Which class deals consistent armor ignore/penetration damage?

Which class has access to the skills that deal damage that ignores damage or armor?

I've tried Eles with their 25% armor penetration air skills, but still don't really get wow'd by it when facing rangers.

I've heard that Domination mesmers and some necro builds are good at dealing armor ignoring damage but haven't really had the time to test it out (i'm one of those time starved gamers). What's everyone's thoughts?

All classes have skills that ignore armor, and for pure damage, warrior deals the most, in pressure, and DPS(single target damge).

Top damage makes in this order:

- Elementalist

- Necro

- Dervish

- Assassin

- Mesmer

- Ritualist

- Warrior

- Paragon

- Monk

- Wammo

i think most mesmer skills can do full dmg no matter what the armour rating. take it from me... i know about mesmers.

if you want consistent, good, useful armor ignoring attacks or spells...then NO CONTEST, go with a necro.
a blood necros blood spikes will ignore armor, as will any of the shadow damage skills delivered by most death magic.
curses are self explanatory; they (usually) do an indirect type of damage; in the way of degeneration or crippling an enemies ability to function.
necros, when used propperly, are probably guildwars' most versatile damage-dealer, which is why its such a shame most people simply use them as minionmasters.

^Couldnt agree more^
Lifestealing damage totally ignores armour, deals significant damage and often acts as a form of self heal. Oh yeah, it ignores Protective spirit and several other enchants too...
Been on the wrong end of a bloodspike more times than I care to remember....

Thankies, I suppose this is a good enough reason for me to try out the mesmer and necro.

Edit: Oookay, I'm sold. Definitely rolling the Necro when i get home from work.

Wait, Rangers didn't even make the list? O.o

Ele's with max earth can also do 118 dmg (no reduction due to armor, only certain spells) with obsidian flame every 5 seconds (give or take). The only drawback is that the spell causes exhaustion so you really don't want to spam it a huge amount if you can avoid it, unless you have a means of dealing with that.

any degeneration damage ignores armor - poison, bleeding, syphon, burning, etc
but direct and instant armor ignoring damage has only necromancer
that is why toucher build is so "powerfull"

if you want the most armor ignoring damage, use a mesmer for degen and all other skills are armor ignoring. necro blood magic is also armor ignoring.

Mesmers have direct armor ignoring damage as well, albeit, its mostly conditional. What makes me sad is this is probably the mentality of the GW community in general, refusing to accept the talents of a good mesmer can rival that of a necro in a party most if not any day.

Mesmers do have some incredibly high damage armour ignoring skills though.
Ineptitude = 150+
E-Burn/Surge = 80
Backfire = 150+
Spirit Something = 100+
Visions of Regret = 120
And don't forget good old Empathy, at 45, now a significant threat for a warrior (especially if he has plans to frenzy spike someone)

A smiting monk can dish out a lot of armor-ignoring damage and vs the right enemies get double or bonus damage.

necros definitely. Hexs, degen, shadow.

and for the longest amount of time, at least for pve, due to soul reaping.

EI would say Earth Eles, then Mesmers then Necros do the most damage.

You gotta love an Earth Ele with Crystal Wave + Teinai's crystals = 238 armour ignoring damage in 1.5 seconds and then obsidian flame on top.

All ranger armor has natural protection against elemental damage.

That;s exactly what he was saying... He never claimed otherwise.

Necros give the best armor ignoring damage, in specific blood magic for single targets and curses (spiteful spirit) for groups of enemies.

My bad; just that it seemed like the OP was puzzled by why they couldn't kill rangers with the uberairskilz.

that list is so flawed

Not flawed, wrong. Completely wrong.

Some things to note here:

Obsidian flame eles do not deal consistent damage. Obs Obs Obs, then find a quiet corner while you wait for exhaustion to wear out.

Crystal wave, Tenai's crystals: This implies you are adequately armored, since getting into melee range as a squishy is suicide. You might want to go E/N, so you can put Death Nova on yourself. And recharge times on those are low.

But it all comes down to this:
PvE? Prophecies, Factions or Nightfall?
PvP? HA, TA, GvG, FA, Hero battles?

Each of these has their own preferences. It is considered a fact that for GvG warriors are the defacto damage dealers. Armor penetrating or not, they are what kills stuff fastest.

For HA touch ranger is still decent (well, somewhat). 100% unblockable, unavoidable damage ignoring armor. Although they are much less of a threat they used to be.

FA, well, anything works, just depends on situation.

For PvE, there is no one profession, it's more about numbers. 3 SF elementalists are good. 3 barrage ranger + MM are good. A MM + SS are good. 3 nukers are good too. 3 warriors are good. Basically, anything goes in PvE, just depends on the area where you are. In NF, the 8 gaze is the by-far heaviest damage dealer. 8 x 100 x 3..8 targets every 15 seconds - any and every class?

So before discussing which is best, it's first necessary to specify where do you intend to use this, and then also for what purpose. Spike requirements for PvP are completely different from a balanced group.

Thanks all for the excellent suggestions.

At the moment, I'm definitely sitting on the necro side of things, with the mesmer a very close second. I'm a bit unsure about the ele because of the Exhaustion though.

And in response to Antheus, very nice breakdown there. As for me, I'm looking for a class that can deal consistent damage in PvE with little downtime. Classes which I have tried...

Warrior - Nice decent damage, but takes a while to build up the adrenaline to deal the damage.
Assassin - Very nice, but with the recent skill rebalance, I run into energy problems a lot faster. Not to mention with some of the recharge time, I tend to kill one mob with my skills, then hack away at the second with regular attacks before being able to use my skills again for the third mob. So far, I like this, but one thing I've picked up so far... squishy frontline fighter = pain.

Ritualist - Channeling builds a very easy on the energy, but again, no armor penetration. But good point, no downtime.
Elementalist - A lil more energy finickiness, but two strikes against it was that armor penetration either involved large amounts of energy or exhaustion, either way, downtime would then be high as well.

Admittedly, at the moment, the ritualist is my favourite class. facing up against a lot of cloth users, I pull out the channeling build. Against a lot of armored users, I pull out a spirit bomber build (Anguish + Painful bond = 57 amor ignoring damage. Add Pain, etc, and even more armor ignoring damage, however, i just can't aim it ). Against a mission that there is a lot of big damage hits, I pull out the shelter+union ritual lord build (twisting fangs in particularly rough missions).

Hrmm.. I guess despite the damage question, i was really just looking for a class that will give me a good easy time of going through the three chapters again. (Took a monk through ch 1, assassin through ch 2, paragon through ch3, but none have gone through more than one chapter).

*cough* Stoneflesh Aura *cough*


As for "The List" you can't really put professions in any sort of order. Sure, some professions deal more damage 'on average' but, for example, vs Rangers Mesmers/Necros could far out-do Elementalist damage. So unless you're talking about comparing damage to something neutral like a lvl 1 Mantid Monitor with next to no armor...you just can't.

As for which class deals the most consistent armor ignoring damage, My vote is with Necro and Mesmer, but it entirely depends on the situation.

I play Air 90% of the time. I rarely get exhausted and air skills are uber-spammable (if chosen correctly). I never have a problem with my energy so, providing I am not killed, my energy rarely drops below 60-70% and I don't even take an Energy Storage elite. I have very minimal downtime.