Guild Wars 2

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Now that I finally got an editing program to run without crashing on this computer, I can start posting videos again. Clips are from last week.

http://youtu.be/2Ag3VwuWPS4

Or, if you don’t like videos, here’s a gif that explains how I play thief.

Hurray for real music

styx.7294:

Sororita.3465:

styx.7294:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Wait, styx got a forum infraction? Infinitely Nice Guy Styx?

Mah dawg.

Actually it’s my 2nd one!

only 2nd?

It’s not a contest, Starshine.

YES IT IS.
And Im winning, Ive gotten like 20.

Thats kind of strange, I dont find anything you said offensive, I even replied to you, which got deleted lol.

styx.7294:

wish.1027:

Buddy.7563:

Thank you for the loot SF It was much appreciated <3

This is the most confusing post I have ever seen.
Neither of your SS’s has any SF tags in it.

Also, who is this fake SF!?! I thought I was the only person in Strike Force this low in the tiers lol.

Oh give it up, just main your thief and spend the rest of your life ganking people in the low tiers.

I would but sometimes I just need my fix of 100 vs 100 combat. (with people who play melees, and arent afraid to charge things, that doesnt really happen here as far as I know, except those DDLG guys if theres a bunch of them on)

Buddy.7563:

Thank you for the loot SF It was much appreciated <3

This is the most confusing post I have ever seen.
Neither of your SS’s has any SF tags in it.

Also, who is this fake SF!?! I thought I was the only person in Strike Force this low in the tiers lol.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

NOBODY discusses roaming groups or small ops. Hurts my soul that the WvW end-game is just blob v. blob with no consideration for small groups or solo players, even in discussion.

You’re doing it wrong.
Move to tier 7 or 8, somewhere at the bottom.

You might find this post interesting too.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first#post2208185

Edit: Linked to the wrong post, its fixed now.

Bovinity.8610:

Your bank.

It frightens me.

=D

(*’-’)

Bovinity.8610:

Meanwhile you have a 66% chance to get 341 HP (341*.66=225) or simply speaking, Omnom Ghosts add 225 damage to your swing,

Wouldn’t that be, (341*.66*.57) give or take a few crit %? Closer to 130 damage/swing on average?

No, because I was talking specifically about Backstab and Hidden Killer. Thats correct for everything else though, except if youre missing any HP at all you can double it like youre Jay Wilson.

Bovinity.8610:

Still significant, no doubt, and more damage/swing than the other foods are giving on anything other than backstab, hm. I hadn’t thought about it that way, actually.

I have bought a ton of the Dragon Rolls food for WvW, so I am eager to give it a go in there. I’ll probably end up stocking up a bank full of them before Dragon Bash is over just so I can spend 30 copper versus ~9 silver/each on food down the road.

I might have gone a bit overboard too, lol.

Fiddler.5174:

Your link is to a D/D S/D build. Not sure if that is intended or not.

Lol, I had the wrong one there, it’s fixed now though.

Fiddler.5174:

On a side not I learned something from your specs and I am changing my armor around a bit. Was pretty much the same armor but wrong slots filled. Have to get rid of my knights legs. NO P/V/T legs at karma vendor. Need more badges…
How do you feel about Ruby Orbs? I use 6 right now. Div runes are pretty expensive.

Orbs are 35 stats and 2 crit damage, Divinity runes are 40 useful stats (power, precision, toughness, vitality) and 2 crit damage. 40 is more than 35, Divinity wins. There were other sets posted by people in the thread if youre interested though, one with Soldiers armor and Ruby orbs for instance was just a little bit worse overall, just know that 35 cant beat 40. There was a 30/30/10 and 10/30/30 with Wurm runes also that werent horrible.

I get a lot of questions about this in game and half the thread posts seem to be about not using divinity runes, maybe I should make final builds for those also. I’ll do that now since Im doing nothing.

Bovinity.8610:

Potentially useless info:

During Dragon Bash you can get the Slice of Candied Dragon Roll food which seems to be the same thing as the Omnomberry Ghost (albeit shorter duration) but costs darn near nothing at all.

I was unaware of that, thanks for pointing it out. I always use Ghosts instead of Pies because they generally cost the same amount but Ghosts last 45 minutes instead of 30.

Bovinity.8610:

However, I still wonder at their value versus the Squash. Your logic about Hidden Killer vs. Executioner and large bursts being extremely effective at causing panic (not to mention making HP pools drop) makes a lot of sense, and it would seem that adding a significant amount to that burst would be a good idea.

You’re not adding a significant amount of damage to that with Squash or a100 Power food.

I have 2146 base power, 250 from bloodlust, and 6 stacks of might when Im fighting people at 35 power each.
2146 + 250 + (6 * 35)= 2606
If we add 100 to that then divide it by itself we get…
(2606 + 100) /2606= 1.0383
So adding 100 power would only be a 3.8% damage increase.

If we add 10% crit damage instead, starting with 102% crit damage, and knowing a crit is +50% damage base we get a 2.62 multiplier compared to 2.52.
2.62/2.52=1.0396
Again, its under a 4% damage increase. And thats at 100% crit chance. You can half that number for every other attacks damage increase since every other attack is only 50%~ crit chance.

Bovinity.8610:

The Ghosts might be the highest theoretical DPS if you go with the HP-Swing method (which isn’t entirely valid, it looks like you’re counting a ghost proc as 700 damage which really isn’t fair at all), but in what situation is that actually useful for a class that isn’t going for a bunker strategy? Not to mention the RNG baked into the mechanic.

What I actually showed with my original math was that you would have to be fighting a glass cannon/up level for Omnom Ghosts to actually lose, and theyd only lose then if you had full HP the whole time. They didnt even lose by that much either, we’re talking 100 damage for every 12,000, and only if you kept full HP the whole time. The less damage you’re doing to someone the more Ghosts pull ahead. Against a bunker, whats your backstab do? 5k if you’re lucky? Thats less than a 200 damage increase from either of the other foods. Meanwhile you have a 66% chance to get 341 HP (341*.66=225) or simply speaking, Omnom Ghosts add 225 damage to your swing, and if you’re missing any HP at all, they create a much larger HP swing than any other food provides.

Bovinity.8610:

In a short fight I’d certainly think that you’d want more burst to get rid of the opponent altogether as quickly as possible versus sacrificing a pretty decent amount of damage for a small heal and giving them the chance to just live longer and do more damage to you.

In a fast fight it wont matter, youll down them in half a second anyway.

Bovinity.8610:

Even in a long drawn out fight against something like a bunker Guardian, is trying to essentially “out-bunker” the Guardian with the Ghosts going to be desirable versus simply lining up more damage?

