Guild Wars 2

You hear a lot of debate between Warlock and Duelist. Is there an objective answer or does it depend on your build? (i.e. would Duelist be best with a crit build?)

Depends on your build. High power favors warlock, high condition damage/crit (+ bleed on crit trait) favors duelist.

yeah everything depends on build and ofc ur playstyle, though in general duelist is better on most cases because warlock needs enemies to have tons of conditions in order to be highly effective (hands down stronger in boss fights imo). Also warden deals a respectable amount of damage and bleeds aoe, but since he is stationary many times he wont be able to deal his max damage.

Absolute highest: Warden.
Highest power general: Swordsman.
Highest power w/ high variety of conditions: Warlock (requires ~8 conditions to exceed Swordsman).
Highest with max crit% and condition damage: Duelist.
Highest AOE: Berserker.