Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I am looking for some suggestions on future possible stat combos you all will be using as a thief…(Given the content is as challenging as they make it out to be).

Since I started I’ve always used berserker stats because it was just the best…Now I am thinking maybe berserker armor and PVT trinkets?

Help me get prepared for next month!

Thanks!

Pengy.9580:

Hi guys,

I am looking for some suggestions on future possible stat combos you all will be using as a thief…(Given the content is as challenging as they make it out to be).

Since I started I’ve always used berserker stats because it was just the best…Now I am thinking maybe berserker armor and PVT trinkets?

Help me get prepared for next month!

Thanks!

I think it’s too early to say. If you want for now, gather resources for after a new meta (if any) is established.

As said, it’s too early, but if what they say is true, be ready to invest/craft some Valkyrie, Knights or soldiers. Mixing either with zerk may work or it may not if we truly need as much defense (be it toughness or vitality) as possible. I guess what I’m trying to say is, look toward those three stats if zerk truly dies.

It seems to be highly doubtful pve-wise. Dungeons are dead(in other words, no real updates), so the zerker meta should remain the same. I doubt they will make changes to the pre-HoT open world.
Only HoT content may or may not require new gear stats.

I suspect what they meant is more in regards to the 5-man all zerker meta. It doubt it means that ALL zerkers are bad, but instead there will need to be a few players that care more about support than just pure dps.

What I’m more concerned with, is what support options does a thief have besides the one and only v.share? And of course aoe stealth, which is hardly unique anymore…

With our survivability? I’d say Nomads gear or you’re a goner.
EDIT: And you’ll be needing Dwayna Runes as well, of course!

Vornollo.5182:

With our survivability? I’d say Nomads gear and you’re a goner.

Vyce.2014:

What I’m more concerned with, is what support options does a thief have besides the one and only v.share? And of course aoe stealth, which is hardly unique anymore…

Bountiful theft is 10 seconds of vigor on a 20 second cooldown, smoke screen’s a projectile block, off hand pistol has a blinding field, if there’s a need for someone to often run between objectives quickly thieves will be the best at it, evasion tanking, and we have no idea what sort of new skills we’ll have to steal off the new enemies but the steal mechanic will allow them to make balance changes that will specifically effect thieves.

Eponet.4829:

we have no idea what sort of new skills we’ll have to steal off the new enemies

…but we know they’ll be useless!"

Eponet.4829:

Vyce.2014:

What I’m more concerned with, is what support options does a thief have besides the one and only v.share? And of course aoe stealth, which is hardly unique anymore…

Bountiful theft is 10 seconds of vigor on a 20 second cooldown, smoke screen’s a projectile block, off hand pistol has a blinding field, if there’s a need for someone to often run between objectives quickly thieves will be the best at it, evasion tanking, and we have no idea what sort of new skills we’ll have to steal off the new enemies but the steal mechanic will allow them to make balance changes that will specifically effect thieves.

You must be a new player, full of hope and excitement.

Before you waste too much time, please re-roll another profession or move onto another game. Best thief advice I can give.

Zerker gear will still be useful. Don’t believe the hype. If anything, PVE thieves will just have to change from No Quarter to Invigorating Precision, and heal themselves for 700 per hit.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zerker gear will still be useful. Don’t believe the hype. If anything, PVE thieves will just have to change from No Quarter to Invigorating Precision, and heal themselves for 700 per hit.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..

700 per hit HAHAHAHAHAHA…..

Ok, I think that’s out of my system….

No, wait… HAHAHAHAHA….

The real question is: is it even worth it to slot anything else but zerker on thief? We all know how well (or rather bad) thief profits from defensive stats, still gonna get 1 shot if boss just looks at you.

Idk what raids will be like, but i can judge by BWE new zone events/LS: thieves do NOT have enough condi cleanse. With shadowstep, SA, signet of agility, sword 2 i was still dying to random condi (mostly torment) from sources that weren’t even visible or obvious half of the time, some stacks were getting high so fast i didn’t even have time to use shadowstep before condi ticks instagibbed me. HoT is extremely condi heavy, many spells on npcs have close to no tell, also no amount of dodges gonna save you vs auto attacks that apply like 5 stacks of torment from 2k range.

You think extra HP from valk will help you? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The champs and silver mobs hit so kitten hard from huge range it won’t even matter. There was one boss, she had huge barely visible aoe, that would instagib you and had radius of shortbow range.

healing power
venom share
condi build
more survability, more party support?

rogerwilko.6895:

healing power
venom share
condi build
more survability, more party support?

Apostate’s gear would be interesting, but it doesn’t exist right?

We only have apothecary gear though…

Thanks all,

I have been saving up some ascended mats~ I was hoping for some dodgy condi build, I’ll try it next weekend in PvE to see how “tanky” I can be.

I am not so skeptical in my thinking that I could say Anet has completely ignored our class mechanic. (Who knows, I just might have ate my foot)

Edit: that’s what I get for typing how I talk -.-

Let us be real here. Berserker is not now, it just lost its monopoly to give way to all the other stats, and I am really happy this happened.

