User talk:Khomet/Paragon DPS

This is not conclusive. You must take into account that spears have the highest attack rate of all ranged weapons, also making them the best weapons for gaining adrenaline. Not only that, but they are ranged as opposed to melee, which means they are supposed to dish out less DPS than swords, hammers, axes, or scythes for the benefit of being able to swap targets at lightning speed and leave you at a safer distance from your target. It is true that many Spear Mastery skills have low to no bonus damage, but their attack skills are still ridiculously powerful. See Barbed Spear, a ranged Sever Artery for half the cost (perfect for spamming around a group). See Vicious Attack, Merciless Spear, Slayer's Spear, Chest Thumper, and Cruel Spear, the only ranged attacks that can inflict deep wound, vital in killing anything. Combine some of these with a wide variety of whatever else you want, interruption, burning, easy crippling, dazed, minion wiping, and/or the ability to equip an off-hand and it makes a very versatile weapon apart from simple DPS to a single target. Paragons are weak, I wouldn't try to discredit their only good attribute. –~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) ←♥– 22:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I have heard variations on this argument many times over the years, but the numbers prove otherwise. I'll ignore the "melee should do more DPS" argument for the moment and just compare spears to bows. While spears do have a faster attack rate, bows have skills which deliver multiple attacks to different targets (barrage, volley, incendiary arrows) and to the same target (triple shot, dual shot, forked arrow) which means that the damage potential from bows in PvE is much greater than the damage potential of spears. On top of this, the bow user has preparations to buff damage while the spear user has nothing comparable. To make matters even worse, the multi-hit capability of the bow means that he gains more benefit from Orders, Splinter Weapon, Barbs, Mark of Pain, EBSoH, etc. than the spear wielder, *AND* he gains more adrenaline while doing it. In short, bows > spears. Khomet 21:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

However, those skills do have recharge times and bows are still the slowest weapons in the game. If bows did not have preparations, they couldn't really do anything at all (except Splinter Barrage gimmicks), spears don't need preparations to be useful. Bows can not inflict deep wound. Spears are one-handed. Spears are still the best weapons for gaining adrenaline, which is pretty useful considering paragons need adrenaline to do anything. Rangers are better off with bows, paragons are better off with spears. Bows are just too slow. –~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) ←♥– 00:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

For the sake of argument, let's consider Volley. on a P/R with a shortbow and aggressive refrain up, he will attack once every 1.5 seconds, whereas the spear wielder attacks once every 1.1 seconds. In 6 seconds the spear wielder attacks 5 times, gaining 5 adrenaline. The bow wielder attacks 4 times in 6 seconds, gaining 4 adrenaline. Not much of a difference. If he uses Volley three times (recharge:2s) and hits more than one target, he can potentially gain up to 12 adrenaline, and he will also have time for an additional bow attack... so in the same 6 seconds, the bow wielder can gain 4 adrenaline (worst case) and up to 13 adrenaline (best case) in the same amount of time the spear wielder gains 5. Also note that the volley paragon only needs to hit 1 additional target during the whole 6 seconds to equal the spear wielder, and he will exceed the spear wielder if he can hit additional targets. This difference gets even wider when you add in adrenaline boosters and damage boosters. The spear can never deliver multiple hits and spear damage suffers greatly because other weapons are able to take better advantage of Splinter Weapon, Orders, EBSoH, Mark of Pain, etc. Khomet 01:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

However, while you're spamming Volley, you're not outputting any meaningful DPS and all of the energy gained from that adrenaline goes into fueling Volley instead of expensive bow attacks with meager damage or decent energy chants. Spears have furious mods and less expensive attacks and, still, deep wound. Not to mention spears do not need an IAS or foes hugging each other to perform basic adrenal functions. Also, you didn't calculate that spamming attack skills slows your attack rate and there's no way you could get an extra bow attack in those six seconds after three Volleys (which is also not a rate that can be maintained, since the next six seconds you could only execute two Volleys). –~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) ←♥– 00:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Sigh... you clearly do not understand where the damage is coming from. Barrage and Volley do damage on their own but a majority of the damage is coming from buffs on the arrows... Orders, EBSoH, Splinter Weapon, Favorable Winds and more. When each arrow is deliving something like +45 to +55 damage plus Splinter what matters most is getting more arrows in the air. Multi-attack capability rules PvE and this is why you see a lot of rangers running splinter barrage and a lot of warriors doing FoW speedclears with hundred blades, whirlwind attack, and mark of pain and Splinter killing hardmode mobs instantly. If you want to kill them all one by one that is your choice but it is very much inferior to the alternatives. On a productive note... for anyone who thinks spear dps really is competitive with the alternatives I challenge you to come up with the best spear build you can and post it here. Prove me wrong if you can. I've already shown that spear dps loses to everything else out there in single target damage. If you factor in its total lack of AoE damage capability it looks even worse. Khomet 02:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

