Expansion Changes and DPS
With the expansion today, numerous modifications are being made to the damage output, particularly in PVE as Bane gets eliminated, thereby completely transforming the landscape of DPS. Furthermore, the introduction of artifacts adds another layer of complexity, further reshaping the dynamics of the game.
Test Methodology and Data Collection
While some things stay the same, there are some very unexpected outcomes here. This data wasn’t collected by me; it was collected by someone who would like to stay anonymous, but I can assure you that their work is thorough. These tests are done on target dummies by getting them down to zero health, and that affects some things that I will talk about later in terms of overall DPS output.
Factors Affecting Test Results
The tests were then factored against the different weaknesses and all that stuff that comes in afterward, as well as the potential buffs and empowers that you can have. There’s something important that I need to point out before we get into the numbers: the tests were done with three perks, typically with Rogue or Vicious plus Attunement Plus either keenly empowered or refreshing move.
Artifacts and Perks Adjustments
However, when it comes to the artifact, you have the ability to modify only one enhancement. Typically, this modification involved adding a gem slot to the weapon, unless it already had one. This enhancement proved to be incredibly powerful, although it remains uncertain whether this option was intentionally designed to be possible. Consequently, it is likely that some of the artifact’s attributes and statistics may decrease if they decide to eliminate this particular choice.
Attribute Investments and Damage Increase
At this stage, nothing has been finalized, and this is simply an overview of the current situation. In terms of attributes, they have been mainly dedicated to damage perks, with an attempt to evenly distribute stats for weapons with split attributes. In addition, every weapon without existing scaling has been assigned 50 points of intelligence. This is because having a run glass bleed on the enemy provides a 5% base damage increase, which is a significant and reliable boost and can be easily applied.
Damage Analysis and Outliers
So you shouldn’t just take this number that you see right here as gospel. Everything that is highlighted means there is some sort of outlier or specific factor here that’s important to talk about. The tiers, by the way, were added by me; I displayed them in intervals of 2,000 damage difference to keep it even between all of them. That was a complaint last time with the tiers. Keep in mind that slash damage and fire damage have a significant advantage against angry Earth, so that obviously affects the charts here. We will look at the other mob types later on.
Warhammer Damage Assessment
Let’s begin with the Warhammer, which once again ended up at the tragic bottom end. This time we have two versions: We have the normal Warhammer and we have the spark version. The normal version deals 6,500 damage; the spark version deals 6,900 damage. The combo that was used here was a light attack straight into mighty gavel for constant resets, just doing that over and over. Question is if that is even effective.
Effectiveness of Combos in Damage Output
The problem with Mighty Gavel is that the animation is actually fairly long, and it may not actually be more effective than just using light attacks. What is worth keeping in mind, of course, is that this is single-target DPS; that applies for everything else afterwards as well. In a group scenario, the Warhammer gains more DPS simply by hitting multiple targets at once.
Room for Improvement and Utility
But it is also possible that there may be more effective combos for the Warhammer specifically, maybe chaining a quick heavy attack into the gavel or simply not using gavel at all. So there is room for improvement here in some ways, though I wouldn’t expect the Warhammer to go much higher than it is.
The much bigger benefit of the Warhammer in Expeditions will be the effect from spark, which is the 50% weaken, which is a massive amount of extra utility. But if you depend on that weaken, you can also have your tank run that.
Flail: A Utility Weapon with Extensive AOE Capabilities
Next up, we have the new entry to the list, the flail—no surprise here. This is not meant to be a DPS weapon; this is very much a utility weapon, so the overall damage output is lower than most other weapons. The flail does around 7,300 damage.
It is important to note that this overview is based on the current situation and nothing has been finalized yet. In terms of attributes, the focus has mainly been on damage perks. An effort has been made to evenly distribute stats for weapons with split attributes, aiming for a balanced approach..
In-depth Weapon Damage Analysis in New Patch
Damage effects at your disposal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this can actually outclass, for example, the Warhammer in terms of AOE clearing. That’s also great news for tanks. Of course, the FL artifact was not tested separately, and it would probably have lower damage overall because the perk that you get in terms of damage output is actually horrendous.
