Guild Wars 2

So I’m capturing a camp solo in eternal battlegrounds and out of nowhere I get 3 hits from a thief and I’m dead. Go back and look at the log and I find a backstab that hit for 14,112 followed by double strike for 2,144 and a cloak and dagger for 6342. Never had a chance. I’m a necro with 24K health and down before even getting a skill off.

Once a week thieves come into Necro forums saying how op we are. A single hit for 14k tells me there is nothing you ought to be crying about. I got beat plain and simple, but the next time one of you cries op I’m going to post this screenshot and say B.S.

It’s WvW, that doesn’t qualify, it’s a heavily umbalanced environnement.

In sPvP, Backstab hits between 3k and 6k, which is more than reasonnable if not even a bit low.

Yes, WvW is very imbalanced. Yet i suggest three things, your defense is truly bad for allowing such high damage, second; map awareness. You may have not checked ur envioroment well enough will decapping. Finally, might be a l2p issue but you gotta increase ur reflexes with skills. Block and interrupts works wonderfully with backstabs.

WvW is balanced at seeming unbalanced. there just some builds that hard counter other builds. nothing to really QQ about just make a more well rounded build an you wont die to 1 hit combos.

an that combo take the thief 1/4 + 3/4+ 1/2 = 1.5s since he used most likly his bali vemon on double strike means stun would of been removed at 1.25s being 1/4 of a second befor backstab landed you could of death sthrouded or reaper form befor it connected.

1. Backstab has not been changed in a long time, calling for a nerf to it now in the ‘meh’ state thief has been for like 8 months makes everyone question your skill and setup.

2. This is only possible in a situation where the thief is full glass and sacrificed all defenses to burst down someone else full glass. Solution: add some toughness, silly.

3. Repeating what others have said, but WvW is an imbalanced place. I get hit with 15k AoE Gunflames from 1200 with quickness all the time. This game is balanced on the PvP mode, and anything ridiculous that happens in WvW is swept under the rug.

you got sniped by a legendary geared thief, son

wvw is so unbalanced that s/d actually works there.

oh another glass victim of signet thief in wvw….

berserker war with rifle would literary 1 shot you, just saying~

That’s a gimmick one-shot gank build, hardly anyone uses that, because the only thing that can do is gank unsuspecting players.

Also Gunflame and CoR hits like a truck from ranged themselves.

You’re all missing my point. I will be the first to admit that it was a good move and I plain missed it. I’m not running a full zerker build, I have 2450 armor which isn’t max but it isn’t paper either. My point is once a week a thief will come in and moan about how op necros are. When you’re hitting for 14k with a single hit you have nothing to complain about.

Richard Marcinko.5132:

You’re all missing my point. I will be the first to admit that it was a good move and I plain missed it. I’m not running a full zerker build, I have 2450 armor which isn’t max but it isn’t paper either. My point is once a week a thief will come in and moan about how op necros are. When you’re hitting for 14k with a single hit you have nothing to complain about.

Im sure under certain conditions in WvW than we can find even more similar shocking things from necros.

We have much to complain about.

Richard Marcinko.5132:

You’re all missing my point. I will be the first to admit that it was a good move and I plain missed it. I’m not running a full zerker build, I have 2450 armor which isn’t max but it isn’t paper either. My point is once a week a thief will come in and moan about how op necros are. When you’re hitting for 14k with a single hit you have nothing to complain about.

hmm so that thief had 25 stacks of might 25 bloodlust 10%dmg food&&utility and full zerker running d/d. You tell me you havnt seen him comming and you facetanked a backstab AND a c&d. reasonable.

Edit: you could have killd him with 1skill + deadly chill proc.

Richard Marcinko.5132:

You’re all missing my point. I will be the first to admit that it was a good move and I plain missed it. I’m not running a full zerker build, I have 2450 armor which isn’t max but it isn’t paper either. My point is once a week a thief will come in and moan about how op necros are. When you’re hitting for 14k with a single hit you have nothing to complain about.

If you want to use this edge case to represent the state of thief fine. Then let’s consider ENTIRE EotM zergs being wiped by a single wall of fear. You see how idiotic this is?

Just gonna leave this here.

