Guild Wars 2

Hi all.. I have been running a thief in WvW for a while now and I find it very enjoyable running in small group havoc play. I do however run into many problems when in 1v1 and 2v2. I am running a D/P stealth build traited 0/30/15/25/0. I am running Valkyrie armor with ruby orb and zerk weapons. I use 100 pwr food and a superior bloodlust sigil till maxed stacks to raise power higher. Once maxed I switch it to a pistol with sigil of strength. For utils I use blinding powder/refuge/roll for initiative. My HP is around 15k.

One common problem I have is 1v1 other thieves.. I seem to meet a lot of the same build (not mine but same as eachother) mostly D/D that seem to stealth faster/longer, do higher DPS and also take less DMG than I do… I have searched and not found such a build so I am left wondering what on earth I am getting killed by. I get anywhere from 5k to 7k backstabs on things sometimes 8k but on these thieves it feels like I get hit for 10k and only do about 5k to them.. (Backstab)

I also got absolutely nuked by a necro tonight that I couldn’t even touch. Dropped chill on me.. Then every other condition imaginable and boom.. I was dead..

Building more glassy cannot be the answer here but there is a gap somewhere I cannot identify myself. I time my dodges/stealth/heals/utilities.. I really don’t panic and button mash and I have tried learning techniques off other players videos.. But I just can’t seem to take anyone down without help.

I know a lot of people hate thieves and are scared because they are so lethal but I just don’t feel very scary lol. It’s getting frustrating and a bit discouraging to feel like if I end up alone or as a straggler I cannot fend for myself.

So does anyone know of the build I keep encountering or can anyone give me tips on technique? How to be feared rather than fearful?

For one, WvW thieves that capitilise on stealth often go 30 into shadow arts and use shadow’s rejuvenation and Shadow’s embrace. Thus, they will have higher toughness, better healing and condi removal. Also, many people use assassins signet to increase their backstab damage by 15%. Finally, there are really good steath players out there, who can even prevail in 3vs1 situations against more than average players. For that, you need practice.

I felt basically exactly the same on my thief for a long time. One thing about your build is that you should probably adjust to a more offensive and stealth heavy trait set up for WvW. I’d recommend 20/30/20/0/0. I tried running more defensive/evade heavy builds for a while and I find that although they might be better in the long run your potential to just run in and burst someone down is greatly diminished.

If a necro sees you out in the open, generally the first thing he’s going to do is spam marks at you. So if you are running at a necro face first, I’d suggest stealing immediately to him, laying down a blind field right on his feet and heartseekering to get a stealth off and then return for a backstab. Theres a good chance he’ll blow more CDs just standing in the blind field because a lot of necros don’t know much about movement or dodging because of how easy the class is (necro is technically still my main). Once you get the heartseeker off you could also use the stolen fear to get off a big backstab relatively easily.

As for your utilities, roll for initiative is slow as hell. I want to like that skill, but you could take Signet of Agility which gives 9% critical hit percentage as well as a full endurance restore and 1 condi off or Infiltrator’s signet which is decent passive initiative feed and a stunbreak+shadowstep which is great for keeping up offensive pressure on classes like necros. Blinding powder is ok, but again, you have plenty of stealth with D/P, as well as plenty of blinds. Instead, again you could look at other utilities like shadowstep or Assassin’s Signet.

One of the biggest problems I see with your build is that for D/P you REALLY want both infusion of shadow and shadow’s embrace from the shadow arts traitline. Infusion of Shadow is kind of neccessary for a D/P stealth build and don’t expect to have any luck against necros if you aren’t running any sort of condi cleanse.

In my opinion, the biggest part of playing D/P is being hyper aggressive but also stealthing and retreating whenever necessary.

To be honest necromancers really are the new faceroll class in pvp, whether the super fear condition build or the monsterminon clusterkitten cant even target the necro build (more so in t/spvp). Condition builds are easier for us to deal with than the monster builds, but you really do need 30 in shadow arts, (20 in acrobatics is great too). For dealing with necros, use surprise burst often and unpredictably, which is very possible on D/P. As one once told me when eles were bunker gods to focus your burst on them as soon as they leave water, focus your main burst on a necromancer as soon as he leaves deathshroud, for 10 seconds (maybe but not likely 7 with traits) he wont have access to his second health pool to absorb your burst and prolong the engagement, as well as fear/torment. Necro mobility is awful, and using shadow shot or steal they will never be able to really run from you. Their lack of mobility and lack of combo finishers on ANY weapon other than the boring staff, made me quit necro and play thief and ele instead.

