Guild Wars 2

like the topic…

I really like to max my dmg however I feel like I will die too much without vit and toughness investment….

Since i run acrobatics. None

kyubi.3620:

Since i run acrobatics. None

This is the sole reason i cannot forgo acrobatics but i am very tempted to put points elsewhere…

Depends on your overall build and situation. Pve go all zerk. For WvW I prefer Traveler’s runes, and Power/Vit/Crit damage (Valkryie’s) gear. Zerk weapon’s and trinkets.

Why that? I mean Acrobatic trait line give vita but you gain a insane dodge and +10% damage when not full on endurance as well as might and vigor. Between acrobatics and shadow art i think choice should be obvious.

Running 25 20 0 25 0

I mean i dont run stealth at all fight entirely on dodge and damage with sword pistolwhip/infiltrator. Works well anytime, altrought i guess i cant escape a 50 player zerg the same as a D/P would but i didnt want to run stealth in the first place.

Toughness – None
It’s just not worth it imo. You need really much Tough to even feel some difference.

Vit – > I plan on adding some Power/Prec/Vit Items to my lv 80 equip.

The reason is simple: While condi damage ignores toughness, health actually saves you a lot more in this game. I can’t count the times my thief couldn’t stealth (and heal condis) fast enough and a condition – such as torment or poison killed me off.
While you don’t even notice toughness unless you invest pretty fcing much in it, your thief will thank you for every hp point he got later on.
Ah and if you invest in Prec – like every thief should – consider the trait that gives you 7% of your Prec as HP. It’s not thaaaat much but it’s much better to have 2k extra hp than to have none.

I have about ~15,000-16,000 health and ~2400 Armor at any given moment, depending on various bonuses and whether or not I am using Practiced Tolerance (which, as mentioned above, is very good). The majority of my bonus health comes from 30 Acrobatics. Toughness comes from full Knight’s Armor and a couple defensive trinkets.

This is for WvW.

Around 1,6k of vit and though. Useful during raids where dangerous kitten flies all over the place and thanks to valk/cava gear I didn’t have to sacrafice that much + 30 in SA gave me half of tough I have.

Thanks for the pointers

Now i’ll go and re think my build… was actually juggling between trickery or acrobatics for a S/P build also not knowing if I should put some vit or just glass cannon is fine..

Now from what i can see, unless i can invest a ton to toughness.. it is maybe not worth it

will go experimenting for a bit

Also Pulled between Signet of Malice or Withdrawl for #6…..

withdrawl has a nice dodge, low cd heal on demand… sometimes can use to escape sticky situations

but…

SOM has life on hit.. which is great for PW or even general AA…

signet of malice active heal kind of sucks, Unless you run might on signet its not even viable to begin with because you wont hit on every strike (especialy because PW is stationary and people arent total idiots as to stand into it at all time). Withdrawal heals better on active and provide an escape while actualy behing an instant cast wich isnt the case of the signet
It realy depends on how much damage you expect to take and how much you expect to hit your targets.

How much Toughness you need depends entirely on what you are doing, IMO. I need a moderate amount as a heavy Acrobatics Thief, because my primary survival mechanic is evasion. The ~2400 that I have is mostly so that I don’t get insta-blicked during evasion downtime, if I make a mistake, and to cut down in incidental damage in large fights.

On the other hand, P/D Thieves wearing full Dire can easily top 2900-3000+ Armor, which makes sense because they largely are tanking hits with their face, relying on stealth for healing, and fight via attrition.

It’s all about what you’re doing, and the risk that you find acceptable. It took me about a month and a half of roaming/zerging before I settled on my current mix (I used to have more health and less Armor).

Interceptor.2653:

How much Toughness you need depends entirely on what you are doing, IMO. I need a moderate amount as a heavy Acrobatics Thief, because my primary survival mechanic is evasion. The ~2400 that I have is mostly so that I don’t get insta-blicked during evasion downtime, if I make a mistake, and to cut down in incidental damage in large fights.

On the other hand, P/D Thieves wearing full Dire can easily top 2900-3000+ Armor, which makes sense because they largely are tanking hits with their face, relying on stealth for healing, and fight via attrition.

It’s all about what you’re doing, and the risk that you find acceptable. It took me about a month and a half of roaming/zerging before I settled on my current mix (I used to have more health and less Armor).

I take it you are condition damage?

kyubi.3620:

I take it you are condition damage?

Power-based. I run S/P + SB, with 0/10/0/30/30 and Lyssa Runes.

