Guild Wars 2

We’ve recently had an argument in the guild and I’d like to ask you guys with a lot of experience, evidence and DPS tables/data to help me with my problem.
I was complaining about random team I got when pugging (= 1 mesmer 4 warriors), because the DPS seemed pretty low. Many guildies were trying to say that “this is actually BEST DPS setup for dungeons, especially CoF”, which I think is nonsense.
When I do dungeons, one warrior is usually a must for his nice party-wide utilities (banners, FGJ when necessary, EA, PS,…) but after I get more than one war, I feel the DPS is going down rather than up. The question is about both – max personal DPS and being actually helpful by increasing group DPS. Everything is assuming optimal situation and max DPS meta build.
According to DPS tables I’ve seen (DnT is especially good in making these calculations), best DPS in the game is held by elementalists (which I can’t agree more) and then thieves and engies (and maybe guards) should also have more DPS than warrior.
Also, if we take into account party DPS, ranger + warrior should have better overall output than two warriors despite war’s damage being superior to that of ranger, because two different classes can stack more boons and modifiers than two people playing the same class.
So what’s right? What’s the class DPS ranking in optimal PvE situation? And is it better to go just straight for 5 war or 4 war + 1 random party or mix it up a bit more thoughtfully?
Thanks in advance. Links to up-to-date tables are also appreciated.

One warrior is enough and the only reason warriors are brought is for the Banner’s. Having 2 warriors is a loss of DPS…and having 4 + a mesmer? Idk why people do that.. especially for CoF.. yes that was the Meta forever ago for CoF speedruns.. People bring warriors because they are easy to play….We literally had a guy in our guild(don’t know how he even got in .. but anyways) he was telling us that because he hits 30k hundred blades that warriors have the highest DPS and it’s because people like this.. they think warrior stacking is good. Also, mesmer dps is pretty awful unless the fight goes on long.. which of course if you are in a speedrun guild then most fights don’t last really long.. maybe 20-30 seconds on most bosses, so I don’t understand the 1 mesmer + 4 warriors… Mesmer isn’t even needed for CoF if your team isn’t dumb and can easily dodge big rocks. I really like running: Thief,Ele,Engi,Guard,War(only for Banners.) If having a guard isn’t necessary you could bring 2 eles. Or a mesmer for certain things.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Also, if we take into account party DPS, ranger + warrior should have better overall output than two warriors despite war’s damage being superior to that of ranger, because two different classes can stack more boons and modifiers than two people playing the same class.
So what’s right? What’s the class DPS ranking in optimal PvE situation? And is it better to go just straight for 5 war or 4 war + 1 random party or mix it up a bit more thoughtfully?

Actually ranger has better DPS than warrior does by a bit.

AFAIK the order is:

Elementalist
Thief
Guardian
Engineer
Ranger
Warrior
Mesmer/Necro

Not entirely sure if guardian is ahead of engineer actually. They’re close.

The Hundred blade syndrom is still a thing.

Only one warrior is needed in one party, more will only be bad dps.

Yeah, I guess it’s just that people are so used to the old systems, that they won’t understand how much the patches shuffled the cards. Or they lack the skill to properly play some classes, so they just go for cheesy warrior (which is my case a bit as well). It’s no use telling them or trying to improve their playstyle, they just won’t listen. (playhowiwant forever!)
Anyway, thanks a lot for your replies.

The reason why people think warriors have good dps is because of warrior’s ability to buff themselves in groups that don’t stack might/fury. I think warrior is still great for carrying an average pug, but their damage hits a plateau if the party has another might stacker like an ele or another warrior. Warriors are also naturally tankier so average pugs don’t die as much on a warrior than say a thief or an ele.

Patches never changed it (rly). People where just missleaded. Ele DPS was always so strong, but people never tried it. Or did not know the builds. Same like thief/ranger.

Pick up 5 warriors and they buff themselfs, and people think the dps is strong. Just because they didn´t know how to use firefields to stack might.

@OP: Having more than 1 warrior is considered a dps loss. I don’t think any serious speedclear groups will take 2 warriors. Having said that, warriors are the easiest class to play, and it makes excellent stackable class for pugs, because of different buffs. (Different banners between them).

