Guild Wars 2

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

The point of showing how high my crit chance was, for what that argument is worth, is that you dont need assassins gear. .

All it showed is that you dont know how to read.

From the first post:

This thread is not for the discussion of trait setups or builds btw. This thread is only for discussion about the math behind gear sets, food, sigils and runes.

for the first calculation, we’re going to skew everything as far into working out for the Assassins set as possible by stacking as much power as we possibly can, to see if it ever has a hope of winning, because I do not believe it does.

In the next part of the discussion about Offensive gear, I am going to further discuss other traits and slot skills available, and show which are good, and which are bad. This part was about skewing things into Assassins favor to see if it could ever win, and what situations it could win in.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

It wasnt exactly the right forum to show math since I was streaming the game not a chalk board. Knowing that, it was pointless to continue to allow you to talk because you were being a troll, thus I banned you. If you want to discuss math I would be happy to do it here.

If you’re going to say X is better than Y, you better be ready to prove it, no matter what you’re doing. The fact that you can’t just shows how little you know about… anything.

Erebus.9276:

Right. But if you have over 100% with berserker, why use assassin anything? Wouldn’t power > prec at that point?

Yes, power would be better than precision at that point. There is no way adding critical hit chance while at 100% critical hit chance is ever going to increase your DPS. People with half a brain will easily see that, as you have, and make builds around it. The first part of the discussion is basically just showing that with a lot of power buffs, adding critical hit chance is superior to adding more power. I am glad you picked up on it without needing to be told that.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

If you want to learn about Thief dps builds, watch my livestream tonight at 6pm EST where I’ll be discussing Thief and every other profession post patch.

I went into your live stream, and then you banned me for proving you wrong repeatedly.

I think the most hilarious thing you said during the 5 minutes I was watching is how you get 20% damage below 50% mob HP with executioner, and how exposed weakness gives you a 10% damage increase, and how First strikes gives you a 10% damage increase. And all this, while already having Scholar Runes. I also like how you advocate running 107% critical hit chance from the side or behind with flanking strike on, because you know, critical hit chance can exceed 100%!

All my math proved is that with as many power buffs as are available in this game, if youre using half of them, reaching 100% critical hit chance while fully buffed provides a better damage increase than stacking more power. I would of eventually gotten around to posting that bit, after I did a bit more math, which Ive been doing today since I got home from work, but wont be done with today saddly. But you wanted to try to call me out. So how about you go ahead and prove with math those 2 things you specifically said are true. I’ll wait.

Kadin.2356:

Source on ascended gear stats? Anyone?

I have SS’s from in-game with the stats listed, I posted all the stats on the armor in my first post.

roughryder.6071:

Tremain.4623:

Oh god so much math. You need like “conclusions: wear THIS”.

I second this notion! I appreciate your dedication and effort for finding out these values, but Im lazy and reading numbers sucks. Could you please have a summary section that describes/explains your findings in language only? Thank you.

When Im done with each individual section it will be there!

Erebus.9276:

having over 100% with berserker means that losing power for more crit chance is worthless.

Yes, losing power for precision when over 100% critical hit chance is a bad idea, and is a worthless thing to do.

However, showing that reaching 100% critical hit chance is better DPS when buffed than wearing Berserkers is not.

aLovedhater.4096:

comparison to regular d/d backstab build
more damage

Can I get some math from you on how exactly this is more damage than a standard D/D backstab build that correctly uses food and gear? Cause I dont believe you =3

Use the build that pops up when you click thief in my sig as a basis to compare it to, thanks! (Oh, and one last thing, the build in my sig will stack bloodlust to 25 before equipping sigil of force into the main hand dagger)

This one too, just for good measure.

This space reserved because I will probably need it.

Part Three
Condition Damage

Coming Soon~

Part Two
Correctly Adding Defense to your Gear

Coming Soon~

7918.4064/7830.432 = 1.0112349357

In this example Assassins managed to win by 1%, but we should be able to fix a simple mistake in the Berserkers set to have it win. We’re stacking way to much power, if we just changed our food to Curry Butternut Squash and traded 100 Power for 100 Precision Berserkers will win.

