Guild Wars 2

I read a lot of opinions around so I thought I’d post the facts, aka math.
I’m considering a full glass cannon thief with 270% crit damage and 2000 power in my calcs.

Skill math.
- Backstab -
On 3200 armor backstab will hit for 3855 damage.
On 3000 armor backstab will hit for 4112 damage.
On 2800 armor backstab will hit for 4406 damage.
On 2600 armor backstab will hit for 4745 damage.
On 2400 armor backstab will hit for 5140 damage.
On 2200 armor backstab will hit for 5608 damage.
On 2000 armor backstab will hit for 6168 damage.

- Cloack & Dagger -
On 3200 armor CnD will hit for 2570 damage.
On 3000 armor CnD will hit for 2741 damage.
On 2800 armor CnD will hit for 2937 damage.
On 2600 armor CnD will hit for 3163 damage.
On 2400 armor CnD will hit for 3427 damage.
On 2200 armor CnD will hit for 3738 damage.
On 2000 armor CnD will hit for 4112 damage.

I don’t have coefficients for Mug but from personal tests and videos I’ll take a 2k on 3000 armor and 4k on 2200 armor.

Results.
- On a 3000 armor character you’re being bursted for 8853 damage.
- On a 2200 armor character you’re being bursted for 13,346 damage.
NB: This is considering the target stands still and does absolutely nothing, and the thief hits the back all the times, and all hits crit. The worst possible scenario.

Player skill.
I’ll add a bare minimum of basic player skill for evaluation.
Since the initial combo leaves well enough time for reaction, any decent PvPer will nullify backstab through either movement, dodging and/or anti-burst CDs (block, invul, blind, evade, CC).
Therefore:
- With basic PvP skills, on 3000 armor with basic PvP skill decent player you’re being bursted for 4741 damage.
- With basic PvP skills, on a 2200 armor character you’re being bursted for 7738 damage.

Conclusion.
- Thief can kill players that have zero defense and lack basic PvP skills
- Thief can deal 8k burst on players with zero defense but have basic PvP skills
- Thief can deal 9k damage on people with good defense but lack basic PvP skills
- Thief can deal 4.7k burst on players with good defense and basic PvP skills

TL;DR
- Glass cannon Thief will kill skill-less players with no defense in one burst.
- Glass cannon Thief will halve the health of a glass cannon with basic PvP skills.
- Glass cannon Thief will halve the health of a skill-less player with good defense.
- Glass cannon Thief will burst a player with good defense and basic PvP skills for less than 5k damage.

Hope this helped to better understand the Thief, and in general the basic fundaments of PvP.
Thank you for reading.

Red, please don’t bring facts into this sub forum.

It’s sole purpose is for bads to exaggerate and blow way out of proportion just how OP they want to believe this class is and thus beg for nerfs.

LOCO.1785:

Red, please don’t bring facts into this sub forum.

It’s sole purpose is for bads to exaggerate and blow way out of proportion just how OP they want to believe this class is and thus beg for nerfs.

Uh, isn’t the point of facts to dismiss opinionated garbage?
Perhaps people will understand the value of toughness.
I still have this tiny bit of faith in the average Joe out there :p

Red Falcon.8257:

LOCO.1785:

Red, please don’t bring facts into this sub forum.

It’s sole purpose is for bads to exaggerate and blow way out of proportion just how OP they want to believe this class is and thus beg for nerfs.

Uh, isn’t the point of facts to dismiss opinionated garbage?
Perhaps people will understand the value of toughness.
I still have this tiny bit of faith in the average Joe out there :p

I’m just joking around mate.

I appreciate the time and effort you put into showing the actual figures.

Good work. Please post this on the Spvp forum where A-net balances off of (instead of metrics)

I’m not doubting that your math is correct, however, I’m running with 2.7k armor and nearly 100% protection uptime in sPvP and still eating 9k backstabs with no, or little vulnerability applied to me. To me, this means something with the damage calculation is not working properly.