For speedclearing serious group, generally speaking, the best setup is:
Guard,Warr,Ele,Thief,Ranger. (There can be specific exceptions to the list depending what you doing)

Purple Miku.7032:

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Also, if we take into account party DPS, ranger + warrior should have better overall output than two warriors despite war’s damage being superior to that of ranger, because two different classes can stack more boons and modifiers than two people playing the same class.
So what’s right? What’s the class DPS ranking in optimal PvE situation? And is it better to go just straight for 5 war or 4 war + 1 random party or mix it up a bit more thoughtfully?

Actually ranger has better DPS than warrior does by a bit.

AFAIK the order is:

Elementalist
Thief
Guardian
Engineer
Ranger
Warrior
Mesmer/Necro

Not entirely sure if guardian is ahead of engineer actually. They’re close.

The list from updated charts after the september ballance patch is:

Thief
Ele
Engi
Ranger
Warr
Guard
Mesm
Necro

Please post the list of yours that has guardian that low in DPS and thief above ele.

Ya the list of Yelloweyedemon don’t seem legit.

True thief can have better dps than Ele against a small single-target (where meteor shower and ice bow are not that good), but still. In most situation the Ele will be ahead.

Guardian do more dps than ranger and Warrior since the last patch. Guardian are Warrior were pretty close before, with the guardian doing more dps in some situation only. But since the last nerf to the warrior, guardian went ahead.

That 4 warrior + 1 mesmer is about 2 years old. It was the meta so long ago, but it’s not anymore.

Guardians have had higher DPS than warriors with perma 25 might+fury since like, forever.

Purple Miku.7032:

Guardians have had higher DPS than warriors with perma 25 might+fury since like, forever.

Well its all about UC. With max buff but wihtout UC, guardian dps is about 11-11.5k dps, which is a little bit over a full buff Warrior right now. But its less than the dps of the warrior before the last nerf. With UC, the max dps of a guardian skyrocket to about 13.5k dps. But it never really reach that since you rarely have Aegis on you all the time, especially in some fight when you get hit a lot by small attacks). So ya, guardian have the capability to have higher dps than warrior before the last nerf, but it wasn’t all the time. And in some content, like in fractal, where you needed master of consecreation, Guardian always had a bit less dps than a warrior. Of course this doesn’t count reflection dmg.

Anyway. Before the last patch. Guardian and Warrior were close. They could exchange place in term of dps ranking depending on the situation. After the recent nerf to warrior, Guardian is always on top of a warrior.

Guardian dps is AIDS unless you can Smite a large hitbox. The guardian weapon skills that do good damage are on long cool downs and aren’t even that good.

Even with 100% uptime of UC guardians were/are barely equal to warriors.

hybrid.5027:

Guardian dps is AIDS unless you can Smite a large hitbox. The guardian weapon skills that do good damage are on long cool downs and aren’t even that good.

Even with 100% uptime of UC guardians were/are barely equal to warriors.

The dps of a Guardian full buff without UC is 11.3K dps. I didn’t play my warrior for a long time so maybe i’m wrong. The only recent information on the DPS of a warrior is Nike, that calculate it to 10.9k dps. And on the forum, I always see numbers around 11k and 11.5k dps recently. So maybe I’m wrong Hybrid. Tell me what dps do you think the warrior have. 12k?, 12.5K?, 13K? If you think that warrior have better dps than guardian even with 100% UC that mean that you think that a warrior have currently 14k+dps.

Or maybe you question the number of 11.3k dps for the guardian wihtout UC? Tell me where i’m wrong if you have better numbers.

Purple Miku.7032:

Please post the list of yours that has guardian that low in DPS and thief above ele.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ya the list of Yelloweyedemon don’t seem legit.

True thief can have better dps than Ele against a small single-target (where meteor shower and ice bow are not that good), but still. In most situation the Ele will be ahead.

Guardian do more dps than ranger and Warrior since the last patch. Guardian are Warrior were pretty close before, with the guardian doing more dps in some situation only. But since the last nerf to the warrior, guardian went ahead.

