Guild Wars 2

A lot of the top end dungeon groups I’ve seen run mostly guardians and warriors for the natural cleave. I posted this on guru and figured some people may enjoy it. It’s a post about warriors vs guardians for dps. Which do you prefer playing? Which do you prefer in your group?

This will be a long one so stay with me. I always aim to explain my math. Please (politely) point out any mistakes.

At base stats, base crit dmg (150%) and base crit chance of 4% you will do 102% of your base damage.
For this argument of guardian vs warrior dps we can effectively ignore power unless one person will have more of it than the other. I will be relatively conservative and say we have received 916 power from our gear, thus doubling our base damage. We’re now at 204% of base damage.

Remember this number doesn’t need to be totally accurate since it will affect both the guardian and the warrior equally; I’m going to guess 30% crit chance from zerker gear since that plus 300 precision plus fury is roughly 68% crit chance, which once you factor in trait bonuses is fairly close to the 80%+ mark I see thrown around the forums.

Our damage is now 308% of our base damage. (+916 power for 200% base damage, 54% crit from fury + zerker gear, 200% crit modifier).

From here we can get some typical warrior base damage percentages:
Assume a 20/25/0/10/15 spec for 200 power, +250 precision, +15% crit damage.
Our damage unmodified by crit is now 2.22 times our base damage instead of 2 times our base damage due to the extra power.
Our damage modified by crit is now 412% of our base damage. (1116 power for ~222% base damage, 75% crit from fury + zerker gear + 250 precision + heightened focus and 215% crit modifier).

Our further damage mods are 10% to bleeding foes, 10% on greatsword or 5% on axe, 6% empowered, 12% zerker rage damage. So 10% + 10% + 6% + 12% = 43.6% damage compounded for greatsword or 10% +5% +6% +12% = .37.12% damage compounded for axes. Our overall damage is going to be 412% of the base damage of the skill, then modified by our traits. For example if the skill does 100 damage by default, it will now do 412 damage, and 591.6 after greatsword traits or 564.9 after axe traits.

Let’s do the same to the Guardian:
GK’s ultimate guardian build recommends 10/30/10/20/0 so I am going to use that.
Going back to our base point..
Our damage is now 308% of our base damage. (+916 power for 200% base damage, 54% crit from fury + zerker gear, 200% crit modifier).

From here we can get some typical guardian base damage percentages:
Assume a 10/30/10/20/0 spec for 100 power, +300 precision, +10% crit damage.
Our damage unmodified by crit is now 2.11 times our base damage instead of 2 times our base damage due to the extra power.
Our damage modified by crit is now 404% of our base damage. (1016 power for ~211% base damage, 83% crit from fury + zerker gear + 300 precision + 1h strength, and 210% crit modifier).

Our further damage mods are 10% to burning foes, 10% radiant power, 5% on 1h. So 10% + 10% + 5% = 27% damage compounded for 1h or +21% for greatsword. Our overall damage is going to be 404% of the base damage of the skill, then modified by our traits. For example if the skill does 100 damage by default, it will now do 404 damage, and 513 after 1h traits or 488.8 for greatsword.

And finally we now have the simple task of applying the base damage modifier and the trait damage modifiers to the base damage of the weapon’s attacks for both the guardian and the warrior.

Warrior:
Axe is 252, 538, 858. Multiplied by 412% = 1038, 2216, 3534. Multiply by trait damage mods of 37.12% = 1423, 3039, 4847.
Sum them together = 9310. Over 3.6 seconds = 2586dps.
Greatsword is 259, 259, 333. Multiplied by 412% = 1067, 1067, 1371. Multiply by trait damage mods of 43.6% = 1532, 1532, 1970.
Sum them together = 5032. Over 2.5 seconds = 2014dps.
For the lols: 100b base is 1624+406. Using the above multiplications it ends up as 12,010 over 3.5 seconds, or 3431dps. This is the reason swapping to greatsword for 100b then back to axe is beneficial if you have fast hands.

Guardian:
1h sword is 269, 269, 504. Multiplied by 404% = 1086, 1086, 2036. Multiply by trait damage mods of 27% = 1380, 1380, 2585.
Sum them together = 5346. Over 2.5 seconds = 2138dps.
2h sword is 296, 296, 453. Multiplied by 404% = 1195, 1195, 1830. Multiply by trait damage mods of 21% = 1446, 1446, 2214.
Sum them together = 5108. Over 2.5 seconds = 2043dps.

Excluded:
Eviscerate.
Might procs (guardian always gets them, warrior only on gsword or fast-hands-100b swaps).
Guardian 2h symbol.
Guardian burning (likely to be in the region of one 500 tick every 2.5 secs due to 5 attacks in sword chain with 20 might stacks for a total of +200dps assuming no other burners).
Warrior bleeds (likely to be 3 ticks of 90 every third strike. Or 2 applications per 3.6 sec axe chain for about 540/3.6 secs, or 150 dps).
Warrior vulnerability stacks through rending strikes.
Guardian vulnerability through symbols.
Warrior vulnerability stacks through axe #2 and mace #4.
Both are assumed to have fury. Both are assumed to have the same might stacks.