1426 + 300 + 235 +100 +100 = 2161 Precision Total.
2156 is 64% critical hit chance, 2177 is 65%. Lets check 4 precision and 0 precision infusions, 4 should win.

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 Might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 2 Power/4 Precision Infusions
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 2)) * ((1 * .35) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .65)) =
7938.6255 Damage

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 Might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 6 Power/0 Precision Infusions
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 6)) * ((1 * .36) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .64)) =
7916.3248 Damage

So there we go, we managed to use correct food and Berserkers wins. And it goes without saying, if you remove any of the Power buffs, Berserkers just pulls further and further ahead. And, if you have 25 stacks of might, youre probably in a coordinated group and also getting fury, so lets look at that too.

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 Might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 2 Power/4 Precision Infusions + Fury
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 2)) * ((1 * .15) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .85)) =
9217.2795 Damage

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 Might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 6 Power/0 Precision Infusions + Fury
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 6)) * ((1 * .16) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .84)) =
9201.7388 Damage

Assassins w/ Fury
(2019 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + 100 + (5 * 5)) * ((1 * .16) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .84)) =
9204.1584 Damage

Assassins w/ Curry instead of Squash, 6 Precision infusions:
(2019 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 0)) * ((1 * .3) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .7)) =
8031.257 Damage

Assassins w/ Curry instead of Squash, 6 Precision infusions + Fury:
(2019 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 0)) * ((1 * .1) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .9)) =
9274.759 Damage

And Assassins is winning again, lulz.

Standing next to a banner of discipline w/ fury
Assassins w/ Curry instead of Squash, 6 Precision infusions
(2019 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 0)) * ((1 * .02) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .98)) =
9772.1598 Damage
Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 Might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 2 Power/4 Precision Infusions
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + (5 * 2)) * ((1 * .07) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .93)) =
9728.7411 Damage

Lulz, go buy your Assassins gear for when you have even close to max buffs, because that isht is winning.

Outside of having max buffs, stick to Berserkers.

Removing Might Stacks:
Assassins – Sub Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – Assassins Signet – Sweet & Spicy Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 5 Power/1 Precision Infusion
(2019 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (5 * 5)) * ((1 * .36) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .64)) =
5888.8464 Damage

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 2 Power/4 Precision Infusions
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (5 * 2)) * ((1 * .35) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .65)) =
6102.438 Damage

Removing Assassins Signet:
Assassins – Sub Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – Assassins Signet – Sweet & Spicy Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 5 Power/1 Precision Infusion
(1839 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (5 * 5)) * ((1 * .36) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .64)) =
5514.1584 Damage

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – Assassins Signet – Curry Butternut Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 2 Power/4 Precision Infusions
(1839 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (5 * 2)) * ((1 * .35) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .65)) =
5724.708 Damage

Ok at some point I think I did something completely wrong, cause wtf, why is assassins winning now? lulz. Just get Berserkers weapons and Trinkets and Assassins Armor I guess, w/ Scholar runes, Butternut Curry Squash Soup, 5 Power/1 Precision infusions, and Toxic Maintenance Oil for when you have max buffs, All Berserkers when you don’t have them =3
Unless someone can prove this wrong? Good Luck with that!

Well, now that we finally have the stats for the new Ascended Armor, its time to do some math! This thread is not for the discussion of trait setups or builds btw. This thread is only for discussion about the math behind gear sets, food, sigils and runes.

Part One
Best Possible Physical Damage.

To find the best setup for the best possible damage gear set, we only have 2 options to look at. Berserkers and Assassins. Every other piece of gear has defensive stats on it, and we do not want any of those! This is going to assume youre one of those people running 30 Deadly Arts and 30 Critical Strikes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAoYVlUmKO3eS5E/JA-jQxAYfBRCCQxtIas6aMlLRUNA-e

We’ll Start with this, since it gives us all the numbers we need other than Armor stats, since theyre new we’ll have to manually count those. Also since Scholar runes have been proven to be the best runes for increasing damage, we’re simply going to use them. If anyone would like to question this decision, please feel free to do so, and we can compare math between them and… whatever you want later in the thread.