2.4k an 2k armor is almost no difference to be honest lol only thing really effect your HP bar are things that lower dmg by % like protection or weakness.

Richard Marcinko.5132:

So I’m capturing a camp solo in eternal battlegrounds and out of nowhere I get 3 hits from a thief and I’m dead. Go back and look at the log and I find a backstab that hit for 14,112 followed by double strike for 2,144 and a cloak and dagger for 6342. Never had a chance. I’m a necro with 24K health and down before even getting a skill off.

Once a week thieves come into Necro forums saying how op we are. A single hit for 14k tells me there is nothing you ought to be crying about. I got beat plain and simple, but the next time one of you cries op I’m going to post this screenshot and say B.S.

Hey, that’s me! (Silver Footman on TC with big stab numbers).

I recall sneaking up on you yesterday. I came in from the opposite angle of our spawn (from hylek) for a surprise to prevent a camp flip. Seems it worked :P

That’s actually kind of on the low end, honestly. I hit some glassy war yesterday for 20k (couldn’t get a screen as it was in a 1v2). I’m guessing you run some kind of more durable build than berserker, or that’s with protection. More typical are numbers like these (see attached; against a thief). Be happy I wasn’t a mesmer, honestly, as a burst-built mesmer in WvW can combo for more damage in the same amount of time, all while running a fully defensive trait setup and utilities, and stealing boons.

WvW numbers are way higher than in sPvP. It’s a fact you need to embrace and recognize that the pace of play is WAY faster here than anywhere else. If you don’t react fast enough to something and/or keep your eyes open for ganks at all times, often you’ll die. WvW isn’t so much imbalanced so much as it lacks a meta, because almost anything can be made viable (the exception here is that the Scrapper is objectively OP and everyone knows it, as is anything in dire perplexity gear). This makes encounters really hard to predict and leads to a lot of confusion of “how is that even possible?” moments.

As far as the damage being OP, not really. I did a 26k Gravedigger yesterday against some poor ele while playing my reaper, and normal GD’s/soul spirals/scythes usually pick around 14-16k as well.

I’ll mention that this thief build sacrifices literally everything for damage. To hit like that, you need to play active signets. This build runs:

- No defensive effects , traits, runes, sigils, or utilities.
- No Daredevil (not enough damage)
- Next to no condi cleanse (just sword 2 and Trickster on Withdraw, sacrificing boon stealing).
- No stun break
- No chain stealth/lowest stealth uptime
- Predictable burst (CnD/Stab rotation)
- Low escape potential and mobility (even DH’s can catch up if they play well) as I cannot afford the luxury of using a shortbow as I need sword for condition cleansing.
- After engaging, it has no available utility skills for a minimum of 24 seconds.

While the above posters are somewhat correct in that the build does one thing and one thing only (burst damage), the build can be played well and see very positive results in WvW, but is one of if not the single worst build in the game in sPvP. It’s also very easily countered, and suffers from the opposite issue most thieves have; it kills heavies but dies almost immediately to mesmers running mirror, as eating my own CC will often give the mesmer the time needed to stunbreak and 100-0 me with a shatter combo. Passive procs pretty much reduce the viability of this build substantially, as it’s dependent on the foe not reacting fast enough to you. The reasoning behind this is baseline power values are way higher than they are in sPvP since sPvP nerfs the power and ferocity stats by around 30% each. This, paired with a lot of might stacking on signet actives and around 70% more damage in external modifiers stacked up, results in a series of a few extremely explosive attacks, because power and damage modifers at the end of the day scale exponentially. Thus, the more you can get, the more damage you’ll do, and it’s not at all a linear trend. One proper stunbreak, dodge, and corrupt boon, and I’d probably have been squirming or have needed to run away.

I had to explain my damage to someone else recently and why the disparity is so big between me and other thieves; almost 80% of a thief’s potential damage comes from traits. If the traits are removed, the damage is. Thus, the thief has very little build variety and wildly-swinging capacity to deal and take damage. The thief skills and overall class kit is imho the best-designed one, because trait selection matters so much. Trickery-dependency aside, I think getting more variability within classes is something ANet should be pushing for, rather than just letting a one-size-fits all selection of traits (often defensive) carried by ridiculous damage coefficients (Gun flame, Rapid Fire, True Shot, CoR, Mind Wrack, to name a few).

