Paragon DPS

No really... this is serious question.
Anyone familiar with paragons will realize that their DPS is (very) lacking compared to the other physical damage dealers. But given the assumption that we want to use a paragon hero for damage, how much damage can we expect? What I want is to find out the best possible damage that one can get from a paragon hero by himself without damage buffs from other characters. No PvE skills either, remember this is a hero build.

The best I have been able to get so far is ~45 dps with spear, and ~63 dps with spear and pet. These numbers don't count deep wound or other conditions. I don't want to sway the results so I'm not going to lay out the builds I was using to attain these numbers, please give it your best shot and we'll compare builds later.

All that I'm about to say everyone probably know already, so it's only my interpretation on their significance that I'm presenting.

Imho they shouldn't offer the same level of DPS as the other physical chars. None of the others offer party-wide buffs as the para does. In addition, some skills even give DPS to either minions or spirits (GftE, Anthem of Envy), which in the current state of things is something quite big.

Also, consider that paragons are exponentially better as their numbers grow (which is more true for Echos/Finales, sadly not many of these are offensive, I can only think of Blazing Finale from the top of my head).

It's like an Orders/Curses necro. Solo he does little DPS, but in a big physical party he's the star ^^

That said, if you want a DPS hero para, you should look more at what he does in whole rather than what he does when flying solo, just as a DPS SoS Rit hero will slot Splinter Weapon. Party buffs are part of the para's niches, it'd be a shame not to abuse it and try to be some other physical, which 3 classes are already focused on doing (let's be honest, if a war/sin sucked at DPS, what else do they have to offer?).

If all you're using is Aggressive Refrain and 12 spear it's better than a bow (it's faster, and 14-27 isn't much different than 15-28). If you really want to do damage I'd say adrenaline attacks like Stunning Strike, Blazing Spear, Wild Throw, Holy Spear, Spear of Redemption, with GFTE + Vicious attack/spear of Lightning.

The only reason why Dagger, Scythe, Axe, Sword, Hammer DPS is better is because of attack skills and SoH. (And AoHM for Scythe)

No offense guys but you are missing the point... I want to know if anyone can get more than 45dps (with spear) or 63dps (with spear and pet), and if so, how would it be done. The usual crap about "paragons are not meant for dps" etc. is not answering this question.

Are you sure you are asking the right question?

Sure, you can ask for the best Tactics party support build warriors can run, the fact remains that it's bound to more or less fail from the beginning

EDIT

That analogy wasn't adequate, how about this one: "How do I optimize DPS for a HM ele hero?"

The question is not inherently wrong, but ele heroes just shouldn't be used for DPS in HM. Same here: want pure unaided DPS --> take different hero.

If it's just mental exercise you want, go ahead, but make sure everyone knows that. I assumed you wanted optimization with an intro such as "this is a serious question"

@Vazze: he wants hero builds, not player ones.

Quote: Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

No offense guys but you are missing the point... I want to know if anyone can get more than 45dps (with spear) or 63dps (with spear and pet), and if so, how would it be done. The usual crap about "paragons are not meant for dps" etc. is not answering this question. 63 dps is not bad at all on a hero.

Best bet is simply lots of buffs from yourself or the rest of the party. EVSoH, Orders, BUH, etc.

The real problem isn't that their single target DPS is low (since every class has fairly low single target DPS unbuffed), its that they have no way to inflict AoE damage. Swords get Hundred Blades, Axe/Hammer both get multiple spammable straight AoE attacks, Daggers get Death Blossom, and Bows get Barrage. Spear gets nothing.

Paragon DPS is fine.

Burning Spear, Spear of Lightning, Vicious Spear, Spear of Fury, Cruel Spear, Stunning Strike

Combined with some of:

Focused Anger, Soldier's Fury, Aggressive Refrain, "Go For The Eyes!", Anthem of Envy, Anthem of Flame, "Find Their Weakness!", "Fear Me!"

Equals good, persistent single target DPS with good spiking capability.

Seriously, nobody should be complaining about the Para's damage. They do not need AoE capabilities at all.

Agree completely with the above post. I have played paragons since the release of nightfall and my main is a paragon (despite showing rt/ under my avatar). I haver never had any complaints with the dps of a paragon, as spears do good damage and there are many quality spear attacks like spear of lightning, blazing spear, vicious attack, cruel spear, etc.

Id go with 3-4 spear attacks - probably 3 (the above all work well for a hero) - along with aggressive refrain, a rez (since this is a hero after all) and 3 shouts/chants that compliment damage. Anthem of flame both allows the hero to maintain AR and gives it +42 damage with a net energy gain every 10 seconds or so, so its a definite go. Other options include Anthem of Envy, Go for the eyes, and find their weakness.

