Guild Wars 2

I thought about a 5/6/3/0/0 d/p build where invigorating precision would act as sustain.
But it looks like it heals for far too little to be of any use, i mean on a backstab it heals for no more than 250 and on the first 3 dagger hits it heals for about 28 per hit.
This is in spvp with 60% critical chance 200% crit damage and 2100 power.

My idea was that this would be a good trait for a point fighter that doesn’t need to constantly go stealth but the heal from this trait to me looks like nowhere near enough to sustain you at all.

So has anyone come up with a build with it or at least theory crafted something because it looks like it has potential, i’m not seeing it.

I don’t have the math to prove it, and i suck at math, but I’ve read in these forums that it isn’t worth it. At least not for a GM trait.

Maybe par it with signet of malice for more sustain, idk.

This trait is supposed to replace signet of malice in PvE, where you do big AoE damage with shortbow, so you can equip hide in shadows for condi cleanse. I don’t think there is any more use of it. Just another underpowered trait not worth grandmaster slot.

You have plenty of conditon removal already, Malice + Invigorating Precision works amazing

It has a very niche appeal. I’ve used it when soloing bosses or other tedious content that requires sustain rather than DPS.

The healing itself is nigh useless but add it to Signet of Malice and Omnomberry Pie and you should have quite a bit of passive healing.

Assassin’s Reward is a good pair for it as well, although I don’t know that this would have any value for your PvP situation.

It doesn’t matter what you pair it with, it’s still extremely weak relative to other traits. If you’re doing well pairing it with Malice, that’s because Malice is good. The trait does nothing for you.
You’d have to be insane to take this in PvE over Executioner.

Grimwolf.7163:

It doesn’t matter what you pair it with, it’s still extremely weak relative to other traits. If you’re doing well pairing it with Malice, that’s because Malice is good. The trait does nothing for you.
You’d have to be insane to take this in PvE over Executioner.

Oh really? How much healing do you get out of Executioner? Doesn’t seem to be working for me, maybe I am doing something wrong.

High level Fractals is the only place I would consider this trait.

Interceptor.2653:

Grimwolf.7163:

It doesn’t matter what you pair it with, it’s still extremely weak relative to other traits. If you’re doing well pairing it with Malice, that’s because Malice is good. The trait does nothing for you.
You’d have to be insane to take this in PvE over Executioner.

Oh really? How much healing do you get out of Executioner? Doesn’t seem to be working for me, maybe I am doing something wrong.

Dodging doesn’t heal you either, kitten. Try ignoring that.

NO NO NO NO! a hell no! not worth it. maybe in PvE yeah pistol whipping mobs with signet of malice on! and yeah w/ assassin’s reward too!

Grimwolf.7163:

Dodging doesn’t heal you either, kitten. Try ignoring that.

“Dodge” is not a Critical Strikes Grandmaster trait. Here are your options for healing in the CS line:

1. Invigorating Precision
2. There is no Option #2.

It’s pretty silly to bring up Executioner as a retort, when it doesn’t contribute to sustain. If you don’t need extra healing, don’t pick IP. If you do, it’s basically your only choice in this line. Rocket science, it is not.

Killing faster is part of survivability though, that’s how Zerker works in PvE…

Interceptor.2653:

Grimwolf.7163:

Dodging doesn’t heal you either, kitten. Try ignoring that.

“Dodge” is not a Critical Strikes Grandmaster trait. Here are your options for healing in the CS line:

1. Invigorating Precision
2. There is no Option #2.

It’s pretty silly to bring up Executioner as a retort, when it doesn’t contribute to sustain. If you don’t need extra healing, don’t pick IP. If you do, it’s basically your only choice in this line. Rocket science, it is not.

Since you don’t understand; I’m trying to say that healing isn’t everything.
Even if you’re goal is to survive more easily, it’s still bat-kitten crazy to sacrifice 20% damage for a trivial amount of healing that won’t even help you. If all you care about is staying alive and not doing anything else, you shouldn’t even be going down the Critical Strikes line in the first place.

Lostwingman.5034:

Killing faster is part of survivability though, that’s how Zerker works in PvE…

I said “sustain”, not “survivability”. Subtle but important difference between those two things.

Grimwolf.7163:

Since you don’t understand

I understand your point perfectly. The problem is that your point is silly.

[…]I’m trying to say that healing isn’t everything.
Even if you’re goal is to survive more easily, it’s still bat-kitten crazy to sacrifice 20% damage for a trivial amount of healing that won’t even help you. If all you care about is staying alive and not doing anything else, you shouldn’t even be going down the Critical Strikes line in the first place.

