I have a full set of Zerker & Valk, thinking about how much I should mix and match.
I want to go as full glass as possible, but I noticed a huge improvement in my arena duels when I swapped to Marauder. Maybe it’s just my mediocre reaction speed, but it allowed to not get gibbed before I could hit my stun break.
Are there any good rules of thumb on how much burst most classes can do in <1s or something like that? Warriors (and maybe Longbow rangers when skirmishing) are really the thing that gives me the most 100-0 problems.
There isn’t really much way to escape 100-0 in few seconds as a thief if your reaction time is slow. You can try somenthing like this but in the end you’ll only be 100-0 in 3 hits instead of 2.
I’m not sure on specifics but as thief I think they skip toughness in favor of vita. Get 15k health or anything less than that and zerker pve rangers will mow you down with rapid fire. And thats if you don’t step on a random pile of zerker pve dragon hunter traps.
Might not want to follow my advice but I prefer to go with the least physical defence possible and focus entirely on what traits and utilities to bring. Health and Toughness don’t do a hell of a lot for you when a lot of players can pump out 50k damage in 8 – 10seconds.
The more squishy I am the better I tend to play because I’m aware that I have no room for error. It helps to remind me that I need to be 100% focused on what’s happening because every hit could be the last one I take. Once I’ve gotten comfortable enough with the profession in that I know what skills/utilities to use when and how, then I might start swapping to a more tanky build.
Start by disciplining yourself instead of giving yourself training wheels.
Just be sure you bring the proper traits and utilities to deal with different circumstances. Always have stunbreaks, if you’re all glass, two stunbreaks is probably the best idea. If you can work it in to your build, those stunbreaks should also cleanse conditions or you should have traits/other skills/utilities that cleanse conditions. Throw in some blocks and invulns if you have them too. Worry about what your profession can provide instead of how much Toughness and Vitality it can have.
Might not want to follow my advice but I prefer to go with the least physical defence possible and focus entirely on what traits and utilities to bring. Health and Toughness don’t do a hell of a lot for you when a lot of players can pump out 50k damage in 8 – 10seconds.
The more squishy I am the better I tend to play because I’m aware that I have no room for error. It helps to remind me that I need to be 100% focused on what’s happening because every hit could be the last one I take. Once I’ve gotten comfortable enough with the profession in that I know what skills/utilities to use when and how, then I might start swapping to a more tanky build.
Start by disciplining yourself instead of giving yourself training wheels.
Just be sure you bring the proper traits and utilities to deal with different circumstances. Always have stunbreaks, if you’re all glass, two stunbreaks is probably the best idea. If you can work it in to your build, those stunbreaks should also cleanse conditions or you should have traits/other skills/utilities that cleanse conditions. Throw in some blocks and invulns if you have them too. Worry about what your profession can provide instead of how much Toughness and Vitality it can have.
He’s a thief. His base health is 11,645.
He needs vita in his build. It isn’t training wheels lol.
Might not want to follow my advice but I prefer to go with the least physical defence possible and focus entirely on what traits and utilities to bring. Health and Toughness don’t do a hell of a lot for you when a lot of players can pump out 50k damage in 8 – 10seconds.
The more squishy I am the better I tend to play because I’m aware that I have no room for error. It helps to remind me that I need to be 100% focused on what’s happening because every hit could be the last one I take. Once I’ve gotten comfortable enough with the profession in that I know what skills/utilities to use when and how, then I might start swapping to a more tanky build.
Start by disciplining yourself instead of giving yourself training wheels.
Just be sure you bring the proper traits and utilities to deal with different circumstances. Always have stunbreaks, if you’re all glass, two stunbreaks is probably the best idea. If you can work it in to your build, those stunbreaks should also cleanse conditions or you should have traits/other skills/utilities that cleanse conditions. Throw in some blocks and invulns if you have them too. Worry about what your profession can provide instead of how much Toughness and Vitality it can have.
He’s a thief. His base health is 11,645.
He needs vita in his build. It isn’t training wheels lol.
Okay. So 4 or 5k extra health will mean he gets three shot instead of two shot then.
That little bit of extra health might save you on some rare occasions but proper dodging and skill management will save you a lot more.
Maybe training wheels wasn’t the right description but I stand by the fact that working with less room for error will make it easier to become a better player. You can then reward yourself with a build/gear that is more forgiving even though you’ve now become skilled enough that you don’t necessarily need it.
Also note that I did say “might not want to follow my advice” because I’m aware that it may not work as well for OP as it does for me.
