A Question of Numbers-ish

Coming from WoW (World of Warcraft, for those whom might not know), the game in and of itself was/still is all about efficiency and numbers. You aren't allowed in a group without showing either your numbers or proof that you are capable of producing said numbers. It evens gets to a point where if your not a specific class, you cannot be in a group, both healers and DPS. To put it bluntly, WoW is a numbers game.

So now I come to Guild Wars. Right now I'm still experiencing the basic PvE side of things; working on the Nightfall and Proph campaigns. But with me coming from a WoW background, I want to do the most damage. I want my monk, or as it may be, my rit or derv, or even possibly the really obscure combo of Me/N to which I have not even begin to think of its potential power, to provide the best hpm (heals per minute; may not be applicable in GW, but I digress); I don't know. What I do know is that I'll be ready to expierience end game content pretty soon and I would like to go into it already prepared and make my current face roll content more face rolly-er if you will.

WoW was LOADED with websites that told you how to be the best with numbers to show. Is(are) there a website(s) like that for GW? To be more general, is there a class combo or specific build that has the highest DPS? To that same extent, highest HpM? Or perhaps DPpM (Damage Prevented per Minute) as it may be. Not sure if DPpM is real, but either way.

Thanks in advance

Sorry if this comment is in the wrong section. I did not see a section in the forums for this specifically.

Numbers aren't really counted in GW. PvX Wiki is your best best for current meta builds for high end/end content pve. PvE doesn't matter too much what build you take if you're just going for the story. Some builds are better than others but for the most part, you load up heroes and c-space through the game.

GW is just as much a numbers game. (All computer games are numbers games at the most fundamental level.) However the math in GW is complicated enough that few people are able to run the numbers, or even follow the numbers.

This forum is probably your best resource. You may find this post in particular to be useful: link

So nobody runs a sims in the background while their playing GW? No perfect build or anything? If your not a noob your not a math geek?

Aww... In the sad but thank god it's not that bad kinda way.

Thanks for the heads up.

Every class has 200 attribute points, they all have Armor and Weapons which do identical damage, and all have access to the self-same skills.

The only thing which determines which groups for certain areas/dungeons you may or may not get in is rank, class and experience (wrongly determined by "stones" in certain places), along with a decent and suitable build among other things.

GW does not have the micro level elitism of WoW or other games.

I would say that the only numbers that count towards team play in the late game are the numbers you have in the titles that affect PvE skills (Sunspear, Lightbringer and the EotN Reputation skills) because you need to be able to dish out a certain amount of damage in speed clears. Other than that it is as the others have said, not a big issue.

Good luck in your GW career!

There is still a very high level of min max in gw, and gear swap too, setting you attributes correctly with the correct runes is all that's needed for correct min max with skills, gear swap mostly deals with pvp but can be used to an advantage in pve as well.

It is absolutely necessary to bring certain builds for certain content/areas, since some areas can make enchantments useless due to high removal, similarly with conditions/hexes.

As a healer, most people begin with "red barring" where your eyes rarely deviate from the party window, it is advised to instead keep primary focus on the field, and only heal/prot when necessary as topping off is not absolutely imperative.

Usually the only time u will be asked to show exp, is during sc "speed clears" or for pvp, in which case u will be asked to show rank or items.

Definitely read through the wikis a little to get better ideas of what ur attributes should resemble as well as key abilities to bring.

The main thing to keep in mind with Guild Wars is that everything has a counter, and thus, there is no perfect build.

For each area, one can optimize their team for the fastest, most uber killing machine ever seen there. Then, they take that same team somewhere else, and it's a wipe-fest, because the foes there have the counter to your team. For instance: some areas are a joke, even in hard mode, if you bring 3 Minion Masters. Take that same team to somewhere that doesn't leave corpses, or somewhere with few corpses and lots of holy damage, and you're in for a tough battle.

Things get hard to quantify. Is it better to mass heal after being hit by an spiking spell, or to put up a prot to lessen the damage, or to have someone interrupt the spell so it never happened in the first place? The answer is: it depends.

