Guild Wars 2

Is the only way to get this by crafting?

I was talking to people in game and they all recommended that I use Valkyrie Armor with Berserker Weapons and Accessories but I can’t find any besides the crafted one.

Do I just buy it and then use transmute stones for the looks that I want?

While I’m here, do you find this advice to be correct? I just got to level 80 last night and I’m interested in learning how to farm Dungeons and maybe doing some WvWvW if I’m bored.

Thanks in advance

Yes to both questions.

Don’t use Valkyrie, mix Soldier and Berserker instead. Here’s a link to the math behind Soldier being better than Valkyrie:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/3#post2426220

Soldier is better? So Toughness > % Crit damage?

I’m not great at explaining it, but if you’re going for a balanced build then Zerker + Soldiers offers more offence and defence than Zerker + Valkyrie. Wish explains it in the thread above much better than I can.

Of course, if you’re going to be doing a lot of PvE then 100% Zerker is the best for it once Youre comfortable with your skill level.

Ah okay, thanks for clarifying that. So what you’re basically saying is if I’m going to focus 100% on Dungeons/PvE then I should just go with Zerkers/Valkyrie but if I want to do some WvWvW on the side or some crazy Dynamic events then it’s worth getting some Toughness in addition to the Power and Vitality from Soldiers ?

I think you can buy valkyrie with wvw badges.

Also, armor type depends on your build. You may need some extra HP while keeping power and crit dmg, i mixed differend pieces of armor to reach a good (for me) combination of stats.

I looked yesterday you can’t

By the way on the subject of WvWvW, I have loads of badges from levelling there, what else can I buy besides armor, weapons and ascended stuff? Surely die hard WvWvW players must have thousands of badges and they dont need new gear any more, what do they spend it on ?

keep them, they don’t even use inventory space anymore… don’t see the problem.

Bastien.1645:

By the way on the subject of WvWvW, I have loads of badges from levelling there, what else can I buy besides armor, weapons and ascended stuff? Surely die hard WvWvW players must have thousands of badges and they dont need new gear any more, what do they spend it on ?

-Purchasing Armor, jewelry and weapons from the Armor Trader, Armor Master, Weapon Trader, and Laurel merchant in World versus World maps. These Merchants also sell the WvW Specific armor and weapons sets: WvW armor and Invaders weapons.
-Purchasing Siege Weapon Blueprints from a Siege Master
-Purchasing a Gift of Battle used for crafting Legendary weapons, for which 500 are needed

The wiki is your friend.

I understand that but what is the advantage of WvW specific armor and I looked at the Invader Weapons and the skins don’t look like anything special… don’t those blueprints go for coppers in the TP?

Perhaps I’m missing something

I’m still not clear on Valkyrye > Berserker > Soldier

For PvE

Beserker Everything, weapons, trinkets, back, amulet, rings.
Rune should be Scholar

This is for a DPS focus since defense matters less when you can just dodge anything that would be an issue.

However if you are still learning PvE then you can swap some parts out for Soldiers as stated. You would do the Chest Legs and Helm first since you lose the least amount of offensive stats for defensive in those 3 slots.

Also Some suggest Valk armor + Beserker trinkets, however this gives you less offense and less defense than the 3:3 mix of soldiers and beserkers by going off of Effective health which is a calculation of toughness and vitality. Hope this helps

Okay seems good, I like your logic.

I’ll take 3 Soldier Pieces + all berserkers into WvWvW and in PvE but once I’m more comfortable in Dungeons I can buy the chest/helm/legs berserker slots but still use the soldiers in wvwvw ?

I know I’m asking a lot of questions but I already spent 50g yesterday just on runes /sigils + accessories so just want to make sure I’m buying the correct piece of armor+ weapons as I only have 20g left

You gain less stats with any gears with % critical damage in them.

I think the main problem lies on you, which one do you really need, Best Offence, Decent Defend or Good Defend.

1-Berzerk Gear with Berzerk Trinket.
2-Valkyrie Gear with Berzerk Trinket.
3-Soldier Gear with Berzerk Trinket.