Deft Dan.8016:

I’m not doubting that your math is correct, however, I’m running with 2.7k armor and nearly 100% protection uptime in sPvP and still eating 9k backstabs with no, or little vulnerability applied to me. To me, this means something with the damage calculation is not working properly.

I am not sure he factored in Assassins signet, might stacks, or talents. Because he did not mention build. Also you are probably basing the “9k backstabs” off of the damage log and what it shows what you were killed is actually bugged half the time for instance it will show steal (mug), or Cloak and Dagger, or backstab the total damage received or the damage received from say the other 2

As with all science, it’s not perfect. Obviously Red Falcon has done his math. (or so we believe)

@Deft Dan

You need to provide yours.

Knyx.5926:

Deft Dan.8016:

I’m not doubting that your math is correct, however, I’m running with 2.7k armor and nearly 100% protection uptime in sPvP and still eating 9k backstabs with no, or little vulnerability applied to me. To me, this means something with the damage calculation is not working properly.

I am not sure he factored in Assassins signet, might stacks, or talents. Because he did not mention build. Also you are probably basing the “9k backstabs” off of the damage log and what it shows what you were killed is actually bugged half the time for instance it will show steal (mug), or Cloak and Dagger, or backstab the total damage received or the damage received from say the other 2

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I didn’t realize that the damage log was bugged. It still shows steal, cloak and dagger, and backstab as separate entities though.

@ Deft Dan I will say though his numbers do look like there is a damage buff fueling his numbers, so I would say at the very least the signet

OK, wasn’t expecting those results.

I have 2200 armor and I remember thieves hitting me for 9k with what I assume is backstab. But that wasnt happening too often. Im guessing thats the effect of the power signet? Hurts a lot because I only have 12,805 hp

Edit : apparently we can change the jewel in our amulet thingie! Switches it now to reach 13k hp

So why did I get hit for 13.3k backstab and you don’t even go above 6.1k in your test? I’m at about the 3,000 armor mark. Seems your backstab numbers are way off, but your CnD one is accurate with my combat log at 3k armor.

@Dan
Combat log bugs perhaps, most of the results are bugged – it even states the wrong skill names a lot of times.
I ran a prot Guardian in sPvP for quite a bit and I don’t recall being hit for more than 6k (these being from signet assassins).

@Anxiety
WvW damage does not matter.
There are very large bonuses to damage due to gear etc, that’s why Anet balances around sPvP.

Red Falcon.8257:

@Dan
Combat log bugs perhaps, most of the results are bugged – it even states the wrong skill names a lot of times.
I ran a prot Guardian in sPvP for quite a bit and I don’t recall being hit for more than 6k (these being from signet assassins).

@Anxiety
WvW damage does not matter.
There are very large bonuses to damage due to gear etc,* that’s why Anet balances around sPvP*.

Which is why it would be a good idea to repost this in the spvp forum, maybe counterbalance the storm of ignorant threads.

Red Falcon.8257:

@Anxiety
WvW damage does not matter.
There are very large bonuses to damage due to gear etc, that’s why Anet balances around sPvP.

Oh. Well to be fair you didn’t state that this was sPvP only. I would edit that in your OP.

Anxiety.2054:

So you made a point to say its a 270% crit dmg build yet only showed non-crit dmg and then based your conclusion on it? Here I’ll finish your test for you.