Might not want to follow my advice but I prefer to go with the least physical defence possible and focus entirely on what traits and utilities to bring. Health and Toughness don’t do a hell of a lot for you when a lot of players can pump out 50k damage in 8 – 10seconds.
The more squishy I am the better I tend to play because I’m aware that I have no room for error. It helps to remind me that I need to be 100% focused on what’s happening because every hit could be the last one I take. Once I’ve gotten comfortable enough with the profession in that I know what skills/utilities to use when and how, then I might start swapping to a more tanky build.
Start by disciplining yourself instead of giving yourself training wheels.
Just be sure you bring the proper traits and utilities to deal with different circumstances. Always have stunbreaks, if you’re all glass, two stunbreaks is probably the best idea. If you can work it in to your build, those stunbreaks should also cleanse conditions or you should have traits/other skills/utilities that cleanse conditions. Throw in some blocks and invulns if you have them too. Worry about what your profession can provide instead of how much Toughness and Vitality it can have.
He’s a thief. His base health is 11,645.
He needs vita in his build. It isn’t training wheels lol.
Okay. So 4 or 5k extra health will mean he gets three shot instead of two shot then.
That little bit of extra health might save you on some rare occasions but proper dodging and skill management will save you a lot more.
Maybe training wheels wasn’t the right description but I stand by the fact that working with less room for error will make it easier to become a better player. You can then reward yourself with a build/gear that is more forgiving even though you’ve now become skilled enough that you don’t necessarily need it.
Also note that I did say “might not want to follow my advice” because I’m aware that it may not work as well for OP as it does for me.
You have listed ranger, necro and warrior. That’s a far cry from 11,645 hp.
Do you actually play a thief/guardian/ele in wvw with no +vita/toughness?
Might not want to follow my advice but I prefer to go with the least physical defence possible and focus entirely on what traits and utilities to bring. Health and Toughness don’t do a hell of a lot for you when a lot of players can pump out 50k damage in 8 – 10seconds.
The more squishy I am the better I tend to play because I’m aware that I have no room for error. It helps to remind me that I need to be 100% focused on what’s happening because every hit could be the last one I take. Once I’ve gotten comfortable enough with the profession in that I know what skills/utilities to use when and how, then I might start swapping to a more tanky build.
Start by disciplining yourself instead of giving yourself training wheels.
Just be sure you bring the proper traits and utilities to deal with different circumstances. Always have stunbreaks, if you’re all glass, two stunbreaks is probably the best idea. If you can work it in to your build, those stunbreaks should also cleanse conditions or you should have traits/other skills/utilities that cleanse conditions. Throw in some blocks and invulns if you have them too. Worry about what your profession can provide instead of how much Toughness and Vitality it can have.
He’s a thief. His base health is 11,645.
He needs vita in his build. It isn’t training wheels lol.
Okay. So 4 or 5k extra health will mean he gets three shot instead of two shot then.
That little bit of extra health might save you on some rare occasions but proper dodging and skill management will save you a lot more.
Maybe training wheels wasn’t the right description but I stand by the fact that working with less room for error will make it easier to become a better player. You can then reward yourself with a build/gear that is more forgiving even though you’ve now become skilled enough that you don’t necessarily need it.
Also note that I did say “might not want to follow my advice” because I’m aware that it may not work as well for OP as it does for me.
You have listed ranger, necro and warrior. That’s a far cry from 11,645 hp.
Do you actually play a thief/guardian/ele in wvw with no +vita/toughness?
Lol, Thieves have a ton of evades/mobility, Ele’s have a ton of sustain and defensive options and Guards pretty much have perma-blocks with Dragonhunter. They might have low health but their mechanics are what make that acceptable.
Why do you want to rely on health instead of what the profession is giving you with it’s mechanics?
And actually I play a standard Assassin/Berserker Ranger with 16,055 health and if I’m not careful, I die in three to four hits. I’ve got a lot less evades, blinds and mobility than a Thief and I do just fine most of the time.
While a bit more health surely won’t save your from power spikes, it may save you from being insta gibbed by conditions.
Valid point. That’s why it’s important to bring ample condition removal and to know your battles. Thief can decide who they want to fight and where they want to fight them better than anyone else. If you see that there’s too much condition pressure for you to handle, disengage and either reset or leave entirely.
But yes now that you mention conditions, vitality would help a lot more in that situation. Still, I think health is a lot less important than discipline and working with the mechanics you’re given. Since it seems more than one person disagrees with me however, maybe I’m just being opinionated. I’ll stop trying to prove a point that’s not there.
