Guild Wars 2

Well i gave in to str runes this build gives huge might:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAsY8Yl0MpwpVOx0J8PNBPBtdBmdA8LJ9ej2C-T1RBABd8EAwS5HN7Pgn+hFVCCwJBgS1fIFATCjA-w

Might on dodge, might on sig use, might on weap swap might on being hit…
first game i had 20+ might stacks

edit- look good?

Yes mate but what i’m trying to say is that you won’t loose dps even with 0 in CS . No problem carry on your testing.

also can’t decide signet use or vital precision? and how will i not lose dps with the crit dmg first strike and executioner? and what else would i put it in to lol

Mystogan.4157:

Hawkeye.9687:

I agree with the above posts S/D 10-0-0-30-30 Pack runes is realy fun to play AND very effective .Zerg weapons , Valk armor, Zerg/Valk trinkets .Lots of evades and damage

I love the mobile non stealth thief .

im jst afraid of losing dmg if i go pack I’ve yet to try it

Then why don’t you actually do some real theorycrafting? See how much might you get with pack, how much you get with strength then check the difference in effective power with the damage modifier. Really the biggest difference you will see on the thief is the 7% damage modifier when you have might. You probably wouldn’t even notice much difference if your going off feel, you would see more big red numbers with pack because of fury. Well you went strength so point is moot now really.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/24tzjz/a_look_at_runes_of_the_pack/ this was a post I did on reddit just comparing Pack and Strength for WvW/sPvP use it’s only a few days old. It’s why Pack started to rise in price.

^ Pack runes are pretty solid, but you make a very poor assumption of 50% Fury uptime from the #4 slot. That is not happening in real life on a Thief (a profession that doesn’t rely on passive mitigation), with a 25% proc chance.

Rather not get knocked around before getting fury. Seeing how most classes can 3-4 hit us thats barely enough to give fury intime

Yeah the assumption is bad. And as thief you don’t really want to get hit.

It’s my go-to runes for S/D 2/0/0/6/6 roaming though, since it’s a bit bulkier and the 30% boon duration is good even if #4 is unreliable.

Interceptor.2653:

You can easily overlook the endurance recharge boost once you realize that it doesn’t stack with Vigor.

Or you could abandon the quest for perma vigor and settle for the food. Keep in mind that while perma-vigor can increase the might stacks from Inertia, having to go deep into Acrobatics and Trickery would deprive you of Hidden Assassin – which requires 5 (25) in Shadow Arts.

oZii.2864:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/24tzjz/a_look_at_runes_of_the_pack/ this was a post I did on reddit just comparing Pack and Strength for WvW/sPvP use it’s only a few days old. It’s why Pack started to rise in price.

You ignore the +45% might duration on the Strength runes. But don’t tell anyone, I like it better when the price of Strength runes drops since I will need to buy new ones for new (ascended) gear as I put mine on Temple armor (the runes were like 75 s before the patch).

frans.8092:

Or you could abandon the quest for perma vigor and settle for the food. Keep in mind that while perma-vigor can increase the might stacks from Inertia, having to go deep into Acrobatics and Trickery would deprive you of Hidden Assassin – which requires 5 (25) in Shadow Arts.

What the Christ is an S/P + SB spec going to do with 5 points in SA? I can’t stealth without utilities. Context, please.

Even if I dropped down to 3 Acrobatics (which is as low as you can reasonably go in an evade build) and ignored Vigorous Recovery completely, that’s still only ~50% Vigor downtime. The food’s endurance regen is still roughly only half of its effectiveness as long as you’re using Bountiful/SoH and pushing F1.

Interceptor.2653:

frans.8092:

Or you could abandon the quest for perma vigor and settle for the food. Keep in mind that while perma-vigor can increase the might stacks from Inertia, having to go deep into Acrobatics and Trickery would deprive you of Hidden Assassin – which requires 5 (25) in Shadow Arts.

What the Christ is an S/P + SB spec going to do with 5 points in SA? I can’t stealth without utilities. Context, please.

Even if I dropped down to 3 Acrobatics (which is as low as you can reasonably go in an evade build) and ignored Vigorous Recovery completely, that’s still only ~50% Vigor downtime. The food’s endurance regen is still roughly only half of its effectiveness as long as you’re using Bountiful/SoH and pushing F1.

