Guild Wars 2

SoulSin.5682:

More like they sacrifice everything.

^This. You give up your ability to fight and run in return for the ability to instantly delete unsuspecting targets. If you ever get attacked, you will die. The trick is to avoid attention until you are ready to kill.

To make it a little easier, you could go with DeceiverX’s suggestion and take Hide in Shadows instead of SoM. You won’t see a real difference in damage, so unless you are making a fancy backstab montage 3 signets should be plenty :P

You surely should work on another BS montage.

I’m not actively playing atm – I just kind of got side tracked and ended up on the forums.

Besides, I feel like I’d have to do some silly PvE grind for ascended gear to get the absolute highest crits before doing another video. What’s the point in going for a 4 signet build if the damage I do isn’t any higher than what a normal build with better gear could do?

The fact I have multiple characters that all want ascended gear isn’t helping >.<

Highest possible burst? I have been summoned!

..Basically, DeceiverX is doing it right. For absolute maximum burst, swap Shadow Refuge for Signet of Malice and change a few traits and you’re good to go. It should look a little something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8MpxpFOxzJ8PNRLRt9IECfgXnh2PQAEiA-T1CBABHfCAg4BAUp6PScIAwa/BAOgCZp8LP9BMqEMFNMMckCCAgAcz2sv9Ngzbezbezbeu5Nv5Nv5NLFQELjA-w

Ancient video of the build in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

I also did some math to figure out just how much damage you could do with these kinds of builds if all the stars aligned once upon a time, ended up with a solid 80k burst.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/first#post4093244

Have fun!

The trick is not to 1v1 anything – the moment your victim spots you, run and stab them once they turn away

(I think I broke the edit button – the forums finally decided my random additions that had nothing to do with anything were too off topic and flat out refused to add them. The edit in question involved a rant about not having enough time that had several plot twists in it, a missing right bracket, and the shocking revalation that I probably shouldn’t be posting at 1 am, so all things considered it was probably for the best :P)

Sure, elementalists can burst. Then again, my warrior is running around literally one shotting people, and my thief loves his Cloak and Dagger + Steal + Backstab combo that does more or less the exact same thing.

Instantly downing people has always been possible, and I doubt it’s ever going to change. Burst alone doesn’t matter, it’s only ever a problem when combined with too much survivability, and I’d argue that’s not the case here.

Besides, 30k? It hasn’t been that many months since I showed it goes all the way up to 90k
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/first#post4093244

We need more of these silly things, not less. How could anyone possibly not want this to be a thing?

T raw.4658:

Need moar updates on your failures and successes

^This. I still remember my first times trying not to get horribly murdered when using 4 signets, and it wasn’t pretty

Oh wow, I was only going to take a quick look at the first chapter, and ended up reading all of them

lordhelmos.7623:

I’m looking for ultra glass yolo sniper to get the biggest and most kittened numbers possible on someone in wvw.

That’s the spirit! My old sniper build seems to work just fine, though you must first shoot them with something to get in combat so your adrenaline doesn’t evaporate. Does anyone see anything obvious to improve?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAseUj8cU5ZtH+dwJagegycAUBRwpEX9c07pBA-T1BEABGcIAYa/R5XbaDA4EAQwRAIR1f2SJYAgDg8tv/G48zP/8zPvf/93f/93SBExwK-w

What is this “not a one shot class” silliness? When built for it, thief can most definitely one shot people.

The builds Ralkuth linked seem about right, though for one shotting I’d probably trade the off hand pistol for a dagger, since Cloak and Dagger + steal + backstab is such a good combo for bursting purposes. I’m also not sure about some of the traits, namely I’d swap Improvisation for Dagger training, and perhaps Thrill of the crime for Flanking Strikes and Signet Use for Furious Retaliation, though the last two changes make the burst somewhat less reliable.

DoomKnightMax.6592:

I probably will be going for Yski’s build

Good luck!

One thing to keep in mind if you find 4 signets too glassy, is that you are dealing way more damage than you actually need to most of the time. You won’t really lose anything other than my respect style points by trading some of it for defense or utility :P

DeviantCanuck.2587:

burst

The biggest thing when playing a burst spec* in sPvP is to get the idea of fighting even remotely fair out of your head. If they as much as glance in your general direction, you run away, sneak back and stab them when they look the other way. The whole point of burst is killing them before they can react, so the worst thing you can do is give your victims an early warning.

Of course, even I don’t follow my own rules, but more often than not if I die, it’s because I decided to gamble it all on the enemy not dodging an attack they see coming.

