Guild Wars 2

I have a lvl 80 warrior, just got to 80 on my guardian.

Now, I was trying to find a build like my warrior (shout build that helps support my team but also does damage, because for most content, you really don’t need that much healing), I went with an AH build (0/10/30/30/0).

After some confusion I ended up gearing like my warrior lol, knights armor, zerker trinks, the hell with vit right? i use a gs on my warrior but have a hammer on my guard (superior sigil of blood on weapons due to high crit %).

stats:
Power: 1935
49% crit, 83 damage
Armor: 2771
Health: 13945, 300 healing power

other than my health, these are pretty solid stats, but I do like no damage. hammer is great for hitting a lot of enemies but in CoF exp a good MB crit is like 3200 dmg. even adding in my auto attacks and tick dmg to the enemy its nothing compared to the 17k+ dmg I can do with one hundred blades with my warrior and with max might stacks and vulnerability stacks on my target, 3k dmg with my last auto attack. (most of those stacks provided by myself btw)

so my big question, should i bother putting any emphasis on dmg at all? and if i go more tank, how would i support my team better? since healing power tends to be a waste. is AH not as good of a build as i think it is? cause it makes a lot of sense to me. in dungeons i tend to be fine, i die sometimes when overwhelmed, and i do have a hard time face-tanking bosses when i dont have melee next to me. but when i have a full melee group, i can face-tank nearly anything cause i can heal when i put boons on them. im sure an omnomberry pie would make me invincible but, id rather not spend 5s every 30 min!

sorry for the long post, i just feel like im missing something, with how im built on both characters my warrior seems to have a much better dmg to support ratio. i enjoy the mechanics of my guardian, but i still want to be effective!

You are one squishy guardian.

You’re also spoiled. No class…except perhaps a thief, can match the damage output of a warrior. My ranger would kill her pet to have the damage output of my guardian, and let me tell you…It’s a lot less than what your guardian is dealing.

Also, you’re comparing a single hit (mighty blow) with no/minimal buffs/debuffs, to a multiple hit attack (hundred blades -which you must remain perfectly still to channel) with 25 stacks of might on yourself, and 25 stacks of vulnerability on your target.

With max might and vulnerability, even my guardian could crit above 5-6k with mighty blow.

stats:
Power: 2250
53% crit, 89 damage
attack: 3350

tbh my best hit for 11k were when a warrior was giving me 25 stack of might and putting 25 stack of vuln with rest of the group on lupus

guardian can run a minor might built, but its easier to get a warrior they all seem to run this spec so abuse your warrior buddies tell them to build for might and enjoy

Warriors are the best damage dealers period, but there has been quite a lot of research on the subject by people much smarter than me and the Guardian is not that far behind. Like 5% behind. Just because you can do 17K burst damage on your warrior and only 3K on your guardian does not mean the Guardian does lower DPS. From what I’ve seen, when you factor in all the numbers over a LONG period of time the Guardian’s GS can output slightly lower damage numbers to a warriors.

Yeah, the important thing to remember is that Guardians lack burst damage, but do pretty good sustained damage.

The other thing to remember is that one of our damage-related trait-lines is rather horrible.

Don’t forget OP, you should be doubling your damage number for mighty blow, since you can hit it twice over the length of a 100 blades channel.

Here’s what I use as a “Burst”, but do note – I only use this at world PvE and wouldn’t dare taking it to dungeons. Maybe just for fun at WvW.

Gear: Glass cannon (Assuming you know how to build one)
1st weapon set: GS (Superior sigil of fire)
2nd weapon set: Hammer (

Use Purging flames utility, then “Save yourselves”, right after – use GS Whirling Wrath (combo adds more burning), followed by Leap of faith (Fire shield combo), and Binding blade (more burning bolts), finish with symbol of wrath and quickly change to hammer and use Mighty blast for 3 might stacks. When done use Judge’s Intervention for additional burning or have bane signet equipped instead for more power.

This is my personal burst on one enemy, while not as fast as my quickness built warrior, it does the job.