That 4 warrior + 1 mesmer is about 2 years old. It was the meta so long ago, but it’s not anymore.

The tests were made by DnT after the september ballance patch. Link here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2gol18/dps_ranking/

Interesting, but I don’t understand the ranking from Nike.

Here the source numbers : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bAcpwAdwB24CxK_Ziy8ygISUHCkQepLfRMh2_PtP52o/edit#gid=1883199869

If I check a party composition with a DPS warrior and Ranger, here are the best dps profession.
Thief 6-6-0-0-2 D/D 13353 dps
Ele 6-4-2-2-0 Staff 12962 dps
Engi 6-6-0-0-2 BD 12114 dps
Warr 6-5-0-0-3 GS-Axe/Mace 10931 dps
Mesmer 6-4-0-0-4 Sw/Pi+Fo 9697 dps
Guard 4-6-2-0-2 GS-Sw/F 25% UC 9153 dps
Necro 6-6-0-0-2 D/F-W 8881 dps
Ranger kitten -0-0 Offhand Training 8816 dps

Keep in mind two things. These are numbers against a single target. So profession like Thief (cleave only 2 ppl), Necro (don’t cleave) and Rangers (some pet don’t cleave) would drop in ranking in a fight against a group of enemy. And, this is the dps with zero vulnerability, so these numbers are a bit less than the usual numbers we see when we talked about max dps.

Ok, so it seem that I was off on the Warrior DPS. Like I said, I don’t play my warrior much so I wasn’t sure about the warrior dps. I usually see around 11-11.5K dps for a warrior full buff, but if its around 10.5-11k without vulnerability, then its another thing.

Also, the Engineer dps with BD seem unreliable (according to Dekeyz). The other build is more reliable, and give 11 706 dps, which don’t change the ranking.

Mesmer is high on this list. They go higher in the list the longer the fight, but since most fight in dungeon are short, this ranking is not really realistic since they waste time summoning phantasm. Their dps will also suffer against a AoE boss where their phantasm could die.

@Thaddeus, the link you posted is saying June 2014. The ballance patch of September changed a lot. Ranger’s dps went up by 15% flat amount. Engi’s dps went up as well, not sure the exact numbers, while warriors dps dropped.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

@Thaddeus, the link you posted is saying June 2014. The ballance patch of September changed a lot. Ranger’s dps went up by 15% flat amount. Engi’s dps went up as well, not sure the exact numbers, while warriors dps dropped.

The ranking you posted :

Thief
Ele
Engi
Ranger
Warr
Guard
Mesm
Necro

It was posted by Nike on the link you provided. Which is as old as my link (My link was in the reddit post, same date).

Ok now it make more sense. Warrior was that high before the last nerf. Here the lasted information of warrior dps numbers. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H8FwevtNHMhoBQ7QkxYJF1W7DLTDkuKtA_oNSk4OOes/edit#gid=1347975015

Its from Nike. And as you can see the dps of the warrior now is down to 10.3k dps (full buff including vulnerability), which is lower than Guardian.

BTW I am Nike.

Ranger DPS got a massve buff from an additional 10% modifier AND the superior longbow burst at the start of a fight.

Warrior DPS before the nerf was around 12k fully buffed. Guardian was around 10k fully buffed with 100% UC uptime. Warrior is now about 11.5k, Guardian is still 10k.

As I said, Guardian DPS is AIDS.

You link my calculator but don’t tell us what inputs you use, and you don’t account for condition damage. It’s not as simple as all that. Dekeyz numbers as a baseline are very accurate the only thing that has changed really is warrior nerfs and ranger buffs and a better engineer rotation.

hybrid.5027:

BTW I am Nike.

Ranger DPS got a massve buff from an additional 10% modifier AND the superior longbow burst at the start of a fight.

Warrior DPS before the nerf was around 12k fully buffed. Guardian was around 10k fully buffed with 100% UC uptime. Warrior is now about 11.5k, Guardian is still 10k.

As I said, Guardian DPS is AIDS.

You link my calculator but don’t tell us what inputs you use, and you don’t account for condition damage. It’s not as simple as all that. Dekeyz numbers as a baseline are very accurate the only thing that has changed really is warrior nerfs and ranger buffs and a better engineer rotation.