~2200-2300 armor 16-17k health. IMHO health is better for thief than heavy toughness investments. Why? Because condition damage ignores toughness, and we lack heavy condition clearing. If you want to avoid melting you need a good amount of vitality. We have medium armor so its not too bad there, although a good investment into Shadow arts really makes a difference even if it’s 20 points.

If you go into acrobatics or use valk gear, you can usually get a good enough vitality amount. There is no need to sit on 20+k health unless you have something special up your sleeves with valk and acrobatics full blown.

Vitality, I only run with the 20 points in the acrobatics line. Toughness, I’m running 30 in Shadow Arts and full apothecary gear. Just because I like seeing players freak out because their “easy target” non-stealthing thief hasn’t died yet. It’s quite funny to see 2-3 people actually RUN from a single thief who hasn’t stealthed.

NinjaEd.3946:

~2200-2300 armor 16-17k health. IMHO health is better for thief than heavy toughness investments. Why? Because condition damage ignores toughness, and we lack heavy condition clearing.

Some of us lack heavy condition clearing. Anyone who uses a Precision-based build can use Lyssa runes, and “remove all conditions and gain all boons” is about as heavy a condition clear as you’re going to get.

Withdraw + poultry soup is also a really strong condition clear if you can fit that heal into your build. Also, IS/IR hasn’t gone anywhere if you have a Sword, and anyone can slot Shadowstep or Signet of Agility. Reliable omni-condition clear is not necessarily limited to Shadow Arts.

Seeing as I personally run burst damage builds, none on my s/p thief, and for my D/D stab, I get toughness solely from 10 points in the Shadow Arts line as to get Infusion of Shadow.

It genuinely depends on your build, your surroundings, and identifying your weaknesses as a player.

I find vit more useful overall due to the inherent benefits it has in PvE content as well. As base health is reduced, the effectiveness of toughness goes down in almost every situation.

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

~2200-2300 armor 16-17k health. IMHO health is better for thief than heavy toughness investments. Why? Because condition damage ignores toughness, and we lack heavy condition clearing.

Some of us lack heavy condition clearing. Anyone who uses a Precision-based build can use Lyssa runes, and “remove all conditions and gain all boons” is about as heavy a condition clear as you’re going to get.

Withdraw + poultry soup is also a really strong condition clear if you can fit that heal into your build. Also, IS/IR hasn’t gone anywhere if you have a Sword, and anyone can slot Shadowstep or Signet of Agility. Reliable omni-condition clear is not necessarily limited to Shadow Arts.

SS is a 50 sec cooldown, I’d prefer using it for when I’m locked down by stuns vs using 2 stun breakers to clear conditions. I have used it in the past but to me its a more valuable stun breaker than condi clearing, simply because it moves you (position is key on thief)

I strongly dislike sword. It isn’t fast nor is it very fun to play imo. Kudos if you’ve found the enjoyment of it but with s/d or s/p I dislike it outside of pve. Signet of agility is just … lame lol. I wish it was a stun breaker vs endurance regen, endurance is much easier to get than stun breaking. I’ve actually been looking into the scented poultry soup food (100% 1 condi clear on healing skill), as I can control it a little better and for skills like withdraw, Its quick. Lyssa runes don’t fit into every build, even for how good they are. Not saying condi clear is absent on thief, simply saying they need to invest to take care of it while classes like warrior guardian ranger and even engineer don’t need to worry as much (stronger condi clearing skills, some of it passive, higher health pool/defence rating or both.) Still vitality is more suitable than going into something like knights and having 3k+ toughness but very little health for the sake of the condi meta.

So in other words, when you say “we lack heavy condition clearing”, what you really meant was “I don’t like having to make hard choices in order to get condition clear”.

Because we have a ton of heavy condition clearing.

By losing damage to get them, yes. You’re also talking about a rune set up, a food set up, and specific skills, basically leading to a build set up. Not everyone follows the same boat, some people actually go far into CS or SA and don’t use sword. Some people don’t use withdraw with lyssa or scented pultry soup, some don’t use BV. It’s not all lined up for all builds to have your version of “heavy condi clearing”.

NinjaEd.3946:

You’re also talking about a rune set up, a food set up, and specific skills, basically leading to a build set up. Not everyone follows the same boat, some people actually go far into CS or SA and don’t use sword. Some people don’t use withdraw with lyssa or scented pultry soup, some don’t use BV. It’s not all lined up for all builds to have your version of “heavy condi clearing”.