Been farming tons of karma on both characters and both make 10k in less than 20 mins.

remember wth your setup, or as a Guard, you’re more capable of doing sustained dmg overtime. i’m not THAT familair with the Warrior, but how often can you do hundred blades? you need to be rooted as well for that. an enemy knowing what HB is can easily nullify any dmg from that. that being said, the Guardian isn’t meant to match the dmg output of the warrior. at the same time, it doesn’t mean you shoudl forgo it completely. then it really depends on how you want to play. if you want to go full support, you can, but know that if you ever happen to go solo, you really won’t be able to do much. with your curent build, i daresay you’ll more than hold your own solo, and being able to excel and bring group utility when in a party.

with the right traits, you’ll be able to pull off a MB almost every #1 chain, adding a AoE retal combo trigger. to add, the protection symbol heals, protects, allowig you to DPS more and not have to back off as much.

just my take. : ))

Serious as a heart attack: why do people put 30 points in the tank line and expect to be primary damage dealers?

I’m preping an article to post on my 0/30/0/20/20 “Wipe them out. All of them.” build, and I’ll tell you what shouldn’t be a secret:

You do not have thirty points to spare on defense (Valor) if you want to kill things at top speeds.

hey Nike, i actually have a steup in mind that doesn’t touch on the Valor line at all. slightly different from your buidl though. will keep an eye out for yours! : ))

Valor = Tank line? Your kidding, right?

% Crit Dmg… yep, that’s tank.
5% of Toughness = Crit %… yep, tank there too
Glacia Heart / Purity = yep, more tanky stuff there..

Oh, I won’t even go on about Meditations…

The only “Tanky” aspect of the build is the 300 Toughness and if you spec into Mace/Shield or are building a AH build focused around Healing / Toughness.

But it is in no way “The” Tank line.

/boggle

“Gain aegis when your health reaches 50%. "
Hmm, survivability or damage?

“Virtue of Courage is recharged when you rally.”
Hmm, survivability or damage?

“Gain might when you block attacks.”
Damage, yes, but for BLOCKING.

These things are not Optional. You MUST take survivability effects on the 5’s when you go down Valor.

5% of Toughness converted to a damage stat rewards you for… stacking Toughness. And costs you a skill slot that could have gone directly towards killing. When you could have geared for 100% of a damging stat in the first place.

Yes, its not monomanically, crippingly without damage options, they’re just predicated on a defensive base.

If you’re gonna try to compete with the other melee damage dogs, don’t do it with one arm tied behind your back.

Indure.5410:

Warriors are the best damage dealers period, but there has been quite a lot of research on the subject by people much smarter than me and the Guardian is not that far behind. Like 5% behind. Just because you can do 17K burst damage on your warrior and only 3K on your guardian does not mean the Guardian does lower DPS. From what I’ve seen, when you factor in all the numbers over a LONG period of time the Guardian’s GS can output slightly lower damage numbers to a warriors.

I’d like to see this “research” because it’s a lot more than 5%.

Guardian may be better than other classes (or not) but it’s far behind Warrior.

Amins.3710:

Valor = Tank line? Your kidding, right?

% Crit Dmg… yep, that’s tank.
5% of Toughness = Crit %… yep, tank there too
Glacia Heart / Purity = yep, more tanky stuff there..

Oh, I won’t even go on about Meditations…

The only “Tanky” aspect of the build is the 300 Toughness and if you spec into Mace/Shield or are building a AH build focused around Healing / Toughness.

But it is in no way “The” Tank line.

/boggle

LOL keep deluding yourself just so you can get AH. Not that it isn’t worth tossing away 30 points for that OP trait, but don’t pretend that you’re getting much else besides for DPS.

Really?

Sure, you guys keep thinking your 66-75% Crit Dmg is good. I’ll keep thinking my 101-106% is better.

And as for Blocking… my 3.2k attack is only proven better w/ the & 20+ stacks of might from blocking.

You’re right.

Valor is clearly just a Tank Line.

Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

Amins.3710:

Sure, you guys keep thinking your 66-75% Crit Dmg is good. I’ll keep thinking my 101-106% is better.

Out of curiousity, what’s your crit chance?

And as for Blocking… my 3.2k attack is only proven better w/ the & 20+ stacks of might from blocking.

Also interesting. How is that comming about?

the Grandmaster Minor trait from Valor – Might of the Protector? Gain might when you block attacks, lasting 15 seconds. if i understand the on-block procs correctly, this works with obviously, aegis, as well as the mace and focus block skills, along with the Shelter heal, but not on Renewed Focus. even then though, that can be a ton of blocks, and doesn’t seem to be any notable cooldown on this trait.

[edit: typo lol]

Yaki.9563:

Indure.5410:

Warriors are the best damage dealers period, but there has been quite a lot of research on the subject by people much smarter than me and the Guardian is not that far behind. Like 5% behind. Just because you can do 17K burst damage on your warrior and only 3K on your guardian does not mean the Guardian does lower DPS. From what I’ve seen, when you factor in all the numbers over a LONG period of time the Guardian’s GS can output slightly lower damage numbers to a warriors.

I’d like to see this “research” because it’s a lot more than 5%.

Guardian may be better than other classes (or not) but it’s far behind Warrior.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70080-guardian-effective-dps-tests/

It would seem like the numbers have been modified; the guardian GS DPS doing more damage (if traited optimally) that warrior GS, and guardian hammer coming pretty close.

Please remember that those numbers are for DPS and not burst damage, and are assuming you are traited to maximise the weapon’s damage (which most guardians are not.)

Guardians are very, very capable of dishing out high, sustained DPS (see: Guardian Scepter). But for some reason there is this general assumption that guardians do no damage. No idea why.

Edit: And to the OP: If i’m not mistaken (i could be), Healing power scales pretty badly with AH. It would be better to allocate your stat points somewhere else.

One clue, don’t spec dps for a guardian to deal damage, you don’t loose that much dps for going full with traitlines Valor and Honor, in fact i found you barely loose any dps at all, and in return you get huge survivability, wich is much better then a warrior can get, so in the end you dps more cause you can stay in the fight. Glass cannon builds for any class are pretty stupid anyway, for that 1% more dps you can spec 20% more survivability, wich will make your dps greater for being able to stay in the actual fight longer. Guardians are masters at this. If the boss trows a red circle on the floor on top of him and you can stay in it and heal yourself trough while dpsing, you always do more in the end.

Fox.3469:

If the boss trows a red circle on the floor on top of him and you can stay in it and heal yourself trough while dpsing, you always do more in the end.

you can pretty much do that with a glass cannon build too, at least until they nerf the crit lifesteal food

While I’ll echo what others have said about it being a fairly pointless comparison, with Warriors overtly being an aggressive damage class vs the guardian’s defensive buff design… I DO have much more fun running glass cannon builds in WvW than ones spec’d for toughness.

The guardian has the ability to unload a heck of a lot of area damage into the middle of a group of enemies, thanks to some high hitting skills like magic blow and whirling wrath coupled with containment skills like ring of warding and binding blade and teleport skills of flashing blade and judge’s intervention.

You throw in a few weapon quirks, like the insane damage shield of wrath does (6-7k from a shield?) and you can have a lot of fun bombing people, and we still have a pretty good amount of utility to keep protection and damage mitigation up enough to disengage again afterwards, despite being squishy.

You won’t stand long being focussed by a cohesive group, but in the chaos of WvW you can still demonstrate impressive survivability. ( you’ll definitely miss the lack of conditional removal and virtue boons though )

There are definitely better ways of playing the guardian, that fit the strengths of the class paradigm – but if you just want to have a bit of fun, whilst still providing some might and protection to your team mates then there’s nothing wrong with a beserker spec.

imo, guardians are one of the best classes to go full glass cannon (beserker gear, not traits) due to the number of reflections, blocks, absorptions and sources of healing we get. Those and reasonable awareness and dodging skill, we don’t go down any more than classes who are defensively specced, and deal pretty high dps.

