Guild Wars 2

Anubarak.3012:

One of our guardians is full zerker except one backpiece for pulling aggro.

Why would you give up the best slot to put berserker gear into compared to defensive stats? he should of went with the hat.
Back:
56 Power 35 Precision 5% Crit Damage
vs
Hat:
45 Power 32 Precision 2% Crit Damage.

If you can’t even get something as simple as ‘which single eq slot do I dump for defensive stats’ correct, I have to question everything you say.

I think you guys just need to learn how to fight D/P Thieves, then they wont make you so mad. Here’s what I do: pick a direction, and run away. They cant stay in stealth and follow you if you’re running from them. They will either waste tons of Ini chasing you and drop stealth, or you’ll get away from them. When theyre out of stealth and wasting cooldowns/ini chasing you, turn around and fight them. The moment they drop black powder again, turn and run. Repeat this process as many times as it takes for you to kill them or them to give up. If they dont chase you, then theyre a very good thief, and you should count yourself lucky that you got away, if they do chase and waste ini/cooldowns chasing you, theyre in a bad position when you turn around and fight them. The trick to fighting thieves is to never play their game. Once you give a thief the advantage in a fight and control of the pace of combat, you lose.

Anubarak.3012:

lupicus melee.

Im so awesome at PVE, I dont even know what this is. But thats besides the point. What I do know is that if youre running high level fractals or anything decently difficult, you will have a “tank” generally a guardian, who has lots of toughness, way more then I suggested using, so you’ll be perfectly fine. And if you wouldnt be perfectly fine gearing for exactly enough defense to avoid being 1 shotted in the best way possible, then it was a failure of a group and it doesnt matter.

I might not know PVE, but I know math, and math says
32 + 72 + 48 + 97 + 97 + 338 + 218 + 157 + 157 = 1216
121 + 121 + 182 + 182 + 363 + 242 = 1211
Even wearing the 3 best pieces of defensive gear as Soldiers youre only 5 armor above the least tanky a warrior or guardian can possibly be. So them holding hate off you by having more armor than you shouldm’t be something you need worry about.

Youre making a big mistake by not using Power main stat in all your gear. Especially since youre talking about mobs and gaining aggro, meaning this is a PVE build. Personally in PVE, which I admittedly dont play very much, I always have 30 in one of the defensive lines (either shadow arts or acrobatics, depends what Im doing really) and I use Soldiers hat/legs, Valkyrie weapons, and the rest is all Berserker gear w/ Scholar runes, and I have never been 1 shotted. You will come super close, but if you take a big hit, this is enough to keep alive.

People who talk down about toughness in general are bad also. Toughness is the best way to avoid dieing from melee hits. Your heals are worth more when you stack toughness instead of vitality. Like look at it like this: If you had 14k HP, and your heal refills 7k HP and you added 3k HP to that, if something hit you for 10k youd be at 7k, then you healed up to 14k, then it hit you again dropping you to 4k, then you healed and now youre at 11k, then it hit you again youre at 1k… you would eventually die. Youre losing 3k HP every time it hits you. Now, if you added 30% damage reduction instead, it would hit you for 7k, then youd heal 7k, then it would hit you for 7k, then youd heal for 7k… etc, and be totally fine. This is an extreme example, but it easily demonstrates what Im talking about.

As for vitality being a counter to conditions… this is PVE, stuff doesnt spam conditions on you, and you have tons of condition cleansing. You’ll always have a sword on for PVE and can remove whatever that one painful condition the mob applied to you is, youre using hide in shadows which removes all the damaging conditions, and you can use the remove conditions in stealth trait or shadowstep if conditions are really a problem. Condition removal/avoidance is the key to living through conditions, not vitality.

Shadow doesnt sound anything like Ninja, at least use Kage instead.

I play D/D + S/D and I flip camps in under a minute too =/
Whats the big deal?

Get more toughness, do PVE leveling with sword/pistol, drop #5 when you fight multiple mobs, then auto attack them down.

In all honesty, dont you need to target something to attack it in WoW? That would give being in stealth/untargetable a huge advantage over everything in WoW. GW2 isnt like that, so its not such a big deal. Thief is predictable and any competant player has a decent idea where the thief is going whether they can see them or not.

Travlane.5948:

rather you act like a lil brat with no education

You should work on your spelling and sentence structure if you’re going to talk down to others about how they have no education. It will make people not instantly label you as a moron when they see it. This is honestly the point in the thread where you lost all credibility with me. I completely ignored your button clicking and bad playstyle, but this? Now I have to respond to this thread.