Shadowstep is completely build-agnostic.
Lyssa and Signet of Agility are useful in all Precision-based builds.
Poultry Soup is usable by literally everyone, it just gets better with certain Heals.

I did not even mention Shadow’s Embrace or Pain Response, specifically because they are trait-reliant. SE in particular is extremely useful for a lot of Thief builds.

If you find yourself lacking condition removal on any Thief build, chances are you are making some poor decisions. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t use more (I’d like condi removal on AR, personally), but it does exist for those that open their eyes.

Interceptor.2653:

kyubi.3620:

I take it you are condition damage?

Power-based. I run S/P + SB, with 0/10/0/30/30 and Lyssa Runes.

Having no trait in the power line must be quite harmfull to your total damage.
30 in acrobatics serve little use but allow for assasin reward initiative on swap or a little more vitality. I dont recall having initiative problem right now.

If I’m a power build and I want more damage and more condi clearing, I have to make a choice. I can’t get high spike damage and still clense myself of all DoT and be beefy with high mobility. it doesn’t work, no matter how one looks at it.

If I want really high dps, I want 30 into CS. 40 points remain. Now I want mobility with substantial evasion, 15 into acrobatics at the least (leave it at 15 so I don’t need to do X-X values). 25 Points remain, go into SA most likely because the toughness as well as more condi clearing as well as some extra might. That’s just an example, not what I run. And I’m using dagger because backstab is quicker and safer to get off than trying to get pw which can be negated by stability as well as blind (for the stun part) and even retaliation. I can use SoM to help cover some of that up but now I don’t have the mobility of withdraw nor the condi cleanse of it.

Point being, I have to choose what I want and I’m not going to be able to get all the flavors at once. I don’t think anyone on any profession can, there is always going to be some soft spot in a build. It’s not poor decisions its just plain and simple decisions.

kyubi.3620:

Having no trait in the power line must be quite harmfull to your total damage.

I do alright. I have high Fury uptime, decent crit rate/damage, and the 10 points in CS gives access to Signets of Power, so I’ll slot that in for when I need some offense. I nearly always have Infiltrator’s Signet and Signet of Agility, so that’s 350 Power for 13s when I really need it badly.

When I am not overly concerned about conditions, I’ll use Power food. I carry about 5-6 different types of food around with me, so that I can adjust.

30 in acrobatics serve little use but allow for assasin reward initiative on swap or a little more vitality. I dont recall having initiative problem right now.

It also gives 30% boon duration, which is under-rated. I get three stacks of 26s Might for blasting Fire fields, for example, I have perma-Vigor, perma-Swiftness, and Lyssa’s #4 usually means I’m running around with a lot of boons just on general principle.

tl;dr, I can still blow up squishies, and against harder targets I do enough damage to apply pressure, so it’s good enough to win fights. Worthwhile investment for the condition removal.

i have 25 in acrobatics my question is why you run 30 for when you could put the 5 last elsewhere cept i guess that since you also run the 0 0 0 0 30 you kind of cant put them in crit strike or in deadly art without taking something useless. Since i always swim around 3 to 10 initiative i dont realy have a need for the steal tree. Now im pondering if you wouldnt be better puting those 5 point into critical strike instead for opportunist. Not my business to tell people what to do what ill still put in my analysis when it comes to stat win and loss

While bountifull thief can be usefull for vigor along with trill of the crime to self proc fury deadly art gives a good + 10% damage already just from having a random condition, if i also proc vulnerability and a bonus damage on dual attack I likely can highly increase the damage my pistol whip does (thats without counting in the power bonus) by a large amount and my average damage as well. If party dont give fury i can always proc it via furious retaliation but its a 30 second cooldown and it works only if target is at 50% hp.

I guess while your build has more chance to crit since of fury and the ability to self proc more vigor while stealing boons you actualy need to sacrifice a certain amount of damage.

NinjaEd.3946:

If I’m a power build and I want more damage and more condi clearing, I have to make a choice. I can’t get high spike damage and still clense myself of all DoT and be beefy with high mobility. it doesn’t work, no matter how one looks at it.

Who the heck are you arguing with? Nobody is saying any of this stuff. Builds are about choices; I’ve said it myself a hundred times.

kyubi.3620:

i have 25 in acrobatics my question is why you run 30 for when you could put the 5 last elsewhere cept i guess that since you also run the 0 0 0 0 30 you kind of cant put them in crit strike or in deadly art without taking something useless

Since I also run 30 Trickery, I don’t like 15 in any other line more than I do the extra 500 health, 5% boon duration, and AR.