As far as the enemy thief problem goes, I just feel that you don’t have enough toughness, so I would increase that by using some combination of soldiers/knights/celestial for your armor. The ascended accessories can stay zerker but switching the rings to cavalier would give you much more toughness without gimping you damage that much at all, as the precision loss is minor and the power loss is neglible, while crit dmg is the same and the toughness would really really help you.

Pretty much what Infantrydiv said about necros. That being said I get pwn-ed by necros quite a lot, they are tough buggers especially if they know how thieves work…

With respect to other thieves running D/D, one absolute advantage you have going D/P is on demand stealth. For the other thief to get off a stealth he needs to land CnD which has a very predictable animation and you should make all efforts to avoid it via dodge or blind – more in this in a bit.

(Exception to what I said above: If he sneaks up on you, has the trait “mug” and pulls the basilik venom → assasin’s signet → CnD → steal → backstab —> HS spam combo. If you do not see this coming and you get ambushed, there is a very strong possibility you’re dead very very quickly).

The D/D builds can vary, they can run the standard 10/30/30/0/0, or take a more balls to the wall offense approach (25/30/0/0/15) and various others. Whatever the case may be, the linchpin of d/d strategy is going to stealth to backstab you. The most reliable way to do that is CnD, which has a very long and noticeable animation (unless he is pre-casting CnD and then stealing, this is very difficult to avoid). This is a very big problem for D/D thieves and something D/P can exploit hard, dropping black powder, or using shadow shot, or interrupting them with pistol 4.

As someone stated above, your 0/30/15/25/0 build is a bit of an anomaly for D/P, because D/P builds especially like to take advantage of shadow arts due to the on demand stealth. Taking shadow rejuvenation for a D/P build is especially powerful as you can basically reset any fight you want.

As the ppl said above, toughen up your thief and outplay the other thieves or get more offense and hope to K.O. the other thief before he kills you.

As you have low toughness, backstabs will hit you hard and you will find it significally much harder to recover from them. And since you have 15 points in SA, which you
probably traited for infusion of shadows you have low condition removal.

I play a balanced build, and I haven’t yet taken any successful backstab above 8k, I don’t
doubt it’s possible under the right conditions from a 30/30/0/0/10 signet thief,
but ~7.5k is the average I take from generic and average GC D/x thief.
While I can hit around 10k on them myself.

On a glassy level 80 mesmer:
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/94567/demege.jpg

The build I have currently:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYm6OXcS5E/5Ex2je6Tiy9woOtpdF4KA-jE0AYLBRCCARBiKAm8SW2TQM9h2GQ7DERj6FMVJiuEV5GItLs9WQ2bosKFQEjBA-w

I either use SB or D/D as offset, on one of the daggers I have sigil of intelligence,
which gives me 100% crit chance on CnD when I swap to it in the middle of combat, followed by a 100% crit chance backstab. Maybe there are better options, but I like it
this way those times I feel I need this little burst.

Against necromancers I do my best to avoid their damage and swap to shortbow to
keep constant pressure on them. This way I’ve been able to kill many necromancers
that I haven’t been able to take down in melee.

10, 30,30,0,0

Use mug to help with healing, and stay in stealth for 3 seconds before backstabbing, if your low on health, stealth against and dont attack so you wont get revealed.

Against other thieves tho, i normally poke them abit they poke me abit then i bow and leave, its a draw so no point prolonging it.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Sifting through all the good info.

FYI: The reason I traited the way I did actually was because I seem to have trouble without the “regenerate 2 initiative every 10 seconds” trait. Not really sure why. Maybe a pacing thing.. But I keep finding myself looking for another pistol 5 + dagger 2 stealth combo and being out of initiative. Since initiative regen with the 0/30/30/10/0 is all in-stealth I just can’t seem to make it work which is odd because I don’t spam other skills other than autoattack /stealth combo unless I’m trying to catch someone which feels impossible without the initiative regen. I guess this could be my major weakness. Maybe I need more practice pacing my skill usage.

> mostly D/D that seem to stealth faster/longer, do higher DPS and also take less DMG than I do…
lol srsly? d/d is the most squishy build with very little access to stealth compared to d/p. If you can’t survive in d/p & valkyrie then you should probably switch to guardian/necro.

