Guild Wars 2

Since I am a bit bored lately and so I have spent some time building a spreadsheet for guardian. I have found a few interesting points after playing around with some numbers. If you have any questions, or like to have a look at the spreadsheet, feel free to contact me.

About the calculation

A lot of the formulae are taken from the forum. The effective power I have should match the number provided by gw2buildcraft.com. Some of the numbers have been tested in game.

For calculating the average damage for each weapon set, I calculated the damage for each skill and divide it by its execution time. For example, sword skill 3 can deal 21998 damage with a 2 secs execution time. So it’s dps is 10999. For a full skill rotation, I summed up all the damage for each skills, and divide it by its total execution time. I believe through this way, a more accurate number can be obtained.

With this method, it is crucial that the execution time is properly obtained. There are several results that can be found in the forum. Typically, the person will use a stopwatch to time hits against the golems at Heart of the Mist. I find those method are a bit less reliable. What I did was capture the attacks on a video. Then I used a video editing software to find the exact frame the skill starts and ends. For most skills, I do have a good confidence of its execution time. Note that, the execution time can be longer due to latency issue.

Buff

• Sigil of force + sigil of night for one-handler, sigil of night for two-hander
• Assume full ascended gear, with scholar rune (no infusion stat)
• When selecting trait, the trait corresponding to the weapon is selected (if enough trait points is invested). For example Scepter Power is used when scepter is equipped.
• No Unscathed Contender. Assume 100% uptime on Elusive Power and 100% uptime on Fiery Wrath.
• 25 stacks of might
• Perma fury
• 25 stacks of vulnerability
• 25 stacks of bloodlust
• Plate of Steak and Asparagus (to poor to actually buy Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup)
• 10% slayer potion
• Banner of Strength
• Banner of Discipline

Result

The estimated damage for various build on berserker gear are shown on the picture. In addition, I also calculated the number for different type of gears (all in ascended).

http://imgur.com/94SClZv

http://imgur.com/UJDYoxj

Scepter with high damage?

As you can see, scepter has really high dps. But, it is assume that all the orb of Smite actually connect. In reality, I found that only 10-12 of 16 orbs actually hit the target. So that’s a roughly 20% decrease in damage.

Why not max dps build?

Crit damage provided by valor trait and buff from Retributive Armor really boost up guardian dps by a fair bit. However, you will left with a limited support to the party. I personally don’t encourage to use them in dungeon. But they are certainly good build for wvw roamers.

Use of RHS

I know a lot of people are against the use of RHS. However, I find it a really good trait for casual or semi hardcore dungeon runners. I find myself almost unlikely to hit 100% crit chance with all the buffs I can get. This is because I hardly has ranger in my party. Without Spotter, 10/30/0/5/25 actually out dps 20/25/0/0/25 by 1.2% (see the damage figures in the picture). However, if you have a ranger in your party, 20/25/0/0/25 actually doing better. With spotter and frost, 20/25/0/0/25 does 11188 damage per second, whereas, 10/30/0/5/25 gives 11075. That’s a 1% different.

Also, greatsword and sword rotation only worth it if you have sigil of night on your greatsword. It is a dps lost if you only have sigil of force.
I also notice that guardian’s greatsword is a lot like warrior’s greatsword. It has a rather weak auto attack but powerful skill 2, 4 and 5 with relatively long cooldown. To maximize dps for greatsword, it is best to swap to sword while it’s skills are in cooldown.

Hammer

Hammer actually does a very decent damage. 15/25/0/20/10 is actually among the highest dps build guardian has. The highest dps rotation will be skill #2 followed by 2 chains of auto attacks.

Knight vs Soldier

I am a bit surprised that knight actually does similar damage compared to soldier gear. Maybe it is because of the trait I used in the calculation. The trait already provided a good amount of crit chance. Also, knight gear has a lower power which actually has a bigger impact in dps.

Edit

I posted the spreadsheet here. http://darlie50.heliohost.org/

% of toughness to power makes toughness armor better than it looks on the surface.

However can you really make calculations assuming 25 stacks of everything? Seems a bit….optimistic.

You’ve been beaten to the bunch. Look for Fadeaway’s calculations.

If those numbers are true why would you go anything other than hammer in PvE? 5% DPS loss for permanent protection? Yes please.

Edit: and extra defensive stats, boon duration, and group support…

Edit2: Also, lol @ celestial gear beating soldiers and knights armor. Goes to show how broken the crit damage stat was.

Yaki.9563:

If those numbers are true why would you go anything other than hammer in PvE? 5% DPS loss for permanent protection? Yes please.

Edit: and extra defensive stats, boon duration, and group support…

Edit2: Also, lol @ celestial gear beating soldiers and knights armor. Goes to show how broken the crit damage stat was.

because you don’t need protection in most dungeons.

Thanks user. I’ve tried those builds and my own experiences seem to mirror your figures, so in my eyes they seem to be good indicators of average damage potential.

Yaki.9563:

If those numbers are true why would you go anything other than hammer in PvE? 5% DPS loss for permanent protection? Yes please.

