Guild Wars 2

I’ve got both Guardian and Warrior at lvl 80 in full Berserker exotics and DPS builds.

My Warrior is running 20/25/0/10/15 with Greatsword & Axe+Mace and my Guardian is running 10/30/0/10/20 with Sword+Focus & Greatsword. Both are running 6x Scholar runes.

Now, I keep reading people who are crunching numbers saying that Guardians can pull off more DPS than Warriors, but I’m not seeing it.
I’m not saying I’m doing bad DPS on my Guardian, but the highest I’ve done so far with Whirling Wrath/Zealot’s Defense is ~20-24k, whereas I’ve done over 30k Hundred Blades on my Warrior.

So my question is, is the notion that Guardians can deal more damage than Warriors in PvE false, or am I just falling for an optical illusion that is Hundred Blades crits?

Don’t get me wrong, I love playing my Guardian, and there are other areas where Guardians blow Warriors out of the water in PvE (projectile defense, for instance), but the impression I got from many of the posts in this forum was that Guardian’s personal DPS was higher than Warriors these days.

Guardians are able to pull off more sustained DPS, but less burst DPS.

In a solo instance however, a warrior will outdps a guardian, but when we put them both to equal footing with warrior banners, fury and 25 might, guardians actually do more DPS than warriors do. Especially when using the hammer autoattack.

Also, greatsword has the worst sustained DPS out of all guardian melee weapons, but it has the highest burst DPS. Zealots defense is a loss of DPS because of it’s aftercast.

Quick comparison between the weapons

Hammer and GS used 15/15/0/30/10 and Sword used 0/30/0/30/10

Edit: Typo fix

Big numbers are not DPS. Every class needs support from others to deal maximum damage. Guardian may suck at self buffing but they’re pretty strong in a group, also, good thing i wrote this down earlier:

I’ll help clarifying a bit since i’m bored as hell and can’t actually play due to lag issues:

If the wiki is right, the full sword’s basic attack chain completes itself in 2.5secs, assuming you have 20ish stacks of might and 20ish vulnerability on your target the first two autos will hit by something near 4500 damage, third one 2800ishx3 i believe (not sure if that includes bloodlust as well, i’m just pulling the values i remember from most dungeons runs), that’s 17400 damage in less than 3 seconds, without any cooldown.
Ah, with banners and fury RHS guardians have around 90% critical chance, so getting the full basic chain to crit ins’t a problem at all.

Oxxy.7068:

Big numbers are not DPS

This and

Oxxy.7068:

Guardian may suck at self buffing but they’re pretty strong in a group

this.

xsquared.1926:

Guardians are able to pull off more sustained DPS, but less burst DPS.

In a solo instance however, a warrior will outdps a guardian, but when we put them both to equal footing with warrior banners, fury and 25 might, guardians actually do more DPS than warriors do. Especially when using the hammer autoattack.

Also, greatsword has the worst sustained DPS out of all guardian melee weapons, but it has the highest burst DPS. Zealots defense is a loss of DPS because of it’s aftercast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob5Q4RAPB08

Quick comparison between the weapons

Hammer and GS used 15/15/0/30/10 and Sword used 0/30/0/30/10

Edit: Typo fix

Using traits skews the results. Also you were getting vuln from hammer so it would actually be slower.

spoj.9672:

xsquared.1926:

Guardians are able to pull off more sustained DPS, but less burst DPS.

In a solo instance however, a warrior will outdps a guardian, but when we put them both to equal footing with warrior banners, fury and 25 might, guardians actually do more DPS than warriors do. Especially when using the hammer autoattack.

Also, greatsword has the worst sustained DPS out of all guardian melee weapons, but it has the highest burst DPS. Zealots defense is a loss of DPS because of it’s aftercast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob5Q4RAPB08

Quick comparison between the weapons

Hammer and GS used 15/15/0/30/10 and Sword used 0/30/0/30/10

Edit: Typo fix

Using traits skews the results. Also you were getting vuln from hammer so it would actually be slower.

If i wouldn’t use traits i’d lose 22,5% crit from RHS and 30 radiance. I’d also miss out on the extra 10% damage on conditions trait.

Testing out DPS without traits is silly, considering traits are the cornerstone of a build

You can test the base auto’s without traits and then use maths to calculate how the various traits would improve dps. Your results show hammer as best which isnt true, the only reason it beats sword and gs in that video is because of the vuln on symbol. In a group, vuln and might are gonna be fairly equal across all builds.

spoj.9672:

You can test the base auto’s without traits and then use maths to calculate how the various traits would improve dps. Your results show hammer as best which isnt true, the only reason it beats sword and gs in that video is because of the vuln on symbol. In a group, vuln and might are gonna be fairly equal across all builds.