- Backstab -
On 3200 armor backstab will hit for 3855 damage and crit for 14,263
On 3000 armor backstab will hit for 4112 damage and crit for 15,214
On 2800 armor backstab will hit for 4406 damage and crit for 16,302
On 2600 armor backstab will hit for 4745 damage and crit for 17,556
On 2400 armor backstab will hit for 5140 damage and crit for 19,018
On 2200 armor backstab will hit for 5608 damage and crit for 20,749
On 2000 armor backstab will hit for 6168 damage and crit for 22,821

I ate a 13.3k backstab today yet your numbers don’t go above 6.1k?

its not 270% unless you know nuthing of gw2 critical hit match its 150%x% of players crit rate. max available is 72% stacked critical damage makin it 222% critical not 270. You can now lower all damages by 20% plus, thats maximum hit cap, average hit cap is around 10-15% lower too. Meaning. on 1800 armor maximum hit will be, around 14k. While at 3000 armor hit will be at best 7k. However once again, this includes,10% factor that you got conditions, and 10% more that thief got 6 innitiative, if thief plays 30/30/0/0/10 thief will have 10% less damage as after CnD you will have 6 innitiative exactly which dont add 10% extra. Meaning maximum hit on 1800 armor is 12600 on 3000 armor its 6300. Trinket can boost damage by 50%= 19000 on 1800 armor and 9.5k on 3000 armor. Which is maximum possible damage of a thief bursting you 1on1 in WvW. in Spvp make numbers 10%-15% lesser. BS on 1800 armor would be 15k(you deserve it for walking nakad as a light user) and 8500 on heavy with using signet+ BV to ensure the hit.
Is it possible to 3 hit someone on another glass cannon ? Yes it is.

Can you instant burst anyone on 3000 armor ? Straight face imposible. Thx to tests i can burst the target for 13k tottal damage(if all hits crit) and if target dont evade anything. Since crit rate i took is 50% we will ussualy pull of 75% of shown damage.

That is CnD steal and BS will tottaly do around 10k burst to full tanky person. Managing he has 0 defencive traits. which reduce damage or activate protection or sth else. It is straightly imposible And there is still 10% extra critical rate added from WvW which i forgot to reduce tottal damage by 5%. The whole idea is ppl who make nonsense facts, Btw made tests with full toughness myself too. Maximum combo with assasins signet on 3300 armor was, 7600 damage. You can say its still a lot however i just blew my 2 utilitys, elite skill and 50% of innitiative, You survived only by having hight toughness. i cant burst 2nd time like that for 40 seconds andwhen i can i still cant burst you down.

All the hard math and provable facts will not convince crybabies hating on Thieves.

The saying goes, “you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.”

Some guy gets thumped by a BS Thief and all they want is revenge on the class. That’s a lot easier than learning how you could counter them, or “lrn2play”.

Why are people getting hit by backstabs in the first place? That’s the easiest thing in the world to dodge.

Hell, how are you people even failing to kill the thief the instant he’s in melee range? It takes, like, 2 seconds to kill a thief by auto-attacking.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Why are people getting hit by backstabs in the first place? That’s the easiest thing in the world to dodge.

Hell, how are you people even failing to kill the thief the instant he’s in melee range? It takes, like, 2 seconds to kill a thief by auto-attacking.

Because we just used our cc breaker ( if we put it on our slot ) on that mace warrior who knocked me back and now Im stunned with BV and no way to get out. Why am I going in alone? Because I am obviously Rambo.

So why did I get hit for 13.3k backstab and you don’t even go above 6.1k in your test? I’m at about the 3,000 armor mark. Seems your backstab numbers are way off, but your CnD one is accurate with my combat log at 3k armor.

Because you’re in WvW on a server that has no orbs, likely against a server that has all 3 orbs and a ton of might buffs from other players. Also, are you sure you’re at 3k armor? It’s not shown in your pic.

The saying goes, “you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.”

I’ve never heard that saying before, but I like it. It definitely fits.

I think there is a hidden mechanic with backstab, it does intended damage to good players and 2x or 3x the damage to bad players. prove me wrong.

ddrake.5436:

I think there is a hidden mechanic with backstab, it does intended damage to good players and 2x or 3x the damage to bad players. prove me wrong.

For another germane quote:

“Life is tough. But it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”

Very applicable to what you say there, ddrake. This game is tough, but it’s a whole lot tougher when you’re stupid/lazy/ignorant.

