Guild Wars 2

I stopped expecting anything from pugs.

“I play how I want. Stop being an elitist”

Obvious troll is obvious.

Honestly warrior is better support than guardian is.

Guardian, more than other classes, can be very helpful or completely useless, people expect you to do decent damage, do support, take mobs aggro and be the last man standing in a fight. If you fail in 2 of those, you are slowing down your team and will probably get bashed.

Dune.2904:

Because compared to my Guardian (I have a complete Zerk Gear for SoloPVE) my Warrior deals so much more Damage against stationary targets (Mesmer or Corner Pull) with the GS/Axe Weapon Swap Build.

That’s really sad, sad but true.
There is no way with any class to do half DPS that GS/Axe warriors can do, and there are so many stationary bosses in the game where the only point is to maximize DPS on a brainless creature that doesn’t even bother to kite any attack.
It’s been one year since I’m asking how can developers be so blind and don’t see a such unbalanced class for the most PvE.

What the hell do you need an anchor guard for in dungeons unless its a fail group. Cond removal is nice though but that can be gotten with a dps build on guard anyways. Either run 30 in honor for PoV or 20 in virtues for absolute resolution, renewed focus and purging flames.

Guard healing is kind of a joke. Elementalist does better healing than us. Now I do agree, aegis, wor, sota, hallowed ground/SYG are guards bread and butter but bringing a guard as a healer is a waste. This game doesn’t need healers per say, just need people to not suck and know how to dodge/avoid the big hits.

Running soldiers gear with dps/hybrid build isn’t THAT bad. in a pug it can save your kitten but I agree in a premade, running zerker is good. I personally usually run soldiers armor with ascended zerker trinkets and back item and zerker weapon. If the group is good, ill switch out the armor for full zerker.

And comparing any DPS to warrior DPS is unfair since we all know, warriors are the golden children of Anet. Finally if you are pugging to try and do dungeons in some record time, that is your first mistake. I personally run dungeons for fun since I really don’t care if I finish the dungeon in some record time. I would rather enjoy myself and take 5 mins longer to finish, not like I’m in some rush.

I don’t expect anything from Guardians in pug groups. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Just finished running a fractal on my Necromancer for the daily (necro is dagger/warhorn + dagger/focus, full zerker), and I got 4 random guardians with me.
Wow, what luck. This should be easy and quick. Nope.

We get both swamp (mossman) and grawl, and not a single WoR or SotA was used.
To top it off, 2 of them were running around spamming Staff #1 pretty much the entire run, and when we got to Maw one of them stood for almost a full minute spamming Scepter #1 against one of the colossi, not realizing they have permanent reflection.

SgtSarcasm.1653:

Just finished running a fractal on my Necromancer for the daily (necro is dagger/warhorn + dagger/focus, full zerker), and I got 4 random guardians with me.
…..

We get both swamp (mossman) and grawl, and not a single WoR or SotA was used.

Something died somewhere inside me.

SgtSarcasm.1653:

I don’t expect anything from Guardians in pug groups. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Just finished running a fractal on my Necromancer for the daily (necro is dagger/warhorn + dagger/focus, full zerker), and I got 4 random guardians with me.
Wow, what luck. This should be easy and quick. Nope.

We get both swamp (mossman) and grawl, and not a single WoR or SotA was used.
To top it off, 2 of them were running around spamming Staff #1 pretty much the entire run, and when we got to Maw one of them stood for almost a full minute spamming Scepter #1 against one of the colossi, not realizing they have permanent reflection.

Haha, oh man, that’s hilarious and sad at the same time. Staff is such a useless weapon except in TA. You sir must have worse luck than me to draw 4 guards who all don’t know wtf is going on.

Did you complete the run?

If so I am wondering what the issue is.

Sauzo.6821:

And comparing any DPS to warrior DPS is unfair since we all know, warriors are the golden children of Anet.

guard deals more dps than warrior in a group.

3k on sword auto? Even if your damage is that low the full chain would still deal more than 10k damage in 2.5 secs, without a cd, shrugs.

As for pugs, yes they suck, but you shouldn’t be pointing a finger.

stemare.2578:

There is no way with any class to do half DPS that GS/Axe warriors can do, …

Sauzo.6821:

And comparing any DPS to warrior DPS is unfair since we all know, warriors are the golden children of Anet.

