229 replies to this topic

[Flour]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 31 January 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

Yes.  Much better.  Heh.

In all seriousness while Strife's build is okay it is heavily reliant on stacking Knights gear and having Altruistic Healing in conjunction with substantial investment in the Honor line, which is nice as it offers a lot of defensive stats and gives you room to make mistakes, but comes at the price of making you substantially less useful to your team, as you are giving up a massive chunk of DPS in exchange for a marginal benefit in survivability.  I wouldn't be surprised if this build deals at least 50% more damage than Strife's build, if not more.  I haven't run the numbers or anything though since I don't really feel like trying to figure out what his crit damage should be given his crazy spread of knights and berserker's gear.  You can't really call yourself a DPS when you don't actually deal any damage.

Would you also say that this spec/build is "easier" to play, or is it harder cos of the lack of defense?

Red Omen, on 31 January 2013 - 03:20 PM, said:

Citadel of Flame has Berserker equipment and is one of the fastest dungeon runs in the game.

But do anyone want you in those fast dungeon runs when you don't have any exotic gear runed/sigillied and jewels etc.. etc... ?
I haven't played any explorable dungeon yets cos it feels like I have to get my gear together first, and since money is so hard to get outside dungeons, it's been hard to finishing it all, since runes is so crazy, like 30g for 6 eagle runs when I checked. Now I'm probably going for the first setup though.

[indure]

Minion, on 31 January 2013 - 03:36 AM, said:

I'm somewhat confused how you're using berserker's and knights and not having 60% crit chance base (probably not using eagle runes), but with Fury in your team, the 15% chance from grandmaster seems superfluous and won't be adding much. Imo, anything over 15-20 radiance is a waste in a power/crit orientated build. If you ever need a little more precision, you can just eat a precision-based food, raising precision by 70-100.

Question is, how can you justify spending 10-15 points in a line that boosts condition damage and little else?

I agree with this. The 15% crit increase in Right-handed Strength seems terrible for a build design for high damage, because you have to assume the build will be using large amounts of Berserker gear and will already have +50% crit chance. With food buffs that can easily be pushed to 60-70% and even more with fury up. The +15% becomes pretty insignificant, fast. To make it worse you can't use the higher base 15% crit chance to lower your precision on armor in substitution for either power, or crit damage, because of how gear is attributed. The only gear you can make substitutions with is Valkyrie for additional Health, but that doesn't help your damage at all.

TLDR: In a high damage build, Right-handed Strength has little value because you already have high crit chances and gear restrictions don't allow you to due anything with the extra precision.

[KaptainO]

I just don't follow your logic here and the math doesn't support it.

Why do you get less from crit after 50 or 60%? and less than what?

From 30 Radiance you're getting +15% damage (5% from swords, 10% vs target with a condition) and 30% crit (45% with swords/sceptre)

Where are you going to move those points and get more offensive value?  Put 20 into Zeal?

You may not be able to just swap precision for power on your armour due to stat allocations but you can not run Rune of the Eagle and run something Power based, or Ruby Orbs or SupMonk/SupWater/MajSanctuary.

Also, as I mentioned before Crit provides other benefits like Omnomberry pie/ghost procs which, without AH, are this builds only survivability option.

[Thaddeuz]

Flour, on 31 January 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:

But do anyone want you in those fast dungeon runs when you don't have any exotic gear runed/sigillied and jewels etc.. etc... ?
I haven't played any explorable dungeon yets cos it feels like I have to get my gear together first, and since money is so hard to get outside dungeons, it's been hard to finishing it all, since runes is so crazy, like 30g for 6 eagle runs when I checked. Now I'm probably going for the first setup though.

I never really saw any gear check in GW2. The difference between someone in rare vs someone in exotic is not that big. If your bad in rare you gonna be bad in exotic.

[indure]

KaptainO, on 31 January 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

From 30 Radiance you're getting +15% damage (5% from swords, 10% vs target with a condition) and 30% crit (45% with swords/sceptre)
Where are you going to move those points and get more offensive value?  Put 20 into Zeal?

Perhaps you are correct. If you want to use 1-handed weapons and focus on damage, Radiance is your best bet. I just think it's overkill to gain 30% crit from Radiance when a two-handed damage build with food and fury can reach ~80% crit chance in parties as well as have 20% harder hitting crits than this build.

