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GWF At-Wills Damage Per Minute Breakdown
ardikus27
Member Posts: 12 Arc User
Method
I set a timer for one minute and counted how many attack animations occurred during the elapsed time for each of the three Great Weapon Fighter At-Will attacks: Sure Strike (SS), Wicked Strike (WS), and Weapon Master's Strike (WMS). I redid each trial twice for accuracy.
Next, I used a Drake's Greatsword on weak mobs to test the damage bonus on the fourth attack of Sure Strike, and on the third attack of Wicked Strike. Drake's Greatsword works well for testing damage in this manner, because its weapon damage is 855-855, so every attack will do the same amount of damage. After several trials, I divided the final attack damage by normal attack damage to calculate the percent damage increase on the final attacks for both Sure Strike and Wicked Strike.
Finally, I calculated damage per-minute of each At-Will attack based on the damage given by the tooltip of the ability. Again, averaging damage is not necessary because there is no deviation on damage from Drake's Greatsword.
I set a timer for one minute and counted how many attack animations occurred during the elapsed time for each of the three Great Weapon Fighter At-Will attacks: Sure Strike (SS), Wicked Strike (WS), and Weapon Master's Strike (WMS). I redid each trial twice for accuracy.
Next, I used a Drake's Greatsword on weak mobs to test the damage bonus on the fourth attack of Sure Strike, and on the third attack of Wicked Strike. Drake's Greatsword works well for testing damage in this manner, because its weapon damage is 855-855, so every attack will do the same amount of damage. After several trials, I divided the final attack damage by normal attack damage to calculate the percent damage increase on the final attacks for both Sure Strike and Wicked Strike.
Finally, I calculated damage per-minute of each At-Will attack based on the damage given by the tooltip of the ability. Again, averaging damage is not necessary because there is no deviation on damage from Drake's Greatsword.
Post edited by ardikus27 on
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Comments
Sure Strike – 92 apm, every fourth hit does 200% damage
598 base, 1196 every 4th hit = 41,262 + 27,508 = 68,770 dmg per minute
Weapon Master Strike – 42 apm x 2
460 base = 38,640 dmg per minute
Wicked Strike – 60 apm, every third hit does 160% damage
661 base, 1058 every 3rd hit = 26,440 + 21,160 = 47,600 dmg per minute
Analysis
SS, being the Great Weapon Fighter's only single-target At-Will ability, outperforms the other At-Wills by a staggering amount. The attack speed is faster, clocking in at 92 attacks per minute, and the 200% damage increase on every 4th attack really makes this At-Will pack a punch. SS is your go-to At-Will attack for the most single target damage.
WMS has the slowest attack animation, but that is deceptive as this At-Will attacks twice with every swing, so long as it hits a target. It clocks in at 84 attacks per minute, just shy of SS's attack speed. In raw damage, however, WMS is the lowest of the three, dealing just over half of Sure Strike's damage per minute. Due to its AoE and fast rate of attack, Weapon Master Strike shines in clearing packs of mobs with very low hitpoints (I will discuss the debuff later).
WS is the slowest hitter, clocking in at 60 attacks per minute, but each hit on this AoE At-Will does significantly more damage than WMS; especially its every third hit, which deals 160% increased damage. For raw, long-term AoE damage, WS is your go-to ability.
Since we can only have two At-Will attacks available at any given time, the question becomes, "Which ones should I use?" Based on raw damage, it's tempting to say that SS and WS should be your two slotted At-Wills at any given time. This conclusion is confounded by the debuff from WMS, which if feated in the Destroyer tree will give At Will and Encounters -10% damage mitigation for 5 seconds.
As an Instigator you will not receive the WMS debuff bonus on Encounter Powers, and you also receive a great buff to your WS damage. WMS effectively becomes obsolete here except in extremely rare cases where you need some quick burst AoE damage against mobs with very low hitpoints. There is one downside to WS though, if you get knocked down or have to sprint out of red ground and miss the big bonus damage on the third strike.
Conclusion
Prior to this patch my AoE damage as a Destroyer paragon consisted mainly of spamming WMS. I will be taking a serious look at how WS performs in epic dungeons after this substantial buff. SS is an automatic go-to ability when I need single-target DPS.
NOTE: I intentionally left Reaping Strike out of this analysis because that attack sucks.
Sure Strike is still bad, maybe the new patch will make it semi decent for a GWF that might be a viable tank option now.
Wicked Strike and Weapon Master Strike will always outperform in dungeons for us because our role is AoE and not single target.
That's a lot of analysis to skip Reaping Strike if you're trying to make the point that Reaping Strike sucks. Why don't you parse it's damage? Is it because it doesn't really suck?
You also might want to parse the combat log rather than counting attacks with a stop watch.
Also the same logic for missing out on the final hit of SS/WS can be applied to Reaping Strike.