Summary:
It’s actually fairly close, but you have to look at the list of exclusions above. Personally I think the warrior would be preferred in a group due to the vulnerability, banner and fgj. Guardian’s just can’t give that amount of group dps.

I have no idea why parts of that got underlined.

Im not gonna read that whole thing, i just read the last 3 lines, but a war can’t do max dps in most places without a guard using prot, stability and reflect

wow. I waste 3 minutes of my life. all i can say is this game need dps meter

unless all those info is 100% accurate. I’m not sure it is.

laokoko.7403:

wow. I waste 3 minutes of my life. all i can say is this game need dps meter

unless all those info is 100% accurate. I’m not sure it is.

This game will never have a dps meter.

kidbs.8920:

laokoko.7403:

wow. I waste 3 minutes of my life. all i can say is this game need dps meter

unless all those info is 100% accurate. I’m not sure it is.

This game will never have a dps meter.

dont’ get me started. I’m just saying it’s good as an educational purpose.

As to the summary, as a person above me stated, your group isn’t going to do as much dps if it doesn’t have stability, key blocks (aegis), and the other defensive abilities that guardians bring.

It boils down to this… both Guardians and Warriors do excellent damage. Warriors bring more offensive buffs, guardians bring more defensive buffs. Both sets of buffs are needed in parties.

^ to simplify warrior is oped in dmg and guardian is oped in defense. we need to buff the other class…

ok that’s a joke.

only reason i mentioned dps meter is I think it’s a good tool to make people understand the game better. I think there’s many misconception people have about dps which they don’t understand. And me personally have a hard time to understand.

for example people keep saying hundred blade when gs isn’t even the highest dps weapon. which makes me wonder if gs is the highest dps weapon for guardian.

Is that just auto attack (#1) ?
What about the ridiculous hundred blades ?

Can you do a comparison to say a necro’s staff #1 ?
Tia

Nice points above. They need each other.
toothless – yes that’s just #1.
necro’s staff is pretty terrible compared to cleaving melee I’m afraid :P

If you are only going to break down #1 spam, then it’s sort of pointless. The main damage for Warriors comes from hundred blades.

Beyond that, if you are only covering #1 spam, what about sword Thief? They have natural melee cleave as well.

The strongest Guardian build has about 2000 less effective power than a Warrior’s classic zerk build.
Instead of doing theory check on buildcraft.

Also consider Warriors get 100% crit chance permanently.
HB + Axe auto equals to 8k DPS. A Guardian cannot deal 8k DPS.

fadeaway.2807:

necro’s staff is pretty terrible compared to cleaving melee I’m afraid :P

The point I was making

Rhysati.4932:

Beyond that, if you are only covering #1 spam, what about sword Thief? They have natural melee cleave as well.

Some classes can spam/unload their highest damage abilities with no cooldown, and STILL have a ridiculous relatively high auto spam on multiple weapons … say n more

Guardians only LOOK like they do as much dps as warriors on paper, take into practice and you will notice a significant difference in kill times with 4 Zerker Guardians 1 Warrior vs 4 Zerker Warriors and 1 Guardian.

guys im gona stop you all if u go frakttals lvl 40+ whit no guaridan u are kittened to the bone its not about dmg its about stability reflect aeiges healing and auras war cant help not EVEN close like guardian can

I think it’s an interesting topic actually. I appreciate the OP take the time to do the theory craft. I just wish it can be more in depth.

There is too much to consider including weapon type, skills, traits, enemy defense, vulnerability and buff to group.

I mean I read through the theory craft, and it sounds ok on paper. But in reality I’m not sure if it’s really true. Which I hope there is some way to prove it.

Gele.2048:

guys im gona stop you all if u go frakttals lvl 40+ whit no guaridan u are kittened to the bone its not about dmg its about stability reflect aeiges healing and auras war cant help not EVEN close like guardian can

There is a threshold of too much support. 5 Guardians can easily beat any content, if you want to take twice as long as 1-2 guardians and several warriors.

Ioflux.4369:

Gele.2048:

guys im gona stop you all if u go frakttals lvl 40+ whit no guaridan u are kittened to the bone its not about dmg its about stability reflect aeiges healing and auras war cant help not EVEN close like guardian can

There is a threshold of too much support. 5 Guardians can easily beat any content, if you want to take twice as long as 1-2 guardians and several warriors.

ya either way I think people knows guardian is an OPed defensive class and warrior is an OPed offensive class in pve dungeon. I personally think this 2 class is the best overall dungeon class.

Warriors do more damage than any other class in melee but what makes them over the top is the GS Trait+Elite Signet. No single class can match that much self buffing with Might/Fury while using the best DPS Weapon.

In terms of dps only where mob skills and intelligence isn’t a factor, a good warrior and good guardian will have very similar damage output (you can test it out with golems in pvp and time yourself) warriors will always have a slightly higher dps but guardians are not far behind.

I generally prefer guardian as their skills are much more.. mobile.

I think what everyone said here have some truth.

But I just want to point out warrior not only is great dps they also make their party better at dps. Warrior have many ways of stacking vulnerability and ways to buff might and fury to the party.

And similar other class may be as “tanky” as guardian, but no class can “protect” their party members as good as guardian.