Guild Wars 2

and newly dinged 80.

What kind of build/armor combos can i make?

Armors are Tough/power/vit and Power/prec/condi and Preci/healing power/vitality.

Thanx in advance

Honestly, AC rewards aren’t that great for thief. The set combinations don’t really have any synergy.

Power/Tough/Vit is useless on thief. Unless you have a very specific way you want your thief to be played, power/tough/vit doesn’t give thief anything it really needs.

Power/Prec/Condition is honestly one of the worst stat combinations in the game. Power and Precision equate to burst damage, while Condition damage is sustained damage. You also have no defense, which is terrible on any set with Condition damage.

Precision/Healing/Vitality is only good on certain niche builds, like Guardian’s boon healing and might on crit traits.

Out of these three, Power/Tough/Vit is probably the best in terms of actually good armor. I just don’t think it’s worth it on thief.

You could buy a Gift of Ascalon and use it to create a Gift of Light so you can create Aether.

Krathalos.3461:

Power/Prec/Condition is honestly one of the worst stat combinations in the game. Power and Precision equate to burst damage, while Condition damage is sustained damage. You also have no defense, which is terrible on any set with Condition damage.

Honestly,I cant disagree more with you.
On PvE,I play d/d+sb glass cannon.Death blossom/cluster bomb shine with these stats.You have great dmg due to power/precision and extra dmg due to bleeding(condition).
About survivability…you are thief.I think I have answered you.
E.g. even with glass cannon build you can do Lupicus on Arah (10-12k HP).You can do every instance with that spec(excluding fractals 10+ which I havent tried)

Anyways,I think that the above stat combination is one of the best for thief.However,everything lies on your build so everything I said above might not help you.

Healing/Precision/Vitality gear is really only of any value to Guardians and maybe Staff Eles. It has essentially no value to a Thief, as you scale atrociously with Healing.

Power/Toughness/Vitality is one of the stronger combinations in the game. Virtually every class in the game benefits from Soldier gear. It’s main issue is that while it’s a great stat combo for straight-up brawling, it doesn’t offer any of the key secondary stats that can make you a real threat. As such, while it is strong, you generally will not want more than a couple pieces of Soldier gear in a build – they do wonders for bulking you up, but you can only afford so much of that before you’re just a meatbag.

Precision/Power/Condition gear is very strong on certain Thief builds, giving you three very strong stats with the big chunk being the strongest stat in the game. Its main issue is that is has to be mixed and matched to be effective – on its own, it is a very underwhelming set. It does, however, play very nicely with a mix of Valkyrie gear. Be careful with this set, since it’s not anywhere near as linear as other sets, and thus much more subject to player error.

Krathalos.3461:

Power/Prec/Condition is honestly one of the worst stat combinations in the game. Power and Precision equate to burst damage, while Condition damage is sustained damage. You also have no defense, which is terrible on any set with Condition damage.

Condition damage is no better than power-based damage at sustained damage, conversely running burst conditions is entirely viable, depending on the timeframe for your burst. The two damage types simply don’t conform that way in GW2.

I made a set of AC gear after all ( i have killed all other tokens in the Forge ><) and my stats are:

Attack:2305
Crit Change: 56% / Multiplier: 33%
Armor: 2.455
Health: 16.825

Traits : 0/30/0/25/15

I like it alot, the damage is very high compared to warrior or guardian i play.

At some point when i bunch up gear im gonna give glass a shot aswell.

seithan.4823:

I made a set of AC gear after all ( i have killed all other tokens in the Forge ><) and my stats are:

Attack:2305
Crit Change: 56% / Multiplier: 33%
Armor: 2.455
Health: 16.825

Traits : 0/30/0/25/15

I like it alot, the damage is very high compared to warrior or guardian i play.

At some point when i bunch up gear im gonna give glass a shot aswell.

good move, i approve. I have AC gears too.

Sithaco.4673:

You could buy a Gift of Ascalon and use it to create a Gift of Light so you can create Aether.

This is exactly what I did with my Ascalon Tokens (still far from the rest of components, but I already have the Gift just in case, maybe I end up investing it in Gift of Light for my Guardian’s Mjolnir instead :P).

Quickhit.3620:

Krathalos.3461:

Power/Prec/Condition is honestly one of the worst stat combinations in the game. Power and Precision equate to burst damage, while Condition damage is sustained damage. You also have no defense, which is terrible on any set with Condition damage.

Honestly,I cant disagree more with you.
On PvE,I play d/d+sb glass cannon.Death blossom/cluster bomb shine with these stats.You have great dmg due to power/precision and extra dmg due to bleeding(condition).
About survivability…you are thief.I think I have answered you.
E.g. even with glass cannon build you can do Lupicus on Arah (10-12k HP).You can do every instance with that spec(excluding fractals 10+ which I havent tried)

Anyways,I think that the above stat combination is one of the best for thief.However,everything lies on your build so everything I said above might not help you.

