Power/Precision/Ferocity - optimal combination for max damage output?

[Strider.7849]

Right now I'm currently running full berserker while roaming and I think a lot of people are using this and/or maurader. Just wondering if anyone compared running 100% Crit builds vs Berserkers for roaming. Furthermore if they've compared stacking other parts of that like going the max ferocity you can and how it compares to regular full zerkers. What were your thoughts/findings on this?

Also are there professions that benefit more off of having 100% Crit or going higher ferocity than power investment than others?

[Psybehr.2518]

I run full zerk on thief and DH. It works fine, just play smart.

[Cyninja.2954]

Most classes can hit 100% crit with full berserker gear. The question rather becomes: can your roaming build self-provide the necessary boons and traits to do so.

Here is a 5 year old reddit post which has a nifty graph of when to stack what:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2vjoef/balancing_powerprecisionferocity_based_on_ep/

In short: since you will almost never hit the power values at which point it makes more sense to stack ferocity, even less when solo, the general rule of thumb is Precision until 100% crit, then Power>Ferocity.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

The answer is full Berserker's + whatever brings you to 100% crit chance. If you cannot supplement crit chance with traits, boons, infusions, food, sigils, or runes to the point where you have 100% then what is typically done is you replace the armor/trinkets with the smallest stat increases out for Assassin's gear until you hit 100%.

Max DPS occurs when you cap your crit chance and then up your power and ferocity to ~ 3500 and ~1500 respectively.Here is a quick example, note I picked Druid based on your avatar and this is solely for illustrative purposes:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEcEWosAmHrjtxQxi95tVXi5rA-z1QYhojbfHERp0UCEWEEYIkZBYyBIk9wbR/ZA-w

If you are running a power build, then you generally want a 2.33/1 power to ferocity ratio once you've hit crit cap regardless of class played. The only question is how do you get to crit cap with any given class/espec.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The question rather becomes: can your roaming build self-provide the necessary boons and traits to do so.Which is the good question. In my experience, this "optimal combination for max damage output" isnt so optimal anymore when you always die 5s before I arrive to a 1v2, when we would have won the same 2v2. But common concensus since 4 stats gear was introduced is that full marauders is "optimal". Simpler to think that way.

[rng.1024]

I've been running Assassin's gear with Rune of the Eagle, which allow for 80% base crit chance and max ferocity at the cost of power as a minor stat.

On paper it sounds good, and my reasoning was with power coefficients being lowered more crits should make up for that, right? There's a few issues with this:

• For one this means your non crits (when fury is removed) deal alot less damage (up to 30%), and your crits aswell do alot less damage because of the power loss (up to 30%). Since you crit nonstop this equates to a general 30% damage nerf.
• Second, and more importantly, power directly counters an opponents armor value (above the dividing line), while ferocity (and therefore precision) are added post armor calculation (below dividing line). This drastically reduces your dmg output scaling with higher armor values.

We can do an easy example out of this to show how this works. Let's assume both builds have the same crit chance (f.eks 200%), and they hit 10 times each, one with 50% crit chance and 30% more power (example 1) and the other with 30% less power and 100% crit chance (Example 2):

Example 1:

• 100 dmg
• 100 dmg
• 100 dmg
• 100 dmg
• 100 dmg
• 200 dmg (crit)
• 200 dmg (crit)
• 200 dmg (crit)
• 200 dmg (crit)
• 200 dmg (crit)Total: 1500 dmg

Example 2:

• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)
• 140 dmg (crit)Total: 1400 dmg

Not only do you lose around 7% dps going for this, but you also lose burst dps and alot of ferocity efficacy. What I mean by this is if the opponent has an armor value of 10, and you have a power equal to 10 you split that packet into a unit of 1, which now is their defence against your ferocity. With power equal to 7, that unit becomes 0,7 which not only reduces your initial damage roll number, but effectively renders 30% of your ferocity soaked up in their armor value on top of that.

Tl;dr:This is why Power -> Precision -> Ferocity is the only order to go for if you want to maximise damage, simply because of how the game calculates it. Remember precision only decides what use you'll get from your ferocity, so even 1 point in ferocity starts to benefit - but only up to 50% (since base crit is 150% dmg). Therefore in order to do max overall dps, you need to go all power major stat, hit 50% crit chance (or 30% if you have perma fury/traits that give crit chance) and then go all in on ferocity. Hope this helped clarify some ^^

[Stand The Wall.6987]

75% crit chance w/ fury is usually enough for most builds.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The question rather becomes: can your roaming build self-provide the necessary boons and traits to do so.Which is the good question. In my experience, this "optimal combination for max damage output" isnt so optimal anymore when you always die 5s before I arrive to a 1v2, when we would have won the same 2v2. But common concensus since 4 stats gear was introduced is that full marauders is "optimal". Simpler to think that way.

I was commenting on what provides maximum damage output as asked by topic creator. Not on what makes most sense from a build standpoint. Yes I agree, there is more to consider when making ones build.

Between the damage stats, what I wrote is the usually approach to calculate for maximum damage.

Full Marauder gear provides example only around 10% less damage than full Berserker, and thanks to the higher stats from 4-stat gear, many value the additional vitality over the slight damage advantage of Berserker.

[lodjur.1284]

Gw2power.com is really the best tool for this

[KrHome.1920]

Marauder is usually better for roaming for at least 2 of the following 3 reasons:

• Not every class has a high base health pool and not every build can increase its hp with runes or traits.
• The additional 10% of crit chance (which results in 20% more critical hits) is noticeable in your damage so that marauder gets almost on par with berserker and you have these additional 6000 hp on top. Berserker deals only significantly more damage, if you can (almost) cap your crit chance.
• 4stat gear has more overall stats than 3stat gear. If this wasn't the case, like now in pvp where 4stat amulets have been nerfed to 3stat levels, then we'd see a lot more bersersker gear in wvw because the damage of pvp-marauder is significantly lower compared to pvp-berserker. So marauder usesers are less a threat to berserker users than before.