Guild Wars 2

In this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-play-anything-besides-guardian/first

Reading through it you will find a discussion about DPS from classes. colesy.8490 stated numerous times that “Guardians out-DPS Warriors”. While I know this to be true, many on that thread laughed and dismissed it as false. Those Warriors wanted proof of his claims, and he offered the experimental findings of Guang, from:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Max buffed, from best to worst:

Mesmer (Sw/Sw with 3 phantasms) = ~15k
Thief (D/D backstab) = ~13.5k
Elementalist (fire staff or LH) = ~13k
Guardian (GS+Sword) = ~11k
Necromancer (D/F+WH with all minions) = ~11k
Warrior (Axe+GS) = ~10k
Ranger (Sword and Feline pet) = ~9.5k
Engineer (Grenades) = ~9k

So that being said, colesy asked those warriors to post the question in the Dungeon forum, and said whoever posted would find a very quick response. I am simply doing just that FOR those warriors that do not believe. Can/Does a Guardian REALLY out DPS a Warrior?

I dont’ know. But how do you get max buffed with a group of guardian.

And the thing about warrior that hit me is…. they have so much hp.

Not to mention I’m not sure on the accuracy of people’s data.

I remember people comparing max dps for warrior. And you see their video and there are many things wrong. For starter, you see people casting debuff. But if you want to do max damage on axe, you should just auto attack.

There are just too many things to consider in a group scenario, you need to include might, fury, vulnerability. etc. I’ll be surprise if someone can actually have acurate test on it.

Yes.

Anicetus.1253:

Yes.

That’s in one situation. The way it was discussed made it seem in general. More than just one perfect situation. Point is, I simply asked the question because someone told a bunch of warriors to do it, so I called his bluff FOR those warriors. I agree with him, but the Warriors want proof

Proof is ingame and nowhere else. A fully buffed guardian does more damage than a fully buffed warrior, even without having aegis up.

Just like to point out fully buffed necro is actually closer to 13k and thats without minions.

spoj.9672:

Just like to point out fully buffed necro is actually closer to 13k and thats without minions.

How? When i played my necro, it felt rather weak even with dagger melee. My knowledge about necro damage is rather limited so to speak.

Well im not sure exactly how guang calculated it. But with full buffs, night and slaying sigils, perception stacks. The dagger auto alone gets 11.6k dps.

spoj.9672:

Well im not sure exactly how guang calculated it. But with full buffs, night and slaying sigils, perception stacks. The dagger auto alone gets 11.6k dps.

Didn’t use Night/Slaying sigils or stacks. If I were to do so it might go up to 13k but everyone else would go up as well. I remember I was getting almost 18k for eles with Night and stacks.

What did you use? force + buffs but no stacks?

Back on topic, the thing to answer your question:

Yes, DG wise, there are professions outdamaging warriors – Mes Ele Nec Guard Thief (according to Guang’s math).

Yes, DPS + utility for doing better/easier DPS is pretty much everything you need in DGs.

So one might ask “Why almost everybody – especially out of speed/guild runs – still prefer Warriors over anything else for DPS?”.

The answer is: Because it’s easier.

Ofc i’m not saying that playing a top level DG Warrior is easy (Desperate Power on Lupicus anyone?), but let’s do a list:

-highest HP and Armor. Looking only at raw numbers, is most survivable “Zerker” class.
-extremely easy access to fury, might, vulnerability and stability when needed.
-very good power scaling of skills.

And all of those are baseline or simple to achieve conditions for a Warrior.
So, compared to other professions in DPS setups, much more ppl can hop in a War, grab zerk stuff, push few buttons for istant might and fury, and do a simple rotation (HB WA swap Axe auto for 5 sec swap HB). And even if far from great players, they’ll do a decent chunk of dmg.

Let’s compare now to the 5 profs we said outDPS a war, in their zerker spec. (looking only at DPS):
-Mes: light armor, medium hp. most of the dmg comes from phantasms, which are, most of the time, unreliable and reached after at least 20/30 sec in the fight. The calculation itself is factoring 3x phants uptime.
-Ele: light armor, lowest hp. You’re literally a paper sheet. Must manage attunement rotation and active defense.
-Nec: light armor, high hp. Math is factoring minions, thus AI, thus unreliable (i’ll leave spoj to argue about numbers on Nec). Can’t cleave.
-Guard: high armor, low hp.
-Thief: medium armor, low hp. Another paper sheet. Also, can’t cleave (D/D is taken in account for calculations).

