Guild Wars 2

I was looking at the warrior’s forum when I came across this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Build-The-REAL-maximum-DPS-warrior/first#post1911421
At the end of the first message you will find an impressive spreadsheet. A lot of new data is available there. While I think the dps calculation of the spreadsheet is not that useful, there are many cast times disclosed in it. I don’t know how accurate they are though, and while it seems quite up to date, I believe many aftercast times are missing.
Can anyone take a look?

Well dagger does about 40% more damage at least in air …

You asked to be proved with numbers that some builds can be better than others, then you say that min-maxing is pointless because you only have to look busy.
Well have fun looking busy! I will not commit any further to this conversation.

@Vick
I guess you are mainly talking about WvW, mode in which I rarely participate, so I am knot that knowledgeable about it.
But I am wondering why are you maintaining 20 in arcane and not 10, especially with the new fresh air talent? (assuming it had its ICD)
For PvE I would take away 10 in arcane and put it either in fire (for damage and staff viability) or water (dagger fury share and staff support)
Yes I hate scepter
In PvE I cannot imagine not taking my beloved focus with me

@Kodiak
You have an odd way of calculating that, you are much more pessimistic than me, but your results make sense.
Now, if you gain 15 power from the extra runes, that is 0.5-0.75% increase in damage (depending on your zerker build). If you buff 4 allies at the same time that is an additional 4×0.75=3% increased damage, so your total group output is increased by 3.75%.
Two ruby orbs (40 power 24 preci 4 critdmg) give you between 3.5% and 4.5% increased damage (depending on your build), so it is better on average, and you are less dependent on your group.
As for your last paragraph, come on!

Thanks, glad to be of some help

Stats do not have diminishing returns, they only have proportional diminishing returns: if you have 2000 power and add 200 that’s a 10% increase, now you have 2200, if you add 200 more that’s now a 9.1% increase, but the absolute increase is still the same. I don’t know any boons that are not affected by this!

If you have 20 in arcane and duration runes (20%+40%=60%) then 20 stacks of might are based on 20/1.6=12.5 stacks without bonus, the arcane and superior runes give you 12.5*0.5=6.25 stacks (219 power) and the major rune gives you 12.5*0.1=1.25 stacks, so 44 power. You would still be better off with superior runes of force or ruby orbs.

If you are looking for an efficient PvE build then I suggest you take a look at my signature and we can discus it in that thread!

Yeah they will probably put a 6s ICD, maybe 7 if they are mean

You are right, it does not have the ICD, my apologies.

flyingfox.6150:

Fresh Air spec is completely based on your +crit damage, crit rate and how fast you press buttons and switch…currently the trait itself does not have the internal 5 sec cooldown…meaning every crit will give you the free lightning strike as long as you crit…

Fresh air is strong not so much because of the proc, but because it allows you to stay an AA in the element that does the highest amount of sustained direct damage (lightning whip). It does have the 5 second ICD: it can only occur every 5 seconds..

A lot of data about the skills has been gathered since release. We have made a post on this forum so everybody can access it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/08-07-13-Skill-Data-Work-in-progress

I can give you numbers, but on what? Your argument was that in PvE everything is ok, mine is that some builds are better. Do you want me to prove that I can find a build that works better than an other? Well very simply: if you go for direct damage, with full zerker, if you take 30 in fire you increase your potential damage output by 15.1% (before traits, buffs, etc) but if you go for 30 in air instead you increase your potential damage output by 22.6%, which is about 50% more.

