dps question...

Ever since the raid training area was introduced I've gone in with random meta raid builds on the golemn, added full conditions to the golemn and full boons to myself, and I've only ever managed to top out at 19k dps on a dragon hunter. Yet the meta build shows benchmarks at 37k. I'm just wondering why my damage is so much lower.

Are the "rotations" really THAT optimal that you have to follow them exactly to get to 37k? And how realistic is this in a raid setting?

It's one of the multiple reasons I've never seriously pursued raiding despite wanting the legendary heavy armor since it was introduced.

Is there some other setting I should be adjusting to increase the damage? I tried adding a breakbar and having it diminish but it didn't seem like it made any difference. I thought maybe the 37-40k came from replicating when a boss's defiance bar is broken and it takes increased damage but it doesn't seem to be the case with the golemn.

37k is under absolutely perfect conditions, it's theoretical best that build can do. You don't have to do them in the same, 100% exact way. Gotta be close enaugh and learn how to adapt that in actual combat. You should actually learn why certain skill are used in certain order. Site like snowcrows.com usually has a writeup abouyt the order.

Practice that rotation until you can hit like 80+% on the golem and you should be totally fine in raids. You won't be able to get those numbers on most bosses because you have to dodge and do mechanics but if you get good with rotation on the golem in aerodrome you will have much easier time pulling good numbers on actual bosses.

Without seeing exactly what you're doing its hard to say where you're losing damage. I sent you a dm in game if you want 1 on 1 help to figure out where things are going wrong.

Make sure u are using the right build and full berserker build plus ranger and warrior buffsThen pull the rotation in orderEz

@Bast.7253 said:Are the "rotations" really THAT optimal that you have to follow them exactly to get to 37k? And how realistic is this in a raid setting?

Yes, they are. It is still possible to reach slightly lower results with minor mistakes though, depending on which class and rotation. Not only that, if you want to match absolute top tier performance you have to know when to animation cancel and not interrupt a single attack or cancel an auto attack chain.

Lucky for us all, absolute top tier performance is not needed to be successful in raids. The general rule of thumb is:

• if you can get above 25k on benchmark, you are good to go for raid practice with good confidence
• if you manage 30k on benchmark, consider yourself very well prepared and likely top dps in most cases when it comes to more casual raid groups
• if you manage 35k on benchmark, you'll have a hard time finding players who beat you outside of top tier groups

@Bast.7253 said:Is there some other setting I should be adjusting to increase the damage? I tried adding a breakbar and having it diminish but it didn't seem like it made any difference. I thought maybe the 37-40k came from replicating when a boss's defiance bar is broken and it takes increased damage but it doesn't seem to be the case with the golemn.

Common mistakes/neglected issues:

1. food an utility item will add 2-3k dps
2. infusions will add around 1k dps
3. lacking the appropriate character enhancements (Warrior Empower Allies, Banner of Strength+Discipline, Ranger Spotter, Frost and Sun Spirit are the usual setup)
4. lacking Vulnerability on the golem or reasonable conditions (or unreasonable conditions like taunt or fear) will over- or under-represent performance
5. ascended versus exotic will make a difference, but not one which will matter. I'd estimate a full exotic versus full ascended setup will lack around another 2-3k dps

@"Cyninja.2954" said:

5. ascended versus exotic will make a difference, but not one which will matter. I'd estimate a full exotic versus full ascended setup will lack around another 2-3k dps

Ascended vs Exotic can make massive differences.

Since it can mean the difference betweeen Crit/Expertise cap and not which are massive effects on DPS. The entire gearing set ups found on optimized builds are based on hitting exactly 100% crit chance via precision and not a single point more which will be amplified by Ferocity. Literally Precision >>>>>> Ferocity when below crit cap for this reason. Similar thing for Expertise, as it's amplified by Condition Damage and is again tuned by optimized builds to get just enough for 100% duration and then not a point more.

There's leeway for some builds that might not rely on Spotter when doing benchmarks that include Spotter, but otherwise Ascended gear does have a significant impact for stat caps. As well as higher base damage from increased weapon damage (Which will then be amplified by all percentage damage modifiers)

Not to mention, the literal fact that no Ascended gear = No infusions.

