Guild Wars 2

3,102 Attack, 35% Crit Chance, and 74% Crit Damage

OR

3,202 Attack, 30% Crit Chance, and 74% Crit Damage

OR

3,202 Attack, 34% Crit Chance, and 66% Crit Damage

Assuming you’re working on a Judge’s Intervention Hammer/Greatsword build for organized 20+ gameplay, and you were attempting to squeeze out as much damage as possible without giving up all of your sustain, which would you go with?

Between all variants, defensive stats remain stable at 3030 Armor, 16k Health, and 517 Healing. I have access to both Applied Fortitude and Guard Leech and will likely use Life stacks as opposed to Bloodlust because of how powerful Selfless Daring is (though if you believe Bloodlust is a better option for point-lining with a burst build, please discuss). Both weapon sets will utilize Sigils of Energy for more SD availability.

[e] For clarity, the intent of the build is to play a first-in CC and spike damage role. “Bursty” is the feel I’m going for, but I obviously have to make concessions for sustainability for competitive play. Fights get pretty big, so I need to be able to survive constant damage.

Thanks in advance for any and all input.

The attack stat is gibberish and means nothing because the game actually uses power as a coefficient instead of adding it to weapon damage. It’d be nice if Anet would remove it from the hero window because it’s just been confusing people since the game launched.

At any rate, since power is just a coefficient, you can multiply it by 1 + (crit chance * crit damage) to get an easy relative comparison for direct damage.

3102 * (1+(.35 * .74)) = 3905
3202 * (1+(.30 * .74)) = 3913
3202 * (1+(.34 * .66)) = 3920

Note that your real damage is based on power, not the completely useless attack stat, but substituting power into the equation won’t change which number is bigger. Setup number 3 is very slightly higher direct damage.

One thing that will effect the numbers a bit is the presence of fury or Spotter which could be provided by your groupmates and will give more benefit for higher crit damage. If you regularly have those 2 buffs then setup number 2 pulls ahead slightly, as follows:

3102 * (1+(.62 * .74)) = 4525
3202 * (1+(.57 * .74)) = kitten
3202 * (1+(.61 * .66)) = 4491

The bottom line is there’s not a lot of difference but if you have consistent access to fury from your groupmates you get a bit more out of the higher crit damage setups.

Edit: Why on earth is the number “four thousand, five hundred and fifty three” censored?

Good post, thanks. Will take this all into account.

lol at kitten -3 being hit by the kitten censor. wut?

With that build in mind? The middle one for sure. With GS / Hammer and any fire fields you can stack might and make up for your lower crit chance. Apply fury from anywhere and it hardly matters what you bring.

I’m inclined to agree. Are there any opinions concerning Bloodlust vs Life, considering how powerful the 1:1 scaling of Selfless Daring is.

If we dont look at how much damage you do and instead look at your ability to reliably crit and have big numbers i have found that the more reliable burst i have (guardians dont have reliable burst like most other professions) the more the turn out gets predictable.

With that said i would look for reliability instead of max damage and the small differences in dps in your three options are realy tiny tbh.

When it comes to sigils i have skipped using any stacking sigils. Why run with a sigil that prevents me from actually playing the way the build was intended to be played? Assuming that you, like me, use energy as your main sigil.

If you insist in them i would go for bloodlust and use MH+OH to stack fast. I assume you plan on having a zerg setup (based on attack stats posted in OP) and you will still be the last one to go down and honestly healing power on dodge roll is mainly a selfish trait that you wont need based on your level of skill displayed in the healway clips.

Stice.5204:

Edit: Why on earth is the number “four thousand, five hundred and fifty three” censored?

Heh, lol

It’s because the first 3 digits is another word for a donkey: Ass (455)

Brutaly.6257:

If we dont look at how much damage you do and instead look at your ability to reliably crit and have big numbers i have found that the more reliable burst i have (guardians dont have reliable burst like most other professions) the more the turn out gets predictable.

As you said, the differences between the 3 options is pretty minor – none of them are going to give you significant reliability in the damage department.

