Guild Wars 2

Good catch. Accidentally typed in 9 instead of 7… XD

And if you assume phantasms will die after only doing one attack chain, here is expected average dmg per unload:

• 20,260 dmg – Warden
• 13,305 dmg – Duelist
• 11,773 dmg – Berserker (4 hits)
• 7,943 dmg – Swordsman
• 8,830 dmg – Berserker (3 hits)

And if you exclude bleed dmg from Sharper Images (aka vs mobs who cleanse condis):

• 12,471 dmg – Warden
• 9,177 dmg – Berserker (4 hits)
• 8,314 dmg – Duelist
• 7,294 dmg – Swordsman
• 6,883 dmg – Berserker (3 hits)

Warden does score the highest per unload but given that he channels his skill for longer than eternity, it’s kinda pointless.

If you compare full celestial/divinity and full assasins/rangers in a party that can max out most offensive buffs, celestial is a 26% dps loss and a 30% reflect dmg loss. The only thing you’re getting as a trade-off is 578 more toughness and 578 more vitality (5.78k HP).

Assuming dungeons and running with meta build/gear/party, sorted highest to lowest.

• 2,051 dps – Duelist
• 2,016 dps – Swordsman
• 1,925 dps – Berserker (4 hits)
• 1,646 dps – Warden
• 1,464 dps – Berserker (3 hits)

In melee Duelist/Swordsman are more or less the same so it all comes down to Sword 4 being massive dps spike compared to to Pistol 5 situational cc making swordsman the go-to phantasm. If he keeps dying in melee then duelist is a better choice given you can summon him away from the danger. Warden is more of a utility phantasm and is used either for reflects/absorbs or for cheap cleave dps.

Berserker is a tricky one because it comes packaged with the famous greatsword, which is terribad dps when used in melee. However it is possible to use it effectively if you can avoid camping the gs, such as summoning zerker at start of the fight and then swapping to sword/whatever for the remainder of the fight. However, if zerker connects only 3 times instead of 4, you’re better off sticking with the warden.

Example HOW to use gs/berserker and still be effective:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Wz_BiHN3Q

Most ridiculous “invulnerable” I have experienced so far:

• https://youtube.com/watch?v=M9pJuSIOYhM

We do. Twitch.tv

I use it in PvE quite often but I guess it can work in PvP environment too. Cast curtain, start casting another skill and ~0.5 into the cast – trigger the curtain pull. This will interrupt the enemy that could have otherwise possibly was about to interrupt YOUR skill cast. Think of it as a counter to a possible counter

Personal one, a 29k firegrab on a light armored mob
- http://i.imgur.com/wXORJMm.jpg

Mesket.5728:

Flamethrower engie has the same thing… it can go forever summing up total damage done.

Yeah, I had a random engi always disrupting my dps test in hotm. Finally I lost my nerve and told him to #$ off. He replied “just trying to get 1,000,000 damage to screenshot”… i couldn’t blame him, lol

Ropechef.6192:

11k lightning hammer 3rd hit auto ( that was actually something I did)

11k is a bit low….

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dia66t3BFUE

Wethospu.6437:

GS Mesmer should be able to get the biggest number.

My gs mes does more dps than a warrior. Dem 100k+ auto attacks and climbind. True story!

Human mesmer, I don’t have asura ones

“bolt” themed armor

• http://i.imgur.com/KSN0Exp.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/2Ppi8UO.jpg

“mist” themed armor

• http://i.imgur.com/hetRhdR.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/UF0FQfJ.jpg

Darox.8069:

Can you send me an email ingame to let me know how I can get that dps meter please? ign=Zelyhn.8069

The old one does work but it’s not very flexible (no dps data vs objects) and you can find it on my github, my username there is same as here – frifox, you can probably find it through google. I’m coding a re-worked version that will be flexible and more accurate (down to microseconds, if needed). Atm I’m in the middle of a big project at work but should be done in the middle of this week and will continue working on the new version. I can send you an “alpha” version if you really want it, otherwise just wait a week or so and I’ll share it.

