Guild Wars 2

You hear the term glass cannon being used a lot, but what exactly does it mean?
Is there a range of numbers for attack/armor/health that qualifies one for being a glass cannon?

As an example, I play as a GS ranger with 3352 attack, 2030 armor, and 20372 health.
Am I a glass cannon? I also run a trap build with stats around 2600/2300/2200. Is the a glass cannon build?

And then in contrast, what exactly is a tanky/bunker build?

ChillyChinaman.6057:

You hear the term glass cannon being used a lot, but what exactly does it mean?
Is there a range of numbers for attack/armor/health that qualifies one for being a glass cannon?

As an example, I play as a GS ranger with 3352 attack, 2030 armor, and 20372 health.
Am I a glass cannon? I also run a trap build with stats around 2600/2300/2200. Is the a glass cannon build?

And then in contrast, what exactly is a tanky/bunker build?

A glass cannon build is something that does lots of burst damage (the “cannon” part) and is very fragile (the “glass” part). A bunker build is a build that has high health/toughness, able to hold points well due to immunities and crowd control (commonly called CC), and often provides good support to teammates.

I don’t know very much about rangers, but you have a very high attack with decent health. Most glass cannon builds drop someone in less than 5 seconds. Thats the point of a glass cannon. If your ranger can do that, then yeah, he’s probably a glass cannon.

Thanks for the response, I’m actually well acquainted with the terms themselves, I was just wondering how they fit into the GW2 landscape. So from your post, 3k+ damage can be considered high with around 20k health being normal? I’ve heard people posting about how they run around with 16k health and have no idea how they survive, if they do. Then thief, ele, and guardian health starts out at only about 11k.

• If at full health you consistently die by a single warrior’s hundred blades (particularly a warrior who is glass cannon), you’re probably glass cannon (or just glass).
• If you’re putting 60 points into the first two trait lines.
• If you’re not putting any points into the 3rd and/or 4th trait lines.
• If you’re wearing Berserker’s / Rampager’s.
• If your armor value is less than ~2.7k.
• If one of your utility skills gives Quickness.
• If you’re only using signets/mantras/elixirs — particularly damage-oriented ones.
• If the only thing you spam on your MH dagger thief is 2 and 3.

Gilgamesh.2561:

• If at full health you consistently die by a single warrior’s hundred blades (particularly a warrior who is glass cannon), you’re probably glass cannon (or just glass).
• If you’re putting 60 points into the first two trait lines.
• If you’re not putting any points into the 3rd and/or 4th trait lines.
• If you’re wearing Berserker’s / Rampager’s.
• If your armor value is less than ~2.7k.
• If one of your utility skills gives Quickness.
• If you’re only using signets/mantras/elixirs — particularly damage-oriented ones.
• If the only thing you spam on your MH dagger thief is 2 and 3.

I guess 2k armor on a scholar profession is glass cannon.

It’s less about HP than it is armor, and what u-skills/weapon sets they bring. HP is class dependent, so a Warrior bunker will likely have a ton of HP and armor, but they lack all of the healing skills and such that a Guardian bunker brings. Likewise, a glass cannon Warrior will still have more HP than a glass cannon Thief.

Glass cannons run with base, or close to it, toughness, and tend to have low armor/HP compared to the typical for their class. Ramager’s/Zerks ammy with Ogre runes are common. They also use high-damage weapon sets (like GS Warrior) with more CC/damage oriented u-skills (Frenzy). Bunkers tend to use a higher defense or control weapon set, with more mitigation, CC removals, immunities, etc. Bunkers tend to shoot for 3k armor, glass cannons tend to shoot for 3k+ attack and high crit.

2030 armor is about as glass cannon as you can get.

I would say that anything under 2400 armor is pretty glassy, 2400-2700 is hyrbrid and 2700+ is tanky. This is obviously not the complete story, the defensive and healing capabilities of your class are a large factor. A class with lots of protection/regen uptime or escapes can get away with having lower hps/armor than others and still be very tanky.

Seether.7285:

2030 armor is about as glass cannon as you can get.

I would say that anything under 2400 armor is pretty glassy, 2400-2700 is hyrbrid and 2700+ is tanky. This is obviously not the complete story, the defensive and healing capabilities of your class are a large factor. A class with lots of protection/regen uptime or escapes can get away with having lower hps/armor than others and still be very tanky.

Funny thing is in Mists tell me how a scholar can get higher armor value?

Q: What exactly constitutes a Glass Cannon?

A: the person who thinks he’ll out dps everyone, but typically dies the fastest making his dps zero.

Detahmaio.2014:

Funny thing is in Mists tell me how a scholar can get higher armor value?

http://tinyurl.com/cscuhtl

That wasn’t hard, was it?

My ~2.7k rating was more for medium armor wearers, for scholars you’re probably looking around ~2.4k.

Bunkers tend to run upwards of 3.2k.

If you have a Berserker’s or Rampager’s Amulet equipped with less then 40 or so Trait points in the Toughness and Vitality lines… you are probably a glass cannon.

Detahmaio.2014:

Seether.7285:

2030 armor is about as glass cannon as you can get.

I would say that anything under 2400 armor is pretty glassy, 2400-2700 is hyrbrid and 2700+ is tanky. This is obviously not the complete story, the defensive and healing capabilities of your class are a large factor. A class with lots of protection/regen uptime or escapes can get away with having lower hps/armor than others and still be very tanky.

Funny thing is in Mists tell me how a scholar can get higher armor value?

Soldiers amulet or Cleric amulet?

< 10 points in your vit tree, < 10 points in your toughness tree and zerker amulet = glass cannon.

Also stop listing armor value, list hp and toughness.

No, toughness is worthless, Armor is superior because it includes toughness + defense, which gives you your actual damage mitigation. A 1500 toughness Ele and 1500 Toughness Warrior are in very different boats regarding damage mitigation.

Seether.7285:

No, toughness is worthless, Armor is superior because it includes toughness + defense, which gives you your actual damage mitigation. A 1500 toughness Ele and 1500 Toughness Warrior are in very different boats regarding damage mitigation.

meh toughness/vit is a better comparison across professions for a quick view of how much someone has invested into defensive traits/gearing.

if you have 2k toughness everyone knows you have invested into toughness traits and gear.

obviously heavy armor has more mitigation over light armor with the same toughness.

For example if you are 1500 toughness/20k hp necro you’re glass. If you are 2k tough/26k hp you are not. Don’t need light armor factored in to know that.

Thanks for all the responses and advice!
Currently in the process of testing out this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBhODbkoKwuwyyi1SQseQI9MougvA3jRhK/XhTmA;TgAA1Cto2yslYL7WutkbB
By your definitions, it should be a fairly survivable build. ~3500 power, 27k armor, and 24k health.

At this point I’m not playing ranger for damage any ankittenrying the bunker root before I roll a guardian for the first time.

generally

glass=fragile, not a lot in terms of defense/survivability…in GW2 this would be both stats and skills

cannon=kills something very fast

your not a glass cannon if you spec for damage but your skills are about survivability for example

if your spec for damage nad your skills augment that damage further, then yes