Travlane.5948:

ive mastered D/P ….D/D ….D/D evade….P/D bleed (variations) and S/D(variations)

If you really mastered Thief, why do I and others notice the following:

- Clicking;
- Bad build;
- Trying to stealth with revealed on;
- Lots of CnD in thin air lol.

Seriously, you look like a guy I would down in 3 seconds every time I found you.

Issues.5789:

The Acrobatics trait line.. For every 10 point’s added it is suppose to be +10% Boon Duration. I currently have 20 points in Acrobatics and should therefore receive a 20% bonus to my boons. For example; I use Shadow Protector and it gives Regeneration for 10 seconds. (10 × 20% = 12 seconds total) But it still remains as 10. None of the boons that I apply; I have tested many including Thrill of the crime and none take the bonus..
Either there is something massively broken with this trait line or I miscalculated something..

Well, 10 * .2 = 2, what you want to do is 10 * 1.2 = 12, because it’s +20%, so you count it as 120%. Beyond that, you’re right.

Have you tried using +boon duration runes when giving yourself boons to see if they affect the duration? Im interested to know if its just specific abilities that dont gain benefit from boon duration or if its just the boon duration in the trait line thats broken.

Big Tower.5423:

Tell me why i do 8-10 k crits with valkyrie gear? you would not go past 4 k with soliders at best, backstab is niche to test damage, but s/d is also very good with valk + berserker + berserker. you will do 50% to 110 % more damage, based on how many berserker pieces you take with your solider gear.. which is HUUGE, this is why you got to go the combo i say. you still will have decent survablity,

Big Tower.5423:

btw you might also take some berserker armor pieces if you are not a stealth build, perhaps legs, gloves and head.

So the gear set you advocate is all valkyrie, with berserker legs gloves and head? And what food do you use with that?

Whats a rogue and whats a wow?

I have a mini Skrit Forager, his name is Miskers, he gives away my position when Im hiding in stealth.

Softspoken.2410:

All around though, I’m worried celestial’s only going to be good for a MF set.

Thats what I expect honestly. I dont do the condition thing, so I cant say for sure, but I do know that the only way Celestial has any sort of chance to be useful outside MF, is if you make use of all 6 good stats.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ok without changing the traits, try this one.

Head – Celestial
Shoulder – Celestial
Chest – Soldier
Legs – Soldier
Gloves – Celestial
Boots – Celestial

This set loses 82 power, but has more Toughness, Vitality, Condition Dmg, Heal Pwr, and Crit Damage (+12% MF) — not a whole lot but marginally better.

Curious to see your numbers using this set.

The problem here is that if you just swap your berserker gloves/boots/shoulders in the original set to soldiers to match the survivability of what you posted, you’ll end up with more EHP/DR/Damage.

Raven.9603:

NSP is home to XOXO and SPCA

Who are as good as AD, noQQ and Btsy from DR, also at the bottom, and theyre all better than anything I have ever seen from Blackgate or Sanctum of Rall. even Riot. Having fought all 6 of those guilds by myself and with about even numbers of competent players, fighting them with vastly superior numbers, and even some 1v1s, I can tell you straight up, Riot isn’t anywhere near as good as the other small man teams. But hey, at least theyre better than oPP.

Engels.8537:

wish is a d/p thief

Exactly what part of anything I have ever posted makes you think I play D/P? Was it the thread I created about min/maxing D/D builds? Was it the SS’s I posted where Im always using D/D or S/D? Was it builds I post different places that always show D/D and S/D? Or maybe the gear SS I recently posted that shows my collection of 8 daggers, 4 swords, and only 3 guns?

Engels.8537:

claims to be a guardian

Guardian is my main, what I play with my guild on. My build for Guardian isnt determined yet, and so I dont publicly share it/talk about it. But hey, one day you’ll see it and be impressed, til then you’ll just have to suffer and wonder.

AskTheDust.7384:

guys how is it possible to make a hood for my thief? I don’t like mask anymore and want to have a hood. I know i need transmuting stone but where to get a skin?

Make a new thief character, select the starter hood, transmute it to something level 80 and blue or green to make it account bound, stick it in your bank, retrieve it on the character you want it on, transmute it to the gear stats you want on the character you want.

