Highest Damage possible?!

[Foxy Andariel.3120]

Hello! I'm just curious but what profession deals the highest damage possible?! 
I've been trying to research it a bit, but there are so many different "answers" to that that I'm just getting confused 😛 
any help is greatly appreciated! ❤️ 

Best regards
Foxy_Andariel

[Endaris.1452]

Sustained damage?
Burst damage?
Are you on your own or do you have players with support builds enabling you?
PvE, PvP or WvW?

You won't get any reasonable answer if you don't make clear what you are interested in.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

this is the raw damage potential of each class and build in pve:

https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

 

however, note that many players can't reach these benchmarks, as some of them are quite complicated. because of that, there's a tradeoff between damage and ease-of-use in this game that you have to decide on your own, depending on how good you are with actions per minute (apm).

 

on top of that, in open-world, story, wvw and pvp you can't clone these builds exactly, as you need to take some personal boons and sustain. in the competitive modes you generally do have dedicated healers just like in pve, however the damage from enemies is so high that you still need to have some sustain of your own on top of being healed. you can also get caught in solo situations without your healer or any allies to help you.

 

this game isn't about straight up dps, but about group compositions, situational awareness, utility (like reflects) and mechanics.

Edited August 22, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[ShadowCatz.8437]

7 hours ago, Foxy Andariel.3120 said:

Hello! I'm just curious but what profession deals the highest damage possible?! 
I've been trying to research it a bit, but there are so many different "answers" to that that I'm just getting confused 😛 
any help is greatly appreciated! ❤️ 

Best regards
Foxy_Andariel

I would recommend to actually read GW2 wiki about attributes and what each attribute does as for damage. Why? Because as an example Toughness will reduce strike damage (in other MMO this will be called Direct Damage as each hit count and is different for Damage over Time where each Tick [depending on time] - in GW2 DoTs are called Condition damage) taken on target, but on the other hand you only have three or four attribute when we talk about level 80 character (from exotic tier up to ascended/legendary) gear and you will have the trade off with more attributes (3 vs 4) you will also have less direct impact from those numbers on your gear, but get more defensive or more duration (expertise for condition duration or concentration for boon duration) which adds up even more when you are in a grouped setting (which again depends on range between each player).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations

(Scroll down and you will see numbers for level 80 characters and how those numbers will be distributed depending on a 3 or 4 combination of gear)

 

I mention Toughness as an example as that will only have an impact on Strike Damage, nothing with how much Condition Damage will do which in turn will be depending on your total Health Pool (HP) which can be increased with Vitality. Therefore a characters profession will be more important for as how much passive defence you have as this is different from profession to profession (base line) where you can increase those numbers from gear. "Glass cannon" means that you haven't used any gear (from attributes) to increase those numbers and only invested in damage (either Strike Damage from Power [which also need Precision and Ferocity] or from Condition Damage [increase in how much each tick will do) and Duration (expertise).

In PvE we don't have any NPC healers (there are some exceptions, but far from what I have seen in Elder Scroll Online when I played that MMO where you had a main boss and there where several healers around and you needed to both kill those healers and prevent boss from heal up - you could solo this group boss, but it is a demanding task to kill something that can fully heal up again and again and with several NPC that also respawn or heal up) and you will not see any NPC (yet) do condition removal which make Condition in general a better option for PvE content.

In WvW (and sPVP) you will see much more of player that invest in condition removal, corrupt boons to condition (and return those condition to target) or boon ripping (meaning only removing boons from enemy target) as a part of game play.

You can find a list on GW2 wiki for what boons will turn into when they are corrupted into conditions and vice verse when they are used to empower yourself as a player (most often part of Necromancers tool kit and too some degree Revenants Demon Stance).

To understand Condition you also need to read up about soft CC and hard CC. Soft CC is part of condition where you do things like Blind, Chill or Weakness. They are basically condition with crown control effect (search for crowd control or CC on Gw2 wiki) and in most cases doesn't do any damage by themselves.