Just pick the one you think you need them.

Well I was asking questions in LA and ppl said either Valkyrie + berserk trinks/weapons or All berserkers.

Because I want to do WvWvW and I’m new to dungeons I thought going with Valkyrie would be best to have at least 15-16k hp, all berserkers in PvE seems very risky and in dungeons I don’t want to get 1 shotted while learning the content. But now people here are telling me to go Soliders not valkyries, it’s just confusing

Your goal is to evade everything, so even if you fail now and then, ideally you will get hit very rarely, in which case +1000 hp sounds better than +100 dmg reduction. Also if you have your crit above 50%, it means you will crit more than not (not to mention fury), so crit dmg will get better than raw crit chance. So I don’t get why soldier is better than valk. It’s just my simple logic though, I’m not a math-head, so this is kind of a question from me.

I bought mine and I love it!

Soldiers is better.

The basic idea is that your EHP (Effective HP = (Armor * HP) / 1836, this tells you how much damage you can take before dieing) is the same with all Valkyrie armor compared to Soldiers hat, legs, body with Berserkers hands, boots, shoulders. But, the 4% Crit chance youll gain from the precision on the Bers gear is worth more damage than the 10% Crit Damage you gain on Valkyrie armor due to diminishing returns and high existing Crit Damage. Unless you run hidden killer and your ‘attacks done from stealth’ exceed about 60% of your total damage (Protip: They dont exceed that in PVE ever, and only rarely in PVP)

In PVE use all Berserkers gear with Soldiers hat and legs with 10 or 15 traits into toughness or vitality and you shouldnt be one shotted by anything outside of high fractals, but youll come really, really close. Once you learn when to use dodges you’ll be good to go and can swap the soldiers pieces out most of the time, but infusion of shadow or feline grace should always be in your traits IMO depending on weapon set, so youll want to keep those defensive traits.

The EHP concept would be perfect if the game wasn’t so condition oriented as it is now, since armor doesn’t influence the damage you receive from conditions…

I don’t want to mean that EHP is useless, but that it should be clear that when dealing with conditions, the Armor factor is nil, and all that matters in that case is the hp pool of the condition recipient.

Why not use Cavalier, Berserker and Valkyrie stats O.o it seems effective to me, you don’t crit dmg but you still get that toughness you waned or use Valkyrie if you want some more Vitality

Critdamage outperforms toughness! valkyrie armor + zerker everything else, than you can run stack sigils, 30 CS, and consumeables to buff your critchance, dont listen to wish, he is an awful thief

Big Tower.5423:

Critdamage outperforms toughness! valkyrie armor + zerker everything else, than you can run stack sigils, 30 CS, and consumeables to buff your critchance, dont listen to wish, he is an awful thief

Why dont you type out the math that proves me wrong then, because Ive typed out math 6-7 times that proves Im right to you.

Like right here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-Thief-looking-for-some-insight/first#post2674725

And why didnt you ever respond to this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2425144

I was waiting for you to come back and prove me wrong, but you never did!

Galandil.9641:

The EHP concept would be perfect if the game wasn’t so condition oriented as it is now, since armor doesn’t influence the damage you receive from conditions…

I don’t want to mean that EHP is useless, but that it should be clear that when dealing with conditions, the Armor factor is nil, and all that matters in that case is the hp pool of the condition recipient.

1. Its 600 HP.
Its like a 3% Increase to your HP.
It’s not going to save you.

2. Conditions are best dealt with by avoiding or removing them, not stacking HP.

3. If conditions were really that much of an issue, you’d run lemongrass and melandru runes full time with the Soldiers/Berserker setup. Not HP gear like a chump. L2P.

Jesse.4631:

Why not use Cavalier, Berserker and Valkyrie stats O.o it seems effective to me, you don’t crit dmg but you still get that toughness you waned or use Valkyrie if you want some more Vitality

Cavalier doesn’t have main stat Power, so it cant be taken seriously as a contender. Cavalier/Knights should only be used in sets where you gain a large advantage by stacking DR, and you you need to use pretty much only Cav/Knights when you do that or its just a waste of potential.

