Guild Wars 2

So my guardian just hit 80 today, I have full exotic (some ascended) berserker armor on her then i found out she only has 12k hp? While my warrior has 23k hp with pretty much the same gear? I mean what?

guardians are suppose to have a smaller health pool because we have better innate healing and damage mitigation.

how true that actually is, is debatable but that’s why you’re seeing such a big difference.

I personally wear zerker gear and make up for some of the hp and toughness loss through my accessories, but you’re not going to easily reach the same 23k hp like on your warrior without killing your damage so don’t try.

Edited for clarity

Thanks for the reply. Im gunna stay full zerker no matter what for the 99% of the time. Im just amazed by the hp difference between 2 plate armor classes.. Thats almost 100% differences.

The warrior doesn’t have the blinds/blocks and defense skills. But fear not. If you know how to play a zerker you will find the loss of those hp won’t hold you back at all. Been running zerker gear fully for well over a year and some change now, and no issues with it.

Thanks for the reply. I play fractal 50 with my thief main so I think I ll be fine with my guardian survival wise. I was just not sure if the hp was correct i guess since its a huge difference.

Guardian base hp is 10 900, while Warrior is 18 500, so the difference is more around 60% and not 100%. You need some vitality on your warrior to reach 23k hp.

The difference is that Warrior almost have zero active defense. You have your dodge, an evade with GS and some vigor when trait or with the right skill. So most of your defense come from your big HP pool.

The guardian is at the other extreme and is the king of active defense. Aegis, Blind, Reflect, Condition Removal, Invulnerable, Block, etc The Guardian even with the DPS oriented meta build is packed with a lot of active defense and most of those not only help yourself survive, but also help the team.

Personally, I have a far easier time to survive with my guardian in dungeon, than my Warrior.

Thank you for the reply. I get it now.

Guardians are in good place now (somewhere in 10900hp line).

While OP gets it and understand the difference, I want to point out that warriors may not have a lot of blocks/blinds spread throughout the class and weapon skills, it does have access to a highly effective passive healing signet, good condition removal sources, large bouts of mobility to allow passive healing to tick, good refresh on evade dashes on greatsword, and a shield which blocks.

They have effective means of active defense, as well as “better?” (depends on who you talk to) healing, for self at least, and good condition removal.

Guard, well we like being told that we are special and can do things with less hp?

I kinda agree with you. The “better” active defense doesnt seem to make up for the huge hp difference in solo situation.

In addition to that, if you reach 2,300-2,500 attack pwr, 40% crit chance and 190% crit dmg, that is enough, and you can build for other stats for the rest of your gear (tough, vit, healing pwr).

Really anything higher is unnecessary.

Mutilate.2796:

I kinda agree with you. The “better” active defense doesnt seem to make up for the huge hp difference in solo situation.

I disagree. It leaves less wiggle room sure, but I feel it’s stronger to have all the active defenses and ohh so much sweeter when you come out of the solo unscathed.

Jerus, we just argued that guardian does not have “that” much better active defense and passive healing than warrior.

That said I prefer guardian after playing all the classes…I guess I’m a masochist

as a wise charr guardian once told me in pve, “I don’t need HP, I have aegis.”

CMF.5461:

Jerus, we just argued that guardian does not have “that” much better active defense and passive healing than warrior.

That said I prefer guardian after playing all the classes…I guess I’m a masochist

Ahh I skimmed, but I will say I don’t agree, thought it depends on the situation, projectiles guardians are WAY above warrior in meta builds. Normal attacks, and we’re just a bit above true. Trash and we’re again quite a bit above.

Also depends on gametype, pve, pvp, and wvw

PvE guards are really strong.

WvW guards are good to have.

PvP guards are in a state of flux but still effective.

Solo, guards start to lose effectivness, as they shine in group scenarios.

Ragnarox.9601:

Guardians are in good place now (somewhere in 10900hp line).

You really… Just… Went there.

/sigh

Thaddeus.4891:

Guardian base hp is 10 900, while Warrior is 18 500, so the difference is more around 60% and not 100%. You need some vitality on your warrior to reach 23k hp.

The difference is that Warrior almost have zero active defense. You have your dodge, an evade with GS and some vigor when trait or with the right skill. So most of your defense come from your big HP pool.

The guardian is at the other extreme and is the king of active defense. Aegis, Blind, Reflect, Condition Removal, Invulnerable, Block, etc The Guardian even with the DPS oriented meta build is packed with a lot of active defense and most of those not only help yourself survive, but also help the team.

Personally, I have a far easier time to survive with my guardian in dungeon, than my Warrior.