Opportunist is not good, so CS is out unless I really like 2.4% crit and +5 crit damage (and I do not).

Shadows Art is no good: I don’t use stealth. Slowed Pulse is the only thing I might care about, but it’s not good enough.

Deadly Arts is OK, but I don’t use Mug generally (sometimes I do, though). Lotus Poison is nice as the 15th point, but I already have a Weakness on Sword’s auto-attack chain, so it’s somewhat duplicative. This is the closest contender for 15 points, I guess, but giving up Prec/crit for Power is a side-grade at best in terms of damage.

Well i guess its realy depending if yes or not trickery is actualy usefull. I just dont happen to run it to begin with

Interceptor.2653:

NinjaEd.3946:

If I’m a power build and I want more damage and more condi clearing, I have to make a choice. I can’t get high spike damage and still clense myself of all DoT and be beefy with high mobility. it doesn’t work, no matter how one looks at it.

Who the heck are you arguing with? Nobody is saying any of this stuff. Builds are about choices; I’ve said it myself a hundred times.

You said im making bad choices in my build, when really its just choices. No add ons to that, I can’t spike and have the survivability of a sword/x acrobatics thief in wvw group fights. I’ll lose one thing or the other in various amounts, it will still be there but not in its fullest. My build has condi clearing, it doesn’ have the kind you speak of though because I went for more offence. If I went more defence I would lose that offence, in the end I won’t be where I want to be and that’s fine. Feeding my skills I already know of isn’t solving my problem as much as changing it.

Food swapping seems rather undecisive for a build, even if it can be used in combat. Especially if you go from wvw to pvp where there is no food. Don’t mistake it for a lack of coordination, I can follow a zerg and clean up a camp with TP open while I’m looking for a weapon skin, its just I don’t think food is meant to be flexible to that kind of degree let alone reasonable (some foods are 8+ silver each)

kyubi.3620:

Well i guess its realy depending if yes or not trickery is actualy usefull. I just dont happen to run it to begin with

I find it valuable. someday ANet will realize that Bountiful Theft + Daze on Steal is silly OP, but until that day, I will continue to use it. Since it also has Thrill of the Crime, that takes some of the sting out of losing damage from other lines.

NinjaEd.3946:

You said im making bad choices in my build, when really its just choices.

I said that if you can’t find heavy condition removal on Thief, that you aren’t really looking for it.

Food swapping seems rather undecisive for a build […]

This is why I do better than other people; finding edges at the margins that others don’t take advantage of.

Interceptor.2653:

Food swapping seems rather undecisive for a build […]

This is why I do better than other people; finding edges at the margins that others don’t take advantage of.

Still doesn’t work in spvp though. Thief in s/tpvp is highly overrated, which is where most of my concerns lie.

As of right now there is no point to invest anything into defense for a thief. They scale so well with damage, even with some hp and toughness.. they are still squishy.

It’s mostly about trait allocations.

30 in Shadow Arts give you a lot of Stealth, condition cleanse/heals/blinds on stealth, 300 toughness + healing, and pretty much makes you unkillable as long as you’re aware and uses your utility on time.

Usually 0/30/30/10/0, 0/20/30/20/0, or 0/30/20/20/0 with Valkyrie armor/Zerk trinkets is as bulky as you can get without losing too much DPS. I’d use those if you’re starting as thief and proceed to more DPS builds such as 10/30/0/0/30 or 25/30/x/x/x once you’re comfortable with anticipating attacks.

While one does dungeon runs, won’t more toughness get you more agro → more death ?

^ Not really, considering much of our trait allocations in toughness gives us more stealth, one can’t really be targeted if in stealth. Unless in stacked fights, but you’d be giving out blind fields in that situation anyways so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Thank you all, maybe my internet is not suitable for the 25/30/x/x/x builds…

Intercepters build does interest me though as I see you dont even have mug and still do decent dps.. maybe i can give it a try

Noliver.1475:

Thank you all, maybe my internet is not suitable for the 25/30/x/x/x builds…

Intercepters build does interest me though as I see you dont even have mug and still do decent dps.. maybe i can give it a try

I sometimes run with Mug. It depends on whether I am alone or not, usually. If I’m roaming with someone who has good damage, I’ll run 10 DA for the poison-on-Steal and Mug. I use Knight’s armor with mostly Zerker trinkets (Soldier’s here and there).

Build is not suitable for things like dungeons, IMO: this is just something I use in WvW. The damage drop-off compared to full glass is too severe to justify for killing brainless monsters that are easy to dodge. I keep a zerker suit for that, and run the 25/30/whatever build.

