Using the auto attack as a base value to balance 100Blades

[oscuro.9720]

Hello warrior friends! I've written small amounts on here before about the inconsistency of the cost-benefit balance in this game. Perhaps I will expound on that in detail in the future, but today, we are talking about One Hundred Blades! 

It should come as no surprise to you all that the current state of 100blades is bad. It currently underperforms the auto attack. What I am here to propose is a basic system of comparing skills on a cost-benefit scale based on a base value using the auto attack. 100 blades is the best example of this because it is solely a damage skill. This analysis will not deal with multipliers, lets just assume equalized multipliers between the auto attack chain and 100blades. 

 

Base Auto Attack Channel:

Damage: 189+257+383 = 829 (3x)

Cast Time: 1.5s (1/2s cast per strike)

Damage/second: 553

Cooldown: 0s

 

100 Blades:

Damage: 1128 (8x) + 323 (final strike) = 1451

% of damage that is final strike: 22.3%

Cast Time: 3.5s

Damage/second: 414.5

Cooldown: 8s

 

The base damage of 100 Blades is lower than the base damage of the auto attack chain, while its simultaneous root + cooldown increase the overall cost, meaning it's cost-benefit ratio is completely different from just the auto attack. Yes, the multipliers change this equation, and as previously stated, we are not factoring these in. However, we know that in the game, the multipliers do not bridge this gap appropriately anyways. This is part of why 100 blades is a good skill for demonstration. 

In order to rectify this gap, you can pick one of two options: increase the damage over the current cast or decrease the cast time. To do this, we will increase the damage to 125% of the auto attack base damage to account for the cooldown and self root (this is picked arbitrarily, I don't know if this is too high or too low). This results in either;

 

100 blades (option A: Same cast, more damage):

Damage/second = 553*1.25 = 691

Cast time: 3.5s

Damage over cast: 2418

Final strike damage = 2418*.223 = 539

Final damage structure: 1879 (8x) + 539 (final strike damage)

 

This method creates literally the same skill, but with more damage to account for the self root and cooldown.

 

100 blades (option B: lower cast):

Damage = 1451 (existing 100 blades damage including final strike)

Target damage/second = 553*1.25 = 691

Cast time = 1451/691 = 2.099 (lets round down to 2 seconds)

New structure:

damage: 1128 (8x) + 323 (final strike)

cast time: 2 seconds

damage/second: 691

 

This will result in the same damage per second as option A by shortening the cast time. Same skill, shorter cast time. 

 

This is an example of how you can evaluate a skill using the auto attack as a base value to determine balance. There's a variety of costs and benefits that need to be balanced when considering this, such as:

Cost: Cooldown, Mobility, Cast Time, Energy/resources

 

Benefits: Damage, Conditions, Boons, Healing, Mobility, Evade, Iframe

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Good suggestion.

 

Also, since Anet has proved they can do modifiers that increase the attack of a follow up strike if the first one hit, I don't see why the consecutive strikes of HB that hit the same foe couldn't also be modified to do more damage per strike. Nobody is going to get hit by all of HB unless they are out of dodges, out of stunbreaks, rooted, or some other situation that would get them killed vs most other players. The damage should match the cast time. 

Same thing for Fist Flurry. If you want people to use these skills, make them worth it. 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[eXruina.4956]

sounds like a good change.

 

originally people would hit with only the first 3 or 4 hits of hundred blades and then cancel it with another skill to combo off. good times.

 

they actually intentionally lowered the damage of the initial flurry of hits of hundred blades, and added damage to the final hit, if i recall correctly. they wanted people to land the full channel to do any damage. then they further reduced the damage coefficients. 🤣

 

now after years of nerfs, greatsword is only a shadow of its former self for any warrior who's seen its past iteration. today its probably 1/3 the weapon it used to be.

 

i really wish some of these suggestions push through. 🤞

[eXruina.4956]

imagine this. og gw2 core warrior, is worlds better than today's warrior after 3 expansions.

 

that right there is proof that warrior has regressed instead of progressed over the past 8 years.

 

while everything else got better and stronger each expansion, warrior got shafted over and over.

 

the more i reflect on it, the more disappointed i get. 

[oscuro.9720]

36 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Good suggestion.

 

Also, since Anet has proved they can do modifiers that increase the attack of a follow up strike if the first one hit, I don't see why the consecutive strikes of HB that hit the same foe couldn't also be modified to do more damage per strike. Nobody is going to get hit by all of HB unless they are out of dodges, out of stunbreaks, rooted, or some other situation that would get them killed vs most other players. The damage should match the cast time. 

Same thing for Fist Flurry. If you want people to use these skills, make them worth it. 

Oh wow, I did not know about this. That would pretty cool functionality. I would argue the starting values still need to be at least on par with the auto attack considering a self foot is one of the highest costs that can be attached to a skill in this game.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

AA chain takes longer than you think:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Greatsword_Swing: The whole chain takes 2.4 sec.

