Guild Wars 2

So I was defending a camp on my engi, doing fine, and suddenly a thief comes up to me with a shortbow, hitting me for 1,700 with auto attacks and 4.5k with cluster bombs, I died in seconds. I had rapid gear so my toughness was really high.

Does anyone know how to deal this high damage? On my thief I hit 1k-1.2k with my bow auto attacks on mobs, and less on players. And my cluster bombs max at 2-3k. I have full zerker so I have no clue what that other thief that let him deal double that damage that I can.

Post your engi’s build, and then your thief’s build. That way I can better get a perspective on what your damage output is.

Engineer: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpdrlcxELseRSaBNq0AqQIyQulPPhA8UA-TVRGwAAUCqS9H26BKt/QOlfAA-w
Thief: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoaVlsMpzpdPx8J0PNxOBtdAq9A4+CboEd1CA-TVCBwA/2AAyRAAryPJnAQJIgDBAO1fSpPQ36DBeAAAA-w

Did you post the wrong runes on your thief build there? You have 1 Rune of Infiltration and 4 Runes of the Krait. You also left out your food, which may be a factor as well considering you can get up to a 10% damage increase from something like Seaweed Salad.

Assuming that you just forgot to change the rest of the runes to Infiltration, you might want to change them to something that gives you more power and unconditional % damage modifiers.

Your thief buid is not full zerk that’s why you hit less and the other thief could have guard/bloodlust stacks too, they add quite a lot.

With the armour your engi has, the dmg you took from the thief sounds right.

For a nice damage thief build with some survivability you’ll want to use something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY8YlsMp0pdPx8J8PNBNBt9DGeE4uGrYGaFAA-TFTBwA4UpQlWgHPAgInAgr7PKXQrEsrSCsKhQpbYxBBIn6KAOCAkCQgtAA-w

You don’t have to follow it exactly, but those are basically the stats to shoot for. Or if you want slightly different stats that’s fine. Just make sure your power is around 2.2k, and your critical damage is above 215%.

Sorry they should all be infiltrator. I know it’s not 100% zerker, but dealing more than double the amount of damage that I can do seems a little ridiculous.
I’ll try changing my runes, I was a little iffy when I bought them. The problem I have with bloodlust is you lose all the charges if you enter water, swap weapons, or leave the area. And I do all those a lot.
In my final build my crit damage is 221% and power is 2100.

TheBandit.7031:

I’ll try changing my runes, I was a little iffy when I bought them. The problem I have with bloodlust is you lose all the charges if you enter water, swap weapons, or leave the area. And I do all those a lot.

If you buy a second Bloodlust sigil and put it on your underwater weapon, you save your stacks when you go into the water. With the change to stacking sigils, you have to commit to having it on one of your weapon sets. IMO, it’s better to have it on your shortbow if you plan on using one. I may swap between D/D, D/P, and S/D, but generally SB never leaves my bar so there isn’t a chance of losing the stacks from changing weapons.

TheBandit.7031:

Sorry they should all be infiltrator. I know it’s not 100% zerker, but dealing more than double the amount of damage that I can do seems a little ridiculous.
I’ll try changing my runes, I was a little iffy when I bought them. The problem I have with bloodlust is you lose all the charges if you enter water, swap weapons, or leave the area. And I do all those a lot.
In my final build my crit damage is 221% and power is 2100.

You put 6pts into SA and complain about someone having double your dmg. For dmg, runes with power as main stat are a lot better than precision. If the guy was full zerk, that’s 300+175 extra power than your build, he’d have 350 more if he had full guard/bloodlust stacks. Of course it makes sense he hits a lot harder.

Ger power runes, don’t go for ogre or privateer, any spawned mob is just a headache.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

You put 6pts into SA and complain about someone having double your dmg.

Going to agree and add that it illustrates how power scaling is a bit broken in the game still. How investing 15%-20% more into the power stat equals 200% damage output is pretty broken. Certainly putting 15%-20% more into toughness doesn’t reduce incoming damage by that much, nor healing, nor condi damage, etc… etc…

If you’re only concerned with damage, then it’s your build.
- Runes should be Scholars for the Ferocity/damage modifier.
- Shadow arts provides little damage modifiers. It’s a broken build choice due to the amount of survivability it gives and overall high damage Dagger mainhand + precision signets can yield from might (See below).
- He probably ran signets. Signet burst, using Signet Use and Signets of Power (Crit Strikes II, VIII) on a triple-signet build yields 15 stacks of might or 525 power. And if the build difference means a lot as someone mentioned above, losing another 525 power is huge.
- The Deadly Arts line provides power, but also when traited with mug, another 15% additional damage calculated after this extra power (unless they cleanse both poison and weakness from the mug before you can stab) when going at least 5 points deep. You’re also neglecting Assassin’s Signet, which when not used, actually grants more power than the might stacking from Signets of Power, but can also add in another 15% multiplicative damage scaling when activated on the next five attacks.

If you want your damage to be high, you have to go all in with it. Thief damage can be absolutely crazy, but you’re not going to ever get close to those numbers without investing in a build with at least 5/6/x/x/x with full power/ferocity gear and good precision.

Also, sigil of Air does more damage on a shorter cooldown, and sigil of bloodlust is a LOT stronger than sigil of force when at around the 15 stack threshold.

He may have also had applied strength and food when entering combat for even more damage.

Edit:
This is my thief build. Just by looking at the power difference it’s reasonable to see how dedicated damage builds deal so much more damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMpypNOxzJ8PNRLhs9oVv87tuPCA-TlSBwAPOBAmVCG5QAcd/RZ1N1DwqUBv+gFHBgcq4A4BAEA4A43+23fD43f/93f/tUARsMC-w

DeWolfe.2174:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

You put 6pts into SA and complain about someone having double your dmg.

Going to agree and add that it illustrates how power scaling is a bit broken in the game still. How investing 15%-20% more into the power stat equals 200% damage output is pretty broken. Certainly putting 15%-20% more into toughness doesn’t reduce incoming damage by that much, nor healing, nor condi damage, etc… etc…

The game already favours bunkers in pvp oriented game modes – consumables/point capture and even traits.

There are other mechanics for dmg negation than pure stats – thieves don’t put 6pts into SA for the extra toughness but for shadow rejuvenation.

Some builds are already nearly unkillable even if I run full zerk, I barely scratch them. If my dmg would be only 15% higher with zerk traits, there would be no reason to put any points in power. Everyone would bunk up even more, and we’d just walk around wvw and get bored.

To add to it, OP compared dmg of his build to someone who most likely had a build with power runes and he could have guard/bloodlust stacks. It’s like comparing dmg of rares and exotics.