Guild Wars 2

I think the biggest problem is that people still hold to this antiquated idea of a “DPS class”. For GW2, that isn’t the case at all. The ability to do damage, be durable, or support your teammates is based on the build you use, with each class accomplishing DPS in different and more complicated ways, and also supporting the group in different ways.

The second thing is how you play the class. You can go full zerker gear with 30 in power and crit damage, and 10 in precision, and still do horrible damage. There are a couple of important things to note here:

#1: Melee damage is almost always superior to range damage. The only case where that arguably isn’t the case is with engineers who don’t have melee damage.
#2: AoE damage is almost always superior to single target damage. While there are a lot of bosses by themselves that make single target damage worthwhile, you’ll be dealing with groups of enemies more often than not, so hitting multiple enemies is greater than hitting just one.

Thankfully, most melee weapons cleave, hitting multiple targets. So this takes care of both.

#3: There are multiple ways to increase group DPS, such as stacking might, stacking vulnerability, granting fury. The less obvious ways are to improve your teams survivability, because when your teammates disengage from melee range, they start doing less damage. So, keeping them in melee range for as long as possible is preferred. Things like protection, blind fields, and condition cleansing can really help the team. Finally, sometimes enemies stack up their own boons, and removing enemy boons also increases DPS. Especially protection.

#4: condition damage becomes redundant with multiple condition users, so only use condition damage when you yourself are the only dedicated condition user.

Keep these in mind when making a build, and you can get high DPS with pretty much any class.

colesy.8490:

I thought it was engineer with the best consistent DPS? I’m too lazy to search out Guang’s video.

Pretty sure this. Engineer has the highest DPS (granted hitting all those buttons to achieve more than a Warrior pressing a couple skills is a lot of work). I too am far too lazy to find that thread or the video that was posted there.

I heard Thieves and Lightning Hammer Elementalists also can get super-high DPS only if they’re in a team composition and can constantly keep the appropriate boons from other members active.

Overall, I’d have to say Engineer (from the last DPS studies I recall reading/watching).
But if you want to play maximum Engineer DPS for the entire game, prepare to schedule an operation to replace the bones in your hands for a robo-arm, or hope you can keep up the speedy skill rotation without being in too much pain.

If you are talking about who have the highest burst it would be the war, if all the odds are with you your 100b get easily over 40k damage, but in pvp you rarely land it. But the rifle do a decent burst around 20k with the F1, without all the odds, I only tested it with a few might and vulnerability.

Someone said above that necro don’t have much team utility, I play as a necro support-tank and with my staff, I have 2 wicked team support spell and my wells make my warriors team mate near immortal, making fight like lupicus, alpha all 3 path, the ugly tree all 3 path… Bieng us standing still and beating the crap out of them (with some dodge on the lupi and the tree).

The one under time warp with zerk, fury, and 25 stacks might with a frost spirit nearby and a sigil of night.

lol. there’s still a DPS hierarchy even in optimal conditions (you forgot 25 vuln) :P

Pikajew.8301:

I usually play dps classes, so which class does the highest dps?

Too broad parameters.

In PvP? Depends on your build. Currently it would be split between Thief and Scepter Elementalist.

In PvE? Under absolutely optimal, low frequency, conditions? Doesn’t really matter. Full buffs (Fury, 25 might stacks, 25 invuln stacks, time warp, banners, frost spirit, in a corner, etc) + Ele’s Fiery Greatsword (anyone can pick it up) = ridiculous over the top DPS with an equally ridiculous high cooldown and specific setup.

In normal PvE with a party (like dungeons)? Thief for single target (but no cleave or AoE for that) by a small margin, followed by GS Warrior overall (Hundred Blades is murder on AI that’s too stupid to take one step to the side). Guardian and Mesmer are also good options.

Solo play? GS Warrior. Cheap access to fury, hundred blades, and enough tankyness, even in full berserker, to be able to DPS with little concern to odd attacks kills the competition.

This thread, please.

Thief, if traited properly.

And i saw somebody said thieves cant stack might. Actually they can on signet use. And also on dodge/steal, etc. There even is food which gives might on dodge.

EDIT: also i like using elementalists Fiery Greatsword when stacked with might.

I think people may be forgetting sword ranger as this has been an argument over warriors and thieves

It’s alive … IT’S ALIVE!

Honestly? A nearly year old thread to necropost in?