Curse

HalPlantagenet · Sep 01, 2006, 05:19 PM // 17:19

Lately, I’ve been using the following build for a variety of PVE situations (Morostav Trail, Explorable Raisu Palace, Crystal Desert) and found that it appeared to be effective and competitive. But looks are often deceiving so I decided to do some comparisons using the damage calculation formulae on Guildwiki to see what that revealed. Here is the build followed by my questions and deductions. Questions, corrections, alternatives will all be greatly appreciated.

Secondary Profession: Monk
Attributes:
Marksmanship 14
Expertise 12
Wilderness Survival 8
Smiting Prayers 7

Weapons: Long Bow and Horn Bow, both with 15% above 50% health damage bonus and customized.

Skills:
Barrage
Marauder’s Shot
Savage Shot
Distracting Shot
Lightning Reflexes
Judges Insight
Throw Dirt
Troll Unguent

First question:

What is the average Effective Damage using Barrage for the horn bow and long bow at pertinent sundering levels? (Expertise is high enough that it can be spammed.)

40% 20% 0%
Long Bow 76 65 56

50% 30% 10%
Horn Bow 82 70 60

Since, the 20% sundering bonus from the sundering string only occurs 20% of the time, the overall average effective damage for each is:

Long Bow 67.33
Horn Bow 72.73

Which leads to the question of whether the horn bow is worth it since it’s time required for a shot is 2.7 sec. (vs. 2.5 for the long bow), it’s range and accuracy are less. Here are some damage over time comparisons that are pertinent:

Time(secs.) 5 10 15
Long Bow 135 269 403
Horn Bow 73 218 363

Deduction: I would have expected the horn bow to be superior for a build maximizing armor penetration but it appears to offer no advantage. I think I’ll leave it at home.

Second question:

How does Judges Insight compare to Kindle Arrow as a preparatory tool to augment damage? Barrage ignores preparations (kindle) but is augmented by Judges Insight. Here are some numbers. This time I decided to look at some different marksmanship ranks:

Marksmanship 14 15 16
Wilderness Survival 12 11 10
Eff. Damage w/Kindle wo/Barrage 48 50 54
Eff. Damage w/Judges Insight w/Barrage 54 59 65

Marksmanship 14 15 16
Wilderness Survival 12 11 10
Eff. Damage w/Kindle w/Punishing Shot 67 70 75
Eff. Damage w/Judges Insight w/Punishing Shot 56 62 69

I was surprised that Judges Insight was competitive. Both require 2 seconds for initialization. However, since Judges Insight is a spell it can be stripped.

Deduction: if I’m carrying barrage because of the likelihood of encountering appropriately bunched foes I’ll take Judges Insight. Otherwise, I’ll go with Kindle and Punishing Shot.

Summary: the build is competitive as a general tool, particularly when conditions favor the use of barrage.

zling · Sep 03, 2006, 12:37 AM // 00:37

I saw somewhere on these forums that AP doesnt stack but the highest %age takes effect, dunno if its true or not.

also, you forgot to include armor effects. judge's makes you deal holy damage which is armor ignoring while kindle makes you deal fire damage which is affected by armor.

and while you're at it, if you're not taking barrage why not have both kindle and judge's? kindle is a preparation while judge's is an enchantment, no reason not to use both for huge armor ignoring damage.

Tainek · Sep 03, 2006, 12:59 AM // 00:59

the best way to augment damage is simple, go R/W and bring frenzy+ dodge

frenzy increases the damage you can do using barrage by 150% (+25% attack speed=150% more attacks in gw) doesnt require any attribute points, and going /w allows for the awesome Watch yourself to be used

oh and dodge is a cancle stance for if you begin to come under attack

Also you should be using a Flat Bow or Shortbow for spamming barrage, horn bows are nice for spiking, but thats it, 2.7 refire hurts the damage

HalPlantagenet · Sep 03, 2006, 03:17 PM // 15:17

Provocative points. Here are some quick observations:

1. If Apply Poison were to peg your damage at the highest value, it would dominate all other preparations as you rarely do max damage otherwise. I haven't tested or researched it yet, but will put it on my list. Thanks, Zling.

