The number of possible PvP Skill Bars - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

seekjy

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2006

14 Sep 2007 at 18:26 - 1

Have you wondered how many possible PvP skillbars there are in Guild Wars?

The answer is 7,546,483,168,121,141. This assumes all possible skillbars with 8 skills (plus the empty bar). This does not take into account how the skills are ordered.

Here are a few other facts (also assuming only PvP skills)

270,006,654,759,760 of these bars have a resurrection signet in them. A randomly generated bar given a random primary and secondary (including blanks) would end up with a res sig in about 3.6% of them.
There 188,735,881,177 possible skillbars consisting of assassin skills only (Res Sigs are too heavy to bring). The typical HvH Assassin utilizes less than five of these bars.
There are 7,715,399,966,892 bars consisting of only skills from one profession. The ability to mix skills from another profession multiplies the number of possible combinations by 978.
The number of possible GvG team compositions is approximately 10^127. This is around 50 orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe.
The amount of space required to store a wiki entry for every build is likely greater than the amount of space required to store every word uttered by every human being ever in existence, as a transcript of text.

Assumptions and restrictions made:

Skill order is disregarded, including the type of skill itself. This includes lots of bars with assassin combos that can't be performed, and bars with seven glyphs.
No skillbar can have more than one elite.
Skillbars disregard primary and secondary profession. A Warrior/Necro, and Necro/Warrior with the same skillbar is counted as one.

Spreadsheet used to make calculations is attached.

Yichi

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2005

Guild Hall, Vent, Guesting, PvE, or the occasional HA match...

Dark Alley [dR]

14 Sep 2007 at 18:37 - 2

you have too much free time...

onerabbit

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

Thanks to all the guru [mods]

14 Sep 2007 at 19:07 - 3

Thanks .. i guess thats something to know.

Faer

La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo

Join Date: Feb 2006

14 Sep 2007 at 19:11 - 4

And yet, only a small fraction of them will ever be used.

Tsk.

Symeon

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2005

14 Sep 2007 at 19:23 - 5

Now work out how many of them will be actually effective.

50% of skills out the window at least.

Issac

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Oct 2006

Earthrealm

W/A

14 Sep 2007 at 19:27 - 6

Weird, I was thinking how many skill combinations you could make in gw yesterday lol. Well atleast I know now. Thanks

seekjy

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2006

14 Sep 2007 at 20:18 - 7

The number of bars that are "playable" is certainly subjective. Assuming 25% of the skills in the game are usable, and that they are combinable into a working bar, that number is about 69 billion skillbars, or about 0.00091% of all possible bars.

Now consider the probability of getting one of these builds when you play sealed deck.

darkrunner25

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Oct 2005

Black Crescent

E/Mo

14 Sep 2007 at 21:21 - 8

And people wonder why GW PvP is unaccessible to new players...

CHunterX

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

Washington

W/E

14 Sep 2007 at 21:28 - 9

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkrunner25

And people wonder why GW PvP is unaccessible to new players...

Seconded. Not only that there are so many, but that many PvP players bash on newer players for trying to use effective bars from PvX Wiki. Apparently PvP players would like you to go through all 7,546,483,168,121,141 bars yourself, instead of learning from others mistakes and success. This is why the only form of PvP I go to is Alliance Battles. I got my Bambi from HA and I'm now sick of that shit.

Ministry Of Peace

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2007

req 12 land

guildless for the time being

P/

14 Sep 2007 at 22:02 - 10

Quote:

Originally Posted by seekjy

The amount of space required to store a wiki entry for every build is likely greater than the amount of space required to store every word uttered by every human being ever in existence, as a 192 kbps MP3.

Assumptions made:

Each wiki entry contains a 500-page report. My favorite is titled "10,000,001 ways to use a mending bonder"

A template code is only ~15 bytes. I'd love to see your math calculating this claim

seekjy

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2006

14 Sep 2007 at 22:21 - 11

Most of the builds on PvXWiki could be classified as a stub. A stub is generally considered to be 1Kb or less, which I assumed the maximum of. This seems reasonable, considering many builds include icons links and discussion pages.