A “normal” thief not using my build would have probably backstabbed you for around 6k. That’s hardly OP at all.

Overall I think reaper and thief are in pretty good places at the moment (though I think condi reaper could still use a little nerfing, core necro needs stability options in shroud or something minor). It really boils down to the fact my build and style of play (pure assassination) with taking advantage of the element of surprise simply worked out. Part of playing in WvW is always being cautious and ready.

As far as thieves complaining about necros, it’s probably about sPvP, too, where the backstab equivalent would have been like 4k. I take my reaper to sPvP just because it’s so much better than the thief. Apples to Oranges comparing what works in WvW and sPvP; as everything about my build (D/D + S/D signet burst without Daredevil) just does NOT work in sPvP, and reaper by comparison has a lot more going for it in sPvP since thieves are glassier and do less damage. The number of thieves I’ve one-shot in sPvP on my reaper with scythe is kinda funny. Not to justify complaints, but to mention invalidating any such complaint with your screen really isn’t at all accurate or a proper way to do so.

Lexander.4579:

you got sniped by a legendary geared thief, son

Correct, but not the sole reason. Aside from running Signet of Malice as a heal (which is a horrible, horrible idea), It is physically impossible for a thief to get more damage than what I have. Even the +5 omni infusions in ascended armor to get more power.

Thus again, this is an edge case where a complaint can’t really be made against the whole class from my build and gear setup. Mathematically speaking, I’m the single (or tied with) hardest-hitting thief in GW2, as there’s no potential way to increase damage further. It’s like saying all CEO’s are billionaires and we should tax all CEO’s of all businesses regardless of size a very large amount, because some CEO’s are billionaires.

The problem isn’t the skill as much as the game mechanics. Nothing done by a player with their profession’s skills should be able to take more than 1/3 of anyone’s health in less than 1s. They’ll need to use something like siege or map mechanics for that.

If there was such limitation, then anyone focusing too much on damage would be basically wasting their resources, like hammering a nail with an excavator-mounted hydraulic jackhammer. Yes, you can do it, but it’s a waste, because you’ll be bringing more power than you will actually use.

DeceiverX.8361:

Mathematically speaking, I’m the single (or tied with) hardest-hitting thief in GW2, as there’s no potential way to increase damage further. It’s like saying all CEO’s are billionaires and we should tax all CEO’s of all businesses regardless of size a very large amount, because some CEO’s are billionaires.

Mathematically speaking, you are not. Unless you have proof that only you and this “tied” person are the only people to run the same skills/gear/traits that is pretty easily obtainable by every other thief.

Please don’t be so arrogant, as to make such claims you must be renowned or wvw famous, yet I’ve never heard anyone mention your name, or even make a comment on any thief from TC.

since we are on topic of biggest number ever have you tried rotating food to stack power ?

yo Richard Marcinko.5132! imagine eating full zerk precision strike :O omnomnomnom 22k ggwp.

IMO Complaining about a melee range glass thief when you didn’t instadie , is year 2014 complaints. Even more so when backstab is a 2.4 multiplier in comparison to newer OP skills.

We have more pressing issues like instakills from 1200 range that don’t require positioning.

Turk.5460:

DeceiverX.8361:

Mathematically speaking, I’m the single (or tied with) hardest-hitting thief in GW2, as there’s no potential way to increase damage further. It’s like saying all CEO’s are billionaires and we should tax all CEO’s of all businesses regardless of size a very large amount, because some CEO’s are billionaires.

Mathematically speaking, you are not. Unless you have proof that only you and this “tied” person are the only people to run the same skills/gear/traits that is pretty easily obtainable by every other thief.

Please don’t be so arrogant, as to make such claims you must be renowned or wvw famous, yet I’ve never heard anyone mention your name, or even make a comment on any thief from TC.