2. The point about the conversion to holy damage is a good one and I wondered about it when I developed my spreadsheets. I don't doubt the conversion, however, does the base damage (not the damage bonus) then become armor ignoring? When I reviewed both GuildWiki and the recent short article on damage on the Guild Wars site it still seemed somewhat ambiguous. I decided to go to the Isle of the Nameless this morning, do some testing and compare it with empirical results. The result is that I have a number of new questions. In general, my observations about horn bows versus long bows were born out as well as the damage differences between JI and KA. However, very occasionally I saw outliers both + and - not predicted by the GuildWiki formulae. I couldn't determine whether the converted base damage was armor ignoring or not.

3. One of the most surprising results of my epirical results was that the Kindle Arrow bonus was affected by armor, (contrary to my interpretation of the Guild Wars article on damage.) For example, with WS at 8, KA should deliver an additional 14 damage. This it does against the 60 armor dummy. However, against the 100 armor dummy, the bonus is reduced to 7. Perhaps someone can offer some insight here.

4. Your point, Tainek, about the value of frenzy, as an accelerator is a good one. Obviously, it applies to both damage augmented by JI or KA and could be chosen instead of them. There are other accelerators of course, Lightning Reflexes and Tigers Fury which are alternatives. This suggests a whole other line of inquiry, taking into account the trade-offs between three and four attribute lines to evaluate them. I'd be interested to know what advantages you see in Frenzy over the others.

There many directions to go from here. My over all goal is to develop some objective criteria (mathematical when necessary) to use when developing builds. I have the highest regard for the quality of information presented on GuildWiki. I expect the damage calculation formulae presented there were developed by diligent, empirical testing. Nevertheless, my impression from this testing is that they may be inaccurate. Again, any insight anyone could provide would be more than welcome.

SnipiousMax · Sep 03, 2006, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

I saw somewhere on these forums that AP doesnt stack but the highest %age takes effect, dunno if its true or not.

The AP from Judges stacks with BASE AP. Base AP includes: Hornbow Inherent AP, Penetrating Shot AP, Sundering AP. The highest base AP is added to all additional AP. A good clue is when the text says "+ xx% Armor Penetration".

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

also, you forgot to include armor effects. judge's makes you deal holy damage which is armor ignoring while kindle makes you deal fire damage which is affected by armor.

It is not armor ignoring.

From Guildwiki:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildwiki

The +20% armor penetration implies that the holy damage induced by this skill does not ignore armor, unlike most Holy damage skills. It is possible that the skill description is wrong and that the damage is actually Light damage not Holy damage.

It wouldn't make sense to have Armor Penetration on something that ignored armor altogether.

It is, however, MORE effective against higher armored targets... so a cross section comparison would be more accurate than comparing the results vs. a 60 Armor target.

HalPlantagenet · Sep 04, 2006, 04:41 AM // 04:41

I should have known zling meant amor penetration, not apply poison. I may wear a paper sack over my head for a week or so, oh well. Also, thanks SnipiousMax for clarifying sundering stacking.

So my original points stand. However, I am still curious about the +damage from kindle being affected by armor. SnipiousMax do you have any insight to offer here? (Thanks in advance.)

HalPlantagenet · Sep 04, 2006, 01:50 PM // 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by HalPlantagenet

However, I am still curious about the +damage from kindle being affected by armor. SnipiousMax do you have any insight to offer here? (Thanks in advance.)

From another thread, SnipiousMax wrote,

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

... Something you already knew. Kindle deals the fire damage seperately from the arrow damage. So its like your dealing two fire attacks rather than one attack with +damage. This can be good and bad... But I still prefer straight unconditional unreducable damage, unless I'm facing something weak against fire.

From which I infer that the additional damage from kindle is treated like base damage whereas Penetrating Attack's bonus, for example, is independent of armor. Presumably if the skill description describes additional damage as "+..." then it is applied to the base arrow damage as a damage bonus and, as such is independent of the opponent's armor.

But higher armored opponents are sometimes where you need the maximum bonus. I'm beginning to appreciate SnipiousMax's lack of fondness for kindle.

SnipiousMax · Sep 04, 2006, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by HalPlantagenet

However, I am still curious about the +damage from kindle being affected by armor.

My biggest issue with Kindle (besides not being able to use a Flatbow) comes from the fact that the +damage is misleading.

