Guild Wars 2

Why is it that tank build win vs burst classes. I thought anet said that DPS build would win in a fair fight, and yet with any amount of tank you can win.

I post this here because thief is almost all burst, and yet vs a full tank war or guard you cant do anything. Shot you need like 3 people to take one down. And the longer the fight goes the better the chances that the tank will win.

It use to be tanks would fall to high spike damage, but win over constant damage.

I dont know….. just me getting this out of my head…..

If you want to talk about pure tank vs burst, then the correct outcome should be a stalemate. If the burst class had enough to kill a tank in short time, then may the Six help all of the less durable classes. Tanks should die to high pressure over time, not so much spike damage. The classes that fill this role are usually DPS classes. Note that these are not the same as burst classes because they deal high damage over time, rather than bursts.

The issue you’re describing is more with bruisers, who are tanky/sustainable and can deal respectable damage. Historically, bruisers have been difficult to balance between having good sustain vs good damage. Ideally, there is a trade-off between the two, but that gets really muddied up when you have modifiers like Might, Fury, Protection, etc. Theoretically, there should be counterplay to this in the form of boon strips and corrupts, but aside from necro and mesmer, there doesn’t seem to be a huge number of classes that have some form of boon hate.