Also, I finally finished gearing my thief, got everything I think I will need, except for a nice looking skin for my Soldiers pistol, Im pretty happy to finally be done!

Reading text isnt as good as watching videos.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thief+wvw&oq=thief+wvw&gs_l=youtube.3..0l10.12251.13181.0.13645.6.6.0.0.0.0.193.741.1j5.6.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.FaQvuMNVZuA

Raven.9603:

I’m calling RG bad because they roll in huge groups to win.

Since when is 25 a huge group? I guess this is your low tier mentality kicking in. 25 is small compared to T1 or T2 zergs which are composed of 60+ 90% of the time. And what RG fought and won against with their 25. They only lost sometimes to entire map Q’s of people attacking them together, and thats it. You can try and crap on their achievement all you want, but I guess if you think youre so boss, how come you dont have 250k kills like Sacrx?

Raven.9603:

There are some sprinkles of good players like anywhere else (RioT), but most are try-hard bads and bring moarz (Red Guards).

This is the most hilarious comment I have ever seen in the thief forums. Are you really calling riot good and red guard bad? Youre aware red guard fought your 100 person zergs with 25 and beat them 90% of the time, right? Maybe thats why youre so mad about them, you got your butt kicked to many times. Did any of the SOR or BG guilds that GvG’d them even win 1 round? (the answer is no) Cant say Ive ever seen a group of riot players fight 3-4x their numbers and win, ever. Let alone have a 100% win rate against even numbers from an organized group.

Out of curiosity, did you ever notice a time you used shadow return from your sword, and it didnt remove bleeding while you had bleeding on you?

bobross.5034:

I think celestial for thieves is probably not a great idea except for hybrid builds, like p/d or d/d that use death blossom. Other professions, like mesmer, really use all stats, and so it makes sense for them.

If you cant actively make use out of the 6 good stats on Celestial gear, it won’t win. Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage, Crit Damage all need to have a place in your build for this armor to get anywhere. Once any one of these things is obsoleted you’re better off mixing and matching other gear, regardless of class. Unless you want magic find, this is an awesome magic find set.

bobross.5034:

how does regen scale between builds? seems like that would affect survivability a good amount in most builds…also health steal from foods, signet of malice, etc.

Well, first lets determine how much healing power we gain.
15 + 15 + 15 + 45 + 30 + 20 = 140

12.5% of healing skill is applied to regens hp regen every time it ticks. So with 440 healing power instead of 300 youd get
130 + (0.125 * 300) = 167 HP per second
130 + (0.125 * 440) = 185 HP per second
If it lasts 4 seconds (Hide in Shadows duration), you’re looking at
(185 – 167) * 4 = 72
An extra 72 HP from the regen, and the heal itself would add an extra 140, since healing is taken 1 for 1. So that would add 212 HP total to your #6.

For Shadow Rejuvenation, its 10% of healing power + 293 according to the wiki, but I dont think I trust this as I couldnt find a second source saying anything.
293 + (.1 * 300) = 323 HP per second.
293 + (.1 * 440) = 337 HP per second.
In a 3 second stealth you would gain an extra
(337 – 323) * 3 = 42
In 4 seconds youd gain 56 HP

Doesnt seem like a good trade off for the damage you give up, since I measure this sort of thing as “created differences between HP for you and your opponent.” And even something as small as 20 power or 21 precision or 2% crit damage would create a bigger swing in HP between you and your opponent every 30 seconds than 140 healing power.

bobross.5034:

one other consideration… things like bloodlust and might will affect dps differently depending on crit dmg/crit chance. If I was reading correctly, the issue with celestial is lower power. However if power gets higher in both sets due to those extra effects, each point of power should affect dps more in the celestial set. At a certain level of bloodlust/might/food/trait based power (in both sets) the celestial set should surpass the other set in terms of dps.

You’re absolutely correct. The more Power you have, the less useful adding more power is compared to adding the other damage stats.

If you look at my posted math, I assume full bloodlust and 6 stacks of might, as thats typically what you run around with if you have 25 Shadow Arts and stealth every 3-4 seconds. If you want to add Stones instead of Oils to the Celestial builds… I could type out what I think will happen, but I will just type out what happens instead since you made a good observation.

