9 replies to this topic

[Ark211049]

Hey all, after quite a bit of experimentation and testing I created a very high dmg guardian build and am curious how it would compare dps wise to the atypical high dmg warrior build, I know I know people automatically just say "warr for dmg" but please hear me out, the idea I was working on was trying to synergise specific lines/traits with the GS skills, the guardians natural abilities and each other.
Only haveing a 80 warr and a low level guar I cant fully test them myself, both with knights armor, berserker trinkets/wepon(GS), superior runes of strength and sigil of strength, possibly the guar switching to soldiers armor the lower precision offset by higher power may be more inline with this build im not sure, the idea is if with such a build a guardian could bring to the table the same or very close damage, in effect denying its more inherent support/survivale role in favour of a dps one while still retaining its uniqueness, in theory atleast according to Anets much espoused maxims this should be possible, anyones input/thoughts is appreciated ty.

Guardian: http://gw2skills.net...AVwqCxD2DNC yIA

Warrior: http://gw2skills.net...iA6ygKm0HaLVoMA

[Zhahz]

They're both capable of extremely high damage and have a wide variety of sexy skills to choose from that make some other classes look incomplete.  What else do you really need to know?  OP is OP.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Guardian base DPS actually isn't that much lower than warrior DPS, and their overall DPS actually comes out to about the same when testing in Mists.  The difference is that warrior gets a higher base crit rate with a full zerker set than guardian does thanks to traits so they gain comparatively more when you move to PvE, where you can get more crit damage.  Overall though the difference isn't going to be that huge, especially when you consider that the Guardian can stack might on allies to make up the individual damage difference through a party-wide buff.  It's effectively warrior doing 10% more individually versus guardian boosting party damage by 5%.

Hundred Blades always comes out to huge numbers, though, so that's always fun.  It usually hits about 20k and can come up even higher with vuln, might, etc. all stacking on a single target.

[Strife025]

I have an 80 war and guard, warrior will always do more damage if you fully spec both classes for damage, just because they have way better traits for increasing their damage.

Just look through their traits and you can see how much might, % crit, and % damage they can stack compared to *edit*guardian*. On the flip side though, Guardian can be way tankier and support better. It's just the way the classes were designed.

Edited by Strife025, 05 December 2012 - 07:10 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Strife025, on 05 December 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

I have an 80 war and guard, warrior will always do more damage if you fully spec both classes for damage, just because they have way better traits for increasing their damage.

Just look through their traits and you can see how much might, % crit, and % damage they can stack compared to warrior. On the flip side though, Guardian can be way tankier and support better. It's just the way the classes were designed.

Actually the warrior doesn't get that much more in terms of trait boosts than the Guardian does.  If you're building to maximize DPS you get Attack of Opportunity (+10%), Forceful Greatsword (+5% from might and -20% CD), Berserker's Power (+12%), and Heightened Focus (+9% crit chance), plus maybe 5 or so stacks of Might from other sources (+5%).  By comparison Guardian gets Fiery Wrath (+10%), Radiant Power (+10%), and Retributive Armor (+3% crit chance), plus 5 or so stacks of might from other sources (+5%).  That's only a difference of about 8%.

Also, Guardian can alternately go 10/0/30/30/0, and take Empowering Might (+5%), Elusive Power (+10%) and Two-Handed Mastery (-20% CD) in exchange for some crit chance.  It actually adds up to about the same overall damage and Empowering Might boosts the entire party's damage.

[coglin]

I do not think the guardian damage touches warriors, personally. There is a reason you never see videos with guardians doing 10k-14k damage in one attack, but you will see it in in warriors. Many of them actually.

[Strife025]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 05 December 2012 - 06:18 PM, said:

Actually the warrior doesn't get that much more in terms of trait boosts than the Guardian does.  If you're building to maximize DPS you get Attack of Opportunity (+10%), Forceful Greatsword (+5% from might and -20% CD), Berserker's Power (+12%), and Heightened Focus (+9% crit chance), plus maybe 5 or so stacks of Might from other sources (+5%).  By comparison Guardian gets Fiery Wrath (+10%), Radiant Power (+10%), and Retributive Armor (+3% crit chance), plus 5 or so stacks of might from other sources (+5%).  That's only a difference of about 8%.

Also, Guardian can alternately go 10/0/30/30/0, and take Empowering Might (+5%), Elusive Power (+10%) and Two-Handed Mastery (-20% CD) in exchange for some crit chance.  It actually adds up to about the same overall damage and Empowering Might boosts the entire party's damage.

Warrior has 100% fury uptime and 8 stacks of might from signet + shouts, fury alone is huge for dps since your getting ~160% more damage 20% of the time all the time (assuming berserkers set +50% natural crit damage buff).