Out-bunkering bunkers on my Thief is exactly what I do honestly. My offhand is S/D, against Boonbunkers like Guardians, Eles, that new Ranger build and the Mesmer one, they rely on boons to be super awesome. I steal their boons, and auto attack them down with sword and lol the whole time because I dont need to do anything but use Lac Strike to take the correct boons, then stand in front of them and autoattack. (Ok this isnt true against against Eles with a clue, but for most fights this is exactly what happens) This is when ghosts really shine and when what they do actually matters.

For the bunkers that just have lots of HP and Defense you can whittle them down however you like, but youll not be doing enough damage to them to make ghost procs do less than a 4% damage increase.

Noil.7816:

Well

You should feel ashamed of yourself for bumping this old thread.

Employee.2680:

Guilds like TW, TWL Choo, IRON, TYSM have members that transfered parts of their guilds to JQ and been taking up spaces in WvW just to have Guild vs Guild. They are ruining the Que’s for those who actually care to WvW. I doubt anything will be done but I’d like to pass the info out to the rest of SoR and JQ in why you are having longer que times.

You should just move to BG, Im sure theyd love to have you.

All Mesmer stealths function like Blinding Powder. 3~ second duration and a decent cooldown. And theyre all utility skills. But you need to watch, he has teleports as well. One functions like Shadowstep and he can target it, and others move him forward (sword) or back (staff).

Mesmers gain a clone when they dodge roll, it appears where ever they started, like how thieves can get swiftness or drop caltraps. This might seem good for him, but its actually bad, as he can never dodge rool away to keep you from CnDing him, youll always get his clone he just dropped.

The best advice I can give is if youre playing D/D+S/D, if hes a glass cannon mesmer, stay stealthed and try to CnD him a bit to get him to 60%~ HP or so, then do your CnD, Steal, Backstab combo and he should go down. If he’s tanky, use your sword #2 to move in and out and autoattack him, but dont fight him on your return circle, you need to be away from it. When he gets Vigor (he will) you need to steal it with Sword #3, if he gets a long duration Regen you need to steal that too. If you can do that you will easily kill him… eventually. Just dont get caught in his burst. (when you get immobilized or clones are charging you, GTFO)

Also, if he summons the clone that spams unload (the dual pistol skill #3 on thief) you need to kill that ASAP. It will wreck your face.

This post reserved for future use.

Ok so, before we really begin, lets discuss what stat setups are common, and where people like their EHP to sit for this build. The only thing Im really sure of, is that you need more defense for this build, and that what Im using seems like it might be to much.

This is a stat optimized version of what I currently run when I play this spec
Wish D/P 0/20/30/20/0
Effective Power 3883.5 (Oils and Ghosts)
Effective Health (EHP) 24480
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1c.h2.a.1c.h17|c.1c.h2.8.1c.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.2s.d14.3s.d17.2s.d13|0.k36.u54b.k19.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

We have exactly 49% Crit chance with this, which needs to be higher by at least 2%, and I think we could really dump 1-2k EHP personally. But I dont really use this much, so I would rather hear what you guys who play this spec have to say about EHP and Stat Point allocations before I proceed so I can build things more around what people use. It doesnt matter what Traits you use btw, that wont change anything.

If you didn’t read the original thread I made, I suggest you read the first 2 pages before you ask questions that might be answered there about how to gear and what food to use and why.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first

Wish’s Mug, Final Version: 10/30/30/0/0
Effective Power 4761.59 (Oils and Ghosts)
Effective Health 21877
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1c.h2.8.1c.h17|c.1c.h2.8.1c.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d13.2s.d14.3s.d17.2t.d14.2s.d14.2s.d13|a3.u36c.u56b.0.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

For this build I changed 1 Defensive Berserker/Berserker earring to Offensive Berserker/Valkyrie, the Infusion changed from Vitality to Precision, and I changed 2 other Power infusions to Precision infusions. This will give us exactly 1 Precision over 53% crit chance.

The other option would be to spend 60+ gold and make a Versatile Precision Infusion for the Defensive Berserker/Berserker ring, so we would lose that Vitality infusion, and then gain a Power infusion, which will end us at exactly 53% crit chance, and these stats:
Effective Power 4772.32
Effective Health 21806
11 Power for 70 Defense doesnt seem like a good trade at this point, so I will not be using this one, and I will waste the 1 stat point. In the end, by giving up the 5 Vitality infusion you’re also giving up 1 Precision gained from Master Maintenance Oil… so it balances itself out anyway sort of. I don’t believe there is a right answer here, so we’ll go with the one that is 60 gold cheaper.

Wish’s Fall, Final Version #1: 0/30/30/10/0
Effective Power 4668.2 (Oils and Ghosts)
Effective Health 22330
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|c.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d13.2s.d14.2t.d14.2t.d14.2s.d13.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a1.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

For this build we hit exactly 52% Crit chance by moving both Defensive Berserker/Berserker trinkets to Offensive Berserker/Valkyrie, moving both their Vitality Infusions to Precision Infusions, and Changing 1 Power infusion to Precision.

I think the Fall build might have a bit to much EHP as it is honestly, so I built a second version to remove some of it and switch it over to Power. The downside to this build is that the gear is pretty different from what I had originally used. Four Trinkets were switched to Berserker/Valkyrie, the weapons were switched to Berserker, and Four Infusions were changed.

Wish’s Fall, Final Version #2: 0/30/30/10/0
Effective Power 4800.4 (Oils and Ghosts)
Effective Health 21276
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h2.8.1g.h17|c.1g.h2.8.1g.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2t.d13.3t.d17.2t.d14.2t.d14.3s.d17.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a1.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

For this build we end at exactly 56% crit chance, Which is pretty high, and I wish I could change some of that Precision to Power, but it doesnt work out, this is the best you can do without wasting a bunch of stats. On the up side to this build, this has almost exactly the EHP as Yishis’s build, slightly more damage reduction and slightly less HP though, but people who are use to it will only see a damage increase using this instead. What this actually accomplishes over version one is a 3% Damage increase and 5% Defense loss. The loss in Effective HP won’t be noticeable to most of you, it might even be an improvement, so losing 5% of it for 3% damage might be a good trade.

The real problem with this build is that all the damage gains when using this come from making more critical hits on your attacks. So it doesnt help your Backstab damage, it actually makes it worse as you lose 6 power. You should keep that in mind when deciding which would be better for you as well.

In the end, you should use whichever you find better, I only built these on my preference for 21.5k~ EHP, as I find thats where I can effectively avoid dieing to burst most of the time. But I can confidently say these are the best builds available for the trait sets and keeping in line with that amount of EHP.

Babayum.9204:

Molch.2078:

wish.1027:

I might have just gotten home and been drinking, but Im pretty sure that site cnt account for stacks or duration increases or how much you gain and stuff. Making the EP stat it lists useless. Which is why earlier int eh day before I was drinking I posted a lot of maths I had to do to show whether or not it increased damage and by how much compared to other stuff.

Sorry? Not sure what you want to say. You can calculate your Epower with might on this site.

