Guild Wars 2

So pro!

NERF RTL !!!!

Oh sorry I thought we were just throwing random hate at eles.

Ah I forgot to check DF indeed!

For LH attributes, you should notice that there is a little text appearing next to EP saying “inclusive of LH”. Check the formulas, you will see, it is there. Edit: also check the calculations at the right of the rotation calculator and the “LH mod” column. Re-Edit: sorry there is no text saying “inclusive of LH” for EP in this version of the calculator and the EP displayed is exlusive of LH attributes, but the EP used includes them. If you use the latest version then everything is there. You can find the latest version in my DF thread or using the link I first posted here for DPS comparison. In the latest version you can turn “devmod” on by changing the 0 to 1 at the top of the sheet to display additional calculations at the bottom for more details.

You can not use rounding down as much as you did when using average damage. This has nothing to do with the number appearing on your screen in-game.

Now to DF:

• Same as for SFLH: the crit damage is incorrect. This inflates DPS as explained before.

• You used the coefficients listed in the “coeff” column. Those are the coefficients for one hit of each skill. In my calculation I multiply this coefficient by the number of hits for each skill. You should have used the “total coeff” column instead, like you did for SFLH.
  This obviously destroys the resulting DPS.

I have corrected these mistakes and updated my spreadsheet linked in my previous message.

As for the rotation, well I don’t think this is doable Have you tried realising it in-game?
If it works then, thanks! Good job! You have just made a calculation showing that DF beats SFLH by 11% + burn damage But I don’t think that serves the purpose of what you were trying to show here.

That was a brave attempt Impact, but unfortunately you did some mistakes.

• You used 969 for LH weapon damage. This would be correct if you had adjusted the LH chain coefficient accordingly. As a result your DPS figure is lower than it should be.

• For the average damage formula, you use:
  raw damage * ( 1 – crit chance ) + raw damage * ( crit chance * ( crit damage +1.5 ))
  This is incorrect because I am already including the 0.5 base crit damage in my calculations. You should be using +1 instead of +1.5. This is inflating your DPS calculation enormously. Note also that you could reduce your formula to a simpler form.

Here is the corrected spreadsheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B88y8fHnpBfZRFQ3RFprYzJFaHc/edit?usp=sharing

Notice that the corrected result is about 300 DPS lower than my initial calculations because of your abusive use of rounding down and because you did not account for “wasted” precision points.

Therefore my DPS comparison is valid.

@Impact
Right, so you were not using coefficient but damage, that’s quite different.
969 is the higher boundary for LH weapon strength, but we do not know its lower boundary. In my calculator I simply normalised it to one-handed weapon strength and the result is mathematically correct.
The result of my modifiers is also mathematically correct. Same goes for the way I include LH attributes. As a matter of fact I just checked again doing it manually and I am right. I guess you have done a mistake while adding columns, that is why I am asking for a spreadsheet.

@Impact
I would like to see all that into an excel sheet. Could you make one for me please?
Also, since the wiki does not give the coefficients for the LH chain, how did you calculate its weapon power?
You are right about one thing: I was not exactly using the proper SFLH rotation, therefore I changed that. I also changed the DF rotation to better reflect attunements at the time the spells hit.
So the end result is +6% DPS for DF. And that is excluding burn.

@Anierna
Please do! Challenge is definitely something I like when it is friendly and respectful

Well my dear Anierna it looks like the weekend is over

You will not be able to prove me wrong.
I don’t need you to calculate anything by the way, all I require is respect for the people who actually try to help this community improve.

Just so you know my calculator has been published around 5 months ago. Since then DeKeys joined me and thanks to her awesome work we’ve been able to achieve a level of detail unmatched by other classes’ theorycrafters. She has also built her own – very accurate – DPS calculator.

We have been able to push our expertise so far only because we collaborate a lot. No one is perfect and we all make mistakes. But we have no consideration for ego.

You could have been accepted as a trusted theorycrafter but instead you decided to antagonise everyone. You remember those two arrogant posts you made in my thread? I do. And I am going to use your own nauseating words here:

The issue I have with Anierna’s guide is that there is no disclaimer in “LARGE FONT” that says something like “This build does less damage than a D/F build, and it extremely limited in many aspects as well” That is REALLY important information, and something that she ought to have put up-front so readers won’t miss it.