1991 power
1774 precision
1544 toughness
1346 vitality
105 crit damage

Stones/Ghosts
1544 * (61/1024) = 91.9765625 (+)
1346 * (40/1024) = 52.578125 (=)
144.5546875 + 1991 = 2136
70 +1774 = 1844, 48% Crit Chance

Old:
(2166+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + .92) * .52)) =
4565.0384 Damage
Celestial Oils:
(1991+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .45) + ((1.5 + 1.05) * .55)) =
4540.4775 Damage
Celestial Stones:
(2136 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .52) + ((1.5 + 1.05) * .48)) =
4527.424 Damage

Oils are better.

Phantom.8130:

wish.1027:

Phantom.8130:

going on school on the math and breaking it down step by step comes out to this:
(2058 +250 + 210) * (.5 +(2.7 *.5)) * 1.05 = x
2518 * (.5 +1.35) * 1.05 = x
2518 * 1.85 * 1.05 = x
4891.215 = x

which is well above the 4729.87872. with no chance for air/fire to bug out and cause revealed on CnD.

But what youre forgetting is that if you dont like Fire/Air than you could use Acc/Force with the Fall set too…

(2056+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .43) + ((1.5 + 1.02) * .57)) * 1.05 =
4930.65552

So you’re still behind where you could be.

looks like you’re right about the damage by about 40 points. there’s a chance the added condition damage from the poison from lotus strike might be able to make up for that, but i’m not all too worried about it.

If you have power traits Im sure the steal poison and lotus strike would make up the 1%, just lotus strike I dunno, but check the edit I made on my previous post about food effects. The condition damage wont make that up.

Phantom.8130:

going on school on the math and breaking it down step by step comes out to this:
(2058 +250 + 210) * (.5 +(2.7 *.5)) * 1.05 = x
2518 * (.5 +1.35) * 1.05 = x
2518 * 1.85 * 1.05 = x
4891.215 = x

which is well above the 4729.87872. with no chance for air/fire to bug out and cause revealed on CnD.

But what youre forgetting is that if you dont like Fire/Air than you could use Acc/Force with the Fall set too…

(2056+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .43) + ((1.5 + 1.02) * .57)) * 1.05 =
4930.65552

So you’re still behind where you could be.

IMPORTANT EDIT:::
Also, the life steal damage from omnom pies still arent added to Falls displayed damage while your food is. So lets switch that up and give you a better idea of what youre actually missing out on. We’ll use butternut curry squash soup, 100 precision, 10% crit damage.

My pies were 70 precision so Im at +30. Since my precision is exactly 52% at 1914, that means I have 9 wasted precision now, so I can swap b/v trinket to b/b, gain 18 precision, then remove 1 precision infusion for 1 power infusion, and gain 2% crit chance, 5 power, and 10% crit damage.

(2061+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .41) + ((1.5 + 1.12) * .59)) * 1.05 =
5177.10039

This is more like what you’re really competing with.
5177/4891=1.05847474954
My set is 6% damage above yours using weak food that I have proven is worse from a DPS standpoint than what I use now. But proving lifesteal food effectiveness would take a long time, so Im not going to do it again.

Phantom.8130:

no. i mean instead of a sigil of accuracy and a sigil of bloodlust, using a sigil of accuracy and a sigil of force.

Thats silly because Fire and Air do more damage than Force or Accuracy since your crit chance is so high.

D/D = force/air
S/D = acc/fire
main hand bloodlust runes til you hit 25.

Phantom.8130:

alright. then factor out the sigil of bloodlust in my build, and replace it with the +5% damage signet instead.

I posted both to show you Acc is worse than Force. And this is just for base attacks, not counting HK BS, if you use HK.

EDIT, originally I didnt factor Force into any build, I assumed everyone was using it, and if something carries over to all builds, theres no reason to include it when calculating differences. Thats why we’re not talking about skill use, or target armor or anything else either, theres no need.

wish.1027:

Phantom.8130 Accuracy:
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .5) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .5)) =
4658.3
Phantom.8130 Force:
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .55) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .45)) * 1.05 =
4666.4835
Fall:
(2056+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + 1.02) * .52)) * 1.05 =
4729.87872

EDIT 2:
And honestly I wouldnt be surprised if its * (1074/1024) instead of * 1.05 either, because I said so.

Force #2
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .55) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .45)) * (1074/1024) =
4661.27537109

Excalibur.9748:

GW2buildcraft kinda sucks compared to en.gw2skills but thanks anyways.

It does suck since its not updated and stuff, but it lists this:
Effective Power
Effective Health (EHP)
Damage Reduction
I havent seen another editor do that. Sure its a bit wrong and off, but its good for fast comparisons.