For slot skills, Assassin’s Signet is a pretty common use slot skill, so we will be adding it, and comparing damage when the power is active, and when it is not.

2019 Power (1839 w/o Power Signet)
1426 Precision
62% Critical hit damage

Ascended Body: 106 main 76 sub 5% CD
Ascended Pants: 71 main 50 sub 4% CD
Ascended Hat: 47 main 34 sub 2 CD
Ascended Gloves/Shoes/Shoulders: 35 main 25 sub 2% CD

106 + 71 + 47 + (35 * 3) = 329 Main
76 + 50 + 34 + (25 * 3) = 235 Sub
5 + 4 + (2 * 4) = 17 CD

We’ll also add full bloodlust stacks to both sets for every calculation, and for the first calculation, we’re going to skew everything as far into working out for the Assassins set as possible by stacking as much power as we possibly can, to see if it ever has a hope of winning, because I do not believe it does.

Oils/Stones:
916 Toughness
916 Vitality
916 * (61/1024) = 54.56640625
916 * (40/1024) = 35.78125
55 + 35 = 90, this is less than Toxic Oil adds, so we will be using those for +100.

Berserkers
1426 Precision + 300 Precision + 235 Armor sub stats + 100 Oil stats brings us to
1426 + 300 + 235 +100 = 2061 Precision Total.

2051 Precision is 59% Crit Chance, 2072 Precision is 60 Crit Chance. Adding 3 precision infusions should be better than adding none, but we’ll have to check and make sure.

Critical Hit Damage: 62 + 30 traits + 17 armor + 10 food = 119%

Berserkers – Main Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 Might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Sweet & Spicy Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 3 Power/3 Precision Infusions
(2019 + 329 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + 100 + (5 * 3)) * ((1 * .4) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .6)) =
7830.432 Damage

Assassins
1426 Precision + 300 Precision + 329 Armor main stats +100 Toxic Oil
1426 + 300 + 329 +100 = 2155 Precision Total.
2156 is 64% Critical Hit Chance, so 1 Precision Infusion, 5 Powers.

Assassins – Sub Stat Power – DA30 – CS30 – 25 might Stacks – Assassins Signet – Sweet & Spicy Squash Soup – Toxic Oil – 5 Power/1 Precision Infusion
(2019 + 235 + 300 + 250 + (35 * 25) + 100 + (5 * 5)) * ((1 * .36) + ((1.5 + 1.19) * .64)) =
7918.4064 Damage

Mirror Owl.7204:

I really don’t see why a relatively niche weapon set is being so utterly destroyed.

Its probably because if you ran D/D + S/D or D/P + S/D you could fight and kill anyone who was at a lower skill level than you, and stand a good chance against anyone at your skill level. Oh wait, isnt that suppose to be a good thing and how games are designed?

Spike.1526:

What is, in theorycrafting, the critical rate for max DPS

It depends on what your other offensive stats are. If you have 0 critical hit damage for instance, critical hit chance isn’t very useful for Damage output. But if you have like 30000 critical hit damage, youd gain a lot more from critical hit chance.

Here ya go:

wish.1027:

Power increase:
(oldpower + addedpower) / (oldpower) =1.XXYYYY
XX.YYY%= %damage increase

Crit damage increase:
(1.5 + oldcritdamage + addedcritdamage) / (1.5 + oldcritdamage) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY * .critrate = %damage increase

Precision increase:
21 precision = +1% Crit chance at level 80.
Added Precision / 21 = X.YYY
X = addedcritchance
(1 + ((.5 + critdamage) * (oldcritchance + addedcritchance))) / (1 + (.5 + critdamage) * oldcritchance) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY= %damage increase

These are the formulas for determining damage increases gained from adding power or precision or crit damage to your build.

Spike.1526:

without putting too much points in precision?

This part doesnt make any sense to me

Celestial Armor set:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Celestial-Armor/first#post2424729

Celestial Hat:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/page/3#post2623220

lenniklarsson.5284:

wish.1027:

When Ascended armor is out (which should be really soon) everything will change, so theres no point rushing to get stuff right now.

