Guild Wars 2

Conski Deshan.2057:

Bumbler.7581:

Staff build potential:“http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/”

Additionally, setting aside the staff and examining lightning hammer. With 25 might and like 10 stacks of vulnerability, my lightning hammer crits go something like 6-8k, 6-8k, 10-14k. This damage is done in the same amount of time as a warrior’s 100b and is comparable damage, if not greater since I can do this for 25-30 seconds.

I went to cursed shore just now and have equipped my full zerker, and my traits are Identical to the ones displayed on the “balanced” build in the post you linked, I had to change the runes from scholar from air, which seems to leave me with 1% more critical damage and 100 less power.
2096 power 3262 attack
1805 pre 66% crit
80% crit damage
I ran up to a few mobs planted lava font and fired off a burst to get fury, damage did not go above 3k on crits? (also this method grants no might?)

edit: taking the second blast heal and using both blasts give me 6 stacks , still not helping to anywhere near the numbers claimed?

What food/potions and sigils are you using? Why runes of the air? Using them over scholars loses somewhere around (guesstimate) 9.7% damage.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Clumsy.6257:

Speaking from a PvE-only perspective, it seems like you don’t really don’t understand the elementalist. They have to be squishy and have low HP to counteract the insane damage output. And just as a tip, drop the celestial. Its literally the worst set in the game. If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.

After 1000 hours I am quite sure I understand how the elementalist works,
I have no issue with them being squishy I’ve come to expect that in every game. Their damage output is however not insane, as an aside I did run a full Zerker build but I am currently trying out celestial, the gain in survivability is quite comparable and as you’re not loosing any critical multiplier with celestial the damage drop is quite low.

Clumsy.6257:

“If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.”

That statement is completely untrue, celestial gear has a higher total stat gain per item so logically could not happen.

Apparently you don’t if you can’t see how high the elementalist’s damage is. On single targets thief and mesmer (with 3 phantasms) are close seconds. Taking cleave into account or bosses with large hit-boxes, elementalists are so far ahead there is literally no comparison.

A bezerker staff Elementalist will in no way do comparable damage, aoe or single target to that of a bezerker warrior. I played in full Zerker for quite a while and never saw a damage packet hit 10k , or 6k , I believe the most I saw in regular play (i.e not a FGS against a wall) would be from the FGS, where the skill 1 attack sequence did 7k damage.

As for party considerations, my concern is solo ability both in PvE and PvP, especially with Pvp, which is the idea of class balance.
An elementalist can self stack reasonable to 12 stacks of might, which adds maybe 600 damage to an attack?.

Before you continue on your largely uninformed tirade, you should know that warriors are closer to the bottom than they are to the top of the dps chart. Please refer to http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/88754-updated-profession-pve-dps-rankings/ to see that its not just me that says this. You weren’t using full berserker if your lava fonts weren’t even ticking for 6k. Using full rare berserker armor/trinkets my lava fonts tick for over 6k.

Speaking from a PvE-only perspective, it seems like you don’t really don’t understand the elementalist. They have to be squishy and have low HP to counteract the insane damage output. And just as a tip, drop the celestial. Its literally the worst set in the game. If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.

First and foremost, who told you the meta was 4 warriors and a guardian? The real meta has never been and will never be 4 warriors. The pug meta used to include 4 warriors because a mediocre warrior will always be more useful than a mediocre player using another class. Warriors are now reduced to banner mules in organized groups because of their severe lack of contribution. And thief will always have a place in the meta. No other class can bring the same amount of aoe blinds and aoe stealth.

Black Box.9312:

Berserker gear is most definitely not the be all, end all in WvW. You need to have either very high burst potential or a good line of secondary defenses to be able to survive against a good player, especially one in defensive gear that can outlast you in combat otherwise.

This advice is very useful because the title “PvE, Dungeons, and Damage gear.” is most definitely referring to WvW.

1: What mode do you prefer? pve

2: How long have you been a thief? BWE1

3: Compared to when you started, how long can you stay logged on to your thieve? same amount of time as release day

4: If you started a thief now, would it be as much fun as launch? why? No, the thought of a new character after just having #15 and #16 hit 80 is painful

5 : Do you Agree with direction of the balance team? PvE thieves are one of the few things the balance team has actually done a good job with. They’re (nearly) perfectly balanced and have been, for the most part, unchanged since late 2012.