*My idea of a burst spec involves having 3 or more signets. It’s a little less forgiving than yours, so take my advice with a grain of salt – if my burst fails, I die :P

Absolute maximum burst? I have been summoned!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8MpxpFOxzJ8PNRLRtdIMCfgXnh2PQAEiA-T1BEABGcGAYa/R5Xb6DA4QAQwDAIR1f2SJYAAEgb2mt5NDcezbezbezzv9tv9tv9NpAiYYF-w

Of the top of my head, this should be the absolute highest you can do. I did the math a while ago, and the highest it could go back then was about 82k, though with all the changes that have happened since then it’s not going to be quite the same. Here’s the thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst

Also, here’s an ancient video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM&list=UUA7Mu3BNpy2CXIxFlExyRXQ

Enjoy the burst

Maugetarr.6823:

D/D, full glass (or close to it) + SB and no stealth utilities. Pretty challenging to stay alive.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl0Mp0pFOxrJ8PNRLh4972z19Rg++C-TVSBwAPOEAmVCG5IAcT9HsK/Iu/Ae9BLeAAAOBABAQAuZb2m3MgbezjezjezSBIoyI-w

Ahem, this is how you do full glass.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVl8MpxpFOxzJ8PNRLRtdIMCfgXnh2PQAEiA-T1BEABGcGAYa/R5Xb6DA4QAQwDAIR1f2SJYAAEgb2mt5NDcezbezbezzv9tv9tv9NpAiYYF-w

Ancient video, really should make a new one at some point, but enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM&list=UUA7Mu3BNpy2CXIxFlExyRXQ

With our rules we’re lucky if we reach 5k condition damage. Conditions take time to set up and even with the setup they’re pressure rather than burst, so it’s not really a fair comparison

My apologies for taking so long with the mesmer/warrior burst by the way!

EDIT: Long story short, I found out I really am going to the university (Yay! ), so I had to submit applications for housing and send confirmations that yes, I do indeed want to study there and what not, so I’ve been a bit distracted. The actual calculations should be quick to do once I get back to doing things.

Suuns.9203:

The guy asks which is the highest possible mesmer burst with hope to get a suitable build to deal the highest possible damage, gets 412312 different builds. Gets even more confused, depressed, deletes gw2.

I take it you’ve never had to deal with elementalist burst rotations..?

Ansau.7326:

For Mind Wrack calculation, this may help you:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Relyk/sandbox/coefficient

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Does-compounding-power-affect-shatter/first#post3981088

Thanks! I also got some advice in mesmer sub forums, and I think I’ve figured it out. With that done, I should be able to calculate warrior and mesmer burst tomorrow

Thanks, that solves it! <3

^I think there’s an internal cooldown on the sigils, and when the damage is that high you’re better off with +damage% sigils instead. The marks don’t really hit that high, so even with Lich Form stat increases I think the burst would stay below 40k. That’s not to say necromancers can’t hurt – my glass cannon necromancer wipes out entire teams like nothing, but generally speaking it takes about 3-5 seconds to do so instead of the 1 we’re looking for here.

Still, if we could squeeze a Reaper’s Touch in there we might have something worthy of the 50k+ club.

Azo.5860:

http://youtu.be/2U2E6mTsL7E?t=1m5s war riffle :P

My personal record is a 22k kill shot on a level 80 target, and I imagine we could push it up to the 30k-35k territory. But why settle for one hit when you have a whole second to go after it? With some quickness you can combine it with Eviscerate, and I have a few other ideas I’d like to try as well

I fixed the Revealed Training bug and added another burst rotation for thieves. I also decided it’s better to put the calculations in attached .txt files instead of the actual posts, partly due to spoiler tags failing me and partly due to the size limitations on posts.

I’m currently trying to figure out how to calculate Mind Wrack damage, and when that’s dealt with I’m doing the math for mesmers and warriors as well. I also feel like elementalist burst could still be pushed a little bit further, so there’s still hope we reach that 100k mark

The amount of damage Mind Wrack deals per clone varies depending on the amount of clones used, but it’s not immediately obvious what happens when the player is using Illusionary Persona. Does he count as a clone, or just an additional tick of damage? If the player does indeed count as a clone, what happens when we have 3 clones + the player?

What about the weapon strength? From what I’ve understood, anything that isn’t a weapon skill, usually uses an “inherent” weapons strength that has a mean value of 952.5, and the highest possible value somewhere around 1000, but for Mind Wrack the wiki mentions the number 604. What weapon strength value should I be using if I wanted to find the highest possible Mind Wrack hit?

TL;DR version:
- How does Illusionary Persona interact with Mind Wrack?
- What is the highest possible weapon strength value Mind Wrack can get?

