Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently brought my Thief into Fractals, and have acquired 20 AR with a full berserker/scholar dagger/dagger + shortbow build. My equipment is exotic except for my mainhand dagger, rings, amulet and accessories, which are ascended. For the most part, I find myself doing fine but my skill level isn’t high enough to dodge around certain encounters. Mai is a good example, where I feel that striking a compromise between damage and a bit of extra health would probably stop me from going down as often. Ideally, I would not be eating damage like a fat little piggy, but until I can convince my Thief to stop chowing down on the hurt, I’m looking to raise my health pool to compensate.

So. I happened upon some old threads by Wish exploring the effect of mixing soldiers and berserk, vs berserk and valkyrie. Here’s one:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first

After a bit of study, it seemed to me that swapping out some berserker armour in favour of soldiers pieces was the way to go, and that in general, going with valkyrie stats was the inferior choice. However, that was two years ago, and things may have changed.

What would you fellow Thieves recommend for a little extra health without gimping damage too much, and what’s the current word on valkyrie vs soldier + berserker stats?

I don’t play PvE but it seems like going with marauder gear would provide a better balance of damage and vitality than any mixture of zerker, valk, and/or soldiers. Marauder gear has more stats per piece than those sets.

I really don’t want to do all the math again in another thread again, but you lose more offensive stats and damage to get the same amount of health that marauders provides by taking Valkyrie or Soldiers instead. This is due to Marauders pieces having higher total stats than Valkyries or Soldiers and having a much more balanced distribution of power, precision and ferocity.

Now, you can achieve higher survivability with Valkyrie and Soldiers than you can with Marauders, but I’ve never felt the need to have anything more than the bonus HP that marauders armor provides. I keep my trinkets Berserkers and my weapons Assassins.

MadRabbit.3179:

I really don’t want to do all the math again in another thread again, but you lose more offensive stats and damage to get the same amount of health that marauders provides by taking Valkyrie or Soldiers instead. This is due to Marauders pieces having higher total stats than Valkyries or Soldiers and having a much more balanced distribution of power, precision and ferocity.

Now, you can achieve higher survivability with Valkyrie and Soldiers than you can with Marauders, but I’ve never felt the need to have anything more than the bonus HP that marauders armor provides. I keep my trinkets Berserkers and my weapons Assassins.

Agreed. Marauders is pretty much the best set for Thieves in most situations, IMO. The HP gain is way more significant than the offensive loss compared with Berserkers, and you don’t get quite as much reach out of Valk or Soldier.

In the context of PvE and a measure of DPS – damage output per uninterrupted unit of time – then yes, Marauder is unquestionably the most efficient set for damage : durability for the thief.

Berserker gear does more damage, valkyrie enables superior reliable burst potential/better durability, while soldier’s is just the most efficient on average across all classes in terms of damage : durability ratio (though not for the thief due to our damage modifier access).

Thanks for the info folks!

Ohh I use maurauders for my chest and 3x valkyrie trinkets with the rest being berserker. It’s is just enough keep me alive for most encounters and it is enough to get me to 99.x% crit rate. It’s a good compromise and it doesn’t result in a noticeable DPS drop.

I despise pvp, how hard (for a non pvper) is it to get Marauder’s? Keep in mind just by me being on a team they will lose, just by virtue of me being there.

You basically need to have 400 leatherworker, and then you’re set. Mostly. Unlike, say, Viper, It’s cheaper to craft than anything else, and you don’t need any special recipes. But leather is still pretty expensive right now. It’ll run you about 7 gold per insignia.

ok so its craftable, that helps. I thought it was just a pvp drop/pvp currency item

If I’m not mistaken, every single stat combo is craftable now.

barring the ones that are exclusive to PvP and can’t be gotten for PvE use by any means

For Mai Trin, no matter how much hp you have with valk or marauder is not going to work if you are not running condi clear. The majority of her damage comes from her bleed stacks.
Back in the day, we used to recommend thieves to use full berserkers when learning because it more it punishes your mistakes, the faster you learn (old school thieving)
But if you are going to fractals, I’ll actually recommend berserker with maybe a soldier coat or smthing if you are running ascended gear. Makes it cheaper if you are considering going full berserkers one day, and honestly, I don’t think you’ll feel a difference with Marauder’s or a zerk soldier mix.
Just my 2cents

so if one was to go mix whats better? zerker+valk or zerker+soldier?