First off, since the damage is calculated as base damage, rather than additional damage. You must have 12 points in wilderness survival to deal the full amount listed in the skill against a 60 AL target.

That means if you are running less than 12, or if you are facing a foe with a higher armor class you will not deal the full amount of damage.

Second, to show the effects of armor...

Even at 12 wilderness survival.

Against a 60 AL target, yes you'll deal 20 damage
Against a 80 AL target, you'll deal 14 damage
Against a 100 AL target, you'll deal 10

This isn't to say that kindle doesn't have it's uses. It's very effective against plant type monsters, and since it deals two packets of fire damage, the damage is twice as effective because the penalty is applied to both the arrow damage and the kindle damage. This is true for anything weak against fire. You could also use it in tandem with Winter, making your attacks incredibly strong against anything weak against water (ie... Hell's Prepice).

But as an everyday prep, I'm not terribly fond of kindle. Had I something in mind I was specing points into WS for, I'd use something like Apply poison or Choking gas instead.

Amy Awien · Sep 05, 2006, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

First off, since the damage is calculated as base damage, rather than additional damage. You must have 12 points in wilderness survival to deal the full amount listed in the skill against a 60 AL target.

Interesting observation, though perhaps not noticable in practice since one would be going out with high WS when equipping Kindle.. I'll test it though. Also shows how misleading the skilldescriptions can be.

Most attack bonusses are armor ignoring, if you want to test something, I use the armordummies on the Isle of the Nameless. Look for the critical hits, as they always use the max basedamage and thus you won' heave to juggle with statistics. Critical hits are easily recognized as they are the damage numbers that are way above the normal range.

Oh, btw, you can take multiple preps, but you can't use them at the same time. I like Kindle (or RtW) with CG since it's a more effective against non-casters. But that is off-topic.

ubermancer · Sep 05, 2006, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

the best way to augment damage is simple, go R/W and bring frenzy+ dodge

frenzy increases the damage you can do using barrage by 150% (+25% attack speed=150% more attacks in gw) doesnt require any attribute points, and going /w allows for the awesome Watch yourself to be used

oh and dodge is a cancle stance for if you begin to come under attack

Also you should be using a Flat Bow or Shortbow for spamming barrage, horn bows are nice for spiking, but thats it, 2.7 refire hurts the damage

And thats that.

QFT

Amy Awien · Sep 05, 2006, 09:14 AM // 09:14

AFAIK, barrage is limited to a 2 second cycle, IAS wouldn't really help here.

Edit: and it's the 33% increase in attackspeed that calculates to a 50% increase in the number of attacks per time-unit. With a 25% attackspeed increase, cycle-time goes down to 75% and attackfrequency increases to 1.33 of the original, or a +33% increase in number of attacks.

Sha Noran · Sep 05, 2006, 09:41 AM // 09:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

AFAIK, barrage is limited to a 2 second cycle, IAS wouldn't really help here.

Lol.

As far as the OP's question, I think it's rooted in a misunderstanding of why a Ranger would want Judge's Insight at all. Comparing Kindle and Judges as you are is unfair; the only true reason you would ever want Judge's Insight over an actual Ranger prep would be with Barrage, where Ranger preps simply don't work. Running Judges with a single target DPS build is just not sensible considering the energy required to power it (with any decent level of Expertise, 10e for JI vs 2-3e for Kindle). A more fair comparison would be between the skills Read the Wind and Kindle Arrows.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HalPlantagenet

Deduction: if I’m carrying barrage because of the likelihood of encountering appropriately bunched foes I’ll take Judges Insight. Otherwise, I’ll go with Kindle and Punishing Shot.

You summed it up quite nicely there in your first post...

Yakumo · Sep 05, 2006, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

AFAIK, barrage is limited to a 2 second cycle, IAS wouldn't really help here.

Interesting post by Jenosavel here (post #37): http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...3010423&page=2

Tainek · Sep 05, 2006, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

AFAIK, barrage is limited to a 2 second cycle, IAS wouldn't really help here.

Edit: and it's the 33% increase in attackspeed that calculates to a 50% increase in the number of attacks per time-unit. With a 25% attackspeed increase, cycle-time goes down to 75% and attackfrequency increases to 1.33 of the original, or a +33% increase in number of attacks.