I am not much of a PvEers, but I hated those elitist kitten who would kick other people just because they weren’t in Zerg or didn’t use the “right” utility skill for the job. These people bring the worst out of forming groups and LFG systems in MMOs.

People are here to have fun and Anet did well with the current Stats system. It is about time people start looking in unused stats like idk Shaman, Apothecary, Giver, etc to bring the best of player’s individuality and playstyle.

I think it is fine that other sets are being promoted, i do not see however how it is any good for thief – the class just doesn’t synergize well with any other stats but zerker (maybe condi build but let’s be real here, 1 condi necro equals roughly 3 thieves at this point).

Beetamus.6403:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zerker gear will still be useful. Don’t believe the hype. If anything, PVE thieves will just have to change from No Quarter to Invigorating Precision, and heal themselves for 700 per hit.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..

700 per hit HAHAHAHAHAHA…..

Ok, I think that’s out of my system….

No, wait… HAHAHAHAHA….

So a bit of math. On my dagger auto I will frequently hit 5k on the second and third attack. Invigorating precision recovers 15% of crit damage, and 15% of 5k is 750 health. Likewise, I also regularly hit 14k backstabs (2.1k heal) and 12k heartseekers (1.8k health per seeker), 4k-4k-7k with the sword auto (2250 health per chain per target hit), and 18k pistol whips (2.7k health per target).

This is all with No Quarter, which is exclusive against Invigorating Precision, so the actual numbers you’ll get are toned down a bit. This has two interesting behaviors. First is that a thief gets healing proportional to their crit damage, so the more damage you do coughzerkercough the more you can heal yourself. Second is that against multiple targets, the healing is so high that unless the thief gets one-shot, the thief will quickly heal up to maximum again.

Personally, I don’t think it is funny that you can’t do math. I just think it is sad.

Invigorating Precision alone is enough to keep Thief standing. The healing is absolutely no joke. It’s enough to keep you immortal. I barely need to pay attention when soloing Arah while using it.

So you lose a bit of Ferocity and some personal Fury in exchange for offensive survivability no other profession could even dream of.

When they said its done, they most likely mean it for raids only. Just looking at things as they are, unless there’s some sort of stealth section in raids, I don’t see why you would take a thief into it. Even then, its a debate of if an engi would be better at it.

So I think the meta for thieves is still zerker only.

I’ve already rebalanced my gear.

I’ve swapped in Sentinel weapons, a Valkyrie chest, and ZerkValk accessories. Basically trying to mimic Marauder.

I’m sure most of us have raided before and with the edging towards a soft trinity they probably simply mean that the all zerker meta is done in the sense that there will be a portion of your groups who will tank and support. Whether we’re using a power or condition build, thieves are going to be there for dps.

I think thief meta might be power, vitality, and condition damage but it’s purely speculation. Maybe toughness, vitality, and condition damage for other roles.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Beetamus.6403:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zerker gear will still be useful. Don’t believe the hype. If anything, PVE thieves will just have to change from No Quarter to Invigorating Precision, and heal themselves for 700 per hit.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..

700 per hit HAHAHAHAHAHA…..

Ok, I think that’s out of my system….

No, wait… HAHAHAHAHA….

So a bit of math. On my dagger auto I will frequently hit 5k on the second and third attack. Invigorating precision recovers 15% of crit damage, and 15% of 5k is 750 health. Likewise, I also regularly hit 14k backstabs (2.1k heal) and 12k heartseekers (1.8k health per seeker), 4k-4k-7k with the sword auto (2250 health per chain per target hit), and 18k pistol whips (2.7k health per target).

This is all with No Quarter, which is exclusive against Invigorating Precision, so the actual numbers you’ll get are toned down a bit. This has two interesting behaviors. First is that a thief gets healing proportional to their crit damage, so the more damage you do coughzerkercough the more you can heal yourself. Second is that against multiple targets, the healing is so high that unless the thief gets one-shot, the thief will quickly heal up to maximum again.

Personally, I don’t think it is funny that you can’t do math. I just think it is sad.

So, a bit of common sense. Are you telling me that you can do THAT much damage just using your build? No help in the form of big might or vulnerability stacks from any other classes to help you as we are not talking optimal only runs. Otherwise we can say anything is fine.

Beetamus.6403:

No help in the form of big might or vulnerability stacks from any other classes to help you as we are not talking optimal only runs.

I don’t see why that is relevant considering raids HAVE to be done with groups that provide these things.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Beetamus.6403:

No help in the form of big might or vulnerability stacks from any other classes to help you as we are not talking optimal only runs.

I don’t see why that is relevant considering raids HAVE to be done with groups that provide these things.

I accept that raids are most likely to be using more optimised groups, but the thread was about the PVE zerk meta. So dungeons and open world content have to be considered as well, not just the raids.

Beetamus.6403:

I accept that raids are most likely to be using more optimised groups, but the thread was about the PVE zerk meta. So dungeons and open world content have to be considered as well, not just the raids.