True, I should have added the weapon preference. I don’t think that with a good source of vigor the 2 might stacks alone would be worth it compared to other food. And without Hidden Assassin you’re down to Inertia and Thrill of the Crime, Runes of Strength become less obvious. Is the duration bonus applies to might stacks that you steal/rip?

frans.8092:

True, I should have added the weapon preference. I don’t think that with a good source of vigor the 2 might stacks alone would be worth it compared to other food. And without Hidden Assassin you’re down to Inertia and Thrill of the Crime, Runes of Strength become less obvious.

I also run Sigil of Strength on my Sword. It’s pretty easy to maintain a rolling 6-7 stacks of Might out of combat, which ramps up to 12+ once things get going and the crits roll in. Power will frequently top 3k, and I don’t even use Power food. Spec looks something like this.

Is the duration bonus applies to might stacks that you steal/rip?

I’m not sure, and it’s hard to test, but it wouldn’t impact my inclination to pick BT in any case. If I had to guess, I’d say that it probably doesn’t.

One thing that it IS good for, however, is stacking AOE Might. Shortbow’s finisher spam means 35s duration stacks of 3x Might, as long as someone gives me a Fire field. If I throw on my bag-farming food (omnoms), duration goes up to 39 seconds, AKA one second short of the max.

That’s a nice boon to give to your allies.

^ And also for me. Turns out that a Pistol Whip with ~3500 Power, 77% crit chance, and 182% crit damage will turn a whole lot of people into instant road pizza.

i landed with hoelbrak-sigil of battle and sigil of force i get around 20 stacks of might in a fight and hit around 4-5k crit

Mystogan.4157:

i landed with hoelbrak-sigil of battle and sigil of force i get around 20 stacks of might in a fight and hit around 4-5k crit

I’ll try valk armor with hoelbrack with battle+strength sigils ,or force as well, and traited signets ,mix zeg-valk the rest, seems nice.

The truth is that for a DPS thief Power runes is the only way to go and thank god there are some nice power runes.

Here is a chart that was posted on Reddit actually not to long after patch. This assumes permanent fury and 25 stacks of might.

http://i.imgur.com/Y9Ku6tQ.png

So if you where to apply this to a thief you can get might easily if you take 2 in acro or 5 in SA you can get fury easily if you take 2 trick or 2 in Critical Strikes. So if you have permanent fury say you are running at least furious retaliation and at least thrill of the crime then you can throw fury out the window.

So then you want a modifier strength will give you that easily if you have might on dodge or 5 SA, or signets of power. What you shouldn’t do is drop your modifier so that you can get might like taking dodge roll food which is decreasing your dps instead of running a standard dps food like power/precision which is usually around a 6% dps increase for most classes. If you can get the sigil of strength+force then that’s good but don’t drop a sigil of force for strength so that you can have the modifier. If you look at that chart the dps difference between strength and eagle or ogre isn’t that big like 1-2% dps difference.

1 might stack might only give you 1% extra damage. Instead you want to just get to the modifier with natural might stack from your build and also stack another modifier on top of it like force. Don’t put on sigil of battle because you have runes of strength on put on a sigil of force because you have a 7% damage modifer and you want to stack another modifier because that is always more damage or a sigil of air but the difference in dps between force and air is small but force is more consistent since it doesn’t rely on crits and doesn’t have a icd.

Really in PvP/WvW people are a little to caught up on either strengths modifier or strengths might stacking. The modifier is great and the might stacking is great but don’t remove damage just because your getting an additional 45% might duration. You want to get the might as naturally as possible in your build then to “try” and get might. For instance I would take strength runes on my guardian with 5 in valor because I am always going to block something but I’m not going to put on a sigil of strength and some might dodge food. I went from Pack to Strength back to Pack on my guardian because I need the fury more for solo roaming but this is if I was to build with strength runes as my runes of choice.