Read my post correctly, I never said that boon duration is suboptimal. I said that using a major rune instead of a superior rune is suboptimal.
When you have 30 in arcane (30% boon duration) and 2 superior duration runes (30% more) then you have 60% boons duration, and your attunement recharge is 9.375. The base duration of the might boon from arcane is 15, add 60% to get 24s of might on attunement swap. That gives you 2.56 stacks of might on average, which is about 90 power. Now if you increase your boon duration by an other 10% you get 2.72 might stacks on average: an increase of 5 in power. What will this incredible 5 power give you? About 0.2% more damage with a 0/20/x/x/30 zerker. That being said I don’t think I need to explain how two ruby orbs (40 power, 4% crit dmg, 24 precision) are better even if you manage to buff 5 allies with your arcane boons in all four attunements.
Edit: since most elementalist rightfully run sigils of battle, let me include it in my calculations: 6 stacks from the sigil if you swap perfectly, add 60% you have 9.6 stacks, the extra runes give you 0.6 stacks, that is 21 power. So the extra runes give you 21+5=26 power, plus maybe a bit more from combos. Well just to get 40 power from the extra runes you need to maintain 40/35/0.1=11.4 stacks of might on average, without boon duration (so with 60% boon duration you need 18.3 stacks on average). The highest amount of power the extra runes can give you is when you have 14.7 might stacks without bonus duration: 51.5 power.

The stats from the air tree are precision and crit damage. While precision have a decreasing rate of proportional damage increase, crit damage does not. So due to crit damage, the air tree has a proportionally increasing rate of damage increase
To put it clearly: going from 10 to 20 in air boosts your damage by 7% and going from 20 to 30 boost it by 7.2% (zerker gear, before traits and buffs).

Please read my posts correctly.
I am saying that the air rotation in scepter is weak in term of damage.
Yes the burst is nice, I completely agree.

To put it with numbers:
Arc Lightning: 0.48 power/s
Lightning strike: 0.24 power/s (instant with 5s cd)
Combined they give you a 0.72 p/s, a 40% damage loss compared to lightning whip (1.22 p/s)
Fresh air affects both spells in the exact same way.
The advantages from the scepter air rotation are that it is at range and it is non-projectile. Whether this is worth a 40% damage loss is up to your judgement!

All my calculations are based on hard numbers that have been confirmed, and the empirical tests validate all my conclusions.
That’s a nice way to say that I am right, and I can prove it any time. Also, I am not the only one! There are plenty of clever people on these forums who have come to the same conclusions … sometimes we disagree on details, but the facts are here.

I do not doubt you are experienced. But when it comes to theory crafting, you are saying a lot of baseless things.
For example: using major monk runes as a third set of duration runes is very suboptimal. Also if you are going for direct damage it is suboptimal to go for zerker-armor/knight-jewelery instead of knight-armor/zerker-jewelery.
Air is the trait line that increases your damage the most, and it does so in an exponential manner, so going from 20 to 30 in air gives more damage than going from 10 to 20. Crit damage is never less of a factor.

mjharrison.3209:

Zelyhn.8069:

Just for information, spamming the scepter’s arc lightning and lightning strike on cooldown deals about half the damage of the dagger’s lightning whip. So you do not apply more pressure with scepter and fresh air, it’s just that the cooldowns somewhat match so it looks nice, but it is still bad, very bad.

This. Fresh Air is highly overrated.

You understood me wrong. I am saying that the damage output of the scepter air rotation is weak. Fresh air is faaaaaaar from overrated, actually it is one of the best traits we’ve had in a long time and it synergizes with so much.

Just for information, spamming the scepter’s arc lightning and lightning strike on cooldown deals about half the damage of the dagger’s lightning whip. So you do not apply more pressure with scepter and fresh air, it’s just that the cooldowns somewhat match so it looks nice, but it is still bad, very bad.

One of the worse mistakes that a lot of people do is thinking that you can be a healer, or a damage dealer or a tank …
Everybody has to consider doing their share of control, support (heal, but not only) and damage while surviving.
To put it in numbers, healing is like 10% of your job as an elem, so if you put 50% of your resources into that while ignoring the rest then you will have decreasing returns and your output will be lower.
For example, you intend to heal with your staff so you slot arcane wave in. It makes sense because you want the extra bit of heal from the combo. But if you slotted glyph of storm instead and casted it in earth then you would deal damage and control with blinds to the point that your team would take less damage (almost like a heal) and your enemies would have to play more defensively (almost like a heal). So by not dedicating yourself too much you can do a better job.

