Guild Wars 2

How are you getting 490 as the base DPS on GS but 520 on WoP hammer? I’m sure there’s going to be some minor variations here and there due to the way we choose to calculate rotations, etc. but I’m getting 504 on non-WoP GS and 505 on WoP Hammer which puts their base damage almost exactly equal. What accounts for the 11% or so DPS difference in your version? I’m assuming it’s the difference in the assumed number of hits for Whirling Wrath but even if all the projectiles whiff entirely that’s still not worth 10% of the GS’s overall damage output.

I find condition removal from virtue almost useless except for thrash runs to remove those pesky chills, cripples etc. I mean it’s nice to have but not worth the sacrifice since purging flames or a mesmer with half a brain can cover all the removal you need.
If you can keep unscathed it’s obvious which build is the best so I won’t go there.
I prefer the sword/greatsword rotation because it’s still a dps gain even without the 5% trait for gs and even after sw got buffed to 10%.
My train of thought went like this→ I assumed I need a minimal of 10/25/0/5/10. This leaves me with 20 points. 5 for RHS,10 for whatever the 5%gs is called. 5 trait points left and since as I mentioned I don’t care for retreat cd, might as well improve symbol a bit(almost useless) and gain 50 power.
Also, did you guys notice the guardian meta has been shook from the grounds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMpyuieGyhc

It doesn’t matter how much DPS 30/30/5/5/0 gets. The meta build isn’t the meta build because it’s the highest DPS, it’s the meta build because it’s the highest DPS with the least DPS sacrificed for the best possible support.

Also, he’s kind of a doofus for picking 5 Valor and not 5 Virtues.

I think it’s funny that all you need to do is put “ULTIMATE DPS” in the video title and/or description and random people will go around yelling about new meta.

robertul.3679:

Also, did you guys notice the guardian meta has been shook from the grounds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMpyuieGyhc

Unless the meta got a heart attack due to how bad that build is, it doesn’t change anything. Except that, since it’s Nemesis, I expect a lot of fools to run around with a bad build in the near future.

CptAurellian.9537:

robertul.3679:

Also, did you guys notice the guardian meta has been shook from the grounds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMpyuieGyhc

Unless the meta got a heart attack due to how bad that build is, it doesn’t change anything. Except that, since it’s Nemesis, I expect a lot of fools to run around with a bad build in the near future.

Atleast its better than them running around in cleric mace shield builds I suppose.

Hi Guang, the difference between your base dps numbers and mine could be due to the cast times we allocated to specific skills?

For example – 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. 505 might imply that you used 3.8 as the cast time?
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’ve 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.

I’m guessing you used slightly more favorable cast times for the greatsword skills?

spoj.9672:

CptAurellian.9537:

robertul.3679:

Also, did you guys notice the guardian meta has been shook from the grounds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMpyuieGyhc

Unless the meta got a heart attack due to how bad that build is, it doesn’t change anything. Except that, since it’s Nemesis, I expect a lot of fools to run around with a bad build in the near future.

Atleast its better than them running around in cleric mace shield builds I suppose.

It is also easier to spot and boot. I, for one, can’t wait to see people running this.

See, what did I tell you. Totally OP.

fadeaway.2807:

Hi Guang, the difference between your base dps numbers and mine could be due to the cast times we allocated to specific skills?

For example – 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. 505 might imply that you used 3.8 as the cast time?
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’ve 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.

I’m guessing you used slightly more favorable cast times for the greatsword skills?

Oh lol I see what happened, Anet stealth buffed the hammer symbol to be +2 ticks with WoP. That is extremely silly.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

fadeaway.2807:

Hi Guang, the difference between your base dps numbers and mine could be due to the cast times we allocated to specific skills?

For example – 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. 505 might imply that you used 3.8 as the cast time?
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’ve 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.

I’m guessing you used slightly more favorable cast times for the greatsword skills?

Oh lol I see what happened, Anet stealth buffed the hammer symbol to be +2 ticks with WoP. That is extremely silly.

I wouldn’t call it stealth, it was in the patchnotes.

I must have missed it then. It makes hammer really good, DPS-wise.