Raenir.9147:

imo, guardians are one of the best classes to go full glass cannon (beserker gear, not traits) due to the number of reflections, blocks, absorptions and sources of healing we get. Those and reasonable awareness and dodging skill, we don’t go down any more than classes who are defensively specced, and deal pretty high dps.

full glass cannon is builds and traits, guardians are indeed suited to go all dps in gear, doesn’t make them full glass cannons if traits are in the valor/honor line

In a dungeon, I have read if you go full dps don’t forget to warn your team, as usually guardians are expected to tank, and if you can’t tank that well, your team should be aware of…

Nike.2631:

Serious as a heart attack: why do people put 30 points in the tank line and expect to be primary damage dealers?

I’m preping an article to post on my 0/30/0/20/20 “Wipe them out. All of them.” build, and I’ll tell you what shouldn’t be a secret:

You do not have thirty points to spare on defense (Valor) if you want to kill things at top speeds.

You are claiming that Virtues is more of a dps line than Valor? Virtues gives you no real bonus to dps whatsoever. Valor on the otherhand gives you much more survivability aswell as alot more damage (30% crit damage to start with).

It also gives you two nice heals AH or Monk. I’m a monk guy myself because I find meditations as utilities very useful (1200 burning charge teleport heal and a condi cleanser that deals high damage and heals for 2k+). This combined with Justice is Power, Renewed Justice, Blind Exposure, GS#3 and Radiant Power from radiance and you have a very nice damage buff.

This works much better for me as I’ve focus on a balanced damage/survivability spec. My crit isnt high enough (only 30%) to make full use of Empowering Might, but my blind instead debuff the enemy so my groupmates deal more damage (6% for 5 sec) while I myself get a 10% damage increase pretty much all the time from conditions on targets.

3200 Attack
30% crit (108% crit dmg)
17500 life
2500 armor (signet fn judgement on that)
Weapons: GS+Staff
Gear: Valkyrie/Berserk mix + Karka Shell.

Big and Floppy.6897:

I have a lvl 80 warrior, just got to 80 on my guardian.

Now, I was trying to find a build like my warrior (shout build that helps support my team but also does damage, because for most content, you really don’t need that much healing), I went with an AH build (0/10/30/30/0).

After some confusion I ended up gearing like my warrior lol, knights armor, zerker trinks, the hell with vit right? i use a gs on my warrior but have a hammer on my guard (superior sigil of blood on weapons due to high crit %).

stats:
Power: 1935
49% crit, 83 damage
Armor: 2771
Health: 13945, 300 healing power

other than my health, these are pretty solid stats, but I do like no damage. hammer is great for hitting a lot of enemies but in CoF exp a good MB crit is like 3200 dmg. even adding in my auto attacks and tick dmg to the enemy its nothing compared to the 17k+ dmg I can do with one hundred blades with my warrior and with max might stacks and vulnerability stacks on my target, 3k dmg with my last auto attack. (most of those stacks provided by myself btw)

so my big question, should i bother putting any emphasis on dmg at all? and if i go more tank, how would i support my team better? since healing power tends to be a waste. is AH not as good of a build as i think it is? cause it makes a lot of sense to me. in dungeons i tend to be fine, i die sometimes when overwhelmed, and i do have a hard time face-tanking bosses when i dont have melee next to me. but when i have a full melee group, i can face-tank nearly anything cause i can heal when i put boons on them. im sure an omnomberry pie would make me invincible but, id rather not spend 5s every 30 min!

sorry for the long post, i just feel like im missing something, with how im built on both characters my warrior seems to have a much better dmg to support ratio. i enjoy the mechanics of my guardian, but i still want to be effective!

You aren’t really doing an AH build if you don’t have at least 5 in Virtues. Most of the life-saving healing comes from virtue activation which doesn’t do much if you don’t have the extra boons from 5 Virtues.

Burst damage =

Summon sword/hammer, take scepter, immobilize, smite, switch to GS, symbol, whirling wrath, leap with justice.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Big and Floppy.6897:

I have a lvl 80 warrior, just got to 80 on my guardian.