Varied Impact of the Patch on Different Weapons
The void gauntlet, unlike other weapons, presents a unique challenge. It seems to struggle when it comes to targeting practice dummies, making it a bit of a problem child. However, despite this limitation, it becomes evident why healers are drawn to wielding the void gauntlet. Its abilities, like the tether, serve a vital role in supporting the team. Excitingly, with the latest patch, new possibilities emerge. Healers may now consider the off-hand flail, which not only offers additional powers but also provides the ability to weaken opponents and various other utilities.
Potential Strategic Adjustments in Weapon Usage
On the flip side, lifetaker exerts a tremendous influence on other weapons. While these trials are conducted solely using one weapon, it should be noted that lifetaker actually impacts the damage output of your secondary weapon. This is especially intriguing when applied to weapons such as the fire staff or ice gauntlet, as their potential damage could potentially be enhanced due to the inclusion of lifetaker.
The Musket’s Overhaul and Its Implications
Now we’re moving into 8 to 10,000 damage territory where we have the musket just barely scraping by with 8,07 damage. Now, the musket is really interesting in so far that it kind of got a bit of an overhaul. It now has no more hit scan, but the projectiles will pierce, and this actually gives us some interesting opportunities in PVE that go beyond what these numbers can tell us.
Practical Application of Musket and Bow Adjustments
While the bow boasts a slightly higher DPS of 8,350, it lacks the same level of penetration when it comes to consistently shooting through multiple targets. In the case of the musket and other ranged weapons, this assumption relies on achieving a 100% headshot rate, much like the 100% backstab rate associated with the Rogue class. However, given that the game mechanics no longer guarantee a hit scan, achieving this rate is no longer a certainty.
Deep Dive into Weapon Performance: Musket, Bow, and Hatchet
You can do that with pen shots, but it’s just not something that you can frequently do. Comparatively, on the other hand, a lot of AOE abilities on the bow, like rain of arrows, poison shot, and explosive arrow, are more likely to hit groups that are clumped but not perfectly lined up for the musket. Again, for the bow, the numbers are also based on 100% headshot rate, so in a real scenario, there would likely be a bit lower.
Hatchet: A Closer Look at its Modified Performance
The hatchet looks brutally dethroned here, but keep in mind that this is not the full picture for the hatchet either. First of all, this doesn’t factor in “Against All Odds” against multiple targets, so the damage can go up quite significantly here. Additionally, there were also some other animation issues with the hatchet, so overall, this number could definitely be looking a fair bit higher in a realistic scenario.
Subtle Adjustments and Their Impact on Gameplay
That said, I don’t think it’s going to compete with the top end here anymore, at all like it used to. Once upon a time, as for the throwing hatchet effect, it may as well not exist. And now, things get spicy at this point.
Breaking Down the New Artifact’s Role
Previously, the main reason sword and shield were able to keep up in DPS with other weapons was because you could put Bane on both your weapon and your shield for a combined damage increase. But now, we have a new artifact. If we look at the normal sword and shield DPS, that’s 10,000. It’s bottom of the A tier here.
Exploring Different Weapons: Focusing on the Butcher
If your sole aim is to spam the whirling blade, consider increasing it to its maximum. Nonetheless, if you decide to incorporate Mother Well’s wishes coin into your repertoire, you might achieve even higher figures due to the utilization of the Rogue effect, alongside the added benefit of refreshing movement for reduced cooldown. It’s not imperative to have the coin reach a 700 gear score as the gear score of your shield isn’t currently taken into account, unless altered in the upcoming expansion.
Detailed Assessment of the Butcher’s Capabilities
The butcher possesses an inherent whirling blade ability that elevates its performance when confronting multiple adversaries. This advantageous attribute leads to a notable 52% increase in base damage, effectively augmenting the overall DPS. This particular advantage holds significant value, especially when facing groups, as it does not entail the drawback of heightened susceptibility to incoming damage, unlike its counterpart, the great sword.