Well, actually, it’s not the worst possible scenario. CnD and Steal hit simultaneously and BS follows a fraction of a second later. But you probably didn’t know that you could Steal into CnD… well, you know now!

Now add Assassin Signet with Signets of Power. Suddenly your 13k jumps to 16-17k. Now add Runes of the Scholar. What’s this, 19k? Now add the nature of PvP and the possibility that you’re hitting a wounded target, e.g. someone with less than 50% HP. It’s 21-22k with Executioner now.

But hey, it’s fine. You survived somehow. Now you just have to face a full HP Thief with full Initiative that spams HS at you. Oh wait, you can’t survive that with <20% HP left

See? A reality check is easy when you have a brain and are not biased. Unofrtunately, you will never be able to do that. So just stick to playing the game with your “totally balanced profession” and leave the thinking to the big boys, ok?

OK basic facts, 18.5armor-1% reduced damage. If i cna burst 29k on basic light armor(1836) incrasing armor to 3k, reduces damage by (3000-1836)/18.5= 62.91% making my burst around to 10k damage(if all attacks crit)
with 3300 armor damage reduction is 79.13%. Now lets count, make that 29k into 30 so its easier.
30000x(100-79.13)=6300 of burst. Ok if you use scholars runes add 10% damage if you think you bursted w/o taking any damage. thats 7k damage, with full burst . Now make calculations yourself, after you got basic armor damage reduction value and know burst on 1836 armor(light armor value) to see if i can burst someone with balanced gear.

From basic asumtions 1000 armor gives you 50% damage reduction, 1000 power gives you 100% more damage(not exactly, but values are not too far) so 200% damage i get reduced by 50% from armor is same 100% attack damage. You completely neglect my power stacking, as its inefective.

you know Kholer in AC? You know, if you get pulled by his ability and don’t have a stun breaker you’ll be killed instantly? NERF HIM
I hope there is enough people here that can understand the analogy

People act like trash you know why ?
yday i met a guy, he was playing warrior but he said his char was crap and thiefs are OP.
i asked him why you think like that.
He said, maybe warrior outdoes thief in some places, however i like getting kills, it feels unfair when thief can so much outperform other classes in killing others.
I beleave that is mass opinion in this game.
You only care about killing people, and not actual balance. Thats where arguments thiefs are OP comes.

@Stin
My reason for 270% instead of 220% is I was considering bonuses from might stack, traits, AS etc so I thought adding 50% critdmg would give a better average picture of the average situation when facing a Thief with all CDs/traits up.
Tried to make it as average as possible without doing 5 pages of boring calculations.

Of course you’re free to do it if you want.
Here is the formula: Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
Here are skill coefficients: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Skill-Coefficients-for-all-the-Thief-weapons/first#post467096
Have fun with math

Realistically though, most classes have a trait that makes them unburstable.
Ele got final shielding, Warrior got Defy pain, Thief got stealth @ 25%, and so on.
So against any of those, killing in 2 seconds is pretty much impossible if they slot those traits.

Stacks of might, orbs, and such add power not crit dmg which made last calculation not true, anyways you dont even need to check anything. 18.5 armor is around 1% damage reduction, you can see that too, test steady weapeons. and see damage scaling is equal to armor diffrencex20 per 1% decreased damage. however not fully 20 its close to 19. however im not sure how armor scales as linear or hyperbolic or what other type of function.

The easiest way to lie is with math

Lets start with: “On 3200 armor backstab will hit for 3855 damage.”

1. To get 3200 armor you need complete toughness gear up to and including Runes. Usually limiting vitality options, but doable

1. a crit with +100% crit damage (a mostly glass cannon) will deal 7,710

1. a crit from behind with the right runes (+10%), with +10% damage on sigils will deal 9,252

1. add assassins signet (50%) and 5 stacks of might (~8%) will deal 13,723

I’m sure we can add some more math (is the player under 50% health, is there room in the build for +% damage due to another flanking bonus or +% damage from having high initiative), but haven’t we gone far enough?