If the player hitbox is about 45 then the 25% chance is consistent: you have to add twice the radius to get the extended reach of the meteor.

Edit: Updated. Added base stacks, trident, downed, tornado.

Kodiak.3281:

For PvE just about anything will work. I’ve played a wide variety of builds and they all work in PvE till you get to high end Fractals. By the time you get there you should know what you’re doing.

My most probably used build for PvE in general was a 0/20/0/30/20 build because it works with both Staff and D/D (just swap certain traits). For Staff I used Zerker/Zerker armor with Knight/Emerald Jewelry and for D/D I used PvT/Boon armor with Knight/Emerald Jewelry.

The biggest key is to treat anyone who tells you that X, Y, or Z you come up with is sub par as the enemy. There are zero damage meters in this game and consequently almost no way to compare how well people do or don’t do. A lot of that nonsense is just regurgitated information that’s been spread out but never actually verified with numbers and DPS because again that’s almost impossible to accomplish. How do you compare the DPS of an AOE Might combo to just staying in Fire and DPSing? It’s pretty much impossible and a lot of people make assumptions but never provide any facts or numbers to back it up (or provide some of the facts but never the complete scenario).

Start with something basic (like a 0/20/0/30/20 build) and then branch out from there based on what you think is fun. Don’t be afraid to try new stuff and certainly don’t listen to people who tell you that something isn’t viable because you can be guaranteed they have zero proof (as in actual numbers) to back it up.

You know, there are plenty of people who have calculated everything, we know what is subpar and what is not from verified information. The mechanics are not so complicated that we need metrics in anyway, yes even for a might combo.
In PvE everything will work, but some things will work terribly while other will do a great job, just like in any mode.

Quick advice: if you are going to take items with crit damage (like zerker) always prioritize the trinkets! As opposed to what you told.
Also never use boon armor!

Read Neko’s guide.

Softspoken.2410:

Zelyhn.8069:

Do we have any data on the size of targets?

Just for funsies, I took my necromancer to HotM and tried to figure out the hitbox size for some of the target golems. As far as I can tell, heavy golems have a radius of about 60, while light golems are closer to 30.

Nice, thanks!
Next step: same test on player ?

Glad we are on the same page!
A 90 radius player hitbox is very very large. I know this game was made in the US, but still!
Also I don’t think I agree with your way of doing the calculation, even though the result is right. I think that we should not add the player hitbox radius to the meteor aoe, but rather stick with the 0.0625 chance to hit a single point and then decide that the player hitbox is made of many of these single points, I think 4 squared points, so that the chance for the hitbox to be hit is 4*0.0625=25%. This is mathematically more accurate and the hitbox assumption is more plausible

Edit: this is completely stupid. In fact you calculate it correctly! I’d say the radius of the hitbox is smaller, but you have to add it twice to the meteor radius to get the effective radius, so your calculation makes sense.

As a general rule, if you are a dedicated anything you are doing a bad job.

Aron, you have come to some conclusions that will definitely make you a better player! Always remember than the trinity is in you

Neko’s guide is a must indeed, especially for beginners. And go for D/D!

Maybe I am calculating things completely wrong, but a I see it the math should be like this:
[pi . (90/2)^2] / [pi . (360/2)^2] = (1/4)^2 = 0.0625
And that is correct only if the meteor’s aoe is not reaching out of the 360 radius of the shower (they fall in a 270 radius area, so their effect can reach the 360 radius without exceeding it): the aoe of the meteor is always fully inside of the aoe of the shower.
But you have tested it empirically (with small numbers) and my theoretical results seems to be disproved. Maybe this is because the target itself is “an area” and just touching it applies the damage.
Do we have any data on the size of targets?
Or maybe the recent optimization of the skill hasn’t been mirrored on the wiki (the aoe values of meteors is likely not 90).

Edit: I tested my self and I get the same results as you did. I guess I can’t do maths anymore! And the effect of the meteor actually exceeds the shower aoe.

