Guild Wars 2

As a DPS Guardian which is best stat?

Berserker for pve

For all intents and purposes Power and Crit scale far better for most PvE content. Only Husks and some new mobs in HOT have a particular weakness against condi damage (or more accurately they have abnormally high toughness to resist direct damage).

Zerks meta is not without its reasons. It exploits 2 fundamental problems with the game’s combat…. Condi damages doesn’t scale well, while most PvE mobs are just giant pools of HP; And most mobs use slow, heavily projected, high damage attacks, making dodge extremely efficient, and Armor as a stat ineffective without huge amounts of it.

Since defense is the losing side of a DPS race, most builds focus on strong offense and using traits to boost active defense.

Theoretically, I would get an equal mix of both IF the resulting DPS was similar to the maximum direct damage. In vanilla GW2, this is neither the case or necessary to do.

I’m speculating that Anet’s new ‘difficult’ HoT content means a much wider variety of NPC stats, forcing players to swap builds or incorporate various damage types into a single build.

I’ve been running a pure condi build shown on this thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Only-Burn-as-Damage-source-Dire-Guard

While it is viable for WvW zerging and solo roaming, it has limited use in PvE. Right now it’s only ever useful in Silverwastes as the mobs there have unusually high toughness so conditions work pretty well.

I tested sinister condi guard for a while. You get power + precision + condi dmg from sinister armor, which is nice, especially if you can make use of condi dmg AND physical dmg. But the problem is, the medium physical dmg(around 2-3k) + high cond(up to 10k burnticks, average around 4-5k) still doesn’t top zerkers dmg. With zerker, every physical attack does top dmg, which makes most of guards skills. The latest meta, which uses mace, can hit up to 8k with the final strike in auto atk in cof. Playing condi requires permanent 10k ticks to top that, which is not possible.

Kirnale.5914:

I tested sinister condi guard for a while. You get power + precision + condi dmg from sinister armor, which is nice, especially if you can make use of condi dmg AND physical dmg. But the problem is, the medium physical dmg(around 2-3k) + high cond(up to 10k burnticks, average around 4-5k) still doesn’t top zerkers dmg. With zerker, every physical attack does top dmg, which makes most of guards skills. The latest meta, which uses mace, can hit up to 8k with the final strike in auto atk in cof. Playing condi requires permanent 10k ticks to top that, which is not possible.

Looking at it from a tpvp perspective, the Permeating Wrath’s AoE burn procs will effect other classes who are Blocking.

Lets take Whirling Wrath’s effect inside a group of 5 people, 3 of which have gear shields on.

Zerk Guardian will deal full, non cleanseable, damage to two people resulting in about 5k damage each (average)

Carrion Guardian will apply 7 AoE burn stacks to all five classes, resulting in about 2k damage each (average)
Assumes all of WW hits land on the two targets, and if SJ+ PM is traited on the Carrion Guard

Just thought that was interesting o_o

starlinvf.1358:

For all intents and purposes Power and Crit scale far better for most PvE content. Only Husks and some new mobs in HOT have a particular weakness against condi damage (or more accurately they have abnormally high toughness to resist direct damage).

Zerks meta is not without its reasons. It exploits 2 fundamental problems with the game’s combat…. Condi damages doesn’t scale well, while most PvE mobs are just giant pools of HP; And most mobs use slow, heavily projected, high damage attacks, making dodge extremely efficient, and Armor as a stat ineffective without huge amounts of it.

Since defense is the losing side of a DPS race, most builds focus on strong offense and using traits to boost active defense.

Even though the husks take reduced direct damage, my mostly zerker guard (effectively 0 condi damage) still melts them because burning is just that powerful.

Saiyan.1704:

Kirnale.5914:

I tested sinister condi guard for a while. You get power + precision + condi dmg from sinister armor, which is nice, especially if you can make use of condi dmg AND physical dmg. But the problem is, the medium physical dmg(around 2-3k) + high cond(up to 10k burnticks, average around 4-5k) still doesn’t top zerkers dmg. With zerker, every physical attack does top dmg, which makes most of guards skills. The latest meta, which uses mace, can hit up to 8k with the final strike in auto atk in cof. Playing condi requires permanent 10k ticks to top that, which is not possible.

Looking at it from a tpvp perspective, the Permeating Wrath’s AoE burn procs will effect other classes who are Blocking.

Lets take Whirling Wrath’s effect inside a group of 5 people, 3 of which have gear shields on.

Zerk Guardian will deal full, non cleanseable, damage to two people resulting in about 5k damage each (average)

Carrion Guardian will apply 7 AoE burn stacks to all five classes, resulting in about 2k damage each (average)
Assumes all of WW hits land on the two targets, and if SJ+ PM is traited on the Carrion Guard

Just thought that was interesting o_o

Damage wise, zerk will always win hands down. Problem is survivability. When everyone and their grandma are using condis, you die, FAST. You get at max 2 full cleanses and 2 mini cleanses (1 condition each). Trust me when I tell you, in a 2v1 or even in havoc, when you are focused, that is NOT going to be enough. Especially with only 10.9k base HP. People stack SSSOOO much condis these days it’s not even funny. The toughness will help mitigate direct damage and the vitality will give you time to react and stew on those condis a bit before another cleanse comes off cooldown.

However, as stated, if the goal is outright damage, zerk it all the way.

for wvw roaming go hybrid carrion which will result in both power and condi dmg which is higher then full zerk or rabid. also with food and duration your burning will ticks longer

for pvp not sure yet. carrion can proc much more but the cleanse will negate the dmg

but in theory hybrid will result is better dmg cross the board

messiah: true

For PvE dungeons Zerker wins hands down!

In pvp a berserker guardian can apply a crapload of damage which can be dodged OR trying to stay alive.
Meanwhile a carrion can apply mediocre direct damage which can be dodged and mediocre condition damage which can be cleansed. But should they be forced to go defensive they can apply the condition damage what can be cleansed AND trying to stay alive in the same time!

Note: I’m still not sure what’s going to be considered “meta” and what will not. I can definitely see the advantages of a carrion or rabid build however. And I really enjoy this playstyle now (before you guys start b.tching I don’t even use torch…) !

Let’s do an easy calculation:

B (berserker) does 10k power damage.
C (carrion) does 5k power and 5k condition damage .

to avoid B you need 2 dodges
to avoid C you need only one dodge and a cleanse ability

Energy recharges faster than the condi cleanse abilities so it’s more easy to avoid the B’s burst than C’s over time.

Note#2: I do know this is not exactly how abilities work! I just try to get more knowledge and I think everybody should do the same.