So many confusing replies in here, hopefully this helps:

All berserker armor, weapons and trinkets is the highest direct damage set you can have.

Start with this in a build editor like http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ and start replacing armor pieces (not weapon or accessories) with either Valkyrie or Soldier pieces. For soldier replace in the order of: head, legs, chest. For valk replace any armor piece.

Valkyrie is always greater direct damage than soldier. But soldier’s offers more effective stats/piece than valkyrie.

If you compare at how much crit damage you get in the head, chest and leg armor slots you’ll see that you get much less crit damage per stat than anywhere else (i.e. you get 2% crit damage for a 32 point slot in the head versus 4% crit damage for 31 points on an exotic backpiece).

Note also that because oils/stones convert toughness to precision/power, each point of toughness is actually worth 1 toughness + .06 power/precision, further improving the efficacy of soldier gear.

There are many reasons why you would want valk over soldier and to say soldier is always better is misleading. But it is arguable that the zerker + soldier set recommended by Wish is the most balanced direct damage set available for most builds.

Also, generally, don’t use cavilier. Power is such a valuable stat (tip: increasing your power proportionally increases direct damage, e.g. @ 2000 power, 20 power increases damage by 1%) you should always prioritize it over other stats unless you’re trying some kind of bunker build (which I wouldn’t recommend).

Again, valkyrie vs solider is just unneeded survablity vs damage. there is same power + critdamage with valkyrie, so why go solider? increase your EHP? HAHAA, you are an thief, you DONT rely on EHP to survive.

Big Tower.5423:

Again, valkyrie vs solider is just unneeded survablity vs damage. there is same power + critdamage with valkyrie, so why go solider? increase your EHP? HAHAA, you are an thief, you DONT rely on EHP to survive.

To increase Precision instead of increasing Crit Damage, since the extra Crit Chance increases your Total DPS more than the Crit Damage does. Please try and follow the conversation, youre not even reading at this point, you just think people are using all Soldiers gear instead of Valkyrie. You mix the Soldiers with extra pieces of Berserkers kid.

Aeden.5896:

Valkyrie is always greater direct damage than soldier.

It seriously isn’t. Soldiers with Berserkers is better.

Show me a Valkyrie/Berserkers gear set and I will show you a Soldiers/Berserkers setup with basically the same EHP and more DPS and the math that proves it.

OMG guys just take time to read any explanation thread wish has done in the past so much info so much math its already known that 3/3 soldier zerk combo is has same kinda the defense as vaky zerk but has more damage since it has more crit chance!! you are only looking at crit damage and forgetting the rest. how blind can people be

Screw critchance on damage…

@Big Tower.5423 Why? Don’t you realize it has a large role in calculating damage?

Big Tower.5423:

Screw critchance on damage…

You are aware Critical Hit Damage is only applied to Critical hits, which occur based on how much Critical Hit Chance you have, right? Higher Critical Hit Chance (Precision) means your Critical Hit Damage is applied more often to your attacks….

wish.1027:

Big Tower.5423:

Screw critchance on damage…

You are aware Critical Hit Damage is only applied to Critical hits, which occur based on how much Critical Hit Chance you have, right?

LOL

Bastien.1645:

Okay seems good, I like your logic.

I’ll take 3 Soldier Pieces + all berserkers into WvWvW and in PvE but once I’m more comfortable in Dungeons I can buy the chest/helm/legs berserker slots but still use the soldiers in wvwvw ?

That’s pretty much it, in WvW you’ll want Soldiers + Berserkers, while in PvE you basically just want straight out Berserkers. You can swap the pieces whenever you like, so when you’re comfortable with you’re ability to dodge (go 25/30/0/15/0, or something like that) in PvE then you can go full Berserker in PvE and still use the Soldiers pieces in WvW.