Updated:

10/30/0/20/10 is preferable to 10/30/25/5
This is because bountiful power gives you 1% damage per boon, so it is an increase of damage of about 3% to 6% on average.
Arcane boons however provide, at least, might for 15×1.1=16.5 second with a cooldown trigger of ~13 second (attunement cooldown). A single stack of might is roughly equal to 1.5% increased damage with my build, so if you can buff 2 additional team mates as you swap then you are already on par with bountiful power in term of group increased damage.
Giving up 5 points in water reduces your effective hp by about 4% with my build, but you gain regeneration and protection from boons to compensate.
Finally this move is desirable because it opens for more room for flexibility: you now have access to vigor.

Updated.

The last patchnotes mentioned many reductions in aftercast times. It seems that for most skills 0.2 is the norm. Can we assume that 0.2 is a “universal” aftercast time ?

About the chance to hit per meteor, I calculate a 6% chance if the radius data is correct, can anyone confirm this? Also what is the duration of the shower?
I am thinking that it could be possible for a fireball + lava font + meteor shower rotation to have a coefficient/s on par with lightning whip.

Edit: meteor shower coefficient per offtime, assuming a 0.2 aftercast, is: 1.3×24/34=0.92, if the chance to hit of a meteor is 6% then the skills results in a 0.06 c/s, which is incredibly weak on a single target and actually results in a dps loss due to the cast time.

Exactly what Nikkinella said. Actually if all elementalists could read this that would make our class community much better!

You are right, swapping between attunements trully is useful, especially when you have points in arcane.
However pretty much everything you can do is useful, the problem is whether what you do is as useful as possible.

Wow, I feel dumb.
I read the wiki countless times and I even made a spreadsheet to calculate damage output. I always ignored base damage because I thought it was somewhat negligible. It turns out I was right without knowing it. I will re-edit everything.
But what about heals?
Thank you so much for your attention!

Updated staff with info from the wiki. I will update again with info from gw2db.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by only having to list its coefficient to calculate the damage of a skill: the base has to be included in the calculation, doesn’t it?

As for the values themselves, I am not the one who calculated the vast majority of them, I just gathered them here and I take no credit for their calculations. I have rechecked a lot though, and I am confident that the authors calculated them accurately.

Thanks!
I am looking for people willing to contribute.
Mainly I am looking for the cast and aftercast times.
Any help is appreciated!

@Qin
You cannot say you are optimized if you decide to lock yourself in one weapon set-up.
Also you intend to go for dps, but you don’t even have 10 in fire for the 10% increased damage in fire: the main source of direct damage in staff.
Therefore I can safely assume (from your 30 arcane) that you like to constantly switch between attunements. While this is generally good in term of output, it is definitively bad in term of direct damage, so your zerker gear is not being used to its fullest.
My advice, if you feel confident with your build, is to try more offensive weapons when the situation allows for it. The main-hand dagger for example is a very strong choice for dealing damage.

That’s the point! Our main source of damage comes from the AA, so if I can keep using lightning whip while providing active defence and utilities I am being optimal

I have met countless elems who just keep switching attunements without thinking. And the worse was that they would just use any spell but the auto-attacks! The auto-attack, along with a few other spells, are our source of damage in daggers.

Right, you have a point.
I appreciate you inputs, really, but you need to stop saying “this is strong” or “this is weak”. For the last time, we are not making suggestions, just discussing designs, not values!

Staff ele has a reason to go melee in dungeons: benefiting from all the combos it is setting up. Also, elementalist have a stronger reason to go melle: damage! Get a dagger in your main hand and see how much more damage you deal.

So we have some nice ideas, but how about something that would not directly deal damage?

-Additional damage on the difference in armor between you and your targets
-Increased spell range or aoe for a duration

These are just new mechanics that come to my mind, do they sound interesting?

Not necessarily: phoenix gives vigor
Many movement spells are located in fire, the attunement matches the idea of speed and domination. Actually Earth promotes not using endurance (earth 25) and its theme is more about being static, not offensive.