Interceptor.2653:

^ There is basically no supporting your assertion that PvE Thief hasn’t been nerfed in over a year. You ought to walk that one back if you want to have your opinion taken seriously.

I couldn’t find release notes for October, November and December of 2012. Also, I left out the months that didn’t contain any profession-specific balance notes. Some months had 2 updates. We did have 1 major nerf, 4 seconds of revealed, but that was reverted a long time ago.

January 2013 – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-January-28-2013
February 2013 – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-February-26-2013/first#post1639231
March 2013 – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-March-26-2013/first#post1856151
April 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/launcher/april-30-2013-flame-and-frost-retribution/
May 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/last-stand-at-southsun/
June 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/june-11-content-release-notes/
July 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/july-23-content-release-notes/
August 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/queens-jubilee-release-notes/
August – 2013 https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/clockwork-chaos-release-notes/
September 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/release-notes-for-super-adventure-box-back-to-school/
October 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/release-notes-for-blood-and-madness/
October 2013 – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/release-notes-for-tower-of-nightmares/

Sword 2 should never be used in combat, its a waste of initiative. Those traits should absolutely never be used in PvE. But since you mentioned them, I’m guessing you use them so you’ve also thrown efficiency out the window so why would you care about buffs/nerfs. (edit:) Just to clarify, I said pve thieves not all thieves.

Excalibur.9748:

Waiting for Clumsy and pals to tell you thief is fine if not OP in dungeons, and that you should never ever be getting hit even when multi tasking and that you need to L2P.

Guess I shouldn’t disappoint then. But first.

Travlane.5948:

anet? are you there? are you reading this anet? please can understand the plight of thieves now? STOP NERFING US!

I’m not sure if you realize this but pve thieves haven’t been nerfed since assassin’s signet was cut to 15% for 5 attacks. And even that could be considered a buff/nerf combo. That was over a year ago.

Facepunch.5710:

snip

You’ve been spoiled by warrior. If you want to play a thief in full berserkers prepare to relearn every fight in the game. Your going to have to learn how to dodge everything. Of course you’d have to do this on really any class that isn’t a warrior or guardian. Some general advice though: take advantage of blind fields (s/p + smokescreen) because they make you invincible to most trash mobs.

edit:

I get that you don’t agree with Clumsy et al, but honestly I have no problem with being told to L2P as long as that is accompanied by some suggestions. Or if the answer is simply ‘never miss a dodge’ then that’s fine, I’ll just never be that kind of perfect player.

Thank you all who commented.

Didn’t see this post. Unless your adamant on using a thief then you’d be better off sticking to your warrior. If you start sacrificing armor and traits for more survivability then you’ll start losing damage fast and probably end up doing more damage on your warrior.

Sparrow.5936:

I can’t believe I’m about to reply to this, especially since your general attitude is pretty miserable. Not sure why you are resistant to the idea of improving something. I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Other classes are way too easy to play. Why are they easy? Think about it… I’ll give you a hint, it’s what this thread is about!I’d like to see the actual math to support this. Maybe you’re assuming that you are attacking a stationary target that isn’t fighting back. But I think you have to take into the account the amount of time you have to put into dodging and evading and what not. Where a warrior can keep up more consistent DPS in an actual fight without having to worry as much about being 1 shotted. (assuming you are in zerker gear).

You seem to be misinterpreting. I’m not against brainstorming ideas to improve something. I’m against making this class easy because in turn Anet would balance us out to be much weaker. And most importantly back to what the OP was complaining about, all classes are balanced, except necromancer. Its about trade-offs. You say that some classes are easier. They are. They’re also weaker. Thief and elementalist are both top tier damage and have a good bit utility but because of that higher damage they are made to be much squishier. On the other hand, you have warriors who have a strong offensive support in the form of banners but have mediocre damage to be balance out the heavier armor, blocks, and healing signet. Apparently you seem to think that thieves deserve the same survivability of the warrior while maintaining our superior damage. I’m not going to provide you with any math. Do it yourself. I did it myself. Just to point out this tiny little factor, if a thief has to dodge but a warrior doesn’t, then the warrior takes a hit and will be below 90% hp and lose a 10% damage bonus so a warrior is going to be dodging just as much as a thief.

