Guild Wars 2

Omnomberry Pie. Greatsword smokes everything else in terms of self healing with pie. Absurdly so. WvW, PvE, whatever.

haviz.1340:

Alarox.4590:

Hammer: Good AoE burst and CC, lacks a solid auto-attack for PvP, but has highest PvE DPS. Best PvE weapon.

Hammer highest pve dps weapon? Was there a patch I missed?

Pop yourself into the mists and find out.

GS: whichever combo you like
vs
Hammer: auto attack

It’s been that way for a while. +perma protection. I just can’t imagine using any other weapon for PVE.

Uncle Salty.6342:

Pop yourself into the mists and find out.

GS: whichever combo you like
vs
Hammer: auto attack

It’s been that way for a while. +perma protection. I just can’t imagine using any other weapon for PVE.

Ever occured to you to disable virtue of justice?

haviz.1340:

Alarox.4590:

Hammer: Good AoE burst and CC, lacks a solid auto-attack for PvP, but has highest PvE DPS. Best PvE weapon.

Hammer highest pve dps weapon? Was there a patch I missed?

It’s called math. The auto-attack damage of the Hammer is extremely high, but you need the enemy to stand inside of the symbol, meaning the full DPS can only be used in PvE. Mighty Blow deals more DPS than Whirling Wrath as well. Overall, Hammer deals more damage.

Alarox.4590:

haviz.1340:

Alarox.4590:

Hammer: Good AoE burst and CC, lacks a solid auto-attack for PvP, but has highest PvE DPS. Best PvE weapon.

Hammer highest pve dps weapon? Was there a patch I missed?

It’s called math. The auto-attack damage of the Hammer is extremely high, but you need the enemy to stand inside of the symbol, meaning the full DPS can only be used in PvE. Mighty Blow deals more DPS than Whirling Wrath as well. Overall, Hammer deals more damage.

I feel like you don’t play the game because if you did, it’d be clear how much more damage the GS does outside of tooltips.

Actually, playing the game isn’t at all very good qualifier of how much more damage any one weapon does than another, especially when the weapons are close in damage as it is. It gives you some feeling of it but of course, that’s all wrapped up with your gear and traits as well.

My feeling is that when I play GS and hammer, they are pretty even in damage output because stuff dies just as fast with either. If you look at the pure numbers (people have already done this, there isn’t a need to argue about it) it tells a similar story.

Alarox.4590:

It’s called math. The auto-attack damage of the Hammer is extremely high, but you need the enemy to stand inside of the symbol, meaning the full DPS can only be used in PvE. Mighty Blow deals more DPS than Whirling Wrath as well. Overall, Hammer deals more damage.

It’s called faulty math.

Facepalm.

One probably thinks the big numbers of whirling wrath are ‘per hit’ numbers and the other likes his GS too much.

Facts can be harsh my little puppies.

Uncle Salty.6342:

Facepalm.

One probably thinks the big numbers of whirling wrath are ‘per hit’ numbers and the other likes his GS too much.

Facts can be harsh my little puppies.

Yes, that’s right I like my greatswords but let me elaborate.

For hammer to work decently you need at least 20 if not 30 in honour. That makes you losing traits like fiery wrath, radiant power, greatsword power or powerful blades, blinding exposure (which is somewhat bugged with leap of faith).

Let me explain this as clear as possible, your standard hammer build does less damage than standard gs build because of traits not because of strong autoattacks in heart of the mists with virtue of justice being active. Another thing, hammer has virtually 2 skills that deal damage, greatsword – 5. Maybe you missed it but people did some tests in the mists.

Glad I don’t make standard hammer builds. I wouldn’t want anyone to mistake me for one of those gimp hammer users ><

Seriously though, you don’t need 20 in honour for hammer to be ‘decent’. An extra tick on symbol isn’t going to differentiate it’s damage from another weapon. Maybe if the kill cycle for most mobs was on the order of ticks on a symbol, you would have a point. But then again, hammer symbol does down alot more frequently than a GS symbol. It evens out. It’s not like there are orders of magnitude difference here. I estimate a typical damage variation between them at about 10%.