> 8 second condition invulnerability while you can still attack
> 4 second invulnerability while you can still attack
> 3s block on shield (can still move)

Yup. Guardian has nothing to envy.

Thaddeus.4891:

Guardian base hp is 10 900, while Warrior is 18 500, so the difference is more around 60% and not 100%. You need some vitality on your warrior to reach 23k hp.

The difference is that Warrior almost have zero active defense. You have your dodge, an evade with GS and some vigor when trait or with the right skill. So most of your defense come from your big HP pool.

The guardian is at the other extreme and is the king of active defense. Aegis, Blind, Reflect, Condition Removal, Invulnerable, Block, etc The Guardian even with the DPS oriented meta build is packed with a lot of active defense and most of those not only help yourself survive, but also help the team.

Personally, I have a far easier time to survive with my guardian in dungeon, than my Warrior.

It’s a 70% hp difference.

And Shield Block, Berserker Stance, Endure Pain, Defy Pain (trait), Whirlwind (evade), Defiant Stance, Cleansing Ire and Shield Master (trait) say ‘hi’ for active defense comparisons.

Tysefol.2017:

Thaddeus.4891:

Guardian base hp is 10 900, while Warrior is 18 500, so the difference is more around 60% and not 100%. You need some vitality on your warrior to reach 23k hp.

The difference is that Warrior almost have zero active defense. You have your dodge, an evade with GS and some vigor when trait or with the right skill. So most of your defense come from your big HP pool.

The guardian is at the other extreme and is the king of active defense. Aegis, Blind, Reflect, Condition Removal, Invulnerable, Block, etc The Guardian even with the DPS oriented meta build is packed with a lot of active defense and most of those not only help yourself survive, but also help the team.

Personally, I have a far easier time to survive with my guardian in dungeon, than my Warrior.

> 8 second condition invulnerability while you can still attack
> 4 second invulnerability while you can still attack
> 3s block on shield (can still move)

Yup. Guardian has nothing to envy.

Warriors are designed to be scrappers, taking personal endurance to a major extreme. Guards are built for group play, sharing its defenses with the group for a higher net effect.

If anything, it just highlights whats wrong with dungeon designs.

Ezrael.6859:

And Shield Block, Berserker Stance, Endure Pain, Defy Pain (trait), Whirlwind (evade), Defiant Stance, Cleansing Ire and Shield Master (trait) say ‘hi’ for active defense comparisons.

And? Are you saying that warrior have more active defense than guardian?

Endure pain is not 4 second invulnerability.

Defy pain isn’t active lol.

Also, opportunity cost. Taking an off-hand shield or taking utilities that only benefit yourself on a long cooldown and needs to be timed properly or else it’s wasted is a problem as opposed to say group aegis which comes on all builds.

Theres a reason why warriors are always picked in pvp over guard and the rare guards in pvp always use bunker build
Aegis doesn’t do anything in teamfights
Endure Pain / Defiant Stance / Defy Pain are simply superior and due to the higher base hp warr can use zerker amulet and retain survivability and sustain.
And they already deal more dmg on base stats.

Pre-patch, warriors were run for shoutbow for their strong support and survivability. Zerker Guardians are vastly better than a zerker warrior in terms of sustain. They have true invulnerabilities, and they can use meditations to heal themselves and they have unavoidable instant cast damage. They also have protection, aegis, and blinds. Warriors have the higher HP pool but they have no way to sustain that HP from any big damage attacks. People don’t look at the big picture when they compare classes, go figure.

This has not changed post-patch. Except shoutbow sucks now.

RevanCorana.8942:

Aegis doesn’t do anything in teamfights

No a Guard with zerker amulet is basically a freekill that doesn’t even deal more damage than a marauder warriors.
The fact that Guards dmg cant compare to Warriors is due 2 things first they need either barbarian or marauder amulet for the vitality being a melee with 11k is just not possible so its a dmg loss.
Then Warriors already have much higher dmg multiplier on autoattacks and skill and can use berserker amulet because of their high vitality.
Also they can ignore team spike for short duration while still attacking for 16 seconds! nothing like renewed focus that removes point capture contribution!

Thaddeus and the OP was talking about fractals and dungeons. That’s why I bring up Aegis. It’s why one of the posts ended with

Personally, I have a far easier time to survive with my guardian in dungeon, than my Warrior.

to which people started bringing up stances and shields and their pvp struggles which doesn’t hold much weight to this particular conversation, because while you could take a lot of that, you’d end up with a deadweight character that doesn’t support.