Wyrden.4713:

dmging bit before shouldnt be a problem for his question:p

..Except one of the rules was that you have one second to finish the burst after the first tick of damage.

I think we’ve reached the point where it’s time to do the math and see what comes out. I’ll use Ansau’s rotation, and I’ll test both 6/2/0/0/6 and 6/6/0/0/2. May the best burst win

Wyrden.4713:

meh u should have tagged him w some sustained dmg before, therefor u do get loot and deal an infinite amount of dmg:0

But if you tag them before they start falling, it’ll take more than a second for them to actually die. I’m afraid this is not the burst we are looking for

I admit the no damaging the target before the burst rule is a little bit arbitrary, but I’d like to stick to it for now, which basically means getting those pre-burst clones or phantasms is a little bit tricky.

Fay.2357:

Don’t trust tooltips ingame, they’re often wrong. However, the wiki skill coefficients are all correct down to a couple decimal places. I’ve tested everything personally, and they all line up (except phantasms, don’t trust phantasm coefficients).

Agreed on the tooltips often being wrong, but since the damage numbers vary with power they are being calculated on the fly somehow, so I believe the tooltip damage wiki formula should give us decent results. I’d love to test things via steady weapons instead, but they ceased to exists when they improved sPvP. Thanks, I guess..

Good to hear the wiki should be more or less reliable though – having to calculate everything isn’t fun.

So, the highest elementalist burst I’ve tried used Hurl –> Lightning Flash –> Churning Earth –> Electric Discharge –> Lightning Strike –> Arcane Wave –> Arcane Blast –> Ride the Lightning, and the build I used was this: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMKZ25wlBdEBOABp6IT/yEHFkA-TlBEABMt/o8rN9AAcCAI4BAko6PbpEMAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLFQELjA-w

As it turns out, we didn’t actually benefit from Tempest Defense using this rotation. I think we could push the burst a little higher if we modified the build accordingly, but the question is how?

One option I can think of would be to remove one point from air and put it in fire for Spell Slingler, but can anyone think of something better? I want to reach that 100k mark!

Miku Lawrence.6329:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhIQNAsf2ENttTNmoNSrxg6tuaKSGwBl8jqB-T1BBABYt/o8DgTAgHHBg80HMq6PQ8AAOTJYAAEArX9qX9qX9szduzduzdWKgRFWB-w

That’s what I did. 20 in Dueling.

Skill coef’s are almost all wrong by the way, don’t trust the wiki.

I should be able to calculate the weapon skill coefficients from the tooltips based on
Tooltip damage = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value),
and I can also get a reasonable approximation on utilities and what not using similar methods, though a reliable list of skill coefficients would be better. I calculated Mug coefficient this way, and the values seemed to vary slightly after a few decimal places, so I suspect the “inherent” weapon strength I used for it was slightly off, or there was something wonky going on due to it being a trait. Does anyone have any handy links they’d like to share?

As for your build, you’re investing heavily in precision, which we don’t really need for our RNG free burst. It’s great for real world bursts, but that’s not what we’re looking for here.

You do bring up a good point with the trait point distribution though, but looking at the numbers, you’d give up +17% damage for +6% critical damage, so it does end up not being worth it after all.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Well… my theory applies for real game. If everything crits then why go into Dueling line at all?

For the ferocity. Going all the way into dueling gives us 20% critical damage, which is huge when everything crits. Then again, we’d have to give up lots of + damage % traits to get there, so I’m not sure if that would be worth the trade.

@Wads That’s starting to look pretty good. I’ll wait until tomorrow, but if no further improvements are added I’ll google around for skill coefficients, feed the numbers into my Java thingy and see what kind of burst comes out

Well, going by the video trooper linked it looks like a 20k+ burst, so I’d say it’s worth seeing how far we can push it.

So far we have two burst rotations. Mesmer is one of my least played classes, but I imagine Mantra of Pain and The Prestige might give us a little bit of additional damage. Anything else we should add?

Rotations so far:
3x Diversion (25 vuln) → Prestige → Blurred Frenzy → Mind Wrack → Power Spike (Mantra of Pain activation)
Prestige → Mirror Blade → Dodge → Mind Wrack → Power Spike

Anything to add there?

Then there’s the build – we’ll want all ascended berserker and scholar runes, but I have no idea how we should trait this thing, and I don’t really see any obvious utility choices either, apart from additional clones.

Basically, how should we trait for the highest possible burst, and what utilities should we bring?

I’ve been looking for the highest theoretical burst in the game, and someone suggested I should look into glass cannon mesmers. I’ve never actually seen a decent mesmer burst, but I figured I should probably ask the experts. So, does mesmer burst exist, how does it work and how would you push it to its absolute limits?