Ropechef.6192:

I can give you a hand Fri,

TC here.

what kind of time table would you like?

I also have a guild Arena in PvP that we can use.

message me in game if you would like.

Perfect! I’ll contact you ingame once I’m ready. Just want to sort out a few small UI quirks with the dps meter before continuing.

Darox.8069:

proper course of action would be to go very basic: test for weapon coefficients in pvp on a target which armor you can control..

I was looking for someone on JQ/TC (I’m BG) that would be willing to let me use them as a punching bag but I still haven’t found anyone with the enough patience to commit.

The dps meter I use can log all hits enemy takes to a text file. After that it’s a simple matter of copying the data into a spreadsheet and doing the calculations.

I’d say the observations are as accurate as you can get because after doing same tests over and over, some even days apart from each other, the results are identical every time. I’ve noticed that sometimes even 200 data samples was accurate enough but I still went ahead and recorded 1,000+ data samples, multiple times, before assuming them being accurate.

Now, for the Sword AA’s part.

Mind Slash/Gash and Mind Spike coefficient from tooltip:

• 0.573 = (2,560 * 472) / (2,213 * average(905-1000) * 1.0)
• 1.145 = (2,560 * 943) / (2,213 * average(905-1000) * 1.0)

And going back to calculate the weapon strengths, Mind Slash/Gash:

• 903 = (2,560 * 452) / (2,213 * 1.01 * .573) // 1% vuln from the skill
• 999 = (2,560 * 500) / (2,213 * 1.01 * .573) // 1% vuln from the skill

and Mind Spike

• 814 = (2,560 * 806) / (2,213 * 1.0 * 1.145)
• 900 = (2,560 * 971) / (2,213 * 1.0 * 1.145)

Mind Slash/Gash is 903 – 999 which off by 2 & 1 vs the intended 905 – 1000 exo sword stat, but I considered that acceptable knowing that vuln on hit may have come into play and messed with the data a bit. Mind Spike on the other hand was completely off (no vuln here to mess up the results). Looking up the exotic weapons I’ve noticed that the 814 – 900 I got is actually weapon strength for an exo warhorn, a 100% match.

If we assume anet really is using 905 – 1,000 for Mind Spike in combat then the tooltip is bugged then the coefficient should actually be:

• 1.031 = (2,560 * average(806 – 891)) / (2,213 * average(905 – 1,000) * 1.0)

I do believe coefficient gotten from the tooltips are “intended” damage numbers because:

• Mind Slash/Gash => Mind Spike (w/ boons) is 50% increase
• Mind Slash/Gash => Mind Spike (no boons) is 100% increase
• Mind Spike (w/ boons) => Mind Spike (no boons) is 33.3% increase

Kinda hard to assume that those nice round numbers are NOT intended and the actual Mind Slash/Gash => Mind Spike (no boons) somewhat random 78% increase is intended.

In PvE I equipped Legendary offhand sword (94 power) with no mainhand and recorded 1,000 non-crits against a target dummy. Then I did the same but with a white lvl 80 offhand sword (54 power) and a Cherry Tart (40 power) to match the legendary’s power stat. Minimum, maximum, and average hit were identical. Heck, I even unequipped the whole weapon during the skill cast and number stayed the same as well. Kind makes sense since otherwise Disenchanter/Defender would have no weapon to inherit the stats from since they are summoned by a utility, not a weapon skill.

Figuring out weapon strength took some math. The general idea was to derive a coefficient from the tooltip data. Then, record 500 to 1,000 non-crits and then use that coefficient to figure out the weapon strength. The equations:

• d = p * w * c * m / a
• c = (a * d) / (p * w * m)
• w = (a * d) / (p * m * c)
  d = damage; p = power; w = weapon strength; c = coefficient; m = multipliers; a = armor;

Taking Swordsman as an example. At 2,213 power (soldier amu, str runes, 4pts into domination) using the tooltip’s damage number we figure out the coefficient (1.15 multiplier was from Empowered Illusions, because otherwise the tooltip is bugged… but that’s a completely different topic):

• 1.895 = (2,560 * 1,794) / (2,213 * average(905 – 1,000) * 1.15)

Then, do ~1,000 hits and take the lowest and the highest non-crits to figure out the weapon strengths

• 905 = (2,560 * 1,705) / (2,213 * 1.15 * 1.895)
• 1,000 = (2,560 * 1,883) / (2,213 * 1.15 * 1.895)

Getting exactly 905 – 1,000 (100% match to an exo sword) after the real test means the tooltip really is accurately representing the proper damage calculations..