Some fun facts that you just bulldozed over:

• It’s not a 20% damage loss: you only “lose” that damage on targets under 50% health.
• The healing could be higher, but it is not trivial. IP scales with the power tripod, and is returning 5% of your critical hit damage.
• “Staying alive” is not the goal. The goal is getting extra combat healing (because if you didn’t want combat heals, you wouldn’t spec in IP in the first place).
• For combat healing traits, you are limited to basically IP, LV, and AR. Signet of Malice and various life leeches help, but a lot of things go into a good omelet.

Obviously someone going down CS cares about damage, but that doesn’t mean healing is irrelevant. It’s niche, but it’s nonetheless useful. Your hyperbole is rejected.

Interceptor.2653:

Grimwolf.7163:

Since you don’t understand

I understand your point perfectly. The problem is that your point is silly.

[…]I’m trying to say that healing isn’t everything.
Even if you’re goal is to survive more easily, it’s still bat-kitten crazy to sacrifice 20% damage for a trivial amount of healing that won’t even help you. If all you care about is staying alive and not doing anything else, you shouldn’t even be going down the Critical Strikes line in the first place.

Some fun facts that you just bulldozed over:

• It’s not a 20% damage loss: you only “lose” that damage on targets under 50% health.
• The healing could be higher, but it is not trivial. IP scales with the power tripod, and is returning 5% of your critical hit damage.
• “Staying alive” is not the goal. The goal is getting extra combat healing (because if you didn’t want combat heals, you wouldn’t spec in IP in the first place).
• For combat healing traits, you are limited to basically IP, LV, and AR. Signet of Malice and various life leeches help, but a lot of things go into a good omelet.

Obviously someone going down CS cares about damage, but that doesn’t mean healing is irrelevant. It’s niche, but it’s nonetheless useful. Your hyperbole is rejected.

Holy Mother of God, man. You are not worth arguing with. Go on being a crappy thief, I have no reason to care.

Grimwolf.7163:

Holy Mother of God, man. You are not worth arguing with. Go on being a crappy thief, I have no reason to care.

And yet you keep replying and throwing insults, about a point that shouldn’t even be controversial. There ARE uses for IP (which have already been spelled out here: it’s not a difficult concept to grasp). To proclaim that the trait “does nothing for you” is to deny reality.

Interceptor.2653:

Lostwingman.5034:

Killing faster is part of survivability though, that’s how Zerker works in PvE…

I said “sustain”, not “survivability”. Subtle but important difference between those two things.

Sustain is an aspect of survivability, it is also a largely marginal and optional part. It is compensating for a shortcoming, the shortcoming being low damage output.

IP…..is really dumb….like…forrealz…… my old build could out sustain anything in pvp, save bosses, but even then bosses would only hit me for about 1/4th of my hp. IP is kittening dumb….if you need sustain then you shouldnt be going into cs really…… SA and i think its acro grandmaster now, are all the sustain you need, plus combine that with healing gear, holy kitten its stupid, ill let you in on a secret, toughness, healing power, congratz, you can now tank 99% of the pve content.

Lostwingman.5034:

Sustain is an aspect of survivability […]

Which is another way of saying that they are two distinct things.

[…] it is also a largely marginal and optional part. It is compensating for a shortcoming, the shortcoming being low damage output.

Nonsense. For some content, you cannot get enough damage output (certainly Executioner is insufficient) to increase your survival beyond what you’d be able to get with healing sustain, because you can’t get to the point where you can insta-blick bosses.

It sort of blows my mind that we just went through Healing Signet hell as a community, but there are people who still don’t understand how powerful it is to have in-combat healing. I completely understand why ANet is gun-shy about increasing the gain on this trait.

assassins reward, shadow rejuv, infusion of shadow, shadows embrace, coupled with sig of malice, and a rapidly attacking weapon like the pistol, and healing power gear and your all set, believe me, i ran it for months pve, and pvp, and could tank more than warriors or guardians can. if you want a full explination then ill give it to you, but your failing to see that if you really really REALLY want incombat healing, IP is the WRONG way to go. they already nerfed my build into oblivion so its not as powerful as it once was, and in a build like a sustained build you need all the points you can spare, CS gives absolutley nothing in the way of “sustain” im talking about healing as sustain, since thats what you are so hellbent on calling sustain. as i said previously, if you really want sustain, you wont spend any points beyond 5, maybe even 10 (thats kind of pushing it though) into CS, you would put it elsewhere where the “sustain” is leaps and bounds higher than IP.