Oh and also @ infantrydiv.. The reason I take Roll for Initiative is for the immobilize break. Since shadowstep doesn’t actually break the immobilize I seem to just get ganked as soon as I shadowstep to location. I prefer to not use the heal skill because I tend to forget about the roll effect and if I need a heal but not a roll I hit it not thinking and roll out of a tower/cliff/etc lol. I’m open to better suggestions though if there are any.

@ Azraelle I KNOW that lol but if you saw the thief I saw last night.. Me and another thief were 2v1 him and he was stealthed for what seemed to be 5 seconds off CnD then he would steal/backstab and CnD stealth again and repeat. I had no idea how the fk he was doing what he was doing which is why i came here for advice. Combat log wouldve shown his dmg vs mine was much better. On squishy classes I hit more than 5k but that’s all I got on this thief.. Maybe it was a “frontal” backstab.. I have no idea..

But hey.. There’s gotta be one guy in every thread that says “teh solution is play another class lulz”.

Azraelle.1683:

> mostly D/D that seem to stealth faster/longer, do higher DPS and also take less DMG than I do…
lol srsly? d/d is the most squishy build with very little access to stealth compared to d/p. If you can’t survive in d/p & valkyrie then you should probably switch to guardian/necro.

They both have their benefits.

D/D is superior:
- When fighting Rangers, Mesmers and Necromancers with pet builds.
- When fighting in a team fight you don’t need to look out for other players combo fields.
- When you fight up on tower or keep walls.
- When you fight near mobs, critters or attackable objects.
- When you fight in 1v2 against a ranged and a melee player.
- When you get rushed by a zerg.
- When you need some extra burst, kill to survive.

D/P is superior:
- In open field.
- Against melee.
- When chasing highly mobile players.
- When hiding from zergs or escaping if the zerg has a good distance.
- Against other thieves.
- When you are in need of an interrupt.
- Also has easy access to stealth, but slow and you don’t always get off more than 1 – heartseeker through BP (7 ini for less active stealth while x/D is at 4 for a successful hit), not everyone can counter it, unlike x/D where everyone has a dodge button.
- Blind is also a powerful tool.

D/P is however more complete as a set, and every single weapon skill is useful.
While D/D has #3 which is rarely useful without being a waste and #4 which is slightly more useful than #3.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Oh and also @ infantrydiv.. The reason I take Roll for Initiative is for the immobilize break. Since shadowstep doesn’t actually break the immobilize I seem to just get ganked as soon as I shadowstep to location. I prefer to not use the heal skill because I tend to forget about the roll effect and if I need a heal but not a roll I hit it not thinking and roll out of a tower/cliff/etc lol. I’m open to better suggestions though if there are any.

@ Azraelle I KNOW that lol but if you saw the thief I saw last night.. Me and another thief were 2v1 him and he was stealthed for what seemed to be 5 seconds off CnD then he would steal/backstab and CnD stealth again and repeat. I had no idea how the fk he was doing what he was doing which is why i came here for advice. Combat log wouldve shown his dmg vs mine was much better. On squishy classes I hit more than 5k but that’s all I got on this thief.. Maybe it was a “frontal” backstab.. I have no idea..

But hey.. There’s gotta be one guy in every thread that says “teh solution is play another class lulz”.

ABout the 5 sec stealth, if you were a thief then:
steal-cnd against a thief can be prolonged by using the stolen feathers

And about backstab damage, you run valkyrie, what do you expect? Of course, physical damage will put a huge dent in your health bar, if you got like zero toughness.
Try mixing in some soldiers or cavalier’s pieces.

naphack.9346:

ABout the 5 sec stealth, if you were a thief then:
steal-cnd against a thief can be prolonged by using the stolen feathers

Hm, I should have thought of that lol.. Thanks for pointing that out! This is exactly the kind of stuff that will help me. Little things that I forget/don’t think of in battle.

naphack.9346:

And about backstab damage, you run valkyrie, what do you expect? Of course, physical damage will put a huge dent in your health bar, if you got like zero toughness.
Try mixing in some soldiers or cavalier’s pieces.

This I will probably try soon. I am trying to gain funds to mix armor pieces. I’m just trying to figure out how to gain toughness without severely lowering DPS. My DPS already feels a bit low (even though it probably isn’t) like I said which is why I try to stack so much power via bloodlust and food because I know crit dmg relies on your total power too.