Either the damage coefficient of BS is too high, or it is too easy to stack +damage buffs, because the tankiest player in the game just got hit for 13k by one attack.

Or does my math lie?

>“Either the damage coefficient of BS is too high, or it is too easy to stack +damage buffs”

It is the latter, along with people mitigating the downside of backstab by using insta-stealth closing tactics. Backstab isn’t particularly good until you use high damage multipliers on its high single hit and mitigate the positioning issues to land it.

I mean, Dancing Dagger is spammable and has like 250% the damage coefficient of Backstab against 2 targets, so the issue obviously isn’t the raw damage of the ability.

>or it is too easy to stack +damage buffs

That’s quite possible. Not just on thief, but on other classes as well. The buffs in this game seem like they weren’t thought out very well.

The actaul damage from skill coeficient table is (glass build)
2040×952.5×2.405/3200=1460.36109375 damage w/o crit traits.

Crit adds 110% damage to it, in glass build. signet adds 58% traits add 5% and 20% raw damage 7% to crit frim behind. Making it into +25% extra raw damage. Ok now based on calculation—→ Summing up, 146025% damage will be 1825 Crit rate multiplier is +110% of damage. Its 1825*2.10=3832 damage. Adding 50% damage into the summed damage from signet is 3832×1.5=5748damage. I think your puzle with no knowladge of damage calculations is solved. Its 5748 not some imaginary 13k damage. If you are in WvW this damage of 5748 can be futher boosted by around 20% damage and 10% more critical damage. Resulting in 7588 damage in WvW. I forgot to add 3 stacks of varnuability though so its +3% damage
Its 7816, with 5 stacks of might and 3 stacks of vurnuability. Ok taking in mind most bursty spec atm ingame can have 21 stack of might could potentialy boost the damage by 16×35/3200 about 14% more.

7816×1.14=8910 damage from backstab at WvW against 3200 armor.

YET, this is maximum damage presumption, with idea, thief blew all 3 utilitys+ healing signet on that 1 strike. Knowing steal hits 2k and CnD hits 2k too at that armor, tottal combo could maximum chain 13k, once again at perfect conditions for thief, with 21 might stack and 100% crit rate which is imposible. If you need more info, I will answer your damage scaling questions in forum showing players who ask for nerfs know nuthing of damage calculations.

Edelweiss.9815:

not biased

Oh the irony!

Good topic. Hopefully non-thief players will read it aswell.

The math here is extremely skewed and incorrect.

Anxiety.2054:

Well to be fair you didn’t state that this was sPvP only. I would edit that in your OP.

He shouldn’t have to.

Basic process of human intelligence would be association.

OBVIOUSLY stats are higher in WvW. I would hope by putting 1 and 1 together a human of at least lower than average intelligence would figure…“dah mumbers get biggah.” Specing for might stacks on Signets as well as might on poison application in conjunction with Signet of power will also yield… will also yield… almost there…

YES! There ya go! That’s right, “biggah mumbers”.

EaGrimdarK.7849:

The math here is extremely skewed and incorrect.

Incorrect? No.

Skewed? If you believe the moon landing was faked… then yes. Feel free to fix what you feel is wrong. I look forward to your math.

rickshaw.5279:

EaGrimdarK.7849:

The math here is extremely skewed and incorrect.

Incorrect? No.

Skewed? If you believe the moon landing was faked… then yes. Feel free to fix what you feel is wrong. I look forward to your math.

Cmon u could clearly see the strings on those astronauts!

I would like to mention that this post is not supporting or bashing the OP’s main point about skill, I’m just posting more mathz people were asking about

EaGrimdarK.7849:

EaGrimdarK.7849:

The math here is extremely skewed and incorrect.

Incorrect? No.

Skewed? If you believe the moon landing was faked… then yes. Feel free to fix what you feel is wrong. I look forward to your math.