I’m getting GS levels of damage on a 25/25/0/20/0 hammer spec. It is literally like less than a percent less. GS/Hammer swap is probably better than a GS/Sword swap now even. Although again, the difference is very minimal so it’s really a question of whether you want that extra vuln + might + prot at the cost of kittening with everyone’s fire fields.

I run GS/Sw 10/25/0/25/10 for fractals simply for the extra vit in my zerker gear.

cost of kittening with everyone’s fire fields.

Yeah, that bugs me, wish fire was prioritized over light.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I must have missed it then. It makes hammer really good, DPS-wise.

I’m getting GS levels of damage on a 25/25/0/20/0 hammer spec. It is literally like less than a percent less. GS/Hammer swap is probably better than a GS/Sword swap now even. Although again, the difference is very minimal so it’s really a question of whether you want that extra vuln + might + prot at the cost of kittening with everyone’s fire fields.

As a consolation you could always start off with Purging Flames + Hammer Skill #2. That way you and the Elementalist can still supply your party with might stacks at the start of each fight.

It still would be nice if player’s own combo fields would prioritize over others. This would fix some conflicting combo issues I think.

Yeah hammer is a really powerful dps weapon now. It gets less damage modifiers than other specs but the base damage is sky high.

My biggest issue with it is that 2/3 of the hammer dps comes from the final hit in the chain (which applies the symbol) so it suffers the most from inappropriate dodges etc. It can get you killed a lot if you’re not disciplined.

Also I feel whenever I spec for hammers and find myself in a group who are ranging a boss or I wouldn’t want to melee the boss myself, I miss the scepter dps.

is it me or is the picture really tiny

jingkangtan.6752:

is it me or is the picture really tiny

oh very tiny. But you can ctrl+mousewheel

jingkangtan.6752:

is it me or is the picture really tiny

Click to zoom.

How is the damage reduction calculated for builds like 15 / 15 / 0 / 20 / 20 ? Does it take into account that it’s a hammer build and therefore include the damage reduction from the Symbol of Protection?

Damage reduction:

Imagine the output of the damage formula is 1,836,000.
A elementalist/mesmer/necro has a base armor of 1836.

The damage formula ends by taking the output of the damage formula and dividing by the target’s armor value.
1836000 / 1836 = 1000.

Now take the guardian’s base armor of 2127.
1836000 / 2127 = 863.18
aka damage reduction of 13.68% which is what you see listed in the picture for glass builds (I just noticed some of the DR numbers on my spreadsheet are still shown as decimals rather than %s, woops).

On the other end of the spectrum, 0/0/30/30/10 has 3322 armor, which is 44.73% damage reduction.

Effective hp was just an extension of that. If you and the ele listed above both have 1000hp, while he effectively has 1000hp, in comparison you have approx 1158. It will take 1158 worth of damage (1158 reduced by 13.58% is 1000) to kill you. To use the 0/0/30/30/10 example above, it will take 1809 damage to kill someone with 1000hp and 44.73% damage reduction.

I took the character’s base HP (plus traits and gear) and did not assume any heals. Heals would increase the impact of damage reduction on the overall effective hp.

I did not take protection into account, even for hammer builds.

If the picture is too small I can try and take a better one. It was just a screencap from an excel page.

Would you consider throwing this up on google docs and allowing contributions? Might be nice to offload the burden of testing additional specs or very specific gear choices. I’d also like to add the burning module I’m working on to it at some point.

Sorry foofad I didn’t see that.

A very early version of my work is on google docs somewhere from an old thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/visualized-dps-difference-between-specs/) I think there were a couple of minor errors though. It’s not what generated the numbers in this thread though. I don’t really know how to allow contributions on a google doc though. With the testing, it can get confusing with different people testing unless it’s definite that they have all used the same scenarios. Happy to let people play with it though if that’s easy to do.