I have even more ideas:
On attunement, drain the endurance of nearby foes
-180 aoe
-drains 25% energy

Maybe deal damage if a target has no energy
Maybe make it drain 50% to each target, but you receive only 25%

Theme: feed the fire

How about something like this:
On attunement swap, for 2 seconds all projectiles targeted at you are reflected and they cause burning (like if they went through a fire field).

Theme: hot air stream, Icarus’ temptation, sun skin

Edit:
After writing down Icarus something came to my mind:
How about: On attunement swap, for 2 seconds your spells have 300 increased range
Or: For 2 seconds your spell deal additional damage equal to the target’s armor divided by 10

Who asked about anything game changing?
Read my OP: I am saying that the number would require some balancing. We are just discussing designs here. We are trying to find new interesting choices. And I mean interesting in term of design, not efficiency in whatever mode you play.
If a smoke field was created it could just be balanced by having a short duration/aoe.
Same for an additional fire field.

More might is redundant: you get might from arcane boons, and might from fire 30, might from fire 10 + cantrips, might from glyphs with inscription, and I am just mentioning the traits.

Be more creative, stop wishful thinking!

@Ehecatl.9172
You are talking about PvP or WvW I assume.

Elementalists are definitely not just a support class! (in any mode)

Adding damage to a 15 trait is redundant, air already has it on single target. Don’t you want more interesting choices to play with?

The day we get accurate tooltips is the day I am happy.
Well by happy I mean I will complain about a bit less stuff!

You are right, I tested too and it is 5%.

We can’t really compare EA with 15 bonuses in each tree! Or we can, but we have to keep this in mind: EA in water is similar to water 15 plus water 10 with V (dispel on attunement).
So for fire sunspot makes sense: it is the fire EA without the burn. Same goes for earth. It is logical, but is it very weak, we all agree on that.
I would really like a small aoe fire field instead , like a half-size lava font.

- reserved for future use -

Trident
Same weapon damage as one-handed weapons

Fire
Magma Orb: 0.40?+0.40? | ?
Boil: 0.50 (5 hits?) | ? | cd=10
Steam: 0.25 | ? | cd=25
Lava Chains: 0.50 | ? | cd=30

Water
Water Missile: 0.40 | ?
Ice Globe: 1.00 | ? | cd=10
Ice Globe: Detonate: 2.00
Ice Wall: Detonate: 2.00
Undercurrent: 0.50 | ? | cd=25
Tidal Wave: 1.00 (per hit) | ? | cd=25

Air
Forked Lightning: 0.30 (3 hits) | ?
Electrocute: 1.6? | ? | cd=10
Air Pocket: 0.75 | ? | cd=12
Lightning Cage: ? | ? | cd=35

Earth
Rock Blade: 0.05 (3 hits) | cast=? aftercst=0.2 {stacks bleed to 12?}
Rock Spray: 1.50 | ? | cd=12
Magnetic Current: 0.50 | ? | cd=18

Downed
Discharge Lightning 0.80
Grasping Earth 0.30?

Utilities

Tornado
Dust: ?
Electrified: 0.55?
Debris: ?

Traits

Sunspot: 0.5
Electric Discharge: 0.7
Earthen Blast: 0.3
Healing Ripple: 1302 + 1.0

Conjures

Lightning Hammer
Swing: 4 (total) | cast+aftercast=2.82s (total)
Lightning Leap 1.00
Lightning Storm 0.50
Wind Blast 0.33

Fiery Greatsword
Weapon damage compared to one-hand weapons: +1.7%

Flame Wave: 0.62 (4 hits) | cast+aftercast=3.0
[360 degree attack window]
Fiery Rush without target: 0.32 ? (per tick) | ? | cd=10
[70 ticks with flash/wall trick (aka hardest hitting skill in the game)]
[Traces targets even if they become invisible]
Fire Storm: 0.62 (9 ticks to unlimited targets) | ? | cd=15

- reserved for future use -

- reserved for future use -