Loving the feedback people! Thanks!

If you used Soldiers hat body and legs with Berserkers gloves pants and boots youd do more damage and stay alive better compared to Valkyrie armors. Granted, you wouldnt do that much more damage or stay live that much better, but every 2-3% you can gain is good and puts you in a better position to wins fights.

Full valk is only good for pure backstab builds anyway(my thief runs valk armor with bers weapons/amu and the rest cavaliers+bers jewels. Crit chance is rather low but I’m aiming for backstabs anyway) The dps will go up after that backstab anyway thanks to the fury proc at 50% health.

For more balanced builds, the standard soldiers legs, chestpiece, helm and bers shoulders, gloves, boots are a pretty stable combination.

Of course, if you want to cut back on the funds, you can get a soldiers chestpiece, throw in a couple cavaliers trinkets or soldiers rings(if you still run exotics, that is) and get away with rather cheap modifications to your valk setup without taking that big of a dive dive in damage.

I actually just looked at Cavalier for the first time and wow.. now that I know what it is it seems like a no-brainer to mix some in! Can’t believe I didn’t see that before!

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

I actually just looked at Cavalier for the first time and wow.. now that I know what it is it seems like a no-brainer to mix some in! Can’t believe I didn’t see that before!

Except that you lose tons of DPS for not that much gains on armor. Cavaliers and Knights look amazing, but theyre both actually terrible.

Well kitten lol… I did actually read that power is not the primary stat of cavaliers so that kind of sucks… So if anything, soldiers is what I want to toss in the mix?

There are 2 things which – depending on your build / playstyle will give you the upper edge in a thief vs thief fight.

A) stealth based builds – be it D/P, D/D, P/D. You must outstealth the other thief and strike when he’s exposed, deny his stealths and setting up your bursts or loading him with condi’s and preventing him from stealth resetting.
B) evasion / mobility builds – be it S/D or S/P with SB. You simply deny other thief any opener / burst, and counter with yours, while staying mobile and spending most time in evade frames (or in black powder if he’s a backstabber).

After using two less offensive-based builds for a long time that included 30 in SA, I have gone to a much more offensive build…perhaps I die more, but it is more fun and satisfying to play when I can occasionally land 10k HS/BS, etc…

There are so many tanky enemies nowadays that think they are invincible, and mesmers have such high HP (far more than they deserve), so one of the best ways to down them is actually to hit them so hard and fast that they don’t have a chance to do all their kitten crap they love to do.

BTW…warrior’s kill shot is OP (14k damage from 1200 range). Thx.

WvW thief is one of the most unforgiving and also most rewarding things to do in the game. I run a 0/30/20/20/0 build and often stream it @ twitch.tv/dntgw2 (my build is also under the stream). I don’t claim to be an expert (although I consider myself above average), but it is heavily skill based against other thieves (very tight timings on abilities) and you may pick up a thing or two watching my stream, as well as myself as I feel I still am learning some new tricks as I get more and more comfortable with it (I have over 300 hours played, 2500 in general, so my experience on thief has been primarily wvw and pvp focused (I rarely dungeon with him)). I also stream a similar/modified build in soloQ pvp.

** Edit ** there should be some videos up at the moment featuring some solo thief roaming. Not to mention if you youtube any RIOT videos, they often have some good guides/demo’s up on the current wvw meta.

One thing I always like to point out to people worried about their WvW performance: For every situation you see in videos where someone wins a 1v4 battle, there’s probably 90000 situations where the 4 people just Stun/Immobilize/etc the 1 person and kill him in 2 seconds.

TL;DR: Don’t judge your “everyday performance” against what you see in videos.

Ghostwolf.9863:

As the ppl said above, toughen up your thief and outplay the other thieves or get more offense and hope to K.O. the other thief before he kills you.

As you have low toughness, backstabs will hit you hard and you will find it significally much harder to recover from them. And since you have 15 points in SA, which you
probably traited for infusion of shadows you have low condition removal.

I play a balanced build, and I haven’t yet taken any successful backstab above 8k, I don’t
doubt it’s possible under the right conditions from a 30/30/0/0/10 signet thief,
but ~7.5k is the average I take from generic and average GC D/x thief.
While I can hit around 10k on them myself.

