In-Depth GS Warrior PvE DPS Theorycrafting w/ Build Included

[Vivftw]

Hello everyone! I spent several hours analyzing stuff and doing math, and I came up with a rather in-depth amount of stuff. Hopefully you all will find this (wall of) information useful.

All of the following information applies to base damage from direct attacks only (not condition damage or crits) and assumes a level 80 character with a build with 2100 Power before boons and other buffs.

• The formula for base direct damage is Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

• Might is the only boon that gets stronger with more stacks.

• Ways to apply might as a warrior:
o Skills: “For Great Justice,” Signet of Rage, Signet of Might, Battle Standard
o Combo Fields: Using a combo finisher: blast (banners or stomp) on a combo field: fire (like Longbow’s Burst skill)

• Each stack of might grants 35 power and 35 condition damage on a level 80

• 9 stacks of might (315 Power) grants you more power than 30 points in the Strength trait line. It is easy to maintain 9 or more stacks of might solo as a warrior.

• 25 stacks of might = 875 power which is 2.91 times more than what you get from 30 pts in strength tree and is around 80% of what you get from gear.

• Forceful Greatsword trait in Arms line grants 315 power via might when you use Hundred Blades if all hits crit, meaning if you have this trait and use a single Hundred Blades, it has the potential to increase your overall base damage by 15% for 5 seconds.

• Each time you apply might to yourself, that specific stack lasts a # of seconds depending on the source, increased by +boon duration. For Great Justice, for example, applies a Might stack that lasts 25 seconds, while Sigil of Rage applies a Might that lasts 33 seconds, and Forceful Greatswords applications last 5 seconds. Applying one stack of might doesn't refresh the duration of another, although they stack for the length of time remaining on the previous applications. This means that if you wanted to self-maintain 25 stacks of might at all times, you would have to apply more than 25 stacks of might to yourself every 25 seconds.

• It is more likely that you’ll maintain 10-18 stacks solo with spikes of 25 stacks. You will be able to maintain more stacks consistently in a group, especially with a guardian.

• Power stat accounts for over half your base attack damage. Assuming you are using an exotic level 80 weapon with 995-1100 weapon damage and have 2100 Power, Power accounts for 65% of your base damage from Attack.

• If you have 2100 Power and gain 875 more from 25 stacks of might, the might increases your power by 41.7%, causing a 41.7% increase in damage for the duration. This means 25 stacks of might give a bigger increase in damage than any single trait that increases overall damage.

• If the traits are all additive, then with Berserker’s Power, Slashing Power, Attack of Opportunity, Forceful Greatsword (assuming 9 stacks of might), Empowered (assuming 3 active boons), and Stick and Move traits all combined, your base damage output is increased by around 44.6% under perfect conditions. This means 25 stacks of might is nearly equal to the damage boost you can get from all your traits combined, assuming that trait damage increases are additive.

• With only 3 active boons (easily achievable just using Signet of Rage), Empowered trait in Tactics line already grants 3% - 4.5% increase to overall base damage. If you have 2100 Power, 100 more power gives you a 4.7% increase in your overall base damage. This means going from 20 or 25 points in the strength line to 30 points in the strength line is not worth it, because the traits unlocked aren’t even that useful, and you get an equivalent (or higher w/ more boons on you) damage increase from 10 points in tactics, and get more health and boon duration to boot.

• 25 in Strength and 25 in Arms gives the highest damage output, assuming your endurance isn't full.

I have videos of the build I decided to run based off this information, but I the site isn't allowing me to link them since I just registered. I'll have to update it with those links later, I suppose. Or you can search VivTheGamer on youtube and find my channel.

Everything above still applies in either case, though.

Correction from 1st video: Vulnerability increases the damage a target takes by 1% per stack. Whatever the misleading sounding thing I said in the video about what that was is wrong. Every class can apply vulnerability, but some do it more than others.

I want to thank the reddit community for helping out with corrections and analyzing my post, with special thanks to pinch999, Guanlong, level80, and louka. I can't guarantee everything is 100% accurate, but I'm pretty sure it is at this point.

Thanks for reading, and I hope it was helpful. If it was and you want to support me in my efforts, please thumbs up that video and subscribe if you want. I hate to do self-promotion like that, but such is life on Youtube Thanks guys, and keep owning!

[Mavecryst]

Interesting stuff. Been thinking of making a warrior for some variation; as much as I love my thief, I'd like to try out the many more weapons available to a warrior. Thanks!