@Taril.8619 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:

5. ascended versus exotic will make a difference, but not one which will matter. I'd estimate a full exotic versus full ascended setup will lack around another 2-3k dps

I was going by pure stat difference between both and estimating.

As amazingly impactful it might sound, even not crit capping has a limited effect on the damage difference and will not create astonishing high difference numbers. Or are you going to argue that going from exotic to ascended will exceed 3k dps?

One of the biggest differences remains the higher base weapon damage. The loss in 62 precision when going from full ascended to full exotic is equivalent of around 4% crit. All it takes is to switch from Power+Ferocity to Power+Precision food to make up the crit loss (at expense of slightly higher crits).

I gave a loss of dps for infusions further up. I split the effects into different components. Obviously not having infusions will add on top of the effect of going full exotic. As will going ascended trinkets and weapons with exotic armor improve the performance. The list I gave was meant to give a rough estimate where the different damage disparities come from for a NOVICE player as to know what to prioritize.

EDIT:just for reference, the loss in food, which is roughly a loss of 300 stats, comes pretty close to 2-3k dps loss. Easily replicated on the golem. So unless there is some funky magic at work, and with some leeway for crit loss effect or condition duration loss, please explain why a loss in stats of approximately similar magnitude when going from ascended to exotic should impact the output differently (going from exotic to ascended gear adds around 300 stats total)?

I hit around 16k on golem but I am usually top 2 dps on actual boss and topping chard half of the time.Not sure what I am doing wrong with golem setting but I didn't try more than couple of times.Knowing boss mechanics helps alot with dps.I'd say give it a shot on training runs. You would be surprised.

@"Bast.7253" said:Are the "rotations" really THAT optimal that you have to follow them exactly to get to 37k?

yes they are. every second you are autoattacking where you shouldn't: you are loosing dps and time.dps in form of -> your big damage skills aren't doing their damage because you didn't cast them.time in form of -> your skills are off cooldown too fast or too slow and you have to start to "wait" for them. if you do it right, they all start to align....also time in form of -> some traits (for example big game hunter, 15% more damage when tethered) just stopped and now your big skills hit less because you used them "too late".

the main thing of most rotations / burst rotations is -> you get your skills out in this exact order and if you did it right with no timeloss at all, the skills come off cooldown in the exact same second you want to use them again and they all align basically. this is EXTREMLY notable on the gs scepter rotation of DH. the moment you swap back from scepter to gs the first time, you use 5 + 3. if you did your rotation to this point without any lost time you will see the moment you cast your 3 that your trap just comes off cooldown and your f1 has like 1 second left of cooldown, so you can immidiatly use sword of justice, trap, f1, g4 + g2 again. if you lost too much time in scepter and did this "incorrect", you will see that those skills are already off cooldown when you swap back to greatsword. means: you did not use them efficiently -> dps loss.

what makes it easier to train the whole thing: start with the burst rotation and do it over and over again until it sits. most of the times on DH its always the same thing going on. for greatsword for example...if all skills are ready -> swords of justice, trap, f1, gs 4, g2 (-> dont interrupt it through moving, worst offender of them all!). it most often boils down to sword of justice, trap, f1, then some form of symbol and then whatever bursts even more.don't aim for good numbers at the start, aim for consitency. rather restart the whole rotation when you make a mistake so you actually learn to do it in your sleep. also you can just do that in openworld and everywhere else. the whole pve game can be your training ground.later, there is one thing: if your opening burst (the very first number from golem in chat) had shit RNG and is bad, you won't get a very good end number. that doesn't mean you can't do your rotation at this point, it just meant you had bad rng....but yeah, as others said, if you have no +stat infusions and no food up on the golem, you can already say -> SC bench minus ~4k. if you are hitting 31k on scepter without that stuff, you are basically golden. no need to grind for a better number. rather try other rotations then (sword for example).