Hard CC on the other hand have had some damage (which have been changed for some time ago to a very small damage) and do stuff like Daze (more used to Interrupt), Knock down, Pull, Push or Sink (Under Water). Those skills that have those abilities also in general are on longer cool down or have a higher cost (if you use energy/resource based profession) then other skill.

If you increase expertise (condition duration) you will also increase duration for soft CC.

For Hard CC you are much more depending on traits that increase duration of CC or have a special effect related to soft CC and there are some Runes (upgrades for armour) or Sigil (upgrades for weapon) that will increase duration (how long time your target will under that effect without using any stunbreak to get out of that animation and effect) of hard CC.

Using Scarecrow or any other site where main focus is 10 or 20 players that work coordinated to kill a limited number of enemies is not a very good indication of what is hard hitting profession.

First of all there have been changes from patches that make those numbers change and secondly those numbers are under very special condition that everybody is packed (aka stacking) and that everybody in that group can time their skill perfectly (aka rotation). Those numbers also are often from hitting target that doesn't move much with a large hit box (area around target where each hit will be register as only hitting that target).

Use only those sites with that in mind and don't expect that every group will be the same or even will reach those numbers. You might learn something about rotation or something about builds from such sites, but to try to find any perfect profession that kills everything in sight is not a realistic goal.

In open world you will see target that are rather mobile (but make use a pre determined paths) and you need to avoid getting those targets too far from that path or they will get invulnerable and reset to full HP.

I hope you now have a better understanding that your question is not an easy one to answer as if you only play instanced PvE like Dungeons, Fractals (up to 5 player Instanced content) or you play Raids or Strike (up to 10 player content), then damage and defence scale in different ways. In WvW you use same gear and skills, but coefficients for skills have reduced damage, your HP change and there are other changes from PvE. In sPvP you don't use your gear any more, but a special Amulet that now work as all your armour attributes did and have other rules then in PvE (WvW and PvP will have their on filter if you look in GW2 wiki).

Highest damage is seldom a good way to stay alive in any game or game mode, if you don't have a group that sacrifice their own damage output to increase your groups survival (healers in GW2 do not only "heal" they also provide boons and conditions like chill, blind or weakness that work to reduce damage taken for group).

I don't list evey GW2 wiki here, so I hope you make use of that link to attributes and start to search on that site for what boons exist and how they work and the same for conditions and soft CC/hard CC.

Edited August 22, 2023 by ShadowCatz.8437

[Foxy Andariel.3120]

On 8/22/2023 at 10:50 AM, Endaris.1452 said:

Sustained damage?
Burst damage?
Are you on your own or do you have players with support builds enabling you?
PvE, PvP or WvW?

You won't get any reasonable answer if you don't make clear what you are interested in.

Thank you, I have not played for quite some time, so I am basically "new" again. I do mostly PvE stuff though. I am just trying  to refresh my memory so I can remember what is what 🙂

[Foxy Andariel.3120]

On 8/22/2023 at 2:32 PM, ShadowCatz.8437 said:

I would recommend to actually read GW2 wiki about attributes and what each attribute does as for damage. Why? Because as an example Toughness will reduce strike damage (in other MMO this will be called Direct Damage as each hit count and is different for Damage over Time where each Tick [depending on time] - in GW2 DoTs are called Condition damage) taken on target, but on the other hand you only have three or four attribute when we talk about level 80 character (from exotic tier up to ascended/legendary) gear and you will have the trade off with more attributes (3 vs 4) you will also have less direct impact from those numbers on your gear, but get more defensive or more duration (expertise for condition duration or concentration for boon duration) which adds up even more when you are in a grouped setting (which again depends on range between each player).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations

(Scroll down and you will see numbers for level 80 characters and how those numbers will be distributed depending on a 3 or 4 combination of gear)

 

I mention Toughness as an example as that will only have an impact on Strike Damage, nothing with how much Condition Damage will do which in turn will be depending on your total Health Pool (HP) which can be increased with Vitality. Therefore a characters profession will be more important for as how much passive defence you have as this is different from profession to profession (base line) where you can increase those numbers from gear. "Glass cannon" means that you haven't used any gear (from attributes) to increase those numbers and only invested in damage (either Strike Damage from Power [which also need Precision and Ferocity] or from Condition Damage [increase in how much each tick will do) and Duration (expertise).