Doing the same check for Duelist / Warden, I get these weapon strengths:

• Duelist: 876 – 1,029 (exo pistol is 876 – 1,029, perfect match)
• Warden: 857 – 1,048 (exotic axe is 857 – 1,048, perfect match)

If I assume 2,600 armor for both tooltip and golem, I get:

• Swordsman: 905 – 999 (shoudl be 905 – 1,000… off by 1, acceptable)
• Duelist: 873 – 1,025 (should be 876 – 1,029… off by 3 & 4, not acceptable)
• Warden: 854 – 1,044 (should be 857 – 1,048… off by 3 & 4, not acceptable)

This is why I stuck with 2,560. The coefficients are nice and round and the calculated weapon strengths match the tooltip pretty much to 100%.

3 of the well known map exists on CoE got closed with invisiwalls

Ok, after almost a whole week of testing and re-testing everything I can finally say I’ve gotten it as accurate as you can get. Simulated many builds / setups with spreadsheet and then verified the actual DPS with the help of my dps meter and all results were within 1% of the predicted. Guess that’s good enough

Notes:

• Phantasms ignore your weapons (white or legendary, doesn’t matter as long as your core stats are same) and use Exotic weapon strengths instead
• Warden uses Axe stats, not Focus
• Tooltips / Indestructible Golem are both assuming 2,560 armor and not 2,600.
• Mind Spike (3rd hit of sword AA) does 10% less dmg than what tooltip claims and about 4% less than what wiki has (coefficients). This is most likely because Mind Spike actually uses WARHORN weapon strength instead of Sword for combat… gg anet.

Also a related conclusion I came to while doing the tests – using Blurred Frenzy does not lower your dps. In fact, if you use it without breaking the sword AA chain you will gain +12% dps for the following 4.3 seconds and + 14% dps for 3.4 seconds if you actually do end up breaking the chain (aka BF after only 2 AA’s). Assuming you have your sword traited that should average to about ~6% personal dps gain if you use BF on cooldown. The dps gain goes even higher if enemy has boons (thus proc’ing the weaker mind spike)

ps: all coefficients were tested in hotm so unless there is an unknown skill nerf/buff for pve counterpart then everything should still be valid in pve as well.

Did some tests to figure out whether it’s worth using Blurred Frenzy in my rotations.

Key
- 3AAa = 3x Auto Attacks (3rd hit on enemy with boons)
- 3AAb = 3x Auto Attacks (3rd hit on enemy without boons)
- 3AAbx = 3AAb but assuming Mind Spike is also bugged in PvE, not just HotM

- 3AAaBF = 3AAa + Blurred Frenzy
- 3AAbBF = 3AAb + Blurred Frenzy
- 3AAbxBF = 3AAbx + Blurred Frenzy

- 2AABF = 2x Auto Attacks (no mind spike) + Blurred Frenzy

Comparison (using 3AAb as the point of reference)
- [3AAa] -12.48%
- [3AAb] +0%
- [3AAbx] -4.98%

- [3AAaBF] +7.82%
- [3AAbBF] +14.99%
- [3AAbxBF] +12.14%

- [2AABF] +14.75%

Conclusions? Feel free to use BF on cooldown. Whether you break or keep the AA chain doesn’t matter – you will not be losing DPS either way. In fact, you might actually be gaining +15% more dps for ~4.3 seconds every time you use BF in exchange for losing one or two vuln stacks for ~2 seconds.

Without might stacks it’ll hits Husk for ~140k. With 25 might stacks it’ll hit for about 160k. Not worth the effort.