Phantom.8130:

another thing is that you don’t have the sigil of bloodlust on your builds. which means you have remove the 250 from the first part of the equation since that’s from an assumed 25 bloodlust stacks. which lowers your total to 4321.76052.

You’re really reaching now. I just assume everyone knows to stack Bloodlust then swap it off. So when posting builds the correct thing to do is put what you would swap off into. But hey, if you want to talk about it, I have 6 Superior Sigils of Bloodlust on my mule Thief, how about you?

Phantom.8130:

wish.1027:

Phantom.8130:
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .55) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .45)) =
4444.27 Damage

Fall:
(2056+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + 1.02) * .52)) =
4504.6464 Damage

While I can understand the desire to want to use knights/cavalier, it pretty much can never win. Keep in mind with these damage comparisons too that the damage from omnomberry pies are not added to the Fall calculation, but the food in your build is, and it still loses. Cavalier/Knights should only be used with pretty much all Cav/Knights or its just a waste of space.

you didn’t factor in the extra 5% crit chance from the sigil on the dagger, which would change it from .45 to .5 which brings the math up to 4795.6

I didnt notice it, but the 5% damage from force is better than 5% crit chance from accuracy. You’d have to do:
Phantom.8130 Accuracy:
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .5) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .5)) =
4658.3
Phantom.8130 Force:
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .55) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .45)) * 1.05 =
4666.4835
Fall:
(2056+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + 1.02) * .52)) * 1.05 =
4729.87872

Edit: You missed dropping .55 to .5, thats why your number is different.

Phantom.8130:
(2058 + 250 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .55) + ((1.5 + 1.2) * .45)) =
4444.27 Damage

Fall:
(2056+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + 1.02) * .52)) =
4504.6464 Damage

While I can understand the desire to want to use knights/cavalier, it pretty much can never win. Keep in mind with these damage comparisons too that the damage from omnomberry pies are not added to the Fall calculation, but the food in your build is, and it still loses. Cavalier/Knights should only be used with pretty much all Cav/Knights or its just a waste of space.

Excalibur.9748:

@Wish, how would the stats look like without any ascended equip?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/3#post2426220

I posted the exotic version there, and theres links to stuff if you want to read, if not:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h2.8.1g.h14|5.1g.h2|1c.a1.1g.a7.1p.a1.1g.a7.1c.a1.1g.a7|1g.67.1c.67.1c.67.1g.67.1g.67.1c.67|0.u36c.u65b.a1.0|54.8|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

Phantom.8130:

how about this set up?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAoY8YlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jdqCJKuHGVS1UdFiKA-jEzA4rBRTWCNRAiKAk8UWzeCiVtioxqrxUuCRa3UbvFkN4KrCBUeBA-w

Hey, I made that build.
Also, it uses the same armor as the one we’re comparing, so the results will be the same. Well, Fall has a bit more crit damage and a bit less power than Mug, so Celestial will be further behind Fall than Mug as Celestial reduces power for more crit damage in an effot to increase damage, which is what the Fall set does compared to Mug, and the more of something you have the less useful adding more of it will be.

Celestial/Soldiers weapons/Valk Shoulders Gloves Shoes
1991 – 15 – 15 – 15 + 34 + 34 + 34 = 2048 power
1774 – 15 – 15 – 15 = 1729 precision
1544 – 15 – 15 – 15 = 1499 toughness
1346 – 15 – 15 – 15 + 24 + 24 + 24 = 1373 vitality
105 crit damage

Oils/Ghosts
1499 * (61/1024) = 89.2958984375 (+)
1373 * (40/1024) = 53.6328125 (=)
142.928710938 + 70 + 1729 =
1941 precision
53% crit chance

(2048+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .47) + ((1.5 + 1.05) * .53)) = 4568.322

Oh man, that wins by
4568.322/4565.0384= 1.00071929296
0.072% Damage.

You lose EHP though. The Toughness is down in this setup. If you were gonna do this you could just swap the soldiers body for valk in the other set and end up with about the same toughness/vitality and…
Old w/Valk body:
(2166+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + .97) * .52)) =
4633.3144
More Damage.

4633.3144/4565.0384=1.01495628164

1.5% more damage, which is way better than 0.072%
Celestial is still bad unless you want magic find.

EDIT: Im down if you want to try something else though.