Now, I was trying to find a build like my warrior (shout build that helps support my team but also does damage, because for most content, you really don’t need that much healing), I went with an AH build (0/10/30/30/0).

After some confusion I ended up gearing like my warrior lol, knights armor, zerker trinks, the hell with vit right? i use a gs on my warrior but have a hammer on my guard (superior sigil of blood on weapons due to high crit %).

stats:
Power: 1935
49% crit, 83 damage
Armor: 2771
Health: 13945, 300 healing power

other than my health, these are pretty solid stats, but I do like no damage. hammer is great for hitting a lot of enemies but in CoF exp a good MB crit is like 3200 dmg. even adding in my auto attacks and tick dmg to the enemy its nothing compared to the 17k+ dmg I can do with one hundred blades with my warrior and with max might stacks and vulnerability stacks on my target, 3k dmg with my last auto attack. (most of those stacks provided by myself btw)

so my big question, should i bother putting any emphasis on dmg at all? and if i go more tank, how would i support my team better? since healing power tends to be a waste. is AH not as good of a build as i think it is? cause it makes a lot of sense to me. in dungeons i tend to be fine, i die sometimes when overwhelmed, and i do have a hard time face-tanking bosses when i dont have melee next to me. but when i have a full melee group, i can face-tank nearly anything cause i can heal when i put boons on them. im sure an omnomberry pie would make me invincible but, id rather not spend 5s every 30 min!

sorry for the long post, i just feel like im missing something, with how im built on both characters my warrior seems to have a much better dmg to support ratio. i enjoy the mechanics of my guardian, but i still want to be effective!

You aren’t really doing an AH build if you don’t have at least 5 in Virtues. Most of the life-saving healing comes from virtue activation which doesn’t do much if you don’t have the extra boons from 5 Virtues.

I guess shouts and empowering might have nothing to do with AH?

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Big and Floppy.6897:

I have a lvl 80 warrior, just got to 80 on my guardian.

Now, I was trying to find a build like my warrior (shout build that helps support my team but also does damage, because for most content, you really don’t need that much healing), I went with an AH build (0/10/30/30/0).

After some confusion I ended up gearing like my warrior lol, knights armor, zerker trinks, the hell with vit right? i use a gs on my warrior but have a hammer on my guard (superior sigil of blood on weapons due to high crit %).

stats:
Power: 1935
49% crit, 83 damage
Armor: 2771
Health: 13945, 300 healing power

other than my health, these are pretty solid stats, but I do like no damage. hammer is great for hitting a lot of enemies but in CoF exp a good MB crit is like 3200 dmg. even adding in my auto attacks and tick dmg to the enemy its nothing compared to the 17k+ dmg I can do with one hundred blades with my warrior and with max might stacks and vulnerability stacks on my target, 3k dmg with my last auto attack. (most of those stacks provided by myself btw)

so my big question, should i bother putting any emphasis on dmg at all? and if i go more tank, how would i support my team better? since healing power tends to be a waste. is AH not as good of a build as i think it is? cause it makes a lot of sense to me. in dungeons i tend to be fine, i die sometimes when overwhelmed, and i do have a hard time face-tanking bosses when i dont have melee next to me. but when i have a full melee group, i can face-tank nearly anything cause i can heal when i put boons on them. im sure an omnomberry pie would make me invincible but, id rather not spend 5s every 30 min!

sorry for the long post, i just feel like im missing something, with how im built on both characters my warrior seems to have a much better dmg to support ratio. i enjoy the mechanics of my guardian, but i still want to be effective!

You aren’t really doing an AH build if you don’t have at least 5 in Virtues. Most of the life-saving healing comes from virtue activation which doesn’t do much if you don’t have the extra boons from 5 Virtues.

I guess shouts and empowering might have nothing to do with AH?

I never said that. But not going 5 in Virtues makes the AH build not as potent.