edit:Disclaimer: currently thieves support abilities (stealth) are useless due to a certain consumable that provides permanent stealth, because of this a thief really has no place in the current meta until that consumable is nerfed, an elementalist would be a much better option providing your group isn’t cheap and will spend ~3g and buy a stack of them

Arrow.4619:

snip

Just to provide a little background information that renders your argument invalid, pve and s/tpvp are split balance-wise. While the cluster bomb nerf was a little odd it didn’t change anything for fractals/dungeons and a thief could never “hound players at range” in pvp due to cluster bomb’s slow moving arc. If your having trouble with the golem in 900 range then either your not paying attention or your lagging so badly that you can’t see whats happening. I do agree that 1200 range would make open world pve easier to afk and that thieves should have this option. However thieves have never had a 1200 range auto attack, only the worlds slowest projectile that’s about as inaccurate as North Korea’s missiles.

Everybody knows running around a boss in circles like headless chickens shows true skills.

Travlane.5948:

Clumsy.6257:

Stooperdale.3560:

“You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.”

You should probably stop posting on forums if you’re giving helpful advice like that.

Someone using p/p is obviously not listening to advice so why should he give it?

p/p is amazing. u just dont know :P

Yes because in my extensive experience I’ve yet to realize that wasting 5 initiative on 20k makes a set amazing.

Zoid.2568:

If you go Dagger/Pistol you can get single target blindness and also AoE blindness + that smoke field. Will make you tougher.

Congratulations! By understanding this simple tactic your now in the top 1% of thieves.

Arrow.4619:

If thieves are so OP in PvE there ought to be tons of them – right?

Absolutely not. The most popular class is always going to be the easiest. After that you have to consider what the majority of the population actually does. In this case the majority likes to run around in open world zergs, a 1200 range-fest.

Arrow.4619:

Better yet, go to an event – any world event and do the same survey. Do it enough times and you get the same result pretty consistently. What is it that all those players don’t know about how wonderfully OP the thief class is?

How is the number of a class a representation of how strong a class is? If anything, its a representation of how easy a class is. And I’m not sure about the population of TC but it can’t be as many as Blackgate and we have plenty of thieves running around.

Arrow.4619:

Oh and just for the heck of it: while your at it just to prove the thief’s PvE OPness try the Inquest Golem event Mount Maelstrom (I hope you about a 10 ms ping and no noticeable lag. Have fun!.

Is this supposed to be hard? Now I see why your having so much trouble with your thief. It might be somewhat difficult if I solo it.

Amiron.1067:

Does anyone have any records of highest possible dps for both Warrior and Thief? Because, when it’s said and done, I really don’t feel like my thief does that much less dps than my warrior. In fact, I feel like my Thief has more burst damage than my warrior. Both are in full zerkers, as well.

Thief barely outdamages a warrior. With cleave. With d/d you should be close to doubling a warriors damage.

ive tried going routes like this in explaining it. they just dont let it sink in. between the trolls and thief haters….it just …. wont sink in. excellent points tho.
heres another… check the LFG status. they actually have “no thieves plz” in the lfg status.

And how does that represent a classes ability to perform well? That just shows how bad the average thief is and why most people believe thief is UP.

Stooperdale.3560:

“You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.”

You should probably stop posting on forums if you’re giving helpful advice like that.

Someone using p/p is obviously not listening to advice so why should he give it?

Amaterasu.6280:

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

That’s exactly what he’s saying. Just because you “decide that it’s best” doesn’t actually make it the best. In reality your purposely halving your damage to make it easier on yourself. If you not going to play the class to its fullest potential then go play an easier class that you can play to its fullest potential.

guesting to another server fixes it or at least has fixed it for everyone i know

Travlane.5948:

Clumsy.6257:

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group.

if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

You seem to make a lot of contradicting statements. A full clerics guardian will never be considered good in PvE.

quite nice in fractals.