Yes, GS does more attacks that have damage. That’s not relevant because your attacks flow in a serial manner regardless of weapon. You don’t do more damage just because you have more attacks that make damage.

Obtena.7952:

Glad I don’t make standard hammer builds. I wouldn’t want anyone to mistake me for one of those gimp hammer users ><

Seriously though, you don’t need 20 in honour for hammer to be ‘decent’. An extra tick on symbol isn’t going to differentiate it’s damage from another weapon. Maybe if the kill cycle for most mobs was on the order of ticks on a symbol, you would have a point. But then again, hammer symbol does down alot more frequently than a GS symbol. It evens out. It’s not like there are orders of magnitude difference here. I estimate a typical damage variation between them at about 10%.

Yes, GS does more attacks that have damage. That’s not relevant because your attacks flow in a serial manner regardless of weapon. You don’t do more damage just because you have more attacks that make damage.

Could you list your build for hammer then?

Sure, check my sig. That’s one of them. Don’t bother to check it though, I’m sure your just going to tell me it’s uber crap since I’m not using GS and don’t have 20 in Honour. :p

I haven’t used the Greatsword since they nerfed it. I prefer the Hammer.

Obtena.7952:

Sure, check my sig. That’s one of them. Don’t bother to check it though, I’m sure your just going to tell me it’s uber crap since I’m not using GS and don’t have 20 in Honour. :p

It is rather extraordinary build. But I’m not the one who plays with greatsword all the time and I don’t have 20 in honour as well. I experiment with different kinds of builds (gs, sword, hammer) and the only reason I would pick hammer is when I’m the only melee in pug group or in (almost) full melee team that has survivability issues.

That build came about from being frustrated trying to use GS to tag mobs in events. Hitting once with Mighty Blow is a guaranteed tag. It closes range, it’s true AoE and it applies it’s damage faster than Whirling Blades.

Technically, GS does more damage than hammer. In practical application, I make up for that with a higher and longer burn. It works. I could use GS with that build just as easily as Hammer. I would get some might stacks and it would work faster but considering I’m killing trash mobs in Orr, it’s a wash.

Hammer has it’s uses. Damage isn’t everything. I believe if people made builds to match the content they are doing, then they would find that GS isn’t the be all end all weapon they claim it is. Maybe that’s why I’m poor, have too many sets of armor and not enough space in my bags to hold it all.

GS has the best DPS in all the class(Mesmer, Guardian and Warrior(maybe not Rangers)) The weapon was intended to work like this, doing lots of damage, and Hammer is not good enough #5 is extremly useless in PVE and kinda meh in WvW/spvp because people can just dodge out of it.

I’m not sure why most Guardians care so much about their DPS.
Even on the glassest build you’re dealing half the DPS of a Warrior and probably less than other classes as well; if we had a DPS meter you would realize that your DPS doesn’t really matter compared to what others deal.

A Guardian is so much better for the team as a protector, and shield offers extremely good skills for that.
SoJ offers protection and SoA offers projectile immunity, knockback, healing.
I run a build with boon duration runes and my team has near-permanent protection plus 12 stacks of might from staff and X stacks from VoJ – let alone all the healing.
They deal bazillions of DPS and dont die.
If I used GS I would lose a lot of protection uptime, knockback and heal, which means my team’s overall survivability would decrease significantly.

For soloing you go GS but you’re gimping your team by not taking a shield in teams, let alone staff.
When I get Guards in my team that are full zerk and do little to protect the team just to deal some ridiculous DPS it annoys me and I must ditch them.
If you wanted to be a good DPSer you should have rolled a Warrior, there is no point at all in wasting all the Guardian potential like that.

I use my guard for fractals and some dungeons, and while greatsword can do some nice things, I really prefer the hammer. This entire discussion so far, long as it’s been, has focused solely on, “How much damage am I doing?” which would be myopic for any class but particularly so for a guardian. Guardians are a team class, and hammer is a team weapon.

