Guild Wars 2

Viking Jorun.5413:

Arganthium.5638:

Ozie.4176:

Arganthium.5638:

kekuso.5837:

I’d like to see that pvp build Jorun. I find it extremely hard to kill any bunker without 30 CS…

I can kill bunkers in sPvP easily with 10/0/0/30/30. The damage boost you get from zerker amulet is much, much higher than what you get from CS. CS just ends up being more like a tiny bonus.

I’m not sure if this is serious, anyone can kill a bunker, a bunkers role is not to live forever 1v1, its role is to stay alive until someone else shows up. Furthermore 20% damage from JUST executioner is not “just a bonus”. Also, having zerker gear and CS are not mutually exclusive, most people run both. Literally nothing in this post made any sense what so ever.

If you mean your own post, sure.

I said “kill bunkers easily”, as in “I can kill bunkers in the same amount of time that a 30 CS thief can”. That 20% bonus is still a 0% bonus until you get your opponent under 50% health, so it averages to a 10% bonus which honestly isn’t all that impressive. The stats from 30 CS give hardly any more of a bonus than 10 DA, and all of the non-Executioner traits that you take from CS are fairly pointless. This isn’t the same with the traits from Trickery; all of them are useful and they all lend to increased damage output.

The point of my post was that 30 CS is not necessary to kill bunkers easily; I didn’t say they’re mutually exclusive. I said that you can just as easily kill somebody without 30 CS as you can kill them with it. Don’t twist my words.

As someone who buildcrafts night and day to optimize my playstyle and as someone who plays a 10/0/0/30/30 thief in WvW, I don’t see how you’re getting enough critical damage out of your build in order to make the precision from your Berserker Amulet worth it. No combination of amulets and jewels can get past 20% on their own, without the aid of traits, making your precision null when it comes to maintaining cleave. Sure, you can survive with the vigor from Bountiful Theft and Vigorous Renewal, but in the end your job is to roam and win team fights when you aren’t capping empty points, and putting 30 into Acrobatics rather than CS is crippling your team, due to the inability to stack critical damage in sPvP solely through gear. I would be happy to run 30 in acrobatics as I do in WvW, but the stat limitations of gear pigeonhole thief into Critical Strikes unless running a condition build, in which case you should just role a necro or engineer which can do ranged condition cleave better.

/PvP

Even with 50% critical damage, the bonus you’re getting from the precision is relatively small anyways.

The attached graph displays the tradeoff between additional power versus precision at different levels of critical damage, starting with base critical damage as the last graph to intersect the x axis and increasing by amounts of 10% until you reach the innermost graph, which displays the tradeoff with 220% critical damage. In each of these, the vertex of a given equation represents the point where precision starts becoming worth more than power.

Given the sheer volume of power (x axis) required to make 1 point of precision equivalent to 1 point of power, it would make sense that precision is worth very little in comparison to power, and, indeed, the math shows this.

Rather, the precision is going to be more useful for Air and Fire sigils than it is going to be for a direct damage bonus.

And don’t even tell me that 30 Acro should be replaced with 30 CS in an S/D build for sPvP… There’s a reason why no professional player runs a 10/30/0/0/30 build for S/D.

Arganthium.5638:

And don’t even tell me that 30 Acro should be replaced with 30 CS in an S/D build for sPvP… There’s a reason why no professional player runs a 10/30/0/0/30 build for S/D.

There are no professional players in GW2…

That said, the “meta” S/D builds is still 10/30/0/30/0, and some people have been playing with 25/30/0/15/0.

25/0/0/15/30 is one that Sizer has been playing around with for a bit, as well, but it seems more experimental than anything.

Reikou.7068:

Arganthium.5638:

And don’t even tell me that 30 Acro should be replaced with 30 CS in an S/D build for sPvP… There’s a reason why no professional player runs a 10/30/0/0/30 build for S/D.

There are no professional players in GW2…

That said, the “meta” S/D builds is still 10/30/0/30/0, and some people have been playing with 25/30/0/15/0.

25/0/0/15/30 is one that Sizer has been playing around with for a bit, as well, but it seems more experimental than anything.

“Professional” as far as you can be professional in GW2.

Not sure why you’d run 25 DA with S/D, tbh.

Arganthium.5638:

“Professional” as far as you can be professional in GW2.

Not sure why you’d run 25 DA with S/D, tbh.

Condition Duration and Control, possibly Venoms too.

Tried variations of DA S/D builds myself and found it fun to have quite good uptime on cripple, weakness, poison, vulnerability and have long immobilizes. The damage output suffered a bit, but not that much. But it however feels quite lacking and I end up back in the Critical Strikes line.

Arganthium.5638:

Reikou.7068:

Arganthium.5638:

And don’t even tell me that 30 Acro should be replaced with 30 CS in an S/D build for sPvP… There’s a reason why no professional player runs a 10/30/0/0/30 build for S/D.

There are no professional players in GW2…

That said, the “meta” S/D builds is still 10/30/0/30/0, and some people have been playing with 25/30/0/15/0.

25/0/0/15/30 is one that Sizer has been playing around with for a bit, as well, but it seems more experimental than anything.

“Professional” as far as you can be professional in GW2.

Not sure why you’d run 25 DA with S/D, tbh.

“Nerf” of Quick Recovery made it not really necessary anymore. Putting 15 points into deadly arts allows for either more damage on Larcenous with Combined Training, or more utility with Improv. The Extra power and Exposed Weakness in Teamfight/Immob is also quite good.

When i should use pistol whip? For me it seems good only after basilisk and for some situational interrupts.

Are there any videos of any s/x thieves with a 10/0/X/X/X build, as in any build that specifically avoids the CS trait line, killing a bunker on a point? Only saying this because I’ve only seen Jumper’s videos and most of his 1v1 on-point fights took 30-45seconds to win the fight and down the opponent, and that was with 30 CS as well as full zerker amulet. If a fight on a point takes much longer than that then, unless you’re just trying to keep the point contested, you may as well leave and help in your main team fight.

Bunker’s seem to come in all shapes and sizes. Some rely on boons like regen vigor or protection, some control you and unless you’re careful can beat you to a pulp. Some just recover really really well and unless interrupted you won’t surpass burst heals like that.

That said I don’t think 30 into CS is the go-to for countering bunkers, some of it comes down to other builds like boon stealing/removing, quick on-command control (sleight of hand, headshot).

For example fighting a ranger who relies on kiting and trolls potion, if you can interrupt that potion they really don’t go far after that. Guardian or ele or engi keeping up regen and vigor to outlast you, you can burst them and get it over with (although in some cases kinda risky) or you can take those things off and play with their toys.

I don’t play too much tpvp (despise solo queue, no group yet) but from testing lobbies, wvw and spvp I’ve taken my time to study the builds I fight, spectator mode mixed with actually finding them and fighting them. Thief can still pull off good dps in s/tpvp without CS. Its nothing like 7-10k BS but its doable in a place where foods/oils/certain runes/sigils aren’t accessible.

Incurafy.6329:

10/30/0/0/30 D/P + SB has been the meta for burst Thief for months now, I’m not sure why you are under the impression that is is only since the 10th Dec patch.

It has been the D/P meta for months. The dec change just made D/P more popular than S/D.