In PvE we don't have any NPC healers (there are some exceptions, but far from what I have seen in Elder Scroll Online when I played that MMO where you had a main boss and there where several healers around and you needed to both kill those healers and prevent boss from heal up - you could solo this group boss, but it is a demanding task to kill something that can fully heal up again and again and with several NPC that also respawn or heal up) and you will not see any NPC (yet) do condition removal which make Condition in general a better option for PvE content.

In WvW (and sPVP) you will see much more of player that invest in condition removal, corrupt boons to condition (and return those condition to target) or boon ripping (meaning only removing boons from enemy target) as a part of game play.

You can find a list on GW2 wiki for what boons will turn into when they are corrupted into conditions and vice verse when they are used to empower yourself as a player (most often part of Necromancers tool kit and too some degree Revenants Demon Stance).

To understand Condition you also need to read up about soft CC and hard CC. Soft CC is part of condition where you do things like Blind, Chill or Weakness. They are basically condition with crown control effect (search for crowd control or CC on Gw2 wiki) and in most cases doesn't do any damage by themselves.

Hard CC on the other hand have had some damage (which have been changed for some time ago to a very small damage) and do stuff like Daze (more used to Interrupt), Knock down, Pull, Push or Sink (Under Water). Those skills that have those abilities also in general are on longer cool down or have a higher cost (if you use energy/resource based profession) then other skill.

If you increase expertise (condition duration) you will also increase duration for soft CC.

For Hard CC you are much more depending on traits that increase duration of CC or have a special effect related to soft CC and there are some Runes (upgrades for armour) or Sigil (upgrades for weapon) that will increase duration (how long time your target will under that effect without using any stunbreak to get out of that animation and effect) of hard CC.

Using Scarecrow or any other site where main focus is 10 or 20 players that work coordinated to kill a limited number of enemies is not a very good indication of what is hard hitting profession.

First of all there have been changes from patches that make those numbers change and secondly those numbers are under very special condition that everybody is packed (aka stacking) and that everybody in that group can time their skill perfectly (aka rotation). Those numbers also are often from hitting target that doesn't move much with a large hit box (area around target where each hit will be register as only hitting that target).

Use only those sites with that in mind and don't expect that every group will be the same or even will reach those numbers. You might learn something about rotation or something about builds from such sites, but to try to find any perfect profession that kills everything in sight is not a realistic goal.

In open world you will see target that are rather mobile (but make use a pre determined paths) and you need to avoid getting those targets too far from that path or they will get invulnerable and reset to full HP.

I hope you now have a better understanding that your question is not an easy one to answer as if you only play instanced PvE like Dungeons, Fractals (up to 5 player Instanced content) or you play Raids or Strike (up to 10 player content), then damage and defence scale in different ways. In WvW you use same gear and skills, but coefficients for skills have reduced damage, your HP change and there are other changes from PvE. In sPvP you don't use your gear any more, but a special Amulet that now work as all your armour attributes did and have other rules then in PvE (WvW and PvP will have their on filter if you look in GW2 wiki).

Highest damage is seldom a good way to stay alive in any game or game mode, if you don't have a group that sacrifice their own damage output to increase your groups survival (healers in GW2 do not only "heal" they also provide boons and conditions like chill, blind or weakness that work to reduce damage taken for group).

I don't list evey GW2 wiki here, so I hope you make use of that link to attributes and start to search on that site for what boons exist and how they work and the same for conditions and soft CC/hard CC.

Thank you so much, I haven't played for quite some time, so I guess one could see me as "new" to the game again, hehe.. and my memory is really bad, hehe.
But thank you so much for the link and the explanations 😄
I'll be sure to read through and take notes and try to get my brain in gear again so I can remember stuff 😄 I have mostly done PvE but I wanna become better at the game and get a bigger understanding of the game and the different mechanics in general. But again thank you so much for this! it'll help a TON! ❤️