Yeah, that’s it right there. Outdpsing a War is possible, and with a decent gap, but you’ll have to get up and mantain 3 Sword Phantasm or minions, or play with 10k hp and light/medium armor.

I know, that list doesn’t take in account a LOT of stuff. Mesmers have clones/evades, plus a huge amount of utility. Eles have a lot of cleanses and way to avoind/mitigate dmg. Same for thieves, which carry stealth too. Necs have death shroud and lot of debuffs. Guards support is still valuable even in a zerk setup.
Also, traits. And gear. And food.
Yeah, there’s still lot to factor on the table.

But point still stands: Warriors seems designed to be played as DPS zerker role. Other classes can outDPS him, but there’s a price for it. Thus, pugs (low skill level) or casual runs (when you’re with skilled and well-known people but feel lazy) willl go for warriors as DPS guys. Record/serious runs will use eles for that – but as said, it’s 2 players that will have to play a full DPS zerker Ele – with all the load of concentration/tension/little room for errors that means.

I think the OP is looking more for the actual math or a video comparison.

And also what is the difference in burst damage? Since most speed runs are focused around getting mobs close together and dropping fat damage in a couple of seconds. So I know people say Guards have more DPS, but whats the gap on the short end bursts?(or does GS #2 make Guard burst that great?).

For example how low can a Guard get the last boss on Arah P2, before your teammates join. The warrior rotation ending with eviscerate is pretty nice.

Necro’s issue is no cleave like you said and has to be carried heavily with buffs. The blinds and condition control is pretty nice for stuff like fractals but its not needed. But yeah dps is better than warrior without minions. Dont believe guang factored in weakening shroud, locust swarm and reapers touch into his calcs.

colesy.8490:

I think the OP is looking more for the actual math or a video comparison.

I only want this because the people you were arguing with in that thread were bugging the crap out of me. Once “sufficient proof” is offered, I’ll report it back to the other thread since those Warriors probably aren’t looking here anyway.

I was hoping people would post this here, I knew the answers would be different on the dungeon forums since most people here are more knowledgeable about the game.

spoj.9672:

What did you use? force + buffs but no stacks?

Force, then Accuracy if the weapon in question is 1H. 25 Might, Vuln, Fury, Empower Allies, Spotter, warrior banners, Frost Spirit, +10% damage potion, best food (power or precision and crit damage). Whatever utilities are worth a net increase in damage, i.e. signets and stuff like mantras for mesmers and minions for necros.

Also, I think it’s fairly self-explanatory that the warrior is the all-around balanced class, which I don’t think surprises anyone. Average DPS, average survivability, a broad range of basic support options (see: banners, FGJ), and easy to play. They’re the shotos of GW2.

OP… it’s looking at it the wrong way. It’s basically that guard has more base damage than war when max buffed… but isn’t taking into account what the damage of the group is. It’s not very useful information for party theory crafting.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Force, then Accuracy if the weapon in question is 1H. 25 Might, Vuln, Fury, Empower Allies, Spotter, warrior banners, Frost Spirit, +10% damage potion, best food (power or precision and crit damage). Whatever utilities are worth a net increase in damage, i.e. signets and stuff like mantras for mesmers and minions for necros.

Hmm Ill rework my calcs with those conditions. But I wont be using minions due to how unreliable they are and WoS and SoS are better than minions.

Where is Zelyhn? We need him to show math stuff

One important thing to consider that a lot of the perceptions are from solo dps (eg, guardians have no warrior buffs) and in dungeons all sorts of buffs can be added to everyone with 5 ppl.

My Warrior hits over 300k with Hundred Blades, the damage is backloaded each hit does does more and more damage as it goes on, Guardian doesn’t even have Hundred Blades how is this even an argument.

Dolan.3071:

My Warrior hits over 300k with Hundred Blades, the damage is backloaded each hit does does more and more damage as it goes on, Guardian doesn’t even have Hundred Blades how is this even an argument.

Whirling wrath…

The long time it takes to do 100b makes it not as good as some other skills.

Aberrant.6749:

Dolan.3071:

My Warrior hits over 300k with Hundred Blades, the damage is backloaded each hit does does more and more damage as it goes on, Guardian doesn’t even have Hundred Blades how is this even an argument.