So buying ascended trinkets like rings, amulets, accessorys and ascended weapons isnt a good idea yet?

If youre missing some, get the ones youre least likely to replace (Offensive Berserker/Berserker Back, Neck, Ear, Ring) Other than that, I would save laurels. They did say Ascended armor would be out by January 1st, but it could have been pushed back, I dont really follow GW2 news.

lenniklarsson.5284:

hey wish, ive got a few questions…
so, my thief is finally 80 now, and im prefering http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAoY8YlUmiO3ey5E/5Ey2jdqCJKuHGVS1UaFoJA-jEzAorBRTWCNRAiKAk8UWzeCiVtioxqrxUuDRW7iavJiWt5wCBUeBA-w (“Wish’s Mug”), is it still up-to-date and playable? and what about the patch comming on 10th december? any important changes for that build?

My advice is to hold all laurels and not to change any infusions until ascended armor comes out. Otherwise you’ll probably end up wasting resources on items you end up not needing.

But, ya, copy the gear setup/foods, just dont get silly things like infusions or divinity runes (Go for Travelers runes and blinding powder instead of signet of shadows) When Ascended armor is out (which should be really soon) everything will change, so theres no point rushing to get stuff right now.

Kadin.2356:

wish.1027:

Kadin.2356:

wish.1027:

lulz, Valkyrie and Celestial

The “effective health” calculation you keep pointing at over and over does not take into account condition damage that completely bypasses toughness.

Who cares about EHP? Sure, Soldiers gives you more EHP, and you only lose like 200 HP compared to Valk, but thats not the point.

Soldiers gives more damage compared to Valk because you get to use more berserkers gear and precision is more valuable than critical hit damage. Thats why you use it.

You can still mix and match Beserk gear with Valk to pick up that added damage, and retain the crit damage %, which does play a larger role in the damage calculation than I think you give it credit for because of hidden killer.

Yes, you can do that, but If you use less Valkyrie gear to match the DPS of the Soldiers set, you can use less Soldiers to match/slightly exceed the EHP of the new Valk set and retain higher DPS.

Kadin.2356:

It makes EVERY back-stab harder. I’m not agreeing with Bigtower he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but as far as beserk mixed with valk/soldier I think you are breaking even if not doing better with valk due to what I stated above.

It depends on your attack patterns, but for most people, Soldiers will win. AA chain and CnD basically equals BS from behind in DPS provided you skip a hit or something in the AA chain. Throw in a HS or Mug or do the full AA chain and BS is sub 50% of your total DPS in a fight. 50% damage from your “From Stealth” attacks is pretty much the break even point for the Valk vs Soldiers setups, but it favors Soldiers slightly, and most people will naturally fall on the Soldiers side to begin with, and the Soldiers setup has higher EHP… and you can see why Soldiers wins.

Kadin.2356:

To me it just makes more sense to me to mix valk with beserk if you are using hidden killer. If you are using executioner then soldier is probably a better way to go (as you would want a higher base crit chance).

Thats because youre overvaluing Critical Hit Damage. It’s really confusing when you dont do 2 pages of math yourself, and learn all the formulas, and at first I thought the same way you do too, so dont feel bad. But that way only comes out ahead if you BS then run away and do absolutely nothing a lot.

If you just look at the modifiers….

Cloak & Dagger: 1.624
Autoattack chain: 2.249
Heartseeker: 1 (>50%)/1.502 (25%-50%)/2.005 (<25%) – 0.75s – 1.33 (>50%)/2 (25%-50%)/2.67(<25%)

Stealthed – Backstab (back): 2.405

You can see what I mean when I say BS is generally not 50% of a persons total Damage Output. Since most people do more than BS > Run around like a chicken with no head > CnD > BS > run around….

EDIT:::
Anyway, Black Friday shoopin tiemz nao
AFK for a week or two. (`?´)

ens.9854:

30 power at 3000 attack is only 1% dmg increase

Im going to assume you know the difference and you simply mistyped or didnt pay attention. 30 power at 3000 attack is about a
2030/2000= 1.015
1.5% damage increase, since attack is never used, ever, for anything.

ionix.9054:

Is there any point taking critical damage past 100%?