1 cleric guard
1 zerk thief
1 zerk warrior
1 mix engi
1 mix mesmer

we do 45 min runs at lvl 50 with this. idk whatever. guess its horrible :P

If you can guarantee a 45 minute run at that scale then nobody in your party is running clerics and almost everyone is guaranteed to be running full berserkers. Even very experienced players (anybody who thinks clerics is viable isn’t in this category) have problems getting a 45 minute run. Not to mention dredge. Getting dredge literally makes it impossible to get under 45 minutes.

you jsut dont understand. its the same with any class. a full clerics guardians is amazing in a group.

if you wanna make a build that stays alive regardless…. well then youa re not being as productive as possible.

You seem to make a lot of contradicting statements. A full clerics guardian will never be considered good in PvE.

NinjaEd.3946:

Full zerker is pretty bad, considering fractals scale (naturally) and in the end, you will die before you can dish out any real dps. Remember, you can crit for 14k all you want, if you’re dead you’re doing 0 dps. *snip*Full zerker is maybe good up to about 15-20..

Full zerker is the only way to go in high level fractals. If you think you should use other sets then you’ve never actually done high level fractals. You can stack up full sentinels and the tankiest build possible and your still going to be killed in 1 hit. And more importantly where the hell did everyone get the idea that being dead = 0 dps? For a basic example: A fight with an unnamed boss lasts 1 minute. There is 1 full berserker thief and 1 healway guardian. The full berserker thief died after the first 15 seconds but dealt 100k damage. The guardian lived all 60 seconds but only dealt 50k damage. The thief, while being dead, still outdamaged the guardian.

Travlane.5948:

dont use melee weapons as a thief in fractals.

i have full ascended beserker everything,…. and i only die on party wipes….. so:P prolly just your utilities. plust or minuse a few traits but still. also experience goes along way.

a full zerk thief is only as good as his party. if your party members keep goind down and you ahve to revive….ur in trouble too then ur downed.

if they keep the enemies attnetion then you can go DPS crazy.

the higher you get the easier it gets…oddly enough.

Using one’s party members to cover up one’s own skill level isn’t an excuse. Once your experienced enough you should easily be able to run full berserker with a damage build (25/30/0/0/15, 30/30/0/0/10) and carry a terrible party. In fractals the only class that could carry a party better would be mesmer.

I don’t get what everone’s problem is. Thief is more than balanced and on the edge of OP in pve. The only classes that can be considered OP are ele for offensive buffs and fgs and guardian for the ridiculous amount of reflects. And more importantly, how can any of you think warrior is OP? They have great offensive buffs and amazing survivability but you have to give up so much damage. If your playing thief right then you should easily be doubling a warriors damage. Its all about trade-offs, damage vs. survivability.

I really hope this was supposed to be troll video.

Omg Casey.5973:

Sorry i may have to disagree, mesmer certainly does not have higher dps than thief (perhaps if it’s a high reflect situation like lupicus, than yes). Also, I’d say thief and ele are more closely tied (depending on ele build) but thief may till take the cake for #1 dps when there is no FGS.

Mesmer does have higher theoretical dps. The problem is its theoretical because the chances of having 3 phantasmal swordsmen up is 0.1%. And assuming both thief and ele are running top dps builds, it comes down to party-wide stealth or fgs.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Clumsy.6257:

Guards take #3 on the dps scale while warriors tied at #4, guard deals a decent % higher than a warrior in a party situation only, for solo play warrior tops guardian and takes the #3 spot

Guard is #4 and Warrior is roughly tied with necro at #5 actually. Also note that there’ a big jump between #4 (guardian) and #3 (thief) and a big jump from there to #2 (mesmer) and another big jump to #1. So in reality the DPS scale looks more like:

Elementalist >> Mesmer >> Thief >>>>> Guardian > Warrior,Necro,Ranger,Engineer

That’s in terms of ideal max DPS though. In terms of stable DPS warrior actually tops guardian by a fair bit, and solo/open-world burst DPS is a whole different matter entirely.

I normally count mesmer as a wildcard because its damage relies on phantasms. And what do you mean by stable dps? Dps with a typical pug party’s buffs?

Guards take #3 on the dps scale while warriors tied at #4, guard deals a decent % higher than a warrior in a party situation only, for solo play warrior tops guardian and takes the #3 spot

twhite.9310:

Well thanks for these quick replies. As far as weapon sets go. I keep seeing a ton of thieves with Bolt + Incinerator, so I’m assuming S/D is one of the best? Also GEAR! I’m a PvP nerd so zerker thieves is about all I know. I’m assuming zerker isn’t good in Fractals from what I am told. Anyone care to link a build/gear I should be using? Or go into detail what kind of gear I should use for each specific aspect of PvE ( including WvW ) Much appreciated.