But how would i take care of the might on a greatsword autoattack then.
Also, Hammer and Sword would be completely equal if i dropped the vuln trait, considering it let me kill the golem 5% faster which equals to (0.37*5 = 1,85 added seconds) on the hammer kill speed. which would put it at the same DPS as sword has.

I guess you could run the test with some friends helping you maintain 25 might and 25 vuln permanently. Warriors with omm and spamming blast finishers in fire fields nearby should work.

Invulnerable Golem has 80K hp and 2600 armor. HP/Time gives you DPS. Some things wont be captured like Retaliation, Confusion and Protector’s Strike which you can do some quick maths on.

Scepter tested out highest. Sword, Mace, GSword and Hammer all came in within 150 DPS of each other, Hammer being on the low end and bolstered with Sword of Justice. Each weapon was tested with an ‘optimized for dps’ build and tested multiple times for an average. Unscathed Contender builds came out higher but everything increased at the same level.

This is only a snapshot of solo DPS at one level, without full vulnerability, might and other buffs you would see in a group. Comparatively most weapons are close enough for me to use in DPS builds. Not sure on any scaling though. I rarely run in a group that maintains full Vuln n Might so for me I’m personally ok with solo testing giving adequate comparative results to use in group play.

I’ve done the spreadsheet calculations and TBH I’d rather base my conclusions on actual testing. Some spreadsheet values were consistent with what I saw, some were way off.

Also, testing on other classes shows most to be on the same level with the exception of a couple situational builds. Highest I’ve achieved is a Mesmer 3x Phantasm build and Guard Scepter/Unscathed Contender build, which are not easily maintained in a lot of instances.

Blood~

Wait, Scepter is the highest DPS weapon Guardians have? I’m assuming that’s with Smite being used on every cooldown and every single tick of Smite connecting?

Also, do you have to do anything special to get decent DPS out of Hammer? I feel like it’s doing very low damage with chaining #1, due to the third attack having such a long wind-up time. Is the majority of the Hammer DPS coming from the 3x damage ticks on Symbol of Protection with Writ of Persistance?

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I’m genuinely confused about this, and I like to have as much information about the class I’m playing as possible.

Testing things without traits or gear is not going to be an accurate reflection of actual dps in game.

The only way to accurately measure actual dps to compare is to have a fully geared and traited guard’s dps compared with a fully geared and traited warrior.

Ok people, you are going too far down the theorycrafting aspect of the game. Its true that a full zerker guardian running full DPS traits, something akin to 0/30/30/0/10 would most likely outDPS a warrior in group settings but this is due to 2 things

1) Guardian taking advantage of the warrior buffs
2) Guardian stacking every possible dmg % increase trait which are practically impossible to sustain, like unscathed contender

In a dungeon, where mobs hit back and AoE flies rampant, like fractal 40% or even CoF p3 you will NOT be able to sustain unscathed contender, even be able to have 100% DPS uptime. A fully offensive geared and traited guardian has 10k life. An equivalent warrior has 18 and has HIGHER sustain as well as hard dmg mitigation talents, like endure pain and shield block.
Therefore practically, a full zerker warrior will survive that much better and easier than a guardian and therefore will have higher DPS overall…as in the entire dungeon.

Ofc, we have some kitten theorycrafters in here who swear on glass cannon guardians but usually this is because:

1) They are full of kitten
2) They are testing their builds on stacked groups with another anchor guard and elie babysitting their kitten as well as a warrior providing banner support

Therefore yes, the guardian under very specific aforementioned conditions can outDPS warriors but it requires none other than warrior buffs in order to do so and is very impractical If u are pugging or are the only guardian

Hunter, my testing comes from actually hitting a Golem solo, no spreadsheets. I test classes and multiple builds and even without Unscathed Contender Guards can match Warriors in this test scenario. With Unscathed Contender my numbers are higher than warrior. I do not rely on UC in actual play. I have tested the builds I run in PvE which are glassy and effective and have run them in FotM 36. From what I’ve personally seen yes Guards are competitive with Warriors as are most other classes built for DPS. Unless Warriors scale much better then Guards, this I don’t know.