Edit: and extra defensive stats, boon duration, and group support…

Exactly my own thoughts, but they’ve been held for awhile. The perma SoP isn’t just potentially healing/protecting/AHealing, it’s also doing damage the whole time. It’s very easy to setup and very rewarding, if rather boring, to run. It does let you focus more of your attention on your Utilities/Virtues/encounter mechanics alot more than some other build/weapons which can be handy.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

Yaki.9563:

If those numbers are true why would you go anything other than hammer in PvE? 5% DPS loss for permanent protection? Yes please.

Edit: and extra defensive stats, boon duration, and group support…

Edit2: Also, lol @ celestial gear beating soldiers and knights armor. Goes to show how broken the crit damage stat was.

because you don’t need protection in most dungeons.

You also don’t need 5% more damage. I’m pretty sure that no matter how much you want to downplay 30% damage reduction to your entire party + 200 extra vitality + slightly longer duration on boons and shorter virtue recharge that even if it is only rarely useful it is still an overall greater benefit than that miniscule damage increase.

If your dungeon run takes 15 minutes and you’re actually fighting (instead of running in order to skip mobs etc.) 50% of the time, the extra damage is going to reduce the length of your run by…OMG 4.5 seconds!

Let’s not turn this thread on another “muh skips, muh intended gameplay, muh play how you want”, yes?

Anyhow, just a reminder, if you break the auto attack rotation while wielding a hammer, your DPS is going to drop quite a lot, sword is more flexibile and allows you to move more freely. The extra HP shouldn’t be a issue if you’re dodging corretly (yes, everybody misses a dodge every now and then, but on most cases you’ll either get one shoted anyways or be able to survive by healing and dodging the next incoming hit).

If someone could make this an app on a webpage, then we would have something … I would like to run my own setups for theoretical damage.

Just put the spreadsheet on google docs and allow people to save copies for local editing. That’s the easiest way to do it without coding something up in javascript and hosting it.

Yaki.9563:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

Yaki.9563:

If those numbers are true why would you go anything other than hammer in PvE? 5% DPS loss for permanent protection? Yes please.

Edit: and extra defensive stats, boon duration, and group support…

Edit2: Also, lol @ celestial gear beating soldiers and knights armor. Goes to show how broken the crit damage stat was.

because you don’t need protection in most dungeons.

You also don’t need 5% more damage. I’m pretty sure that no matter how much you want to downplay 30% damage reduction to your entire party + 200 extra vitality + slightly longer duration on boons and shorter virtue recharge that even if it is only rarely useful it is still an overall greater benefit than that miniscule damage increase.

If your dungeon run takes 15 minutes and you’re actually fighting (instead of running in order to skip mobs etc.) 50% of the time, the extra damage is going to reduce the length of your run by…OMG 4.5 seconds!

If you think about it permanent protection is fairly useless in most dungeons and the extra 5% (more if you include GS rotations I’m sure) damage is the way to go. Most trash die before they can do much (1 GS rotation and most trash groups will be dead) or are blinded (e.g. with sword 2). Bosses oneshot most of the time, or do enough damage that even with protection you’re still losing scholar bonus. You should be using aegis for boss attacks anyway. Sword can also help prevent incoming damage altogether with the sword blind.

On the other hand, you fight a lot of tanky and harder-hitting trash mobs in FOTM, and in this case the protection comes in very handy (of course there’s also the fact that S/F has no cleave), so you will want to use the hammer.

Yaki.9563:

If those numbers are true why would you go anything other than hammer in PvE? 5% DPS loss for permanent protection? Yes please.

Edit: and extra defensive stats, boon duration, and group support…

Edit2: Also, lol @ celestial gear beating soldiers and knights armor. Goes to show how broken the crit damage stat was.

Just something to add on, the light field from the SoP is just annoying when you have ele in your party. Also, I really hate the long auto chain of the hammer. Sometimes, the chain is interrupted and hence the dps is reduced.

Obtena.7952:

If someone could make this an app on a webpage, then we would have something … I would like to run my own setups for theoretical damage.

I could do that, but it just involve too much work. Also, from the respond I have, not many people actually interested in such calculator.
Anyway, if you like to have a look at the spreadsheet, you can find it here http://darlie50.heliohost.org/.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

If you think about it permanent protection is fairly useless in most dungeons and the extra 5% (more if you include GS rotations I’m sure) damage is the way to go. Most trash die before they can do much (1 GS rotation and most trash groups will be dead) or are blinded (e.g. with sword 2). Bosses oneshot most of the time, or do enough damage that even with protection you’re still losing scholar bonus. You should be using aegis for boss attacks anyway. Sword can also help prevent incoming damage altogether with the sword blind.

What I found is that gs is actually has more burst damage than sustained damage. Like warrior gs, guardian gs has a rather low auto attack damage. Depending on your trait and build, gs could do up to 5% less damage than sword (mainly because you get 2 sigils for sword).

that’s why you rotate between GS and sword.

You have Knight w/ Knight Trinkets, but what about Knight w/ Zerker trinkets? That’s what’s always been recommended to me at least.