On a glassy level 80 mesmer:
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/94567/demege.jpg

The build I have currently:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYm6OXcS5E/5Ex2je6Tiy9woOtpdF4KA-jE0AYLBRCCARBiKAm8SW2TQM9h2GQ7DERj6FMVJiuEV5GItLs9WQ2bosKFQEjBA-w

I either use SB or D/D as offset, on one of the daggers I have sigil of intelligence,
which gives me 100% crit chance on CnD when I swap to it in the middle of combat, followed by a 100% crit chance backstab. Maybe there are better options, but I like it
this way those times I feel I need this little burst.

Against necromancers I do my best to avoid their damage and swap to shortbow to
keep constant pressure on them. This way I’ve been able to kill many necromancers
that I haven’t been able to take down in melee.

Love youre build,its nice and versatile..
only thing i would change is youre heal ability cuz you allready have roll of intiative:P

muddybuddy.3812:

Ghostwolf.9863:

As the ppl said above, toughen up your thief and outplay the other thieves or get more offense and hope to K.O. the other thief before he kills you.

As you have low toughness, backstabs will hit you hard and you will find it significally much harder to recover from them. And since you have 15 points in SA, which you
probably traited for infusion of shadows you have low condition removal.

I play a balanced build, and I haven’t yet taken any successful backstab above 8k, I don’t
doubt it’s possible under the right conditions from a 30/30/0/0/10 signet thief,
but ~7.5k is the average I take from generic and average GC D/x thief.
While I can hit around 10k on them myself.

On a glassy level 80 mesmer:
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/94567/demege.jpg

The build I have currently:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlYm6OXcS5E/5Ex2je6Tiy9woOtpdF4KA-jE0AYLBRCCARBiKAm8SW2TQM9h2GQ7DERj6FMVJiuEV5GItLs9WQ2bosKFQEjBA-w

I either use SB or D/D as offset, on one of the daggers I have sigil of intelligence,
which gives me 100% crit chance on CnD when I swap to it in the middle of combat, followed by a 100% crit chance backstab. Maybe there are better options, but I like it
this way those times I feel I need this little burst.

Against necromancers I do my best to avoid their damage and swap to shortbow to
keep constant pressure on them. This way I’ve been able to kill many necromancers
that I haven’t been able to take down in melee.

Love youre build,its nice and versatile..
only thing i would change is youre heal ability cuz you allready have roll of intiative:P

He’s taking that as you already have on demand stealth with the D/P set as long a regen from stealth, and the roll grants you a stun breaker+ heal every 15secs (half the CD of hde in shadows) which you’re gonna need since as a thief enemies will try to pin you down as much as possible.

Well, I changed back to 0/30/30/10/0 and I swapped my valkyrie chest for a knight’s chest and I already noticed a difference with the added toughness, and my DPS is still pretty much the same. I still find myself having issues with initiative though without the 2 initiative every 10 seconds trait, but I’m sure I probably just need to work on my timing.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Bovinity.8610:

One thing I always like to point out to people worried about their WvW performance: For every situation you see in videos where someone wins a 1v4 battle, there’s probably 90000 situations where the 4 people just Stun/Immobilize/etc the 1 person and kill him in 2 seconds.

TL;DR: Don’t judge your “everyday performance” against what you see in videos.

Undeniably true.
It requires just ONE “skilled” opponent, built for 1v1 encounters, to completely screw everything up during outnumbered situations, making you start thinking about how to escape rather than how to win. If said opponents are more than one, then you’re already a lootbag.

Hey, if u want help with a build/armour set send me a tell in game and I can link u mine, final stats are 3,050 attack, 2410 armour, 50% crit chance, 122% crit dmg and 16665 hp. So much fun lol, specially in some 3 vs 1 situations, I kitten ed alot of people off yesterday lol I’m assuming when I kept winning those as I roamed

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

I swapped my valkyrie chest for a knight’s chest

Ug, stop listening to bad players who dont know math.
Soldiers and Berserkers.

Lews.8146:

Hey, if u want help with a build/armour set send me a tell in game and I can link u mine, final stats are 3,050 attack, 2410 armour, 50% crit chance, 122% crit dmg and 16665 hp. So much fun lol, specially in some 3 vs 1 situations, I kitten ed alot of people off yesterday lol I’m assuming when I kept winning those as I roamed

O_O whaaaaaa?? What’s your toughness at?