Oh…in that case, I highly doubt the zerk meta will change at all. None of the dungeons or fractals are receiving significant changes as far as I know. Maybe Fractals 50+ may require more support-oriented specs, but the higher up you go the more organized your group will have to be to be able to complete content in reasonable time.

Edit: Oh I forgot to address open-world. If event chains are going to end with Tequatl/TTS scale world bosses, then I can definitely see the zerker meta getting changed up. However, it’s hard to say what thief will use since, as a few others have mentioned, anything not damage just doesn’t scale well with the class. We’ll just have to see.

Edit2: Also…I wasn’t aware that the zerk meta extended to open-world events.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Beetamus.6403:

I accept that raids are most likely to be using more optimised groups, but the thread was about the PVE zerk meta. So dungeons and open world content have to be considered as well, not just the raids.

Oh…in that case, I highly doubt the zerk meta will change at all. None of the dungeons or fractals are receiving significant changes as far as I know. Maybe Fractals 50+ may require more support-oriented specs, but the higher up you go the more organized your group will have to be to be able to complete content in reasonable time.

Edit: Oh I forgot to address open-world. If event chains are going to end with Tequatl/TTS scale world bosses, then I can definitely see the zerker meta getting changed up. However, it’s hard to say what thief will use since, as a few others have mentioned, anything not damage just doesn’t scale well with the class. We’ll just have to see.

Edit2: Also…I wasn’t aware that the zerk meta extended to open-world events.

Open world doesn’t really have a zerk meta as dungeons do, but i’m assuming (possibly wrong) that most people don’t really change their gear much from dungeons to world bosses so it may well still kind of apply?

Notice I said most people, as sure there are the more serious gamers who are looking for every advantage and have multiple sets of spare gear banked, but there are ALOT of casual gamers, especially now its F2P who couldn’t be bothered or afford it.

Beetamus.6403:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Beetamus.6403:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zerker gear will still be useful. Don’t believe the hype. If anything, PVE thieves will just have to change from No Quarter to Invigorating Precision, and heal themselves for 700 per hit.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..

700 per hit HAHAHAHAHAHA…..

Ok, I think that’s out of my system….

No, wait… HAHAHAHAHA….

So a bit of math. On my dagger auto I will frequently hit 5k on the second and third attack. Invigorating precision recovers 15% of crit damage, and 15% of 5k is 750 health. Likewise, I also regularly hit 14k backstabs (2.1k heal) and 12k heartseekers (1.8k health per seeker), 4k-4k-7k with the sword auto (2250 health per chain per target hit), and 18k pistol whips (2.7k health per target).

This is all with No Quarter, which is exclusive against Invigorating Precision, so the actual numbers you’ll get are toned down a bit. This has two interesting behaviors. First is that a thief gets healing proportional to their crit damage, so the more damage you do coughzerkercough the more you can heal yourself. Second is that against multiple targets, the healing is so high that unless the thief gets one-shot, the thief will quickly heal up to maximum again.

Personally, I don’t think it is funny that you can’t do math. I just think it is sad.

So, a bit of common sense. Are you telling me that you can do THAT much damage just using your build? No help in the form of big might or vulnerability stacks from any other classes to help you as we are not talking optimal only runs. Otherwise we can say anything is fine.

Nope. With group buffs I do 18k backstabs. A couple more math notes on the subject:

Resting Backstab damage: 2347
Starting Power: 2,666
Crit Damage: 245.7
Crit Chance: 95%

Modifiers:
+750 Power Might
+200 Power Revealed Training
+100 Orrian Truffle Steak
x1.25 Vulnerability
x1.05 Sigil of Force
x1.1 Scholar Rune Bonus
x1.1 Exposed Weakness
x1.2 Executioner
x1.1 (Lead Attacks)

Ending Power: 3,716
Scaled non-crit power: 7,790
Crit Mod: 2.457
Power on Crit: 19,140
Overall Mod: 7.18
Final Backstab Damage: 16,850

You’re probably thinking that it isn’t 18k. Well, most groups come with a banner warrior nowadays. Throw banner of strength, banner of disciipline, and empower allies, and you’ll get the following:

Ending Power: 4036
Crit Chance: 103%
Crit Mod: 2.57
Scaled non-crit power: 8,461
Crit Power: 21,744
Final Mod: 8.16
Final Backstab Damage: 19,142

The number goes up and down 5% due to variance in weapon strength. I should also note that this isn’t an optimized build, either. I’m not using potions or night sigil, and I only have 2 ascended rings on this toon. It can go higher than that. For enemies above 50% health replace Executioner with Ferocious Strikes (10% above 50% health on crit).

The numbers I quoted you are what I get wandering around in Silverwastes. Without any might or vulnerability you get 12k backstabs. With 25 vulnerability (which isn’t hard, given how many people passively stack it) you get 15k backstabs. Due to the random amount of might, vulnerability, and team buffs that I get, the damage is between there usually.