I’ll never questionned your number for Warrior. Didn’t know that hyrid was nike and it don’t change anything. If you say that Warrior’s DPS was 12k before and 11.5k now, i’m alright with that, I can’t argue about that.

What I can argue is your number for the guardian. Fully buffed, a Guardian do more dmg than 10K even without UC. Like I said. A guardian auto-attacking with sword (which is the easiest thing to calculate) is about 9k dps fully buffed.
- According to Dekeyz’s spreadsheet. Guardian dps is 9.2k fully buffed (but with 25% UC uptime and zero vulnerability) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bAcpwAdwB24CxK_Ziy8ygISUHCkQepLfRMh2_PtP52o/edit#gid=1883199869

- According to Obal. Guardian dps is 10.8k fully buffed, but without any UC.
http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12646847-guardian-dps-build-theory-by-obal-dekeyz

And If i do the math myself, I reach the same numbers. At this level the difference between Guardian and Warrior are not that high. We can argue, which one is higher in a specific situation, I have no problem with that. A slight error in the numbers and one can get in top of the other. But when you say that a Guardian with 100% uptime of UC do 10k dps, used to do 10K dps and continue to do 10K dps, then I’m gonna call it wrong. Just like you can call it wrong when I assume something about the Warrior since if you are Nike, you know more about that particular profession.

Edit : I’m stupid. It even easier than that. Like you said. Just take the numbers from Dekeyz spreadsheet. In a party with a DPS warrior and a Ranger, the maximum dps of a guardian is 9153. If you take into account vulnerability : 9153 × 1.25 = 11 441 dps.

So a Guardian 4/6/2/0/2 GS-Sw/F 25% UC fully buffed will have 11 441 dps. Not 10k dps with 100% UC.

Oh look, it’s spreadsheetwars2 again. Where is guang, you’ll need him to figure out optimal rotations.

Thaddeus.4891:

hybrid.5027:

BTW I am Nike.

Ranger DPS got a massve buff from an additional 10% modifier AND the superior longbow burst at the start of a fight.

Warrior DPS before the nerf was around 12k fully buffed. Guardian was around 10k fully buffed with 100% UC uptime. Warrior is now about 11.5k, Guardian is still 10k.

As I said, Guardian DPS is AIDS.

You link my calculator but don’t tell us what inputs you use, and you don’t account for condition damage. It’s not as simple as all that. Dekeyz numbers as a baseline are very accurate the only thing that has changed really is warrior nerfs and ranger buffs and a better engineer rotation.

I’ll never questionned your number for Warrior. Didn’t know that hyrid was nike and it don’t change anything. If you say that Warrior’s DPS was 12k before and 11.5k now, i’m alright with that, I can’t argue about that.

What I can argue is your number for the guardian. Fully buffed, a Guardian do more dmg than 10K even without UC. Like I said. A guardian auto-attacking with sword (which is the easiest thing to calculate) is about 9k dps fully buffed.
- According to Dekeyz’s spreadsheet. Guardian dps is 9.2k fully buffed (but with 25% UC uptime and zero vulnerability) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bAcpwAdwB24CxK_Ziy8ygISUHCkQepLfRMh2_PtP52o/edit#gid=1883199869

- According to Obal. Guardian dps is 10.8k fully buffed, but without any UC.
http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12646847-guardian-dps-build-theory-by-obal-dekeyz

And If i do the math myself, I reach the same numbers. At this level the difference between Guardian and Warrior are not that high. We can argue, which one is higher in a specific situation, I have no problem with that. A slight error in the numbers and one can get in top of the other. But when you say that a Guardian with 100% uptime of UC do 10k dps, used to do 10K dps and continue to do 10K dps, then I’m gonna call it wrong. Just like you can call it wrong when I assume something about the Warrior since if you are Nike, you know more about that particular profession.

Edit : I’m stupid. It even easier than that. Like you said. Just take the numbers from Dekeyz spreadsheet. In a party with a DPS warrior and a Ranger, the maximum dps of a guardian is 9153. If you take into account vulnerability : 9153 × 1.25 = 11 441 dps.