Lews.8146:

Hey, if u want help with a build/armour set send me a tell in game and I can link u mine, final stats are 3,050 attack, 2410 armour, 50% crit chance, 122% crit dmg and 16665 hp. So much fun lol, specially in some 3 vs 1 situations, I kitten ed alot of people off yesterday lol I’m assuming when I kept winning those as I roamed

Im super bored atm, so Im gonna do some math.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAoY8YlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jdqCJKuHGVS1UaFoJA-jEzAorBRTWCNRAiKAk8UWzeCiVtioxqrxUuDRW7iavJiWt5wCBUeBA-w

Your build is 2069 power, 50 crit rate, 122 crit damage, 2410 armor, 16665 HP.
My build is 2416, 52, 92, 2620, 15325.

Your builds damage
2069* ((1* .5)+ (1.5+ 1.22)* .5)=3848.34
My builds damage
2416* ((1* .48)+ (1.5+ .92)* .52)= 4199.9744

Your builds EHP (no WvW bonus)
(16665 * 2410)/ 1836= 21875.0816993
My builds EHP (no WvW bonus)
(15325 * 2620)/ 1836= 21869.0087146

Your builds DR
(2410-1836)/2410 = 0.23817427385
My builds DR
(2620-1836)/2620 = 0.29923664122

You give up (4199.9744/3848.34= 1.09137300758) 9.13% damage and 5% Damage Reduction, to gain 6 EHP. I dont think its worth it, better switch to Soldiers and Berserkers.

Silver.4798:

As someone stated above, your 0/30/15/25/0 build is a bit of an anomaly for D/P, because D/P builds especially like to take advantage of shadow arts due to the on demand stealth. Taking shadow rejuvenation for a D/P build is especially powerful as you can basically reset any fight you want.

I’m an anomaly??? (0/30/0/30/10)
cry
(I don’t rely on black powder much unless soloing camps or for certain situations like blind stomp)

Haha, I may try it at some point but I’m enjoying the build I made cause its not universally used so I feel unique thanks for the tips though :$

So… wish, if this isn’t too much of a bother could you look at these:

My current build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoaVlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-j0yAYLBRCCIZBiKAk+IyYTgQthioxqewUlkittenA5NWWtMA6bB-w

The same build with your armor suggestion:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoaVlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-j0yAYLBRCCIZBiKAk8UWzeCithioxqewUlkittenA5NWWtMA6bB-w

I didn’t add skills because I run none that affect stats (sigils) but the only difference between the 2 sets is the armor.

The main thing I do not understand is the crit damage bonus. You seem to say that slightly higher power and 5%+ less crit dmg does more DPS than slightly less power with more crit dmg. If I knew how that translated, it would totally make sense lol.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

The main thing I do not understand is the crit damage bonus. You seem to say that slightly higher power and 5%+ less crit dmg does more DPS than slightly less power with more crit dmg. If I knew how that translated, it would totally make sense lol.

Damage is calculated as
(weapon damage * power * skill coefficient [* critdamage if a crit is scored] [* + % damage bonuses]) / targets armor

When you compare sets of gear, you can remove everything that will stay the same for both sets. Like weapon damage, target armor, skill coefficient, etc. Whatever stays the same you just remove, since those things would affect both sets in exactly the same way. Then you solve the rest of it to find out what the numbers are to compare damage increases between the sets.

To get an accurate measure of how much your crit damage/crit chance is worth, you have to determine what is referred to as a ‘crit multiplier.’ This is a combination of your crit chance/damage and none-critchance/damage, that gives you the average your crit chance/damage will increase your damage by.

For ease of use and understanding for people who arent super amaazing at math, we use the formula:
(base damage * .none-critrate)+ ((base critdamage+ addedcritdamage on gear and food)* critrate)
Base damage is 1. Base crit damage is 1.5, because critical hits add 50% damage. If you hit for 100 damage exactly every time you swung your weapon (like with a steady weapon in sPVP) and you had 0% crit damage, when you landed a crit, it would do 150 (this is easily testable by anyone, go try it if you dont believe me.)