[KaptainO]

And perhaps you are correct! what is the 2H damage build we're talking about?

Full berserker armour/weapons/jewelry? ruby orbs? what's the trait allocation?

I just don't know what we're comparing it to.

[Red Omen]

Flour, on 31 January 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:

But do anyone want you in those fast dungeon runs when you don't have any exotic gear runed/sigillied and jewels etc.. etc... ?
I haven't played any explorable dungeon yets cos it feels like I have to get my gear together first, and since money is so hard to get outside dungeons, it's been hard to finishing it all, since runes is so crazy, like 30g for 6 eagle runs when I checked. Now I'm probably going for the first setup though.

Granted. You won't be getting six-minute runs immediately, but you can still hold your own. Explorable dungeons are extremely profitable, and things like Ascalonian Catacombs can be accomplished without being fully geared (remember, it opens at level 35 - nobody's fully geared then). I'd say take a chance and run a dungeon. Start with the Ghost Eater path in AC. Be prepared to die fairly frequently, and learn enemy attack animations so you know when to dodge (especially Lt. Kohler). You'll get a good chunk of money for every run, and that will open up your options significantly.

GW2LFG.com recently implemented a way to specify the sort of run you're taking. Look at the icons in the rightmost column. A fast-forward symbol or a gear mean "speedrun" or "experienced only", which you should avoid. You can leave an LFG request of your own for AC Exp with a question mark icon, which means you're new and you're warning people who answer the request to be patient and helpful. I've had a lot of success with that site; the chances you'll get an unpleasant group are reasonably low.

As far as Eagle Runes are concerned - just grab some Ruby Orbs instead. They're less than 8 silver each, and a full set of them gives you 12% crit damage. They're a great option if you're strapped for cash, and they're even better than runes for some setups.

[Rhonina The Banshee]

can you please type the stats u get with this build?

[Strife025]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 31 January 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

Yes.  Much better.  Heh.

In all seriousness while Strife's build is okay it is heavily reliant on stacking Knights gear and having Altruistic Healing in conjunction with substantial investment in the Honor line, which is nice as it offers a lot of defensive stats and gives you room to make mistakes, but comes at the price of making you substantially less useful to your team, as you are giving up a massive chunk of DPS in exchange for a marginal benefit in survivability.  I wouldn't be surprised if this build deals at least 50% more damage than Strife's build, if not more.  I haven't run the numbers or anything though since I don't really feel like trying to figure out what his crit damage should be given his crazy spread of knights and berserker's gear.  You can't really call yourself a DPS when you don't actually deal any damage.

Difference is my build is to fulfill a specific role in an organized dungeon group, but yes it is a combination of knights and berserker (knights armor, ascended berserker trinkets, knights earrings with exquisite ruby orbs) to hit 3k armor, 75% crit damage, and ~45% base crit chance (which is boosted to around 70-75% in a 3 warrior group because of discipline, 100% fury uptime, and food). My group runs 1 guardian/3 warrior/1 mesmer so we rely on guardian as the anchor because of it's toughness and survivability with AH (other classes run berserker and it's apparent that toughness contributes to agro). It's alot cleaner, especially in fractals and certain bosses to have an anchor character which relieves pressure from the other classes to focus on dps while "anchoring" silver groups and bosses so they don't move around since guardian is extremely good at tanking if you time aegis, shouts, and dodges for the larger attacks. Since Guardian is naturally the best at it through AH and it's defensive skills, it naturally makes a good anchor compared to other classes.

So yes, I don't doubt this build does quite a bit more damage by running damage traits and using full zerker gear, but my groups use Guardians to fulfill a specific role when running in full organized groups, relying on superior dps utility and traits of the warrior to fulfill the dps role. This build would really have no room in my guild or groups, because we would just take warriors for dps which contribute more because of their natural ability to stack % damage traits and skills which benefit the dps of the entire party better.