It depends on your other stats. You should go with whatever adds the best damage increase, if thats what youre going for. Depending on your Power, Precision and Critical Hit Damage, any one of them could be best to add at any point.

wish.1027:

Power increase:
(oldpower + addedpower) / (oldpower) =1.XXYYYY
XX.YYY%= %damage increase

Crit damage increase:
(1.5 + oldcritdamage + addedcritdamage) / (1.5 + oldcritdamage) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY * .critrate = %damage increase

Precision increase:
21 precision = +1% Crit chance at level 80.
Added Precision / 21 = X.YYY
X = addedcritchance
(1 + ((.5 + critdamage) * (oldcritchance + addedcritchance))) / (1 + (.5 + critdamage) * oldcritchance) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY= %damage increase

These are the formulas for determining damage increases gained from adding power or precision or crit damage to your build.

Simply plug in your stats, and use the one that spits out the biggest number.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/page/3#post2615780

Viking Jorun.5413:

So wait, is Soldiers better than Valk? O.o

For most people, yes, but it depends on your attack patterns. If you run Hidden Killer, and your “From Stealth” attacks are less than like 52%~ of your total damage, Soldiers wins. If you run anything other than Hidden Killer, Soldiers always wins. If you pretty much always do AA chain and CnD with your BS’s, or sometimes land BS’s from the front, or use mug, or ever use HS, Soldiers wins for you, but you have to put the Soldiers gear in the right slots.

Kadin.2356:

wish.1027:

lulz, Valkyrie and Celestial

The “effective health” calculation you keep pointing at over and over does not take into account condition damage that completely bypasses toughness.

Who cares about EHP? Sure, Soldiers gives you more EHP, and you only lose like 200 HP compared to Valk, but thats not the point.

Soldiers gives more damage compared to Valk because you get to use more berserkers gear and precision is more valuable than critical hit damage. Thats why you use it.

Big Tower.5423:

ignore what wish says …. if you have 10 % less critical damage you’l actually do 10 % less damage due to hidden killer. provding you free guarneteerd crit.

Ignore me? How about we ignore the person who doesnt even understand the basic concept of “+10% critical hit damage does not give you +10% damage when you land a critical hit.”

All critical hit damage does is multiply your base damage by a percent. It’s +10% base damage when you land a critical hit, not +10% damage when you land a critical hit.

If your base damage is 100, and you have 100 critical hit damage, then your critical hit would be 250 damage.

Because critical hits adds 50% base damage naturally, so it would look like this:

BaseDamage * (BaseCriticalHitDamage + AddedCriticalHitDamage) = DamageWhenYouLandACrit

100 * (1.5 + 1) = 250

If you add 10% Critical hit damage to that….

100 * (1.5 + 1 + 0.1) = 260

You get 260.

260/250=1.04

By dividing we can see the percentage increase between the two numbers. And now we can clearly see this is only a 4% damage increase. It’s adding 10% of the base damage (100) not 10% of the critical hit damage (250) this is why adding 10% critical hit damage is not a 10% damage increase, ever. It’s simple math. Its easy to understand. I’ve typed it at you 15 times now. Please try to understand it and quit spreading misinformation.

lulz, Valkyrie and Celestial

In the options you need to turn off clipping, not the melee assist. I cant tell you where it is, or even what its actually called inside the options, but thats probably your problem.

I stop looking at these forums for a week and all hell breaks loose.

The nerfs to thief sword skills after the initial buff are to much, either let it steal 2 boons or let it cost 1 Ini… And its BS to not gain Ini when using stealth skills in stealth when using infusion of shadow. I often use shadow refugee just to refill my Ini in a few seconds… this is terrible.

How about if you want to change some stuff, you do useful things, like make last refugee a trait instead of a minor trait so I can be rid of that garbage…

Catchlove.2189:

Does this gear setup translate to other trait options?

Yes, it also translates to other classes, unless youre doing something specific, like stacking toughness or healing power to increase the effectiveness of your regen… or something else random.