Strictly speaking single target sustained DPS, in the scenario that I’ve been testing under, Guards and most every other class are competitive with Warriors in DPS if built for it. Zerker setup with optimized traits for each weapon my Guard numbers show as being on par with Warrior. For example Warrior 30/0/0/10/30 Axe/Axe and Axe/Mace is just about exactly the same as Guard 10/30/30/0/0 Sword/Torch. Warrior 30/25/0/0/10 GSword is right in line with Guard 20/25/0/25/0 GSword.

The reason for posting this is to find an accurate answer, not to start a war vs guard debate or talk about survivability or viability. Just raw DPS potential.

Do you guys have actual DPS data, not derived from spreadsheet calculations but actual play?

I started testing because I’m a DPS kitten and wanted the highest DPS class. I didn’t want to level a Warrior. My findings tell me that if you build dps, excluding a few builds on a few classes, most everything is pretty close.

Are Warriors much better with might/vuln scaling than other classes?

Again, I’m just looking for accurate data, not a flame war or anything.

Thanks,

Blood~

ele deals most dps if you are looking for the highest dps profession

NoTrigger.8396:

ele deals most dps if you are looking for the highest dps profession

Tested that also, on par with other classes. Do you have any numbers or data? What build is used?

Bloodgruve.6038:

Are Warriors much better with might/vuln scaling than other classes?

Nope. But they do have banners, and everyone loves banners.

Also, on eles, anything that synergies with LH has a ludicrous amount of dps.
My ele run 30/25/0/15/0 and 9, 9, 17k crits are actually common while auto attacking.

Bloodgruve.6038:

NoTrigger.8396:

ele deals most dps if you are looking for the highest dps profession

Tested that also, on par with other classes. Do you have any numbers or data? What build is used?

There is this 30/20/10/10/0 staff ele built which deals tonns of damage just by using lava font and autoattacking or the lightning hammer ele built 25/25/0/20/0 built.

They tested the builts in dnt guild speedruns but the lightning hammer built requires other people to put conditions on the monster to maximise damage so it will not perform as well in a solo situtation

Dune.2904:

Oxxy.7068:

3k on sword auto? Even if your damage is that low the full chain would still deal more than 10k damage in 2.5 secs, without a cd, shrugs.

As for pugs, yes they suck, but you shouldn’t be pointing a finger.

Yeah enlighten me about your constant 6k Sword Autos. I read a lot of DPS Threads and seen a lot of Speed Run Videos and posting in the forums about your normal 6k hits or a 40k WW is anything but realiable constant DPS Output in a dungeon against real opponents. You just have to look at the Arah Speed Run Videos to get a view for reality.
Or why the hell does nearly every speed record include 3 warriors? For 3 banners? Sure, why not include 1 warrior with 2-3 banners then if the other classes have higher DPS.

What makes you think every group upload their best times?
Also, look at the SEP1 “record”, in the “reality” we have right now putting two eles would’ve made it faster simply because of FGS, so the group would be something like guardian, ele, ele, warrior, something. I guess people don’t upload fgs stuff because they think it is not fair play for speed records.
Brazil’s speed CoF clear for instance had two thieves, one ranger, warrior and mesmer.
Just because you think 3 warriors are the next best thing after Megadeth doesn’t mean it is true.

As for my sword autos, i’m usually hitting 4.3~ 4.8k on bosses, while pugging.

I don’t “think” that guardian can outclass warrior in equal footing on sustained dps (warrior have more burst, which is better for clearing trash), it is a general consensus. Ask anyone with half a brain. Even better, just ask the peeps from the dungeon forum, at least they know their kitten.

Also, take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p8bh-_wzXk
See that? Two eles, one thief, warrior and mesmer. OH MY GOD IT IS NOT 3 WARRIORS. And i’m not even going to reply that frog argument.

Because you only need one guardian, replacing a guardian for a warrior is usually a bad choice if you only have one guardian on your group. Same thing goes for warrior, you seems to believe that warriors are the god’s gift to humanity (well, banners are), but most groups don’t need more than one. And yes, ele have spike damage, so does warrior (MUH 100B), what i’m pointing out here is that ele’s spike is higher than warrior’s, with most likely more DPS while hitting with LH instead of FGS.

As for pug runs, what i can tell from your first post is that you’ve played with terrible pugs and nothing more, let’s take CoE for example, WoR and SotA are useful as hell on the golem guy to avoid insta kills, aegis is highly valuable on the destroyer fight and cleasing in general is good on most fights; everything about CoE applies to CM (well, aside from aegis), SE and TA, and while organized groups can cover all that stuff without a guardian, pugs in general will most likely have a much easier time with one.

