Guild Wars 2

I’d like to hear some toughts on toughness.

I’m currently in Exotic Knight’s gear, with over 1600+ toughness.

What’s up with everyone going glass canon? In all traits, stat build i see everyone going for power/prec/crit over toughness or vit.

Aren’t we a melee class, that also can take a hit or two?

On my thief I run Carrion for the vitality and condition damage. Looking to get a crit damage version via Valkyrie and probably knights, as it gives precision and defense stats.

I value vitality as more valuable than toughness. My reasoning for this is as a thief you are not looking to survive several hits, but instead those 1 or 2 hits which would generally one hit you. You’re also going to be eating harass from conditions a fair bit, which toughness doesn’t help with at all.

For traits I run 10/10/0/20/30. This is to allow myself to obtain a little bit of extra damage, the extra crit and 5% precision into vitality, and then the full condition damage and vitality/dodge benefits.

I agree that too many thieves go full class cannon, admittedly I would love to do the same. My friends however would probably not appreciate it.

Conclusion: I feel vitality is better than toughness. Toughness is more of a damage reduction tool for me, something which allows you to take more hits. As a thief I don’t expect to get hit too much, but there is always going to be the random condition or attack which hits me, and I want to be able to survive that. Also note that thieves have the lowest base health in the game (so I’m told), so the initial vitality boost will also grant more benefits there than toughness

TL;DR imo vitality before toughness

In WvW and PvE I too go for a more mixed set rather than all out glass cannon.

I too prefer Vitality to Toughness but both are equally viable. The more you have of both, the better they are.

I’m a condition thief and would love to use some toughness but I can’t find any vit/tough/condition gear. Toughness not so great if it’s not with some vit and condition builds need all the condition dmg you can get so, Carrion it is I guess..

Its all good but building toughness/vitality with a normal build just wont work seeing as the ratio for our damage is totally off. Build tanky and your not going to hit very high, therefor being forced to play a condition build. If you want to play a reliable damage build then with toughness its just not possible. I think this is a bit of an issue with thiefs, you go glass cannon and your damage is huge, start to dumb that down and try to using something in a balanced range of tanky and damage and there’s just not enough damage to take someone down before they take you down, we really don’t scale well with defensive builds unless going condition and personally thief condition build is boring to play.

our main source of survivability is from increased ability to dodge, stealth, or blinds.

all of these are total damage avoidance techniques. Toughness on a thief is a safety net, if you do everything right you shouldn’t take much damage anyway. If you want to survive Vitality is a better choice, but the class does suit being glass cannon more so than any other.

I run full Knights + Vital/Pow/Tough for my trinkets. Use Wurm on my armor slots and double Bloods for weapons. 30 crit, 20 Shadow & 20 Acro. Malice, Shadow, Power & Prec signets w/ T Guild.

I’m exceptionally difficult to kill and do more than enough dmg to take down bunker Guards, Mesmers & Engis.

This idea that you “go DPS or go home” is a myth.

Superior rune of the undead might be interesting for a condition damage / toughness build :

(1): +28 Condition Damage
(2): +15 Toughness
(3): +55 Condition Damage
(4): +35 Toughness
(5): +100 Condition Damage
(6): 5% of Toughness becomes Condition Damage

Invader/Orr armor (power/vit/tough) with Knights trinkets.

For WvW and 30 in Acro and Trickery your survivability will be amazing. With nearly 3k attack and 50% crit with fury up, your damage will not be that low.

Add a little bit of sustain and you’ve just made your effective hitpoints sky-rocket.

Thieves – with the right build – can keep vigor up almost 100%, making dodging an almost constant and never-ending annoyance for anyone trying to focus you down. Throw in your condition removal and stun breaks/teleports for extra lulz.

AoE weakness and AoE blind from your self created combo fields and the best spammable blast finisher in the game can turn you into a zerg busting machine that can take the focus and aoe damage of several people.

Oh, and you can laugh at any glass cannon build as their burst will not take you down as long as you are paying some attention.

Grolm.7410:

Superior rune of the undead might be interesting for a condition damage / toughness build :

(1): +28 Condition Damage
(2): +15 Toughness
(3): +55 Condition Damage
(4): +35 Toughness
(5): +100 Condition Damage
(6): 5% of Toughness becomes Condition Damage

I looked at this when I hit 80. The problem is only 5% of condition dmg is converted to actual dmg per tick on bleeds. So with 2K toughness you get 100 condition dmg which gives you 5/tick.

Not the worst thing ever but when you compare to stacking bleed duration or something it just doesn’t keep up.

Kyus.3812 is right the toughness just doesn’t cut it your main defense is you cant be seen or cant be hit or both. Vitality helps you from getting ticked to death when they land or burned down by crits.

Toughness does indeed cut it, it is awesome, and the best players will learn how to stack it and still do damage. Too many threads downing it’s effectiveness, but I can tell you as a Thief who plays for 6-8 hours a night, that death is not something I experience often. Skill is a factor, but I couldn’t do it without making all those attacks do so much less damage overall, and not being a target dummy to burst spec enemy players.

Power/Toughness/Vitality is PvP gear for a reason, and you still hit like a truck if done right.

Yes, this is because Power is still by far the best DPS stat, adding significantly more DPS per point than any other stat.

I do High power, moderate crit, with a mix of vit/toughness for defense. Personally the glass cannon build is ok. It does high dmg, but any mistakes and your screwed.

That being said, I personally value the vit/tough cause Ive never been out right killed, even by glass cannon builds. I get hit hard, sure, but I survive long enough to disappear and recuperate.