PvP – Traits, Sigils, Runes, Amulet
PvE – Traits

Big Jay.1479:

NPC-only kill of (insert boss here)

Let’s start with Spider Queen

I quite often have the risen inquest in coe get Alpha past 75% mark to trigger spire respawn, without actually doing anything… lol

2,560 actually. If I use 2,600 then my calculations are off by few percent and coefficients seems like random numbers. Using 2,560 for tooltip and for indestructible golem then all math matches up 100% and all coefficients are nice round numbers.

Oh in that case I doubt I’ll be doing that solo. My ele has only 2 armor sets. Zerk with Scholars and Zerk with Ranger runes……. XD

The only reason I’m doing this is because I’m getting different numbers from my dps meter vs the Mesmer DPS spreadsheet that I made. My goal is to have spreadsheet predict my expected dps as accurately as possible.

I’m close. Just have to test another possible bug that I might be seeing in addition to one mentioned in OP. If that bugs comes out to be true then my spreadsheet will be able to predict expected sustained DPS with 0.5% accuracy compared what I see in my dps tests.

dutchiez.7502:

Don’t have clerics gear so did it naked

Got it covered. I spared you the boredom and uploaded only a 1.5min snapshot:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me1VrGgB2wA

GrimmR.3541:

How about alpha on ranger with only pet attacks?

I’m guessing it’ll be about 10 times longer than this:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp6hQscP5n8

Ok, in OP I went under assumption that Tooltip might be wrong and the damage dealt was correct. Naturally I did another round of testing under assumption that tooltip is in fact correct and it’s the weapon skill that’s broken. What do you know, I did catch something very interesting.

If we assume the tooltip uses lvl 80 Exotic Sword weapon strength to calculate the damage number then when I use the derived coefficient on the data set of actual damage dealt vs the golem, it would actually match up 100% if… wait for it… Mind Spike uses EXOTIC WARHORN weapon strength for combat. Yes, exactly 814 – 900, as opposed to Mind Slash/Gash which in my tests came out to use the proper exotic sword’s 905 – 1000.

Imagine a thief doing unload and i feedback him. He continues unloading and kills himself. Exploit? Warrior killshots and I Mirror heal his projectile, he dies. Exploit?

High risk vs. high reward goes both ways, for players and for NPC’s.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Bosses were never meant to die in 15 seconds from their own projectile mechanics. Use your brain.

We did. That’s how we came up with a clever way to punish the boss for trying to unload so many projectiles at once.

Sword AA chain vs. a golem that has no boons (and no conditions, ex. no vuln) on it (HotM).

Tooltip

• Mind Slash – 392
• Mind Gash – 392
• Mind Spike – 588 [+50%] // vs enemy with boons
• Mind Spike – 783 [+100%] // vs enemy without boons

Observed

• Mind Slash – 396
• Mind Gash – 396
• Mind Spike – _ [_%] // vs enemy with boons
• Mind Spike – 884 [+123%] // vs enemy without boons

Interestingly enough, the calculated coefficient (from tooltip vs from observed) for Mind Slash/Gash match within 0.5% but Mind Spike is completely off, unless… we assume ANet uses exotic weapon strength for combat for all skills and uses RARE weapon strengths for the Mind Spike’s tooltip, in which case the number will match within 0.1% (!).

I did the same test for Swordsman/Duelist/Warden and if I assume phantasms use exotic lvl 80 weapon strengths in calculations then the coefficients calculated from the tooltips match the coefficients calculated from testing down to 0.1%, which is rather awesome given than ANet has a bad history with broken tooltips. Just have to equip the Empowered Illusions trait for tooltip numbers to make sense because otherwise Swordman’s tooltip is off by a few decimal places… lol

So what does all this mean? Phantasms completely ignore whatever weapons you’re wearing and simply use Exotic Sword (swordsman), Exotic Pistol (duelist), and Exotic AXE (warden) stats in calculating the tooltip dmg and actual damage dealt (aka whether you have a white or a legendary weapons, phantasms will hit equally hard given you kept the core stats the same). And also, if we assume the tooltip for Mind Spike using RARE stats instead of EXOTIC stats like everything else is not intended, then the actual damage dealt by the Mind Slash we observe is actually 13% higher than intended.