Guardian spamming sword auto attack canout-dps a warrior with appropriate buffs, and that’s not even including unscathed contender. It isnt unconditionally better though, you need to meet x conditions. Warriors can burst better though due to 100b and the likes.

A zerk guard should still provide all relevant utility/support, it’s not like zerk guards don’t have reflects and aegis. Just bad guards don’t have reflects and aegis.

Dune, the reason these guilds run things like 3 war/1 guard/1 mes in their videos is because it’s easy and they’re playing to have fun.

If they went out of their way to min-max, you’d start seeing a lot more of other classes.

Honestly the main strength of having 3 warriors is just really easy might and vuln stacking, on top of decent DPS.

Remember when I told everyone to get over HB’s one big number, and everyone told me to stop making straw man arguments?

Well, the straw man is right here and he’s posting right now.

I finally got around to modeling thief, which gives me a full DPS tier list, and it looks like this:

Max buffed, from best to worst:

Mesmer (Sw/Sw with 3 phantasms) = ~15k
Thief (D/D backstab) = ~13.5k
Elementalist (fire staff or LH) = ~13k
Guardian (GS+Sword) = ~11k
Necromancer (D/F+WH with all minions) = ~11k
Warrior (Axe+GS) = ~10k
Ranger (Sword and Feline pet) = ~9.5k
Engineer (Grenades) = ~9k

Off the top of my head, anyway. As you can see, ,the difference between the top three and the rest is fairly severe (Ele sits at 13k, while Guardian and Necro are around 11k) but the rest are pretty close together. You can also tell that the top three have “special conditions” on achieving max DPS, as does Necromancer, so Guardian is actually the highest unconditional DPS you will get.

Guanglai – MM Necro? Really? I’ve been away for 4-5 months, so I’m not arguing, but….wow. When did that happen.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Remember when I told everyone to get over HB’s one big number, and everyone told me to stop making straw man arguments?

Well, the straw man is right here and he’s posting right now.

I finally got around to modeling thief, which gives me a full DPS tier list, and it looks like this:

Max buffed, from best to worst:

Mesmer (Sw/Sw with 3 phantasms) = ~15k
Thief (D/D backstab) = ~13.5k
Elementalist (fire staff or LH) = ~13k
Guardian (GS+Sword) = ~11k
Necromancer (D/F+WH with all minions) = ~11k
Warrior (Axe+GS) = ~10k
Ranger (Sword and Feline pet) = ~9.5k
Engineer (Grenades) = ~9k

Off the top of my head, anyway. As you can see, ,the difference between the top three and the rest is fairly severe (Ele sits at 13k, while Guardian and Necro are around 11k) but the rest are pretty close together. You can also tell that the top three have “special conditions” on achieving max DPS, as does Necromancer, so Guardian is actually the highest unconditional DPS you will get.

OT:
Where would Mes fall down with 2, 1 or 0 phantams?

Nice list tho, +1

Sannhet.8745:

Guanglai – MM Necro? Really? I’ve been away for 4-5 months, so I’m not arguing, but….wow. When did that happen.

I don’t think it did, for what i can tell he just tested the dps assuming the minions will remain alive all the time, same as mesmers, which means that is “peak” dps, in most fights any minions are going to die because of splash damage anyways.

Guang, you should list the conditionals for that DPS to be met. Otherwise we’re going to end up with Mesmers who have an average of 1 phantasm per minute claiming they do uber DPS.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Guang, you should list the conditionals for that DPS to be met. Otherwise we’re going to end up with Mesmers who have an average of 1 phantasm per minute claiming they do uber DPS.

Uh, sure.

Mesmer: 10/30/0/0/30, Sw/Sw and Sw/P. Must maintain 3 phantasms and all Mantras. Phantasms worth approximately 2.4k each.
Thief: 25/30/0/0/15, D/D. Rotation is one auto-attack chain, C&D, Backstab every 4 seconds. Must always flank.
Elementalist: 30/15/25/0/0 or 30/20/10/10/0, staff. All hits of Lava Font must connect.
Guardian: 10/30/30/0/0, GS + Sw/X. Rotation is WW > Symbol > AA > WW > sword AA for 10s, repeat. All hits of WW must connect.
Necromancer: 30/25/0/0/15, D/F + WH. Must maintain all minions. Minions worth about 1.1k in total.
Warrior: 30/0/0/10/30 Axe/M + Axe/Sw. Must always complete AA chain before swapping or using skills.
Ranger: 20/30/5/15/0 Sw/Wh + Sw/A. Pet must survive.
Engineer: 30/5/0/10/25 P/S with Grenade Kit. Throw Freeze and Shrapnel grenades on cooldown.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Guang, you should list the conditionals for that DPS to be met. Otherwise we’re going to end up with Mesmers who have an average of 1 phantasm per minute claiming they do uber DPS.