RevanCorana.8942:

No a Guard with zerker amulet is basically a freekill that doesn’t even deal more damage than a marauder warriors.
The fact that Guards dmg cant compare to Warriors is due 2 things first they need either barbarian or marauder amulet for the vitality being a melee with 11k is just not possible so its a dmg loss.
Then Warriors already have much higher dmg multiplier on autoattacks and skill and can use berserker amulet because of their high vitality.
Also they can ignore team spike for short duration while still attacking for 16 seconds! nothing like renewed focus that removes point capture contribution!

A freekill? Guardian is pretty much the only counter to mesmers in their current state, while mesmers hard counter any warrior not currently in rampage. Yes, the mesmer notorious for their high unavoidable burst damage is at a large disadvantage against a zerker guardian, while they will completely faceroll a warrior. Why you ask? Because their sustainability is simply better. They can survive multiple bursts with their various utility and weapon skills, while also applying large amount of cleave and burning damage that is far harder to avoid than warrior skills. Their ability to instant gap close via ports is also extremely useful.

Guardians are also one of the current classes able to abuse burn damage to ridiculous levels. And regardless what you say, their burst damage potential is insane. Is it larger than warriors? Probably not, but it’s far easier to land high damage skill on a guardian than it is for a warrior to land a high damage skill.

As for your 16seconds of ignoring spike damage, that’s some fairy tail you came up with. No one runs defiant stance for a good reason (as healing signet is better, always) and defy pain is an unreliable trait that procs at 25% health. By then conditions have stacked ontop of you and you might be even be dead already if they hit you with a burst around 30% HP. And then there is Balanced Stance. For a whole two more seconds of physical damage immunity (endure and defy pain +1 second) we lose cleansing ire. No one is going to realistically take that even if we traited for all three stances. So with balanced stance/defy pain/endure pain/defiant stance we would have 13 3/4 seconds of physical immunity and 3 3/4 seconds of complete immunity. Still not 16, and it’s a large nerf to our sustain in reality as both cleansing ire and healing signet are better for that. What warriors do have is four seconds of physical immunity and 8 seconds where conditions can’t be applied to them, plus another 4 seconds of physical immunity that has a strong chance of proccing at a bad time leading us to more likely run away than continue the fight. Assuming conditions don’t kill them before we can run.

If you look at things in a vacuum and fail to look outside the box and see why a zerker guardian has more sustainability than a warrior, I don’t know what to say.

Kagamiku.9731:

Pre-patch, warriors were run for shoutbow for their strong support and survivability. Zerker Guardians are vastly better than a zerker warrior in terms of sustain. They have true invulnerabilities, and they can use meditations to heal themselves and they have unavoidable instant cast damage. They also have protection, aegis, and blinds. Warriors have the higher HP pool but they have no way to sustain that HP from any big damage attacks. People don’t look at the big picture when they compare classes, go figure.

This has not changed post-patch. Except shoutbow sucks now.

the only thing that changed is that rampage is a better skill than any other skill in the game.

It’s not relevant to compare Warrior HP to Guardian HP and conclude there is something wrong with the Guardian class. These are old, tired discussions. Anet want the class to fill a team-support role. I believe that is why our HP is on the low side; we are urged to take advantage of our team as much as our team is to be taking advantage of us. That’s the role Guardians have. The choices for ‘things’ like HP, etc… reflect that.

I run all zerker except for runes. I use the Dolyak runes. Give me some more passive regen extra HP makes me a bit more tanky. But yeah we have a terrible health pool but with medi guard we get a ton of regens.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Kagamiku.9731:

Pre-patch, warriors were run for shoutbow for their strong support and survivability. Zerker Guardians are vastly better than a zerker warrior in terms of sustain. They have true invulnerabilities, and they can use meditations to heal themselves and they have unavoidable instant cast damage. They also have protection, aegis, and blinds. Warriors have the higher HP pool but they have no way to sustain that HP from any big damage attacks. People don’t look at the big picture when they compare classes, go figure.

This has not changed post-patch. Except shoutbow sucks now.

the only thing that changed is that rampage is a better skill than any other skill in the game.

It’s definitely strong but it’s a one trick pony used for one game mode. The strongest skill in the game is Feel my Wrath (funnily enough, it’s a guardian skill) Group wide quickness (5seconds) and fury (10seconds) on a 30second cd (24 seconds when traited). No other quickness skill even comes remotely close. Hell, no other skill even comes close to the damage output it can provide. Compare that to time warp which is 10 seconds of group quickness (and slow) on a 180 second cooldown.

Sorry, but I left the building when they decided that warriors, who were given a high HP pool due to their weakness to conditions and sustained DPS, should receive both the (arguably) best personal condition cleansing trait and the highest HP/s healing skill in the game.