Guild Wars 2

Running sigils of fire and air on daggers:

A) executioner trait. power: 2398, crit chance: 70%, crit damage: 220%

or

B) hidden killer trait. power: 2757, crit chance: 48%, crit damage: 224%

Without understanding the maths (which is why I’m asking), it would seem that thief A would be critting all the time and the +20% damage increase from executioner would be very good. However, the raw power difference of B is quite large.

How do the maths work?

You’re going to need to put the entire build in a build editor so we can make a comparison – your information is too vague

How are you getting 2757 power? Might/signet/bloodlust? Seems too high without some buffs

Sorry, yes full food/stack buffs (the build editor doesn’t remember the stacks in the links):

A) full perception stacks: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMpypdPx3J0PNBNBt9DGeE4uGrYGaFAA-T1SEABKq2DAHBgBeAAIqKQBnCglU2wkSJO0E8nSQc2fgN9ABAQAuZbGAH9oH9oH9od0duzduzdWKA9EGB-w

B) full bloodlust stacks: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYVlsMpypdPx3J0PNBNBt9DGeI4uGrYGaFAA-T1CEABLq2DBPAgEVFwgzAATKbaSpUHaCAUJYO7P0meAAOEABAQAuZbGAH9oH9oH9od0duzduzdWKgIWGB-w

Thanks!

Ok so you are deciding between two different things essentially

Executioner v Hidden Killer and Power v Crit Chance

Both are related but it comes to preference I will give you an example – Is most of your damage coming from Backstab? You want hidden killer – thus probably sacrificing some crit chance in exchange for power – making sure when you land your backstab it always crits and does a ton of dmg

For example a Thief using D/P and S/D on weapon swap is constantly landing non-stealth attacks thus can use Executioner more effectively and opt for a higher crit chance

In the end both builds you linked will work the only way to know which is best is to try them out for yourself – First build will have more sustained damage outside of backstab while the second will have larger burst damage via backstab

Dual Dagger Power Builds tend to go for Hidden Killer and max burst via backstab

Thanks for the quick and thorough feedback!

Yes, it’s a backstab-centered play style and I guess the only reason I was questioning was because I couldn’t figure out if 70% crit chance plus the added damage from executioner would make it the more powerful of the two backstab-wise.

Much appreciated.

Mahkno.7593:

Thanks for the quick and thorough feedback!

Yes, it’s a backstab-centered play style and I guess the only reason I was questioning was because I couldn’t figure out if critting air/fire all the time (well 70%) plus the damage from executioner in build A would make it the more powerful of the two.

Much appreciated.

No problem

One last thing you should consider -Strength Runes – In your high crit chance build it can give you a substantial boost to power/might

Stealth builds have good access to might from the 5th trait in Shadow Arts 2might per stealth entry
Crit Strikes you can also trait Signets of Power and with just one signet you get ~50% uptime on 5 might stacks
Also two points in acro can get you inertia of power for more might

Another thing to consider is high fury uptime for your lower crit chance build- Furious Retaliation in CS or two points in Trickery for Thrill of the Crime also gives you Fury

Awesome. Many thanks!

Narkodx.1472:

Mahkno.7593:

Thanks for the quick and thorough feedback!

Yes, it’s a backstab-centered play style and I guess the only reason I was questioning was because I couldn’t figure out if critting air/fire all the time (well 70%) plus the damage from executioner in build A would make it the more powerful of the two.

Much appreciated.

No problem

One last thing you should consider -Strength Runes – In your high crit chance build it can give you a substantial boost to power/might

Stealth builds have good access to might from the 5th trait in Shadow Arts 2might per stealth entry
Crit Strikes you can also trait Signets of Power and with just one signet you get ~50% uptime on 5 might stacks
Also two points in acro can get you inertia of power for more might

Another thing to consider is high fury uptime for your lower crit chance build- Furious Retaliation in CS or two points in Trickery for Thrill of the Crime also gives you Fury

With strength runes I often get higher backstabs with 2/6/6/0/0 build than with 6/6/2/0/0, that’s if the fight last a bit longer and without using utilities for signet might stacking. 6/6/2 can’t stack might that well, has consitently high dmg but the survivability is a lot lower than 2/6/6.

If you want to run the math explicitly, you have to make some assumptions about what percentage of your damage comes from backstabs (before hidden killer), and what percentage of the time your target will be below 50% health. Then you weigh the different cases appropriately and can figure out which deals more damage.

Under fairly conservative assumptions, setup #2 will deal more damage.

There’s a more straightforward logic for using Hidden Killer in a backstab build however. Imagine you combo someone and land Mug + Cloak and Dagger (plus some change of procs). There are then two possibilities:

1). Your foe is below 50%. In this case, a critical Backstab will down your target with or without the Executioner bonus (as Backstab does more damage than C&D + Mug + Proc), so Hidden Killer is clearly better.

2). Your foe is above 50%. Hidden Killer is clearly better since Executioner does nothing here.

More practically, Hidden Killer is good against squishy targets, allowing you to down them more reliably. Executioner is good against tanky targets that you have to keep beating on with Heartseekers and auto-chains. Pick and build around which sort of target you’re trying to kill.

Great info here. Many thanks, all.

IMHO, critical hits are already a huge dmg bonus however if your main damage source is backstab and you aren’t guaranteeing a hit then there is little reason to such a build.

Sure you may have 1 build with semi-low power but it crit’s often. It is already a 50% dmg bonus compared to investing a lot for not much of a difference in damage + you also get on-crit effects to work into the mix.

tl;dr- you either go with more overall critical chance or you focus your primary dmg source to the fullest (int sigil, hidden killer, etc). With thief there is no viable middle ground.