Would be quite interesting if you could try it out so we can see which is better, to go for the runes or for the orbs.

I was drinking a bit, Strike Force guild represent!, anyway, your links dont work because you cant link the build and have it keep track of might stacks for others when they click the link. So the numbers you posted are different than what you see when you click the link. Also the site isnt super reliable to give good answers. It thinks Sharpening Stones are better than Oils for instance. Whenever the end results are close when comparing two things you should always do the math yourself and post it for others to double check your work.

(Im not saying youre incorrect in the things you said, just that you should do things a bit differently)

kittennit.7648:

Not to mention that you generaly have people in ur party to grant u might so it’s not needed.

If we’re going to talk about group play also, this is correct, this build would never win if other people are giving you might.

Klabbo.6927:

I run a build similar to your 0/30/30/10 build, wish. From what I’ve seen, most people have zerk/zerk trinkets. However , I’ve already invested in a full set of zerk/valk ascended trinkets. To account for this I use zerker weapons and it seems to even out okay. Even so, I’m not sure if i’ve put myself at a disadvantage getting zerk/valk trinkets. What do you think?

Here’s the build:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h2.8.1g.h17|c.1n.hd.8.1n.h4|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2t.d13.2t.d13.3t.d17.3t.d17.2t.d13.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a6.0|39.1|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

Also, ignore the secondary weapon set, I like to have a bump in toughness on weapon swap as I use it when I go on the defense.

Youre not losing anything by doing that, so its totally fine. The 30/30/10 set uses Valk weapons, bers/bers trinkets, you simply traded 128 VIT for 128 PREC on weapons and 90 PREC on Trinkets for 90 VIT. So slightly more EP slightly less EHP compared to what I posted. The only advise I will give you is to check your precision and try to match it to a point where you gain exactly 1% crit chance so you dont waste precision. You might need to switch 1 Trinket or infusion, but it would be worth it.

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

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

Molch.2078:

Your build

Epower: 7121 (24 Might)

Your build, but Rubyorbs + Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup

Epower: 7446 (15 might – thats 24 might without 60% boonduration and the buff food)

And every boonstrip on the enemy team, every buffing warrior/guard on your team is another reason to use Ruby Orbs + Squash Soup.

Tl; dr: You sacrifice too much to get those mightstacks.

I might have just gotten home and been drinking, but Im pretty sure that site cnt account for stacks or duration increases or how much you gain and stuff. Making the EP stat it lists useless. Which is why earlier int eh day before I was drinking I posted a lot of maths I had to do to show whether or not it increased damage and by how much compared to other stuff.

kittennit.7648:

I’ve actually switched from my original build with this (0 / 30 / 25 / 15 / 0) to a different trait setup. I’m now running 0 / 15 / 25 / 30 / 0 because i felt that it lacks a lot of sustain (mostly because of initiative) and the damage was a little bit over the top. With this setup i can use flanking strike and CnD much more effectly. I can also do the Flanking Strike rotation with it that jumpers build uses. 15 more into Acro also means +15% Boon Duration to keep the might up. The damage is still really good because of the might stacks, even tho i miss Executioner, but the trade off is just too good. I kinda fell in love with that build as a WvW roaming spec. I wouldn’t recommend it tho if you aint using Double S/D.

Im glad you switched over to something with more ini regain, as I find that pretty crucial for double S/D. Post all your traits and gear and stuff and I’ll see if I can make it better tomorrow for you.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Would your guardian happen to be dark skinned with white beard using hammer / gs?

Engels.8537:

wish.1027:

solrik.6028:

I’ve read that thief has an easy time going full berserker and still have a lot of survivability with the stealth skills.

You heard wrong. But thief is amazing at crushing bads dreams that theyre good and making them QQ on forums.

Jade Quarry Guardian. Jade Quarry Thief
Strike Force [SF] Spam Force [SF]
w/ an alt thief and warrior I just play thief cuz is great

Fixed for you

Except my Thief is on Gate of Madness, and I play it less often than my Guardian, since its just my alt. And ya, Thief is great. I can solo roam and kill tons of people quickly. I do the same thing on my guardian though, it just takes longer to move from point A to B and takes a lot longer to kill 2-3 people at the same time. But I can still easily ditch fights I cant win, its called “Snowleopard form” and its freakin amazing and open to everyone, just roll a Norn.

kittennit.7648:

wish.1027:

If you keep 30 in Critical Strikes and Executioner instead of Shadows Rejuvination, your build will come out ahead around 18 stacks of might, but youd have to keep at least 18 up at all times.

Thanks a lot for this man really appreciate it ! I’m not really into all that math stuff so that is definetly quite interesting. Would be interesting to see how far these numbers are apart if you take Executioner into consideration because that is what i am running with.

I did that, my original equastions did not count executioner, but they also did not count +5 CS for the might stacking build.

wish.1027:

(2001 + 250 + 60 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .46) + (2.62 * .54))= 4726.3708
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 16)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 4600.284
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 25)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 5102.394

These are what we get without accounting for Hidden Killer or Executioner, but before we try to add them, lets figure out where the break even point is currently, because I want to know

(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 18)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 4711.864

If we just change this:
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 18)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))=
to this:
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 18)) * ((1 * .54) + (2.4 * .46))= 4859.664
We account for +5 CS instead of +5 SA in the build, then we can count down might stacks to find where it wins exactly:
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 17)) * ((1 * .54) + (2.4 * .46))= 4802.124
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 16)) * ((1 * .54) + (2.4 * .46))= 4744.584
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 15)) * ((1 * .54) + (2.4 * .46))= 4687.044
We can see the exact point where it overtakes the other build provided they use the same gear.

0/30/30/10/0 set:
(2001 + 250 + 60 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .46) + (2.62 * .54))= 4726.3708

It’s 16 stacks, which is right where I said originally, around 18 for this build to actually be better from from a damage standpoint.

EDIT: I personally dont like this set because of the lack of weapon swap btw. It doesnt have enough Ini regen for me to use double S/D, and the damage/utility is lacking from a D/D+S/D or D/P+S/D perspective. I think you should try mixing it with Jumpers traits and see how much might you can keep up.

Wolfield.9812:

Also like to add a link to a new thread about might stacking:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Concept-25-Stacks-of-Might-Yes-please

I have thought about it quite alot, and never run the numbers, but would be interesting to see. With the normal build i stay around 6 – 8 might, even we were to might stack would loose our runes of divinity, which i don’t think i would be able to do, as well as crit dmg. Just another avenue to explore though.