Why always run hammer in fractals? Simple – five (or four, depending on traits) second blast finisher. That translates to:

1. Elementalist lava font or guard purging flames = three team-wide stacks of area might.
2. Ranger or engi water field = area heal
3. Necro well or thief refuge = area blind

and area retaliation any other time I feel like it. A single staff ele and a hammer guard can keep a team in teen stacks of might by themselves. Water heals save lives. Retaliation adds to dps and blinds are all round useful.

Every four seconds, guys. Whatever dps differences hammer and sword have – and the overall message of the conversation here is that they are not enormous, if existent at all – in a team environment hammer is just superior because blast combos are awesome and whirls aren’t. That’s not to say greatswords can’t be good – binding blade-ing enemies into a compact space so team can aoe them, for example – in a team environment. By all means bring one on switch if you can’t live without it, but at the end of the day guards are at their best in a team environment and in a team environment you need to think about combos.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Even on the glassest build you’re dealing half the DPS of a Warrior and probably less than other classes as well; if we had a DPS meter you would realize that your DPS doesn’t really matter compared to what others deal.

Huch? Guardian is among the highest-DPS professions in the whole game. It certainly does not have the burst of the warrior, but the sustained damage can be higher.

green plum.7514:

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Even on the glassest build you’re dealing half the DPS of a Warrior and probably less than other classes as well; if we had a DPS meter you would realize that your DPS doesn’t really matter compared to what others deal.

Huch? Guardian is among the highest-DPS professions in the whole game. It certainly does not have the burst of the warrior, but the sustained damage can be higher.

Eh i was thinking the exact same thing. Way to many dungeon’s resently where i’ve been doing around half the party’s damage. Sad thing is im not even full on dps. This is with warriors in the party.

Play with Sword/Shield if you want; it’s your gaming experience, my friend, not anyone else’s.

Having used many, many weapon combinations and different builds, every weapon can be made to shine with any content-however, some are a more “natural” fit to certain playstyles than others.

I find the GS overused, but it’s a good weapon (which probably accounts for why it’s OU). I like to go farm Orr mobs with the big blade, but don’t love it on Dungeons, where I much prefer my Staff/Mace & Shield combo. I do like the sword and shield (or focus) combination-the Shield is NOT bad at all despite the naysayers, especially since my Guardian playstyle is more defensive/supportive. The thing with GS is that it’s great for pulling mobs and inflicting decent enough damage in a matter of seconds, plus it has many ways to keep retaliation up for substantial amount of time.

I don’t like playing what everybody else does unless I personally agree with it (not just for the sakes of being different.) If I see my character as a sword/shield character, I shall play her as such-there are many ways to make a Sword a powerful and effective weapon, though it will never be as popular as its bigger sibling.

Consider also the costs of popularity-which Legendaries and named Exotic weapons tend to be the most expensive? Doing what everybody else does has a price too…

(Of course it’s OK to like and use the ubiquitous Greatsword-I have a Mystic one, and the other Explorer’s version I use to farm, but I do honestly enjoy playing with the other weapon choices a lot more, as they function better with my favored playstyle.)

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

I’m not sure why most Guardians care so much about their DPS.
Even on the glassest build you’re dealing half the DPS of a Warrior and probably less than other classes as well; if we had a DPS meter you would realize that your DPS doesn’t really matter compared to what others deal.

A Guardian is so much better for the team as a protector, and shield offers extremely good skills for that.
SoJ offers protection and SoA offers projectile immunity, knockback, healing.
I run a build with boon duration runes and my team has near-permanent protection plus 12 stacks of might from staff and X stacks from VoJ – let alone all the healing.
They deal bazillions of DPS and dont die.
If I used GS I would lose a lot of protection uptime, knockback and heal, which means my team’s overall survivability would decrease significantly.

For soloing you go GS but you’re gimping your team by not taking a shield in teams, let alone staff.
When I get Guards in my team that are full zerk and do little to protect the team just to deal some ridiculous DPS it annoys me and I must ditch them.
If you wanted to be a good DPSer you should have rolled a Warrior, there is no point at all in wasting all the Guardian potential like that.

While I do admire you playing your own way and not going Berserker’s for its own sake, I find that you should also respect their desire to play a Berserker guardian even if you (and me too, BTW) wouldn’t do it. Hopefully they will also respect your desire not to go full Berserker’s as well, as it’s a two-way street.