Solution? Fix the skill tooltips to show correct dmg numbers and not just random jumbo and, please, for the love of @#$% let our phantasms inherit our gear. Weapon quality, sigils, food, runes, etc… I’ll love you forever ANet if you at least give us that much <3 <3

Yes, I’m fully aware of that. This is why it completely threw me off since Force sigil should NOT affect phantasms in any way. And, nah. Under same conditions (assuming dungeon speedruns) with 1x warden & 2x swordsmans, both Ranger and Scholar runes are better than ruby orbs by ~2.5% to ~4% respectively.

Ok, I may have run across a bug that’s not easy to reproduce but I know for a fact that it’s there. Managed to observe it 4 times yesterday (tested 4 times, 1 time w/out sigil 1 time with and then again 1 w/out and 1 with the sigil, to be absolutely sure I’m not just seeing things). I’m not sure what exactly causes it, still trying to figure that out. The bug is that under certain conditions (pvp gear/traits & pve gear) equipping Sigil of Force actually LOWERS your phantasm dps by 5%.

maha.7902:

he literally never melee’d the champion in his melee solo, just spawned phantasms, kited it around over and over again and then went in when he had frenzy and riposte up. if he actually had more than 0.1% melee uptime, the melee kill would have been faster.

s/s/p was faster by a few seconds even with all the kiting. If you absolutely can’t stay alive in melee then yes, gs & 3x berserkers is a completely viable option – braindead simple and gets you near same killtimes as s/s/p. Other than that, there is no real reason to camp GS (apart from just being too lazy).

Oh, I see. Got the effects mixed up. Thanks!

• Arcane Thievery: Fixed a bug that caused the Far-Reaching Manipulations trait to reduce the cooldown of this skill.

Wait, what? Arcane Thievery is a manipulation skill, Far Reaching Manipulations increases range of manipulation skills, and the fact that the trait did what it supposed to was a bug?

Not at the computer atm so can’t test what they actually did. Please clarify if ANet did what they claim in the patch notes.

maha.7902:

Honestly, as a PvE mesmer you shouldn’t even bother with 10/30/0/20/10, just switch between 30/20/0/20/0 and 30/20/0/0/20. I’ll only use 30/30/0/0/10 if it’s actually worth having that third mantra charge (triple daze on Lupicus for vuln on feedback, dazing abomination to shave defiant, maybe triple cleanse for first SE p3 boss)

It’s about time for you to switch to the new trait naming. I have to re-read the builds #’s a few times to actually understand them if you use the 30/30/0/0/10 format. 6/6/0/0/2 makes much more sense.

Another bug, don’t remember if it was reported already.

Sometimes illusions (phantasms only afaik, but could be clones too) will freeze for few seconds before shattering.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXUx1EFH-ZU

The spider starts with around 3 million health and scales up to about 20 million with a 30 man group or so. I think a dev accidentally (or troll intentionally) added an extra zero to spiders health pool.

Something very odd I’ve noticed. Solo’ing Advanced Golem in CoE reflecting Ultra Beam I was getting around 4k to 5k non-crits and 10k to 13k crits. When in an organized party, my feedback is always reflecting same attack for 20k to 24k (100% crit so zero non-crits there).

Both times I was using exact same build, gear, utilities, and consumables. The only thing that changed was the amount of might/banners party was providing. What may be causing the reflect damage to nearly double. Might stacks?

EDIT: Probably a false alarm. Stripped Protection buff, Disc Banner, and 25 vuln stacks really do add up to 200% dmg increase.

I don’t like threads without closure. Having others “figure it out” and not me is not a closure.

I made this thread 8 months ago asking for tips to the boss. Now I’m back reporting that I finally got it down and even solo’d it without much problems many times. Even provided videos showing how so others may reference it for their own purposes.