We write all things crit by moving the decimal to the left 2 places. 112% crit damage is written as 1.12, 67% crit rate is written at .67, etc. This is because if you think about it, a 67% crit chance means 67% of your attacks will crit, If you attacked 100 times, 67 would be crits. You write that as “* .67” because thats how you determine 67% of something. 100 * .67 = 67

Now, where people tend to get confused is that they think things like + 5% crit damage is + 5% damage. But whakittens actually saying is “+ 5% of your base damage when you land a critical hit.” If we look at our earlier explanation where we have 100 base damage on every attack. If we had 20% crit damage, and added 5% more we would be hitting for 175 on our crits, because our base is 50%, and then we add 25%. 75% of 100 is 75, so 175. Now, look at that 5% you added. It moved you from 170 to 175, because it gave you + 5% of the 100. Not + 5% of the 170.
175/170=1.029411
5% crit damage in this instance only gives us a 2.941% damage increase, when we land a critical hit. If our critical hit rate was 50%, then that means only half of our attacks crit, so we only get that bonus half the time, so we multiply it by our crit chance to see thakittens only a
2.941 * .5=1.4705
1.47% damage increase from 5% crit damage, at 20% crit damage and 50% crit rate.

You need to keep in mind that this suffers from diminishing returns too. The more of it you have, the less useful adding more of it is. Allow me to show you, this is the problem to determine crit damage gains:
(1.5 + oldcritdamage + addedcritdamage) / (1.5 + oldcritdamage) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY * .critrate = %damage increase

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.

When you have 100%~ crit damage, and 50%~ crit rate (which is about average for standard balance build thief) you need 5%~ crit damage to gain + 1%~ overall damage.
Meanwhile these builds tend to have 2500~ power if built correctly, which means you need 25~ power to hit + 1% damage. For power you simply do
(oldpower + addedpower)/ oldpower = 1.XXYYY
XX.YYY= % damage increase
(2500 + 25)/ 2500 =1.01

Youd only need 20 power if you were closer to 2k power like the guy earlier I posted about, with his 2k power and 125 crit damage or whatever. For your average thief, 20~ power or 21 precision (+ 1% crit chance) is seriously worth the same as + 5% crit damage. People just have a hard time accepting that when they dont know/understand the underlying math.

The reason soldiers/berserkers mix wins over valkyrie, is because you dump 10% crit damage (2% damage) for 3.5% crit chance (which you push to 4% using correct infusions/trinkets). Each point of crit rate is basically worth 1% damage, so youre trading 2% damage for 4% damage. (this is trading all valk armor for soldiers hat/body/pants and berserker shoulders/gloves/boots)

For your specific build, lets determine what changes and solve for it.
Power and Crit damage change. So we we need to solve for power and crit modifier only. So we will take this:
(weapon damage * power * skill coefficient * crit modifier * % damage bonuses) / targets armor = damage
and dump everything that doesnt change to end up with this:
power * crit modifier = damage

So our final problem will be
(base power + bloodlust + (35 * average might stacks)) * ((none crit damage * none crit rate) + ((base crit damage + added crit damage) * crit rate)) = damage

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoaVlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-jkzAYLBRCCIZBiKAk8W0a2LgthioxqewUlJVXCrcDk9GwgD5NWWtMA6LA-w
This is also the way I would set up your gear. Trading the exotic ring to soldiers is better than the exotic body to soldiers. Exotic ring is a 16 stats per point of crit damage trade.

You (I even gave you 2 power infusions)
(2245 + 250 + (35 * 0)) * ((1 * .49) + ((1.5 + 1.01) * .51))= 4,416
Me
(2164 + 250 + (35 * 0)) * ((1 * .4) + ((1.5 + .98) * .6))= four thousand five hundred fifty seven.
Because these forums have downs syndrome and when I type out that number it says kitten.

As you can see, your power is higher than mine too. Power also suffers from diminishing returns, and we solved for 0 might stacks. So the more might you have, the more my set will win by.

Does it make sense now?

Also: just to point it out, the only difference in defense is we traded like 20 vit in your set for 25 toughness in mine. So the EHP is basically the same.

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

Well… um… I THINK it makes sense, and don’t take that the wrong way… it’s been a long time since I thought about math like this lol… but I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all that as I’m sure you’ve done it before.

/super basic attempt at stating what I think I learned…
Instead of having “too much” of something as is actually useful (power) reduce it, and add other things (toughness = survivability) but with more precision (crit chance) and the way the calculations actually work (the whole diminishing returns thing), DPS evens out or is actually higher than before. /brain is fried after work today

Kind of like a kid who takes too many AP/Honors classes and ends up with a lower GPA than another kid who took one or two less (regular/no AP or Honors) classes who got the same grades.. right?