The Butcher in PvP and PvE: A Versatile Weapon
In my opinion, the butcher stands as one of the most versatile weapons for both PvP and PvE scenarios. It is worth mentioning that the performance showcased here involved the implementation of a Blood Letting Ring, which further enhances its adaptability and ensures its efficacy in various combat situations.
Insight into the Ice Gauntlet’s Performance
On the other hand, the ice gauntlet encounters a slight setback in terms of its performance due to a compatibility issue with the ring utilized during testing. The absence of keen awareness, which can now be combined with other perks, hinders the ice gauntlet’s potential. Despite this limitation, the ice gauntlet, with its current damage output of 10,000, still demonstrates the capability to be highly effective, particularly when facing larger groups of enemies.
Examining the Ice Gauntlet’s Versatility and Limitations
Furthermore, the ice gauntlet presents itself as an exceptional choice for an offhand weapon due to its ability to summon an ice pylon that persists, alongside various lingering effects. However, its potential faces amplified competition compared to previous iterations. This heightened sense of competition becomes evident in various combat scenarios, particularly encounters with formidable bosses, where specific aspects of the ice gauntlet may exhibit brilliance or face notable challenges.
Diverse Weapon Performance: A Look at Various Options
The blunderbuss, sitting at 10,300, is still more of a burst weapon than a DPS weapon. It represents one of the various combat styles available, each with its unique attributes, reflecting the diversity and richness of the game’s combat system.
Analyzing Different Weapons and Their Damage Output
Full head shots, something you will relatively rarely get with a blunderbuss. However, there’s also the artifact version, Pestilence. This one is at the very top end here, with 11,846 for this DPS increase. It’s pretty irrelevant if you’re doing head shots because that is damage over time that is added by Pestilence. In my opinion, that makes the blunderbuss very appealing, especially as an offhand.
Blunderbuss: Strategy and Effectiveness
Even if they nerf the effect with the damage over time, you can kind of just dump the abilities and apply all the dots, then switch over to your main hand and get a very significant DPS increase with strength weapons, which wasn’t really possible before to the same degree. This kind of playstyle was mostly reserved for ice gauntlets offhand previously.
Examining the Role of Various Weapons
It was tried with blabs but was never really something that fully caught on as far as I’m aware. Definitely excited to see experimentation with this one, but we’ll also have to see how the passive works after PTR due to a lot of new beneficial attribute capstones.
The Great Sword: A Closer Look at Its Performance
The GRX is kind of in the middle of the pack here. Cooldown reduction benefits it a lot because a lot of its damage doesn’t come from basic attacks but from abilities. Keep in mind that this is slash damage against Angry Earth, so this is kind of Great Exes territory.
Comparing Different Versions of Weapons
However, the Abyss Great Axe, which has scaling in void damage, actually ends up higher with 11,100 damage. In other territories where slash doesn’t have an advantage, the Abyss overtakes the regular Great Axe significantly.
Detailed Insights into the Great Sword
The Squeeze between those two Great Axes is the previous king of DPS, the Great Sword, with roughly 11,000 damage. It’s definitely not bad if you also consider that the Great Sword also comes with a large amount of AOE damage.
Discussing Modifications and Potential Changes
There isn’t really any reason to run the Great Sword as a non-artifact when Serenity exists, other than not having Serenity yet. If they remove the option to add a gem socket, there’s a conversation to be had about safety versus damage in weapon usage and strategy.
Overview of Weapon Damage
Of the great sword, if you can do almost the same damage with a Great Axe without taking extra damage all of the time, then that may be a better option, with the Butcher without all the extra conditions that I talked about earlier already breathing down its neck. That’s also some serious competition.
Analysis of the Spear’s Performance
There’s another familiar face of ours in the strength deck category, and that is the spear, 11,478 DPS, so definitely towards the top still. This is, of course, against Angry Earth, where thrust advantage is a thing. This goes higher with a cyclone build, by the way, not a sweep build, so you also have some decent AOE damage on top of that.