As not to be misleading Scepter DPS is reliant on Smite hitting so it loses some in mobile fights. Projectiles don’t pierce so they may hit the wrong target. 20/30/20/0/0 pushes quite good damage, to min/max its 20/30/10/0/10 with Unscathed Contender which won’t be active all the time.

25/25/0/20/0 is the best DPS I’ve found so far with Hammer. It boosts Symbols and Writ of Persistence helps do damage and keep Protection up. I tested with Sword of Justice to help bring the DPS up but even without it does pretty decent if you can keep Burning on the target which usually isn’t a problem in a group.

Blood~

Hunter.4783:

Ok people, you are going too far down the theorycrafting aspect of the game. Its true that a full zerker guardian running full DPS traits, something akin to 0/30/30/0/10 would most likely outDPS a warrior in group settings but this is due to 2 things

1) Guardian taking advantage of the warrior buffs
2) Guardian stacking every possible dmg % increase trait which are practically impossible to sustain, like unscathed contender

blabla yada yada unscathed blablabla

1) They are full of kitten
2) They are testing their builds on stacked groups with another anchor guard and elie babysitting their kitten as well as a warrior providing banner support

Therefore yes, the guardian under very specific aforementioned conditions can outDPS warriors but it requires none other than warrior buffs in order to do so and is very impractical If u are pugging or are the only guardian

1 – Yes, of course. Every group should have one warrior for banners, that’s not news for anyone. Plus every class needes help of others to do maximum DPS (warriors themselves needs firefields and blast finishers like everybody else to mantain 25 stacks of might thru any fight).
2 – No one uses unscathed unless they’re running 25 in virtues, you may be able to mantain it on fights like CM P1 boss, Evolved destroyer and Searing Effigy. Anyways, in that case the damage would be even higher.

With 30 in honor, i’ve got like 13900~14000 HP, along with aegis, perma vigor, shelter and renewed focus all this stuff is more than what i need to not die, in fact i’m able to mantain 90+% hp easly when i screw up, thanks to shelter.

1 – Nope, you just suck. Don’t post false information just because you’re a bad player.
2 – Anchor guard is a piece of kitten. I’m glad i didn’t played this game when it was a thing. LH Eles are probably the best blast finisher provider in the game, but they usually need our fire fields to maintain their DPS, oh wow, teamwork (engies would work for them as well, but lolaegis). As for banners, check the first #1.

Oh? so im a bad player now because im bursting you little bubble? Keep living in phantasy world friend.

There is a reason most guards are complaining that they are forced to spec 30/30/10 for most things, Yet here you are telling us all we suck and you are better, typical forum warrior

Hunter.4783:

Oh? so im a bad player now because im bursting you little bubble? Keep living in phantasy world friend.

There is a reason most guards are complaining that they are forced to spec 30/30/10 for most things, Yet here you are telling us all we suck and you are better, typical forum warrior

I dun know this 30/30/10 built u are referring to. Are u referring to AH builts?
I thought that was an outdated built already. Guardians are not forced to spec 30/30/10 at least in PvE content.

I personally run 10/30/0/5/25 with pugs everyday and I do fine with them even with only 11k hp. The permanent vigor/focus 5/retreat/VoC/Renewed Justice gives u really good sustain.

A more dps orientated built will be 10/30/30/0/0 because u cant sustain unscathed contender most of the time but i imagine that will only work well in a party full of zerkers as u lose consecrations cd and shouts cd which are important in longer fights.

Having Aegis pop isn’t necessarily because players are bad. I think it can be up a reasonable amount of time but enough to take advantage of it to trait it? That’s a question of how much aggro your team shares with each other. I can see in an equally capable DPS team, it could very well be possible.

Hunter.4783:

Oh? so im a bad player now because im bursting you little bubble? Keep living in phantasy world friend.

There is a reason most guards are complaining that they are forced to spec 30/30/10 for most things, Yet here you are telling us all we suck and you are better, typical forum warrior

How do you burst a bubble that doesn’t exist? If anything i bursted yours. I mean, really, who the hell still uses anchor guardian?

@Stut – I wouldn’t use 10/30/30, even with a full zerk party you do need utility in many situations. The only place it could work 100% would be… CoF P1, lol.

As for aegis pop, it has nothing to do with being bad, but it is not something you can mantain just with skill alone, take the Spider Queen in AC as an example, the moment she shoots her web thingy your aegis is gone, even if you double dodge.

Also some bosses like GL, not sure if there are others out there, they specifically strip your aegis before certain attacks