For a zerg/raid builds I would look at getting precision to just enough to ensure reliable vigor and other on-crit effects and then plow the remaining stats into power and tertiary stats ( vita, toughness or healing ).

For smaller scale, I would favour precision, since your individual damage contribution matters more

To be honest I’d need more info about trait/rune setup to make a firmer decision.

Thanks for the responses so far. Here’s a link to the WIP build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4NF-40M33G-90;9;6TT9;454A18A1;0UVk6;2CqNYCqNY40kc0-35;3wVqW62zYH4M50kVAs170;4F2CoFYDo;9;9;9;9;7VR-6M

My crit chance is technically 31% and my crit damage is 77% because I have Ascended weapons. My Precision is right on the edge of pushing over to 31 without the extra 6 stat.

I typically get my stacks with a staff before any major engagements. If we hit a major engagement before I’ve got a full stack, I’ll just go with what I’ve got.

The additional healing for Selfless Daring is half for the benefit of my guild’s melee train and half for myself. I’m the first in with the JI/ring and need to be able to walk away from it if they don’t panic and decide to drop damage on me. I’m open to considering Bloodlust instead though. I ran it for a long time and do enjoy the additional damage. A flat 250 extra healing per dodge to myself and 4 other members of my melee train is pretty attractive though (plus the several other self-sustain abilities which scale with Healing).

I’m hesitant to run Perception to stack Precision considering how strong additional Power and Healing Power is/can be.

For reference, the benchmarks I’m looking for are: 15.5k to 17k Health, 3k to 3.1k Armor, 2k+ Power, and 500+ Healing Power. Precision and Crit damage are the stats I’m trying to balance. Ideally, I’ll run at least 30% Crit chance and 60% Crit damage. The only things that can’t change are the runes and trait point distribution.

All that said, I’m relatively new to balancing stats for large group DPS-based builds, so I’m open to all points of view and arguments for what should be what and why.

You can math out the comparison between power and precision, too.

Since power is a direct coefficient, increasing your power will simply increase your damage by whatever percentage your power went up. You have 2092 power in the build you linked. A bloodlust sigil can add 250. (2092 + 250) / 2092 = 1.1195. The bloodlust sigil is just under a 12% damage increase.

Every 21 points of precision adds 1% crit chance, so each point of precision adds (1/21) * (crit damage) percent damage increase.

In order to get a 12% damage increase from 250 precision, you’d need 101% crit damage, so power gives you more bang for the buck than precision will at your current stats. As long as you have enough precision to keep your vigor up I wouldn’t bother trying to get more.

It’s much harder to model the value of healing power mathematically, so you’ll just have to weigh that one yourself. The nice thing about defensive stats like healing power is that it is possible to have “enough” of them, unlike damage where more is always better. You can just get a feel for the fights your guild finds itself in and whether your current healing output is sufficient. If it is, Bloodlust all the way. If you need some more staying power, Sigil of Life on a guardian does help quite a bit.

I would add a couple of pvt in your armor, instead of knights. Imo a 16-18k health would be a bit more with in the comfort zone based on the “first in last one out” playstyle i suspect you want. Pretty much how i play it btw. I would also swap the berserkers to valkyrie.

After that i would have a long talk with my team about the importance of fury to compensate. I think the survivability will skyrocket to the moon and as long as you have fury the dps would be more than enough.

I also found the pre/tough/pow trinkets to very good in the build you are looking for, sure power and crit damage goes down but precision goes up by a huge chunk.

