What stats-spread do you find most effective?
Obviously, thieves are all around power and crit. Don’t bother with condition damage unless you are trolling (other classes do it much better).
That means, you always spent 30 points in critical strikes traits. Next 30 you spend in shadow arts, if you play PvP (for broken OP condition removal, and healing during stealth), or deadly arts, if you do PvE – for maximum damage.
And that’s it.
You can also pick acrobatics instead of DA in PvE if your team can support you with lots of boons. Otherwise, it’s a waste of damage.
PS: almost forgot – you don’t fight 1v1 with REALLY equally skilled opponents in PvP, unless you are trolling – other classes do it better. Focus on kill and node stealing, stomping and saving your teammates from being stomped.
Signed, level 1 alt
(edited by Dagins.5163)
As a general response, stat-wise I feel like you want to be at around 2000 Power, 2000 Precision, 1100 Toughness, and 1300 Vitality. Critical Damage you want above 60%, and Critical Chance you want as high as possible, 60-80%
You can fill in gaps with food, or traits (need more HP, go into Acro, or take Practiced Tolerance in Crit Strikes).
Kole —Thief
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@Dagins
Condition Thieves are not only about trolling. I play a P/D Thief and find it a GREAT spec in 1vX. Here is a video of me dueling. In no way am I show boating or do I have a big head. Its just a little showcase of what a P/D thief can do.
Also check out Wild Bill’s video’s for more proof that Condition Thieves Are not just about trolling.
Some of the responses here are just dreadful.
People suffer from the mass delusion that the thief needs to revolve around crits and power. This is only true in one situation: BS GC builds that focus on BS for practically all of their damage, and, furthermore, run Hidden Killer. In that case, run maximum Power and Crit Damage; any additional precision is just redundant, unless you’re planning on backing up your BS with your auto, HS, etc.
That aside, however, precision and crit damage are just stupid. For example, I can guarantee you that the people commenting here don’t know that the damage amplification resulting from 2000 additional precision and 60% additional critical damage is actually less than the damage amplification coming from 1000 power. It’s just stupid, really. Furthermore, the damage soakup that can come from additional vitality and toughness that is missed out in these builds is huge. For example, going by Woaden’s suggestions (which would be the equivalent of an additional 1084 power, 1084 precs, 60% crit damage, 184 toughness, and 384 vitality), the amount by which you’ve amplified your damage is actually over twice as much as the amount by which you’ve amplified your direct damage absorption. In WvW, this is a bad idea as you often have to take damage from a large variety of sources, while your damage is distributed among a wide variety of sources; you have to focus on single-target damage and run with zeros to make up for this. In PvE, you take damage from a huge number of sources as well, as the result of mobs; to be able to kill them, you have to be able to avoid the majority of damage dealt by mobs, or, failing that, be able to heal it off. In PvP, you have to stay with your team at all times, because getting 2v1’d is almost certain death. This hurts you because it means that you can’t use your thief’s mobility to the fullest extent that you can.
These hyper-aggressive delusions are a large part of the reason why many thieves are simply ineffective in PvP, PvE, and WvW; the relative damage that they take is greater than the relative damage they deal, and they go down, at which point it’s essentially GG.
@Shadowskill.9852
Running around doing nothing (at least nothing that can benefit your team) is what I call trolling. Well, maybe trolling is a bad word, but it’s playing for fun without maximizing your potential.
In the video, you just run on open fields slaying some clueless noobs, where each kill takes you a lot of time, while it could take you a few seconds with a power/crit build.
Thieves have the best movement in game, so if you want to be the best, you have to exploit it.
But when good mobility is any useful?
- Obviously, not in an open 1 on 1 fight. It’s useful when your enemies are fleeing in terror with low HP pool. Add to it power/crit, and they will almost never survive at 50% or lower HP against you, because they will be dead before electrons travel from GPU to their screen to show the whole tragedy.
If you have condition damage, sure, you can also chase them, but it will take much more time to finish them off, therefore negating your benefit of lightning fast actions, which come from stealth and shadowsteps.
Also, P/D is extremly passive and doesn’t have any interrupts.