The math will be slightly different, but the end result will be the same, just do this>

Sartori.6758:

The rule of thumb is to start with a full berserker set then swap out for soldiers in the slots that give you the most stats per 1% crit damage lost

Also
<3 Satori, lets trade some pokemon sometime, I’ll give you a 6×31 IV Eevee for being cool.

Valvador.4291:

but the point is that you are making up that damage by the increase direct damage from crits.

I like when people make statements like this without providing any math to back it up. It leads to lulz when people start to prove them wrong.

Post your celestial build so I can beat it with a mix and match set please, Im pretty bored right now.

Gully.7358:

I’ve played these kind of builds for over a year

Post yours too.

But do it fast or I’ll find something else to do and wont bother til I get bored again!

Maderas.9741:

This is running full Toughness/Vitality exotics with ascended trinkets.

If you were running all PVT gear, he was the super all damage all signets I can do nothing but this burst thief… which means if you just dodge rolled at some point, youd have won.

Also: That attack chain would take 6 seconds minimum, L2P.

Which is better depends a lot more on your attacks patterns, and how much of your damage comes from your “From Stealth” attacks than your crit chance. When comparing the two traits, measuring critical hit chance is incorrect. You need to determine how much of a percentage of your total damage needs to come from your “From Stealth” attacks with Hidden Killer selected for it to be better than Executioner. (And when doing this I suggest just assuming Hidden Killer will be active 50% of the time, like youre in PVE, even though thats wrong in PVP)

For instance; Lets say you roll up on someone in WvW. They have 20k HP, you BS them for 4k, since they turned to face you randomly at the last second, then melee them down another 8k with your autoattack, then start spamming HS, and when theyre at like 1k HP they get their heal off and it cures them for 9k. You did 4k damage with your BS, 8k with your autoattack and 17k with HS. I don’t care how you spin it, at no point would Hidden Killer have better for this fight.

Lets look at another example; Lets say you come up behind some zerker, healing signet Warrior with 20k HP, you have Hidden Killer selected, and you BS them for 11k, then AA them for 1k, then dodged away because they eviscerated you and it took most of your HP and you had to use your heal (hide in shadows), then you BS’d them again for 11k and they got downed. This was the perfect amount of damage to do in the time frame of 5~ seconds to down that zerker regen signet warrior, who would have been above 50% HP for both backstabs. There is no way you could possibly spin this scenario to put Executioner above Hidden Killer for DPS.

Do you see what Im talking about now? Which is better isn’t determined by critical hit chance, it’s determined by playstyle. These example might be a little strange, and you could even call them extreme, but theyre just to demonstrate my point, and they do a good job of that.

x/30/30/x/x is popular because when using stealth builds 30 in Shadow Arts keeps you alive, and when doing anything putting 30 into Crtical Strikes will increase your damage more than anything else you can trait into.

Have you tried any of the x/30/30/x/x builds? Stuff becomes popular/cookiecutter because it’s good, I suggest trying it. Try 30 CS with 3-6-12 and 30 SA with 5-6-11 on your D/D build. Then put the last 10 into mug or thrill, whichever youd rather have, I bet you’ll like it a lot more.

Also: Ya, whats up with the condition damage jewelery? Thats so weak, lol.
Soldiers weapons, hat, body, coat will match your current EHP, then switch everything else to Berserkers for the best damage output/survivability mix you can achieve with your current EHP.

I was looking at shortbow ranger autoattack damage once, counting all shots as coming from behind the target, and I was able to build a full condition set, a full melee damage set, and a mixed set that all had superior EHP and DPS compared to full Celestial. I doubt it would be different for thief attacks, so Im going to say that you can build your EHP using Ravagers, Carrion, Soldiers and Berserkers gear to match the EHP of Celestial while increasing your DPS when compared to a full Celestial set.

I like this thread.

Big Tower.5423:

wish.1027:

I’m still waiting for you to stream or record videos to show us all how pro you are.

Infact im awful at sword/dagger, but we’l see xD
btw, your 3 zerker 3 solider concept is actually better than valkyrie on THIS spec, but on a hidden killer D/D, 3 valk is stillb best, but here with no hiddden killer il infact run 3 zerk and 3 solider

As Ive shown the math for repeatedly, that depends on how much of your damage comes from those “From Stealth” attacks, and only if you have Hidden Killer. Most people will never hit the plateau where Valkyrie is actually better for DPS in situations that matter, and the Soldiers mix offers more EHP.