I said tied because there is no way to further increase damage, and because I don’t know if anyone is running the same build. I’ve never met anyone else who has run as committed to it as I am, and they subsequently take damage losses. It’s frankly impossible to do more damage in the game on the thief class, so even if someone is running the same build, we are tied, which is what I said to begin with. If someone else is running the same build, then they need to be running the same gear. If they’re running the same trait build, and full ascended gear with power omni infusions in all of the armor and power infusions in the rest, as well as running force/impact sigils (balanced for day time) an alternate ascended dagger for night/impact, (one with Accuracy/Force as well if consistency against a known player is needed), etc., then we’re tied. Otherwise, because there is no way to deal more damage except for getting your enemy to run over two traps (Shadow and needle, perhaps) and use Assassin’s Signet with no stunbreak or teleports beyond a target running over ST (which unless playing D/P ghost is not even remotely realistic, due to dependencies on Daredevil and/or SA, in which case there are huge losses in the lack of CS damage augmentation, and still losses via the pistol’s weapon damage being lower than the dagger’s as to prevent a small discrepancy favoring the dagger after many simulations, or assumed a proportional “steady” weapon).

As far as being famous goes, I transferred to TC a few weeks ago, and don’t really spam map chat about how great I am. I often run both very defensively for camp and tower capture prevention, or run periphery for the blob. I prefer using VoIP services with my friends rather than hearing the garbage in server TS which often doesn’t even have to do with WvW and are usually just dumb and immature jokes. In instances in the past, I have helped people learn the build/thief to refine skills and remove dependencies from defensive lines because learning a full-offense builds better-teaches one how to act and react with limited defenses. Many revert back towards strictly better builds after getting a handle on this because then they can take learned skills to a new level. What I find is that being “famous” either is the result of something extraordinary occurring for the world to see with quite blatant visibility (such as being a great commander, everyone sees the tag and the PPT/fight victories are very apparent for being good), being obnoxious to the public such that people start talking about you out of resentment or astonishment (trolls, the controversial presidential campaign of Donald Trump), or simply being an early-bird on a highly-researched subject with a peak emphasis on performance gains, and publishing findings. I was not the early bird here on signet thief; Yski was, for he made excellent videos and tutorials about the build early on and throughout his play time, while I fiddled around with possibilities, and have made no such videos. I don’t really care about being famous, and don’t really care (or in the past, did not have access to) about putting forth the resources to do so.

I do not claim to be the best thief in the game. No way. I know for a fact I am very far from the best. I might say I’m a good thief, but that’s subjective. I claim to be the hardest-hitting one, or tied for the spot should others be geared and built exactly as I am. It’s not arrogance but mathematical proof. Anyone can crunch numbers and look at the highest value, and that’s exactly what I did while keeping the build remotely reasonable as to be able to emerge a victor from some fights. Technically, in a vacuum, given an entity with stationary or controllable behavior, with infinite time leading up to the burst attempt allowing for AA’s and other effects to ramp damage up, there is a way to increase the damage via a Shadow Trap and Sundering Strikes build. I did devise such a build as a suggestion for someone in the past asking for the theoretically-optimal DPS/burst build for a thief assuming no other players were around to provide support in damage such as external vulnerability or might stacking. I care not to find the post because I have an extensive post history and frankly, don’t really care so much. I made the claim I did above to demonstrate that the OP’s request for backstab nerfs using my own figures are no basis for comparison for the rest of the class.

So maybe I’ll concede that I’m not dealing the absolute maximum damage possible in the game in ideal scenarios in speciality PvE use or against AFK players using the build in question by the OP. I mean, I could run SoM’s active for about a 4% gain at the cost of likely getting killed in any and every 1v2 scenario, and against almost every skilled player. Though such an obvious switch won’t really consitute a major build ideology or change, and frankly, will likely be superceded by RNG on weapon damage rolls, anyways. That said, I did independently also devise the one which can do so on its own, and I think the math and basis for comparison for trait and gear setups regarding having pre-stacked vuln/might is quite easy to do, as then it’s just about stacking damage modifiers.