Whirling wrath…

The long time it takes to do 100b makes it not as good as some other skills.

It’s a Dolan post. He doesn’t even use GS anyway except when fighting lupi.

Do wut I want.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Where is Zelyhn? We need him to show math stuff

Or Nike.

Just waiting for a math guy to come along and answer the thread.

Zalculator answers it all.

Dub.1273:

colesy.8490:

Guardian 1h sword autoattack can go something like 6k-6k-15k which is around 11k DPS.

Warrior axe will go something like 5k-5k-5k-5k-5k-10k which is less DPS than guard since axe auto chain is 3.6s versus the 2.5s of sword chain, plus the damage is backloaded so if you don’t get that final swing your DPS drops further.

More like 7.8k 7.8k 15k, resulting in 12.24k dps.
Warrior 6.2k 6.4k 6.4k 6k 6k 13k, resulting in 12.22k dps.
This would be more realistic in a situation with same buffs. Unscathed Contender not being met. Adding Unscathed Contender’s 20% damage gets guardian dps to 14.688k with only sword auto chain. Considering optimal rotations for both, guardian and warrior and a huge sized target, guardian dps would go to ~17.6k dps whereas warrior dps would go to ~14.0k dps.

If you can’t keep up unscathed contender its 14.68k (guardian) vs 14.02k (warrior) in optimal rotations. I was considering a guardian rotation resulting in a 20% dps increase and a warrior rotation as 15% dps increase.

Am I being summoned ?

Yes.

Now do your magical maths if there’s even a little part of you that derives pleasure in proving bads wrong.

Anicetus.1253:

Dub.1273:

colesy.8490:

Guardian 1h sword autoattack can go something like 6k-6k-15k which is around 11k DPS.

Warrior axe will go something like 5k-5k-5k-5k-5k-10k which is less DPS than guard since axe auto chain is 3.6s versus the 2.5s of sword chain, plus the damage is backloaded so if you don’t get that final swing your DPS drops further.

More like 7.8k 7.8k 15k, resulting in 12.24k dps.
Warrior 6.2k 6.4k 6.4k 6k 6k 13k, resulting in 12.22k dps.
This would be more realistic in a situation with same buffs. Unscathed Contender not being met. Adding Unscathed Contender’s 20% damage gets guardian dps to 14.688k with only sword auto chain. Considering optimal rotations for both, guardian and warrior and a huge sized target, guardian dps would go to ~17.6k dps whereas warrior dps would go to ~14.0k dps.

If you can’t keep up unscathed contender its 14.68k (guardian) vs 14.02k (warrior) in optimal rotations. I was considering a guardian rotation resulting in a 20% dps increase and a warrior rotation as 15% dps increase.

What’s the 15% on warrior from?

Berserker’s Power i suppose.

Oh there is a huge part of me that loves doing just that Stop teasing me, oh you!

Before I show any of my magic I need to check a few things about warriors, namely that axe auto chain. There was a recent change on the wiki saying that the last hit deals more damage than I previously thought.

Guardian does get better dps than warrior with max buffs. But that list is very pie in the sky and doesn’t match reality. Sw/Sw mesmer with 3 phantasms up? Let me know how often you get that going in a typical dungeon run. Necromancer with full minions? Yeah no.

Here is the rub: full buffs is hard to get. Despite the rhetoric, maintaining 25 stacks of might for over 20 seconds is somewhat difficult. 25 vuln over 20 seconds is nearly impossible without an engineer. The more rangers, necros, guardians and thieves you have in your group the more difficult these things become. The end result is with just self-buffs, or minimal support from the rest of the group, warrior dps outclasses the rest. Which is why in a pug or even a casual organized run a warrior will likely out dps the others.

I would tend to agree with Nike

Theory vs reality. nuff said

Theory works perfectly fine …. argh why can’t people understand this?

It’s not like there is some kind of paravirtual force in-game that skews the maths !!

gw2 math is different to forum math, clearly!

Theoretically I can make 60 gold by running DnT’s normal dungeon tour but in reality I only make 45-60 due to RNG on drops.

Theoretically I can hit 50k eviscerates on the mage crusher every time but in reality I don’t because of RNG and inefficient party buffs.

Theoretically I can hit 100k 100b on Malrona in TA but in reality I don’t because of RNG and cleanses.

Theory vs reality.