EDIT 2:

Then change Practiced Tolerance to either Signet of Power or Furious Retal.

You cant change traits. If you change traits in one build you can change them in the other. We’re only comparing differences in gear. Unless you can come up with a valid reason for changing traits in one and not the other. In your proposed set, the vitality between the two is roughly the same, so theres no reason you would dump the p > v trait in one and not the other.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

wish.1027:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Switch Berserker pieces to Valkyrie and see what you get. IMHO, I’d take Vitality over Precision and that’s the only difference between the two — then you don’t have to Trait for Practiced Tolerance and pick up something else.

The problem is that if you switch the weapons or trinkets in either set, you might as well change them in both, and then the Celestial set will still lose damage and survivability compared to Soldiers/Berserkers mixed.

Sorry, I was actually only talking about the Armor Pieces. Forgot the word “armor” before the “pieces”.

Both Sets use Soldiers weapons, All B/B ascended trinkets except 1 B/V earring, 6x Divinity Runes,10/30/30/0/0 for traits w/ practiced tolerance in both. The only difference is one uses Celestial Hat/Shoulders/Body/Gloves/Pants/Shoes and one uses Soldiers Hat/Body/Legs Berserker Shoulders/Gloves/Boots. What do you want changed?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Switch Berserker pieces to Valkyrie and see what you get. IMHO, I’d take Vitality over Precision and that’s the only difference between the two — then you don’t have to Trait for Practiced Tolerance and pick up something else.

The problem is that if you switch the weapons or trinkets in either set, you might as well change them in both, and then the Celestial set will still lose damage and survivability compared to Soldiers/Berserkers mixed.

Balanced Builds mainly built for WvW:
Ascended:
Wish’s Mug, 10/30/30/0/0
with accurate corrected precision

Wish’s Fall, 0/30/30/10/0
with accurate corrected precision

Cheaper Options, but please note, I attempted to correct the precision values with these, but I dont know if they’re actually correct since this game can’t count:
Superior Rune of the Wurm – 30/30/10

Superior Rune of the Wurm – 10/30/30

Exotic only Starter Set:
Exotic starter set

Threads pertaining to the builds and math behind why things are the way they are:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Something-is-broken-help-me-figure-it-out/first#post2331386
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2424729
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-Thief-looking-for-some-insight/first#post2674725
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/New-Assasin-stats/first#post2815095

Calysto.7469:

I’ve seen nothing but trolling masked in “advice” from Wish in every post I’ve seen by them in every thread I’ve seen them in. Go watch Bambi, and follow Thumper’s advice, if you don’t have anything helpful, shut your kitten trap and move on.

Wow kid, youre gonna put me down for giving helpful advice to most people? Maybe you should follow your own advice.

Lets check my post history for today for instance.
Honest, helpful advice:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Builds-2/first#post2425975
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Build-Video/first#post2425494
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Builds-2/first#post2425396
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/This-annoying-elementalist-build/first#post2425207
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2425144
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Builds-2/first#post2424868
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2424729

Other:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Build-Video/first#post2425924
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Build-Video/first#post2425619
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ITT-We-come-up-with-ways-to-fix-Last-Refuge/first#post2425593
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Sword-Dagger-Builds-2/first#post2425147
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/This-annoying-elementalist-build/first#post2424841

Over half my posts while I’ve been watching Dexter have been helpful and awesome. Thanks.

Aratoa.7398:

Do you have a link to the math? or the math itself?

I talked about a lot of it in this thread when I got close to finishing my ascended gear and needed to do the math to determine upgrades and foods and stuff for when I finished.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first
Something is broken with the Mug build though, the precision doesnt come out correctly, so the final build there is wrong.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2425144
I made this thread today and the end results can be seen there. There was another thread somewhere when I tried to determine how it counted oils/stones and why the math was wrong, but no Dev responded to me, and I got tired of trying to figure it out. The only thing I decided was that oils/stones are divisions of 1024 instead of exact % ’s, and even then, Im not 100% positive on that, it is just what I was leaning towards when I stopped caring.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Not sure what you’re so angry about. :/

I got the same when I offered helpful advice and tried to be nice. Some people just cant take being told things they could do better.

But seriously, I disagree with your statements about top servers. All the good small roaming guilds moved to the bottom, and all the real roamers followed. All the upper tiers have is more people. That doesnt play into skill IMO, unless you consider learning to run from 50 man zergs every 10 minutes a skill.

