Guild Wars 2

Just some random theory crafting and should be taken with a grain of salt, but:

So I was messing with gw2buildcraft.com to see what I could come up with on effective health (EFP) Effective Power (EFH) on a guardian versus a warrior. Also factored in the the Damage Reduction (DRE) for calculations below.

Guardian
EFP – 5088.47
EFH – 13106
DRE – 17.56%

Warrior
EFP – 5228.32
EFH – 21284
DRE – 13.68

Then I wondered how long it would take for a Guardian to kill a Warrior and vice versa. Additionally I factored in Virtue of Resolve (VOR) ticks at a minimum, accounting for healing power per each build.

So in essence
(GEFH+(VOR*(GEFH/(WEFP-(WEFP*GDRE))/(WEFP-(WEFP*GDRE))
Guardian health + Virtue of Resolve * time to kill warrior v. guardian / new time to kill with added effective health from virtue

It’s kind of cyclical but the formula worked with no errors.

So it takes a max EFP Warrior approximately 3.09 seconds to kill a max EFP Guardian (or hits how ever you want to consider damage incoming).

In reverse it would take that same Guardian 4.84 seconds to kill the Warrior.

Well lets factor in a full EFH Guardian versus that EFP Warrior:

Tank Guardian
EFP – 2539.22
EFH – 40649
DRE – 44.14

Guard dies in 14.37 seconds
War dies in 9.71 seconds

What about a full Healing Guardian?

Heal Guardian(1442 healing power)
EFP – 2011.38
EFH – 22111
DRE – 36.84

Guard dies in 7.00 seconds
War dies in 12.25 seconds

Interesting none the less, but again not true conditions and no one would build so singularly in stats. What I think it shows is that in just stats alone, Guardian’s health is not offset by the innate healing built into the class.

The only time the Guardian had an advantage is when stacking vitality, which shows how effective that is in keeping players alive. If I were to run a test with a full EFH warrior, I think it would show the warrior surviving the fight as they have a higher built in health pool.

Keep in mind if I factor in protection boons or regeneration boons that can vastly change the outcome and give the guard more survivability. I didn’t do this because it was not purely profession mechanics but cross all fields.

One could argue we have more availability of protection or regeneration than a warrior does, as well as trait lines that provide more healing back, which would increase our EFH. To that I would completely agree, but not sure if it’s enough.

Thoughts? Oh and be sure to tear up my math, cause yeah I’m sure there are problems there :p

Please be careful with that website =). If you switch out too many gears it will bug out and not properly adjust the stats.

Its happened to me on a couple of occasions.

Now for a guardian to survive, our AoE blinds, blocks, invulnerability, and dodges is what defines us more then our stats. The damage negation >>>> then the defensive stats.

If you are trying to just look at the stats themselves taking everything out of the equation then a warrior will do better then a guardian.

Exactly, I tried to caveat that as much as possible. THIS IS TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY AND SHOULD NO WAY DEFINE WHAT YOU SHOULD DO AS A GUARDIAN This is only stats and not abilities. I did not factor in traits or weapon skills, but merely doing as simple and dumbed down a comparison as possible to see what kind of advantages or deficiencies we do have.

I still contest that we are some what pigeon holed into being defensive due to our inability to match up damage wise and lack of base health. I think this does show a defensive guardian “should” fare better though, which I am sure the community knows by now.

Its really tricky to compare things like that…
If you dont look to skills, traits, etc…
Still, do the other virtues also enter in the equation?
How can you add the burn proc and the aegis proc on this calculation…

I think its a nice try, but there is so much to it that its hard to just put it in a simple formula like that.

Aegis would only remove 1 or 2 hits depending on if you want to activate it or not, since these are such drastic numbers and the fights do not last long enough for VoC to refresh in 30-40 seconds. VoJ would add 400-600ish damage, but not skew the time that drastically.

Again, just take this at face value and don’t dig too deep into it. It is a simple look that is not true to real conditions. It was just a theory crafting moment I had and came up with interesting results.

The only take away I have is that Guardian’s don’t do damage as good as Warriors. But we knew this. Problem now is do Warrior survive damage as well as Guardian’s do.

By numbers yes and better, but factor in skills and that becomes debatable depending on who you talk to.

Worthless comparison when you ignore:
- Aegis
- Blind
- Protection
- Regen
- AH
- Traits and utilities in general

I thought it was common knowledge that warriors had better passive defensive and offensive stats when compared to Guardians, but Guardians make up for it with our giant arsenal of active skills.

If we only compare overall EFP/EFH:

warrior will be the most OP class(heavy armor with high base hp)
ele/mesmer will be awful(light armor with low base hp)

LastShot.4762:

ele/mesmer will be awful(light armor with low base hp)

Mesmer is medium tier health, but that’s beyond the point.

Effective power could be compared when dealing with raw physical damage (no conditions). Effective health can be compared as well in terms of how much additional “health” armor adds through damage reduction. If you reduce 20% of all incoming damage, you effectively have 25% more health.

Here’s your problems: you forget about healing and conditions. Conditions ignore armor and therefore your effective health is equivalent to health alone. Healing, on the other hand, is not usually an instantaneous effect. Most healing is or can be linked to healing over time. If a Guardian can heal 400 HP/s and a Warrior only 200 HP/s, does that make the Guardian better? It comes down to all other factors. If the two have the same “effective health” and effective power, yes, Guardian is better. However, that is never the case.

There’s argueably no easy way to compare survivability between the two classes. Guardian could theoretically heal 600 HP/s but have 50% of the health a Warrior does and the Warrior could not heal anything over time. That senario would depend on how much damage each class is doing. Can the Warrior deal damage to counter the Guardian’s healing fast enough or will the Guardian survive long enough to kill off the massive health bonus the Warrior has over the Guardian?

If you can give me a formula that doesn’t occupy 200 characters of text I’d love to see it. You would have to factor not just each character’s stats, but how much health a character would lose each second. Then factor how long the battle would last. Generally, Warriors and Guardians are only superior if the player does better and the character is built stronger than the other.

Except in ranged combat.

Warrior wins.

CMF.5461:

Interesting none the less, but again not true conditions and no one would build so singularly in stats. What I think it shows is that in just stats alone, Guardian’s health is not offset by the innate healing built into the class.

The only time the Guardian had an advantage is when stacking vitality, which shows how effective that is in keeping players alive.

I like these sorts of threads because it does give an expression of how it feels to play Guardian as the base level. I’m willing to accept your findings, not because your approach is rigorous but because it’s inline with how it feels to play a stacked vit vs. stacked heal power Guardian. Your efforts corroborate with my experience.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find similar ‘generalized’ formulas used during the development of games either so devs can establish baseline stats of different professions resulting in similar performance.

LastShot.4762:

If we only compare overall EFP/EFH:

warrior will be the most OP class(heavy armor with high base hp)
ele/mesmer will be awful(light armor with low base hp)

Very good point, LastShot, but that is why I compared a heavy armor with a heavy armor while trying to attribute the health regeneration via virtues. Originally Virtue of Resolve was stronger, but it was scaled down in beta because of how easily Guardian’s survived.

I think it was scaled down too far personally, or the game has developed more and other classes have found a better play style since then that may be able to accommodate for the regeneration of Guardian’s.

As many have pointed out and I pointed out in my own original thread, although it seems most don’t like to read or take note that I acknowledged that already; True game play would take into considerations boons/traits/gear/dodges/aegis/blinds/etc. but I was only making the most simple of comparisons as possible to create something called a “foundation”.

After establishing our knowns and understanding the foundation, we can begin to build upon that to develop the Guardian more. Helps us understand where to go if we know where we are.