In short, a Guardian must not be played full-on support just because it tends to lean towards the defensive (or just because the name suggests “to support-guard-your allies”.) Even the most offensive Berserker Guardian can always offer some support while activating his/her abilities/virtues/attacks.

It’s not that anyone or especially I am conceding to Haviz, but it’s just apparently you’re that entrenched in the GS school of thought that even facts are being ignored.

And just a general heads up, Hammer does more dps without using mighty blow.

(in the context of dungeons and boss fights)

This topic has been beaten to death since beta and I’ve posted the math on so many threads since. It’s really not hard to do it. For example:

Hammer Auto DPS:
(296+333+370+555)/3.7 = 420 (470)*

*You can trait for an extra pulse raising the DPS to 470.

In addition, the last attack hits 5 enemies rather than 3, making it deal more auto damage compared to the GS vs more than 3 enemies.

Greatsword Auto DPS:
(296+296+443)/2.5 = 414

Mighty Blow and Whirling Wrath have almost the exact same DPS. The only difference is that Mighty Blow is all-in-one damage and Whirling Wrath is multiple hits. This means your DPS will vary. In practice you’ll probably see that your Mighty Blow crits deal about 2/3 your WW damage.

1.) If you crit twice with Mighty Blow, then you’ll always deal more DPS than Whirling Wrath. However, this is unlikely.

2.) If you have a high critical chance you’ll end up dealing about the same damage with a Mighty Blow non-crit + a Mighty Blow crit vs Whirling Wrath. This is the most likely scenario for most Guardians.

3.) If you have a low critical chance you’ll end up dealing much more damage with a Mighty Blow non-crit + a Mighty Blow crit vs Whirling Wrath. But if you’re considering Hammer/GS your build probably has a decent amount of Precision, so this case is unlikely.

4.) If you crit with neither Mighty Blows then Whirling Wrath will almost always deal more DPS. But, this will probably only happen from horrible luck or a low critical chance. In the latter you’ll only deal a bit more damage.

So basically, they deal about the same damage overall minus a few scenarios. Here’s why the Hammer wins in PvE though: it has more functions outside of damage, while the Greatsword has only damage. Yes the GS has gap closing, but that’s not needed in PvE (it is in PvP though). The Hammer brings support and defensive control to the table while dealing out a similar amount of damage (only because the auto-attack won’t be avoided though).

Prove me wrong.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

I’m not sure why most Guardians care so much about their DPS.
Even on the glassest build you’re dealing half the DPS of a Warrior and probably less than other classes as well; if we had a DPS meter you would realize that your DPS doesn’t really matter compared to what others deal.

You’re probably comparing guardian standard template 0/15/30/20/5 with warrior 20/30/0/0/20 without even including damage from other sources like reflections. Then yea, guardian does around 40% less damage than warrior.

Alarox.4590:

Prove me wrong.

You’re dismissing few rather important factors. I agree that hammer has better autoattack but you’re missing gained power from attacking (if you hit 3 mobs its +105 power for 3s without any boon duration).

You’re also chose to ignore my statement about traits selection. What is your dps build for hammer? We should compare fully-fledged builds not autoattacks.

@Alarox
I’ll assume your math is correct, I don’t want to bother checking.

Alarox.4590:

So basically, they deal about the same damage overall minus a few scenarios. Here’s why the Hammer wins in PvE though: it has more functions outside of damage, while the Greatsword has only damage. Yes the GS has gap closing, but that’s not needed in PvE (it is in PvP though). The Hammer brings support and defensive control to the table while dealing out a similar amount of damage (only because the auto-attack won’t be avoided though).

Prove me wrong.

A few things you might’ve forgotten:
1. Greatsword provides Might, up to Might x3 on it’s last attack
2. Greatsword has Greatsword Power from Zeal 20, which is an extra 5% damage
3. Symbol of Wrath has Retaliation, which deals 250~400 damage for any damage you take, which is wonder against a bunch of weak mobs.
4. You didn’t take into account Symbol of Wrath damage
5. Whirling Wrath against big monsters can deal insane damage (7~10k to 15~25k from experience, though I think these could be a bug) if you walk inside it’s hit box. Mighty Blow can’t even compare.