S/d is popular due to the lazy dps build (30/30/0/0/10 while camping s/d and not using d/d). It keeps us near the top damage-wise while being somewhat easier to use than d/d. As for gear, zerker + scholar runes all the way. In fractals you should absolute never use any gear except berserker. Other gear works decently (albeit slow as ****) in low levels but the higher you go, the more stuff kills you in 1 hit (seriously theres a video somewhere of some thief getting killed in 1 hit in full sentinels by a dredge trash mob). I can’t comment much for WvW, although when I do occasionally hop in, full berserkers is easily workable in solo roaming and seems to work well in zergVzerg. I haven’t experimented much beyond d/d glass for solo roaming though. As for weaponsets, carry everything. Seriously. As you get more familiar with dungeons you’ll want things to go faster. The easiest way to make things faster is by increasing damage. For example most new players start with d/d with force+night sigils. When you enter a day dungeon/fractal you lose 10% damage. The solution is to accumulate daggers with slaying sigils that work for that particular dungeon/fractal (like undead slaying for arah). You should also invest in a set of bloodlust sigils. I prefer 2 for double stacking with s/p. You’ll also want to get a set of slaying potions. Outlaw, nightmare court, dredge, inquest, flame legion, and undead slaying potions are for the most commonly ran dungeons. Buy 250 of each (only required for most dungeon specializing guilds). For food, typically steak and asparagus is more than enough unless your really trying for a record setting speedrun.

edit: For clarification about the weapons: I carry 7 daggers, 3 swords, 2 pistols, and 2 shortbows at all times. More importantly, I use them all for different situations.

To make it simple I’ll compare warrior to thief because you have both of those. Necro is, at best, pathetic and bottom of the barrel in PvE, mainly due to lack of cleave. In terms of sheer damage, warrior is mediocre, tied at 4th place with ranger. Thief is tied at 1st place (LH ele being only 1.2% stronger). When it comes to cleave the numbers start to show more. Ele is firmly in 1st place. Thief is tied for #2 with guardian. Warrior is #3. As far as support goes, thief and warrior are polar opposites. Warrior would be tied with necro on the uselss scale if it weren’t for banners. Warriors bring nothing to the table (except banners) that other classes can’t provide better. Ele and thief stack might better, and thief, guard, and engi stack vulnerability better. That being said, warriors are by far the easiest class to perfect. You literally have to be trying to f up a warriors playstyle. Thief doesn’t bring much to the table (except damage) if you only plan on pugging. What thief does bring really only shines in high end dungeon speedclearing and high level fractals. We can provide ~30 seconds of party-wide stealth and permanent blinds on trash mobs. If you go and watch plenty of the speedrun videos it becomes very apparent that nearly every party is running a minimum of 1 thief. And with the 12/10 buff, we can top warriors vulnerability stacking.

tl;dr If you only plan on doing casual runs (read: idgaf how long this takes my time isn’t valuable) then warrior is more than enough. If, however, you like to strive for perfection then thief is far superior.

Also mesmer damage can be tied for 1st or tied for last. People don’t take mesmers for their damage (although as a mesmer you should try your best do deal good damage). Their usefulness is in feedback, TW, and 100% reflect uptime.

I mean, if you do a direct comparison to a berserker guardian, the guardian will bring tons of reflects, stability, AoE boons (can do 100% protection for melee with hammer autoattack), lay down fire fields, blast finish, and condi cleanse all while dealing equal if not greater dps.

Guardian only takes #3 on the damage scale if he’s running the dps GS+S/F build. If he’s using hammer then he more than likely has either tied with or dropped below the warrior/ranger level. edit: I can’t think of a single situation outside of fractals where a guardian’s boons can even be considered helpful.

Well are we counting total gold, like the total amount of gold we’ve spent on items that we own or just what we have currently? If only what we have currently, then I have about 900g. If we can’t all the gold we’ve spent its closer to around 4k.

Since I rarely step outside PvE, I’ve answered only the parts which concern PvE.