And a warrior with those same buffs if 13,380. Soooooooooo?

So a Guardian 4/6/2/0/2 GS-Sw/F 25% UC fully buffed will have 11 441 dps. Not 10k dps with 100% UC.

And a warrior will have 13,380.

I was using 45005 because realistically thats what people actually run in most dungeons. I also don’t take into account rangers in DPS calculations because they aren’t in meta team comps. So that’s why our numbers differ.

The fact is Guardian dps in meta dungeon groups is less than warrior. You can argue over minutiae and which buffs you consider but the fact is at any level of group buffing warrior out DPSes Guardian.

hybrid.5027:

And a warrior with those same buffs if 13,380. Soooooooooo?

And a warrior will have 13,380.

I was using 45005 because realistically thats what people actually run in most dungeons. I also don’t take into account rangers in DPS calculations because they aren’t in meta team comps. So that’s why our numbers differ.

The fact is Guardian dps in meta dungeon groups is less than warrior. You can argue over minutiae and which buffs you consider but the fact is at any level of group buffing warrior out DPSes Guardian.

To get 13 380dps you took the numbers from Dekeyz spreadsheet from a group with a ranger + warrior and you multiplied by 1.25 for account the vulnerability. Maybe I’m wrong, but you can do this with the Guardian because nothing changed about its dps since June 2014, but for the Warrior you can’t do that as it don’t account of the last nerf to the warrior dps?

And also, you did the same mistake as I did. You did (direct dmg + condition dmg) x 1.25. But vulnerability don’t work on condition.

Again. I genuinely trying to find out what are respective dps for a guardian and a warrior. If you want to compare it, you need to calculate it with the exact same buffs.

I’ll do some more test next time i’m in game. But in the mean time. There is something that I can’t understand. It seem there is difference between Dekeyz’s spreadsheet numbers and obal’s numbers.

I forgot the condition damage entirely, and the nerf to warrior so my mistake.

so with that…

Warrior: 13,350

Guardian 46202: 13036

And thats assuming 100% UC uptime.

Still worse. Like I said. Lets also consider the following: if you didn’t need master of consecrations, why would you bring a Guardian? Just wondering. the 66002 or 46202 build literally have no reason to exist. If you don’t need MoC you would just bring another Ele or thief or engineer. If you need MoC, then 45005 is better dps than other options. But that’s neither here nor there in a thread about warrior dps.

The bottom line is no matter what level of buffs you choose or what ridiculous dumb build or party comp choice you make warrior will do better DPS because Guardians have fundamentally weak skill coefficient/time and their DPS relies on a trait (UC) that is quite often totally useless and even on the best case scenario imaginable still does less DPS.

As far as ‘obal and dekeyz’ numbers, they are both dekeyz. She did both sets and any difference has to do with a refine DPS rotation and or assumption of timing.

You dont always need MoC. Plenty of dungeons the default cooldown is low enough. For example back when I was using guardian for TA Up i only needed wall once. And other dungeons you only need the wall once per fight. So there is a reason for 4/6/2/0/2 to exist. You could probably make it work in SE p3 and parts of arah.

DPS is discussion is kind of pointless though. You dont take a guardian for dps. Same for warrior.

Right, and saying you have better dps than a warrior (even if it isn’t true) isn’t anything to brag about these days.

hybrid.5027:

I forgot the condition damage entirely, and the nerf to warrior so my mistake.

so with that…

Warrior: 13,350

Guardian 46202: 13036

And thats assuming 100% UC uptime.

Still worse. Like I said. Lets also consider the following: if you didn’t need master of consecrations, why would you bring a Guardian? Just wondering. the 66002 or 46202 build literally have no reason to exist. If you don’t need MoC you would just bring another Ele or thief or engineer. If you need MoC, then 45005 is better dps than other options. But that’s neither here nor there in a thread about warrior dps.

The bottom line is no matter what level of buffs you choose or what ridiculous dumb build or party comp choice you make warrior will do better DPS because Guardians have fundamentally weak skill coefficient/time and their DPS relies on a trait (UC) that is quite often totally useless and even on the best case scenario imaginable still does less DPS.