I hope that we’ve helped, it’s obviously very confusing, especially when the general consensus that Valk is better than Soldiers is still engrained so heavily in most people’s minds (I myself had that for a long time before seeing Wish’s threads).

Incurafy.6329:

Bastien.1645:

Okay seems good, I like your logic.

I’ll take 3 Soldier Pieces + all berserkers into WvWvW and in PvE but once I’m more comfortable in Dungeons I can buy the chest/helm/legs berserker slots but still use the soldiers in wvwvw ?

That’s pretty much it, in WvW you’ll want Soldiers + Berserkers, while in PvE you basically just want straight out Berserkers. You can swap the pieces whenever you like, so when you’re comfortable with you’re ability to dodge (go 25/30/0/15/0, or something like that) in PvE then you can go full Berserker in PvE and still use the Soldiers pieces in WvW.

I hope that we’ve helped, it’s obviously very confusing, especially when the general consensus that Valk is better than Soldiers is still engrained so heavily in most people’s minds (I myself had that for a long time before seeing Wish’s threads).

Just remember that stats aren’t everything. Either gear set will perform more or less the same at a given skill level, this is all just about min-maxing.

I didn’t read everything above, but I think spiking is a consideration in this too. If you’re running hidden killer, valkyrie’s armor will offer you better spiking potential, which can matter in PvP. The math seemed to be more focused on sustained damage output, but there’s many times where things will be spiked, in which case full valk or full berserker may perform better than a mix with solider’s. This is especially true in team fights where you role may be more specialized and not maximizing your spike damage output may not be optimal.

If you’re looking for something outside of team considerations though, the soldier’s and berserker mix will likely be better.

There is kind of a sweet spot on critchance around 50 %

How a soldier/berserker set can do more damage than a valk/zerk set ?

With the amount of damage that actually comes from conditions (poison – bleed – confusion – retaliation – fear – torment…) I think toughness is not a great stat to raise on thief.

If you play a pure backstab build, the critchance becomes secondary tbh. But anyhow you will always be AA-ing and HS-ing so it becomes relevant again.
Everybody knows how good it is for bursting down, if the CnD crits too and not only the BS.

In the end it all depends on how you play but indeed, Celestial is never an option for a direct DPS build. For a hybrid build on the other hand it helps to tweak stats to where you want it as you will profit from power, precision, critical damage and condition damage for DPS and healing power, toughness and vitality to survive.

D/D is not really that much of a hybrid set though. On the other hand P/D is. It even is to an extend most thieves dont even know.

All the math behind wish’s builds is correct. It is your job to tweak it around a bit for your special needs.
I e.g. fight outnumbered more than 1v1 so I will spend most time sitting in stealth waiting to backstab when I play D/D.
There are classes though that require full AA-chains to apply poison if you want to drop them and here again your critical chance comes heavily into account.

Overall my experience says that something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlUmiO3eS+E/5Ey2jdqCJKuHOVS1UdFiKA-jEDBYfAofQ4fgkFg0HQUBAJPKrZPCilhFRjVXDT5SIV7KySBExyI-w

is the best choice to roam solo and in a party I will always use poultry soup instead.

If you have specced 30 points into Shadow Arts like most Thieves have that gives you a solid base-line of Toughness.

Should you also have specced into Hidden Killer, which synergizes greatly with Valkyrie gear, you get the best of both worlds.

Big Tower.5423:

There is kind of a sweet spot on critchance around 50 %

There is no sweet spot. It is a linear increase in damage from 0 to 100%.

wish.1027:

So lets check 30% crit + 5%, then 50 + 5, then 90 + 5 then 120 +5. All with 100% crit rate so we dont have to solve for it.
(1.5 + .3 + .05) / (1.5 + .3) = 1.0277777777
(1.5 + .5 + .05) / (1.5 + .5) = 1.025
(1.5 + .9 + .05) / (1.5 + .9) = 1.02083333333
(1.5 + 1.2 + .05) / (1.5 + 1.2) = 1.01851851852
Notice how that 5% crit damage we’re adding is worth less and less the more crit damage we already have? Thats the diminishing returns coming into play.