So for anyone looking at playing a guardian and focusing on damage, then yes this build is good, but as far as comparing it to my build for the specific role it is built for, there's not even a comparison. The reason you would use my build or use this build are for completely different reasons that fulfill completely different roles. My build is labeled "Tanky DPS" for a reason, while my Warrior is "Primary DPS". It's basically a misnomer that has come from many previous games, which is a character that tanks and has good survivability, while still contributing good dps, not great. Obviously it's not going to do the same damage as a "carry" or "primary dps" class, but it's not going to hit like a wet noodle like a full on tank or support character is either. Since you don't need a full on tank in this game, then a sort of off-tank is enough to fulfill the "tank" role. That's why back in October when I created my original guide, it was in full on PVT gear. Then naturally as I learned more about the game I realized increasing my dps while still maintaining adequate toughness still allowed the guardian to fullfill it's role of being an anchor for pure dps classes, while increasing it's own dps by dropping vitality and some toughness in return for higher crit chance and damage.

That's really the main reason I don't usually post in other build threads in any of the forums, because my guides are created for specific roles and organized groups and alot of other builds are more generalized. I personally don't care if other people use other builds, my original and primary goal was to make guides for dungeons and other challenging PvE content; the builds came about because so many people were asking what builds we use in my dungeon groups since we clear everything so quickly and easily. There's a reason I have dungeon guides showing how we run all dungeons easily, and why I have a build for guardians/warriors/and mesmers that are meant to work together, it's because my guides are more focused on organized groups and using specific classes to fulfill specific roles as they work together.

Edited by Strife025, 31 January 2013 - 11:22 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

What you are basically saying is that you aren't running DPS because you don't want to be DPS.  It's wrapped up in a lot of other fluff but that seems to be basically the gist of it.  While with Elusive Power nerf warriors hit marginally higher than guardians in a straight melee DPS race, in practice I have found that guardians are actually the better DPS class, and as I've said numerous times, 3 guardians, a warrior, and an engineer hit just as hard as 4 warriors and an engineer.  Otherwise, guardians tend to be much sturdier in general (with better defensive skills, both weapon and utiliy, and other passive benefits, like Resolve and Aegis).

Moreover, warriors are really bad at range.  Rifle just does bad damage however you build it, while in contrast Smite is pretty much the most op thing ever, even if the target isn't big enough to land max hits on.  Any boss you need to range (and there are many), warriors are basically dead weight.  As such, you going "I'm a guardian so I'll just tank while the warriors DPS" is just something you decided on for your own personal playstyle; my philosophy is "I'm a guardian so I'm just going to murder everything get out of my way".

I suppose both are valid phiosophies.  Just mine is, you know, better.

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 01 February 2013 - 05:53 AM.

[heatrr]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 01 February 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

Rifle just does bad damage however you build it....

I am sure that a consistent 7+K shots upwards of 16 - 22+K are defined as "bad damage" given a couple warrior rifle (sniper) builds? /s

[GuanglaiKangyi]

heatrr, on 01 February 2013 - 03:55 AM, said:

I am sure that a consistent 7+K shots upwards of 16 - 22+K are defined as "bad damage" given a couple warrior rifle (sniper) builds? /s

You're free to show me this build that allegedly hits 7k with anything other than Kill Shot, which I will note is a 2s channel that roots, and burns all your adrenaline.

[ShadowsRequiem]

Tried the build as I always like dmg chars, I switched a few pieces for knights gear and its pretty fun I gotta say

[Evans]

Your sheer selfconfidence/arrogance compels me to give this a try. Shame I'm not really hot for swords, but then again, I've been relying on scepter for AoE mostly as of late anyway.

You say sword main and mace secondary, but what happens when you need range halfway through a battle?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Evans, on 01 February 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

Your sheer selfconfidence/arrogance compels me to give this a try. Shame I'm not really hot for swords, but then again, I've been relying on scepter for AoE mostly as of late anyway.

You say sword main and mace secondary, but what happens when you need range halfway through a battle?

Just know when you're going to need range, and switch to scepter beforehand.  Worst case, run away and switch.

[Evans]

Sounds simple enough I suppose. Best way to know it to try so I guess I'll be giving it a go. Thanks

[Strife025]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 01 February 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

What you are basically saying is that you aren't running DPS because you don't want to be DPS.  It's wrapped up in a lot of other fluff but that seems to be basically the gist of it.  While with Elusive Power nerf warriors hit marginally higher than guardians in a straight melee DPS race, in practice I have found that guardians are actually the better DPS class, and as I've said numerous times, 3 guardians, a warrior, and an engineer hit just as hard as 4 warriors and an engineer.  Otherwise, guardians tend to be much sturdier in general (with better defensive skills, both weapon and utiliy, and other passive benefits, like Resolve and Aegis).