Depends how optimistic you are with your theory.

Warcry.1596:

In this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-play-anything-besides-guardian/first

Reading through it you will find a discussion about DPS from classes. colesy.8490 stated numerous times that “Guardians out-DPS Warriors”. While I know this to be true, many on that thread laughed and dismissed it as false. Those Warriors wanted proof of his claims, and he offered the experimental findings of Guang, from:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Max buffed, from best to worst:

Mesmer (Sw/Sw with 3 phantasms) = ~15k
Thief (D/D backstab) = ~13.5k
Elementalist (fire staff or LH) = ~13k
Guardian (GS+Sword) = ~11k
Necromancer (D/F+WH with all minions) = ~11k
Warrior (Axe+GS) = ~10k
Ranger (Sword and Feline pet) = ~9.5k
Engineer (Grenades) = ~9k

So that being said, colesy asked those warriors to post the question in the Dungeon forum, and said whoever posted would find a very quick response. I am simply doing just that FOR those warriors that do not believe. Can/Does a Guardian REALLY out DPS a Warrior?

Take this as a grain of salt. Guan has been a great contributor to the GW2 community, particularly on the GuildWars2Guru.com forums, but his views on class dps can be a bit…controversial and change over time. He also made the claim that engineers do more dps than warriors at one time I believe and detailed theorycrafting behind the claims can be a bit sparse beyond “trust me”.

As for the topic at hand, I don’t think the dps difference between warriors and guardians is that far off and I agree with Guan that people often think warriors have the highest dps due to seeing the really large numbers of a channeled Hundred Blades attack.

Personally, I don’t think it really matters that much whether a guardian or warrior deals more damage since they are so close that the type of utility your group needs (does your group need fury/banners/etc. or reflects/condi-cleanse/etc.) makes a much bigger impact on success and speed of clear.

I think the point people should take away from a post like this is that Guardians do have very high dps potential, whether it actually passes a Warrior or not.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Guardian does get better dps than warrior with max buffs. But that list is very pie in the sky and doesn’t match reality. Sw/Sw mesmer with 3 phantasms up? Let me know how often you get that going in a typical dungeon run. Necromancer with full minions? Yeah no.

Here is the rub: full buffs is hard to get. Despite the rhetoric, maintaining 25 stacks of might for over 20 seconds is somewhat difficult. 25 vuln over 20 seconds is nearly impossible without an engineer. The more rangers, necros, guardians and thieves you have in your group the more difficult these things become. The end result is with just self-buffs, or minimal support from the rest of the group, warrior dps outclasses the rest. Which is why in a pug or even a casual organized run a warrior will likely out dps the others.

That’s why you bring an engineer. Most classes can contribute at least 3-4 stacks of constant might pretty easily (guardian being one of the ones that can’t, at least not without substantial trait investment). If you’re looking at straight DPS rotations without stopping for might (i.e. no warrior switch to LB), warrior gets 3 stacks of might from FGJ + 3 from Warbanner, Ranger gets 4 from Flame Trap + Warhorn, Ele gets 3 from Lava Font + Arcane Wave, etc. Then you either have a engie topping it off with 9-12 stacks of might from his blast rotation (which doesn’t cost DPS) or Mesmer using Signet of Inspiration and you should at least be okay on might even after the first 20 seconds is up. Vuln is a little bit harder since you need so much more of it to cap but that’s why engineers are so good.

Also sword mesmer with 3 phantasms isn’t terribly difficult since you have two offhands, you can drop Swordsman + Duelist and that’s already 2. 12 seconds later you have 3 with one in reserve in case the boss kills one, and you can just summon a clone or utility phantasm to fill the gap in the meantime. It’s not “max” DPS but it’s still really good, especially in pugs where 12 seconds is barely a fraction of the total fight length.

I’m just saying, when you factor in actual game play realities…

1. Few boss fights last longer than 30 seconds. Many last fewer than 15.
2. Phantasms get killed quite often, especially Warden.
3. It takes 12 seconds for you to ramp up to max dps, and thats assuming the first two issues are non-issues.

When you start narrowing the list of boss fights where phantasms rarely die, the fight lasts long enough to get 3 up, and is long enough to maintain 3 up for sufficient time to inflict serious dps you see the list is quite small where the theoretical dps matches observable reality.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Guardian does get better dps than warrior with max buffs. But that list is very pie in the sky and doesn’t match reality. Sw/Sw mesmer with 3 phantasms up? Let me know how often you get that going in a typical dungeon run. Necromancer with full minions? Yeah no.