There are team builds which are fairly efficient against a wide range of foes, and that's what you'll see talked about a lot. But even on those, you'll see comments about what can take the team down.

As far as numbers, I say the ones people talk about the most is the time it takes to perform some task, since that takes into account the whole picture.

well as far as things go the only time people want proof of anything is when you want to pvp people typically require a certain level of a title to join their party.

and healing is much different than most games, as power healing isn't nearly as effective as mitigating damage with protection spells. usually teams have a combination of spells to protect and heal because the more you protect, the less you have to heal saving you energy in the long run.

Some people play GW as if it's a numbers game, but it's not necessary to do so. (It's not really necessary in WoW either). Some people seem to think that if it takes you 30 minutes to do something instead of the 28 minutes it might take with an 'optimal' build, that you are somehow 'failing'. In actuality, it's just a game - the idea is to have fun and enjoy yourself - there's no reason to have as little fun as possible.
It's like riding a roller coaster and trying to find ways to get to the end as fast as possible.

There is one important thing different in GW: It's not about gear, it's about your skills.

At the point where you complete the tutorial section of the game, that means you reach the maximum level of 20, you have access to gear with the maximum stats very cheaply. This gear has no different stats than rare high-end super-expensive gear. It only does not look as shiny. At that point you have just begun playing the game.

From that point on, you get stronger only by buying/aquiring more/better skills.

As soon as you finish all campaigns for the first time, which is quite easy, you have access to all skills that are available in the whole game. Just buy what you want at the corresponding skill trainer or capture it from the corresponding boss.

From that point on, every character of the same class in the whole game is considered equal in strength. How strong you actually are, depends on your build (=set of 8 skills you go into combat with) and how it fits the team you are with. There are parties of 4, later 6, and in the end 8 members. How good the team is, is determined how good the builds of these 8 members synergize with each other.

There are well known established builds and build combinations that produce high damage and/or high defence. Just look in the corresponding character sub-forums here or at gwpvx or wherever. But before you do this, try to find good builds for yourself. This is a great part of the fun when you are starting a new class: trying to find out how to produce high damage with the available skills. This way, you learn to play your class.

Although every player with lvl 20 is usually considered equal, there are great differences in the strength of the teams. This is because in a bad team, the builds are not synergizing with each other, or don't fit the task that lies ahead, or only contain weak skills.

Usually, in a team of 8, one single player is irrelevent to the outcome of a mission in normal mode. He could even go without any skills. In hard mode, it is a bit more difficult, but not very.

Also very important is the knowledge of "how to play". Good experienced players can speed through content with the worst builds, while bad/inexperienced players fail the same content with good builds. It has to do with how appropriate you use your skills. Not wasting energy, not using skills when it has no impact, using the skill when it has the most impact.

An example: I once made a random-build-generator. This generator produced builds with random and silly skill combinations nobody would ever consider to take. 8 people who never played together before took these builds and sped flawlessly through a dungeon in the expansion Eye of the North. When the dungeon was new 4 years ago, only good teams were successful there, and bad teams failed/wiped and had a hard time. It was the same dungeon today, but it was visited by experienced players who knew how to make the best out of the silly builds I forced upon them.

There is no way of charting DPS, HPM, or any other metric, because such numbers would be pretty much irrelevant. A Heal Party / Healer's Boon monk will pump out absurd healing numbers, but the imbagon standing next to him is contributing far more to the survivability of the party by preventing something like 80% of the incoming damage. Even damage isn't all that relevant, since most damage-based builds incorporate some amount of control (interrupts, knockdowns, cripples, blinds), and your party will be stronger if these things aren't all handled by one guy.

So...yeah, metrics really aren't important in GW. Builds are important, and directly affect your performance and whether a group will take you or not, but they're also easy to get right (if you do a little research). Most important of all is how you play your build, and that's not something that's easy to measure.

Old WoW player here from vanilla go live times. When people wanted to know my numbers, SIUYA was my response. I did get into performance oriented guilds who said SIUYA to the numbers crowd. But basically you are choosing lone wolf if you do not play it their way. SIUYA sez I. GW is much more about freedom and performance. You can find numbers and this is good. Just don't bore me with them.