Maybe I wasn’t clear. Maybe you misread my post, I don’t know. I mentioned the tie because I do not know any others who do have exactly what I do, but the probability of others running it is absolutely favoring such reality. If I claimed to be absolutely the hardest-hitting thief in the game with no competition or equals, then that would be naive arrogance, because as you mentioned, the tools to do so are available to everyone. Pluralization or a grammar mistake may be a fault of my own to make it explicit that the number of other thieves tied for this position may be greater than one. Either way, there’s effectively zero way to improve damage in a build which offers reasonable capacity to fight in a PvP environment without encroaching upon the philosophy of what constitutes an effective or reasonable build or what idealistic scenarios could possibly exist in WvW environments. I’ve spent thousands of hours playing this build and always looking for ways to refine it more, particularly in respects to consistency of matchups as to win the fight I partake in (it’s no good to fail to kill someone on the burst and then die to a few long-lasting stacks of bleed or something), and believe I’ve hit the point where it’s just not possible to improve much beyond what I’ve got based on current implementations and available prospects for the thief.

If there are some new-found mechanics which nobody has previously considered, I’ve love to see and partake in discussion on them.

MithranArkanere.8957:

The problem isn’t the skill as much as the game mechanics. Nothing done by a player with their profession’s skills should be able to take more than 1/3 of anyone’s health in less than 1s. They’ll need to use something like siege or map mechanics for that.

If there was such limitation, then anyone focusing too much on damage would be basically wasting their resources, like hammering a nail with an excavator-mounted hydraulic jackhammer. Yes, you can do it, but it’s a waste, because you’ll be bringing more power than you will actually use.

We’d need an overhaul of the whole game to do so. Everyone would need the same base health pools and armor values, as well as armor values from gear. A comprehensive rework of the thief and mesmer would need to be performed. Axe and rifle warrior would need to be re-designed. Longbow ranger would need reworks. Condi builds would need to get absolutely gutted. Sustain builds would need to be effectively removed from the game. Protection would need strictly more limited access… the list just keeps going on regarding how much would have to change to make this kind of adjustment. sPvP features pretty similar design and balance, pushing the number to around 2/3, but one-shot mechanics basically do not exist.

Which is kind of what makes D/D stab fair to an extent. The entire combo takes just over a second to execute, and doesn’t engage from stealth. Like I also mentioned, to get such damage, it’s kill-or-be-killed, for there’s zero sustain in the build at all. I’ll say now that against dire-gear players, even my own burst often fails to kill them, and is usually dependent on a few AA’s or a HS to finish them off. Throw protection into the mix, and typically things go south real fast. Sustained-base elementalists are often able to take my backstab down to less than 6k. I fought a nomad guard recently who I simply wasn’t able to come close to killing due to the amount of toughness and mitigation he had, paired with a strong knowledge of his class (we agreed to stop fighting mutually because the duel was going on for almost 15 minutes and both of us were just out-healing each other). Part of the risk of playing for damage is being blown up at any given moment, but the reward is being able to do so to other such targets, or maybe extend the damage you can deal to contribute to killing tankier ones in a shorter amount of time.

sucky map awareness made another baby.
cry more but your mama won’t come
and I still prefer my dragon hunter

Call me stupid but… How do you get more than 18k HP as the screenshots show if you have the max possible damage?

Assuming you use Furious Maintenance Oil, that’s +1k HP, and +10% max from WvW bonuses – that’s still a long way to 18k. I must be missing something.

Valkyrie gear causes Sharpening Stones to scale more power off the bonus to vitality.

Sir Mad.1092:

Call me stupid but… How do you get more than 18k HP as the screenshots show if you have the max possible damage?

Assuming you use Furious Maintenance Oil, that’s +1k HP, and +10% max from WvW bonuses – that’s still a long way to 18k. I must be missing something.

Guild mate of his chiming in. He runs full valkyrie, yes he does use Furious Maintenance Oil and his hp is around 16.8k. hes being bumped by bonuses from wvw towards the end of the week.

Don’t get me wrong his numbers hit high and his hp is high, but the nature of his build makes him incredibly unreliable when running wvw with him. If he doesnt drop his target instantly and get out his goose is cooked(even when he does enemy often an ally will roast him). His build is pretty much completely countered by ele in earth, or mesmers with the reflect cc trait.

That timing lol. 16.6 without the Stones, which add another 1k health, which causes a push to 17.6 with no extra bonuses.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

I’m running a similar build like Deceiver but SA instead of DA and my usual BS against necros is 9,8k.
The “usual” thief in this case would be me.

Edit: Got the name wrong, sorry.

ETA: Btw: wvw isn’t that unbalanced – one problem in pvp is that there’s very little space. Especially problematic for a thief with insufficient condi remove.