Do you have all the armor and trinkets or can you adjust? If you can adjust armor/trinkets i can send you my stormtrooper setup with hammer/gs in a PM or post it here if you like. Its the same traits but more crit and health.

i think taking all things mentioned into consideration, i am more inclined to run with higher precision. so i guess that would the third option, if i had to choose one.

if yo want some numbers for reference, the Critical Hit wiki entry is something i look refer to time to time. it merely illustrates the damage increase from adjusting your two crit modifiers.

so taking rounded options:
Crit chance 30% and 75% crit damage you get – 1.375
Crit chance 35% and 65% crit damage you get – 1.403

So even with less critical damage, you technically gain a small edge over time in the damage department with the 35%/65% split. Though again, the difference in overall damage is minimal and i would look more for the utility that having slightly higher crit chance can bring you. I like to believe, with SD, and your playstyle, higher crit chance would definitely benefit. with the hammer, since it hits slower, i’d like to think that having a higher crit chance is more beneficial as well.

in regards to sigil, i can see where you’re coming from for extra healing stacks. though i personally go for bloodlust most of the time. :PP it’s tough to quantitatively justify this choice but it’s what i’d prefer.

if you’re running with the main zerg, i’m saying bloodlust for sure. i just feel there’s goign to be so much damage that it doesn’t justify having an extra 250 on each dodge roll. of course they add up, but in fights that big, i’m not entierly convinced they’re worthy choosing over bloodlust – especially with GS and hammer combo. but if you’ll be planning on smaller fights, then i can see having life stacks being more beneficial to your team.

what Brutaly said about stacking sigils ring true with me, heh. i always feel sigils play a big part of any given build – again, especially energy sigils.. so i try to get stacks with both MH/OH as fast as i can with animals, lol. and then switch back to my intended weapons and go fight. if time and your group allows you to, of course.

Dont look at the gear i chose but check the stats. Damage wise its marginally worse than the build you have but the difference in healthpool is huge and its marginally worse in toughness.
Just as food for thoughts.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASBmIyKsSsHYMjd86BFdIDB-jEyAY/ARfCU2jIjN9BVZLiGr2GT7GZ9rQqUA6qMC-w

Edit: my point is that i think those >2k health is more worth than the healing power you have in your build.

Fed you stats into my spready, for to calculate the difference Sigil of Life makes on selfless daring in various scenerios ( not all of them realistic ):

Selfless Daring Healing Per Minute:

	517 HP	767 HP	Diff	Notes
—-—————	—-———-	—-———-	—-————-	—-—————————————
Std CD	3507.27	4870.91	+1363.64	Dodge on CD
w/Vigor	6430	8930	+2500	+100% endurance gain
+40% Food	5511.43	7654.29	+2142.86	Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew
Stamina Sigil	19290	26790	+7500	Constant dodging with zerg
Energy Sigil	7014.55	9741.82	+2727.27	1 extra dodge every 10 secs

Also:
Rejuvination: 115.02 ->130.02
Regeneration: 194.63 -> 225.88

A good rule of thumb I tend to go by is that for every 2-3% Crit damage I tend to make sure I have 1% Crit rate otherwise you aren’t utilising that Crit damage to it’s full potential. As for Power having around 2000 is more than adequate for dealing damage.

So 75% Crit Damage with 35% Crit Rate and 2000 Power is a perfectly balanced set of stats and once you have this you can focus everything else on giving yourself more HP and Armour.

Also I’d stack some Sigils of life before you fight then switch weapons to ones with better ‘in combat’ sigils. The extra 250 healing power will be good for the team as a whole since you’ll be dodging about like a lunatic and healing as you go.

tanshiniza.8629:

A good rule of thumb I tend to go by is that for every 2-3% Crit damage I tend to make sure I have 1% Crit rate otherwise you aren’t utilising that Crit damage to it’s full potential. As for Power having around 2000 is more than adequate for dealing damage.

So 75% Crit Damage with 35% Crit Rate and 2000 Power is a perfectly balanced set of stats and once you have this you can focus everything else on giving yourself more HP and Armour.

I would argue that that is not a very good rule of thumb. Crit damage in it self adds very little to overall dps and the only time when its worth stacking is when you go for burst builds and imo that isnt what Op is looking for.
35% crit chance
65% or 75% crit damage
2k power
2000*1,403=2806
2000’1,438=2876
2876-2806=70
70/2806=2,5% increase in overall damage
Or have i missed something here?