I made a long post about it (2 really, the 5000 word limit per post is annoying)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Concept-25-Stacks-of-Might-Yes-please/first#post2219743

The basic idea is that if you want to give up Shadow Rejuvination, and you can keep 24-25 stacks of might up, you can gain 3%~ damage or so over the 30/30/10 build we’ve been discussing in this thread, but you have to keep up 24-25. If you dont, you lose damage. The whole thing seems to situation for me honestly. Its like you have to do this and that and this and that, and only if you maintain all this stuff do you manage to actually overtake your old damage output. Plus you have to build up to that point, and against a GC or Boonbunker type character in WvW, you wont reach the point where the might stacking build does more damage, and those are the fights you need your damage for. For PVE… well, just use a glass cannon build…

Conclusion
In your video, we can see you constantly flipping between 24 and 25 stacks of might when you get it that high, so your damage fluctuates between better and worse than a standard WvW build, and its stays worse until you can actually get to 25 stacks of might, Im not going to pretend I understand how long it takes for you to reach that, but I can assume that in WvW in a 1v1 fight, you wont reach 25 and maintain it before whoever youre fighting is dead. This is based on the idea that you only get executioner for a third of the fight though, if your opponent doesnt heal, your build loses by miles, if they get 2 heals off, youd probably only need to maintain 22ish stacks of might to win.

For PVP specifically, If it’s a GC type character youre fighting, youd lose by a lot with the might stacking build because theyd die before you got very high. When fighting a boonbunker type character, youd be using Sword 3 a lot and your might stacks would suffer greatly and the might stacking build would also lose there.

For PVE, a full out glass cannon build does 2-3x what the 0/30/30/10/0 build Im using as a comparison for this does, and it will outdamage your might stacking build, but will not have the survivability this has.

If you keep 30 in Critical Strikes and Executioner instead of Shadows Rejuvination, your build will come out ahead around 18 stacks of might, but youd have to keep at least 18 up at all times.

If I made any math errors, feel free to point them out.

Someone ask me to look at this, so here I am. lol.

This is a great idea, but in PVP people wont stand around like that giant mob where you can attack and hit them and do whatever you want saddly. But, that doesnt make it a bad idea, it just means you might be stuck at 16 or so instead of 25. Just from running 25 in Shadow arts, and stealthing like you should, you keep up 6 stacks of might 100% of the time. Your build is focusing on upping this number at the cost of executioner or hidden killer. You cant have 15 Acrobatics without dropping 5 from Critical strikes, as the survivability from Shadow Rejuvination is too good in WvW to give up. In sPVP its probably fine to dump it in favor of 30 Critical Strikes, since SA is a bad trait line for sPVP according to people who actually play it (I dont). So what Im going to do is make a mathematical evaluation of the damage increase 10 and 19 stacks of might would have compared to what you gain from 60 power, 110 precision, 17% crit damage (divinity runes+5 in CS), whatever food you would normally use, and Executioner or Hidden killer. Just for simplicitys sake we’ll say we’re using Butternut curry squash food in my build, for 100 precision and 10% crit damage.

So we have 2001 base power with no runes. With your runes you gain 75, mine gain 60, then my might is 35 * 6, yours is going to be 35 *16 and 35 * 25 and we’ll add 250 to each for bloodlust and assume we’re all smart enough to use master maintenance oil.
(2001 + 250 + 60 + (35 * 6))=
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 16))=
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 25))=
Heres our power listings, now we need to add crit chance and crit damage. The set Im using is 112 crit damage and 54 crit chance, your set would be 85 crit damage and 44 crit chance, since the only thing we’re changing is food, runes and traits.
(2001 + 250 + 60 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .46) + (2.62 * .54))= 4726.3708
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 16)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 4600.284
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 25)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 5102.394

These are what we get without accounting for Hidden Killer or Executioner, but before we try to add them, lets figure out where the break even point is currently, because I want to know

(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 18)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 4711.864

Just over 18 stacks of might is the break even point currently. So if you cant maintain at least 19, this build will never be better. Now lets account for Executioner, since you’re using S/D and thats superior to Hidden Killer. If we think about it, you’d gain 20% damage whenever your target is below 50% HP, so 50% of the time, but things have heals, so we have to account for that, and we’ll say A standard heal on a character does about 1/3rd of their HP really, so we’d need to account for that as being part of the time executioner is not working. so if we gave the guy 10k HP, he’d lose 5k, then gain 3,333 then have to lose that before executioner took effect. So basically hes at 13,333 and at 5k we can count it.
5000/13333=0.375
So like 37.5% of the time we gain 20% damage.
20*.375=7.5
So executioner is really giving us like a 7.5% damage increase.

(2001 + 250 + 60 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .46) + (2.62 * .54))= 4726.3708 * 1.075= 5080.84861

In another thread I showed how when using D/D Executioner does less damage than Hidden Killer, so I wont be going over that since youre using S/D.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/page/2#post2216601
But lets look at the numbers and youre video again.
Your build @ 24 stacks of might
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 24)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 5046.604
25 stacks of might
(2001 + 250 + 75 + (35 * 25)) * ((1 * .56) + (2.35 * .44))= 5102.394
Standard 0/30/30/10/0 using executioner
(2001 + 250 + 60 + (35 * 6)) * ((1 * .46) + (2.62 * .54))= 4726.3708 * 1.075= 5080.84861

Stealth.8150:

Jet.4795:

To all the BG gloating about last week. Tell us one time you guys made us tick under 200 when we were actually playing besides Thursday night NA. Think about this you guys had us beat during Oceanic/EU no doubt and props but you guys got a lot of you points during NA and SEA off DB… So before you start gloating please realize you never straight dominated us when we were actually on and playing. Thanks keep it classy

LOL you guys got dominated by 75k.
yes we made you guys go under 200ppt quite few times i have marked a black line for the 200 ppt just to refresh your mind. you guys even ticked less than 100ppt few times

Nice graph, its just like the other guy said, late at night and during EU time when JQ has no one playing. /not surprised.

MagiKarp.8201:

wish.1027:

Paxi.1386:

SoR and JQ can say all they want about being superior to Blackgate, I ain’t even mad, we saw what happens to JQ when SoR isn’t with them (or did you JQ guys forget about last week so quickly?)

I (like most people on JQ) was far to busy killing everything labeled “Dragonbrand” to even notice there was a third server there last week. Are you telling me it was BG? And that BG scored more points than we did? Heh, who would of known… certainly not anyone on JQ. But hey, keep farming those PUGs in EB and feeling awesome, cause JQ doesnt usually have any orgainized guilds there. But should you want an actual challenge, feel free to go to a real map, like JQ BL, where you own nothing.

I also remember this “real map” being blue for the entirety of last week.

As I pointed out man, far to busy killing Dragonbrand to care.

Paxi.1386:

SoR and JQ can say all they want about being superior to Blackgate, I ain’t even mad, we saw what happens to JQ when SoR isn’t with them (or did you JQ guys forget about last week so quickly?)