Moreover, warriors are really bad at range.  Rifle just does bad damage however you build it, while in contrast Smite is pretty much the most op thing ever, even if the target isn't big enough to land max hits on.  Any boss you need to range (and there are many), warriors are basically dead weight.  As such, you going "I'm a guardian so I'll just tank while the warriors DPS" is just something you decided on for your own personal playstyle; my philosophy is "I'm a guardian so I'm just going to murder everything get out of my way".

I suppose both are valid phiosophies.  Just mine is, you know, better.

lol.

It's funny how you somehow think guardians do more damage then warriors yet can't ever actually post a video proving it. Keep living in your make believe theory craft world though bro.

It's obvious there's no use actually talking to you after seeing all the bs you post in other threads and the fact you can never actually back anything up other then some spreadsheets with tooltip numbers which isn't even close to accurate. Good thing I don't need your approval since I already have all the proof and approval I need from running thousands of dungeons in organized groups. But have fun in your build thread.

Edited by Strife025, 01 February 2013 - 04:07 PM.

[Thaddeuz]

I'm guardian all the way, but our DPS is not better than the Warrior's. In exchange, the Guardian have some of the best group Support Skill, which make both class equally good on their own way.

[KaptainO]

Don't you find the sword's limited number of targets to be a problem?

Sure against a single target comparing coefficients between GS AA and Sword AA is reasonable

GS = 0.8 + 0.8 + 1.2 = 2.8 coefficient in 2.4 seconds ~1.17 coef/s
Sword = 0.8 + 0.8 + 3 * 0.5 = 3.1 coefficient in 2.5 seconds ~ 1.24 coef/s

but vs 3 targets it's:

GS = 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 1.2 = 8.4 coef in 2.4 seconds ~3.5 coef/s
Sword = 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 0.5 = 6.3 coef in 2.5 seconds ~2.52 coef/s

Not to mention the GS has 4 other abilities that raise dps and hit up to 5 targets as well as group 5 mobs together for more effective AoE from you and the rest of the group where sword has nothing?

Seems like a fairly big trade off on multi target fights for a relatively small payoff on single target fights.

You say swap to mace as an 2nd set, when do you swap?  Have you found Mace to be significantly more survivable?  When I tried it I always felt the healing from the symbol/AA was negligible and I'd have been better off staying in GS or Hammer.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Strife025, on 01 February 2013 - 03:44 PM, said:

lol.

It's funny how you somehow think guardians do more damage then warriors yet can't ever actually post a video proving it. Keep living in your make believe theory craft world though bro.

It's obvious there's no use actually talking to you after seeing all the bs you post in other threads and the fact you can never actually back anything up other then some spreadsheets with tooltip numbers which isn't even close to accurate. Good thing I don't need your approval since I already have all the proof and approval I need from running thousands of dungeons in organized groups. But have fun in your build thread.

And which tooltips exactly are inaccurate?  Go ahead and figure that out then we'll talk.  Anybody can crutch on the other four members of his party and pretend he's being useful without objective evidence to back it it up its all meaningless.  Are you sure your group wouldn't be better off if you just ran DPS instead of "tanking"?  Have you even tried?  Cause my usual dungeon group does everything just fine with five DPS.  Objective numbers aside, guardians are simply better at DPS than warriors in practice because they aren't dependent on a 4s melee channel to damage and they take hits much better whatever the spec.  I'd even go so far as to say that warriors are downright bad for running any dungeon that isn't COF path 1, and even that is debatable.

Regardless, question was asked and answered.  Let's move on.

KaptainO, on 01 February 2013 - 04:56 PM, said:

Don't you find the sword's limited number of targets to be a problem?

