Best Damage Type in Harb Shroud

[Obtena.7952]

SO ... let's do some theory. Just based on raw output (no gear, no traits), what is the best DPS choice in Harb Shroud?

I think just based on skill information, it's Direct. 

Anyways, not sure why I made this a poll. I'm looking for analysis more than opinions.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Asum.4960]

Not sure what the point of comparing them without Gear or Traits is, but to answer your question, it's neither. 

Pretty much exactly 50% each.

The spec scales better with gear like Viper though, which is inherently Hybrid, as well as better condi Trait and Rune support.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Obtena.7952]

Well, it comes down to making decisions similar to  choosing between 6 eachs or half a dozen. 

[Tobias.8632]

It's torment. It's an actual ****load of torment. Torment always wins.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Tobias.8632

[Infusion.7149]

Why would you run power harbinger? Let's say you have power stat gear, you are still missing a weapon so you'd have shroud, pistol and axe mainhand.

Condi shroud is also better because weakness means you take less incoming damage in melee whereas cripple is nearly worthless on a power harbinger shroud. Even on scourge the only place you run power scourge is in WVW.

[KrHome.1920]

Dhuumfire is a key trait for shroud condi damage because the autoattack fires like a machine gun. If we exclude it, then it's direct.

[Asum.4960]

5 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Dhuumfire is a key trait for shroud condi damage because the autoattack fires like a machine gun. If we exclude it, then it's direct.

It's actually not, I don't know why Dhuumfire keeps getting so overestimated by players. 

On Harbinger especially, Dhuumfire has been nerfed by ~70% to 1 sec of Burning, so even though the AA attacks twice per 0.5 seconds, it's actually worse than on Reaper (3 seconds of Burn base every 0.5 seconds) or even Scourge with the 1 sec ICD (where Dhuumfire already is a lacklustre GM).

 

Burning through Dhuumfire makes up less than 5% of condi Harbinger's damage.

[KrHome.1920]

Do you ignore quickness for a reason?

And your argumentation does not make sense. Dhummfire has only to be seen relative to death perception as this is its alternative. So it's 3+ burns vs. ~8% more crit damage.

Edited December 2, 2021 by KrHome.1920

[Asum.4960]

46 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Do you ignore quickness for a reason?

I did not? 

3 sec of burning every 0.5 seconds (Reaper) is better than 2*1 second of burning every 0.5 seconds (Harbinger). That still hold's true with Quickness with both at 0.25 seconds - even more so when considering Expertise. 

For Scourge, sure, maybe Dhuumfire is actually slightly worse still, even considering the better scaling with condition duration off the higher base duration and that you interact with it constantly without downtime by using the Fx skills, rather than just AA in Shroud which itself has a downtime.

 

Even if so, that doesn't change my point that Dhuumfire makes up less than 5% of condi Harbinger's damage though - which I'd argue makes it odd to describe as a "key trait" that's instrumental to why condi Harbinger out performs power Harbinger, considering Death Perception is probably actually the stronger Trait there.

46 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

And your argumentation does not make sense. Dhummfire has only to be seen relative to death perception as this is its alternative. So it's 3+ burns vs. ~8% more crit damage.

Death Perception is 33% Crit Chance and 20% Crit damage in Shroud, which is where most of your damage is. I'm not going to math out how that matches up to 2*1 second of Burning per AA only in Shroud, but I reckon it's not instrumental to the difference between Power and Condi Harbinger, if not likely favouring Power on this one. 

Harbinger being inherently Hybrid just scales far better with Viper, which really is a Hybrid power and Condi stat set, than let's say Berserker. Septic Corruption adds Poison to Shroud 2, while Wicked Corruption is just bad (especially now that you dump Blight for DPS rather than maintaining it), and Doom Approaches is better than Cascading Corruption - that along with general better Condi support on Necro through Weapons and Traits, as well as Condi Runes and Sigils far outperforming Power Runes and Sigils, given the same baseline (as is the case with Harbinger), does the rest.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Lexan.5930]

4 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Not sure what the point of comparing them without Gear or Traits is, but to answer your question, it's neither. 