I (like most people on JQ) was far to busy killing everything labeled “Dragonbrand” to even notice there was a third server there last week. Are you telling me it was BG? And that BG scored more points than we did? Heh, who would of known… certainly not anyone on JQ. But hey, keep farming those PUGs in EB and feeling awesome, cause JQ doesnt usually have any orgainized guilds there. But should you want an actual challenge, feel free to go to a real map, like JQ BL, where you own nothing.

My BS says 1889, then we have 440×2, 669×2, and 1181 for CnD.
so BS is 1889 the others are (440*2 + 669 * 2 + 1181) 3399
with 50% crit chance, 100% crit damage if we had +20% damage the whole time our rotation would do like….
1889 + 3399=5288
(1 * .5) + (2.5 * .5)=1.75
5288 * 1.75 * 1.2=
11104.8
this much when we dont count power or weapons or toughness or anything like that.
If we just made BS crit it would do like….
(1889 * 2.5 ) = 4777
(1 * .5) + (2.5 * .5)=1.75
3399 * 1.75=5948.25
5948.25 + 4777=
10725.25
this much. As you can see, even if we had a 20% bonus the whole time, it would just barely win, imagine having it only half the time, like lets say we have a target with 20k HP (not unheard of, and probably pretty common) For the first half you get nothing, second half you get 20% damage, what happens?
your first round would do 5288 * 1.75=9254 damage and your second would do 11104. 9254 + 11104=20358
Now lets look at hidden killer instead, it would just do 2 * 10725=21450, which is more than executioner. Now lets take a moment to think about what would happen if you fought someone with 20k HP, youd take half their life, then theyd heal it back, then youd have to take it again, then youd get your 20 increase. So in 3 rounds it would look more like executioner does (9254*2 + 11104) 29612 and hidden killer does (3 * 10725) 32175.

Conclusion
If youre not a heart seeker spamming noob, hidden killer does more damage than executioner. If you dont BS much, Executioner wins. But I think this was common knowledge from the beginning, at least, I always knew the numbers would look something like this.

WonderfulCT.6278:

wish.1027:

All you really did was move a bit of the effective power to effective defense. Switch your foods to the proper ones, min/max your precision to hit a good number, and remove the random 5% crit chance youre giving yourself from the second sigil to see for yourself.

No I did not only move effective power to effective defense, also I’m not sure if you’re refering to my previous build or your build. I tried to keep my build as close to yours in EF and EH but since the EH was really close I just threw the excess in EP. “Switch your foods to proper ones.” I have no idea what you mean by this. Do you not consider butternut squash soup or truffle steak to be proper foods?

I do not consider them to be proper foods, which is why I spent so long proving Omnomberry Ghosts/Pies are better, and also that Master Maintenance Oil is better than Superior Sharpening Stones.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first#post2201183
This post.

If we Change your offhand sigil to fire, and switch your foods to the proper ones we end up with this for the 0/30/30/10/0 builds:
Effective Power 4704.69
Effective Health (EHP) 22015
While my build is currently this:
Effective Power 4713.94
Effective Health (EHP) 21991

So yes, all you did is move a bit of EP to EHP.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|c.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a1.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|c.1p.h2.8.1p.h1|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1p.a7|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|0.u36b.u56b.a1.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

WonderfulCT.6278:

WonderfulCT.6278:

You could do this same thing to your build and get superior stats so why am I bringing this up? ‘Cause you didn’t.

wish.1027:

Superior paper stats for autoattacking arent always the best thing in the world, I proved this in the discussion about about omnom ghosts vs other foods. This site also doesnt take bloodlust stacks into account, which I did when I showed why oils are better than stones, and what you have to do to reach the point where oils become better (remove excess precision) Youre also sitting under 50% crit chance on this build.

Which stat is paper and what do you mean by paper? If you are emplying the build is glassy than I would again remind you it has about the same EH as your build. For a more balanced build ghosts can probably do ok[…]in WvW (Had to omit that part). Also you didn’t directly address my removal of hidden killer (which I find useless).

If you want a higher crit chance use oils and soup.

Also acknowledge air sigils they’re lonely.

The purpose of my counter builds is get a cost effective version of your builds (which probably annoys you :P) while maintaining similar to better stats.

Better stats wont happen. Cheaper sets isnt the point of this thread. This is to determine the best possible stuff, I like the things you type honestly, I know if I mess something up or something better exists you’ll point it out, so keep posting.

By “paper math” I mean what you get by doing math on paper, in this case using the EP and EHP of the build site to adjust gear. Eventually that stops working, and you have to do real math and base your ideas and theory’s on what actually occurs while you play. This leads to situations and things like “If you do X and not Y, Z item is better than V item, otherwise always use V.” Like Scholar runes. If you never take damage, theyre awesome, thief runes are the same if no one ever turns around to face you. But the moment they do, you have to add a qualifier to their use. Like, dont use them if youre playing against people with a clue, cause theyll hit you and you will lose the benefit.

I also believe in using hidden killer. Not because I ever did any math to prove its better, but because I can recognize the psychological impact it has on people when you backstab them and it crits and does big damage. This does a lot of damage, 2.5x more when it crits, and it makes people panic, panicing people make bad PVPers, and it makes them easier to kill, even if in the end it doesnt do more damage than that other one I forget the name of, just the fact that you can rely on that big hit to off someone at half HP and not have to worry about it, or that you can make people panic is most likely a far better thing than a bit of extra damage (if it actually does less, but I really doubt it does less). I can do the math to prove which is better if you like, check the next post.

WonderfulCT.6278:

Overall all stats are improved on the site without use divinity runes or scholars. You can still use soup with this since steak barely improves EF.

All you really did was move a bit of the effective power to effective defense. Switch your foods to the proper ones, min/max your precision to hit a good number, and remove the random 5% crit chance youre giving yourself from the second sigil to see for yourself.

WonderfulCT.6278:

You could do this same thing to your build and get superior stats so why am I bringing this up? ‘Cause you didn’t.

Superior paper stats for autoattacking arent always the best thing in the world, I proved this in the discussion about about omnom ghosts vs other foods. This site also doesnt take bloodlust stacks into account, which I did when I showed why oils are better than stones, and what you have to do to reach the point where oils become better (remove excess precision) Youre also sitting under 50% crit chance on this build.

Lyndis.2584:

Can someone just tell me what the heck is the best build already lol

Sure, soon as we figure out what it is.

sorrow.2364:

Also, pick carefully the posts in the thief forum. Most people here have an extremely aggressive behavior and are extremely biased toward their profession.

You forgot to mention that most of them arent even thieves and are just here to QQ and cry for nerfs.

Kallist.5917:

Oh come on, there is only one song that is appropriate for a thief!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szt8dQAwxzE

We’re awesome and we know it!

This song is awesome.
To you guys taking this thread seriously, you have problems.

solrik.6028:

I’ve read that thief has an easy time going full berserker and still have a lot of survivability with the stealth skills.

You heard wrong. But thief is amazing at crushing bads dreams that theyre good and making them QQ on forums.