I run ( among other things) a 12k health, power/precision/ferocity built thief. I have “insta” died to full zerk ranger/druids in a tunnel but usually can evade the arrow stream.
I have tinkered with builds and feel most comfortable on the all out thief. Each time I lower my attack damage for higher health it “feels” wrong and I go back.
on the other hand I used to run a toughened scout d/d condi thief and found vit tough handy on that variation.
Good luck, read each post and take from it the things that work for you personally.
In duels Paladin amulet generally has the advantage over zerker, but if you just wanna insta gib people who don’t expect it then full yolo is the way to go.
Some of youtubers for thief run marauders set up with scrapper runes. You basically lose out on 100-0 potential but it gives you a lot more room for error without dropping too much base damage. I’ve personally trialed it and it works wonders with staff setups in both in both pve and pvp (PVE wise, it allows you to outsustain alot of content with the right setup).
However, I still ended going for scholars for the much stronger bursts. I find that unhindered combat with DD is more than enough evades to compensate for the lack of defence
Marauders are generally a better option than valkyries imo as you don’t end up relying on fury as much for crits, and it should provide you just enough health to not get 100-0 in an instant.
Marauders are generally a better option than valkyries imo as you don’t end up relying on fury as much for crits, and it should provide you just enough health to not get 100-0 in an instant.
I think valks was more for backstabbers as it didn’t lower power and gut ferocity. Not sure backstabbers exist anymore.
Marauders are generally a better option than valkyries imo as you don’t end up relying on fury as much for crits, and it should provide you just enough health to not get 100-0 in an instant.
I think valks was more for backstabbers as it didn’t lower power and gut ferocity. Not sure backstabbers exist anymore.
It’s also for fresher players who can’t afford marauders yet.
Marauders are generally a better option than valkyries imo as you don’t end up relying on fury as much for crits, and it should provide you just enough health to not get 100-0 in an instant.
I think valks was more for backstabbers as it didn’t lower power and gut ferocity. Not sure backstabbers exist anymore.
It’s also for fresher players who can’t afford marauders yet.
Edit: Foods/ sigils should be interchanged to what you see fit, This is just a generic gear set up I used pre-Hot. Many people would prefer blood over sigil of fire, but w/e. It’s all personal preference in this case
Try 12.5 k+ hp. Nowadays (in my server) thieves’ single second burst is 11.9 k (dunno how) so I tend to go with more than 12.5 k hp everytime. I would advise something between 14-16 but that is a personal choice.
How much health do you feel comfortable with? You need to consider how comfortable you are with your class and how much damage you can consistently avoid. You also need to take into account how much damage you consider to be the highest opening. There are classes that can open on you and will land that damage if you have no way to mitigate the combo. In this case you will need at least enough health to avoid that.
One last point: This doesn’t take into consideration what role your are filling in wvw. If you’re in the head of a melee train and you are there to soak damage, you will need very different defensive stats compared to a roaming setup.
Okay. So 4 or 5k extra health will mean he gets three shot instead of two shot then.
That little bit of extra health might save you on some rare occasions but proper dodging and skill management will save you a lot more.
Maybe training wheels wasn’t the right description but I stand by the fact that working with less room for error will make it easier to become a better player. You can then reward yourself with a build/gear that is more forgiving even though you’ve now become skilled enough that you don’t necessarily need it.
Also note that I did say “might not want to follow my advice” because I’m aware that it may not work as well for OP as it does for me.
Lol, Thieves have a ton of evades/mobility, Ele’s have a ton of sustain and defensive options and Guards pretty much have perma-blocks with Dragonhunter. They might have low health but their mechanics are what make that acceptable.
Why do you want to rely on health instead of what the profession is giving you with it’s mechanics?
And actually I play a standard Assassin/Berserker Ranger with 16,055 health and if I’m not careful, I die in three to four hits. I’ve got a lot less evades, blinds and mobility than a Thief and I do just fine most of the time.
You don’t seem to make any difference between a particular class with a zerker build and a sustain build.
DPS ele sustain is horrid and their defensive options have long cooldowns and short durations. Other classes have them too.
Zerker thief’s advantage is stealth to lose focus and very good mobility – druids can have very good mobility as well.
DH goes bust once his stuff is on cd’s.
5k extra hp is roughly 50% increase in health pool for a squishy, I don’t understand how you can see this as negligible. all with minimal dmg reduction with marauder.