Pretty much exactly 50% each.

The spec scales better with gear like Viper though, which is inherently Hybrid, as well as better condi Trait and Rune support.

yea this.

 

it reminds me of when GW2 launched, each trait line had a little bit of everything and you kinda sorta picked what you wanted to focus on. It was bad design and over 8 years or so they made some changes and made the lines more streamlined. The new elete specs with each row being  a focus is kind of what they've done with a lot of the trait lines, but honestly it's annoying. mixing and matching sort of makes some changes but overall the hybrid nature of the harbinger with traits to basically "fix" how the skills and damage work is really annoying.

 

then again who's ever tried power scourge in pvp in the last 2years ><

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Genuine question, but has anyone really tried Power Harbinger DPS in this beta?  It did get coefficient buffs.

[Asum.4960]

20 minutes ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Genuine question, but has anyone really tried Power Harbinger DPS in this beta?  It did get coefficient buffs.

I haven't genuinely benched it yet (and I'm not a SC level benchmarker), but I'd say around 2/3rds of Condi, which itself isn't that great this Beta.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Asum.4960

[LucianDK.8615]

Power damage is terrible on Harb compared to Condi. There is really no contest.

[XECOR.2814]

You have to specify which game-mode otherwise its a stupid question.

[KrHome.1920]

Pistol direct damage is okay (not great) in PvE but 100% useless in the competive modes. Since the other core direct damage weapons are also lacklustre, trailblazer and carrion are the only viable options for these modes. Staff/axe power builds are only good for a 100-0 shroudcombo but freekills afterwards.

[UnDeadFun.5824]

So the question is while in shroud which does more damage? I dropped all gear and cleared a template only selecting Harbinger trait line but I did not select any other traits in that line or others. I went into aerodrome training with no gear and used shroud auto attack alone( used Mushroom King blessing to stay in shroud). Direct damage/ Tainted Bolts(371/as), torment damage(32/as). I don't know if this helps.

[KrHome.1920]

It does not make sense to drop gear because your gear determines stuff like condi duration, condi scaling, the relative effectiveness of direct damage modifiers etc.

300 ferocity is 9% more crit damage full zerk but 12% more crit damage without any gear.

A 2 second burn with +100% condi duration is twice the burn damage than the baseline 1 second burn.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, KrHome.1920 said:

It does not make sense to drop gear because your gear determines stuff like condi duration, condi scaling, the relative effectiveness of direct damage modifiers etc.

300 ferocity is 9% more crit damage full zerk but 12% more crit damage without any gear.

A 2 second burn with +100% condi duration is twice the burn damage than the baseline 1 second burn.

The reason I'm asking without gear is because of the choices we have to make in the spec. I mean, sure, if I choose direct damage, then I'm obviously some berserker gear right? or Vipers if Condi. But that's not how the spec is made. We have a weapon and shroud skills that appear to be equal amounts of either. The kicker is the traits as they are split between direct/condi damage. I'm just interested in seeing what DPS type has the 'edge' in Shroud because there are some really non-obvious choices to make building for damage on this spec. I can easily determine the impact gear has on that myself. 

So as example ... if I know a certain gear load gives me a 100% DPS increase for direct and another is 150% DPS increase in Condi ... if I know the baseline Shroud DPS for each, I can make better decisions. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Esorono.1039]

7 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Genuine question, but has anyone really tried Power Harbinger DPS in this beta?  It did get coefficient buffs.

I attempted it, it had rather poor dps. It may have not been the most optimal rotation and I've tried a few with different set of traits, but none of them even came close to power Reaper even just using GS/Shroud alone without Axe/Warhorn. Then after the testing I realized I forgot to set stats and the correct runes to the Greatsword, and it still outperformed the few things I tried out for Harbinger. Pistol/Warhorn Axe/Focus, Pistol/Focus Axe/Warhorn, Axe/Warhorn, Dagger/Warhorn Axe/Warhorn, Dagger/Warhorn Axe/Focus, Dagger/Focus Axe/Warhorn, and I think that is all the sets I attempted. Condi was harder to test, as I didn't have almost any of the appropriate runes.