Sure against a single target comparing coefficients between GS AA and Sword AA is reasonable

GS = 0.8 + 0.8 + 1.2 = 2.8 coefficient in 2.4 seconds ~1.17 coef/s
Sword = 0.8 + 0.8 + 3 * 0.5 = 3.1 coefficient in 2.5 seconds ~ 1.24 coef/s

but vs 3 targets it's:

GS = 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 1.2 = 8.4 coef in 2.4 seconds ~3.5 coef/s
Sword = 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 0.8 + 3 * 0.5 = 6.3 coef in 2.5 seconds ~2.52 coef/s

Not to mention the GS has 4 other abilities that raise dps and hit up to 5 targets as well as group 5 mobs together for more effective AoE from you and the rest of the group where sword has nothing?

Seems like a fairly big trade off on multi target fights for a relatively small payoff on single target fights.

You say swap to mace as an 2nd set, when do you swap?  Have you found Mace to be significantly more survivable?  When I tried it I always felt the healing from the symbol/AA was negligible and I'd have been better off staying in GS or Hammer.

Sword actually hits AOE too.  The third swing has worse AOE but it does hit AOE, and it's not necessarily that much worse in terms of area covered than the greatsword third swing.  The GS's AOE advantage comes from Symbol and Whirl, and like I've already said, there's nothing necessarily keeping you from using that then switching to sword while the skills recharge.

As far as mace goes, doing focus block/shield knockback > symbol > counter is a pretty huge lifesaver.  You negate a bunch of hits and stack regen.  Obviously it won't save you if you're just standing in lava or something but it definitely makes you last longer.  You can also put Blood or Leeching on the mace to get an extra burst of healing since it's not really a DPS weapon to begin with.  I recommend Blood since Leeching might get overwritten by Strength's internal CD.

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 01 February 2013 - 05:06 PM.

[KaptainO]

Well sword swing 1 & 2 are aoe (1 hit per target, up to 3), but sword 3 does 3 hits total, whether you have 1 target (taking 3 hits) or 3 targets (taking a hit each).

So while GS 3rd swing triples in dps vs 3 targets Sword's 3rd swing dps stays the same.

I'll take another look at Mace and try it out sometime though.

[KaptainO]

Regarding the choice of Boon Duration Runes:

GuanglaiKangyi, on 31 January 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

In terms of damage it's just how many more stacks of might you can get.  Without boon duration you get between 2-3 stacks from Sigil of Strength and 4-5 from Empowering Might.  With, that goes up to 4-5 for the former and 7-8 for the latter.  In practice I find that you can maintain 5-6 more stacks with 40% more boon duration compared to no boon duration at all.

Of course, there is also fury but Guardians only get one short-term fury application, so it doesn't make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

I haven't tested your numbers but let's say the uptime's are correct, you have 5-6 (say 5.5) more might stacks with Boon Duration runes, let's also assume you never cap out might and lose the benefit of some of those extra stacks.

5.5 stacks = 192.5 power

6 orbs = 120 power, 84 precision, 12% crit damage.

I'm showing that's about 4.7% more damage with the orbs.

Of course there are other boons that can be affected by it like fury or whatever, not sure how much that's worth, we'd need to specify everything else that benefits.

Oh, I just realised, EM gives might to allies so that's another 8 stacks (2 per person assuming all 4 targets within range).  That should put boon duration over the top.  I guess I need to figure out how many stacks it actually gives you to find the answer =\

[GuanglaiKangyi]

KaptainO, on 01 February 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

Well sword swing 1 & 2 are aoe (1 hit per target, up to 3), but sword 3 does 3 hits total, whether you have 1 target (taking 3 hits) or 3 targets (taking a hit each).

So while GS 3rd swing triples in dps vs 3 targets Sword's 3rd swing dps stays the same.

I'll take another look at Mace and try it out sometime though.

Sword Wave actually pierces through targets, so it'll work like any normal AOE swing if targets are stacked.  You can try it on any large group of small mobs (i.e. graveling hatchlings).  Sword Wave will be like a million hits.

[TheKnox]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 31 January 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

In terms of damage it's just how many more stacks of might you can get.  Without boon duration you get between 2-3 stacks from Sigil of Strength and 4-5 from Empowering Might.  With, that goes up to 4-5 for the former and 7-8 for the latter.  In practice I find that you can maintain 5-6 more stacks with 40% more boon duration compared to no boon duration at all.

These numbers don't work out.