This isn’t how you calculate diminishing returns. You’re calculating the relative increase in damage, not the absolute. You could argue that every stat, even vitality, has what you’re calling ‘diminishing returns’ if you used that formula because the relative contribution of subsequent equally-sized additions to a pool of stats will always be less because the pool becomes larger in comparison as points are added to it.

I’ve attached three charts showing the relative change (what you’re incorrectly calling ‘diminishing returns’) and the absolute change for each additional point of toughness (damage reduction and time to live) and crit damage (damage increase).

http://i.imgur.com/8o67p64.png

What?

I feel stupid now.

Zumy.6318:

What?

I feel stupid now.

He’s saying that comparing a +100 stat increase depends on the base value to which you’re adding those 100 points.

For example, if you compare a +100 vitality increase to a hp pool of 15000, you’ll have a relative increase of hps of 1/15, or +6.66%. But every hp added from equipment/traits is added to a base of 10805 for us thieves, so that same +100 vit gives an increment of 1000/10805 of 9.25% (since all the other hps come from equipment/traiting) in absolute terms.

Same goes for all the other stats.

There should be a rule against saying some type of gear is better than another type of gear if you dont post any math proving it. Seriously. Im getting sick of reading people say Valkyrie does better without any proof.

Galandil.9641:

Zumy.6318:

What?

I feel stupid now.

He’s saying that comparing a +100 stat increase depends on the base value to which you’re adding those 100 points.

For example, if you compare a +100 vitality increase to a hp pool of 15000, you’ll have a relative increase of hps of 1/15, or +6.66%. But every hp added from equipment/traits is added to a base of 10805 for us thieves, so that same +100 vit gives an increment of 1000/10805 of 9.25% (since all the other hps come from equipment/traiting) in absolute terms.

Same goes for all the other stats.

Nilgoow.1037:

Big Tower.5423:

There is kind of a sweet spot on critchance around 50 %

There is no sweet spot. It is a linear increase in damage from 0 to 100%.

wish.1027:

So lets check 30% crit + 5%, then 50 + 5, then 90 + 5 then 120 +5. All with 100% crit rate so we dont have to solve for it.
(1.5 + .3 + .05) / (1.5 + .3) = 1.0277777777
(1.5 + .5 + .05) / (1.5 + .5) = 1.025
(1.5 + .9 + .05) / (1.5 + .9) = 1.02083333333
(1.5 + 1.2 + .05) / (1.5 + 1.2) = 1.01851851852
Notice how that 5% crit damage we’re adding is worth less and less the more crit damage we already have? Thats the diminishing returns coming into play.

This isn’t how you calculate diminishing returns. You’re calculating the relative increase in damage, not the absolute. You could argue that every stat, even vitality, has what you’re calling ‘diminishing returns’ if you used that formula because the relative contribution of subsequent equally-sized additions to a pool of stats will always be less because the pool becomes larger in comparison as points are added to it.

I’ve attached three charts showing the relative change (what you’re incorrectly calling ‘diminishing returns’) and the absolute change for each additional point of toughness (damage reduction and time to live) and crit damage (damage increase).

http://i.imgur.com/8o67p64.png

Oh ya? Im not naming it so much as describing the effect when I say diminishing returns. Its what happens when you add to whole numbers. I dont know why you want to argue about the name, but thats what its always been called in the other games Ive played, so I stuck with the naming convention. Its just 2 words that describe the effect of adding more and more of a single stat. And ya, every stat is like that. And the point of that equation is for comparisons of which stat you should add. Like if you wanted to compare different pieces of food with your gear set, thats how you would calculate how much crit damage is worth to your overall DPS.

wish.1027:

Power increase:
(oldpower + addedpower) / (oldpower) =1.XXYYYY
XX.YYY%= %damage increase

Crit damage increase:
(1.5 + oldcritdamage + addedcritdamage) / (1.5 + oldcritdamage) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY * .critrate = %damage increase

Precision increase:
21 precision = +1% Crit chance at level 80.
Added Precision / 21 = X.YYY
X = addedcritchance
(1 + ((.5 + critdamage) * (oldcritchance + addedcritchance))) / (1 + (.5 + critdamage) * oldcritchance) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY= %damage increase

These are the formulas for determining damage increases gained from adding power or precision or crit damage to your build.