Assuming a stub for each build would require 7.5 Exabytes. A rough estimate of the number of human beings ever to exist is 100 Billion. This leaves about 82 Megabytes of space per human to record his conversations.

I dropped a 1,000 somewhere in my original estimate. I thought it was 82 Gigabytes per person, which would likely have been enough.

Kern Wolf

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2006

NJ

W/E

14 Sep 2007 at 23:05 - 12

To the OP: what you should now ask all the PvP players: how many different skillbars do they actually use, over the entire time Guild Wars has been in existence.

Vinraith

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

14 Sep 2007 at 23:10 - 13

Fun with math, I approve.

Servant of Kali

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2006

Me/

14 Sep 2007 at 23:18 - 14

The number of viable GvG skillbars: 8.

That's right. If you check observer that's all you see, exactly same skillbars.

lemming

The Hotshot

Join Date: May 2006

Honolulu

International District [id???]

15 Sep 2007 at 00:28 - 15

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHunterX

Seconded. Not only that there are so many, but that many PvP players bash on newer players for trying to use effective bars from PvX Wiki. Apparently PvP players would like you to go through all 7,546,483,168,121,141 bars yourself, instead of learning from others mistakes and success.

Um, what? What do you think taking good bars from obs mode constitutes?

Steboy93

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Feb 2007

Trinity of the Ascended [ToA] | Ex-Officer [TAM]

W/

15 Sep 2007 at 13:23 - 16

Incredible..

fenix

Major-General Awesome

Join Date: Aug 2005

Aussie Trolling Crew HQ - Event Organiser and IRC Tiger

Ex Talionis [Law], Trinity of the Ascended [ToA] ????????????????&#

W/

15 Sep 2007 at 14:01 - 17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

The number of viable GvG skillbars: 8.

That's right. If you check observer that's all you see, exactly same skillbars.

oho, icwutudidthar.

You're wrong.

Anyway, at the OP, that number maybe be true for all combinations of skills, but realistically, the number of usable bars would probably be less than 1% of that.

Sha Noran

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2005

http://tinyurl.com/2jlusq

Idiot Savants [iQ]

R/

15 Sep 2007 at 14:59 - 18

This is a little like doing some math and proclaiming that there are 3,000,000,000! (! being the math symbol, not the punctuation) different possible pairings between people on Earth. Man, how are we not all married yet?!

Probably because that doesn't take into consideration age, gender, location, or even basic compatibility. No one would care about that number because it doesn't consider anything.

Why would anyone care about a "number of possible PvP Skill Bars" that includes as part of it's figure bars that have 7 glyphs, or Assassin combos that don't work? It's just a big number. Who cares.

HawkofStorms

Hall Hero

Join Date: Aug 2005

E/

15 Sep 2007 at 17:13 - 19

Geez Sha and others just leave him alone. The point of this isn't to find viable bars, its just about the mathematical challage of the problem. For example, a buddy of mine for his Thermal Pyhics class calculated the odds of a 1000 monkeys typing for the history of time to have typed Hamlet (its under .01x10^-6 %). Its not like the problem will ever happen or the answer would matter, its just the mathematical challenge of it that appeals to some people.

Seraphic Divinity

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2006

Heroes Ascent

Mo/

15 Sep 2007 at 17:47 - 20

Now calculate all skill bars with all possibe runes, weapons, weapon mods, insignias, and... armor ^_^

Impossible

therefore, GW is the equivalent of Chuck Norris.

btw... the impossible was a joke........

seekjy

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2006

15 Sep 2007 at 18:46 - 21

If anybody has a list of skills which are "viable" on a particular class, and a second list of skills which would only be viable if paired with another particular skill, let me know.

Solving for the number of usable bars is tantamount to solving an np complete graph covering with a thousand vertices.

Divinitys Creature

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Apr 2005

Somewhere between the Real World and Tyria ;P

The Gothic Embrace [Goth]

15 Sep 2007 at 18:53 - 22

Alliance battles are considered PvP now?

thor hammerbane

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jun 2005

Dark Side of the Moon

Fat Kids Are Hard To Kid[nap]

15 Sep 2007 at 22:01 - 23

Cool.
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