Budget wise each percentage of crit damage roughly corresponds to 16 in precision so 10% crit damage corresponds to 150-160 in precision which is 7-8% crit chance. Why i chose to write roughly is that it differs from piece to piece. Celestials excluded in the above, those suckers has their own logic.

In a wvw frontliner crit damage is probably the last stat to invest in from a purely efficiency perspective.

In hope im right in the above or i have been calculating my effective stats badly for a very long time and none of my advise regarding stat optimizing should be taken seriously.

i heard you like stats balancing ^^

Serioulsy i dont understand why people keep posting inflated builds with rather poor stat optimization (just using celstial trinkets is really bad) and try to make them look good.

Start a new thread and remove the buffs and i will with 100% certainty improve those stats for you.

Brutaly.6257:

tanshiniza.8629:

A good rule of thumb I tend to go by is that for every 2-3% Crit damage I tend to make sure I have 1% Crit rate otherwise you aren’t utilising that Crit damage to it’s full potential. As for Power having around 2000 is more than adequate for dealing damage.

So 75% Crit Damage with 35% Crit Rate and 2000 Power is a perfectly balanced set of stats and once you have this you can focus everything else on giving yourself more HP and Armour.

I would argue that that is not a very good rule of thumb. Crit damage in it self adds very little to overall dps and the only time when its worth stacking is when you go for burst builds and imo that isnt what Op is looking for.
35% crit chance
65% or 75% crit damage
2k power
2000*1,403=2806
2000’1,438=2876
2876-2806=70
70/2806=2,5% increase in overall damage
Or have i missed something here?

Budget wise each percentage of crit damage roughly corresponds to 16 in precision so 10% crit damage corresponds to 150-160 in precision which is 7-8% crit chance. Why i chose to write roughly is that it differs from piece to piece. Celestials excluded in the above, those suckers has their own logic.

In a wvw frontliner crit damage is probably the last stat to invest in from a purely efficiency perspective.

In hope im right in the above or i have been calculating my effective stats badly for a very long time and none of my advise regarding stat optimizing should be taken seriously.

I would argue that I said it was a rule of thumb and not the be all and end all and it isn’t perfect by a long shot however it does give an okay basis to work around.

Can you please quote me where I said stacking Crit damage was a good idea? All I stated was if you’re going to have Crit damage you’ll want to have the adequate Crit chance to at least utilise it otherwise it’s just a waste of a statistics slot and may as well be replaced with toughness or something.

Also what are the numbers above showing? I get that 2000 is the power as you’ve stated that but everything is just looks like random numbers. Please list everything appropriately so I can see what I’m looking at. A number is just a number till you give it a meaning.

The difference between 65% and 75% Crit Damage isn’t much at all in the grand scheme of things and seeing Crit damage breach the 80% margin should be the realm of Burst Builds alone really.

So yeah you’ve gone off on a tandem about Crit Damage stacking (still looking for where I said anything about that) where all I meant was Crit damage is pointless without adequate Crit Rate to back it up.

Brutaly.6257:

Serioulsy i dont understand why people keep posting inflated builds with rather poor stat optimization (just using celstial trinkets is really bad) and try to make them look good.

Start a new thread and remove the buffs and i will with 100% certainty improve those stats for you.

here is the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFAGoIyFYLA7BGhfHvekQKyQA-jECBYjAJfFRjtMMIVXRr8KsqaS1abY6XBBA-w
please show me how to improve it master

And as i said i disagree with that rule of thumb since it means lowering your overall dps while you increase the burst, even though very unreliable. Rule of thumb should be the opposite, stack power and crit chance (better budget) and top it off with crit damage to get that extra edge. Ofc in OP build, the doctrine is very different in burst builds.

I didnt state that you did say it was good to stack crit damage. what i said was that the only reason to stack crit damage is when you want to achieve bursts. So it was me stating the amount of crit damage is secondary to precision, not you.