^ There’s more than one way to skin a cat, or sustain a fight. You hit like a feather with your +HP gear, or are reliant entirely on conditions. A build with sustain in it does not need to be balls-out max healing in order to be useful.

IP is the trait sustain option for the crit-based Thief that goes down CS. There’s undoubtedly a good reason why this trait 1) requires a crit and 2) doesn’t scale with healing power.

This is not a difficult concept to understand.

if it scaled with hp, it would be so much better, and yes, the specific build im referring to is condi based, apothecary gear, it didnt matter if i couldnt hit someone in the face for 4k, i could hit them with 1k and make them have to use condi clear or else they would take bleeds/poison to the face and die. now that theyve given us a more reliant confusion application, plus torment, bleed, and poison on elite skill why would you want to try and dable in something thats just too far subpar to even bring to the table. d/p and sb seems like the go to for a sustain build, you get every aspect of your build working together, to make it even stronger, versus (yes i know you can get super high kitten crit chance) something thats rng for one, and for two 5% if it was buffed maybe it might see use (keep in mind this is my humble opinion, but even still at the current setup, it looks like more of a waste than a help) what the above person was talking about as sustain was the raw damage to kill someone fast, or to force them to play defensive, that is a perfect and viable way to play, its called executioner.

if your going pve for this and only pve, then sure, possibly, with signent of malice/pistol whip, but once that boss comes around and you dump all your sustain into crits, that 50-89 healing is really gonna help you…

Scribbles.3974:

if it scaled with hp, it would be so much better

The word you are looking for here is “overpowered”. Unless they made the ratio uselessly small.

if your going pve for this and only pve, then sure, possibly, with signent of malice/pistol whip, but once that boss comes around and you dump all your sustain into crits, that 50-89 healing is really gonna help you…

This trait is worthwhile if for no other reason than that it erases incidental damage that will put you under the Scholar threshold. For larger healing needs, that’s why you combine it with other sources, like food/leech/SoM/AR.

Does anyone else want to agree with me while pretending to disagree?

oh, so your saying you should play pve in a pvp spec? and just forgoe the age old rule of just trying to maximize your damage and being more to your team than just a ressurect buddy, :/ also if it scaled with healing power, it wouldnt be op at all, since the other regen traits are grandmaster and you can only get a total of 2 of them, it would just open thief up to what you really are trying to do, someone who goes in your face and can sustain themselves while still dishing out raw berserker damage, there is a reason they call it glass cannon, and not steel cannon lol

^ We have pretty good Regen uptime in Acrobatics with Pain Response, but everyone seems to think that’s just a condition removal trait, for some reason. There are potential broken combinations if they don’t carefully watch our effective Healing Power ratios.

I am not talking about PvP. Grimwolf derailed the thread into PvE.

@Op, no IP is not worth it. Pair the global loss in dps (ferocity) and giving up executioner your dps will be drastically less, which means your critical damage will be drastically less. In the preview the dev’s mentioned 10k crit would amount to 500 hp (anyone can do math). What they forgot to keep in mind is you won’t get 10k crits with IP in any consistency to make it noticeable.

As people above have already said, if you’re going into CS for combat sustain you’re doing it wrong. CS is a dps trait line, and the % for IP is far to low. Sure you can couple it with SoM and AR and get some heals but you can check the battle log and see how pathetically weak those crits are healing you for even over time. I’ve said it probably a dozen times now, if the worry was that IP was going to make AoE too strong (sword, sb) then they could separate the conversion % for single and AoE target skills. That way d/x could get some decent recovery from a successful back stab but pw and cluster bomb won’t be soaring through the roof with green numbers. Also to scale it slightly off healing power (every 100 healing power, 1% extra). As it stands, there is no use in IP aside from pve which is a terrible source for profession balance discussions.

Oh and its off critical hits only, which unless you have constant fury +high precision gear isn’t always. In addition it scales off critical damage which means another stat you are gearing for now. That’s 2 stats to put any effect on a GM trait. From an investment perspective this GM trait is horrible. From a combat healing perspective, you get far more in return from AR or even shadow protector/rejuvenation.

in pve i dont think IP would be runnable with just pain response and itself and assassins reward, you would nearly all the time have to run SoM, which then derails your build into a SoM build, sure youve got all these neat little things like a screw driver on your pocket knife, but it is afterall just a pocket knife. SoM is strong for one thing, thief potential to attack litterally everyone around them. IP just looks like strawberries on top of the icing on the cake, where as, SoM is the cake and the icing. so, to just put it in here again, IP is pretty kitten.