Now, if you are ready to put your ego aside, then surely we can find a way to work together. In the end, the community getting better is the only thing that matters.

This is the reason you are looking for

As everybody could notice the project died since mods unstickied the thread.
The in-game guild has been disbanded.

We’ve had some great contestants and the competition was very entertaining.
Hopefully sometime in the future we will have an opportunity to start the Ascension Project again!

Thank you to everybody who took part in its development

D/F is getting buffed, muhahahaha

Hey, remember that time when they said they would release a fotm leaderboard?
And then that time when they said they were waiting to gather more data before releasing it?

Aaaah good times

maxinion.8396:

haviz.1340:

Elementalist build has antitoxin spray.

LOL

It even has S/F+LH !

LOL !!

I have updated the guide entirely.

I still need to write about utilities, as promised

I agree with you of course.

I have made some updates to my calculator. Since I am focusing more on the elem than other classes for now, I am going to post about it here rather than in its original thread.

Here is the link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B88y8fHnpBfZRnJRdVNqVC1MYXc&usp=sharing
(likely requires excel 2007 or later)

I have integrated the rotation calculator to the build tabs. This allowed me to better measure the effect of the lightning hammer attributes (like you do in your calculator).
- The Lightning Hammer utility option has been renamed Perma Lightning Hammer and retains its use as permanent attribute booster. This is not meant to be used to compute normal DPS anymore, instead the rotation calculator manages the boost from LH attributes.
- The Conjure Lightning Hammer input for rotations triggers a new LH mod that takes LH attributes into account until a Conjure drop input is issued. This mod is used to compute the coefficients of the rotation. Therefore the boost from the lightning hammer now affects DPS more accurately.
- EP now only reflects the base (permanent) build. I will try to include the effect of the boost from LH in a later update. Edit: added a side calculation to show EP inclusive of LH attribute boost.
- Gear is more customisable.
- The Zalculator looks better.

I think that is because in your calculator you assume a base crit chance of 4%. This is effectively the base crit chance but only because the system uses a rounding down formula. In fact we have this base chance plus an excedent of 10 precision points, that are not effective due to the aforementioned rounding down. If we disregarded the rounding we would get a base crit chance of (916-822)/21/100=4.476% .

I’ll try to check more thoroughly, I could be mistaken.

Stats optimisation (part 1/2)

In order to maximize your damage output it may be best to mix the stats combinations of your gear.

For this analysis I am assuming the following speedrun situation:
- Ascended gear
- Signet of Fire (180 precision)
- Permanent Fury (20% critical chance)
- 25 Might stacks (875 power)
- Strength and Discipline Banners from Warriors (170 power, 170 precision, 15% critical damage)
- 25 Stacks of Bloodlust (250 power)
- Curry Butternut Squash Soup (100 precision & 10 critical damage)

The basis of our build is 30 in air (300 precision, 30% critical damage), therefore the only variable that can affect our stat optimization is Fire (power). The other trait lines offer modifier bonuses that affect our dps independently of stat points. Depending on how many points you put in Fire it will be best to swap a number of armor pieces from berserker to assassin. There are four possible scenarios: 0, 10, 20, or 30 points in Fire.

For these four scenarios it appears optimal to swap your entire armor (head, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs, shoes) to assassin. This results in a shift of -94 Power and +94 Precision from full berserker gear. Our critical chance is therefore brought to 100%. In regards to Fresh Air, this gives the highest consistency in our rotations.

Therefore our gear is best as:
- Armor: assassin
- Weapons: berserker
- Trinkets: berserker

This result is due to the speedrun assumptions I made. I will continue my analysis for less optimal situations in a later update.

You are not missing anything and you are right. It is possible to stack bloodlust and then use two other sigils though.
My “Gear” chapter is in rewriting, as mentioned. Detailed infos can be found in my calculator.

For those who do not have excel or can not open my calculator, here is what it says:

Damage comparison between S/F+LH (30/10/10/20/0) and D/F (30/30/10/0/0) for human-sized single targets => D/F wins by at least 7%.