Like I said, I have had a Warrior and Guardian at 80 forever, and have run hundreds of dungeons with them. I have dps sets for both and have specced for dps. A pure dps guardian can't match a dps warrior because of a combination of their traits, skills, and burst. The upside is they offer more defensive options that allow warriors to stay in full dps, like near 100% protection uptime with hammer.

Not saying guardians do bad damage, but you need both for speed runs just because of the inherent offensive boons war gives and defensive boons guard gives.

Edited by Strife025, 05 December 2012 - 07:20 PM.

[Ark211049]

Strife025, on 05 December 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

Like I said, I have had a Warrior and Guardian at 80 forever, and have run hundreds of dungeons with them. I have dps sets for both and have specced for dps. A pure dps guardian can't match a dps warrior because of a combination of their traits, skills, and burst.

ok, your making a arguement based on your experiance, but by how much? close, very close, far off, 10%, 25%, enough that playing a guardian for dmg role is just gimping yourself and you should just roll warr?

[Strife025]

Ark211049, on 05 December 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

ok, your making a arguement based on your experiance, but by how much? close, very close, far off, 10%, 25%, enough that playing a guardian for dmg role is just gimping yourself and you should just roll warr?

I haven't done any pure number tests since you would need a dps parser, hand record data, or time solo fights off the same mob. I really haven't cared enough to do that since all the groups I run do 2 guardian and 2 war anyways and it's much more beneficial to roll tankier Guardian builds to let the wars go full dps. As far as dungeons go, they both need each other for the defensive and offensive boons to speed clear dungeons.

As a baseline though, this person's video of cof path 1 speed runs is a good indicator.
http://www.youtube.com/user/nluckz

He has it from both a warrior and guardian perspective. I've talked to him before and both are in full berserker because that's really all you need for farming cof path 1 and 2. As you can see the warrior auto attacks do quite a bit more.

Obviously without guardian shouts the warrior would probably get downed, and without the warrior shouts the guardian wouldn't crit as much. It's more about the synergy between the group. Which is why I've always been of the opinion that if you want to spec pure melee dps war is better, and if you want more survivability to take pressure off the dps classes in your group then guardian is better. Obviously you can still do vice versa, they just wouldn't be as optimal because guardian can't hit the offensive numbers that warrior can and warriors can't it the survivability that guardians can simply because of their skills and traits.

As far as numbers, I can't say for sure, maybe 25-30% based on auto attack damage, slightly less ways to increase base dmg through traits, and the lack of 100% might/fury uptime on guardian without warriors in the group.

Edited by Strife025, 06 December 2012 - 12:27 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Strife025, on 06 December 2012 - 12:26 AM, said:

I haven't done any pure number tests since you would need a dps parser, hand record data, or time solo fights off the same mob. I really haven't cared enough to do that since all the groups I run do 2 guardian and 2 war anyways and it's much more beneficial to roll tankier Guardian builds to let the wars go full dps. As far as dungeons go, they both need each other for the defensive and offensive boons to speed clear dungeons.

As a baseline though, this person's video of cof path 1 speed runs is a good indicator.
http://www.youtube.com/user/nluckz

He has it from both a warrior and guardian perspective. I've talked to him before and both are in full berserker because that's really all you need for farming cof path 1 and 2. As you can see the warrior auto attacks do quite a bit more.

Obviously without guardian shouts the warrior would probably get downed, and without the warrior shouts the guardian wouldn't crit as much. It's more about the synergy between the group. Which is why I've always been of the opinion that if you want to spec pure melee dps war is better, and if you want more survivability to take pressure off the dps classes in your group then guardian is better. Obviously you can still do vice versa, they just wouldn't be as optimal because guardian can't hit the offensive numbers that warrior can and warriors can't it the survivability that guardians can simply because of their skills and traits.

As far as numbers, I can't say for sure, maybe 25-30% based on auto attack damage, slightly less ways to increase base dmg through traits, and the lack of 100% might/fury uptime on guardian without warriors in the group.

Signet of Rage is really the only thing that makes a difference since it gives 100% fury uptime with enough boon duration specced, while Guardian can only get like 33% uptime at best.  Otherwise the other numbers aren't as substantially different as you seem to think.  The guardian's greatsword auto-attack actually hits harder the warrior's, and it applies might rather than vulnerability which is better in general since it doesn't get affected by Unshakable.  Warrior DPS is definitely higher one way or another, it's just not as big of a difference as you might think.  This is in raw damage numbers, too, a Guardian can hit max GS DPS potential with a 10/0/30/30/0 build, which gives him AH and vigor and might on crit.  5 Guardians stacking Empowering Might on each other will beat out 5 warriors stacking FGJ, especially since warriors don't actually benefit from the fury stacking since they already have it 100% uptime.

Just wait until they actually finish the Guardian, though, then it'll be the best for sure.  Guardian right now has, like, four good traits out of the entire selection and the rest are placeholders.  Meanwhile warriors complaining about minor bugs like... actually I can't even think of any, other than the one Fast Hands bug.