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PTS Week 1 – Comparing Back Bar Weapons for Stam DK: Bow vs. 2H Sword
mpicklesster
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Intro: On the PTS, the bow skill Hail was nerfed and the 2-handed skill Stampede was changed into a ground DoT effect. This opened up the possibility that a 2H back bar could be a viable option for stamina DPSs. So I did some testing to figure that out. Just note that these tests were done purely to compare different setups. This isn't a "look at muh deeps" post. I'm primarily interested in relative DPS differences among various back-bar weapons. So I'm just putting this info out there to see if anyone else is getting similar results under similar kinds of tests.
Methods: I did all of the testing on my stam DK. I used the same CP, gear, food, potions, poisons, and Mundus stone on all parses. The only thing I changed was the back bar weapon.
I compared the vMA bow and 2H sword, as well as the Master's bow and 2H sword. All back bar weapons were gold quality and had the Infused trait with the Berserker enchant.
All parses were performed by myself on a 6 million health target skeleton. The front-bar rotation was exactly the same across all parses. Only the back bar rotation changed by necessity because of the different weapon types.
Results: Here's a figure summarizing all of the details and results:
Conclusions
TL; DR Summary:
- Bow and 2H back bars seem to pull comparable DPS if you use the right skills and rotation.
- 2H back bars pull marginally more DPS, but the largest gap in DPS was only 1.3k.
- If your build and/or race has poor sustain, Bow back bars might still be BiS because they have better sustain. The 2H skills, Carve and Stampede, both cost more than the bow skills Arrow Barrage and Poison Injection.
- Nonetheless, if sustain isn't an issue, a 2H back bar might yield a little more single-target DPS.
For anyone else that has done similar testing, I'd like to know what your results were.
Keep in mind that, because these tests were done a target skeleton, they're most germane to discussions of single-target DPS. What is BiS for more AoE-intensive fights remains to be seen. However, my intuition is that the Master's Bow or vMA 2H will be BiS for single-target fights; whereas the Master's 2H or vMA Bow will be BiS for AoE fights.
Methods: I did all of the testing on my stam DK. I used the same CP, gear, food, potions, poisons, and Mundus stone on all parses. The only thing I changed was the back bar weapon.
I compared the vMA bow and 2H sword, as well as the Master's bow and 2H sword. All back bar weapons were gold quality and had the Infused trait with the Berserker enchant.
All parses were performed by myself on a 6 million health target skeleton. The front-bar rotation was exactly the same across all parses. Only the back bar rotation changed by necessity because of the different weapon types.
Results: Here's a figure summarizing all of the details and results:
Conclusions
TL; DR Summary:
- Bow and 2H back bars seem to pull comparable DPS if you use the right skills and rotation.
- 2H back bars pull marginally more DPS, but the largest gap in DPS was only 1.3k.
- If your build and/or race has poor sustain, Bow back bars might still be BiS because they have better sustain. The 2H skills, Carve and Stampede, both cost more than the bow skills Arrow Barrage and Poison Injection.
- Nonetheless, if sustain isn't an issue, a 2H back bar might yield a little more single-target DPS.
For anyone else that has done similar testing, I'd like to know what your results were.
Keep in mind that, because these tests were done a target skeleton, they're most germane to discussions of single-target DPS. What is BiS for more AoE-intensive fights remains to be seen. However, my intuition is that the Master's Bow or vMA 2H will be BiS for single-target fights; whereas the Master's 2H or vMA Bow will be BiS for AoE fights.
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JobooAGS✭✭✭✭✭
✭Im assuming that you used arrow barrage because endless hail is bugged, meaning you will try with hail next pts patch?0 -
mpicklesster✭✭✭✭Im assuming that you used arrow barrage because endless hail is bugged, meaning you will try with hail next pts patch?
Yes. I heard that the calculation for Endless Hail is bugged, so I went with Barrage. However, the duration of Barrage actually fitted in quite well with my PTS rotation once I got rid of Caltrops. So I might actually stick with Barrage.0 -
mpicklesster✭✭✭✭Tests weren’t performed on a raid dummy. Irrelevant.
I don't own a raid dummy, so that's why I parsed on a 6 mil. I also feel like parsing on a raid dummy would just be trading 1 set interpretative problems for another. So--on the one hand--the raid dummy is nice because it would've given me some buffs that stam DKs don't have access to (like Minor Savagery). On the other hand, it gives some very unrealistic buff up times (like 100% War Horn, 100% Major Force, 100% Minor Berserk, etc.).
And it ultimately doesn't matter which dummy someone uses, so long as they parse consistently on the same dummy between tests. A true experiment need only be concerned with relative differences between conditions; not the absolute levels of performance.2 -
Lightspeedflashb14_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭You want to use a battle ax back bar, the bleed carries over to your front bar, I was get 3-4% DPS from it.1 -
mpicklesster✭✭✭✭Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »You want to use a battle ax back bar, the bleed carries over to your front bar, I was get 3-4% DPS from it.
I didn't know it contributed that much extra DPS. I'll give it a shot. Thanks!0