And how realistic is this in a raid setting?

depends. on you, on your group, on your supporters, on the boss (phases / armor) itself.if you check any dps log, you can sort per phase. this is extremly useful to see what you were doing really. ofc when you get out of a vg or gorseval fight it will say something like "15k dps" or "20k dps". that often means your group was basically juse slow in split phases if you were doing your rotation correct. when you check the exact same log on split phases, there you can then see for example "phase 1 - 35k dps" "phase 2 - 32k dps" and so on...if you can crank out those numbers with your rotation in the first place. if you got only 18k on the golem, you won't.if your supporters don't block knockdowns etc and you have to dodge, ofc you will loose damage. or if boons are not up. or if can't reset your rotation so you can always do your opening burst after every CC bar from samarog / slothasor for example.

in raids itself, there is a lot of finetuning you have to learn for yourself. but its also pretty realistic to do this kind of damage, or to get close. if you really want to check how good you were doing, don't look at the endresult (ofc thats also not wrong in the grand scheme of things), always check per phase...especially in pugs and slow guild groups.

@Shikaru.7618 said:Without seeing exactly what you're doing its hard to say where you're losing damage. I sent you a dm in game if you want 1 on 1 help to figure out where things are going wrong.

I got your message. Sorry for not responding. It's not really a priority right now I was wondering why the benchmarks were SO much higher.

I did forget that I wasn't using food or any utility buffs and I don't have the extra stat infusions so that would add a little. I also wasn't following the rotation to the tee.

There was a comment above that mentioned understanding WHY to use a certain skill when you do, because of damage modifiers and what not. That's certainly an easy place to start, as well as understanding skill priority like which skills to use during tether or each weapon set and knowing which skills cause those damage modifiers.

Truthfully outside of challenge modes I'm not sure raids really require THAT much dps. I've done a few in Bastion and the first raid and it seemed like my damage wasn't that much of an issue as it was knowing mechanics in general, but it is crazy to think that someone else is able to put out that much dps compared to me with gw2's limited number of skills.

@Bast.7253 said:

@Shikaru.7618 said:Without seeing exactly what you're doing its hard to say where you're losing damage. I sent you a dm in game if you want 1 on 1 help to figure out where things are going wrong.

To answer the original question, YES, rotations are extremely important. You have to follow them exactly as far as possible. Of course you may fail a lot at start, or switch 2 skills with each other or something.To reach the benchmark you need to pay attention to more things. Typically you want to upload your golem logs on arcdps and look at your rotation. You'll see a lot of interrupted auto attacks in between your skills probably, and on the whole fight, having I don't know 200 AA cancels that last 50 ms, is equal to spending 10 seconds of the fight doing nothing for instance.For animation cancels, on DH for instance, when you use GS4, it lasts 700ms, but with the animation cancel it can last up to 200ms, which means every 2 GS4 you win 1 second of attack. Same for GS5, you gain around the same ms.

Generally, to be average in a raid you need to be >80% of the benchmark DPS and to know the encounters so you can DPS properly on the boss. To be quite good, 90-95% on benchmark DPS and complete knowledge of all encounters will probably make you top DPS in 90% of pugs.

I'd say if you are under 80% bench you are hindering your team (Unless it's a training and everyone pulls 10k), and more of less being carried through the encounter. Also it's much more satisfying when you manage to pull decent numbers !

Don't try to do everything in one time at the golem. First learn the rotation, like two sessions so that you memorize it and muscle memory a bit. Second try to queue your spells (You press the other spell before the previous one finishes to cast so it queues), this will remove most of the auto attacks between skills.Third try to do cancels but that's high end.

Also I advise joining a raid or fractals or w/e community to get more help with all this.

@Bast.7253 said:

@Shikaru.7618 said:Without seeing exactly what you're doing its hard to say where you're losing damage. I sent you a dm in game if you want 1 on 1 help to figure out where things are going wrong.

While it's true that lots of thing don't require these dps numbers, it's the wrong way to look at it. The higher the numbers you can pull the lower your mechanical skill has to be in general and vica versa.

And rotations are something you can practice alone, and independent of the boss

A rotation is a set sequence of attacks and skills that prioritizes high damage and sometimes high cooldown skills first, lining them up to take the most advantage out of your self buffs as good as possible. Your auto attacks works as a filler since they result in a lower damage outpot, and the rotation is made so you autoattack the least possible.So yes, following a rotation can result in even twice as much damage as someone that just throws skills at random, even if both players has same build and same boons.