As far as ‘obal and dekeyz’ numbers, they are both dekeyz. She did both sets and any difference has to do with a refine DPS rotation and or assumption of timing.

You don’t bring a guardian because of MoC. You bring because of aegis, blind and reflection. Most of the time, you don’t need MoC. The normal duration and cooldown of WoR is enough. But true, that for some dungeon and fractal, I do change my build to get MoC and then my dps drop.

13 350dps for the warrior? You acknowledge that with the 13 380 number you didn’t took into account that vulnerability don’t influence condition dmg and that you based this number pre warrior nerf. So both of these only drop the warrior dps by 30? If that’s the case, why ppl scream about the dps nerf on the warrior? It seem to me that you only fixed the vulnerability on condition dmg issue.

Like Spoj said, in the end you don’t bring warrior or guardian for their dps, so it doesn’t matter. You should always bring a warrior in any group and you should bring a guardian for some specific dungeon. But, I would still want to find out the real dps of both these profession. I’m ok with letting this go, but if you want to continue to discussion, I’m also happy with that, whatever would be the end result (even if Warrior end up on top in term of dps).

Thaddeus.4891:

13 350dps for the warrior? You acknowledge that with the 13 380 number you didn’t took into account that vulnerability don’t influence condition dmg and that you based this number pre warrior nerf. So both of these only drop the warrior dps by 30? If that’s the case, why ppl scream about the dps nerf on the warrior? It seem to me that you only fixed the vulnerability on condition dmg issue.

You are mistaken.

The first number I cited (13,380) did not take into consideration the September nerf. But I also forgot to add condition damage after calculating the Vuln. There was no condition damage in that figure.

The second number (13,350) took into account the september nerf (which amounts to a 2.4% dps nerf) but I also added the condition damage in after calculating the direct damage + vuln portion. So this is the correct figure.

You mistakenly believe that in the first figure I added condition damage in and then multiplied by 1.25 for Vulnerability which I did not. I hope this settles your confusion.

hybrid.5027:

You are mistaken.

The first number I cited (13,380) did not take into consideration the September nerf. But I also forgot to add condition damage after calculating the Vuln. There was no condition damage in that figure.

The second number (13,350) took into account the september nerf (which amounts to a 2.4% dps nerf) but I also added the condition damage in after calculating the direct damage + vuln portion. So this is the correct figure.

You mistakenly believe that in the first figure I added condition damage in and then multiplied by 1.25 for Vulnerability which I did not. I hope this settles your confusion.

Got it.

So the last nerf was really smaller than ppl seem to think if its only 2.9%. But didn’t you said earlier that Warrior dps was 12k before the nerf and 11.5k after the nerf? This is more of a 4.2% nerf.

And what do you use as dmg multiplier for Beserker Power? Since adrenaline tend to fall rather rapidly between fight and its the most controversial aspect of the last nerf, do you still use 15% directly? I don’t know what could be used as it’s hard to estimate on average what amount of adrenaline you have.

When I say 12k and 11.5k I am not trying to cite specific scientific numbers. I am just giving ballpark figures.

I use 15%. I did a dungeon tour last night using Healing Surge at the start of boss fights and while it was annoying to maintain scholar bonus without a heal it was still acceptable. My 52k hundred blades were nice.

edit: I also want to say its somewhat curious that warrior dps dropped by about 2.5% personally but Mace 4 was buffed in a way that amounts to a 2.5% party dps increase. Goes along with the concept of a warrior as a support class.

One phalanx warrior per group,warrior are just support class atm…

Killface.1896:

One phalanx warrior per group,warrior are just support class atm…

and guardian the dps…. XD, it feels like inverted class jobs, for sure it is innovative.

Aeolus.3615:

Killface.1896:

One phalanx warrior per group,warrior are just support class atm…

and guardian the dps…. XD, it feels like inverted class jobs, for sure it is innovative.

He’s right. Warrior is a support class atm. Offensive support banners is the only reason why Warrior is part of a record run right now since other profession have better dps than a warrior.

Warrior give offensive support, Guardian give defensive support, Thief give stealth and boss dps, elementalist give support and general dps, mesmer give portal and reflect.