Guild Wars 2

For D/D in WvW and S/D in PvP

I would prefer Berserker since I can use it for PvE as well which is the only advantage I can think of.

I’ll start crafting my armor so please, any pros and cons and which one I should aim for would be a great advice? PvE and WvW are my priorities but I would also love to do some PvP from time to time.

Hai.

There is this secret a few selected individuals know about, and I am now passing on this information to you: berserker gives you slightly more damage then valk.

But it’s up to personal preference I guess, some people have a hard time fighting against condition classes, and then valk would be nice for the added HP you get.

I use a mix of ‘serker and valk, since I find the added vitality is nice, and the decrease in damage isn’t really noticeable.

I would maybe start out crafting maybe 3 ’serker (head, gloves, boots or whatever) and use some exotic valk gear for the rest of you to see how it fares for you.

Again, this is MY opinion, and it isn’t really a recipe for what to wear, it’s more up to personal preference.

In WvW you can choose what you want, if you intend on running hidden killer i’d say valkyrie. But if you feel like you can handle yourself good enough to drop the extra survivability pick Berserker.
In PvP however you should pick Berserker amulet, since S/D already gives enough evades, ports, … to keep you alive. And should you run sizer’s build your precision would be too low if you run valkyrie.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZUQNAsYVl0Mp0pdPx3JsPRBNBxVN8OMfpMaFgOjSfB-T1CBABVqqyZKBl4UAglyLvUiAwDAwS1KyTTQR7PkieAGOCABAQACJOxATciTciTciNxJOxJOxJWKgnmAA-w

This is what I use in WvW, I tried other armor sets but I keep coming back to this eventually since it gives the defence I like. Sure, it’s not optimal for DPS, but I tend to live more this way. The general rule of thumb is build the minimum defence that you feel you need, then dump everything else into offence, which for thief means zerker normally.

So yeah, it’s personal preference. You won’t go wrong with either valk or zerk armor really, you just swap crit chance for health. For that reason, valk tends to work better on dagger builds with hidden killer, zerk works for everything but is more risky. 

Your best bet is to get a WvW set of both and try them both out, see what you think.

mompen.7952:

Hai.

There is this secret a few selected individuals know about, and I am now passing on this information to you: berserker gives you slightly more damage then valk.

But it’s up to personal preference I guess, some people have a hard time fighting against condition classes, and then valk would be nice for the added HP you get.

I use a mix of ‘serker and valk, since I find the added vitality is nice, and the decrease in damage isn’t really noticeable.

I would maybe start out crafting maybe 3 ’serker (head, gloves, boots or whatever) and use some exotic valk gear for the rest of you to see how it fares for you.

Again, this is MY opinion, and it isn’t really a recipe for what to wear, it’s more up to personal preference.

This is the best advice you will get.

i have trinkets and weapons ber and armor valk. . .

As my other friend told you . . . if you are going to use hidden killer, mixing is the way.

full berserker is for 100% burst builds . . . and IMO they are not good for WvW.

For WvW you need sustain . . . mixing is the way.

You don’t need anything but Berserker.

I crafted to 80 and got a full set of Berserker gear with Scholar runes since that day. Even to this date I still do extremely well with it, and can manage to wriggle my way out of most situations that aren’t in my favour.

Thieves have access to so much heals and condi cleanse you don’t need to worry about being defensive other than the way you play (and not gear).

Valkyrie but not everything.

Take this advice for WvW:

You CANT go full berserker in WvW, you’ll be dying a lot. Backstab thief is not what it used to be, it is less bursty now and fights can get prolonged.

Knowing this, you better get some survivality right?.

Now, knowing this, you have two choices of runes: Strength and Scholar. If you plan to PvE A LOT too then you might as well get Scholars since they’re pretty good for dungeons, however, in wvw, strength are the way to go because being realistic, you won’t be above 90% HP if you can’t one shot your opponent, so the 7% damage is actually better than 0%. Not to mention your might lasts longer. (You do lose some ferocity but it’s like 4-5% something like that.

Usually D/D thieves opt for Hidden Killer trait (I like it better), so you can spend some into Vitality while having 100% crit from stealth. The magic number is 45% critical chance, and 1767 precision is the magic number to reach that without wasting any point (formula).

This build focuses on: Max power + 1767 precision + pump everything else into vit

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZEQNAoYVlsMp0pdOx7J8PNBNBtdFGeI4uGrYGaFAA-TlSBABWq+AN7PQpKMmpE8KlKRcKAwSZFe6DW4IAAwDAIAACwNbz28mBO6RP6RP6R7m7cn7cn3sUARsMC-w

The runes of choice were Strength runes, and as of food you can use any power/vit food you want, I chose the 100 power and 70 ferocity one for dmgs.

edit: err sigils on daggers should be fire and air or air and force. I like fire + air better nw though.

Stratos: nice inputs. However, wanna know what grinds my gear? When you write edit: and you haven’t really edited the post. You are supposed to write that if you first post what you want to say, and then you have to edit it for some reason, you write what you did. I’m sorry, I’ve just read a lot of people doing that lately, and it’s nothing personal against you :p

Back to the build, it has a nice mix of armors, good vitality and high enough critical chance.

Stratos.9375:

You CANT go full berserker in WvW, you’ll be dying a lot. Backstab thief is not what it used to be, it is less bursty now and fights can get prolonged.

Well that’s wrong.
You CAN. I’ve been running full Zerk since I started Thief, and yes.. I’ll die to zergs or other bursty Thieves. Though, I don’t have any real problems with anyone else unless they are better than me.

Keep in mind when planning to make a set, trinkets give you the majority of your stats. As such, I got valk armor and mix various trinkets when I need to change up my build.

Why? Because vitality is the best defensive stat for thieves. We have the lowest health pool tier, and are also very susceptible to conditions which only vitality handles. That small bump in defense lets me adjust my damage accordingly through trinkets, maybe get another valk set with different runes but in the end I always keep that small hp bump around so I don’t feel so squishy. Only class I’ve ever owned a full zerker set is warrior (soon after I MF’ed it because I didn’t see the point). Full zerker is pretty dull, I can get similar numbers and rarely die with my thief’s set and I watch other thieves in fractals sometimes die to auto attacks from trash mobs. A dead zerker is far less dps than any other build, so I never really understood the elitism towards it. Even people who act “elite” I let them die and intentionally do not rez them ever in hopes they learn a valuable lesson.

P.S You don’t craft pvp armor, it’s just there. Actually you don’t even need armor on, you just choose the amulet/traits/weapons/sigils/runes. It’s all free in there ^^