Basically if you whiff the last hit on 100Blades then you would have been better off auto attacking. This is why you see me frequently asking for 100Blades to have a 2s cast time instead of 3.5s. This would allow for the last strike to connect more easily, and be on par with the AA chain if it whiffs.

[oscuro.9720]

37 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

AA chain takes longer than you think:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Greatsword_Swing: The whole chain takes 2.4 sec.

Basically if you whiff the last hit on 100Blades then you would have been better off auto attacking. This is why you see me frequently asking for 100Blades to have a 2s cast time instead of 3.5s. This would allow for the last strike to connect more easily, and be on par with the AA chain if it whiffs.

Yes, I’m only factoring in cast times, since after casts are a separate function in my view. This process actually works best for single-hit skills (using the last strike of the auto attack chain). I kind of jerry-rigged it to work as a channel-equivalent. 
 

100blades also seems to have a higher multiplier, which probably bridges some of the damage gap. 

 

Incidentally, 2 seconds is almost exactly the figure that base value calculations come up with to make the whole skill equal to 125% of the auto attack damage (discounting after casts). 

[Jzaku.9765]

9 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Hello warrior friends! I've written small amounts on here before about the inconsistency of the cost-benefit balance in this game. Perhaps I will expound on that in detail in the future, but today, we are talking about One Hundred Blades! 

It should come as no surprise to you all that the current state of 100blades is bad. It currently underperforms the auto attack. What I am here to propose is a basic system of comparing skills on a cost-benefit scale based on a base value using the auto attack. 100 blades is the best example of this because it is solely a damage skill. This analysis will not deal with multipliers, lets just assume equalized multipliers between the auto attack chain and 100blades. 

 

Base Auto Attack Channel:

Damage: 189+257+383 = 829 (3x)

Cast Time: 1.5s (1/2s cast per strike)

Damage/second: 553

Cooldown: 0s

 

100 Blades:

Damage: 1128 (8x) + 323 (final strike) = 1451

% of damage that is final strike: 22.3%

Cast Time: 3.5s

Damage/second: 414.5

Cooldown: 8s

 

The base damage of 100 Blades is lower than the base damage of the auto attack chain, while its simultaneous root + cooldown increase the overall cost, meaning it's cost-benefit ratio is completely different from just the auto attack. Yes, the multipliers change this equation, and as previously stated, we are not factoring these in. However, we know that in the game, the multipliers do not bridge this gap appropriately anyways. This is part of why 100 blades is a good skill for demonstration. 

In order to rectify this gap, you can pick one of two options: increase the damage over the current cast or decrease the cast time. To do this, we will increase the damage to 125% of the auto attack base damage to account for the cooldown and self root (this is picked arbitrarily, I don't know if this is too high or too low). This results in either;

 

100 blades (option A: Same cast, more damage):

Damage/second = 553*1.25 = 691

Cast time: 3.5s

Damage over cast: 2418

Final strike damage = 2418*.223 = 539

Final damage structure: 1879 (8x) + 539 (final strike damage)

 

This method creates literally the same skill, but with more damage to account for the self root and cooldown.

 

100 blades (option B: lower cast):

Damage = 1451 (existing 100 blades damage including final strike)

Target damage/second = 553*1.25 = 691

Cast time = 1451/691 = 2.099 (lets round down to 2 seconds)

New structure:

damage: 1128 (8x) + 323 (final strike)

cast time: 2 seconds

damage/second: 691

 

This will result in the same damage per second as option A by shortening the cast time. Same skill, shorter cast time. 

 

This is an example of how you can evaluate a skill using the auto attack as a base value to determine balance. There's a variety of costs and benefits that need to be balanced when considering this, such as:

Cost: Cooldown, Mobility, Cast Time, Energy/resources

 

Benefits: Damage, Conditions, Boons, Healing, Mobility, Evade, Iframe

Where did you get these numbers from? They're not the same as the wiki. 

I'm also fairly confident you have a fundamental misunderstanding with how the game works - there's no such thing as base damage on any skill. All strike damage in GW2 relies entirely on what you describe as the "multipliers" - this is why when you hover your mouse over the little question mark whenever it displays damage it shows you that the damage formula in this game is: 

Quote

(weapon strength)  *  "multiplier"  *  Power  /  (Target's armour) 

Weapon Strength here being the damage range displayed in the tooltip when you hover over a weapon.

 

This is in contrast with Healing skills which do have "base healing" values to enable you to still get healed with 0 healing power. When you check the healing formula on the wiki it's:

Quote

"Base Healing"  +  ("multiplier"  *  Healing Power)

 

All this meaning that the premise of your thread is incorrect since the Auto Chain's combined power mod is 0.7+0.95+1.25 = 2.9 while 100B is 4.62+1.21 = 5.83, so just over 2x when it takes ~1.5x the time to execute the entire animation vs an auto chain. 

Not that I disagree with your conclusion that 100B sucks btw, just pointing out how this game works.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

This is where summing the total modifier of the chain/skill and dividing by the total cast time (including after casts) gives you a good gauge on whether or not it is worth using as damage over the AA chain.

