assume WW’s animation is 1 second (0.25 cast + 0.75 evade, if no aftercast)

-Animation duration of GS’s AA (each of the three stages)

-Axe 2 animation duration

-Mace 4 animation duration

If anyone can give me this data, or estimates, I would appreciate it thanks

Zomg Dub you don’t throw arcane spells when you are in LH ?? That’s where all the dynamism is from!

Well actually I don’t know, I can’t think about dedicated LH gameplay, it makes me want to vomit.

I think it also does not work with undercurrent.
But I can not check the elem bug thread to be sure, because it does not exist anymore -.-

I just cannot find the energy in me to say it enough times how unproductive it was to delete this thread instead of mirroring it on the bug subforum.

OK thanks, I am going to try and put this on paper, to find the proper c/s (four figures: against a wall and in open ground, with and without applying vuln). If you already have a the c/s figures (modified for relative weapon strength on GS) then feel free to fill me in on that so I can cross check with what I find myself

Can someone please give me the usual dps rotation for warriors?

If you could give it to me with details (like for my fresh air rotation in my calculator) that would be lovely.

Edit: also what are the most used utility skills for warriors?

Yeah but this increased damage is only applicable to the OH skills
Not LH or FGS

Ok thank you all for your interest.

I am now working in putting in the warrior’s data. I am focusing on the most common builds (30/0/0/10/30) so far.
The warrior requires a framework addition because of class mechanics (weapon choices mainly).

I am also working on a preliminary rotation calculator for the elementalist. I will wait until the 15th of October to see if the devs actually release accurate tooltip information before attempting to make a complete rotation calculator.

Don’t hesitate to hit me with any kind of feedback on anything!

The focus is also better at cleansing. I do not know why anyone would want to take OH dagger in PvE fights.

Yes. That’s why the devs have put a stick environmental weapon on bloomhunger’s fight. It’s obvious. All the other fights in the game are unintended and doing them is an exploit.