Right, which means you’re either also running less stab damage on the “meta” build through the loss of CS, or you’re missing out on Mug by the loss of DA. In many instances, the “meta” thief also misses the effective damage from CnD in its burst speed via the use of D/P, and often deals less damage due to the initiative costs preventing Lead Attacks from working at peak, unless BD is used on daredevil, but the split between BD and Dash use is pretty even these days.

So a more typical build will hover at around a 12-14k total combo on average, if not a little less.

I don’t count the damage of mug into a backstab.

(Yes, I’m rolling my eyes right now)

MadVisions.4529:

facetanked a backstab

I don’t think those are the words you were looking for

DeceiverX.8361:

force/impact sigils (balanced for day time) an alternate ascended dagger for night/impact, (one with Accuracy/Force as well if consistency against a known player is needed)

How do you get your crits if you’re running gear with no precision? I had figured you were using sigil of intelligence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Hey I hate thieves as much as the next person :P but this is kind of their job right? Give up survivability, utility, to be a one trick pony (gunflame!)

I mean I have an 80 daredevil/thief I played around with but I found out in zergs I can’t contribute that much except picking off people out of position. PVD I have a shortbow.

Yep I have eaten instakill from a thief… I’ve also walked over a bridge half asleep and had some DH’s traps instakill me as well (I admit to not being a great player :P). I also found that you need to play better than most to pull it off and any error results in you getting downed.

Just my opinion. Bring a friend or two and dine on his body :p

reikken.4961:

How do you get your crits if you’re running gear with no precision? I had figured you were using sigil of intelligence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Critical strikes – Hidden Killer and Side Strike. I also guess he runs similar gear like me: Armor valk, rest zerker (weapons, trinkets) – that’s usually enough (depending on the rune and food) to have a ~50% critchance.

fost.9167:

I mean I have an 80 daredevil/thief I played around with but I found out in zergs I can’t contribute that much except picking off people out of position. PVD I have a shortbow.

I’m usually weakening the zergs with poison, keep the downed downed with poison, blast the waterfields under my commander, shadowstep to him to blind powder and drag him out (if he runs carelessly into the opposing zerg again), stealth the downed, ninja nurse the downed and catch a fleeing melee group with daggerstorm. Works pretty well – depends on the commander though, but maybe that’s true for any class.

ETA: Although I’m nearing rank 3k (~100 of it in EotM when it was new), so maybe it is experience, I don’t know.

Jana.6831:

reikken.4961:

How do you get your crits if you’re running gear with no precision? I had figured you were using sigil of intelligence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Critical strikes – Hidden Killer and Side Strike. I also guess he runs similar gear like me: Armor valk, rest zerker (weapons, trinkets) – that’s usually enough (depending on the rune and food) to have a ~50% critchance.

Hidden killer seems like a nice reliable crit source, but you need No Quarter to have maximum damage.

but I guess I forgot that valkyrie trinkets don’t exist, and full valkyrie would grant more than 18k hp anyway, so there is some precision in there.

reikken.4961:

Jana.6831:

reikken.4961:

How do you get your crits if you’re running gear with no precision? I had figured you were using sigil of intelligence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Critical strikes – Hidden Killer and Side Strike. I also guess he runs similar gear like me: Armor valk, rest zerker (weapons, trinkets) – that’s usually enough (depending on the rune and food) to have a ~50% critchance.

Hidden killer seems like a nice reliable crit source, but you need No Quarter to have maximum damage.

but I guess I forgot that valkyrie trinkets don’t exist, and full valkyrie would grant more than 18k hp anyway, so there is some precision in there.

What? “How do you have critical hits with valk?” “But you need no quarter!” There are valk trinkets - I have a thief who’s 80% valk. ETA: You’re right with that – She’s has got valk weapons, her trinkets are marauder/zerker.
Deceiver’s goal is to one shot people – for that you need max power, not really max crit (if you’re running CS).

WvW is all about instantly killing each other now. A Gunflame Warrior or a Staff/Sword Revenant could do the same damage in a similar time frame. You could be moving across a part of the map with no enemies but get instantly downed by a stack of DH traps. There’s no interesting fights to be had in WvW anymore. I recommend not playing it.