Knight armor with zerker trinkets was quite a good compromise for those who wanted a bit more defense, since they could take advantage of the good crit damage conversion on the trinkets. However, the feature patch will end this, since ferocity normalizes crit damage and the trinkets lose all of their advantage.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

that’s why you rotate between GS and sword.

I mean gs and sword combo still doing 3% less damage than sword. It is because you still have to use gs auto for 7 more secs (assume you swap immediately when swap is available).

Morsus.5106:

You have Knight w/ Knight Trinkets, but what about Knight w/ Zerker trinkets? That’s what’s always been recommended to me at least.

I have added knight + zerker stat in the picture. Indeed knight + zerker is the best after full zerker/assasin set (roughly 10% less damage than zerker).

Are you sure that GS/Sword rotation is worse? Other guides (such as Obal’s) say that a rotation is much better than camping sword autoattacks.

From the post:
DPS Rotation for extend fights – GS2 → GS4 → GS3 → GS5 if no pull is needed → GS auto until GS2 is up → GS2 → Swap to sword → Focus 4 → Focus 5 if not needed for survival → Sword auto until 1s after swap is available → repeat GS and sword rotation
For short fights I use GS2-4 → Sword

Perhaps others who have gone in-depth into guardian rotations can chime in.

The rotation is better. I tested it on the pvp golem and there is a noticeable difference in kill times. These numbers are different than what fadeaway had. His looks more accurate. Power of the Virtuous wasn’t listed as part of the calc either.

It looks like people are getting too caught up in the numbers here too without thinking about practicality. Hammer DPS is good but it takes awhile to get going and you will be interrupting the chain a bit and losing a bit of the DPS. It is not easy DPS like gs/sword. Also sword cleave sucks. This makes gs worth using on top of the slight dps gain, blind, and vuln. You can get in the target hitbox and hit for even more as well with ww and bb like I did here http://youtu.be/jJBbH_Y4Xro but that’s an exploit according to one guy

I’m waiting for the balance patch to take another look at my numbers, which are a bit old now. I’m also too messy to bother making my work easy to look at by others ^_~ Mine and the OP’s probably differ based on the timings used to calculate auto/skill dps since effective power is rather difficult to get wrong. I know hammer is good but I don’t recall it beating 10/30/0/5/25 and 20/25/0/0/25. I don’t see power of the virtuous in your numbers which is roughly +5% dmg for those builds. I’d also put money against Elusive Power being active a decent amount of the time.

On hammer vs gs …
EP:
Both the following scenarios have asc zerker gear, force sigil, scholar, butternut squash curry, 10% dmg potion, 25 might, 100% fury, banner of strength + disc, spotter and 25 bloodlust.
20/25/0/0/25 gives me 15629 EP, or 17.06x base dmg.
15/25/0/20/10 gives me 13988 EP, or 15.27x base dmg.

Base DPS:
For greatsword I used 296, 296, 443 for the auto attack (1035) over 2.5 seconds for the base dps of 414. I used 1428 as the base WW damage assuming all projectiles hit, and 1016 as the base damage of the symbol.
I then used a WW, symbol, 9 seconds of auto attack, WW, 10 seconds of auto attack and repeat 24 second rotation, as the cooldowns for skills begin when you have finished the skill. I assumed 2 sec cast time per WW and 1 sec for symbol.
This meant 1428, 1016, 3726, 1428, 4140 for a total of 11738 over 24 seconds, or 489.

For hammer I used the three hammer swings as being 296, 333 and 370, followed by 5 ticks of 185 for a grand total of 1924 over 3.7 seconds, or 520dps.

DPS
20/25/0/0/25 = 489 * 17.06 = 8342dps, 10427 after vuln.
15/25/0/20/10 = 520 * 15.27 = 7940dps, 9925 after vuln.

(You will notice these numbers are slightly higher than the ones in my thread. That is because I forgot banner of strength in my old thread).

I originally thought 20/25/0/0/25 with weapon swapping > 10/30/0/5/25 with weapon swapping > 20/25/0/0/20 camping 2h > most other things but the below probably changes things..

One thing to point out though which we do know is changing:
You have assumed 25 bloodlust, sigil of force and sigil of night for 1h but only 25 bloodlust and sigil of night for a 2h. This works for now.
Going forward you will need to have the bloodust weapon equipped.. so the 1h will be night+bloodlust (loses force) and the 2h will be night+bloodlust (loses nothing).

For this reason I think 20/25/0/0/25 camping 2h and 15/25/0/20/10 are probably going to be very close to the top spot next patch, and they’re significantly easier (lazier) to use.

user.6572:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

that’s why you rotate between GS and sword.

I mean gs and sword combo still doing 3% less damage than sword. It is because you still have to use gs auto for 7 more secs (assume you swap immediately when swap is available).

And this is where theory and praxis drastically disconnect.

Theory: Rotation deals 3% less damage than pure sword.
Reality: Doing a GS+Sword Rotation deals roughly 15% more damage than pure sword.
This takes into account that Binding Blades hits up to 5 times.

GS: 10% Sigil, Sword/Focus: 10% and 5% Sigil.