Death Blossom is terrible with Power/Prec. The only bonus you get from that set towards DB is Condition Damage, and if you’re trying to spam DB, you’re better off using a build focused towards it, instead of trying to be a jack of all trades.

About survivability, being thief means you’re the second squishiest class in the game. Yes, thieves have evades and stealth, but all classes have evades, and stealth is the buggiest thing in PvE, since just about every monster has a channeled ability. For condition damage to shine, you need defense to make sure you can stay alive and let your bleeds do their job.

Tulisin.6945:

Condition damage is no better than power-based damage at sustained damage, conversely running burst conditions is entirely viable, depending on the timeframe for your burst. The two damage types simply don’t conform that way in GW2.

No, it’s not, but Condition Damage ONLY has sustained damage. There is no such thing as burst condition damage. It takes time for your conditions to tick, and you’re not going to be doing anything near what a burst build can do in the same time. Depending on how many stacks of bleed you can dish out, your condition damage can deal more sustained DPS than burst builds.

I’m not saying Power/Prec/Cond can’t deal high damage. It can. That’s mainly just the Power and Prec doing it, though. The problem is that it focuses on two different types of builds. You might as well just use Berserker’s and completely ignore Death Blossom. You’ll do more damage and be able to save your initiative to use more than just DB and auto attack.

For the way thief is with initiative, you can’t try and focus on both power and prec and condition damage. You can’t use an ability as soon as it’s off CD. You use the best ability for a given situation whenever you can, in order to maximize your effectiveness. Using your initiative on just DB puts two of the stats you have to waste.

Krathalos.3461:

Tulisin.6945:

Condition damage is no better than power-based damage at sustained damage, conversely running burst conditions is entirely viable, depending on the timeframe for your burst. The two damage types simply don’t conform that way in GW2.

No, it’s not, but Condition Damage ONLY has sustained damage. There is no such thing as burst condition damage. It takes time for your conditions to tick, and you’re not going to be doing anything near what a burst build can do in the same time. Depending on how many stacks of bleed you can dish out, your condition damage can deal more sustained DPS than burst builds.

Burst is not equivalent to instant, burst refers to damage over a predefined short timeframe, usually with the stipulation that the level of damage cannot be sustained beyond that timeframe. Pumping condition damage-heavy bleed stacks without focusing on duration and burning through initiative results in a condition damage burst timeframe of <10 seconds. You sacrifice potential sustainability to pack more damage into a short timeframe, thus, burst.

Tulisin.6945:

Burst is not equivalent to instant, burst refers to damage over a predefined short timeframe, usually with the stipulation that the level of damage cannot be sustained beyond that timeframe. Pumping condition damage-heavy bleed stacks without focusing on duration and burning through initiative results in a condition damage burst timeframe of <10 seconds. You sacrifice potential sustainability to pack more damage into a short timeframe, thus, burst.

Condition dmg can be hardly called “burst” for two reasons:

1) the “timeframe” as you call it is too long (burst dmg is somewhat similar to “Spike dmg”, this term was used in GW1).
2) The burst damage also often means unavoidable dmg by any other means that the passive damage mitigation (armor, protection) or complete evade – dodge/block. however conditions can be cleansed, and that with the quite long timeframe for doing its´ dmg make it irrelevant in the terms of burst damage.

STRanger.5120:

Tulisin.6945:

Burst is not equivalent to instant, burst refers to damage over a predefined short timeframe, usually with the stipulation that the level of damage cannot be sustained beyond that timeframe. Pumping condition damage-heavy bleed stacks without focusing on duration and burning through initiative results in a condition damage burst timeframe of <10 seconds. You sacrifice potential sustainability to pack more damage into a short timeframe, thus, burst.

Condition dmg can be hardly called “burst” for two reasons:

1) the “timeframe” as you call it is too long (burst dmg is somewhat similar to “Spike dmg”, this term was used in GW1).
2) The burst damage also often means unavoidable dmg by any other means that the passive damage mitigation (armor, protection) or complete evade – dodge/block. however conditions can be cleansed, and that with the quite long timeframe for doing its´ dmg make it irrelevant in the terms of burst damage.

1. The timeframe is situational. In PvP you could consider the burst period to be <4 seconds, but in most PvE fights the burst period is whenever the boss is most vulnerable, often increments of upto 30 seconds.
2. Burst has never meant this.