Simonoly.4352:

WvW is all about instantly killing each other now. A Gunflame Warrior or a Staff/Sword Revenant could do the same damage in a similar time frame. You could be moving across a part of the map with no enemies but get instantly downed by a stack of DH traps. There’s no interesting fights to be had in WvW anymore. I recommend not playing it.

It isn’t about instakills. It’s just that these HoT-introduced piercing attacks such as Gunflame and CoR with Cruel Repercussions+Roiling Mists are over the top , which makes meleeing less apealing on heavy classes when you can play sniper-like roles with few disadvantages. DH have a similar thing in True Shot but there are significant disadvantages to running True Shot on a glassier DH (Marauder is more compromise) compared to a Herald or Berserker.

When a Herald can hit 3-5K on glassy necros with hammer bolt auto, you better believe that there’s going to be ranged spam everywhere.

Jana.6831:

reikken.4961:

How do you get your crits if you’re running gear with no precision? I had figured you were using sigil of intelligence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Critical strikes – Hidden Killer and Side Strike. I also guess he runs similar gear like me: Armor valk, rest zerker (weapons, trinkets) – that’s usually enough (depending on the rune and food) to have a ~50% critchance.

/facepalm. You’re an idiot. Daredevil runes. Can you just stop posting in thief forums? You’re bad. Thanks.

@Anyone who wants to learn thief, do not even bother taking tips from Jana. Literally one of the worse thieves I’ve ever seen to play GW2.

Jana.6831:

reikken.4961:

Jana.6831:

reikken.4961:

How do you get your crits if you’re running gear with no precision? I had figured you were using sigil of intelligence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Critical strikes – Hidden Killer and Side Strike. I also guess he runs similar gear like me: Armor valk, rest zerker (weapons, trinkets) – that’s usually enough (depending on the rune and food) to have a ~50% critchance.

Hidden killer seems like a nice reliable crit source, but you need No Quarter to have maximum damage.

but I guess I forgot that valkyrie trinkets don’t exist, and full valkyrie would grant more than 18k hp anyway, so there is some precision in there.

What? “How do you have critical hits with valk?” “But you need no quarter!” There are valk trinkets - I have a thief who’s 80% valk. ETA: You’re right with that – She’s has got valk weapons, her trinkets are marauder/zerker.
Deceiver’s goal is to one shot people – for that you need max power, not really max crit (if you’re running CS).

Do you have any maths to prove your point? Cause I did some back in the days when I was looking what stat I should take for my infusions, and the bottom line was indeed Power is the best stat, but by a very, very small margin, before Precision and Crit Damage (and Crit Damage becomes even better than Precision past 85% or so – don’t quote me on the exact number – crit chance).

But my point is… If you hit for 4767 on average (I don’t remember which skill I’ve used to do the maths, but it’s irrelevant anyways) before trait modifiers, you gonna hit for 4457 if you lower your crit chance by 10% (210 precision), aka almost 7%. Sure, t’s not as good as Power, (that would be 4387 damage after dropping 210 power), but it’s still kitten good, and there’s no way I could be satisfied with 50% crit chance.

If you want to hit hard, yes, get as much Power as possible. But that’s not enough. You also need as much Precision and Ferocity as possible, generally in that order, because they count almost as much as Power.

And don’t get me wrong either: I have nothing against armours with some more defence thank zerk (I myself run Marauder), but you can’t imply than crit chance is secondary once you’ve reached 50% (with food!).

Sir Mad.1092:

Do you have any maths to prove your point? Cause I did some back in the days when I was looking what stat I should take for my infusions, and the bottom line was indeed Power is the best stat, but by a very, very small margin, before Precision and Crit Damage (and Crit Damage becomes even better than Precision past 85% or so – don’t quote me on the exact number – crit chance).

But my point is… If you hit for 4767 on average (I don’t remember which skill I’ve used to do the maths, but it’s irrelevant anyways) before trait modifiers, you gonna hit for 4457 if you lower your crit chance by 10% (210 precision), aka almost 7%. Sure, t’s not as good as Power, (that would be 4387 damage after dropping 210 power), but it’s still kitten good, and there’s no way I could be satisfied with 50% crit chance.