At the time of original post, assassin signet was at +50%, so I’ll be using that. Using wiki, CnD base damage is at 504, while backstab is at 806. Similarly, on my glass thief, CnD is at 1259 damage, with back stab at 2015. Result? Backstab hits for 1.6x CnD, factor in the assassin’s signet 1.5x and backstab damage should be 2.4x CnD.

But if you look at the first post, his backstabs ar only doing 1.5x the amount of his CnD. Result? Backstab damage is slightly skewed, being slightly lower, and it wasn’t considering Assassin’s signet. Also, mug hits for about 80% (half of backstab) of CnD (again, looking at base values from wiki)
@Edel thanks for that CnD+steal at the same time tip

And really guys, everyone knows the moon landing never happened.

Just because someone says its math, doesn’t make it math.

I have a thief just for pvp because I personally feel a lot more powerful than with other classes.

I have tested a little myself by allowing thieves to attack and I can say right now that your “math” is wrong, for a start backstab has critted for 8k with 2600 armor.

plus you have to remember that if you want to trait toughness and still do any sort of damage, you’ll have to sacrifice some vitality so 8k (or even 4k) on a low vital build is still pretty strong.

As a warrior if I’m to get around 2200 toughness my total HP is around 20k and that toughness is just about the most you can get. You might be able to boost it up some to maybe 2400 with some runes and signet/shield trait. I almost got 2 shot by a thief, thank god for the Ignore Pain trait with that much toughness. I play a thief now too, but a condition damage one because the power/precision/crit damage builds are just plain and simple dumb and OP. There’s no fun in 2 shotting pple left and right unless you’re bad and you just started beating people for the first time in your life.

Wow, and this one single class is enough to compel everyone into stacking 3000 toughness on all their builds? 3000 is a rather ridiculous benchmark.

Don’t forget the 20% bonus dmg on people below 50% which Mug + CnD usually drops them to that point, and the 10% more dmg when people have a condition, which Mug will do.

That’s usually a FULL 30% increase on backstabs. And 10% on CnD.

Also most thieves will use Immob venom with the combo. And it all lands in about a 1 second window. Oh and oh course the Signet, 15% boost on all 3 hits. Which instead of adding 3000 to backstab, it still adds 2400 dmg to the overall combo.

And I’m not here trying to be bias and say thieves are OP or anything, these are just facts, as I’ve been playing thief since beta lol.

The only thing I will say is OP is Mug, and MAYBE the dmg on CnD, they could probably use a slight toning down. Mug at the very least should be adjusted, it’s a 10 point trait for crying out loud.

Look at this 10 point trait for the Necromancer, so OP:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Terror

With 30 points in Spite, Master of Terror (20 points in Soul Reaping) and 6 Runes of the Necromancer, when downed, we can do a 4 second fear that might do around 1k damage! (total).

It’s hard for thieves to see it, it really is. And they’re not the only class with overwhelmingly annoying burst damage builds. Due to the nature of SPVP and the speed at which it’s played along with the size of the maps and whatnot, burst damage is usually preferable to sustained skillful exchanges.

That’s not to say burst builds don’t require skill, I’m not insulting players here merely offering up what I feel is wrong from what I’ve seen.

If I had to ask A-net for changes to thief, it would be simply to remove the “homing” aspect of heartseeker strike because it’s NEVER a particularly “skilled” ability and is spammed much to the ire of others.

And that the often annoying loudouts of our traits and alternative builds are looked into to increase some synergy, these specific builds are popping up because there is a lack of viable alternatives, and yes by “viable” I mean cheese factor 10 in what it does to match the other cheese factor 10 class trait builds.

Perhaps quickness could become less offense orientated and random causing extreme hatred and reliance on the precision tree for its obvious potential

They should just add aftercast like in GW1 for quickness, that way, the idea of the skill, to have skills activate faster would still remain true.