As for controls, Hammer is great for single target control, but Ring of Warding usually sucks for most cases (if you could cast walking it could be more useful for trapping mobs inside/outside). So we’re talking only about Immobilize and Blowout.
Greatsword has Pull, but also a 600ish DoT x10 that you can use for even more damage if you won’t use Pull.

Hammer is better for combos in my opinion because Blasts grant party-wide boons, while Jump only grants the boon to the player.

So, in my opinion the Hammer isn’t better at all.
They’re pretty much equivalent, but I’d give Greatsword the slight advantage because it can deal much more damage.

The reason why is GS has a fair amount of group utility(might) and it has a good dmg output, plus traits to even further buff it.

ANet needs to “buff” other weapons so that people start paying attention to them more. I’m a HUGE fan of sword + focus for pretty much everything, usually pairing it with GS or Hammer(sometimes Staff, but not very often).

I’ve spent hours on testing in the Mists with different classes, weapons, specs and gear. Get yourself a timer, go kill a set of 3 golems, record your kill time. Run multiple trials for an average. Switch weapons, gear and traits and collect more data. Try everything from burst to auto attack. Average it out and you’ll have an idea of the raw damage output of different weapons and builds.

In all testing I’ve done Sword/Torch wins then to GSword and Scepter. Haven’t tested hammer, staff n mace yet with this but on Orr mobs these are below GSword. Now this is simply raw single target kill times not taking into account any group or AoE situations.

Try this against other classes as well. Guardians can’t burst like say Warriors and Thieves but in sustained damage they can be very competitive, if done right.

That being said with the latest patch and crit food nerf Sword is less desirable. It lacks the boons and support that other weapons have and the survivability has been reduced, IMHO it doesn’t offset the increased DPS as well as before.

In conclusion I don’t feel that we’re forced into GSword but it is such a strong choice and its quite intuitive to play. I’m going to test some Hammer in the Mists and see how it turns out.

GL
Blood~

Well, as it stands the GS is the most flexible damage-oriented weapon in our arsenal. It is high damage, it is reliable, it has utility, it has a leap, it has a high condition damage move (#5) with an optional pull component. It has the ‘flow’, and its fun to play – and it also gives you more then one option to do things. Hammer is nice, but it does not have this dynamic feel to it and abilities #3,4,5 are very situational (at least when talking from the single/small group open world PvE perspective). The 1H sword is neat, but is basically only has the auto-attack and the teleport. Basically, the GS has just too many goodies and any alternative feels like you are sacrificing something (unless you run a very specialised build of course, I am talking about a generic merry run around DPS role). Compare it to Warrior where you can switch to Axe if you feel like chopping or to Hammer if you feel like smashing.

P.S. I would really like to see some 1H weapon updates for the Guardian, right now they seem a bit underwhelming compared to the 2H options…

Hammer has mighty blow but for the most part is based around CC so comparing it’s damage to the GS which is the DPS weapon of the Guardian isn’t really the best way to look at it.

Instead look at it as an attractive Thai ‘woMAN’ it’s a trap or more precisely a way to trap so that you can unleash that DPS. I wouldn’t recommend unleashing DPS on a Thai woman though cause that can end in a weird messed up mixture of fluids and life imprisonment.

That’s one messed up analogy you got there lol.

But anyway.

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere between sustained dps vs burst dps. In an aoe situation, a GS may have more dps simply because it has more damage dealing skills.

Compared to Hammer, only having auto attack + mighty blow. When we move on to harder dungeons, things don’t really die from just 1 rotation.

It’s this downtime which ultimately makes the GS lose out to a hammer. But even during this ‘burst’ phase of the GS, it is only marginally better. Because while casting these skills, they have a delayed animation to cast. And you have to account for interrupting your auto attack.

The optimal rotation for hammer on the other hand is.. auto attack.

Now to me, a GS guardian is a useless guardian. But this is mainly why.
If said guardian doesn’t utilize his leap blinds and skill 5s, then he’s pretty much gimping himself thinking, hey, I use GS because ‘it does more dps’ which isn’t true.