I've been saying this for a very long time even when everyone else **** all over Sure Strike. Faster Animation = more damage over a course of time. Combined with Student of the Sword feat and Greater PlagueFire Enchant it becomes even more sick.
Character is what a man is in the dark
According to the OP's results, it doesn't even do double the damage.
Think about that for a minute.
In certain situations a GWF will need to do single target DPS to a boss. Whether there's no adds up or other group members are controlling adds. SS is very good in those situations.
Not good enough to waste an At-Will slot or have to try and reslot one and wait for the CD before using it.
Name a boss where you single target... exactly
Weapon Master's Strike: You attack with an expert strike that briefly reduces Damage Resistance against your At-Wills, and then quickly follows up with another attack from behind. Damage slightly reduced for every target hit beyond the first.
Also a lot of people seem to be combining WMS and WS in a way that seems to give damage from both. For example, at it's most basic, rapidly alternating WMS and WS gives damage from both at the same time.
Does this even still work on the test server?
Well played good sir haha
if you think there arent times where you're going to be stuck singletargeting..you're rather delusional.
Not delusional... realistic. We can muddle through most of the game content just fine, as many many folks have done so, but in critical areas where peak PVE performance is crucial to win or wipe.. SS is utter and complete fail in all ways.
For PVP, not so much. No one is saying that SS is worthless in all respects.
I did mention the WMS debuff in the "Discussion" section of my post. The debuff is the reason why WMS is still quite viable especially in Destroyer spec, despite it being the lowest damage of the three.
As a branch of this discussion, does anyone know how the damage resistance debuff on WMS stacks with things like Armor Pen, Student of the Sword, or Plague Fire?
We are talking about Neverwinter right? When has peak PVE performance ever been crucial or needed for that matter?
LOL
Nevermind then... SS is the best. My bad.
New
i don't know why the new WMS deals slightly less damage.
I do know, however, that unless you're out of stamina (or you want to save it) WMS still does the most damage in both AoE and single target.
E.g. Sprint cancelling (animation cancelling) : sprint cancelling for WMS can up the strike rate for this skill substantially - as long as you don't cancel before the first hit registers. Sprint cancelling the final hit animation for SS and hitting SS again gives you a second final hit for SS (if timed right).
For the interested, so you don't need to search posts to find the mechanic like I did a while back - if you hold both W & S while attacking - then tap shift (the sprint cancel) at the appropriate point, and then hit the appropriate at-will button, you have cancelled the animation for the first at-will and applied the second at an earlier time than would be otherwise possible if you were waiting for animations to complete.
E.g. Interleaving : Starting your SS or WS without standing around waiting for the second strike animation of WMS can up the strike rate again - substantially. Also applies to WMS itself - but sprint cancelling it will be slightly faster I believe. Happy to be corrected.
I'm sure there are more of these techniques (there's stuff you can do with reaping strike - not sure about cancelling WS without losing the last attack damage boost, and my knowledge on interleaving/weaving is patch at best) - these are just the ones that make sense for my build.
They make playing a GWF more complicated, and they feel a little like abusing a mechanic to work around our still lackluster role skills (whatever that role is), and they might go away with a patch. But given their use they do need to be included in an analysis of at-will DPS output.
In PVP I don't have the godly skills required to retain enough mobility to make sprint cancelling work (unless you're pounding on a downed target) - but I bet there are plenty who do.
wms + surestrike combo, per minute
and
wms + 2x surestrike comb, per minute
would love to see the comparison. (without sprint cancelling)
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Due to the odd lag spikes, it is very difficult to get more then 2-3 swings in consequentially with weaving. I do have a 3/3 SS available for the odd time that the pug group is so bad that they decide that 4 guys can kill the adds faster then the GWF, and therefore insist that the GWf isn't allowed to AoE.
Epic frozen heart- where you don't want to risk aggro the adds away from the cleric paintrain S:
You can also cancel WMS before the first swing even comes out but still get BOTH hits AND a SS hit in at the same time, which is something you can't do on the normal server.
So when you're in a group and they say hey destroxoxo can you pls just focus on the boss. Your response will be..sorry I am not wasting a slot on a single-target.
There are COUNTLESS situations where you would most definitely need SS. I know spamming AoE at-wills, and wiping over and over would boost your damage score at the end, but sometimes even in the middle of 10+ adds, it is better to just focus and burn the boss down. I can't tell how many times 2, 3 or even 4 party members die with boss at <25% and we still down the boss by shifting roles. What do you do when your TR dies? Do you just say hey lets wipe it?
I personally have SS and WMS always up and I actually think slotting WS as a Destroyer is a waste. With animation canceling WMS will do pretty much the same damage. Using a lightning enchant and WMS will even pull ahead of WS because of attack speed.
Wow - just wow. Will be trying this as soon as is humanly possible. Thanks for the info.