What do you do in a dungeon and what build do you use? 25/30/0/0/15 or 30/30/0/0/10 when im feeling lazy

Do you feel your class, the Thief is just as effective as other classes? I’d say were far above average tied at the top with guardian and mesmer.

Did you swap weaponsets? If so from what previous set to which current set? I’ve always carried all weaponsets. I carry 7 daggers, 3 swords, 2 pistols, and 2 shortbows with varying sets of sigils for certain situations. I mainly use d/d, s/p, and s/d with a shortbow as weapon swap for might stacking.

Do you feel underpowered, balanced or overpowered compared to other classes? Very overpowered. If you don’t feel overpowered then your not doing it right.

What stats combination on your gear do you think is the most effective now? Berserkers + scholars, always has been the best, always will be

DivineSlayer.5039:

snip

That can’t happen. Its impossible to play well and casually at the same time. pro logic

Raden.2645:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

You described a your own playstyle, and it is completely useless. You run around thinking that you are carrying out some heroic role and you actually accomplish nothing but actively wasting time. When you actually play a Warrior effectively, you have to maintain a rotation between 2 weapon sets while evading attacks. It’s actually a lot harder than running around putting bleeds on a boss with a Necro.

“you have to maintain a rotation between 2 weapon sets while evading attacks”
If people actually did that… I could respec to glass cannon and life would be good.
But I’m speced into a support role cause… it never happens.

Im not knocking on worriers .. please don’t take it that way if you are.. Im just saying there’s more to this game then however many people there are that play, to roll a worrier and forget every other class.

First, its warriors not “worriers”, second, please refer to http://www.youtube.com/user/TurboDzan to realize that you’ve been playing with bad players and it is very possible to run full berserker and rarely, if ever, get downed.

(Thank you Nike for having a youtube channel.)

And more importantly, if people would do a simple youtube/google search then they would find massive amounts of videos of people running all classes in full berserker without ever getting downed and providing great team support. The average player’s inability to realize this shows the average level of intelligence.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

It’s me. My thief is so good at hiding, it doesn’t show up on my character selection page.

whole new meaning to perma stealth

You can’t have a #1 thief. You have to break it down by gamemodes. The best pvp thief is almost guaranteed to be mediocre at best in pve.

Impact.2780:

There are a few ways thieves can stack past 20 might.

Shadow Trap = 10 stacks
25 Shadow Arts and 4 stealth combos = 8 stacks
25 Shadow Arts and 3 stealth combos + Shadow Trap stealth = 8 stacks
25 Shadow Arts and use Shadow Refuge = 8 stacks
Trait 2 stacks of might per venom: Basilisk, Skelk, Scale, Devourer = 8 stacks
Trait 5 stacks of might on signet use: Assasin’s, Infiltrator’s, Shadows, Malice = 20 stacks

Mix and match and you get get past 20:
- 4 signets + basilisk venom = 20 + 2 = 22 stacks
- 25 SA 4 stealths + 3 signets = 8 + 15 = 23 stacks
- 25 SA 4 stealths + shadow trap + 3 venoms = 8 + 10 + 6 = 24 stacks
- 3 signets + shadow trap = 15+10 = 25 stacks

On top of that, you get fury from shadow trap, and if you’re using signets don’t forget to factor in the +15% damage for the next 5 attacks from assassin’s signet.

if you put 25 into SA to get more might then you just sacrificed 100 power and 5% damage or 10% crit damage and executioner and you’ll hit considerably lower

Excalibur.9748:

you can get 25 might stacks from signet build IIRC.

5*4 = 20 might stacks, you could use improvisation to recharge them but its not guaranteed, also 14k really isn’t that high, more than likely the thief was running a glass build with minimal buffs

What I don’t get is how anyone could possibly think people who use meta builds don’t play for fun. Once you broaden your horizons, its more than apparent that people running the meta are having much more fun than those who always hide behind the phrase “I play how I want” to purposely under-perform and waste time.