I use a GS on situation for its utility. A hammer’s utility is always there in its auto-attack. Experienced guardians are able to bring out the advantages of specific weapons.

But things go wrong when newer guardians blindly follow the mindset where, oh I want to be a dps guardian, thus i shall use GS for the most dps. This would be erroneous.

Now that guy up there can keep contesting on the traits used for GS. And we keep telling him otherwise. The rest of you, just use the BEST traits u can think of for GS dps. Hit the golem on the mists and time it. Then just switch out your weapon to hammer and auto attack. There’s no need for any lengthy discussion when facts are accessible at your fingertips.

edit:

And after the conclusion of your results, remember that hammer pretty much gives you a permanent uptime of protection. That’s 30% damage mitigated. And lots of AH ticks while you or others are standing in the symbol.

Most guardians plays like a tank/support, not dps. If you want real comparison, try to solo lupi with hammer and lets compare our times. I’ve done it with GS.

Still dodging the obvious.

You know in a game with a combat log and test dummies I really expected to see more facts and less feelings.

Got some interesting results in Mists just now. One set of 3 golems Heavy>Med>Light.

0/15/30/20/5 Zerker amulet, SYS, Sword and JI utilities.
GSword 22sec TTK average (2hMastry)
Hammer 22sec TTK average (EM)

10/30/20/10/0 Zerker amulet, SYS, Sword and JI utilities.
Sword/Torch 19sec TTK average

Same utilities and tried to maximize play on each weapon. Jumping in the hitbox for GSword WW.

Didn’t get a ton of trials but I’m pretty satisfied with the initial numbers. This is by no means meant as a definitive dps test, please don’t take it that way. Rather its a quick comparison between 2 weapons.

Looks like its a matter of taste as to which 2h you wanna use for DPS. Hammer feels soo much slower but in reality TTK is equal in this setting assuming I was able to optimize play on each. Hammer Time?

Blood~

Who uses 0/15/30/20/5 for dps builds?

Bloodgruve.6038:

Got some interesting results in Mists just now. One set of 3 golems Heavy>Med>Light.

0/15/30/20/5 Zerker amulet, SYS, Sword and JI utilities.
GSword 22sec TTK average (2hMastry)
Hammer 22sec TTK average (EM)

10/30/20/10/0 Zerker amulet, SYS, Sword and JI utilities.
Sword/Torch 19sec TTK average

Same utilities and tried to maximize play on each weapon. Jumping in the hitbox for GSword WW.

Looks like its a matter of taste as to which 2h you wanna use for DPS. Hammer feels soo much slower but in reality TTK is equal in this setting assuming I was able to optimize play on each. Hammer Time?

Blood~

Thanks for taking up the ‘challenge’ and drawing your own conclusions. Even if your opinions could’ve differed, the step taken to try it out is well appreciated.

Now if only ‘others’ could do the same.

Without actual DPS meters and sketchy combat logs we don’t have a great system to determine these things. I went in thinking that Hammer had less raw damage output but I’m pleasantly surprised at these results. More and more I think ANet did a good job at balancing some aspects of this game even where it ‘feels’ like they haven’t. I’m kind of a fan of the lack of meters and measures allowing for more fun with the game.

Blood~

Bloodgruve.6038:

Without actual DPS meters and sketchy combat logs we don’t have a great system to determine these things. I went in thinking that Hammer had less raw damage output but I’m pleasantly surprised at these results. More and more I think ANet did a good job at balancing some aspects of this game even where it ‘feels’ like they haven’t. I’m kind of a fan of the lack of meters and measures allowing for more fun with the game.

Blood~

Being a massive min/maxer back in WoW, it was a little frustrating what was available to optimize what we intended to do.

No doubt numbers aren’t everything. Since GW2 is a ‘striving’ action mmo, different weapons serves its purposes. The guardian is just fortunate that most of its traits serves its purposes for what the player intends.

I also play a ranger and have explored necros/engineer. Their situation isn’t as fortunate as ours is.