Quells.2498:

I do have all the gear/trinkets/sigils already as I was running something similar previously. I know 60 gold isn’t really ridiculous but my biggest challenge is keeping my wife out of my bank stash…

lol… Good Luck with that then.

EDIT: After playing with a Offensive Cavalier ring and earring for a long time, I couldnt make them do what I wanted them to do, which was allow me to swap some valk gear in to replace some soldiers to gain crit damage at the cost of some power/precision. This trade is ultimately not worth it in the end as it ends up lowering your damage output and your defense beyond what just mixing soldiers/valkyries/berserkers offers. Unless I just somehow did it totally wrong, but I dont think I did.

FinalPatriot.8034:

wish.1027:

30 30 10 Wurm runes
Effective Power 4904.61
Effective Health (EHP) 22027
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h2.8.1p.h17|c.1g.h2.8.1p.h17|1c.710.1g.710.1c.710.1g.710.1c.710.1g.710|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a1.0|39.1|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

Wish, can you talk more about this build/gear idea? I like the idea of the damage reduction and the lower cost for the runes (not going to pay 60+ gold for divinity). Does this work with the 10/30/30 build you listed earlier? Also, have you ever tried this with the D/P before?

I really like my current setup/build but the problem I have is a low base health and very little damage reduction. I know some argue that glass is the way to go but if they don’t get the drop on me, they’ve got no chance to survive.

Thats just using Wurm runes to see how the damage/defense scales compared to Divinity runes. You should really just buy divinity runes, its not that difficult to farm gold in this game to get the best gear. That said:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1c.h2.8.1c.h17|c.1c.h1.8.1c.h17|1c.710.1g.710.1c.710.1g.710.1c.710.1g.710|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|a3.u36c.u56b.0.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e
That should be the best you can do with 10-30-30, if you want more offense, move the weapons to valk, more offense than that move them to berserker, more than that move the body to valk, then legs/hat to valk. Then body > legs > hat to berserker.

When I play D/P I use 0-20-30-20-0, and I use the gear set listed for the 10-30-30 mug build, as thats what I actually own gear wise. (I use a Soldiers gun also) Im aware its not the best thing to use, but it’s what I currently use. After I finish this I plan to figure out the best gear set for that as well, but I really expect it to be whatever is listed as best for the 30-30-10 build (which only switch soldiers weapons to valkyrie weapons compared to the 10-30-30) except maybe with 1 berserker weapon and 1 valkyrie weapon to make up some of the lost precision.

If youre just wanting to fix your low HP problem, In my post above this one I listed which pieces of gear should be switched out first in favor of defensive stats.

Quells.2498:

Divinity runes are nearly 10G each right now and there’s just no way I’m paying that. Any suggestions on a different set of runes?

You should really just farm gold and buy divinity runes, theres no sense intentionally gimping yourself when it will only take an hour a day over 2 weeks to make enough to buy them along with the fire sigil and bloodlust sigils. Youre going to spend more time than that acquiring the other gear if you do dungeons to obtain it all. Dont let 60 gold scare you away like its hard to get it, but the wurm set listed above is fine to use while you farm, then just drop in all 6 divinities at the same time when you get them. (Provided you have all the gear already, as the items you use dont change much/at all depending on which trait set you use)

Brando.1374:

so here is some stats I came up with
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.3|8.1g.h1.8.1g.h2|5.1g.h4|1g.7l.1c.7l.1p.7l.1g.7l.1g.7l.1g.7l|2u.0.2v.0.2t.0.2t.0.3t.0.2u.0|0.u36c.u45b.a6.0|39.1|57.5c.5a.5b.5v|e

Effective Power 5185.31
Effective Health (EHP) 21252
Damage Reduction 27.34%

Honestly, you made some bad gear choices, and the thief rune overcompensates for it since it always counts that 10% bonus. Like, you have hat and legs as berserker, and shoulders and coat as defensive gear. Youd gain a lot more stat wise making legs and hat your defensive pieces, since you lose the most stats for each point of crit damage in those slots. The amulet too, you give up 9 stats per point of crit damage there, thats one of the better slots to add berserker gear. And ascended back is the absolute best place to add berserker gear (Exotic you should use soldiers with berserker jewel).

Effective Power 5250.66
Effective Health (EHP) 21529
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.3|8.1p.h1.8.1p.h2|5.1g.h4|1c.7l.1g.7l.1p.7l.1g.7l.1c.7l.1g.7l|2s.0.2v.0.2t.0.2t.0.3t.0.2s.0|0.u36c.u45b.a6.0|39.1|57.5c.5a.5b.5v|e

Here I moved your hat and legs to soldiers, weapons to valkyre, shoulders and amulet and back to berserkers, and you can see the gains. If you’re using any defensive gear that doesnt include crit damage as a stat you need to put it in the slots that you give up the least crit damage for the most stats in. I also really think you should have power main stat in all your gear, but your cavalier ring has intrigued me, I must admit.

Here is a quick list of gear, and how much each point of crit damage costs. These are the first things you should switch the crit damage out of in favor of defensive stats, if youre not using crit damage in every slot.

Hat: 32 for 2, 16 each
Legs: 48 for 3, 16 each
Body: 72 for 5, 14.4 each
Weapon: 64 for 5, 12.8 each
Shoulders/Gloves/Shoes: 24 for 2, 12 each
Amulet: 85 for 9, 9.4 each
Earring: 60 for 7, 8.571 each
Ring: 68 for 8, 8.5 each
Back: 35 for 5, 7 each

Try again, Im sure you can do better than I did to suit your own playstyle.

Azraeel.1238:

lol. They were standing there doing nothing… They barely even dodged! Not to mention they were all focusing your ally…

Ya, I dunno why people have such a hard time understanding that thieves move into groups and pick off all the bads and uplevels. Its the most effective way to play. I mean I could put up videos of super awesome 1v1s Ive had, but those arent nearly as funny or entertaining. If you want to be useful, find your zerg, walk ahead of them, and kill all the bads you can find in the enemy group. This will dwindle their numbers and make a bunch of them focus on you, and not pay any attention, so when your teams zerg pushes in, theyll have an easier time winning the fight.

This doesnt work in T1 as the meta is different, but from what Ive seen in T3 to T8, this is a pretty easy thing to do. Most of those guys like to ranged attack each other until someone losses a few people or they see they have superior numbers, then they charge. In T1 its charge first, figure out your outnumbered after your dead when you can see how many of the enemy there is as they all run over you. And theres just a lot more people in general making it very hard to find any fights that are not 1v30. Especially when your opponents are SOR and BG, theyre pretty bad in general so they make up for it with numbers, lots of numbers (They stack an entire maps Q of people on 1 tag 90% of the time). I dont really know about T2 though, Ive only fought DB from that tier, and theyre pretty bad, but half their guilds are from JQ, the ones who couldnt cut it being in T1, so they use the T1 tactic.