This means that even if you had 6 might stacks less (two blasts) then D/F would still be superior in DPS.
D/F is even more superior if you take into account:

• Bosses are often against walls. This allows for Burning Speed trail stacking. It is the equivalent of adding a burning Fire Grab to the effect of Burning Speed blast (so every 13s).
• One more utility slot available. You can use it for Ice Bow or Glyph of Storms to deal a lot of additional damage.
• Stronger defensive capabilities. Allowing you to deal damage instead of dodging.

That being said I am not drawing any conclusion apart from that Anierna should stop being so arrogant now. As far as speedclearing is concerned my results are not that relevant. Each build has its uses. I highly advise readers to keep on following the advice of renowned speedrunners such as DeKeys, Dub or Haviz.

My apologies if this message sounds angry. I was at ease until Anierna came to irritate me. I had to retaliate. Now we shall have peace

Bloody impressive !

As a matter of fact, Keys and I are both working with DPS calculators.
Here is mine:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B88y8fHnpBfZRnJRdVNqVC1MYXc&usp=sharing

Your mistake is so obvious that it is scary.

It is really not about the method or the approximations. We all use the same methods I think.

Well I am not going to make this a riddle.
You assume that LH attributes are up all the time. This is an incorrect approximation, but you mentioned it in your assumptions so I am not going to blame you for this. Instead look at your rotation: all you do in water is 4 LH chains and comet, twice per rotation. And you assume 100% uptime on the 20% damage boost provided by Piercing shards? Don’t you think this is skewing your result enormously? The worse is that it is obvious you chose to disregard this inaccuracy: you did not even include the effect of Internal Fire anywhere in your calculations!

Anierna.6918:

Compiled the guide, images, and spreadsheets into a more accessible PDF, here

I think someone should be telling you that your EP calculations are wrong

oZii.2864:

Welcome back Zelyhn!!!

Zelyhn? Hmm… That was what they used to call me.

There is a perfectly optimal skill rotation with D/F that stacks about half as much might as S/F+LH solo. That is basically just two blast finishers less. It is likely that MH Dagger will get an additional blast finisher next balance patch though.

(Oh and D/F does more damage, but shhhh, it’s a secret)

This thread needs a makeover. We can’t let skill data incomplete. In the coming weeks I will spend some time improving this resource.

Keys, I would like to discuss with you how we could make this the ultimate knowledge base for our beloved class. By working together again we can push this further
Anyone else wishing to contribute is highly welcome!

It is true that S/F+LH stacks more might. But with D/F you can always pre-stack full might and mobs will die before the stacks run out, in organized groups. In pugs it is better to run D/F anyway.

A long time ago when I started playing I was using S/F+LH and in my guild application I stated that I could stack 20 might easily. I still remember my guild leader’s retort: "Cool bro, so with the rest of the group we can reach 50 stacks! " It’s a team game.

One more advantage of running D/F without LH is that you have an extra utility slot available. I am quite a fan of Glyph of Storms. And this means even more damage.

I’m fine with people underestimating D/F. In fact the less people run it the less Anet is likely to think it needs to be nerfed “for diversity”. Still, once you’ve tried it, you can never leave it!

It is a misconception that S/x+LH builds have more burst (and more damage) than D/x.
This is mainly because in PvE you can fight most bosses against walls. This means that you can “stack” the fire trail of Burning Speed like you would with FGS’s 4 to do massive damage (and inflict lots of vuln with Weak Spot). On larger bosses like Lupi you may also cast Firewall.

Still I believe that an evade fact on BS is highly needed at least in PvE due to our lack of survivability.

Yes I will
Is there anything else you would like me to develop?

Though LightningBlaze has a point: we have plenty of blatantly underpowered skills and traits to look at in priority.

From a PvE standpoint I have been asking for an evade factor on Burning Speed for a long time now. My suggestion to Anet was to “balance” the buff from adding an evade by reducing the range of the leap to 400. But if I have to be completely honest I want a smaller range because it would make it easier to land the spell, as well as Sunspot, in PvE
Sunspot is high on my list on useless compulsory (minor) traits, along with Lingering Elements and Arcane Precision.
There is definitely an issue with Sunspot because its radius is smaller than the range of the vast majority of elementalist attacks. This traits begs to affect the next attack issued by the player instead of being a PBAOE. Let’s hope devs hear me.

Talk about QA failure.

The thing is, even a 30 min cd will not prevent a 150+ people zerg to pop their elementals all at the same time in a boss fight (teq).