Please test out the fury build:
0/15/30/20/5

cyrixblack.9073:

Please test out the fury build:
0/15/30/20/5

idgi

cyrixblack.9073:

Please test out the fury build:
0/15/30/20/5

Without actual testing, it’s going to be horrendous for damage. No Zeal, No Multipliers, only intermittent high crit rates … this is probably only marginally better than 0/0/30/30/10

Obtena.7952:

cyrixblack.9073:

Please test out the fury build:
0/15/30/20/5

Without actual testing, it’s going to be horrendous for damage. No Zeal, No Multipliers, only intermittent high crit rates … this is probably only marginally better than 0/0/30/30/10

OP’s test already takes into account the variable that you have 100% Fury up. Therefore testing a Fury build will not come out positively. However, comparing it to an AH build is blowing it out of proportions imho.

I am interested in knowing how a build such as 10/25/20/5/10 would pan out. Because realistically, not every party you join has a constant up-time of fury, especially if you’re pugging. With the new meditation heal it leaves space open for other utilities for specific encounters such as WoR and PG.

This is great work. I would like to add this to the dps guard sticky if that’s ok with you. It seems good to show people the tradeoff of dps they will get from running the different variations from the support they will give up.

Could you add the following in? I’m curious to see the difference in just going 10 in virtues as well as going full dps with no support.

• 20/30/5/5/10
• 20/30/10/0/10
• 20/30/20/0/0
• 25/25/0/20/0

Great work OP.

Regarding making it public on google i think its a good idea. You would definitely get some assistance to add more builds that are of general interest.

There are a number of builds that has general interest that would be great if they where in there. The ones that come to mind are:

10/25/30/5/0 (2H)
0/30/30/5/5 (1H)
0/5/30/30/5 (Probabaly one of the most common builds in the game)
10/0/0/30/30
If those where added the chart would be of a general interest in all game modes and not just pve.

So i suggest you share the chart and some more builds and this deserves a sticky on its own.

Totally happy for you to use it Obal, I’d be honored. As for the spec suggestions, I’ll get you some numbers at my next opportunity.

I’ll see what i can do about the sharing. Hopefully I can find a way to set a standard testing scenario (eg 25 might, fury, etc) and lock it down on the spreadsheet so we don’t get confused with different peoples results being different.

Why is there such a big disparity in dps with your first entry on greatsword and your fourth entry on greatsword?

Edit: Ignore this question, I was reading on a tablet and with the crappy resolution the 9 up front looked like a 3.

Lack of Night Sigil would be my assumption.

am i the only one who runs 10/25/0/25/10 ?

Probably not the only one, but that build lacks a lot of the “support” that Virtues can provide (Absolute Resolution mainly.) They damage throughput will likely be similar, but the ability to effortlessly pull conditions off with Resolve is hard to pass up.

Having heard the news about vigorous precision being nerfed, I’ve started trying to push myself out of lazy-mode 10/30/0/5/25 and closer to the 20/25/0/0/25. I really have been spoiled with 100% vigor uptime. I’d already been running it for random dungeons, but it will certainly require a bit of effort at the higher level fractals.

Absolute Resolution is kind of average. It’s mostly there as a place-filler when you are running 20/25/X/X/X and want 10 for Master of Consecrations, which leaves you with 15 points and not much to do with them.

If you consider it average (and not worth running), you also have the option of running Unscathed and MoC in tandem, though.

Unscathed benefits heavily from Retreat, which benefits from Shout cooldown reduction which you’re precluded from if you go the full 20 into Virtues. Not that it’s a terrible idea to use untraited Retreat, but it is kind of a pain.

foofad.5162:

Unscathed benefits heavily from Retreat, which benefits from Shout cooldown reduction which you’re precluded from if you go the full 20 into Virtues. Not that it’s a terrible idea to use untraited Retreat, but it is kind of a pain.

Or just dont get hit so you dont need retreat in all situations.

check this

https://www.dropbox.com/s/25hg3sb7a9xy53z/Captura%20de%20pantalla%202014-02-18%2014.24.10.png

its my dps build

zerk items+scholar also

And what’s that build supposed to accomplish? The meta has significantly more DPS and also more support by a large margin, while being on the same level of survivability.

hey, can you calculate this build for me please?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARSlUgiC3FyMEfIFRWBRaVAg1Mi39wZgRPC-jAxAkoAVcLiGruGT5SEVDA-e