When subtracting from whole numbers, like -condition duration, you get ‘increasing returns’ from each additional point point of -condition duration too. Do you also have a problem with that name?

Im kinda tired, I think I replied to all this though.

Daendur.2357:

How a soldier/berserker set can do more damage than a valk/zerk set ?

With the amount of damage that actually comes from conditions (poison – bleed – confusion – retaliation – fear – torment…) I think toughness is not a great stat to raise on thief.

For the 10th time in this forum the last few days, Soldiers/Berserker mix does better because of the extra precision, which is worth more DPS than the crit damage you give up.

For the 11th time in this forum the last few days, if conditions are killing you, and its really a condition damage meta on your server, stacking 600 extra HP is not how you defeat them, Melandru runes and Lemongrass is how you defeat them. L2P.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Just remember that stats aren’t everything. Either gear set will perform more or less the same at a given skill level, this is all just about min-maxing.

Stats are everything.

If two people of equal playing skill duel, the one who wins will be determined by which of them has a better distribution of stats if neither messes up.

wish.1027:

Oh ya? Im not naming it so much as describing the effect when I say diminishing returns. Its what happens when you add to whole numbers. I dont know why you want to argue about the name, but thats what its always been called in the other games Ive played, so I stuck with the naming convention. Its just 2 words that describe the effect of adding more and more of a single stat. And ya, every stat is like that. And the point of that equation is for comparisons of which stat you should add. Like if you wanted to compare different pieces of food with your gear set, thats how you would calculate how much crit damage is worth to your overall DPS.

You really don’t understand this on a basic level. Each point added has the same effect as the last. Diminishing returns is a real thing, and while you made a noble attempt at trying to quantify it, you are flat out wrong.

Regardless of whether soldier or valk is better, your math is wrong. I guess in that case nobody has posted math yet. :P

Sorry duder.

Nilgoow.1037:

Regardless of whether soldier or valk is better, your math is wrong. I guess in that case nobody has posted math yet. :P

Have you checked out his threads? The math is right there.

Well if comparing 6 parts of valkyrie armor vs 3/3 of soldiers/zerkers armor, second one might do more dps on static targets while having same EHP, but u will not have static targets in pvp and most of your damage will come from those backstabs. So in backstab build i will take 6 parts of valkyrie instead of 3/3 soldier/zerk anytime … just becouse of that extra crit damage. Honestly, if Anet would have intoduced valkyrie accended trinkets, I would be running with full valkyrie gear now instead of valkyrie armor, berserker everything else.

Oh and this thread is confusing becouse your are claiming that sodiers will provide more dps then valkyrie, thats what ppl think, unless they read it all, which is not true.

Nilgoow.1037:

wish.1027:

Oh ya? Im not naming it so much as describing the effect when I say diminishing returns. Its what happens when you add to whole numbers. I dont know why you want to argue about the name, but thats what its always been called in the other games Ive played, so I stuck with the naming convention. Its just 2 words that describe the effect of adding more and more of a single stat. And ya, every stat is like that. And the point of that equation is for comparisons of which stat you should add. Like if you wanted to compare different pieces of food with your gear set, thats how you would calculate how much crit damage is worth to your overall DPS.

You really don’t understand this on a basic level. Each point added has the same effect as the last. Diminishing returns is a real thing, and while you made a noble attempt at trying to quantify it, you are flat out wrong.

Regardless of whether soldier or valk is better, your math is wrong. I guess in that case nobody has posted math yet. :P

Sorry duder.