For comparison’s sake, the highest elementalist burst we’ve come up with did 94k damage. No pressure! :P
(Main thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/)

Rules:
- Time limit is one second, starting from first tick of damage done.
- No external buffs
- There is no RNG – everything goes perfectly. Every skill deals the highest possible damage it can do, and everything with a % chance to proc will proc.

We’ll need to be below 25% health for Desperate Power, so we wouldn’t get that final 10% buff from Scholar Runes. If I did the math right, that means we’d get +6% critical damage from Scholar Runes, and +7% damage from Runes of Strength.

That being said, I’m not 100% sure which rune set would be optimal when below that 90% health threshold, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong when assuming it’d be Runes of Strength

How about something like a couple of ticks of 100B → Whirl → Weapon Swap(Interrupts animation) → Eviscerate? Not sure if could rival a good killshot crit, but the more the merrier, at least when it comes to burst rotations.

What about build? Here’s what I’ve come up with, any improvements?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAU3HH1eYpg43BciYgggycBEAJg6zo2DjUFBA-TFSBABXp8jm9HwT3wCHBAAuAA59QAoU9HzUCGA4A43fz3+Gc+5nf+5n3v/+7v/+bpAiYZE-w

Don’t sell warriors too short – I’m sure we can at least get to 50k, probably way higher.

@Cygnus No external buffs are allowed, so all the might and vulnerability you want you’ll have to stack yourself, and the moment you deal any damage is the moment the timer starts ticking.

So, can anyone think of any other burst rotations, or is Killshot + (Signet of Fury) + Eviscerate our best bet?

I’ve been looking for the highest theoretical burst in the game, and with the amount of damage warriors can pump out, I felt you should join the fun! So far the highest burst we’ve come up with is a 94k elementalist burst, so that’s the kind of numbers we are looking for.
(Main thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/)

Rules:
- Time limit is one second, starting from first tick of damage done.
- No external buffs
- There is no RNG – everything goes perfectly. Every skill deals the highest possible damage it can do, and everything with a % chance to proc will proc.

So, what would be the highest possible warrior burst?

Just to add oil to the fire, how about a 90k+ elementalist burst? :P
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/first#post4093244

Then again, if you get caught by a build designed to do that much damage, you deserve to take that damage. There is a reason no-one is running builds like these in high level tournament play – one dodge and you’ve already won the fight. Damage without sustain shouldn’t be a problem if you know what you’re doing, it’s only an issue when combined with too much survivability.

..And I’m back. Time to reanimate this thread!

Brando.1374:

shouldn’t the rotation include a HS after the BS to take advantage of the 200 power from revealed training.

I couldn’t find any data on thief aftercast delays, so I was hesitant to go too close to that one second mark in case I accidentally went over it. On top of that, the original time limit was ½ a second, and while I did bumb it up to one second later on, I still had the metality that the burst must be near instantaneous.

That being said, I probably should have squeezed in that additional heartseeker – backstab takes 1/4 of a second and heartseeker takes 3/4 of a second, so with quickness it would probably work.

Note that backstab should already benefit from Revealed Training since we reveal ourselves with Mug during the animation.

(Well, that’s how it should work. I messed up and accidentally gave the thief a permanent Revealed Training instead – I’ll have to fix that and re-do the calculations)

Shockwave.1230:

You can land steal, backstab, dual strike, wild strike, sigil of air, and sigil of fire all in 1 second.

I’d love some numbers on how long thief skills actually take. I know there are some aftercast delays in the game, but they aren’t documented anywhere for the most part, which makes theorycrafting with strict time limits a bit difficult. Still, if we can squeeze in additional hits, we should

As for the sigils, sigils of air and fire can’t crit, so I think the +10% damage sigils work better in our ideal case scenario. Aren’t there some internal cooldowns that prevent both triggering like that as well?

Brando.1374:

also the food used, would bowl of seaweed salad give better results with a flat 10% damage increase or is 100 power/ 70 ferocity better?

Good point, I hadn’t even realized seaweed salad exists. Does anyone know which is better, or should I just use both and see which works better?

style.6173:

@OP: I agree that eles have the biggest burst in the game. That said, I think you should also add in a gc mesmer build and test that.

How would a gc mesmer burst work? I’ve never been able to squeeze decent numbers out of them, though I’m not a mesmer expert so it’s very likely I was doing it wrong. In my experience mesmers do great sustained damage with phantasms, but little front loaded burst.

(EDIT: I decided mesmer forums would be the best place to ask. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/The-Highest-Possible-Mesmer-Burst)

Ropechef.6192:

116k hundred blades.