Assuming that the wiki values of 1 second cooldown for Empowering Might and 2 seconds for Sigil of Strength are correct:

Uptime = Duration/[cooldown+1/(AttacksPerSecond*ProcChance)]

With Fury up for a 92% crit chance and the +40% boon duration:

Empowering Might = 7/[1+1/(2*.92)]  = 4.55 stacks
Sigil of Strength = 14/[2+1/(2*.275)] = 3.69 stacks

Without the + Boon duration, you would have:

Empowering Might = 5/[1+1/(2*.92)]  = 3.25 stacks
Sigil of Strength = 10/[2+1/(2*.275)] = 2.63 stacks

This obviously ignores the additional stats you'd get from whatever you replaced those runes with.
The difference with a single target is 2.36 stacks of might and 1.06 stacks for the rest of the group.

If you run that with the full complement of 3 cleave targets, the attacks per second goes up to 6, and the results net out to


Empowering Might = 7/[1+1/(6*.92)]  = 5.93 stacks
Sigil of Strength = 14/[2+1/(6*.275)] = 5.39 stacks

Without the + Boon duration, you would have:

Empowering Might = 5/[1+1/(6*.92)]  = 4.24 stacks
Sigil of Strength = 10/[2+1/(6*.275)] = 3.85 stacks

Net difference in the cleave scenario turns out to be 3.23 plus 1.69 stacks for the rest of your team.

I'd say a more reasonable estimate is 3 stacks for yourself and 1.5 for the rest of your team.  That is a total of 9 stacks of might for a total of 630 stat points total. (power + condition damage).  You're giving up about 290 of your own stats to get that, so depending on how much you value your teammates contributions, It is still probably worth it, but in reality, most power/precision builds don't get as much use out of condition damage and vice versa, so it isn't as much of a slam dunk as it seems. at a glance.

I'd personally still go with the boon duration runes, although I'd seriously consider dropping the major rune for 2x Ruby Orbs.


edit: Assuming 1s on Sigil of Strength Cooldown


Single Target:
Personal / Group
   9.52    4.54

No +Boon Duration
Personal / Group
   6.80    3.24

Cleave:
Personal / Group
   14.66    5.93

No +Boon Duration
Personal / Group
   10.47    4.23

That's more like 3-4 stacks on you and still close to 1.5 stacks on the rest of the group if you've got somebody constantly feeding you fury to keep your crit rate up.

If the cooldown is in actually 1s, you could definitely keep up 5 stacks on yourself with just the sigil on a single target, and about 8 stacks when fighting 3 or more.

Edited by TheKnox, 02 February 2013 - 06:19 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

I've seen Sigil of Strength proc back-to-back in my tests.  I think the cooldown is 1 second rather than two.  Although yeah, now that i think about it there's no way I could get 8 stacks of Empowering Might when it's 7 seconds in duration.  It may just be luck but I usually see 11-12 stacks when auto-attacking things solo, and attacking a mob without Empowering Might traited usually maintains around 4-5 stacks constantly, which means Empowering Might would have to be giving at least 5-6 on its own.

You're right that the math doesn't add up though.  I'm guessing the cooldown on Empowering Might may not actually be exactly 1 second, and I'm pretty sure Sigil of Strength isn't 2, so that may have something to do with it.

[TheKnox]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 31 January 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

I wouldn't be surprised if this build deals at least 50% more damage than Strife's build, if not more.  I haven't run the numbers or anything though since I don't really feel like trying to figure out what his crit damage should be given his crazy spread of knights and berserker's gear.

This build beats his build by about 35-40% in raw damage output.  If you could get the same base damage out of the sword/focus setup, it would be a much much bigger gap than that thanks to the much better multipliers and pure DPS gear, but you're starting in the hole because the 1h sword is so anemic.

TLDR: This build is about as effective with a 1H sword as it is with a Greatsword, but it pretty much maximizes DPS thanks to all of the sweet multipliers it picks up.


edited to reflect me correcting my terribad math.

Edited by TheKnox, 02 February 2013 - 07:32 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

TheKnox, on 02 February 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

This build beats his build by about 8% in raw damage output.  If you could get the same base damage out of the sword/focus setup, it would be a much much bigger gap than that thanks to the much better multipliers and pure DPS gear, but you're starting in the hole because the 1h sword is so anemic.