If you do this, you'll find that whiffing with 100B's last strike makes it worse than the AA chain.

[oscuro.9720]

11 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Where did you get these numbers from? They're not the same as the wiki. 

I'm also fairly confident you have a fundamental misunderstanding with how the game works - there's no such thing as base damage on any skill. All strike damage in GW2 relies entirely on what you describe as the "multipliers" - this is why when you hover your mouse over the little question mark whenever it displays damage it shows you that the damage formula in this game is: 

Weapon Strength here being the damage range displayed in the tooltip when you hover over a weapon.

 

This is in contrast with Healing skills which do have "base healing" values to enable you to still get healed with 0 healing power. When you check the healing formula on the wiki it's:

 

All this meaning that the premise of your thread is incorrect since the Auto Chain's combined power mod is 0.7+0.95+1.25 = 2.9 while 100B is 4.62+1.21 = 5.83, so just over 2x when it takes ~1.5x the time to execute the entire animation vs an auto chain. 

Not that I disagree with your conclusion that 100B sucks btw, just pointing out how this game works.

Yes, I’m aware of modifiers and how they function, I specifically wrote that I am not accounting for modifiers, and specifically wrote that as such this is not directly applicable, more of a thought exercise, and was too lazy to get into the whole modifier portion. Perhaps at a later date I will make an actually accurate version of this using modifiers. 
 

The numbers I pulled directly from the wiki. They are accurate as I just double checked. 
 

edit: rereading this, this may come across as curt or blunt. That was not my intent. You were absolutely correct Jzaku, and I will make a real version using properly calculated damage values in the next week or so, since I think it would be valuable. Thank you for providing clarification for anyone this may have mislead. 
 

Also note that the numbers are for competitive modes, not pve, so that may be where we are seeing different numbers.

Edited July 9, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[Jzaku.9765]

1 hour ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Also note that the numbers are for competitive modes, not pve, so that may be where we are seeing different numbers.

Ooohh. Ah yeah, my mistake then, sorry. Ignoring aftercasts is definitely a mistake though, especially since the topic is about the auto chain which you need to sit through the aftercasts to get to the next attack in the chain. You could have a situation like Cata Fire Hammer (that they just fixed in this patch) where it had a whopping 700ms aftercast which massively impacted its performance as an autoattack. I think you should use the wiki noted duration of the entire Auto chain which is 2.4s.

[JTGuevara.9018]

Aaaahh...Hundred Blades....

If there is any skill that is so outdated, but at the same time, so iconic that I hesitate to rework or remove is Hundred Blades...

Hundred Blades is one those skills that simply did NOT age well. To start, Hundred Blades assumes a particular thing about the target(s): that the target(s) will stand still(in some way) and take all of those hits. For that to happen, the target(s) must make all 4 of these mistakes, that is: not dodge, not avoid being CCd, not use a stun-break or temporarily relinquish brain cells just to take all of the hits! That people historically actually cried to nerfs to HB is the height of complete arrogance. The ONLY way for Hundred Blades to even be effective is for the target(s) to make those 4 mistakes I've just listed. Number two, it's stationary. No matter how punishing HB is to some, it should be obvious that warrior cannot move at all during this entire process. Number three, thanks to point number two, warrior typically ends up cancelling Hundred Blades entirely once the target(s) moves or ceases to be useful.

Edited July 9, 2022 by JTGuevara.9018
typo

[Lucentfir.7430]

There's 2 ways of fixing 100b I've been thinking on, one is a very plain route of just straight up reverting the damage nerf so it's actually threatening again if you're standing in it/setup in. The other would be to not buff the damage, but give 1s of quickness on the initial , and 0.5s of quickness and a stack of might(5s) per target struck with each consecutive hit afterwards, so it's rewarding to land, and makes it more realistic to land that last hit. 

[Vancho.8750]

1 hour ago, Lucentfir.7430 said:

There's 2 ways of fixing 100b I've been thinking on, one is a very plain route of just straight up reverting the damage nerf so it's actually threatening again if you're standing in it/setup in. The other would be to not buff the damage, but give 1s of quickness on the initial , and 0.5s of quickness and a stack of might(5s) per target struck with each consecutive hit afterwards, so it's rewarding to land, and makes it more realistic to land that last hit. 

Too much boons and what not, just reducing the cast time makes it usable.

[oscuro.9720]

4 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Ooohh. Ah yeah, my mistake then, sorry. Ignoring aftercasts is definitely a mistake though, especially since the topic is about the auto chain which you need to sit through the aftercasts to get to the next attack in the chain. You could have a situation like Cata Fire Hammer (that they just fixed in this patch) where it had a whopping 700ms aftercast which massively impacted its performance as an autoattack. I think you should use the wiki noted duration of the entire Auto chain which is 2.4s.

Understood. The more I go over this, the more I’m inclined to update it, and have a good way of redoing it I think. Definitely should’ve taken more time with it and done full multipliers and everything because your criticism is very valid :) 

 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Too much boons and what not, just reducing the cast time makes it usable.

^^^^^That^^^^^