Greatweapons vs Sword 'n Board

[Gunnarr]

I would say we have an adequate number of Ironbreakers in the guild. While Swordmasters can be great tanks, they really can't compete with an Ironbreaker if there is a choice Smiley  What we need (my personal view this, so don't shoot me) however is melee DPS (a bit short on White Lions as far as I can see). Swordmasters specced in Khaine or Vaul, wielding a Greatweapon, are a great boon to any group. Plus they can take that despicable sword&board from their back-pack if really really needed to 

I'm wondering if anyone figured out yet how using a greatweapon influences your damage output compared to using a onehander and shield? I think I remember reading that this choice would only influence auto-attack damage, which should be a relatively minor part of the total damage a "tank" class outputs. Is it worth to sacrifice the additional protection a shield offers?

[Jarkko]

For Swordmaster it is IMO. They haves kills which spesifically require a Greatweapon.

In addition, Greatweapons provide a higher burst, as they have higher DPS than one-handers. Say you have 1-hander weapons-speed 2.0 and with all your abilities have DPS 100, or a Greatweapon with speed 3.0 and DPS (with your abilities) 120 (these are btw the numbers from my 23 rank WP with two same level green weapons, a one-hander (that I never use) and a Greatweapon (which I happily swing).

Engage enemy for 12 seconds. Total autoattack damage dealt vs paperdoll

1hander: 0s 200, 2s 400, 4s 600, 6s 800, 8s 1000, 10s 1200, 12s 1400
GreatW: 0s 360, 3s 720, 6s 1080, 9s 1440, 12s 1800


For some reason we speak of "only" autoattack, without noticing autoattack actually provides quite a punch. What is more, autoattack swing-timer is not reset when using abilities. Yes, most of the damage comes from abilities, but autoattack damage is not something to frown at.

[Pashur]

I was surprised to see that the auto attack does much more damage than I anticipated. I have seen it be up to ~30-40% of the damage but I am not sure what class I was playing, SM or WH I guess. It could be a graphical issue and all auto attacks are not visualized. Anyway, I use some combat damage calculator addon and find it an interesting read. I thought I was over and done with theory crafting but I cannot help peeking at my damage/healing.
Auto attack is very important, so weapon dps is important, as is any auto attack speed increase which may easily be overlooked.

[Mangala]

READ THIS

Sword & Board in an SM's hands can out dps a great weapon of comparable combined stats.

Good read, lots of easy to follow numbers (for my anyway, hey dont laugh, I use an accountant for most stuff!)

[Caradir]

Good read, lots of easy to follow numbers (for my anyway, hey dont laugh, I use an accountant for most stuff!)

aye let others do the sums, if i wanted too id still be working in Engineering.

keep up the good work you maths heads i for one couldnt be arsed hats off to you theorycrafters

[Stephen]

Two handed weapons don't provide enough of a DPS upgrade to make it worthwhile dropping your shield.

There's not really a noticeable difference in DPS between greatweapon and one-hander-with-shield on my Swordmaster but there is a huge and noticeable difference in my survivability.

[Pashur]

We will soon enough get very good reliable dps/hps monitoring addons so comparing gear/buff/tactic combos will be dead simple.
Regarding SMs, you do realize that an SM with 2-hander looks way cooler so dps must be at least tenfold compared to S&B, just FYI 

[Jarkko]

Sorry Beo, but OP in that thread is skewing the numbers either intentionally or by oversight. He is only comparing the effects of ability damage only  That is mentioned later in the thread, but most people seem to ignore it, and just focus on the 4-10% more in ability damage.

About 40% of all damage output comes from auto-attacks, aka "white" damage, and as I mentioned above, autoattack damage is significantly higher for Greatweapons than for singlehand weapons.

This was discussed already in CB, and even there many people seemed to have a difficulty at understanding just how much the autoattacks deal damage.

To iterate: Greatweapons always deal more damage than sword&board. The difference in ability damage ability is not something to woot about, but the difference in autoattack damage is huge, and combining those two means Greatweapons deal lots of more damage.

[Peter]

To iterate: Greatweapons always deal more damage than sword&board. The difference in ability damage ability is not something to woot about, but the difference in autoattack damage is huge, and combining those two means Greatweapons deal lots of more damage.

Aren't you assuming a continous melee contact situation here, Jarkko?