I think I’m going to read up on diminishing returns too just to make sure I do understand that part haha.

Well I’ve already got zerk and valk sets… so what the kitten … time to spend some badges and get some soldiers.

Quite good fun! Last night I got the soldiers gear (except the ring.. vendor was contested and didn’t have enough laurels for ascended). Did a 3 v 4 (we were the 3) at a tower near enemy’s citadel.. we killed 2 that waypointed and came back for more.. they killed 1 of ours, so then it was 2v4. Me and a guardian vs a tanky warrior/DPS mes/and 2 others (don’t remember what they were cause they weren’t as good lol). But I could already tell my survivability was SO much better. They downed me once, but the guardian rallied me off a spike. Then they were focusing the guardian and downed him 2 or 3 times and I trololo’d them each time refuge ressing him. The battle was about 5 mins before they finally stabili-stomped the guard and I had to run. It was tough cause every kill, they waypointed and ran back to us.

I totally would have died much faster before re-gearing. Thanks again for the tips. Just gotta tighten up my skill usage and work on patience. (I timed a good headshot on a stunlock mace/shield-hundred blades warrior that made them run back into their tower to reset the fight LOL.)

A last word on bers(+soldiers) vs valk:
Valk is good, if you want to frontload your damage and have a guaranteed way to make that one big crit happen. Examples would be backstab builds or rangers with some weird remorseless maul SotH build. It’s also a nice addition to knight pieces but that’s more of a guardian thing to do.
for series of small hits(that is, pretty much all balanced builds focussing on physical damage), where there is no way to make each of them crit, berserker just pulls ahead, because it doesn’t put everything into one pot(crit damage) but rather distributes(again, assuming, you stuff some slots with soldiers to become beefier) them equally across precision and crit damage, which gives you more dps, because if you focussed on either of them, you’d get diminishing returns pretty soon.

Basically, Valkyrie if, and only if, you got a way to get the majority of your damage to crit – as in a 10-30-0-0-30 backstab build – or if you are heavily loaded on precision without having any crit damage, which, honestly, is pretty hard to do on a thief. Hats off to everyone who pulls this off in a serious build.
Else Bers/Soldiers is superior.

(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.

At work and don’t have time to really go through the details, but isn’t that as expected? You get a smaller percentage, but it’s applied to a larger base value, so you’re not really getting less damage out of it?

In other words, we could say the same thing about Power or any other stat. As you get more of it, any point you add is giving a smaller percentage benefit than the point before. That doesn’t mean that point is giving less absolute benefit than the one before, though.

Bovinity.8610:

(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.

At work and don’t have time to really go through the details, but isn’t that as expected?

It should be expected but its something most people dont realize.

Bovinity.8610:

You get a smaller percentage, but it’s applied to a larger base value, so you’re not really getting less damage out of it?

You get the same static number for 5% crit damage no matter how much crit damage you have. If youre base damage is 100, that 5% will always add 5. But that doesnt actually matter, because the only thing thats important is the end result. This formula is for determining damage gains, its used to see if you should stack more crit damage, or something else like power. The fact that 5 crit damage adds 5 damage doesnt actually matter. Its how much of the end result that damage is worth that matters.

Bovinity.8610:

In other words, we could say the same thing about Power or any other stat.

Yes, you can say that. Adding to whole numbers gives diminishing returns, subtracting from whole numbers gives increasing returns. If you read my thread I go over all of it and list the problems for determining gains from power, precision and crit damage.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/page/3#post2615780
This post.

Yeah, I remember your thread. It’s your fault that my bags are STILL full of these Candied Dragon Rolls. =D

They never spoil, why don’t they spoil?!!

This is something I have been looking in to.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUm6OHfy5E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFwKA-jEzAYLBRyCEhBgKAm8UWzeBM9B1HKiGreBTdGZ9pQq3oIa1CBIaLA-w

I’m not sure of the calculations, I do like theorycrafting but I’m not an elite mathematician like Wish. I just try to use the item nomenclature graph to help me get the best bang for my buck when it comes to raw stats vs crit dmg %.

I just though 3099 attk, 40 crit/100% cdmg, 2712 armor and 15k was pretty good.

to keep it short: It is always a l2p issue if you lose a 1v1 as a thief against any class.