Still think that since you run 30 in trickery youd be somewhat well started if you wanted to run it as a CD build instead of power.

I don’t really like the condition options for Thief. You either have P/D or D/D (or both), and they each have problems. P/D needs stealth in order to make the pressure game work (and CnD is notoriously tricky to land), and D/D is super-predictable (AKA counterable) in addition to lacking Torment access. And if you combine both to cover the weaknesses of each, now you can’t use a Shortbow, which is a huge negative in my opinion.

More power to the people that do it, but it isn’t for me.

Zero. Our healing is too low for toughness to make a difference to sustained survivability, or for vitality to make any difference. When I screw up, I die, def stat or no. When I don’t screw up, I live, def stat or no. So I throw everything into offense to reduce the time within which I am at risk of screwing up.

I run celestials for my elementalist, cleric+sentinel for my guardian, etc etc. There is a place for survivability, but the way the thief class is built survivability stats don’t really help anywhere as much.

I run S/P though. The cc on demand and pistol whip’s evade completely nullify damage in the relevant scenarios.

kyubi.3620:

signet of malice active heal kind of sucks, Unless you run might on signet its not even viable to begin with because you wont hit on every strike (especialy because PW is stationary and people arent total idiots as to stand into it at all time). Withdrawal heals better on active and provide an escape while actualy behing an instant cast wich isnt the case of the signet
It realy depends on how much damage you expect to take and how much you expect to hit your targets.

In PvE SoM is BiS, Mobs do stand still, Mobs have slow attacks, you can group 5 mobs together, Caltrops + PW + SoM = you will never die in PvE.

No need for Toughness/Vit in PvE.

Pvp and WvW different stories.

Im glass cannon and i run withraw. This has no link with signet of malice passive behing good or not it just happen i dont take that enought damage as to die or be concerned for so little as a pve mob auto attack. I wouldnt use signet of malice in pvp at all to begin with.

Interceptor.2653:

I have about ~15,000-16,000 health and ~2400 Armor at any given moment, depending on various bonuses and whether or not I am using Practiced Tolerance (which, as mentioned above, is very good). The majority of my bonus health comes from 30 Acrobatics. Toughness comes from full Knight’s Armor and a couple defensive trinkets.

This is for WvW.

I also aim for those numbers. Any more and I feel like I lose the power to push people off of me. All my trinkets are zerk and H/C/L of my armor are PTV while the rest are zerk. Zerk weapons as well (D/D + SB). The rest of my toughness/vitality come from being 0/30/25/15/0 with practiced tolerance thrown in there too.

2190 armor and … 19k health I think.

Armor doesn’t matter much, but health helps.

Right now in WvW there are two viable builds. Condition damage or anti-condition damage.

Instead of having a focus on armor/health, try getting all the condition cleansing you can (except lyssa, since I find traveller more versatile, because you can always use something else in the utility slot). Pain response, shadows embrace, sigils of generosity, shadow step and condition duration reduction food. Then you’re set to go and you won’t miss the armor.

Personally, I have never felt like going high toughness on a thief or cloth wearer really made up for the damage reduction in comparison to my warrior or guardian. With saying that, I I removed all of my toughness gear and went full berserker/valk and have nearly 18k health while still maintaining a high amount of attack and crit and feel very comfortable with it. What this means is that I rely heavily on stealth, blinds, and mobility to negate my damage. It’s very risky but I enjoy the playstyle.

Back when thief was better, you could run Soldier’s ammie (sPvP) easily.

Nowadays, they’re simply not strong enough to use anything short of Zerker. Any less DPS and you simply become an extremely underpowered warrior.

Personally, I’m okay with that. As a player I’ve become more aggressive over the past few months anyways, and I prefer to play my thief dynamically rather than statically. I reserve static play for my mesmer and guardian.

Arganthium.5638:

Back when thief was better, you could run Soldier’s ammie (sPvP) easily.

Nowadays, they’re simply not strong enough to use anything short of Zerker. Any less DPS and you simply become an extremely underpowered warrior.

Personally, I’m okay with that. As a player I’ve become more aggressive over the past few months anyways, and I prefer to play my thief dynamically rather than statically. I reserve static play for my mesmer and guardian.

…unless you’re running a sword build that already has 30 in CS. At that point the risks outweigh the benefits, and you’re no longer gaining much damage and sacrificing all survivability. It’s still completely viable to run a soldier’s amulet as a thief in sPvP. Nothing has changed with the way we fundamentally function.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Arganthium.5638:

Back when thief was better, you could run Soldier’s ammie (sPvP) easily.