The only reason people want more damage on a profession is because there are overbuffed, broken, and power creeped builds in the metagame shadowing what once used to be good, respectable damage.

Mesmers, Necros, and Rits and even casters in general are just broken good with damage. This is why people are crying for buffs on Ele, Ranger, Derv, and Para.

You can do ~85 dps with:


[Asuran Scan] + [Conjure Flame] + [Merciless Spear] + [Blazing Spear] + [Spear of Fury] + [Cant Touch This] + [Go For the Eyes] + [Solider Fury]


*Needs a Fiery mod to work*

Quote: Originally Posted by C.H.U.C.K.S

You can do ~85 dps with:


[Asuran Scan] + [Conjure Flame] + [Merciless Spear] + [Blazing Spear] + [Spear of Fury] + [Cant Touch This] + [Go For the Eyes] + [Solider Fury]


*Needs a Fiery mod to work* He specifically stated that he wanted no usage of PvE skills as it was going to be used by a hero which cannot use PvE skills.

Try a Scythe instead. Not sure what numbers you'd get though.

Mystic Sweep
Eremite's Attack
[some other attack]
GFTE
Asuran Scan
AoHM
Focused Anger
Drunken Master/Aggressive Refrain

Spam GFTE for energy on every hit and hit the +5e breakpoint in Leadership. It charges with one hit if you have FA and Dark Fury up.
A Zealous Scythe would keep things neat on the energy front.


Edit:
Just noticed the "no PvE skills" bit. Use an Ele instead if it's for a hero.

More usefully:
If you're really wanting to push DPS on a Para then either run Orders somewhere or give the Para some sort of self buff like Conjure.
Cruel Spear, Blazing Spear, Spear of Lightning, GFTE, Anthem of Envy, Conjure Flame, Aggressive Refrain*, [something]

*What are heroes like with AR? If they're really bad give them Soldier's Fury and replace the Elite with another high damage attack then make sure there's a maintainable shout somewhere.

If you're purely concerned about the damage done by the hero alone and are looking to maximise that, then cut Anthem of Envy and maybe even GFTE - whilst these stack up nicely in a physical heavy team they'll only hinder solo DPS.

Allright here are some results that I gathered myself, since no one else seems inclined to post hard numbers.

P/any with spear (soldiers fury): ~42dps
P/E with spear (soldier's fury, conjure flame): ~57dps
P/D with scythe (zealous vow): ~52dps, no IAS
P/A with daggers (soldier's fury, golden/ff/db): ~43dps, energy problems
P/R with bow (prepared shot, read the wind): ~40dps, energy problems, no IAS
P/R with spear and pet (enraged lunge): ~63dps, no IAS
P/W with sword (dragon slash, FGJ): ~69dps, not sustainable
P/W with axe (cleave, FGJ): ~56dps, not sustainable
P/Rt with spear (SoS, painful bond, etc): ~68dps

so what does all of this mean? my interpretation is that even with 14+ spear mastery and full IAS, the paragon's spear damage is inferior to the same paragon running any other weapon. why is this? the spear's base damage and attack rate seem well balanced compared to the other weapons, the problem is that the paragon skills have less bonus damage than other professions and they have no damage buffs to help them do better. It's pretty easy to see that the other professions can deliver higher numbers because of runes and benefits from their primary attribute (strength, critstrikes, etc). Some of these builds were not able to perform as well as they would in an 8-man team because of energy constraints. The P/R with bow and P/A with daggers burn energy much faster than it can be generated, since this testing was done solo. If they had adequate energy from shouts their damage output would be greater. Also, the P/R and P/D had no IAS because there is no way to keep up with the energy cost during solo testing, and consumables are not alllowed. The P/R and P/D would deliver more damage in an 8-man team where Aggressive Refrain can be used.

so in summary...
spear damage is too weak relative to the competition, and I am pleasantly surprised that my p/r enraged lunge build compares favorably with dragon slash spam and spirit spam, even without IAS for the paragon, and especially considering that deep wound and other conditions are not factored into the damage. Enraged Lunge is great deep wound spam.

If you want hard numbers, I remember testing my cruel spear build awhile ago and it generated a 50 something dps. I don't really find that to be "weak"... but w/e, iv not really compared it to other options to be honest.