I’m going to go ahead and assume your talking about pve here because you compared it to 100b. 1. If 100b is only hitting 27k, your not built right. 2. 27k for 15 initiative is VERY VERY bad. Lets do some math and compare. I’ll also assume were going for average, not min/max party composition.
p/p = 15 initiative for 27k = 1.8k per initiative
d/d = 6 initiative for 40k = 6.7k per initiaative
You also have to take into account the time spent. CnD+BS can be done in less than 1 second. I’m not sure exactly how long unload takes but lets say 1 second (it takes longer). For basically 1/3 of the time, d/d outdamaged p/p by nearly 50% and spent 9 less initiative.
So tl;dr: p/p is not viable in pve.

(side note: P/p is viable for certain aspects of fractals like taking hits off legendary grawls shield or molten duo’s anger(?) stacks.)

You didn’t play GW1 did you? If you did you would know that I, like the majority of people who are advocates of full berserker, enjoyed the GW1 endgame which happened to be speedclearing different dungeons/areas as fast as possible. In fact, the entire game was based around how fast you could accomplish something. So full berserkers has a solid 8 year history of why its more fun.

Amineo.8951:

So not playing all the time in zerk stuff is poor playing to you? I guess people here that only plays Berserker stuff don’t know anything about fun in this game. I play Berserker but not all the time because it’s boring, the game is already easy enough so why making it even easier? Oh yes of course because all people wants here is: MONEY MONEY MONEY!

I love how people like you assume that people using full berserkers aren’t having fun. We could argue that your having less fun by not running it. You don’t get to watch a boss’s hp literally melt.

I still can’t believe there are only 2 people that have replied to this considering (as far as I know) this is the only video of a thief soloing all of p2. All I can think of is that the typical poster in this subforum is dumbfounded and shocked beyond being able to type.

Amineo.8951:

Ok so go glass cannon build and get murdered during the ‘’sitting in buttons’’ phase of dredge fractal and have fun being down in less than 2seconds in full zerk, remember that you can’t dodge there and blind doesn’t work, reflection won’t work for melee dredges too, don’t get me wrong berserker is master race in any other PVE content (except world bosses since you can’t crit them so crit chance and crit dmg are useless) but here it’s not useful until the boss.

Thats why a lot of people will recommend that people new to zerker carry a set of w/e tank gear they prefer for situations like that. Although once you get used to running full berserker then its more than easy to survive that event in it.

Titanimite.2534:

Clumsy.6257:

Rick.5781:

As for using bows, I didnt play a ranger to use a sword, thats why I have a warrior. I play my ranger to stay at range, because you know, thats what I find fun.

Then you better be prepared to get kicked out of any and all parties/guilds that tend to be able to do dungeons/fractals with ease.

^ exactly, I would kick you just for having a bow equipped or a bear out or even if you didn’t have frost spirit or spotter as these are the only reasons to bring a ranger over another class.

If you want to get down to the math, then a ranger isn’t worth taking at all. Parties would be much better off just grabbing another elementalist for 2 more fgs. It really comes down to the fact of people liking you.

Rick.5781:

As for using bows, I didnt play a ranger to use a sword, thats why I have a warrior. I play my ranger to stay at range, because you know, thats what I find fun.

Then you better be prepared to get kicked out of any and all parties/guilds that tend to be able to do dungeons/fractals with ease.

You could normally assume that except he was a clicker

edit: come to think of it, have any of you seen a dev in a livestream that wasn’t a clicker?

Rick.5781:

Is vitality necessary for very high level fractals (40-70), or are pure berserker builds still viable? Im about to start crafting some ascended weapons and armor and want to know if I should go pure berserkers (thats my current build) or mix in some vitality and toughness. I play a ranged ranger if that matters.

Im only at level 31, with 35 AR, so Im not sure if my dying is due to not having enough AR, or if the mobs just do that much more damage. Im also not sure how enemy damage will scale as the levels continue to increase.

Vitality, if anything, hurts much more than it helps in all fractals. The higher you go the less viable all gearsets, except berserker, become. Its caused by trash mobs becoming so strong that they’ll kill you in one hit even if your in full sentinels so the theory is to kill them as fast as possible. Also if your having survivability problems, its probably not due to AR as your only taking 6% per tick. Instead try practicing dodging and meleeing. For the most part meleeing greatly increases survivability in the long run.

Ariete.6509:

Would 30AR be sufficient for 30+ or do i have to wait 6 more days, get my second acessory to even try?