Uh, sure.

Mesmer: 10/30/0/0/30, Sw/Sw and Sw/P. Must maintain 3 phantasms and all Mantras. Phantasms worth approximately 2.4k each.
Thief: 25/30/0/0/15, D/D. Rotation is one auto-attack chain, C&D, Backstab every 4 seconds. Must always flank.
Elementalist: 30/15/25/0/0 or 30/20/10/10/0, staff. All hits of Lava Font must connect.
Guardian: 10/30/30/0/0, GS + Sw/X. Rotation is WW > Symbol > AA > WW > sword AA for 10s, repeat. All hits of WW must connect.
Necromancer: 30/25/0/0/15, D/F + WH. Must maintain all minions. Minions worth about 1.1k in total.
Warrior: 30/0/0/10/30 Axe/M + Axe/Sw. Must always complete AA chain before swapping or using skills.
Ranger: 20/30/5/15/0 Sw/Wh + Sw/A. Pet must survive.
Engineer: 30/5/0/10/25 P/S with Grenade Kit. Throw Freeze and Shrapnel grenades on cooldown.

Seems like a fast guard rotation. Isn’t including gs5 and sword AA for ~14 secs optimal?

Its not full minions. Its blood fiend, shadow fiend, WoS, Signet of Spite and flesh golem.

Wukunlin.8461:

I stopped expecting anything from pugs.

“I play how I want. Stop being an elitist”

I stopped adding pug guardians as well. I put them in the same league as rangers. There’s few things I trust a pug with, one of them is playing zerk warrior because it is braindead easy.

A typical pug guardian: Doesn’t use virtues, doesn’t use reflects, uses tanky (pvt, clerics, knights) gear and literally does nothing, not even condition removal. He tends to think he is doing something merely by standing around hitting things and ‘holding agro’ on mobs that should have been dead 5 mins ago but are not because his dps is so poor. His secondary set almost always is scepter/shield or scepter/focus or staff which he will sit on for the majority of the run and auto attack with. If players could be npcs, a pug guardian could very likely come close one.

Seems to me that since the warrior rotation seems easier to pull off that its practical DPS is higher than Guang likes to think it is.

Full Scepter no WoR DPezz seems to be the PUG Guardian meta.

To anyone out there playing full scepter DPS, with no WoR/Aegis/Shouts.
Shame on you.

It’s been quite some time since i last saw a full scepter guardian. I’ve seen plenty of mace + staff lately tho. I’ve also seen a guy using meditations on CoE last week. Meditations. On. PvE.

Just teamed up with a Scepter/torch guardian, where is your god now?

Was with a scepter/shield guardian last night. Err yeah…

colesy.8490:

Seems to me that since the warrior rotation seems easier to pull off that its practical DPS is higher than Guang likes to think it is.

The warrior rotation is easy but it simply doesn’t get you as much even if you minmax it perfectly. Keep in mind that while stuff like the Mesmer’s “three phantasms at all times” sounds annoying, a mesmer with only one phantasm still keeps up with a warrior just fine. Similarly, a thief will still outDPS a warrior even if he’s not in flank mode all the time.

Heiltdo.2891:

Just teamed up with a Scepter/torch guardian, where is your god now?

I just teamed with a scepter/shield guard. Karma at its finest.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Guang, you should list the conditionals for that DPS to be met. Otherwise we’re going to end up with Mesmers who have an average of 1 phantasm per minute claiming they do uber DPS.

Uh, sure.

Mesmer: 10/30/0/0/30, Sw/Sw and Sw/P. Must maintain 3 phantasms and all Mantras. Phantasms worth approximately 2.4k each.
Thief: 25/30/0/0/15, D/D. Rotation is one auto-attack chain, C&D, Backstab every 4 seconds. Must always flank.
Elementalist: 30/15/25/0/0 or 30/20/10/10/0, staff. All hits of Lava Font must connect.
Guardian: 10/30/30/0/0, GS + Sw/X. Rotation is WW > Symbol > AA > WW > sword AA for 10s, repeat. All hits of WW must connect.
Necromancer: 30/25/0/0/15, D/F + WH. Must maintain all minions. Minions worth about 1.1k in total.
Warrior: 30/0/0/10/30 Axe/M + Axe/Sw. Must always complete AA chain before swapping or using skills.
Ranger: 20/30/5/15/0 Sw/Wh + Sw/A. Pet must survive.
Engineer: 30/5/0/10/25 P/S with Grenade Kit. Throw Freeze and Shrapnel grenades on cooldown.