Anet doesn’t deserve that full credit just yet. With every patch you can see the direction they’re going and they are trying to introduce the ‘right’ changes. The pace is questionable but merit still has to be given that they are moving along somehow.

Uncle Salty.6342:

Anet doesn’t deserve that full credit just yet. With every patch you can see the direction they’re going and they are trying to introduce the ‘right’ changes. The pace is questionable but merit still has to be given that they are moving along somehow.

I agree. This is coming form testing I’ve done with different classes and raw damage output. There are still many things that need improvement but I believe ANet is at least aware of things and will make efforts to balance as we move forward.

Blood~

GS for mobility

Hammer for being godly

If you prefer to bounce between mobs in PvE then the GS is perfect for you. However, if you prefer to gather and face tank 6+ mobs at a time. Hammer is definitely for you.

Hammer is an extreme weapon to be used against multiple enemies. It is outstanding an unmatched in 1 v 6 or more situations. When all damage is reduced by 33%, you can afford to have a slow auto attack then blast finish for retaliation.

It all depends on playstyle. GSword is like lightning. Hammer is like a mountain.

Bloodgruve.6038:

I’ve spent hours on testing in the Mists with different classes, weapons, specs and gear.

I’m happy to see people doing testing. Testing is good, data is good. I wish it wasn’t done in the mists. It’s the least representative method for assessing real ingame weapon damage. Golems do not mimic the way PVE or PVP mobs behave in the game. Therefore, when you fight them, you aren’t behaving like you would in the game either. That affects your damage. If this tests can be done in actual game conditions, it would be more accurate. Then there is a question of playstyle.

I’m not one for searching but the real indicator of damage between weapons is to use the damage coefficients. Thanks to foofad, we have those somewhere in a thread in this forum. At first glance, it’s a reasonable ranking of weapon damage. IIRC, hammer wasn’t far behind GS.

The real indicator of damage in game is to fight different kinds of mobs, parse your damage chat log and do some math on it. (Maybe that can’t be done in GW2). Of course, that’s not going to tell you if a weapon is better than another but it does say something about your build.

Obtena.7952:

Bloodgruve.6038:

I’ve spent hours on testing in the Mists with different classes, weapons, specs and gear.

I’m happy to see people doing testing. Testing is good, data is good. I wish it wasn’t done in the mists. It’s the least representative method for assessing real ingame weapon damage. Golems do not mimic the way PVE or PVP mobs behave in the game. Therefore, when you fight them, you aren’t behaving like you would in the game either. That affects your damage. If this tests can be done in actual game conditions, it would be more accurate. Then there is a question of playstyle.

I’m not one for searching but the real indicator of damage between weapons is to use the damage coefficients. Thanks to foofad, we have those somewhere in a thread in this forum. At first glance, it’s a reasonable ranking of weapon damage. IIRC, hammer wasn’t far behind GS.

The real indicator of damage in game is to fight different kinds of mobs, parse your damage chat log and do some math on it. (Maybe that can’t be done in GW2). Of course, that’s not going to tell you if a weapon is better than another but it does say something about your build.

Mist testing is just as valid as testing it out in the open or field tests.

Both procure results.

Both serve a different function.

One being clean unadulterated dps, the other being effective dps or whichever label you so choose. There isn’t any dismissing one or the other. There will be situations where ‘all things equal’ you wish to keep variables as consistent as possible.

In this case, the mists is a fair enough testing ground for clean data.

I’m not dismissing Mist info. If possible, I would like a more direct method to see tests and results that I don’t have to infer from a sterile, non-representative environment. Real mobs move out of symbols, stun, knock you down, chill you, etc … All that affects your damage. It could affect your damage for different weapons depending on duration of execution or time length of an attack.

For example, Sceptre up close is pretty good. Sceptre against a mob that runs at you is good too. Sceptre on a mob that runs perpendicular to you screws you completely. At best, Mists gives you the maximum possible damage output. Depending on the real game situation, your damage might fall from that maximum or not at all.

Right.

Still.

Step 1: Mist.
Step 2: Field test.
Step 3: Draw a conclusion.