For the record... I worked up ranger builds for heroes using Prepared Shot (~65dps) and Glass Arrows (~75dps, not sustainable due to energy problems). Attack skills were Dual Shot/Forked Arrow/Sundering/Penetrating and the ranger's attributes were 14 marksmanship and 13 expertise, so nothing unusual. The best spear wielder builds I have seen are around 60dps. Now you should be wondering, how is it that a ranger using bows can possibly do more damage than a paragon who uses a weapon with a faster attack speed? The reason for this the paragon spear skills are not strong enough and he has no self-buffs (e.g. preparations, favorable winds) available to him. And because of these factors, a ranger with a slower weapon beats the spear paragon's dps easily. Khomet 03:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

However, you are not the one doing the damage, it's your ritualist heroes with Splinter Weapon. Of course SW looks cooler with Barrage, but it actually doesn't do anything special. Splinter Weapon doesn't recharge fast enough to require multi-shots, so all Barrage does is use all of SW's charges at once (which is helpful to an extent when pre-casting, but SW does't have many charges anyway). Hundred Blades + Whirlwind Attack's ridiculousness is a totally different topic (and suddenly including PvE skills, in which case: "SY!"). Either way, I do not play or really care about PvE, so I'm just talking about spears in general. Like I've said, spears are not DPS weapons (though do provide decent DPS), they are a support weapon, the best for gaining adrenaline in the game, the only ranged weapon with deep wound (easy and spammable), paragons live on adrenaline, spears fuel all of a paragon's offensive and support abilities. You are hopefully not going to complain that Smiting Prayers are out-DPS'd by Fire Magic: spears are part of a support profession and have deadly capabilities if not kept in-check (ranged deep wound + support).

No, the reason rangers out-DPS paragons is because in PvE, rangers have brokenly powerful damage – paragons also have brokenly powerful skills, but not for damage (yes, paragons are "SY!", a warrior skill, in PvE). These ignored, the DPS of rangers is barely higher than paragons, only dealing a sustainable 5 DPS higher or 15 DPS with some downtime of weak DPS. One thing left out is bows' and spears' abilities to spread poison and bleeding, which provides quite a but more than can be overlooked, especially in a Pestilence or something condi-spam build (of course, they both do this and bows are better at it). –~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) ←♥– 04:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I can see where you are coming from, if you look at things in a PvP context then spear damage is more competitive... it's all single target damage there. But in PvP you'd find warriors, sins, and rangers much more useful because of higher damage, interrupts and knockdowns that the paragon cannot deliver. So once again the paragon is unwanted. The argument that paragon dps *should* suck because they are a "support class" implies that their support is good enough to be worth bringing, and it isn't. If you want to buff physical damage, ritualist and necromancer are far better, and if you want healing... motivation has been nerfed into uselessness. There are only a handful of skills (fallback, stand your ground, song of concentration) that might actually see use, and even then only on secondary paragons. Khomet 17:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, many teams have made use of spear paragons in PvP for knockdowns, but that's a different topic. :P It is true that paragon support is (mostly) worthless, but that's more what needs to be fixed rather than Spear Mastery (I would say this is probably my main point, which I didn't exactly state until now for some reason). Spear Mastery is pretty good, it's just that the skills spears were made to fuel are useless. I'm just hoping that this can get fixed in the upcoming paragon overhaul, which is much more in-need than the dervish overhaul and, imo, should have been done first (even though it probably would take a lot longer than any other class). –~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) ←♥– 06:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You know you're proving my point... :) What you're saying is that the paragon elite skills are so great that PvP paragons use Expel Hexes, Empathic Removal, Coward and Water Trident instead of using their own skills. Stunning Strike should be pretty great except that the paragon can't charge it in any reasonable amount of time without the elite adrenaline-boosting skills. Warrior has plenty of usable non-elite adrenal boosters, and they serve double duty as IMS or self healing. Cruel Spear is okay but paragon has plenty of non-elite sources of deep wound, so you are burning your elite slot for a few extra points of bonus damage. Some of the spear mastery skills are pretty great and these are the ones that are used. Spear of Lightning, Vicious Attack, Blazing Spear, Merciless Spear, Wild Throw. My assertion that spear mastery is weak relative to the other professions mostly refers to PvE usage where some form of AoE damage is needed to be competitive (or even useful). Single target elites like Eviscerate, Dev Hammer, and Temple Strike may be great in PvP but they see little use in PvE because there are much better options. Unfortunately the paragon seems to have been designed for PvP and the skills reflect this. (note: pve skills don't count, i'm talking about the paragon skills themselves). Anyways I am shocked that we have come to some form of agreement... paragons definitely need an update more than dervishes. :) The dervishes are at least decent at their primary function of damage-dealing, if not the absolute best. btw I have a long list of paragon skill suggestions and I would appreciate your input on them if you've got the time and interest. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Khomet/Paragon_skill_chages Khomet 16:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