Woaden.9425:

By the way, thanks for stopping by to troll this thread

If I was trolling I would call you mean things. Like poopface.

The other day I played WvW for like 4-5 hours, killed 100~ people and died 4 times. All 4 of my deaths were the direct result of last refugee proccing as I hit CnD giving me revealed at the worst possible time. I’m all for fixing or removing this trait, it is the bane of my existence when it comes to this game.

OIIIIIO.7825:

Instead of giving me Blinding Powder at 25% health Give me
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Powder

eh? eh?

And ya, this is the best solution I have heard, mainly because its good and easy to implement.

SF Represent!

You stealth a lot for a ‘stealthless thief.’

There’s no armor in your linked build showing us what you use, which is odd.

You fail to use the Sword daze at the best time, when someone is trying to raise someone you downed. You daze them and they stop, and then you punish the both of them with sword auto attacks for a few seconds.

I’m sure you’ll get better as you play it more, so keep up the effort and killin them bads.

Woaden.9425:

But I don’t take advantage of toughness, I hardly get hit, and when I do I have a low cooldown heal/evade to top me off. So in that case, I have to disagree. I would rather have more crit damage from my gear than more toughness. I do still highly value HP though, as a buffer for condition damage. I have tried it with the “correct” gear and it is not as effective.

If you have that much of a problem with conditions I suggest Runes of Lyssa/Bask Venom or Melandru/Lemongrass. Either of those options will win out over stacking HP.

SheerBlood.5687:

wish.1027:

Sword/Dagger.

Message Body length must at least be 15.

Its funny because its a guy from your world xD oh well thanks for the help!

Well, the idea is that if you can steal his protection, regen and might stacks, he will fold like a wet noodle. S/D easily accomplishes this. You should also save burst for right after he swaps to water, that will help you win too.

Big Tower.5423:

Critical damage, is most imporant without critical damage you wont do damage

You’re a funny guy. Why don’t you show us some math problems to prove your point.

Woaden.9425:

my point is that, generally speaking, no one who makes builds or plays builds (ie all of us) takes every single mathematical formula for effectiveness in to account.

That’s a pretty poor attitude to have IMO. Intentionally gimping yourself when you could do better is just… bad.

No one cares about traits btw, you should trait for whatever abilities you like that suit your playstyle. Selecting gear is the only thing you can do wrong or right.

Big Tower.5423:

You are wrong, celestial + zerker prvovide better damage becuse more critical damage = more damage

lol… Please try and understand the discussion before typing, and learn to pay attention to the math posted that clearly shows Celestial and Berserkers does less damage and offers less survivability than Soldiers with Berserkers.

Here, I will help you and explain the math behind it. Maybe you can learn something from it. Here’s the problems for your average attack:
Old:
(2166+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + .92) * .52)) =
4565.0384 Damage
Celestial:
(1991+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .45) + ((1.5 + 1.05) * .55)) =
4540.4775 Damage

To break the numbers down into what they are, it’s…
(base power + bloodlust stacks + (35 * average might stacks)) * ((none-crit damage * .none-crit chance) + (base crit damage + .added crit damage) * .crit chance)) = average damage

These are the only parts of the damage equation that change between the 2 builds, so theyre the only parts of the problem we bother with. The skills you use, your weapon damage, the armor of your targets, etc, would be the same no matter what, so we simply eliminate those parts when comparing the damage, because they would affect both sets in the same way and the answers would still be the same.

And just to explain simply why you’re wrong. What if your crit rate is 5%? Even if you added 100 crit damage to that, it would be reduced by an effectiveness of 95%, since it only triggers on 5 out of 100 hits. Get it? Power/Crit Chance/Crit Damage all matter.

Sitting at like 35% Crit chance with 140 crit damage isnt as good as sitting at like 55% crit chance 90 crit damage.
.35 * 1.4 = 0.490
.55 * .9 = 0.495
Get it?
I really hope you do, it would help clean up the forums.

x/x/x/30/x
Then get the traits for regen 2 ini every 10 seconds, and gain 3 ini on weapon swap, and run dual S/D. Beyond that you’ll have to decide your own traits, but for DPS, Executioner in the Critical Strikes line is going to be best.

And dont listen to people who say Soldiers gear is bad. Soldiers in correct slots (like Hat/Body/Legs) with Berserker everything else is mathematically superior for DPS and Defense compared to Valkyrie mixed with Berserkers.