Here is the rub: full buffs is hard to get. Despite the rhetoric, maintaining 25 stacks of might for over 20 seconds is somewhat difficult. 25 vuln over 20 seconds is nearly impossible without an engineer. The more rangers, necros, guardians and thieves you have in your group the more difficult these things become. The end result is with just self-buffs, or minimal support from the rest of the group, warrior dps outclasses the rest. Which is why in a pug or even a casual organized run a warrior will likely out dps the others.

That’s why you bring an engineer. Most classes can contribute at least 3-4 stacks of constant might pretty easily (guardian being one of the ones that can’t, at least not without substantial trait investment). If you’re looking at straight DPS rotations without stopping for might (i.e. no warrior switch to LB), warrior gets 3 stacks of might from FGJ + 3 from Warbanner, Ranger gets 4 from Flame Trap + Warhorn, Ele gets 3 from Lava Font + Arcane Wave, etc. Then you either have a engie topping it off with 9-12 stacks of might from his blast rotation (which doesn’t cost DPS) or Mesmer using Signet of Inspiration and you should at least be okay on might even after the first 20 seconds is up. Vuln is a little bit harder since you need so much more of it to cap but that’s why engineers are so good.

Also sword mesmer with 3 phantasms isn’t terribly difficult since you have two offhands, you can drop Swordsman + Duelist and that’s already 2. 12 seconds later you have 3 with one in reserve in case the boss kills one, and you can just summon a clone or utility phantasm to fill the gap in the meantime. It’s not “max” DPS but it’s still really good, especially in pugs where 12 seconds is barely a fraction of the total fight length.

Just curious where you are getting your engineer information from, because when stacking might, we must use several skills that are, in fact, NOT adding to overall DPS.

Just out of curiosity, what would be considered the optimal Guardian DPS rotation?

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I’m just saying, when you factor in actual game play realities…

1. Few boss fights last longer than 30 seconds. Many last fewer than 15.
2. Phantasms get killed quite often, especially Warden.
3. It takes 12 seconds for you to ramp up to max dps, and thats assuming the first two issues are non-issues.

When you start narrowing the list of boss fights where phantasms rarely die, the fight lasts long enough to get 3 up, and is long enough to maintain 3 up for sufficient time to inflict serious dps you see the list is quite small where the theoretical dps matches observable reality.

But…. we have portal!

Bright.9160:

Just out of curiosity, what would be considered the optimal Guardian DPS rotation?

Well, according to Guang/Dub (iirc) it’s just WW+Symbol…

- suddendly brain cells in my head -

-Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop it.
-What’s up?
-It’s Bright.
-DAT Bright?
-Yeah Bright Star Shine, ClubofThousandPandas [LOD], the good old Gw1 doasc’er, whatever.
-And so….?
-He doesn’t know the theoretical Guardian rotation?
-Uh…yeah….it’s…
-Fishy.
-Indeed.
-So, trolling or theoretical curiosity?
-Uhm.
-Should go for explaining?
-Uhm.
-Better calling out the trolling?
-Uhm.
-When did you change last time the batteries to the sarcasm detector?
-It needs a new pair every single time we face DG subforum.
-kitten it.

You should stop ForumWars2, your addiction is starting to have an effect on one of your personalities

Also Binding Blade (and considering dodging also leap of faith).

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I’m just saying, when you factor in actual game play realities…

1. Few boss fights last longer than 30 seconds. Many last fewer than 15.
2. Phantasms get killed quite often, especially Warden.
3. It takes 12 seconds for you to ramp up to max dps, and thats assuming the first two issues are non-issues.

When you start narrowing the list of boss fights where phantasms rarely die, the fight lasts long enough to get 3 up, and is long enough to maintain 3 up for sufficient time to inflict serious dps you see the list is quite small where the theoretical dps matches observable reality.

Keep in mind that phantasms don’t need to be alive 100%, they just need to be alive long enough that their summon recharges and you can replace it. I’ve actually had relatively few fights, even in terribad pugs that take 10 minutes to kill a boss, where I’ve been at less than two phantasms for the majority of a fight. Certain bosses will pretty much instagib them but the ones that don’t are by far the majority.