Depends on your gear. The only time you’ll go past 100% is when you wear Assassins weapons, armor, and precision runes (such as rangers). I wear full ascended Assassins with ranger runes and the only time I get over 100% is when someone drops banner of discipline, in which case I sit at 102% crit chance and my phantasms are at 95% crit chance. If you replace Ranger runes with Scholars then you’re back to 94% crit chance with all the buffs.

Note that your crit chance is scaled down when you fight a mob higher level than you, such as Lupicus who I believe is lvl 83 so having crit higher than 100% is actually a good thing.

(OP here, thread necro)

Took me 8 months but now I can finally say that I’ve figured the champ out. Once you do he becomes face-roll easy:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hoZbQkK_7c
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCqrdKrKfmo

Goal complete!

Young Somalia.1706:

Jahroots.6791:

GS mesmer ftw!

gs mes pls go

gs mes are viable!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUDSo8ndWo4

My standard rotation for that encounter is,
1. Warden
2. Disenchanter
3. Signet of Ether
4. Wait 2 seconds
5. Disenchanter

I avoid relying on wardens because when he spins he pushes them away and they stop reflecting his attacks unless they’re targeted directly at them. This is why I always prefer to evenly stagger 2 or 3 disenchanters and then protect them with my reflects in case the golem starts targeting them. Of course, in organized groups if they can time the cc’s to interrupt all his spin then with wardens you can set up a perma reflect field which will reflect both the boss & the turrets and do decent damage at the same time.

I personally prefer the way that requires less effort for those who are in my party.

Force mainhand and Accuracy offhand is the best all-around setup. Accuracy go for 1.5g

@#$% me this is getting ridiculous. Only my 3rd day playing a condi war and already near-afk facerolling the content.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hoZbQkK_7c

guanlongwucaii.3162:

as a guard you can just pull the wolf with block/invuln, makes it faster because you don’t have to wait for slow npc to aggro

Soa Cirri.6012:

This is half the reason I use axe/shield on my warrior.

As a warrior, longbow 5 and he blows both leaps without moving an inch.

Traited warden reflects golem’s attacks for quite substantial DPS. It would be quite unwise to keep wardens untraited for the golem

maha.7902:

I’d say one problem is that you want bleeds and burns, and if you want good burn uptime you need staff clones out whereas if you want good bleeds you need duelists out … and you can’t have both. Warrior can have both.

I know mes enough that I may get away with just theorycrafting. Lets assume 3 duelists, 2/3/5/0/4 build, full rabid gear, cm runes, bursting/strength sigils, and koi cakes. Duelists should be pushing about 17 bleed stacks in that situation. Combined with sword mainhand vs a 2600 armor target you’re looking at about 4,340 total DPS with duelists responsible for 82% of it. While this isn’t too bad there is a big problem – if even a single duelist dies your dps will go to @#%.

I did play with staff version and the dps heavily depended on me/clones and our positioning. At ~600 range I was barely keeping up burning and only ~7 bleed stacks When in melee, thanks to bounces, I kept perma burn and about 15 bleeds (was roughly 4.2k dps). ANet claimed last patch that they would fix IE to apply to clones but in reality they did not. I do believe that once (and if) they finally get their kitten together and fix the trait I will be able to keep perma burn and 25 bleed (and possibly 25 might, staff projectiles grant might/burn/bleed on rng basis) on a target with just staff and clones. Once that happens, I should be able to reach condi dps comparable to a warrior.

maha.7902:

This isn’t to say condis are superior, and I never wanted to argue that … but I feel the gap between condi and direct damage is a little smaller than we think.

For a warrior. I’d kill for such high condi pressure from a mesmer. I tried, but no good results. I do believe it’s possible but only if ANet decided to fix Illusionary Elasticity to apply to clones, which given their record is a 0.0001% chance of actually happening :/

Warlord.9074:

I think Condi is a clear winner considering the rest of the package.

That is arguable. My conclusion is that power is the clear winner here and condi builds do have a chance to match power builds dps but only in a few niche situations.

With a proper wind-up I got 6,020 DPS, which is a 3% improvement over lazy wind-up. Either way, still not enough to beat power builds.