For anyone interested in getting the most DPS out of a paragon hero, I suggest the volley paragon mentioned above and/or the Enraged Lunge paragon.

• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Khomet/Kway#Volley_paragon
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Khomet/Sandbox#Enraged_Lunge

Deep Wound

The reason spears are amazing is deep wound. They're just stupidly good at it – bows can't do it at all. — Raine Valen 2:15, 10 Jan 2011 (UTC)

Find Their Weakness! says hi. Khomet 13:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

15 recharge says meh. It's horribly lackluster next to merciless spear or vicious attack. — Raine Valen 14:19, 10 Jan 2011 (UTC)

lack of multi-attack capability on spears makes them meh in PvE, and lack of preps, bonus damage, and knockdown make paragons meh in PvP as well. When was the last time you saw anyone begging for hordes of spear paragons to join their group? On the other hand, hundred blades, earth shaker, barrage, volley, death blossom and scythe wielders all do good damage and are a welcome addition to the group. Spear damage is mediocre at best. Please see actual test data on the "Paragon DPS" page for proof of this, and note that this doesn't even take AoE damage into account. All non-spear weapons will do even better if you factor in AoE damage skills. Khomet 22:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Because Paragons weren't really built around the idea of blowing your enemies up like there's no tomorrow. They're more along the lines of offensive and defensive shout support with spear-chucking. DPS is really all that matters in PvE, and since Paragons don't really shine there, they're not cut out for doing big damage in PvE. That's my take, at least. But Spear Mastery isn't a bad weapon attribute, to be honest. Zetta 00:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately the paragon's dps is inferior to any other attacker (ranged or otherwise) and the shouts are not strong enough to be worth taking. Endless nerfs have eliminated every viable option other than Imbagon. I am not happy with the current situation and I am hoping that Anet makes some positive changes soon, though it is really too late for gw1.  :-\ Khomet 02:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Best spammable deepwound in PvE says hi--83.82.62.210 16:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I know... Enraged lunge is great, check out the P/R Enraged Lunge build I posted in the link above. But we were talking about paragon skills so I'm not sure what your point is... Khomet 21:49, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Alternative display of your data

I had trouble comparing the combinations you listed, so I put the data listed in your bullets into table form. Feel free to make use of it...or ignore it.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 08:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

that looks great!! thanks. Khomet 01:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Profs	Weapon	Primary skills	DPS	Notes
	spear	soldier's fury, sundering weapon	49
	bow	prepared shot, read the wind	52
	spear	cruel spear, FGJ	55	not sustainable
	spear	soldier's fury, conjure flame	57
	spear	soldier's fury, FGJ	60	not sustainable
	scythe	zealous vow, blazing finale	62	no IAS, pre-update
	axe	soldier's fury, FGJ, blazing finale	65	not sustainable
	hammer	focused anger, blazing finale	65
	daggers	focused anger, golden/ff/db, blazing finale	67
	spirits	SoS, bloodsong, painful bond, etc	68
	sword	dragon slash, FGJ, blazing finale	69	not sustainable
	scythe	soldier's fury, blazing finale, they're on fire	70
	pet	enraged lunge	72	no IAS on paragon