Obtena.7952:

I’m happy to see people doing testing. Testing is good, data is good. I wish it wasn’t done in the mists. It’s the least representative method for assessing real ingame weapon damage. Golems do not mimic the way PVE or PVP mobs behave in the game. Therefore, when you fight them, you aren’t behaving like you would in the game either. That affects your damage. If this tests can be done in actual game conditions, it would be more accurate. Then there is a question of playstyle.

As I stated this is simply raw damage output ranked using TTK on a set of golems. This does not take into account active mobs, players or play styles. It does however allow you to gauge the ‘DPS’ of weapon vs weapon. The sterile setting is good for that. Crunching numbers is good but when all is said and done if it takes 9 seconds to kill something with GSword and the same with Hammer then they have the same damage output.

In practice Hammer has a slower swing time and will be slightly less effective on mobile targets. On the other hand it comes with some great boons and utilities so again, it comes down to play style and preference.

I am no longer dismissing the weapon as low damage output even if it feels that way.

Blood~

I rarely post here, but after reading this thread twice over, especially this last page, I cannot fathom why all of you are arguing. Anyone who has ever spent more than one second on a Guardian should honestly look at this thread and face-palm hard.

For the sake of keeping it short and needing to get back to homework, I’m just going to reference and talk about the second page of this thread.

All of this applies to the current state of the game as of 2/27/2013.

1.) People start off arguing the usefulness of a Berzerker Guardian vs. “Support Guardians”? All I have to say here, is you do realize that NO MATTER WHAT armor you’re wearing, you can still trait and adjust your 6-10 in the exact same way? All I read, and all anyone can read, from arguments like Hanna’s is this: “Some people have better awareness and dodging capabilities than I, so they shouldn’t be allowed to run gear that increases their damage while still being capable of traiting the same as me and providing the same support.” A perfect example of this can be found right here, and…GASP full Berzerker while using a Sword/Shield or Focus for support, while doing a ton of damage! Impossible!

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79899-the-ultimate-guardian-build/

2.) Both the GS and the Hammer provide FANTASTIC utility for certain groups, compared to most other weapons. For High DPS and Experienced Groups, NOTHING beats out the ability to pull all the mobs together and nuke the living hell out of them (through BURST DAMAGE, which has been talked about above as being bad apparently) before they can even begin to return the favor. The Hammer is the exact same in terms of usefulness, except for lower DPS, or less Experienced/Coordinated Groups. You can stack permanent protection and keep mobs together, or locking them down, although more loosely, while knocking mobs off someone going down, and providing lots of boons through the blast finisher.

High end players and groups survive on their own, that’s why they’re high-end. Most of them are mobile the entire fight and constantly moving to avoid, or dodging attacks. As such they don’t need Hammer’s Protection.

3.) Who are any of you to tell the others what’s better to use? You don’t know them, you don’t know their skill level, you don’t know what they enjoy, and most importantly you have no idea of their group compilation or needs.

4.) My final point, you really want to see what’s going to do the most DPS? Do some testing on the level of the Guru forum goers, I don’t see any of you making spread-sheet compilations like this and testing possible options. Also, in the event you’re going to argue with this one, the man who made these sheets and has tested the “max damage” build, concluded he’d use the GS for DPS, it’s on page 5 of the first link I believe.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79926-guardian-dps-calcs-spreadsheet/

TLDR:

1.) Stop talking about DPS, your testing is irrelevant compared to that of the Guru players, GS wins, see link two.

2.) You don’t know group comps and needs, so don’t try to act like something you use is optimal for someone else, and if not then they’re wrong/less intelligent/less skilled.

3.) @OP You’re not forced to do anything, play how you want.

I hope you all have a fantastic day, time in game, and time talking to each other from here on out. Enjoy the game how Anet intended you to, by playing HOW YOU WANT and BEING AN AWESOME COMMUNITY.

Get out of here with your logic and/or evidence!

Think of the one handers! Oh won’t somebody please think of the one handers!

Out in the wilds GSword gives slightly better times for me, but not by much at all. Both weaps are great, prolly use GSword for quick kills where incoming damage isn’t an issue and Hammer for tougher spots.

Blood~