This tierlist is purely indicative. Squad composition and personal proficiency can make the listed specs surpass OR underperform expectations, sometimes up to an entire tier in either direction.
Introduction
A list of some of the best specializations for Power DPS in Guild Wars 2.
The list we are presenting today is divided into 5 tiers, but two of those tiers, S+ and A+, are somewhat of an extension, or a half-tier of sorts.
As a testament to how far the game's endgame PvE balance has come in recent years, most builds fall within the center-tiers, and are close-enough together between them that we are comfortable stating that your personal level of proficiency in the build can typically swing you a tier in either direction. There's a pretty significant payoff in investing time into a specific class or specialization!
Evaluation
How do we evaluate the strongest Power DPS builds in Guild Wars 2?
For today's rankings, we've taken into account the following criteria.
Damage
- Nothing complicated here. More damage is good. Bigger up-front burst and general ability to maintain DPS are a plus in this category. Historically, the meta Power DPS builds for Guild Wars 2 endgame have always had a significant portion of front-loaded damage.
Utility:
- Crowd Control, defensives skills for the party, group healing, etc. are included here. While modern Guild Wars 2 support builds are extremely powerful and already cover most of these things, having some of them for free in a standard DPS build is still extremely valuable for a party's overall power, which is the primary metric to worry about in instanced group content.
Flexibility:
- This mainly refers to the opportunity cost that swapping skills, traits, or weapons in the build can incur. Flexible utility slots and weapon diversity are a big plus for this category.
Explaining each tier:
What makes a class S+ Tier in Guild Wars 2?
Each of these sections contains an overview of the tier, along with a list of the recommended build variants for each spec. To make the most of your preffered class and punch above your weight, we recommend you also take a look at the rest of the available variants here:
List of Power DPS builds for raids
S+ Tier:
A select few powerhouses are in this tier, primarily due to the completeness of their kit. Luminary and Ritualist have extremely potent support tools at very little opportunity cost, and deal above-average damage on top of that. They are very common picks for healer-less squads, as well as less-experienced squads that may need additional support, but not as much as a third defensive support would bring.
Amalgam is a more selfish pick, but is extremely reliable. It offers some of the most potent burst in the current meta and very strong personal survivability, such as several sources of personal Stability, additional defensive stats from , and colossal personal healing from Berserker Strain. Not to mention that it can often punch above its weight in encounters, due to the retaliatory nature of !
Here are the build links for the recommended variants in this tier:
S Tier:
The bulk of this tier is composed of above-average DPS builds. Most of the builds found here excell in the art of dealing damage, but either have some gaps in their kit, or incur a heavier opportunity cost to compete with what the top builds can bring naturally.
In some squad compositions or scenarios where the full kit of an S+ Tier is either not needed, or just can't be leveraged, the S Tier will generally be in a tie with the S+ Tier
Here are the build links for the recommended variants in this tier:
A+ Tier:
This tier is a bit smaller, but operates under the same reasoning as the S Tier when examining their kits. It mostly houses just a few builds that are just one tiny step behind the S Tier.
Similar to S+ and S, the S and A+ tiers can be tied for performance in the correct circumstances.
Here are the build links for the recommended variants in this tier:
A Tier:
A for Average. Builds in this tier just tend to stand out less, but are still very strong even under rather strict standards. While this tier is primarily held back by just a bit of damage, it also includes several builds that have one or two pain points that can make the build slightly more unwieldy or challenging.
A few examples of this are Galeshot's , Willbender's /, Mechanist's , and Catalyst's energy generation; they're typically things that aren't deal breakers, but require paying some extra attention to.
Bring your Mech close to you, it's losing stats. I promise you its worth it.
Here are the build links for the recommended variants in this tier:
B Tier:
A few years ago, this tier would have been significantly more populated due to the larger gap between build performance. Now though, the only spec that far behind in terms of a proper DPS build is just Herald, which sports umimpressive damage and, in the face of other modern builds, a very average amount of team utility.
Core Warrior, as one of the better picks for a character with no Elite Specializations, is included not only because we still maintain some builds for it, but because it just straight up beats Herald in damage. This tier would also include Power Engineer and Power Guardian if they had someone to champion their cause, both of which can ALSO give Herald a run for its money.
Here are the build links for the recommended variants in this tier:
Wait, there's something missing here...
Is my specialization bad for Power DPS?
The following Specializations have been left out of the list:
- Scourge
- Specter
- Firebrand
- Druid
- Mirage
With the exception of Mirage, these specializations have little to no support for Power-based builds; a hypothetical benchmark for these would rank even lower than the great majority of Boon DPS. Mirage has somewhat of a foundation, but qutie a few problems as well that make it hard for any of our team members to want to champion the spec.