It’s actually you that doesnt get it, not me. Diminishing returns is referring to the fact that adding 5% crit damage when you have 100 crit damage base to start with gives less of a total damage increase than that same 5% would give if you only had 50% crit damage to start with. It has nothing to do with the fact that it gives the same static number.

Like lets say we hit for 100 base damage, and we have 50% crit damage. When we landed a crit it would do 200.
100 * (1.5 + .5) = 200

Now lets say we have 100 base crit damage and solve it.
100 * (1.5 + 1) = 250

now lets add 5% crit damage to each problem.
100 * (1.5 + .5 + .05) = 205
100 * (1.5 + 1 + .05) = 255

Notice how they each added 5 damage to the total? Thats what youre talking about. What I am talking about is how…
205/200=1.025
255/250=1.02
That 5% extra crit damage is worth a 2.5% total damage increase when you score a critical hit at 50% crit damage, but only worth 2% damage with 100% crit damage. That loss of 0.5% damage is the diminishing return.

Karolis.4261:

I really don’t understand what this argument is about … Valkyrie/berserker will do more damage then Soldier/berserker. Period. How the hell berserker with for example 6 soldier parts do more damage then berserker with same 6 valkyrie parts.

Again, seriously?

You match the EHP with the soldiers and valkyrie sets.

The Valk set uses all valk with berserker trinkets and the solder set uses soldier body, head, legs with berserker everything else.

Karolis.4261:

Oh and this thread is confusing becouse your are claiming that sodiers will provide more dps then valkyrie, thats what ppl think, unless they read it all, which is not true.

Thats kind of true, but I list the split off point where Valkyrie wins, and most people will never reach that point, and if they do its on an uplvl in WvW and it doesnt matter anyway because theyre already dead. But the basic idea is that you need 60% of your total damage to come from your ‘from stealth’ attacks with hidden killer traited for Valkyrie to pull ahead and win.

Do you seriously just CnD and BS people and no other attacks? Because thats what needs to happen for Valkyrie to win. Most people who run balanced builds will do BS > Autoattack chain > CnD, and even throw in some HS’s. Which makes the soldiers set win, because your crit chance matters. This isnt a discussion about a GC setup thats kills people with mug > CnD > BS and doesnt need to do anything else.

wish.1027:

Like lets say we hit for 100 base damage, and we have 50% crit damage. When we landed a crit it would do 200.
100 * (1.5 + .5) = 200

Now lets say we have 100 base crit damage and solve it.
100 * (1.5 + 1) = 250

now lets add 5% crit damage to each problem.
100 * (1.5 + .5 + .05) = 205
100 * (1.5 + 1 + .05) = 255

Notice how they each added 5 damage to the total? Thats what youre talking about. What I am talking about is how…
205/200=1.025
255/250=1.02
That 5% extra crit damage is worth a 2.5% total damage increase when you score a critical hit at 50% crit damage, but only worth 2% damage with 100% crit damage. That loss of 0.5% damage is the diminishing return.

This is meaningless and doesn’t demonstrate anything.

If I have $100 and someone gives me $50, they’ve increased my money by 50%. If they give me another $50 they have only increased my money by 33%. Are you telling me that the second $50 is somehow worth less than the first?

Nilgoow.1037:

This is meaningless and doesn’t demonstrate anything.

Hey, that summarizes this whole EHP crusade for me. ;P

EHP is an irrilevant data. Making a build on it is just stupid.
In some pieces of equip %dmg has a greater cost and this is why ppl chose head, legs and coat soldier. It’s just more efficient, but you won’t do more dmg.

I’m thankful on the explanation on the 3/3 armor set. However, as Nilgoow said, that 50$ is 50$ no matter how much money you had before.

205/200=1.025
255/250=1.02

The damage gain is exactly the same in the two cases, 5 damage. How is the first 5 damage more than the second 5 damage…? This is not what diminishing returns is. DR would be if e.g. you would need more and more precision to raise your crit chance by 1% the more crit chance you have.

I am thankful that at least Nilgoow knows the difference between math, proofs and some calculations.