In fact, just equipping a greatsword in this build without swapping any traits at all will actually increase your damage output.  It really isn't even close.  You'd gain close to 20% damage just by using the greatsword instead of the sword/focus.  Even using this build with a Hammer would net you an additional 10% damage.

TLDR: Don't use a 1h Sword

Eh?  Based on the numbers I can estimate from his build he should be hitting somewhere in the range of 1850 a second.  When I ran the numbers for my own build I got about 2700 a second with 1H sword, so that's about 46% more damage..  Even if I am very generous with the numbers and assume 2000 damage on Strife's build versus 2500 on mine, that still gives a 25% damage advantage.  You have your spreadsheet so you should be able to see this on your own.  It is true that sword has a lower base damage than GS (about 10% less) but you are adding on three damage-boosting traits (two for 10% and one for 5%), 30% more crit chance, more might stacks, and 2% more crit damage in addition to a considerably higher power stat to begin with.

Incidentally, hammer should net you about 2450 or so based on what I have here.  I think whatever number your'e using a comparison for sword DPS is screwy.

[TheKnox]

Screwy indeed, I found a typo in one of the formulas for the total damage done addition.

This build should do about 3100 self buffed DPS with a Pie and Sharpening Stone.

If you get fury from somebody else, that number jumps up to 3550 DPS.

Swapping the Greatsword into this exact build will net you 3100 and 3550 DPS respectively.  It is virtually the same damage, and the greatsword actually provides about 0.5 extra group stacks of might due to the higher number of attacks/second to trigger EM.

With the Greatsword, you end up with almost the exact same DPS numbers if you drop that last 5 points out of Radiance and pick up 5 more in any of the other trees.

For my money, I'd go 10/25/0/30/5 with a GS if I wanted to max out my damage output since it will put up about 2 additional might stacks on average over the 1h variant (thanks to inspired virtues and the extra attacks/second).  The flip-side is that the 1H variant gets more mileage out of the scepter setup.  The personal DPS numbers are so close that it probably makes no difference at all outside of what you like to play.

For Reference, Strife's build should spit out about 2250/2550 with Soldier runes and 2300/2635 with the Boon duration ones.  So it's about a 35-40% increase in damage over his build with this one.  My apologies for the error.

Edited by TheKnox, 02 February 2013 - 07:39 AM.

[Minion]

Your problem here, ignoring your arrogance, is the fact that you're trying to find maximum damage on a guardian, instead of the most useful in PvE situations. It's about dungeons, really, no one needs a build for world completion because it's petty stuff.

You're suggesting sword/focus over a greatsword, which sounds fun but the greatsword has a larger swing anyway and Binding Chains is the greatest skill in the game. Why would you suggest not to use that in the face of +15% crit chance? Your traits are also messed up; you're thinking about the base trait stats instead of the skills themselves. Ignore the stats for a moment and consider your armour and trinkets offer enough to sacrifice a couple of stats to gain better skills for your build. A guardian *should* be an anchor for the party, but they can also be very domogy with greatsword, as Strife says.

tl;dr, you're building your ideas off the back of the wrong "superior theory" and you are a siwwy person. Alternatively, you can get your thread renamed "highest DPS but also most useless guardian build!"

[Flour]

People just can't act nice to you.
But you've seen this build in action and you say it does not give you a problem in dungeons or fractals, so people should at least accept it works, for those who can play with it.

I got myself full berserker now (the gear and a GS), nothing else yet. So I'll give it a try and if I find myself dead too much, I guess I'll just go for Strifes build. I don't understand people who yells at you and say evil words. People can just change their build if they want to - I'm sure a lot of those who writes have plenty of money and already a setup of Knights and Berserker to switch between.

If you're a pro player tha can dodge and use the lifesteals to your advantage I'm sure this build is great. Maybe I'm good at it, maybe I suck at it. If I do suck,  I guess I need to go for Strifes build, or quit the game, all depending on how much I suck.

EDIT: Should we really skip using ZD? Gives me pretty big numbers...
But I don't have that much crit yet, since not fully geared, so I guess the attack chain doesn't crit as often as it should at the moment.

Edited by Flour, 02 February 2013 - 11:18 PM.