While we can’t have full duration of hundred blades, I think something like
First couple of 100b ticks -> Whirling Charge -> Weapon swap to stop animation, sigil proc -> Evicerate
might be able to compete – though I just thought of that off the top of my head, so I have no idea if that would actually work. Still, I think warriors deserve to have their burst measured, and that calls for a “Highest Warrior Burst” thread. I think I’ll go make one right now
(EDIT: Done. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/The-Highest-Possible-Warrior-Burst)

I did a few tweaks, and the winning ele burst reached 94k damage. Here’s the thread I promised you

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/The-Highest-Theoretical-Burst/first#post4093244

So, I think we can conclude that elementalists are the kings and queens of burst, at least for the time being.

As a side note, I made a quick little Java thing to do the calculations for me and spit out the results in a nice forum ready format. It’s not the prettiest code out there, but if someone wants the source code or an exacutable jar just send me a message and I’ll beam it over to you.

I’m leaving for a short trip today, and if all goes as planned I should be back next Wednesday. If you have any questions you better ask them quick or be prepared to wait a few days

Reserved for future use.

Reserved for future use.

Rotation 3:
Total damage: ~ 94 000

Rotation 2:
Total damage: ~ 88 000

Elementalist

Rotation 1:
Total damage: ~ 92 000

Rotation 2:
Total damage: ~ 82 000

Thief:

Rotation 1:
Total damage ~ 55 000

I’ve been wondering for a while now who has the highest possible burst in the game, and how high exactly could that burst go under ideal conditions. After a brief youtube comment section debate I decided to do the math and find out.

Rules:
- The burst must take less than one second to complete, starting from first tick of damage done.
- The target is an afk glass cannon with 1804 armor, 20k health and the magical ability to heal back to one health should it fall below zero.
- RNG magically gives the burst the best possible results – every % chance to do something that would increase the burst will happen, and every skill scores the highest possible weapon strength value. We are looking for the theoretical limit, so how likely it is to happen is completely irrelevant.

So far, I’ve done the tests on one thief build and one elementalist build, though I did use three different burst rotations for the ele. If you have a build you think could complete, post it below and we’ll see how far it goes.

(I had to split the elementalist bursts into two posts due to the size limitations. Pun may or may not be intented )

EDIT: I figured an easy to read high scores list would be handy.

1. Elementalists – 94k damage. (Build could be improved?)
2. Thief – 82k damage.

Rudy.6184:

PS. I hope anet doesnt see this, they can nerf ele by that XD

Serves you right for (probably) beating my thief! I haven’t done the math yet, but I’d estimate the thief burst would probably be around 50-60k

Pecar.1236:

-Snip-

Can you please try writing using sentences and proper grammmar? I had to read that several times to even understand what you’re saying.

My point still stands though, elementalists have ridiculous amounts of non healing skill healing, so you shouldn’t just compare healing skills like that.

Oh, good point. My sigil did indeed crit – Sigil of Night it is when I recalculate this!

You shouldn’t compare skills in a void though – elementalists have plenty of other sources of healing, while warriors (usually) don’t.

Before the inevitable replies telling me how warriors heal too much, I haven’t said anything about class balance here, I’m just pointing out a flaw in OP’s reasoning.

Well, I did the math with the “additional effects after the damage” assumption and using the following rotation:
Lightning Flash, Phoenix, Phoenix, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Electric Discharge, Lightning Strike, Arcane Wave, Arcane Blast, Ride the Lightning, Sigil of Air

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhUMKZ25wlBdEBOABp6IT/yEHFkA-TlBEABMt/o8rN9AAcCAI4BAko6PbpEMAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLFQELjA-w

Might stacks were as follows (Fire field next to the target for stacking during the burst):
Start: Churning Earth + Earthquake -> 6
After Phoenix 2nd hit: 9
After Arcane Wave: 12

The target was my 20k health 1804 armor glass cannon necromancer with the magical ability to heal back to 1 health should his health drop below 0. All hits critted and scored the highest possible weapon strength value.

The result: 77 836 damage. Dragon’s Tooth would’ve been the killing blow. Not bad for our first try!

I’ll make a separate thread for the actual calculations, redo the math with the vulnerability happening before the burst and do the same with 2 more elementalist rotations, a thief rotation and perhaps a warrior rotation later (though I’ll need to make a highest warrior burst thread for that), but I thought you might find this sneak peek interesting

Does weak point apply its vulnerability before or after the damage from the hit lands? I assume it’s after, but it would give me an extra 1% damage if it was before :P

Same goes for might combo’s – if we place a fire field next to the target and blast the field, I’ll assume the might comes after the damage is done.