Sounds to me like you have no idea what playing lowest hp class with zerker gear is like.
That actually depends on the server you are playing. If your server has many opponent thieves, you might want to adjust your hp according to their maximum one second burst damage. Same goes with other one shot professions. If your reaction time is slower, your hp should go higher. After a percentage you are forced to find a new build that you can play. Sadly you are the only one that can answer that question op.
You might want to adjust your hp according to their maximum one second burst damage. Same goes with other one shot professions.
How much damage is the maximum burst these classes can do to a medium armor-no toughness thief? Thief, Warrior, & LB Ranger (kind of) are the ones who seem to burst me the fastest.
I should really know the answer to the Thief one: the combo is BP→HS→Steal→BS plus a few autos. If they all crit, that’s a kittenton of damage. But I rarely use that opener so I’m actually not familiar with the damage numbers.
In general, I’m thinking of swapping to Scrapper runes once I get some more ascended. It fits more with my playstyle but I don’t want to give up the crit quite yet.
I generally try to have between 15k and 18k vitality. Reason being that 10k backstabs are a thing coupled with about a 2k steal and you still have little room for error. A mirror blade mind wrack, mindstab combo from my burst mesmer can do about 15k on full zerk scholar (but dies pretty fast itself), more if I’m lucky with crits.
So yeah you wanna be able to not be one shot by someone from stealth, that allows you to get out and recover.
SpellOfIniquity is right in that active defences are better than bulking up but that’s only true to a limit. You will find people camping stealth to gank other glass builds because they are that pathetic.
PS. Don’t forget that thief burst can be even higher with BP>HS>Steal>BS>Autos (w/ haste from flanking strikes and all while their stunned & immobilized). It’s not my style/build – but god kitten is it scary as a glassy thief.
Generally 15 k is the minimum safest if your reactions are fast (at least it is for me). But I have seen impossible pull offs with 12-13 k hp. But again there are certain variables that you cannot foresee; might stacking, sigils, a different utility skill etc
I want to go as full glass as possible, but I noticed a huge improvement in my arena duels when I swapped to Marauder. Maybe it’s just my mediocre reaction speed, but it allowed to not get gibbed before I could hit my stun break.
This is a PvP game mode, not PvE. In PvE people can cry ‘git gud’ and scoff at any defenses, because your ‘opponent’ is following a script and completely predictable with enough practice.
PvP is not scripted. Your opponents are not following a pattern with big tells with the intention of letting you dodge everything. They are trying hard to not be predictable. It’s not ‘poor reaction speed’ when they are timing their attacks to fall into the gaps in your evade frames.
In a duel between equally skilled players on otherwise identical builds, the tankier player will generally have the advantage. If I am in full Marauder fighting someone in full Berserker with the same skills, and we play equally well, I’m likely to win by a pretty healthy margin – if we land the same attacks on each other, they will be downed and I’ll have health to spare. Cue the number of times pre-HoT I’ve been backstabbed by a zerk thief from stealth, survived due to Valkyrie pieces, then backstabbed and one shot them back.
If you want to be as glassy as reasonable, run as much Marauder as you can get your hands on with Scholar runes and dual Air sigils (Superior and Major). You will not miss the 3-5% damage of full Berserker, but you will notice the extra 4-6k extra health whenever someone does have the nerve to fight back.
PvP is not scripted. Your opponents are not following a pattern with big tells with the intention of letting you dodge everything. They are trying hard to not be predictable. It’s not ‘poor reaction speed’ when they are timing their attacks to fall into the gaps in your evade frames.
Plz… The average GW2 player don’t even know what is a evade frame… Most of them run some metabattle build and are just as predicable as a PvE mob.
Full zerk with scholar, any other thief is useless in group content, your job is to kill lowbies and squishies, not try to get people low.
other choice is to put marauder on your Shortbow, armor and amulet. Which is preferred if enemy has 1 good auramancer with shocking auras.
Now about your build, if youre missing stealth, take off hand pistol with the leap dodge to stack stealth. This is the most annoying build I ever played against.
Diamond Rank Copyrights [CR]
EU Roamer, Dueler, Commander, Fighter, Scout
I’m currently running ascended marauder with valk and berserker trinkets to get as close as possible to full marauder build stats, used to run soldier and berserker for slightly more survivality. To survive roaming or anything in general,
1. Play on edge all the time, you have to be constantly checking your surroundings for incoming thief and mesmer opener, any other profession u can survive one hit before dying or reseting fight assuming utilities are available.