So the “server performance” issue is a lie.

Bad fix is bad.

No no, it is superior in everything but might stacking Yes, even damage.
Then like you said: " [Bosses] die before your inital pre-stacked might runs out", therefore I can stack might then do higher damage.
And after the patch D/F will have increased might stacking and better surviving.

D/F, what else?

Good thing they are going to buff the already superior D/F 30/30 spec right?

And then who knows what we will learn next?

“Guys, dungeons are blatantly a bug. Oh well, actually PvE as a whole is a bug.”

BillFreist.1527:

The fact that most of these items ever existed is just blatantly a bug.

Could you explain this sentence?

I am still not playing but I feel like updating the guide I left behind
Expect improvements coming soon after the patch!

Very nice Keys, thanks.
I am happily surprised: I had never checked the formula for traits and I was expecting my assumptions (strength scaling to equipped weapon) to be wrong. If you are saying that it does scale then I do not have to completely remake my dps calculator. That is for when I come back of course If you are right then I think the coefficient of electric discharge is not what wiki says it is.
I completely agree with using a virtual 1000 weapon strength for all utility skills.

emikochan.8504:

Your weapon strength adds directly to your power

I’m afraid you are mistaken.

Keys, the coefficient you are mentioning is not bound to weapon strength, is it?
Could you give me the formula you use for non-weapon skills?

lLobo.7960:

dont complain about tooltip information pls, or they will nerf the skill to fit the info instead of changing the info…

Ever heard of lingering elements?

It’s ok bro, once you reach the end game everything is resolved

This is awesome job Sam !!

I am really glad you spent all these hours working so hard, the result is great!
Thanks for the credits, it was unnecessary though: you did everything

Renewed thanks to all contributors.

Oh and well, I think Anet also deserves some credits: without their removal of the last 30 fractal levels this video would have never seen the light! Good job Anet

From the twitch stream yesterday (balance preview):

- burning speed evades
- frozen burst is a blast finisher

I am trying to not get back to this game but when I see buffs like this, buffs I have asked for long time ago, I cannot help but thinking that the devs want me back

Excelsior comrades,

This is probably the last time you will see me post in this thread. I am leaving GW2.
My time here, until the events that have caused this decision, has been really great. I feel satisfied from my experience with the GW2 community, and I hope my contributions have been helpful.

I encourage anyone interested to use any/all of the works I have done. This includes my calculator, which I would have liked to complete before leaving. I am glad to provide assistance to anyone wishing to further develop this tool.

I leave you in the hands of DEKeyzToChaos.7381, you can find her comprehensive guide here. I have worked with her and I fully support her approach. Not only is Keys one of the best elementalists in this game but she is also a meticulous guide writer. She is animated by the will to promote excellence. For these reasons I believe her guide should be the reference for PvE elementalists.

Remember that the great masters, those who have the knowledge and skill, are often the most humble. Keep this in mind when deciding who to listen to.

Have fun!

Best regards,
Zelyhn

I am back from my two week forum ban and very happy to see you have finally posted a guide Keys!

As always and as expected, you are doing awesome work!

I think you should request a sticky and your thread will become the reference for PvE eles. After Neko decided to focus more on WvW and Anierna started infesting this subforum with his narrow ideas, you contribution is timely, especially since I am going to stop playing GW2.

Best of luck helping the elementalist community

I welcome the changes you have done to your guide. You managed to get rid of many mistakes, you made a more appropriate contextualisation and you dived into more details. Your guide is much better this way.

I hope that now you will be able to put aside your ego and become a reliable source of guidance for this community without being irritating.

Can you please make it so that we can post (or at least reply) to PMs while “punished” ?
It is not like there is a danger of further harming the community by using PMs.

Hey Danicia,

I can’t reply to people sending me PMs.

I think this makes no sense: I can post but not reply to friends or people in the ele community asking for advice?

I have been punished enough for something that is not in the code of conduct: 3 infraction points, temporary ban, 15-min flood control, and no PM.

By the way, privilege revocation has been retroactive and this is not fair.

Can we have at least a bit of fairness?

Unless you are using staff the “dps element” is air.

Scholars are the best choice.

Isn’t the 6/6 runes of strength bugged? Wiki does not say it is but I have not seen confirmation anywhere.