I guess if we are talking about MAX damage, I can understand where these combos come from. I just question how realistic this quantification reflects the average player, because let’s face it, the average player probably isn’t doing most of these things.

If the average player can’t double WW and press #1 for 10 seconds the playerbase here is worse than i thought. Thief, engie, ele and guardian’s dps seems easy to peak out, actually, aside from maintaing AI alive everything seems pretty easy to peak.

Oxxy.7068:

If the average player can’t double WW and press #1 for 10 seconds the playerbase here is worse than i thought. Thief, engie, ele and guardian’s dps seems easy to peak out, actually, aside from maintaing AI alive everything seems pretty easy to peak.

Agree.

I agree that some min/max gimmicks might be very uncomfortable to pull off (see Desperate Power or Unschated Contender), or that most ppl will not min/max the gear at his extreme (manly, making a zerk sword with every slaying sigil or even 2 swords for sigil of the night), or running the very extreme DPS builds (for example guards using 10/30/0/20/10 instead of 20/30/0/5/25).

Look, i’m be fine with that.

But there are ppl not being able to follow a simple rotation, strategy, build, gear to maximize their efficency, because using brain cells troughout a DG is too hard….and they seems to be either the Anet’s target player or the majority of playerbase lately.

@ Oxxy

I’m not talking about someone’s capability to pressing a button. I’m talking about what average people do when they play. Maybe I’m just not aware but I haven’t ever seen a Guardian swap every 7 seconds between GS and Sword to maximize their damage …. anywhere. That’s why I’m concerned about how closely the theoretical matches to the reality of what happens ingame and therefore, how such a theoretical approach to assessing a profession’s max damage is used to evaluate players.

For me the chart is useful from a development POV … devs would find such a thing useful to see where certain professions might be running away or falling behind in capability from the rest. As a player, I find that information hard to use.

That data is not meant to match with everyone, it is meant to show how much potential damage said class can pull off if the player wants to. And like i said earlier, anything aside from keeping AI alive is pretty easy to do.

Obtena.7952:

@ Oxxy

I’m not talking about someone’s capability to pressing a button. I’m talking about what average people do when they play. Maybe I’m just not aware but I haven’t ever seen a Guardian swap every 7 seconds between GS and Sword to maximize their damage …. anywhere. That’s why I’m concerned about how closely the theoretical matches to the reality of what happens ingame and therefore, how such a theoretical approach to assessing a profession’s max damage is used to evaluate players.

For me the chart is useful from a development POV … devs would find such a thing useful to see where certain professions might be running away or falling behind in capability from the rest. As a player, I find that information hard to use.

Did you really just pick “weapon swapping” as your one example of “hard things to do in dungeons”?

I did a search for where I said it was hard to swap weapons. I didn’t find it. So I guess the answer to your question is “NO”.

Then why are you acting like a Guardian using a weapon swap rotation is so improbable?

I’m not. I’ve just never seen anyone doing it to maximize damage. There is a BIG difference between what could be done and what is actually happening. That’s what my point is.

You defined the ceiling, we know what the floor is. I want to know where average players are. It’s certainly not the ceiling and it’s not the floor either. I’m not discussing how easy it is to get to the ceiling; that’s just player preference. I’m discussing how relevant the ceiling is for considering what damage actual players do.

Well i do swap, i’ve never seen any pug swaping to be honest, but i assume it is mostly from lazyness (i mean, i don’t swap while clearing trash for example). His data is useful for me, most of the time, and that’s what i care about, if the pugs are meeleing and using zerk gear they’re good enough, i can’t expect’em to do skill rotations.

Yes, so if I’m in a situation with a PUG, and I don’t expect then to swap (or do 80% of that other stuff he listed if they are other professions), where do they ACTUALLY sit in a damage ranking with other professions? That chart won’t tell me. So what is the value there other than trying to engineer the highest damage PVE dungeon team?

Assuming the warrior ins’t doing any rotations and just sitting in greatsword… any guardian would still deal more dps (with a wider gap) just by spamming sword autos. :|

I’m not really sure how other classes dps would go though, but i’m pretty sure that dishing out a decent amount of dps as a guardian is far easier than any other class.

So the pug level has gotten this low that, after not expecting them to dodge, not expecting them to gear and build properly, not expecting them to use proper tactics, now i should stop expecting them using the “\” button?

Neat.