The numbers display how crit chance and crit damage increases dps and it can be found in the link below. 1,408 and 1,438 are the coefficients used with 35% crit chance and 65% and 75% crit damage.
Sorry i thought this link was commonly known, my bad, in these forums. Its been up for discussion in a lot of threads.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit

80% crit damage and 35% crit chance isnt a burst build imo, its far to unreliable due to low crit chance and frankly OP has to low power also to create any significant bursts.

Frankly i cant see that OP asks for a burst build but for a frontline pusher, first in and last one out is my impression but he might want huge burst and i totally misunderstood his intent with the build

So yeah you’ve gone off on a tandem about Crit Damage stacking (still looking for where I said anything about that) where all I meant was Crit damage is pointless without adequate Crit Rate to back it up.

And as a measure of adequate crit chance you said that each percentage of crit chance he should have 2-3% crit damage, as a rule of thumb and its here i disagree.

Precision has a larger impact on dps (budget wise) than crit damage and if he aint going for a high burst build or high dps build (nothing in OP suggests that imo) crit damage should be considerably lower than your rule of thumb.

AgentChaos.4932:

Brutaly.6257:

Serioulsy i dont understand why people keep posting inflated builds with rather poor stat optimization (just using celstial trinkets is really bad) and try to make them look good.

Start a new thread and remove the buffs and i will with 100% certainty improve those stats for you.

here is the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFAGoIyFYLA7BGhfHvekQKyQA-jECBYjAJfFRjtMMIVXRr8KsqaS1abY6XBBA-w
please show me how to improve it master

As i said, start a new thread and i more than willing to do it.

Please be careful not to derail. :/ Thanks a ton for all input so far. I was hoping I’d get some solid numbers and I got them. I’ll certainly be using all of this information as reference today when I find time to work on the build some more.

For clarity, the intent of the build is to play a first-in CC and spike damage role. “Bursty” is the feel I’m going for, but I obviously have to make concessions for sustainability for competitive play. Fights get pretty big, so I need to be able to survive constant damage.

Based on input, I’m considering running a 34% chance and 69% damage setup with a little under 2.1k Power. I feel like 31% isn’t enough chance for hammer. Defensive stats TBD, but I will likely still push for additional healing power. Though as was suggested, I’ll probably play with Bloodlust a little and see how I’m able to keep myself up with that.

Just so those who suggested it know I’ve considered it, running extra Vitality is something I’ve tried but have not felt a need for. I have access to AF which puts my health up to 18.5k, which is far more than I’ve played with in the past with similar armor values.

why would i start a new thread for just 1 comment?

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Thanks for the responses so far. Here’s a link to the WIP build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4NF-40M33G-90;9;6TT9;454A18A1;0UVk6;2CqNYCqNY40kc0-35;3wVqW62zYH4M50kVAs170;4F2CoFYDo;9;9;9;9;7VR-6M

If you swap around stats, you can pick up about 4% crit damage for almost nothing:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4NF-40M33G-90;9;6TT9;454A18A1;0UVk6;2CqNYCqNYn-Fi0-k7;3wVqW62-ZH4M50kVAs1k;5F2CoFYDo;9;9;9;9;7VR-6B

You can’t get the stats exact, but close enough. And looking at ascended weapon stats is hard without having it in the calculator.

Also, why don’t you use Strength in Numbers instead of Retributive Armor and then swap some toughness on gear to precision? Strength in Numbers gives 150 toughness, whereas even at 2000 toughness, you only get 100 precision from Retributive Armor. Are you assuming you’ll get Strength in Numbers from other group members?

I’m guaranteed SiN from other group members (our support Guardians). I’ll take a look at it though, thanks. Hadn’t considered what running it for myself could mean for my gear…even if it’s just for curiosity’s sake.

ah, true. if you’ve AF (which i’m slowly working on.. curse you SAB! XDD), that makes a big difference. and 18k i feel is still more than enough in the current meta, and what you’re aiming to do with your build. good luck!!

yea, try both sigils out. i think both have their place. it’s just hard to say. i’ve thought a bit more about dodgeroll healing over time, and it definitely adds up. at the same time, that extra power might have been all you needed to end the fight early as well. XDD

IMO, shouts don’t mix well with meditations, and now that PoV got fixed you have to sacrifice the rune slot just to get similar condi removal like before.