If it seems like Im ripping on anyone, Im not. Im just explaining play styles. But seriously, if any of you thieves want to have fun solo roaming. It’s more fun in tiers 5-7.

One last thing before I forget. In the video, if you pay attention to only the the noQQ Elementalist, you can see that Im specifically playing to avoid her, and none of the other people. You need to know who your targets are, and pick them smartly. ADQQSty people are very good, and you cant fight them with others around. This is another advantage to being in lower tiers, you quickly learn who to avoid. I left at the end because theres no way I could fight a bunker mesmer with the ele there and win, since it’s right by their spawn and more people could show up at any moment.

You wont stop them. They will all leech onto stealth and blame it for the reason they lost and QQ about it, because they cant just admit they got outplayed. Its a pretty annoying fact of life, but most people are like that now. Personally I think parents should hit their kids more like in the old days, instead of telling them theyre all the best at everything and super special.

This is more appropriate.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Wish,

Do you have a video of this in action? I’d really like to see how you play it.

I actually started recording stuff, then my good PC broke, lol. But if you watch any kind of balanced build thief playing in WvW, its not much different than that. I can just take more abuse and deal slightly more damage. If you watch any of Yishis’s videos, thats a good place to start, but I’ll be uploading stuff eventually. I’ll find something to upload now though that will show a bit of the abuse you can take and what kind of damage you do, I have some of the stuff I recorded saved on this PC, but dont expect to be to impressed with my editing skills or my amazing luck at finding 4-5 bads to kill at the same time. Stuff like that only happens when Im not recording and all I get is SS’s. (In this SS I actually killed 5 people, and all 5 showed up at the same time, but saddly 2 WP’d when I downed the last one lol)

X = 1
Y =2
B = 3
A = 4
Lt+X = 6
Lt+Y = 7
Lt+B = 8
Lt+A = 9
Rt+X = F1
Rt+Y = 0
Rt+A = 5

w

FinalPatriot.8034:

Sorry if it came across that I was trying to argue a point or be sarcastic as that wasn’t my intent at all. I just like to know everything possible about my class and since I’ve only been a level 80 now for about 2 weeks, I’ve got a long way to go.

I thought you were asking an honest question, so I gave you the real answer.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Considering I’m trying to save on the cost, are the beryl orbs effective for now or should I consider the scholar runes in order to save the coins? I have 4 exotic Soldier armor pieces with beryl orbs but I’ve never really used the set all that much.

Scholar runes are cheaper than beryl orbs? (>.o)
I dont think they are, but regardless, it doesnt take long to farm enough gold for the set of gear Im advocating. An hour a day for 2 weeks, or 2 hours a day for 1 week is all thats required. Just use whatever is cheap until you can finish the set.

FinalPatriot.8034:

For the weapons, do you think the Sigil of Air would be better than the Force for the main-hand weapon? I would think you would be missing out on a good bit of extra damage considering your crit%.

Air and Fire sigils wont stack. They share a recast timer and whichever is in the main hand will proc over the other. What you actually use with my set is 1 dagger with force, 1 sword with accuracy and 1 dagger with fire. If you equip both daggers (fire offhand) in one slot and equip the sword in the main slot of your switch, it will automatically count the offhand dagger from the first set as being used with the sword when you swap to the sword.

FinalPatriot.8034:

One last question… Do you run with a shortbow when you’re part of a zerg? I can see how Sword/Dagger is great for picking apart some classes though it would be really difficult for me to give up a ranged attack + mobility skill.

I do not run with zergs. Thats the simple answer. I offhand sword/dagger 100% of the time, regardless of whether Im using S/D main, D/D main or D/P main. You will never convince me offhand shortbow helps you get away more than a sword. With a sword, you use the #2 skill on a mob or something away from the people pursuing you, then run that direction a bit so they see you running that direction. If they dont chase you, youre good to keep running. If they chase you, simply run forward a bit more, so they all notice people are chasing you and all chase you, then stealth and use shadow return and run the exact opposite direction. Just make sure youre more than 1200 away from where you started so if they dropped fields on your return you dont get onto them. It doesnt get any more mobile than that honestly. Plus its good condition removal if you really need it, and lets you actually kill boonbunker builds.

I also dont find ranged attacks to be useful at all, gap closers are better. If I wanted to be ranged I’d use a P/D setup (and I have used that before).

Part Two
So, now that we have all our numbers to work with our equations should look like this:
(Base Power+Bloodlust) * ((Normal Damage * None-Critrate)+(Crit Damage * Critrate))
Mug Oil:
(2161+250) * ((1 * .47)+(2.42 * .53))=4225.5186
Mug Stone:
(2305+250) * ((1 * .54)+(2.42 * .46))=4223.926

Fall Oil:
(2061+250) * ((1 * .48)+(2.52 * .52))=4137.6144
Fall Stone:
(2201+250) * ((1 * .54)+(2.52 * .46))=4164.7392

Honestly, in both sets, I expected oil to win when we added Bloodlust stacks, Im a bit saddened that in the Fall set it doesnt win (~.~; ) I dont want to add conditionals to this part of the set… so lets try to avoid doing that and see if we can come up with something that will work out better than this. Like removing 1 power infusion for a precision infusion that will bump our crit rate up 1% when we use oils.

Fall Oil, – 1 power infusion + 1 prec infusion
(2055+250) * ((1 * .47)+(2.52 * .53))=4161.908

Thats ridiculously close. At this point you lose 1 damage for every 2075~, but as you can see from this, min/maxing our precision is actually very important, we just went from +20 useless stats to +5 useless stats and it almost switched which food is better to use. If we dropped more of those useless stats Oil would pull ahead, but Im not going to go more into it than that, as it would require another 5 paragraphs.

Conclusion:
We’ve now determined which foods to use for both sets. Master maintenance oils and omnomberry ghosts for the Fall and Mug sets. Tomorrow we’ll try our best to remove as much excess precision as we can, as it will all convert to power/vit/toughness using the method I stated above. If anyone would like to give it a try, go for it. I havent actually done this part yet, and I probably won’t be doing it until tomorrow, or even the day after if it takes a long time. Here’s your base to work from:
Wish’s new Mug: Precision 1938
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1c.h2.8.1c.h17|c.1c.h2.8.1c.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|a3.u36c.u56b.0.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e
Wish’s new Fall: Precision 1934
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|c.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a1.0|54.7|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

These are the numbers you want to try and hit with precision: 1914, 1935, 1956, 1977, Any one of them is probably fine, but I assume 1935 or 1956 would be best in the end.

And as always, if you find a better set, be sure to post it, but use the same foods as I am using, as other stuff will now skew the EP of the set since the site cant account for bloodlust stacks, the HP differance gained from omnom ghosts, and it doesnt use base crit chance for effective power.