I’m not arguing with your analysis of the strengths of condition damage vs. power-based damage, just the redefining of existing terms to suit them. Burst condition builds and sustained power-based damage builds exist. S/P is an excellent example of the former. having no real way to sacrifice sustained damage for short-term burst. Caltrops/DB/DS spam is an excellent example of the latter, chaining together a bunch of short-term high damage bleeds and cooldowns to deliver burst condition-based damage and then being relatively impotent during a recovery period, shotgunning shortbow works the same way.

Tulisin.6945:

1. The timeframe is situational. In PvP you could consider the burst period to be <4 seconds, but in most PvE fights the burst period is whenever the boss is most vulnerable, often increments of upto 30 seconds.
2. Burst has never meant this.

I’m not arguing with your analysis of the strengths of condition damage vs. power-based damage, just the redefining of existing terms to suit them. Burst condition builds and sustained power-based damage builds exist.

In the conditions of PvE, it´s somewhat situational, but shorter still means better.
And the condition build of Thief greatly suffers from the bad condition design in GW2, the thief is basically dependent on bleeding dmg, but all characters are increasing the one and only stack of bleed? So if there are more than one character which stack bleeding, you have suddenly dropped your dmg in half approximately, which sux.
But if you´re not able to stack 25 stack of bleeds on your own, it may work, but you will never exceed the damage of a direct dmg build, unfortunately.

STRanger.5120:

So if there are more than one character which stack bleeding, you have suddenly dropped your dmg in half approximately, which sux.

Right, condition damage doesn’t play nice in groups, unfortunately. It also lacks a vulnerability-equivalent. Thieves also lack access to the Burning condition, which is typically a better “burst” condition than bleeds.

A bit of a damage revamp to make conditions more viable, especially in groups, would be welcome.

Tulisin.6945:

STRanger.5120:

So if there are more than one character which stack bleeding, you have suddenly dropped your dmg in half approximately, which sux.

Right, condition damage doesn’t play nice in groups, unfortunately. It also lacks a vulnerability-equivalent. Thieves also lack access to the Burning condition, which is typically a better “burst” condition than bleeds.

Exactly, and that was the reason I abandoned the condition build and now playing typical Backstab build in PvE. Even at the cost of lower survivability, at least nobody steals my dmg now

Tulisin.6945:

Krathalos.3461:

Tulisin.6945:

Condition damage is no better than power-based damage at sustained damage, conversely running burst conditions is entirely viable, depending on the timeframe for your burst. The two damage types simply don’t conform that way in GW2.

No, it’s not, but Condition Damage ONLY has sustained damage. There is no such thing as burst condition damage. It takes time for your conditions to tick, and you’re not going to be doing anything near what a burst build can do in the same time. Depending on how many stacks of bleed you can dish out, your condition damage can deal more sustained DPS than burst builds.

Burst is not equivalent to instant, burst refers to damage over a predefined short timeframe, usually with the stipulation that the level of damage cannot be sustained beyond that timeframe. Pumping condition damage-heavy bleed stacks without focusing on duration and burning through initiative results in a condition damage burst timeframe of <10 seconds. You sacrifice potential sustainability to pack more damage into a short timeframe, thus, burst.

When did I say it was equivalent to instant?

Yes, burst refers to a large amount of damage in a short time frame. I’m well aware of that. This is, once again, why Condition Damage cannot be considered “burst.” They require time to both apply and then deal their damage. You cannot burst with condition damage. You may be able to say there’s “burst condition builds” as opposed to “sustained condition builds” only because you blow all your conditions at once, but saying condition builds can burst is completely different.

This is merely arguing semantics of names, however. A “burst condition damage” build can only be called this because they apply a large amount of stacks of bleed, poison, etc. in as short a time frame as possible, but then have to wait for CDs before they can reapply the conditions. These builds also all have one inherent flaw: condition removal.

You will never be able to actually burst with a condition build.

The argument for going full precision/prowess, or going full condition damage, is to build the strongest single-purpose tool possible – and then to hit everything with it. If you have your mega-crit hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is a very straightforward way to approach the game, and it honestly is not so difficult that there’s a need to get any more sophisticated than that.

The trouble is that a 3000 armor legendary mob with full-time protection is not a nail for your crit hammer. It’s the proverbial round hole for your square peg, and while your full dunk hammer can eventually force it through, it’s not exactly ideal.

The reality is that some mobs are vulnerable to raw damage, and some are vulnerable to condition damage, and when you average the performance of different builds over all the different mobs you’ll face, the hybrid builds often look pretty good compared to the all-in builds. Sure, you won’t do as well as the full Rabid builds at bleeding out hard targets, or burst as hard as full Berserker against low health squishies, but you’ll vastly outperform those builds in the opposite situations.

So unless you’re planning on carrying around multiple sets of gear to swap in for every fight, you should take a serious look at hybridizing your damage. Combined with intelligent use of your initiative you could very well shore up your hardest fights and speed up your runs while sacrificing remarkably little from the easy fights.