Guild Wars 2

So I spent some time today trying to figure out why my Guardian had such crappy hp compared to my Mesmer friend and this is what I found out by taking each character into the mists, removing all their stuff and traits, and examining their HP. Aside from HP all other stats were the same.

Base HP at 80

Tier 1

Thief – 10.8k
Elementalist – 10.8k
Guardian 10.8k

Tier 2

Ranger – 15k
Mesmer – 15k
Engineer – 15k

Tier 3

Warrior – 18k
Necromancer – 18k

Now call me crazy but it -seems- to me like they accidentally swapped Necromancer and Guardian because otherwise that just doesn’t make sense to me? I don’t know. I’d like to hear everyone else’s feedback on this, maybe I’m just crazy and it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t make sense to me though so hopefully you all can help me figure this out

Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe guardians rely more on toughness than vitality? I play a thief and I tear through necros (until they change forms, of course) but it takes time with guardians, not just due to the heals either. This is my guess.

Actually that is intended. Necromancer is supposed to be a high hp class that is hard to put down, especially with good use of death shroud. It also helps them deal with the fact that some of their abilities actually harm their own self to some extent.

Guardian is supposed to have low hp to essentially go along with the fact it has numerous powerful defensive abilities. It is tough because of the abilities it has to ward off attacks in general.

Guardians heal so often they have a higher effective health pool than warriors. Necros are just expected to be a little suicidal, maybe? Didnt playmy necro much yet, but a guard with the warrior’s health pool would be super op.

Yes, I agree it is weird to see the Necromancer up there with the Warrior.

Also, it surprises me how DRAMATIC is the difference in HP between professions. A Necromancer has about 80% more base Health than my Elementalist. Really? I don’t think Elementalist damage/abilities are high enough to make up for such a huge difference in survivability.

I’m not even considering the difference in effective Health between highest Health and highest Armor class (Warrior) versus lowest Health and lowest Armor class (Elementalist). I wonder if it is possible for an Elementalist to actually solo any Warrior in PvP because I seriously doubt Elementalist utility and damage make up for these auto handicap numbers.

The problem comes in when you start doing explorable dungeons where things hit for a huge chunk of damage. It’s not uncommon to get hit for upwards of 3k (Especially the thieves in cof em). You can not heal all that quickly enough to mitigate it when you have like 3-6 mobs constantly attacking various group members with aoe, conditions (which don’t seem to be mitigated at all by armor), etc. Which makes life for a frontline melee really difficult. Can only dodge so many attacks in a row.

At least thieves have stealth (brief though it is) to get them out of trouble and to get the enemy to refocus on someone else. As a Guardian if I start getting hammered I can ward it off for about 3 seconds but then they are right on me again. Sanctuary doesn’t even work half the time because when I drop it, the dungeon mobs either walk straight through it or if they bounce off, they drop an aoe at my feet so I have to move out of it. If this was intended I really need to reroll warrior because it’s just murder at that point.

Have to look at the total package.

Guardians have a lot of defensive / healing abilities. They can take a serious beating before they go down if they’re specced for it.

That might explain the guardian but the elementalist?

Guardians have low base HP to balance out their overwhelming mitigation capabilities. They’re still one of the most survivable classes (up with Necro), they just do it in a different way, and having both would be imbalanced.

Necros are also supposed to be very durable. Most people don’t seem to understand that- or much of anything about them. It’s going to be a while before people really get what Necros are supposed to be.

Wasselin.1235:

That might explain the guardian but the elementalist?

Theory would say: Elementalists have lowest HP due to being ranged, having high damage and AoE potential, lots of available skills from a single weapon due to Attunements.

However, practice says: there simply isn’t any reward for the extra risk you’re taking playing an Elementalist: Mesmer has 50% more HP, Necromancer has 80% more HP, yet the Elementalist doesn’t seem faster at killing stuff than the other two scholars (if not slower!).

as a guardian focusing on Greatsword i find the small hp pool a real annoyance, in both pve and pvp bosses will 1-2 shot you, sure i can build around toughness and vitality, but considering how close we have to be to when fighting something, it’s quite foolish.
I have to take out my staff on a lot of fights, even though the damage is low, and the support is pretty bad when not specced for it.

And while I agree Guardians have a good deal of defensive stuff, it does not help against the big hits you receive from Lords, or Bosses in dungeons.

Staal.1504:

as a guardian focusing on Greatsword i find the small hp pool a real annoyance, in both pve and pvp bosses will 1-2 shot you, sure i can build around toughness and vitality, but considering how close we have to be to when fighting something, it’s quite foolish.
I have to take out my staff on a lot of fights, even though the damage is low, and the support is pretty bad when not specced for it.

And while I agree Guardians have a good deal of defensive stuff, it does not help against the big hits you receive from Lords, or Bosses in dungeons.

I would humbly suggest that GS may not be the ideal spec for fighting bosses… It’s probably the least defensive of all the Guardian weapon options.

to tell the truth…warriors are actually able to heal faster than guardians. their heal has a shorter CD and the other “heals” guardian has are pretty much useless. 1000 hp heals unless you spec full healing power. (which will get them to like 2-2,5k)

it may be true we have more mitigation skills than a warrior but no matter what i spec the warriors are just way way more powerful and the mediocre support of a guardian can’t make up for it.

compared to a warrior guild member with WAY WORSE gear than me in the guild i have less attack, less crit, same armor and way less hp. the warrior’s heal has a lower CD plus he has the rune that heals on criticals, which is every few attacks with his crit rate. basically his survivability is way better than mine.

perhaps it’s different in pvp with an actual team that knows what they’re doing, but while you play with people who have no clue what guardian fields and skills do we’re just useless. i’ve tried using stability fields, healing bubbles and all kinds of support skills but my allies just run off somewhere making it wasted.