Sorry to hijack the thread but my two cents are that the general conseus is zerk all the way, best defense is not being there plus agony hits per health percentage so more vit helps very little.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/AR 30 AR is more than sufficient for 30-39 although it stills hits for 12% per tick

disclaimer: if you have or ever will use the excuse “i play how i want” to purposely under-perform and slow down your group then these builds are not for you

25/30/0/0/15 – basic meta build, useful for organized groups or experienced thieves

30/30/0/0/10 – absolute max dps, don’t use unless very experienced, leaves little room for error

25/30/0/15/0 – useful for soloing stuff, also useful for pugging fractals

25/30/10/0/5 – before initiative change last patch, would outdamage 25/30/0/0/15 at 18 seconds and continue to outperform the longer the fight dragged on, haven’t calculated if its still effective since the change, also has the added bonus of 10 in SA for condi removal although it sacrifices damage, not useful in organized groups

Erebus.9276:

GoddessOfTheWinds.2937:

The only thing I’m against is if the “sellers” kick other party members just to sell the slots for gold. If they arrange with friends or run it with 2-3 people, I’m ok with it, but I’m afraid it will often lead to 2-3 people kicking 2-3 pugs to sell their “slots”.

That’s the main reason I could be against this market. If there could be safeguards to make sure the sellers can’t kick people to sell their slots, I would be fine with it.

I don’t think this happens very much if it all.. Its just random forum posts crying about it made by people who probably can’t figure out any other reason they where booted, or think the content is too hard to solo/duo/trio/whatever…

If people would give it any thought then they would realize its probably much faster to duo/trio a path than invite 2-3 pugs who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and kick them at the end.

…snip…
Guardian
Dmg ouput (all enemies): 60/100
Buffs (all allies combined): 95/100
Dmg mitigation (all allies): 85/100
Survival (armor/hp etc): 90/100

How in the world did you come out with such butchered ratings? Damage output is probably closer to 85 or 90, buffs closer to 25 (absolutely no usable buffs for dungeons, protection only having a use in high level fractals)

THIEF
Dmg ouput (all enemies): 70/100 (yes 70 its mostly single target)
Buffs (all allies combined): 65/100 (would be lower w/o thrill and venomshare)
Dmg mitigation (all allies): 55/100 ( * See Below*)
Survival (armor/hp etc): 70/100

Our damage is still tied for 2nd place with cleave so that should be more like 90-95, buffs should be 80-90 for might stacking ability, damage mitigation should be 100 (stealth skip/evades), survival is ~ right.
(above is for pve)

@OP what is this steal bug you speak of? I guarantee you I have more time spent on my thief and I have yet to see this
edit: unless the “bug” is caused by a particular trait then I doubt it exists

Ethics.4519:

All that’s missin in this post is a necroed dev post from robert a year ago. That would have really summed up this week (Read: 1 day) nicely.

check the main dungeon page again, thread about soulbound runes in dungeons just got necro’d

kyubi.3620:

Clumsy.6257:

kyubi.3620:

My definition of Fun is not hard content its actualy to look nice and hard content or not is of little importance long as i do. Fractals arent that hard yet that people actualy need to run a 5 perma shadowform A/E with pain inverter and other skill yet just to make it trought. And even then this game doesnt have the GW 1 Issue of behing forced to constantly block or evade hits with invulnerability not to die.

The content that people used multiple a/e SF tanks was very much doable without them. The reason they were used was to save time. The difference was a several hour long UW run versus an 8 minute long UW run.

this is also why Anet Hit the perma shadowform build so hard with the nerf bat that it could hardly be used anymore without a huge time loss as well as a crippling waste of money for buff, Perma spell breaker also was hit that way and i had to carry 2 hero just to buff me with enought damage to kill the mobs around me. They DONT want people to screw up the game with meta build to begin with they want them to inovate. Lesson is create as many meta running build as you want Anet will always be waiting for you at the corner with the nerf bat ready just for it. Long as the build is decent enought to be used but not strong enought to be overused Anet wont nerf it but give it so much as to make it a necesity to dungeon running or pvp and theil ’’fix’’ it without a moment tought.

That “nerf” could hardly count as a nerf. It forced people to spend about 5% of what they were making every run. If anything it sped them up due to speed boosts. You could say anet buffed SF in an unintended way.