Guild Wars 2

i seen the Marauder armor at https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor and i am wondering if i will still damage high but retain a certain level of defense over the current build i am using from

http://qtfy.enjin.com/thief#Gear1

its a nice build and the damage is more then plenty, but the issue i get is that it feels so much like a glass canon build that the moment they see me i am pretty much dead.

i’m looking to rethink the armor part of my thief to where i can kill players but not be a instant kill as well.

any suggestions on armor?

pretty much everyone uses marauder on thief nowadays with exception for maybe few parts being zerker for some extra damage

While berserker gear will have the highest damage, Marauder is only like a 5% loss when solo. It has substantially more total stats on it than the pre-HoT gear combinations, so it’s going to be intrinsically better since it’s also specialized. In pretty much every environment, there’s zero downside to Marauder compared to any other power damage set.

If you’re doing Raids or T3-4 Fractals, use Berserker.

For everything else, there’s Marauders.

I’d rather not pick the thief up in raids by having him run marauders. 1 downstate is a a huge dps loss.

If you want only one set of gear, go with marauders. It’s more universally useful, and the dps difference is minimal to the point of being negligible.

You won’t notice a substantial drop in DPS switching to Marauder or the “poor mans” Marauder with Valkyrie armor/Zerk trinkets. You will have a bit more survival especially in WvW.

I swapped from full berserker to marauders and I can now last 4-5 seconds longer before getting killed in wvw. Still at a 100% loss rate though

I can’t quantify the damage loss, but it is noticeable even outside of groups. However, in exchange full marauder provides somewhere around a 66% boost to your maximum health (from 12-13k up to 19-20k comparing berserker to marauder).

As the others said, there is no need for the extra health in group PvE because you will have healing/mitigation support. Further, the damage boosters you receive will be that much more effective in berserker gear.

However, in solo play where you are your own healer, I feel there’s a distinct offensive advantage to having higher health on a thief. Instead of taking a hit and being forced to take evasive action, you’re much better able to remain on offense. This is especially true if your build takes advantage of traits like invigorating precision and assassin’s reward that heal on offense. Often you can heal back some or all of the damage by playing more aggressively.

It’s hard to quantify that effect, but in practice I find it feels pretty invincible. Especially if you take a somewhat more defensive build (acro/CS/DD power staff, for instance). You can not only take a hit, but heal it back rapidly. Even bosses will have difficulty bringing you down.