Im curious what build you use for your enraged lunge build. My favorite dps build, along with my cruel spear one, is my pet build (mainly b/c i love using my pet) and I am pretty happy with its dps. My version uses:

Spear of Fury
Spear of Redemption
Blazing Spear
Go for the eyes
Ferocious Strike
Never Rampage alone
Symbiotic Bond
Comfort Animal

Iv considered replacing Spear of Redemption with burning refrain (since a dire pet has low health) but I never really bothered testing it out since i was worried about energy constraints. What do you use for your beastmaster build? I would be curious to see what other options are out there.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lanier

If you want hard numbers, I remember testing my cruel spear build awhile ago and it generated a 50 something dps. I don't really find that to be "weak"... but w/e, iv not really compared it to other options to be honest.

Im curious what build you use for your enraged lunge build. My favorite dps build, along with my cruel spear one, is my pet build (mainly b/c i love using my pet) and I am pretty happy with its dps. My version uses:

Spear of Fury
Spear of Redemption
Blazing Spear
Go for the eyes
Ferocious Strike
Never Rampage alone
Symbiotic Bond
Comfort Animal

Iv considered replacing Spear of Redemption with burning refrain (since a dire pet has low health) but I never really bothered testing it out since i was worried about energy constraints. What do you use for your beastmaster build? I would be curious to see what other options are out there.
these are all hero builds, so no PVE skills of any kind. player builds will have higher dps of course.

the hero version is like this, it gives about 63dps average. the pets are all dire lions.

12 beast 12+1+1 spear
Spear of Redemption
Holy Spear
Blazing Spear
Enraged Lunge
Scavenger Strike
Otyugh's Cry
Call of Haste
Comfort Animal

also, i think i have maxed out the damage you can get from spear... this is the highest i have been able to get anyway. 55dps, not sustainable, uses unrealistic skillset. (frenzy in pve? really?) Axe and Sword still give more damage with very similar builds despite the fact that spear is 14 and axe/sword are only 12, and despite the fact that warrior will also do more damage with Strength. :-(

12+1+1 spear 12+1 command 3+1 leadership
spear of lightning
spear of redemption
blazing spear
cruel spear
go for the eyes
frenzy
enduring harmony
for great justice

As paragon player I use to have para heroes in my teams sometimes (just for fun, not for speed), but i deserve main dmg for me as I can use PvE skills....

But look at this: P/Rit

Natural Temper
Aggressive Refrain
Sundering Weapon
Go for the eyes
Spear of Lightning
Blazing Spear
Holy Spear
Cruel Spear (E)

Another combination could be Brutal Weapon at 10 in Communing....nice dmg boost

I couldn't do better (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...2&postcount=24) so it seems ~45 DPS is the most you can hope for with a Paragon hero, which is ... disappointing.

Quote: Originally Posted by Tender Care As paragon player I use to have para heroes in my teams sometimes (just for fun, not for speed), but i deserve main dmg for me as I can use PvE skills....

But look at this: P/Rit

Natural Temper
Aggressive Refrain
Sundering Weapon
Go for the eyes
Spear of Lightning
Blazing Spear
Holy Spear
Cruel Spear (E)

Another combination could be Brutal Weapon at 10 in Communing....nice dmg boost I tried this last night and got ~45 dps with it. It is very awkward because of the huge startup cost of Aggressive Refrain, I think it would work better with Soldier's Fury instead. I will try that tonight.

p.s. let me know when you're done studying so we can do some paraway.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra I couldn't do better (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...2&postcount=24) so it seems ~45 DPS is the most you can hope for with a Paragon hero, which is ... disappointing. I changed the Soldier's Fury build around a bit and I was able to get 61-62 dps... that is pretty good for a hero build, though the P/R with spear and pet (enraged lunge) is still a bit higher. Spear of Lightning adds a significant amount to the dps vs. any other spear skill because of the armor penetration. Several of the builds I posted earlier could deliver higher dps if they had spear of lightning, I will mod them and post results later. Anyway here are the current champions for spear-wielders. P/W Soldier's Fury with FGJ; spear; 61dps 12+1+1 spear 12+1 command 3+1 leadership spear of lightning spear of redemption holy spear blazing spear go for the eyes enduring harmony for great justice soldier's fury (e) P/R Enraged Lunge; spear and pet; 63dps (probably ~68 with spear of lightning) 12 beast 12+1+1 spear Spear of Redemption Holy Spear Blazing Spear Enraged Lunge (e) Scavenger Strike Otyugh's Cry Call of Haste Comfort Animal

Quote: Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

I tried this last night and got ~45 dps with it. It is very awkward because of the huge startup cost of Aggressive Refrain, I think it would work better with Soldier's Fury instead. I will try that tonight.

why would AR make it awkward? Ideally, it should be cast at the beginning of an area/mission and then maintained from there so that you don't have to worry about the large energy cost at all. Using Brutal weapon sounds interesting... I may give it a try.