I’ll just go out on a limb here and say that Guardians are just not going to be the best damage dealing class. Yeah, you can trait and gear them for damage, and they’ll do well, but other classes are simply going to be better. The guardians are meant to play a specific kind of role, which is supportive even when it’s not built for support. That’s what they’re good at.

The reason people always put 30 into Valor because it’s pretty much the best trait line for Guardians. First off it gives you toughness and crit dmg. So your survivability and dmg go up. AH and Monk, you need some type of healing other then your healing skill imo. Might of the Protector w/Shelter can get you +15 stacks of might if you time it right.

There are so many good traits it’s ridiculous.

hithlain.4385:

In a dungeon, I have read if you go full dps don’t forget to warn your team, as usually guardians are expected to tank, and if you can’t tank that well, your team should be aware of…

A full-beserker guardian can still tank. At least some/most builds. And pretty well too. And it cases where you have to facetank a large amount of damage, no reason why you cannot bring a PVT/Knights set with you and swap out.

Hickeroar.9734:

I’ll just go out on a limb here and say that Guardians are just not going to be the best damage dealing class. Yeah, you can trait and gear them for damage, and they’ll do well, but other classes are simply going to be better. The guardians are meant to play a specific kind of role, which is supportive even when it’s not built for support. That’s what they’re good at.

I’ll have to agree that guardians are meant to play a supportive role. But there is no reason why guardians cannot be on par with other damage dealing classes (see: Effective DPS test link several posts up).

I don’t know where there is this stigma that guardians do little to no damage. (Not saying that you are causing guardians of that). I have been told that a few times in groups and it just pisses me off.

No offense guys.

Raenir.9147:

Hickeroar.9734:

I’ll just go out on a limb here and say that Guardians are just not going to be the best damage dealing class. Yeah, you can trait and gear them for damage, and they’ll do well, but other classes are simply going to be better. The guardians are meant to play a specific kind of role, which is supportive even when it’s not built for support. That’s what they’re good at.

I’ll have to agree that guardians are meant to play a supportive role. But there is no reason why guardians cannot be on par with other damage dealing classes (see: Effective DPS test link several posts up).

I don’t know where there is this stigma that guardians do little to no damage. (Not saying that you are causing guardians of that). I have been told that a few times in groups and it just pisses me off.

No offense guys.

Yeah that bothers me too. I do good damage if not even better than all the other classes out there save warriors. Even then, I think I can put out just as much dps over time on bosses, vets, champs, etc. as a warrior.

Guardian support is pretty much passive/automatic as you play. Even if you spec for damage you can still get those mitigation skills.

Damage wise Guardians don’t do high burst damage but very good sustained damage. Over a period of time the damage isn’t that far apart from other classes really. Even warrior.

There are many types of support. Giving Might to your team counts as support too. The guardian support is tailored to be “help others to help yourself” so supporting others is in a way built in to everything. Just remember not to gimp yourself.

Find your happy medium. You don’t need to be THE BEST at doing damage. You just need to be able to do enough damage to kill whilst still being quite tanky. Mix and match items and armour to find your happy medium. Guardians have enough damage output to kill any class even if you don’t go full glass cannon. Just remember, Guardians aren’t made to burst.

I think you should. Arguably, the best sets for guardians are soldier’s and cleric and the best traits lies in valor and honour lines. That’s what forces every good guardian to support/tank roles.

Valour/Honour have traits for damage also. It doesn’t mean you HAVE TO go support or just tank.

2h mastery, larger symbols, writ of persistence all make the hammer into a formidable weapon in combat.

Valour adds 30% crit dmg is hardly a support trait. AH is for your own benefit.

It all depends on how you play. Then build around that. Not play how you build as if you follow certain builds, you are forced to play in a particular style.

I built mine around valour and honour but I can play as any role. This allows for hybrid builds based on equipment.

You can still do good damage without being a glass cannon.

Harbinger.8637:

There are so many good traits it’s ridiculous.

There’s really only one good trait, but it’s so OP that it makes it worth spending 30 points for. There are some ok traits but it’s no Honor line.