PvE theorycrafting is alot easier then PvP because PvP is unpredictable so the best thing to do is to look at your build and look at the most likely scenario in your fight. Don’t use the best case scenario for PvP theorycrafting where the enemy lets you dodge around all day long stacking might or you chilled in shadow refuge, 5,2,1 with d/p till you had no ini, blew dodge rolls for might stacks and came out with 20 stacks of might for a 15k backstab. That is kind of what I did in my analysis for thief with pack runes which I still think are a good rune for thief.

As someone mentioned before Runes of rage should get tested .Seems interesting for example something like this ?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0Mp0pFOx3J0PNBPBt9AmdA8LK9Gk2C-T1SBwAF3f4xDAwsSwIHBgrKrwqUB0hAAl+gFHggcq/A4EAQGA9xA-w

or this for perma vigor ,fury,swiftness
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0Mp0pFOx3J0PNRPBtVA8+JNZKd/j1ODA-T1SBwAF3f4xDAwsSwIHBgrKrwqUB0hAAl+gFHggcq/A4EAQGA9xA-w

So how much of our srvivabilty relies on skill? I feel thieves sont need many defensive traits depending on the player? I came to this from watching a bunch of thief vids

Ill post my updated build later to show what i decided to roll with i changed up traits a little

And btw im not theorycrafting ive bought all the runes and some armor sets to test in wvw and ive tested in pvp also my average crit currently in a normal battle is 3-4.5k i have gotten 25 stacks ina real battle jst doesnt last long. The highest i have hit was 7.9k. i usually stay around 12-16 depending on what im facing because the might sigil depends on crits

… Inertia gives 15 seconds alright, instead of going dodge food which does not stack with vigor you can make a choice inbetween 3 might stacks on heal for 20 seconds base(so 35 seconds with 30 in acro and strength), or generic +40% condition duration which is plain overpowered…

Evalia.7103:

… Inertia gives 15 seconds alright, instead of going dodge food which does not stack with vigor you can make a choice inbetween 3 might stacks on heal for 20 seconds base(so 35 seconds with 30 in acro and strength), or generic +40% condition duration which is plain overpowered…

You can use dodge food + inertia. The food DOES stack with the minor 3 point trait in acro. So while it does not stack with vigor, you just don’t put any vigor in your build!

Someone taking inertia would naturally be skipping vigorous recovery in acro, so they may as well also skip bountiful theft. If they are pistol mh, ricochet would be a great option.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAqal0Mp3pFOx0J8PNBPBt9AmdA8LK9ej2C-TFCGABB8AAkZ/hjUi8o6PEp8qM9AAcCA8TJIpAMXYE-w

>>As someone mentioned before Runes of rage should get tested .Seems interesting for example something like this ?

This is what I am trying. It still a work in progress. I use Bloodlust to build the power over 2k and applied fortitude becomes very important to get that extra health.

The uptime of fury is around 100 percent and the crit chance is over 90 percent. It means every attack a crit and akin to having two GM traits in the CS line.

I was using it in wvw and will tinker with it yet but you can take down people fast. An unload from the pistols right off the bat will see them use a heal right away. You follow up with another and they are on the defensive.

I got 4 10k + in a row hits off unload on the siegegrazer.

It is GC and you do have to manage INI so as to save some for defensive purposes such as your blinds.

The s/d combo pumps out some huge numbers and allows more utility. The cleave can really lay a lot of hurt down in camps.

This not a final build nor am I sure it will work long term. I have been flipping back and forth between shadow arts and acro. It IS fun

Rage runes dont give rnough deeps seeing how my only source of fury would be the runes

Mystogan.4157:

Ive been switching from wurm runes with sigil of force and frailty to str runes with battle and str sigils

Wurm: 19k hp hits around 2-3k autos

Str : 17k hp hits around 2-3k for about 8 secs until might stacks then it hits around 3-4k i want other runes to be viable so bad im just so blinded by str right now. Any suggestions?? I love my wurm cause the hp and crit would switching to might sigils with wurm be better then force? Or matbe battle and force together?

Strengths runes will be nerfed considering how every class in gw2 is abusing them in some way, shape or form.

In other words, anet don’t want you to have +7% damage increase with 25 might stacks for a long duration.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpVOx0J8PNBNBtdFGeE0NAJovjA-T1RBABU8IAwS5He6DWUJIP7PAwZAgS1fIFATCjA-w

updated build. idont see much more i can improve