This fact can cause wide swaths in balance if one isn’t careful. Anet has done a remarkably good job with this, however. If I were to compare a DPS build (say, Obal’s DPS guardian build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgiC3FSHEf4ESODRCBtZAQHUli45eA-jACBYfCZkfQUBDZOzUZNPVQs4qIas6aYKXER1SBExwI-e) together with another similar build in full Soldier’s Gear (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgiC3FSHEf4ESODRCBtZAQHUli45eA-jwBBofERzkfQUBDZO1sIasFXFRjVZDT9iIqWKgIGGB-e), we’d get the following effective power before modifiers:
DPS build: 4376
Same build w/ Soldiers: 2871
And to compare effective HP (assuming base armor of 1836)
DPS: 12,871 HP
Soldiers: 29,152 HP
So, while the DPS build by itself does 52.4% more damage (and thus reduces incoming damage to 65.6%), the Soldier Build has 2.26 times the effective HP, thus reducing damage to 44.2% of what it originally was. Thus, under standard MMO practices, the soldiers build would stay alive for 48.4% longer, doing that much more damage the whole time.
The problem is not in the stats themselves! The overall combat potential between the two is only different by 2.7% between each other. Granted, the DPS is preferable because it works faster (and thus gets rewards quicker and can do more stuff), but when comparing effectiveness, they are nigh the same. In fact, if you wager average skill on part of the player, then pure GC gear might not be faster, because downing and dying greatly increases how long it takes to kill an enemy, and if a more survivable builds don’t involve as much risk.
But… this is where active defense comes in to play. I hate this part, because we move out of the realm of numbers and into more abstract concepts. But in general, when Anet designed these monsters, they made active defense too important.
The way you can think of active defense is this: every player has a certain number of moves they can mitigate through the use of dodges, skill dodges, blocks, invulnerability, blinds, stuns, immobilize, reflects, heals, and condition cleanses. Enemies have to go through this barrier of “moves” in order to do damage to the player. This barrier acts strangely, since it is identical for both a glass cannon and a tanky build. Only once you go past this barrier does the standard “player DPS + EHP vs. enemy DPS + EHP” principle take effect.
The fact that active defense is identical for both builds is important. Both builds above are only balanced under the assumption of constant damage, and under the assumption that active defense doesn’t exist. But, as we all know, that is not true! With active defense, the builds become horribly imbalanced, and without constant damage, the builds become even more imbalanced.
#1: Active defense: Enemies need to make so many moves before they get through active defense. The faster an enemy dies, the less moves they make. The less moves they make, the less likely they are to go through your active defense. With this in mind, it is very easy to do so much damage that an enemy dies before they can go through your active defense.
In contrast, by having lower DPS, enemies take longer to die, so they get more attacks, and so they go through your active defense more easily. The end result being that, by making yourself more durable, you end up taking more damage than if you had built for DPS. This is exacerbated by the second fact:
#2: Enemy DPS isn’t constant. Its quite the opposite, actually. Enemy attacks are slowly paced and well telegraphed, meaning that you can stop most of it with active defense. The second problem is that enemy attacks have a lot of damage (AND I MEAN A KITTEN TON OF DAMAGE) all loaded into these attacks. So much damage, in fact, that they can plow right through passive defenses. That 226% higher HP just means that, instead of dying in 3 attacks, you die in 6 attacks.
By contrast, regular enemies in the overworld do so little damage that there is no need to dodge at all. You just plow right through regular enemies and continue on as if nothing happened. But, silvers, champs, and enemies in dungeons do so much damage that there’s no point in passive defenses.
This has left the damage vs. survivability aspect of the game completely broken. While it is sound mathematically, it doesn’t work in practice due to how the game is designed.
The obvious solution is to fix the way enemies work. Of course, this is not an easy solution, since it would revolve around redesigning every enemy veteran rank and above. Then again, it was Anet’s enemy design that dug this hole in the first place.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