Spear vs Other Weapons
And you have some decent self-heal, which I think is often underrated, at least as an offense. Spear will most certainly retain its value due to the weakens and rents that it can also apply. So, overall, still a very solid pick.
Examining the Fire Staff
Scorpion sting is not a DPS Spear and therefore not included here. The fire staff is very much up there, the first one in the 12,000 plus damage category with 12,942, but it also gets a whopping 30% bonus against Angry Earth. Against all other mobs, it’s more around the middle of the field at 10,000, like the ice gauntlet.
In-Depth into Fire Staff and Its Artifacts
This is without a keen awareness ring, so you could squeeze some extra damage out of that, especially with a fire staff, which generally works well with crit. The fire staff artifact, Inferno, doesn’t really provide us with the perks that we want, and the strength scaling doesn’t even work properly, so far that the burns don’t scale with strength.
Rapier: A Closer Look
So they’re ridiculously weak and not worth talking about as a whole, and that brings us to the rapiers. The rapier was already strong before; it’s even stronger now. Congratulations, your normal BIS rapier comes in at 16,7, and the Finisher rapier comes in at 2,784. That is more than three times as much DPS as the weakest weapon on this list.
In-depth Analysis of Rapier
This is because flurry is just most of your damage now; Tondo doesn’t really do much. You can get the effect mostly from flurry unless you need the weaken. It’s just, you know, they keep buffing the same ability over and over, and this is what happens. And now, you also have damage immunity while you heal, which could be problematic in expeditions.
Comparing Rapier with Other Weapons
You’ll notice that this is not even a damage advantage situation for the rapier; this is against Angry Earth. Also, this doesn’t factor in that the Rapier can utilize an Ice Gauntlet off-hand along with it for even more DPS. The Rapier is a single-target weapon, and that’s where it shines, but if you can kill three mobs in the same time someone else can kill one, then the single-target focus doesn’t really matter.
Examining Rapier’s Effectiveness in Different Scenarios
The Rapier can do some partial AOE, and no AOE weapon will consistently hit three mobs all the time unless they’re clumped together. In my opinion, the damage gap with the Rapier has become too vast, and they keep buffing it instead of nerfing it for PvP, which is very strange. “Finisher” also comes with a gem slot by default, so if the gem slot adding option is removed for other weapons, it wouldn’t affect the “Finisher.”
Analysis of Weapons Against Ancient Enemies
Taking a look over to ancient, we see some notable shifts. For example, the Spark Warhammer goes up a fair bit with the lightning damage doing its work here. Void weapons, in particular, have a big showing; the Life Taker Void Gauntlet goes up to 11,750 DPS, which is much higher than what we had with Angry Earth. However, it’s worth noting that in this…
Weapon Analysis: Strike Damage Impact
In this case, the performance is actually because of the strike damage from these weapons, not the void damage. The abyss grade X goes to 12,711, interestingly enough. While there’s a drop in DPS, Serenity and the butcher don’t drop much on the charts; they were pretty far ahead in DPS beforehand. They’re still doing very well here against corrupted, a common expedition mob type.
Weapon Performance Against Different Enemies
We see the spear rise to its old glory with a thrust damage bonus kicking in here against corrupted. Likewise, pestilence comes up here, as does the blunderbuss with thrust damage, and of course, the Rapier doing even more damage. Some weapons that fell off with ancient enemies don’t recover here, like the fire staff or the standard sword and shield without the artifact.
Consistency Across Various Scenarios
Against lost enemies, things almost revert back to how they were against the Angry Earth. The Ice Gauntlet makes its way up, as does the Life Taker Void Gauntlet with its 99% strike damage. The war hammer and flail, even with their strike damage, barely gain any improvement. Human enemies offer a more neutral testing ground, not heavily affected by various damage types, leading to more typical results.
Detailed Overview of Beast Encounter
For beast encounters, which are especially relevant for the new expedition, the primary factor is thrust damage. Here, weapons like the Rapier, spear, and blunderbuss notably excel, while others follow suit. There might have been a minor issue with the calculation regarding the thrust damage bonus, but it doesn’t significantly alter the overall rankings and conclusions.
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