[Pashur]

Regarding the importance of auto attack: I took a screenshot just now on Pashur's dps/heal during 1:30h played. I was in two scenarios did a public quest and some random mobs. The addon is simple but assuming it monitors correctly we are talking about around 35-40% of the dps comes from auto attack.

[Gunnarr]

I'd be interested in seeing the difference in numbers for AM and IB! (Since these 2 classes can use shields)

[Stephen]

I don't know where Jarkko's got his numbers from, they don't tie in with mine at all.

One nice thing about WAR is that there's very little randomness in the numbers, so the quick test detailed below is quite accurate. As far as it goes, anyhow.

Attacker: Swordmaster, rank 25.
Stats (without S/S or GS): 233 Str, 189 WS, 484 W, 340 T.

Defender: Darkscale Cold One, rank 27

Weapons:
Sentry Greatsword: rank 24, 2.8 speed, 45.0 DPS, 44 Str, 32 WS.
Sentry Falcata, rank 24, 2.8 speed, 31.0 DPS, 26 Str, 12 W.
Sentry Pavise, rank 24, 224 block (18.9%@25), 12 Str, 26 T.
Note: These are all rank 24 renown items and therefore offer the fairest comparison I can give.

My most damaging cycle is Ensorcelled Blow, Intimidating Blow, Dragon's Talon. This cycle takes 5 seconds but it is unsustainable, I can go maybe 40-50 seconds on this cycle before running out of AP. However, if the fight lasts more than 50 seconds my DPS is generally completely irrelevant, I'm either hitting someone being healed or tanking in PvE.

Damage (mitigated):

Autoattack - physical
S/S 63 (34)
GS 91 (46)

Ensorcelled Blow - spiritual
S/S 100 (34)
GS 117 (35)

Intimidating Blow - physical
S/S 100 (53)
GS 116 (59)

Dragon's Talon - spiritual
S/S 71 (21) + 71 (21)
GS 80 (24) + 80 (24)

Analysis (note that these number are rounded for display here, but not in my calculations):
Autoattack DPS for S/S is 22.5 (63/2.
Autoattack DPS for GS is 32.5 (91/2.
Ability DPS for S/S is 68.4 ((100+100+71+71)/5)
Ability DPS for GS is 78.6 ((117+116+80+80)/5)
Total DPS for SS is 90.9.
Total DPS for GS is 11.1.
Autoattack for S/S is 25% of total DPS.
Autoattack for GS is 29% of total DPS.

GS DPS is 22% higher than S/S DPS.
These numbers are for actual damage (ie after mitigation) but proportionally the numbers before mitigation are very close to those after.

A couple of other things to consider.
As strength increases, the amount of DPS contributed by the autoattack reduces. I do not stack strength (my stats are quite balanced between offence and defence), but if I did, the advantage of wielding a greatsword would diminish even further. Also, I can AOE about five mobs down and still finish the fight with close to full health using S/S but have trouble with two or three when using a GS.

Overall, I feel very squishy when using a greatsword and don't really feel like I enough extra DPS to compensate.

[Jarkko]

Too bad that you took the Greatword with possibly the relatively worst stats in the whole game   It is IMO way too fast for a Greatweapon (personally I would look for speed 3.5+ wepons to get maximal use of the GW burst), thus making its burst value much lower. However, I do not doubt your numbers, so I need to do more thorough tests tonight.


To Peter: The Greatweapon get relatively better if you don't stay in direct melee contact (or are not facing your target) all the time. Fewer hits, so it is better to have the hits be hard ones.

[Jarkko]

Pashur, what is the addon you used in the above picture?

I was thinking about making a similar test as in http://warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2177514&postcount=285 with my WP, though I will have to buy the rank 21 Renown stuff to get similar level items. Maybe during the process I'll hit rank 24

[Pashur]

The addon is called Combat Cruncher
It is simple, just a list of healing and damage. I tried 2-3 different dps/hps addons some 2 weeks ago and this one was simple but clean but did list all abilities I used which others did not. If I have time, or can be bothered, I will test new ones  this weekend.
WPs fight differently compared to other melee and I would expect us to have much higher auto attack than other classes. In scenarios and RvR we heal quite a lot while fighting which means we have a far from optimum dps-cycle but while healing auto attack is ongoing.
Auto attack percentage is always higher than the best theoretically calculated dps value. No one can keep a perfect dps cycle. Especially not in WAR. On some bosses in WoW you could be close to a perfect dps cycle but in this game I don't expect my opponents to stay around for that