Since you are going for GS/Hammer, I would recommend a similar set up but go 30/20/20 instead, trait meditations in valor, 2H mastery in honor and trait F3 for stability in virtues. Those are your key traits.

You could also go 10/0/30/20/10 for more burst and DPS but u will lose stability and stomping will be frustrating

Keep in mind Monks focus scales @ 40% of healing power so with your same setup you could be looking at a heafty 2500HP heal per meditation. Add in the fact you can spam smite condition now, and it looks much better. In zergs you can combine SY with restore conditions for some zerg cleansing and IWIN button

Giving up my AoE stability, protection, and condition removal really isn’t an option for competitive play, but I appreciate the suggestion. JI’s entire purpose is more-or-less to get me there first to force early stability and minor heals.

Meditations are definitely stronger than they used to be for solo/small ops roaming and for sPvP. This build is for neither, though.

You are not giving up prot and condi removal, if you go 30/20/20 with Ij, SY and contemplation of purity you will have ~14 sec of prot from SY alone + whatever else u get from SY and contemplation of purity combo.

Its a strong setup, give it a try.

Remember that SY is not target capped, so you get to cleanse your whole zerg and change all the condis into boons.

Brutaly.6257:

Precision has a larger impact on dps (budget wise) than crit damage and if he aint going for a high burst build or high dps build (nothing in OP suggests that imo) crit damage should be considerably lower than your rule of thumb.

Precision has the Greater Impact on DPS and you still seem to think I’m going on about Crit Damage being better for some odd reason.

If you have any critical damage make sure you have the appropriate critical chance to make sure you actually Crit and use this extra damage multiplier. Precision is better for providing good reliable damage and yes Crit Damage is only really good for Burst builds.

I am simply using the first Build the OP posted about where Crit damage is 75% ~ and Crit Rate is 30% ~ which is 2% Crit Damage for 1% Crit Rate. He will naturally have more Crit Damage than Crit Chance as he has gone 30 in Valour which provides 30% straight off the bat hence the 2:1 comparison. I’d rather have 50% Crit Damage and 50% Crit rate with more toughness and HP etc stacked up any day of the week other a higher Crit damage unless I am using a burst build.

We are agreeing with each other but you seem to think I am still telling people to invest in Crit damage instead I am actually say “Please for the love of god Invest in precision to make the most of what you have!”

I am now done and will let this thread run it’s course and please in future attempt to understand where someone is coming from before coming up with a way to attempt to tear them apart.

Brutaly.6257:

Sorry i thought this link was commonly known, my bad, in these forums. Its been up for discussion in a lot of threads.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit

This kind of thing is indirectly insulting and you’ve been doing a lot of that in your posts against me. I’m sorry if I didn’t word myself correctly in my own posts when I tried to get my point across but there isn’t any reason to be an kitten about it.

tanshiniza.8629:

Precision has the Greater Impact on DPS and you still seem to think I’m going on about Crit Damage being better for some odd reason.

I wrote in my last post that it was me that said that your rule of thumb was stacking crit damage. I never said you suggested stacking crit damage.

tanshiniza.8629:

This kind of thing is indirectly insulting and you’ve been doing a lot of that in your posts against me. I’m sorry if I didn’t word myself correctly in my own posts when I tried to get my point across but there isn’t any reason to be an kitten about it.

Frankly it wasnt my intention at all and it has never been my intent in any of my post where i have discussed stuff with you. I thought it was common knowledge and when you suggested over 75% crit damage with very low crit rating i thought you missed it. Not intended at all to be insulting, just informative even though it seems in retrospective it was a bit overambitious.

I never write to insult people i have a reasonable discussion with, like this one, and i blame the bluntness of the media for any misunderstanding and that english isnt my native language.

Glad we came to an understanding! and the final decision of the day Precision is better that Crit Damage

I personally have a goal of at least 40% crit rate, but that’s because I like sigils that utilitzing crit’ing.