Raenir.9147:

Yaki.9563:

Indure.5410:

Warriors are the best damage dealers period, but there has been quite a lot of research on the subject by people much smarter than me and the Guardian is not that far behind. Like 5% behind. Just because you can do 17K burst damage on your warrior and only 3K on your guardian does not mean the Guardian does lower DPS. From what I’ve seen, when you factor in all the numbers over a LONG period of time the Guardian’s GS can output slightly lower damage numbers to a warriors.

I’d like to see this “research” because it’s a lot more than 5%.

Guardian may be better than other classes (or not) but it’s far behind Warrior.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70080-guardian-effective-dps-tests/

This doesn’t match up at all with my testing on target dummies in the Mists. Number crunching may be fun to do when there’s no way to test in game, but there is.

Yaki.9563:

Raenir.9147:

Yaki.9563:

Indure.5410:

Warriors are the best damage dealers period, but there has been quite a lot of research on the subject by people much smarter than me and the Guardian is not that far behind. Like 5% behind. Just because you can do 17K burst damage on your warrior and only 3K on your guardian does not mean the Guardian does lower DPS. From what I’ve seen, when you factor in all the numbers over a LONG period of time the Guardian’s GS can output slightly lower damage numbers to a warriors.

I’d like to see this “research” because it’s a lot more than 5%.

Guardian may be better than other classes (or not) but it’s far behind Warrior.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70080-guardian-effective-dps-tests/

This doesn’t match up at all with my testing on target dummies in the Mists. Number crunching may be fun to do when there’s no way to test in game, but there is.

I am not the person who did the calculations.

I understand the popular view that warriors deal significantly more damage than guardians. This is probably because a majority of guardians share the same view and are specced defensively, while warriors are specced offensively (and have a lot of damage dealing traits and utility skills)

The testing in the post above does include practical tests (hitting target dummies in the mists for example) if i’m not mistaken.

Unless you can account for all variables (attack speed, skill chains, traits, might, critical rate, damage, and thus effective increase in damage) while testing without crunching numbers, i would rather buy what this guy is saying. Not saying that you’re wrong, but maybe you would have come to a more informed conclusion if you did a more comprehension test.

Read the next page of that thread too, i believe they do numbers for weapons with different trait combinations as compared to the first post (thus being more accurate for AH builds)

Not trying to say that you’re wrong Yaki. Given the gear and playstyle of the majority of guardians i would agree that guardians deal less damage than warriors. But given the calculations done i do believe that if a guardian wanted to, his damage can reach within +- 10% of a warrior’s, and still provide significant (if not almost gamebreaking) support. I’m assuming a certain margin of error in his calculations of course.

Guardians are one of the best DPS. Or can be. On (or very close to) the same level as warriors. (I don’t know about Thief or eles or that other classes tho.)

Actually, that warrior number is a bit outdated, since it didn’t factor in might or vulnerability. I updated it now. Warriors do in fact do a fair bit more solo, but since their high numbers comes from being able to stack lots of might and vulnerability on their own, and have a comparatively low base damage (especially if you take out Whirlwind Attack’s unrealistically high number), they have much less room for growth. If guardians are getting other offensive buffs from other players, particularly fury, they actually output more than warriors.

The ideal team composition for DPS is actually three guardians (for raw DPS), one warrior (for group fury), and one engineer (for vulnerability stacking and condition damage). Good luck telling that to people who only know how to look at their own numbers though.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Actually, that warrior number is a bit outdated, since it didn’t factor in might or vulnerability. I updated it now. Warriors do in fact do a fair bit more solo, but since their high numbers comes from being able to stack lots of might and vulnerability on their own, and have a comparatively low base damage (especially if you take out Whirlwind Attack’s unrealistically high number), they have much less room for growth. If guardians are getting other offensive buffs from other players, particularly fury, they actually output more than warriors.

The ideal team composition for DPS is actually three guardians (for raw DPS), one warrior (for group fury), and one engineer (for vulnerability stacking and condition damage). Good luck telling that to people who only know how to look at their own numbers though.