EDIT: Im not sure why I was thinking Infusions give 6 to a stat, they actually give 5 to a stat, but since it doesnt change anything Im not going to edit these posts and redo them.

Part One
Todays topic of conversation is going to be Sigils of Bloodlust vs Perception, Oils vs Stones and removing excess precision to maximize stats.

To start I would like to cover bloodlust vs perception, stacking power compared to stacking precision, and then move to maximizing stats. Power is the better stat for this, as you will not always have 25 stacks and we want to try to use an exact precision value where we gain +1% crit chance so that we’re not wasting stats. You gain +1% crit chance every 21st point of precision. So points 1-20 are wasted, and 21 gives you value. Those other 20 points would give you value if they could be transferred to power or vit or toughness, but 20 precision over that last 21st point does nothing for your thief. This is why in the end we want to do our best to remove as much excess precision as we can. Now, to do this we have 2 real options: berserker/valkyrie ascended gear instead of berserker/berserker and infusion slots. You can add 6 precision (up to 24, we have 4 offensive infusion slots) by using a precision infusion instead of power or remove 12 by swapping a defensive infusion b/b items with b/v and using a precision infusion, or remove 18 by swapping a defensive b/b with offensive b/v and adding a power infusion. But basically, we’re counting by 6.

The first thing we need to do is determine our base precision, which means we need to figure out if we want to use oils or stones. So, lets look at our precision and what precision value gives what % crit chance, and where we’re really at.

1794 Precision is our starting point (counting our omnomberry ghosts). So we’ll look at values above that, to a reasonable point where we should stop caring. Number on the left is precision, number on the right is crit chance.

1788 46
1809 47
1830 48
1851 49
1872 50
1893 51
1914 52
1935 53
1956 54
1977 55
1998 56
2019 57
2040 58
2061 59

1794 is 6 above exactly 46%, we should be able to hit that number exactly, but, since we’re using omnomberry ghosts, we really want our base crit chance at 50% to gain full benefit from them. So first, lets look at master maintenance oils compared to superior sharpening stones, and see what each offers.

We can determine their damage increases by a bit of easy math. Power is multiplied by ‘stuff’ to determine damage, so we can simply remove ‘stuff’ and leave the power and multiply it by the values for none-critchance multiplied by 1 and then 1+crit damage multiplied by critchance (as we did earlier comparing ghosts and soup to see how they do compared to each other, but adding in the power bit). Did I mention Mug and Fall both have the same precision? Because they do, but their crit damage and power are different, so we will have to solve for both of them because of that.
2061 Power (Fall), 2161 Power (Mug), 46% Crit Chance, 102 Crit Damage (Fall), 92 Crit Damage (Mug), 250 extra power (Bloodlust)
If we use the build site we can quickly see what our power/precision would look like with stones or oils, which beats typing out the math and doing it, so we’ll do that, but keep in mind that we should gain more precision than power because of the 5% precision to vit trait we picked, and 4% vit to precision from the oil.
2305 (Mug) power with stones, 2201 (Fall) power with stones, 1938 (Mug) prec with oil (53% crit chance), 1934 (Fall) prec with oil (52% crit chance)
If you would like to know why Mug gains more stats than Fall, it’s because they convert 6% of toughness and 4% of vit to other stats, and Mug has much higher toughness, while Fall has about an even distribution of both.

Azraeel.1238:

As you can see, I don’t use expensive upgrades, I don’t use all ascended gear, I don’t use buffs to tweak the end results. Plus, you can get this gear in few days.

If this is seriously your criteria for determining a gear set, please stop reading this thread and posting in it. It’s not for you.

WonderfulCT.6278:

So I played around with some values and I came up with this: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|c.1p.h2.8.1p.h17|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1p.a7|2s.d13.2s.d13.3s.d17.3s.d17.2s.d13.2s.d13|0.u36c.u56b.a1.0|39.1|57.5c.5b.5h.0|e

Thats good for a starter set, but Im trying to determine the best possible thing to use, what we should all work to build in the end. This set doesn’t offer more of both in the end, but it’s probably the best starter set.

WonderfulCT.6278:

On the topic of Omnomberry ghosts I’m not sure if you know but they have an internal cooldown of 1 sec and steal 341 health

1400 is just an easier number to work with and remember compared to 1346. I only use exact values when numbers are close, otherwise its all about ease of use.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I recommend using power precision food which in this case would be plate of truffle steak. Also on the site this increases effective power over using butternut squash soup.

When I originally made these sets, I used my actual set to determine food, which is the 10/30/30/0/0 build. For it, Curry soup came out ahead. But for the others, you’re probably right if we don’t account for bloodlust stacks and the fact that BS is half your damage and always crits. But thats a lot of math to prove Curry is like 0.5% better and I will not be doing it since omnomberry ghosts are superior to both anyway. (This site doesnt account for bloodlust stacks)

Wish’s Mug:
Effective Power 5059.44 w/ soup w/o bloodlust
Effective Power 5058.04 w/ steak w/o bloodlust
Wish’s Fall:
Effective Power 4982.48 w/ soup w/o bloodlust
Effective Power 4993.64 w/ steak w/o bloodlust

Sifu.6527:

For example, 5 points in CS gives you 5% crit chance when above 90% health. The calculator does not account for when HP drops below 90% health. In Wish’s 30/30/10 build, the crit chance is actually lower than what the builder suggests (roughly 44% vs the builder 59%).

I knew it counted the 7% crit chance from behind/the side in the end results, but I couldnt figure out why my base crit chance was still higher than it should be. Maybe I should bother to remember to look at minor traits. lol. The only thief minor trait I can even think of is that stupid effing last refugee. Mainly because it kills me 75% of the time it activates. But ya, youre right, your real crit chance is lower than suggested. For the purposes so far it doesn’t matter, since every build got it, but for later parts of this thread, like the next things I will talking about (oils vs stones and removing excess precision to not waste stats), we won’t be using the build calculators effective power stat simply because it’s wrong from here out.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Ok, this may be a stupid question but I run a 10/30/30 build variant of those listed in the OP with all Valkyrie armor (+ beryl orbs) and then zerker gear/accessories. My normal crit% is about 42% right now (still missing a few exotics on the accessories) with a 102% crit bonus. My questions is, what is the real benefit for me to change out my Valkyrie gear for Soldier’s? I also chose the beryl orbs simply because they don’t break my bank account.

The benefit is youd gain like 2% defense and 3% offense. For some people (like myself) being the most effective you can possibly be is important. If you’re not into that sort of thing and consider being less effective ok, this thread is not for you. But have you ever fought someone in WvW and just barely lost? like they had nothing left on their HP bar and you died? Have you ever tried to escape from a zerg and just barely took enough damage to get downed and then died? Well, min/maxing your gear would of let you win that fight and gotten away, and thats the whole purpose of this thread. To figure out the best possible gear set we could be using to increase our chances to win to the highest point we can.