I Quote Guild Wiki:

"So even though the skill description says attacks are 33% faster, it actually nets you an approximate 50% increase in the number of attacks."

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Flurry

Frenzy is 33% faster, not 25%

Quote:

4. Your point, Tainek, about the value of frenzy, as an accelerator is a good one. Obviously, it applies to both damage augmented by JI or KA and could be chosen instead of them. There are other accelerators of course, Lightning Reflexes and Tigers Fury which are alternatives. This suggests a whole other line of inquiry, taking into account the trade-offs between three and four attribute lines to evaluate them. I'd be interested to know what advantages you see in Frenzy over the others.

Why frenzy you ask?

Flurry= only 12% more damage, pah

Lightning Reflexes= Lovely skill, but too short a duration with too long a recharge, you want IAS always
Tigers Fury= Requires a hefty lump of attributes in Beast mastery to be effective, and also uses 2* the energy of Frenzy

Frenzy does however have the downside of double damage, but your ranger shouldnt be under fire anyways

Also IAS Does affect barrage, go test it yourself, you can use barrage more often

Skuld · Sep 05, 2006, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Flatbow and shortbow - refire is 2 seconds, barrage has 1 second recharge. 33% IAS allows use every 1.2? (prly got that wrong but it is never less than one). IAS does nothing

Amy Awien · Sep 05, 2006, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

I Quote Guild Wiki ... Frenzy is 33% faster, not 25% ...

Kind(le) of you to point me to Wiki, but I know my sources. I responded to your mentioning a 25% increase in attack speed would lead to a 50% increase in attackfrequency, in this post

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

... frenzy increases the damage you can do using barrage by 150% (+25% attack speed=150% more attacks in gw) ...

So, I merely pointed out that a 25% increase in attack speed results in a 33% higher attack-frequency.

The link given earlier to Jenosavel's post holds interesting information. I was wrong about IAS not, or barely, affecting Barrage, but the effect isn't 50% either. Interesting to read that Barrage + IAS puts the hornbow back into buisiness.

HalPlantagenet · Sep 06, 2006, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Some comments:

1. Sha Noran’s observation about the fairness of comparing JI to Kindle is correct. However, it was never my goal to objectively decide which one is better; they’re for different purposes. However, I do think it is useful to understand how they compare in delivering damage and that was one point of the investigation.

2. My thanks to Yakumo for the pointer to the Jenosavel post. As Amy Awien points out horn bows are interesting with IAS, particularly with something that can be kept on permanently, such as Frenzy. In most situations I start with a long bow and shift to a short bow when the line of scrimmage breaks down. If I’m using some method for increasing attack speed, I should consider moving to the horn bow instead.

3. With regard to “Frenzy” specifically, thanks to Tainek for bringing up the point and his succinct useful comparison. I haven’t used it in a very long time and obviously should have been considering it. BTW, my experience with it last night was catastrophic: either I was catastrophically good, as when I wasn’t taking significant damage from warriors and assassins who were preoccupied with the front line, or I was unable to use it because I was taking significant damage from casters. The damage penalty is significant, obviously. However, it is mitigated by Frenzy’s short duration: if you’re under heavy attack just don’t use it for a bit.

4. As for my damage calculations generally, I’m still concerned about the Guildwiki formula. To be fair, they state, “there are many different factors to consider while calculating damage. To avoid confusion, this section presents a simplified damage calculation which only takes into consideration the more common factors” and “weapons attacks select RD (raw damage) each time uniformly from the damage range of the weapon.” From my testing on the Isles of the Nameless, distance appears to be a first order effect in determining the probability of any raw damage value but it is not accounted for in the formulae. Further, so far I’ve been unable to locate any information beyond the usual good-fair-poor comparisons for the bow types. Perhaps someone has a pointer?

Amy Awien · Sep 08, 2006, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Heigt is one such factor that plays an important role but is rarely taken into consideration in damage calculations. Height might have played a role where it appeared to be distance?

HalPlantagenet · Sep 08, 2006, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Amy Awien, are you accusing me of standing on the stairs?

You may be right. I suspect the best thing is to put on my lab coat (Armor 70 + 15 vs. non sequiturs) and give it a shot.