Nowadays, they’re simply not strong enough to use anything short of Zerker. Any less DPS and you simply become an extremely underpowered warrior.

Personally, I’m okay with that. As a player I’ve become more aggressive over the past few months anyways, and I prefer to play my thief dynamically rather than statically. I reserve static play for my mesmer and guardian.

…unless you’re running a sword build that already has 30 in CS. At that point the risks outweigh the benefits, and you’re no longer gaining much damage and sacrificing all survivability. It’s still completely viable to run a soldier’s amulet as a thief in sPvP. Nothing has changed with the way we fundamentally function.

No.

Warriors have 8k health and 147 more toughness (in the form of armor) than we do. That’s the equivalent of 182.65% of our base defensive stats. Warriors are already far, far ahead of us in terms of defensive ability, and when you combine that with the fact that warriors also have Cleansing Ire, HealSig, and Adrenal Health, there is absolutely no reason to run Soldier’s Amulet over Zerker on a thief. You might as well just roll a warrior.

On the other hand, though warrior might have better defense that thief, naturally, thief might have, say, offense that’s 82.65% better than Warrior’s (which it most certainly isn’t, at least for average or even high skill levels- only on extremely high skill levels, possibly). That is, however, for thieves to prove and Warriors to test. But if thief’s offensive capabilities are not greater than warrior’s defensive capabilities, then thieves have a theoretical disadvantage against warriors, and that is, quite simply, an inarguable point. In which case there is no competitive reason for us to run thief, but instead we ought to run warrior.

The point is that there are economic diminishing returns on all forms of defense, so once us thieves have a little bit of defense, say, from evasion, stealth, and/or base stats, we’ve already markedly depleted the marginal benefit of additional defensive stats. On the other hand, our offensive stats are the exact same as all other classes, save for our skill coefficients and, particularly for us thieves, our skill regeneration system. Unlike defensive stats, by which each point of toughness or vitality you take reduces the effect of every other point of toughness/vitality (up to the point where an additional point of either of those is worthless), weapon coefficients and skill recharges actually enhance the benefit from offensive stats, simply because they 1) allow them to scale better in the damage equation, and 2) allow us to maximize damage done (and, in fact, minimize damage taken) more effectively.

We simply have to hope that our combined defensive and offensive capabilities are greater than those of our opponents by assuming that our defense is already high enough and that our offense is high enough to make their multiplied value greater than those of other classes. Currently, given the situation with our base stats, I think it’s safe to say that we absolutely must invest into offensive stats, hoping they’re amplified by our weapon coefficients and skill recharges enough to put us on par with other classes.

Arg, it’s pointless trying to lecture me on the mechanics and diminishing returns of stats. We both know that the Berserker Amulet in PvP doesn’t provide nearly as much damage opportunity as the gear can in PvE, and thusly most damage stats come from trait lines, ala Critical Strikes. I’ve run both on my S/P team build and the damage increase is minimal while the survivability is drastically reduced. In most situations, however, I will agree that Berserker is the optimal choice. In my particular case – which is what I was arguing for – the extra defensive stats are necessary due to the lack of stealth my build has to lean on when things get heated.

I think you’re trying to argue more along the lines of WvW/PvE, to be honest. Any buildcrafter who’s been at it since launch knows that the diminishing returns in PvP are extremely limited due to the nature of the limited amount of stats per amulet, mitigating the effectiveness of going full out due to the limits of each build and the statistics that coincide. Bunkers are a bit of a different story due to how crit damage scales in PvP and their lack thereof, so keep in mind that this is about crit damage sets and setups themselves.

Aside from that, stop comparing the thief to the warrior. We’re not warriors, period. They’re the most powerful class in the game currently, and we’re one of the weakest. That comparison just doesn’t cut it when you’re trying to talk balance of any sort.

Back on topic, the only time I would ever run a full berserker setup is when running a backstab build, where with a sword build you’re focusing on sustained damage rather than direct burst and shouldn’t be concerned about hitting hard when your damage isn’t front loaded, and you need to stay alive to burn an enemy or enemies down using that cleave.

kyubi.3620:

Since i run acrobatics. None

same here. acro is better than what most people give it credit for.

NinjaEd.3946:

You said im making bad choices in my build, when really its just choices.

That was about condition clearing, if conditions are a problem the build needs more cleansing, if you don’t add it in, while having trouble with conditions, you are making bad choices. I think that was the reasoning.