Signed, level 1 alt
@Shadowskill.9852
Running around doing nothing (at least nothing that can benefit your team) is what I call trolling. Well, maybe trolling is a bad word, but it’s playing for fun without maximizing your potential.In the video, you just run on open fields slaying some clueless noobs, where each kill takes you a lot of time, while it could take you a few seconds with a power/crit build.
Thieves have the best movement in game, so if you want to be the best, you have to exploit it.
But when good mobility is any useful?
- Obviously, not in an open 1 on 1 fight. It’s useful when your enemies are fleeing in terror with low HP pool. Add to it power/crit, and they will almost never survive at 50% or lower HP against you, because they will be dead before electrons travel from GPU to their screen to show the whole tragedy.
If you have condition damage, sure, you can also chase them, but it will take much more time to finish them off, therefore negating your benefit of lightning fast actions, which come from stealth and shadowsteps.
Also, P/D is extremly passive and doesn’t have any interrupts.
I can agree with that. P/D does have its shortcomings, but having said that it all so has its strengths. One being that while I’m in stealth its still doing damage and makes it harder for them to fully recover from the constant bleed/poison damage.
I’ve just started making videos of my P/D setup and will have far more to come. I’m constantly looking for 1vX’s and while “Wild Bill” has done more than enough to showcase the P/D spec. I hope to keep the trend going. While I spec in and out into other gear and weapons. P/D is my favorite.
The only thing I dont agree with is the “Passive” comment. Aggressive or Passive is more a play style as apposed to the spec itself.
I’m now trying to find a balance between giving up some of that toughness for a little more dmg…
This is designed solely for WvW.
Sanctum of Rall
That aside, however, precision and crit damage are just stupid. For example, I can guarantee you that the people commenting here don’t know that the damage amplification resulting from 2000 additional precision and 60% additional critical damage is actually less than the damage amplification coming from 1000 power. …
The flaw in your argument is in assuming it’s either Power OR Critical Damage and Chance, while the gear choices offer plainly include Power AND Critical. With Power as the major attribute, the choice then becomes one between Critical and Vitality/Toughness, or a mix of them.
That aside, however, precision and crit damage are just stupid. For example, I can guarantee you that the people commenting here don’t know that the damage amplification resulting from 2000 additional precision and 60% additional critical damage is actually less than the damage amplification coming from 1000 power. …
The flaw in your argument is in assuming it’s either Power OR Critical Damage and Chance, while the gear choices offer plainly include Power AND Critical. With Power as the major attribute, the choice then becomes one between Critical and Vitality/Toughness, or a mix of them.
You don’t seem to realize that Vits and Toughness amplify health much more than Crits amplify damage… To an extent, of course. As the poster above you mentioned, after you build up enough power, precision actually starts becoming extremely powerful, and you often find yourself choosing that over power as the result of damage amplifier. However, vitality and toughness are both extremely good at boosting health, whereas 1% additional crit damage is almost always a horrible choice, simply because it is extremely difficult (particularly in PvP) to grab tons of crit damage at once. If it weren’t for that fact, crit damage would actually be fantastic, but unfortunately you can’t get everything.
You don’t seem to realize that Vits and Toughness amplify health much more than Crits amplify damage… …
Glad you agree that the choice is between Crit and Vit/Toughness. But I didn’t make any statements about which of those is preferable.
You don’t seem to realize that Vits and Toughness amplify health much more than Crits amplify damage… …
Glad you agree that the choice is between Crit and Vit/Toughness. But I didn’t make any statements about which of those is preferable.
when I said crits, I referred to both precision and crit damage, sorry.
I’m doing a lot of things at once right now.
You don’t seem to realize that Vits and Toughness amplify health much more than Crits amplify damage… …
Glad you agree that the choice is between Crit and Vit/Toughness. But I didn’t make any statements about which of those is preferable.
when I said crits, I referred to both precision and crit damage, sorry.
I’m doing a lot of things at once right now.
That’s ok. I too was talking about precision and critical damage as one ‘package’, but your post seemed to imply the choice was between Power and Crit.