If you want to hit hard, yes, get as much Power as possible. But that’s not enough. You also need as much Precision and Ferocity as possible, generally in that order, because they count almost as much as Power.

And don’t get me wrong either: I have nothing against armours with some more defence thank zerk (I myself run Marauder), but you can’t imply than crit chance is secondary once you’ve reached 50% (with food!).

It’s not about DPS it’s about the highest possible single hit and for that it’s hidden killer/ the whole CS line. Just look at the traits and/or try it.
Valk is: Power, Ferocity, Vitality. With hidden killer you’ve got a 100% crit chance for a hit out of stealth.
With marauder you trade in power – I’d rather run valk. But that depends on the weapons and playstyle – I would chose DPS traits for staff and sword (and also probably marauder) but not for dagger mainhand.

ETA: I hope you got my point. I did pretty fine with my DA, SA, T, full zerker, Rune of the Pack thief after June but my main (valk/zerker, CS, SA, T, Pack) is still better (he’s got too much precision though)- don’t forget that in this case it’s about D/D – we have a higher chance to fail (in comparison to D/P) but if we don’t, we dish out a lot of backstabs = Hidden killer and valk makes sense.

Nerf Backstab? Meh, prefer S/D anyway, so much fun~ wait…

…If backstab gets nerfed, it’ll make thieves weaker. More classes will beat them. People will carry the idea in more fights. And a dagger mainhand isn’t one I often play anyway. It’s a nerf that doesn’t affect me. Meaning people will fight me thinking I’m nerfed but rage when I’m not. And the rage will be glorious.

So…

Yes. Nerf backstab please. >;D

Highlighted for emphasis on words:

Nerf Backstab? Meh, prefer S/D anyway, so much fun~ wait…

…If backstab gets nerfed, it’ll make thieves weaker. More classes will beat them. People will carry the idea in more fights. And a dagger mainhand isn’t one I often play anyway. It’s a nerf that doesn’t affect me. Meaning people will fight me thinking I’m nerfed but rage when I’m not. And the rage will be glorious.

So…

Yes. Nerf backstab please. >;D

No. Just because YOU don’t use it, isn’t a good reason to nerf one of the strongest weaponsets for thieves. (D/P)

That is terrible logic.

I really hope they do not nerf backstab. Yes the damage can be a little ridiculous sometimes, but if a thief is specing for a full damage backstab they will be downed instantly if they make one mistake. Which is more hazardous with all the heavy hitting AOEs being thrown out. This ties in the whole part of “Big risk, big reward.” (coming from a d/d thief perspective).

For full damage backstab in wvw:
Armor: Zerk (you can mix valk in if you want extra health)
Weapons: D/d full zerk|force and impact sigils
Trinkets: ascended (full zerk or valk mix. up to user) Scholar runes
Utilities: Assassins Signet|Shadow Refuge (can swap out for SoA or Shadowstep)|Infilitrators signet and Basilisk.
Traits: DA (same as meta)CS(Signet of power, practiced tolerance, hidden killer) |and Trickery (Thrill of crime)(Trickster/bountiful)sleight of hand.
Attack:2913 (3063 when activating signet) 231 crit dmg, 49% precision (149% with HK)

Now when you combine all the damage modifiers:
Scholar:10%
Force:5%
Impact:10%
Exposed weakness:10%
Executioner: 20% when below 50% hp
Ferocious strikes: 10%
Lead attacks: 9%
Assassins signet:15%
for grand total: 69% dmg boost before executioner|
Low end backstab: 9-14k|high end: 20-25k

Pretty insane if you think about it, but you are giving up alot as a d/d thief to get this damage. But a maximized backstab thief is meant for one thing: assassinating a target as fast as they can and moving on. Which is why i only use it to snipe eles/necros in zergs or if i’m feeling ballsy, try and snipe or take the commander down as fast as possible so rest of zerg can take them down. This however was note a post to have thief damage traits/sigil dmg boosting traits to be nerfed/toned down. Was just to show how much a thief has to line up to get that much damage from a D/D thief only perspective.

And on a side note: for some reason ive noticed even when playing on my warrior with over 3.5k armor/30k hp being hit super hard by crit attacks. So there might be a bug with toughness.