Big Tower.5423:

Dont go solider armor get valkyrie armor, you loose very much dps by going pvt (loss of critdamage, which is the main dps factor)

Like this guy…

Sword/Dagger.

Message Body length must at least be 15.

Isnt actually very good.

Ok so I had a discussion with a friend from my guild about this armor, and I thought I’d post some of it here. Basically just the basic concept behind Celestial Armor and why it sucks.

So its basically suppose to be for ‘balance’ to give offensive and defensive stats on the same piece of gear. Considering my gear set was made for that, I compared it to a full celestial set.

Soldiers/Berserkers gloves pants boots
2166 power
1706 precision
1556 toughness
1364 vitality
92 crit damage

Oils/Ghosts
1556 * (61/1024) = 92.69140625 (+)
1364 * (40/1024) = 53.28125 (=)
145.97265625 + 70 = 216
+ 1706 = 1922
52% crit rate

Celestial/Soldiers weapons
1991 power
1774 precision
1544 toughness
1346 vitality
105 crit damage

Oils/Ghosts
1544 * (61/1024) = 91.9765625 (+)
1346 * (40/1024) = 52.578125 (=)
144.5546875 + 70 = 215
+1774 = 1989
55% crit rate

Old:
(2166+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .48) + ((1.5 + .92) * .52)) =
4565.0384 Damage
Celestial:
(1991+250+(35*6)) * ((1 * .45) + ((1.5 + 1.05) * .55)) =
4540.4775 Damage

The DPS is actually lower using full Celestial, and if you look at the stat distribution, Your Toughness and Vitality both go down using Celestial.

Even Hidden Killer Backstab damage is lower.
(2166+250+(35*6)) * (1.5 + .92) =
6354.92 Damage
Celestial:
(1991+250+(35*6)) * (1.5 + 1.05) =
6250.05 Damage

So ya, stick with the Soldiers/Berserkers mix I covered in one of my old threads, unless you want magic find. It’s actually a good set if you want magic find gear.

Mug, with accurate corrected precision
Fall, with accurate corrected precision

Screenshots attached to show precision values, 1914 is exactly 52%. Fall hits 1914, and Mug still wastes 1 stat sitting at 1915… but thats better than than the 17 wasted originally because this game fails at simple math.

distpheonix.8341:

but why don’t you try…

I know why I’ve never tried this, because I’ve never even come close to dieing to a condition thief while playing a balanced d/d build, so it seems weak to me.

If you care about utility, Meladnru (w/ lemongrass food -65% stun/condition duration) or Lyssa runes (w/ bask venom, remove all condis gain all boons every 40~ seconds) can be amazing. If you want max DPS, Scholar or Thief runes are good, depending on which’s condition for +10% damage you feel more comfortable with. For balanced builds Divinity will always win because they give more useful stats than anything else. And lastly, Wurm runes are ok if you don’t like the situational requirements of Scholar/Thief and Divinity are to expensive.

Oh and sigils: Have a Bloodlust for every weapons you use in your main hand, as well as something to replace it with (force or accuracy is best) and a fire sigil on your offhands.

Like I have 3 Soldiers daggers, with bloodlust, force, fire. When i run D/D I use bloodlust with offhand fire until I hit 25, then swap it to force and fire. (full bloodlust is going to be around 10% damage, just for reference)

Helcor.9527:

less than a second

Why do you keep saying this? I see 2 CnD, which have .5 second activation times each, an auto attack chain which is over 2 seconds, and some other random stuff. This fight lasted at least 3 seconds, which is more than enough time for you have hit hit a stun break/shield block/etc that engineers have tons of access to.

This is clearly a L2P issue, as most engineers dont have much trouble dealing with most thieves.

engi vs 2 thieves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRg3r9KHGtA

engi vs s/d thief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZfmE_0xtkk

engi vs d/d thief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMdcB6Ssd38

Maybe these will help you.

urbanevil.7145:

EDIT: Just gotta make fun of you posting 2/3 screenshot’s of of you killing uplevel’s LOL! Congrat’s!

And I’m just gonna make fun of you for being unable to count! LOL! Congrat’s!

KinkyGiraffe.4123:

He also beat them on his thief, so hardcore

Ya, apparently Im the only person in the world who generally wins fights against thieves, whether Im on thief, guardian or warrior. How is it that everyone else is so bad?