Thanks for the input! Everything actually makes more sense now. So yes, warriors do deal more damage than guardians (in specific instances), but for party and dungeons guardians (with a warrior/buffs present) are pretty kitten too. Guardians deal far from little to no damage. Quite the contrary actually.

It’s nice to get to hear from the person who crunched out the numbers!

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The ideal team composition for DPS is actually three guardians (for raw DPS), one warrior (for group fury), and one engineer (for vulnerability stacking and condition damage). Good luck telling that to people who only know how to look at their own numbers though.

It might be true but good luck finding 3 non-tanky guardians as well ;p

Nike.2631:

Serious as a heart attack: why do people put 30 points in the tank line and expect to be primary damage dealers?

1. 30% Critdmg is neccesary for dmg Specc´s.
2. Both upper Traitlines are bad>no def anymore, still not enough dmg (to mach warriors). And no Support
3. U need -20% CD on 2handed Weapons>20 more Points in aanother “Tanky” Tree.

Warrios dmg is superior, by far. 17k 100Blades does a “Tank” Warrior, if warrios want to deal dmg, they can hit for 30-40k (or even more) 100k fully buffed (and enemy debuffed).
I don´t have to they how much dmg he deals then with normal hits, or an Axe (5k+ on Chain 3>3times in 1 1/2 Sec).

Guardian is great with AH, tanky even with Zerker´s Gear. But it´s impossibel (even with any GC Build) to deal dmg similar to warriors.

And all who say Guardian´s are for support….Warrios have great uniqe support to. Their Banners for example, they have buff rage, and they are rly good at dispelling conditions.
Sry, for my bad english. Im normaly only writing in the german forums. But i just want to say this.

Have a nice day, greetings

Yaki.9563:

Harbinger.8637:

There are so many good traits it’s ridiculous.

There’s really only one good trait, but it’s so OP that it makes it worth spending 30 points for. There are some ok traits but it’s no Honor line.

This is just opinion, and a poor one at that.

Guardians just need a little bit of a revamp trait wise and skill wise since some of the traits and skills are not only useless but just down right disappointing. I don’t really have a problem with anything else regarding them.

Let’s compare everyone’s favourite weapon’s traits.

Slashing Power – 10% more damage with GS and spear
Greatsword Power – 5% more damage with GS

Both are master traits in Power line

Forceful Greatsword – Might on crits, -20% recharge for GS and spear
Two-handed Mastery – 20% recharge for all 2h weapons

Both are master traits. Now, one could argue that you’re getting -20% recharge for all weapons but who would use both 2h weapons. Guardians also have Empowering Might that gives same duration of might for allies but 1s ICD makes that trait less appealing. And both those traits are in Vitality line, not Precision.

haviz.1340:

Let’s compare everyone’s favourite weapon’s traits.

Slashing Power – 10% more damage with GS and spear
Greatsword Power – 5% more damage with GS

Both are master traits in Power line

Forceful Greatsword – Might on crits, -20% recharge for GS and spear
Two-handed Mastery – 20% recharge for all 2h weapons

Both are master traits. Now, one could argue that you’re getting -20% recharge for all weapons but who would use both 2h weapons. Guardians also have Empowering Might that gives same duration of might for allies but 1s ICD makes that trait less appealing. And both those traits are in Vitality line, not Precision.

There are many guardians who use both hammer and gs.

Guardian effective dps > a glass cannon warrior because glass cannon GS warriors spend too much time in a downed state :-P

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

There are many guardians who use both hammer and gs.

If we’re looking from PvE viewpoint, then spamming autoattacks and occasional MB with hammer is what’s currently the most efficient way of playing hammer. That means that if you swap to GS in the meantime you’re not utilizing the strengths of hammer.

kidbs.8920:

Guardian effective dps > a glass cannon warrior because glass cannon GS warriors spend too much time in a downed state :-P

Tell that to warriors who are actually using magic button. They’re gonna laugh at you.

The only maguc button i find warriors i 1v1 is the magical respawn button. Knockdown/stu hundred blades only work in noobs.