Invizible.2960:

Siva Mira.3546:

wish.1027:

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

Care to explain how in that situation, Vitality is useless while Toughness is useful? And out of anything you would rather have your Power drops?

I’m not too sure but I think he meant that the extra vitality would be useless when in combat if your health is already down a bit, it wouldn’t really help in that situation because it would raise your max hp and not current hp at that moment (I think) So the toughness would be better because it reduces damage. Again i’m not sure..

Thats exactly it.

You only put on shortbow for three situations; when youre injured, in combat, and running away, or just moving around or using blast finishers. For the first situation having Vitality on your weapon will not raise your current HP when you swap to it in combat, but the extra Toughness will help you live as you run if you take any hits. Youre not attacking anyone, youre spamming 5 to get away, thats why only main stat toughness matters. Other than that you only use shortbow for moving around and blast finishers which also have nothing to do with DPS, so stat distribution doesn’t matter for those situations.

If youre attacking people with a shortbow, youre playing thief terribly wrong.

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Underboob onry.

Deanz.5861:

by the weapon skills I chose to go S/P as main, cuz it gives me the option of aoe damage which seems important when exploring, and pistol cuz it got the black powder which gives me a few sec of not give a crap about damage taken.

This is correct for leveling.

Just get the ini regen trait 20 deep into the acrobatics line when you can, and the signet to regen extra ini so you can spam more black powder, then wear all offensive gear and put the rest of your traits into damage lines.

I’m still waiting for you to stream or record videos to show us all how pro you are.

Vaux.7502:

I’m curious how you (and other thieves) play in bigger group scenarios.

I think the main idea when playing thief in WvW is to avoid larger groups…. If you want to play in a zerg, put on a shortbow to buff them and try to stay on the opponents backline instead of the blue dorito if you cant just switch to your Guardian. Anything else just tends to result in dieing a lot.

Maybe you should of tried to explain to them how to do the content correctly instead of just dismissing them as a bad and trying to remove them from the group?

You should always give people a chance to get better before dismissing them IMO. I think thats your only mistake here.

EDIT: But ya, shortbow does jack nothing for damage, youre right about that. I wouldnt want to play with this person as they were either.

Youd do a lot better if you stopped switching to shortbow. The damage on shortbow is pathetic at best, and the utility it offers is terrible when youre solo. With a low damage output build like this you need to be on people at all times and actively trying to kill them or you end up engaged in 10 minutes fights with no winner. Like this guy said:

Walker.3056:

you start with a 8min duel vs a thief without a conclusion and kill like 3-4 players solo in 15 min of fight.

It’s just not my style, I like to win or run away within a few minutes.

Tarinis.6054:

Taking damage brought one out of stealth, unless vanish was just used. Here, we got thieves stealthing, then stealthing right after their first stealth runs out. I guess we all have to spend money to beat a class…

Your single heal is more than enough sustain to outlive a thief who does nothing but stealth.

Emissary.3792:

Good words

I like you, you speak for my arguments better than I do.

Big Tower.5423:

Precision is never better than crit damage if you got hidden killer or 50 % + critchance.

That depends entirely on how much of your damage comes from those ‘from stealth’ attacks, like I said earlier.

Nilgoow.1037:

Are you telling me that the second $50 is somehow worth less than the first?

Its still $50, but its less meaningful than the first $50. What if you had been given 50 trillion dollars, then someone gave you 50, would you care? Is it still $50? Is its impact felt less now that you already have 50 trillion?

It’s sad you dont get it. Youre like Kanye West in the fish sticks episode of Southpark.

As for whether or not to switch to travelers runes, I wouldnt even think twice about it, travelers and smoke bomb or roll for ini is better than the 3%~ damage and 2%~ defense you give up.

If you already have the divinity runes, I’d probably just wait for ascended armor to come out to switch over to travelers, so you can get your money back out of those divinity runes by salvaging your gear and selling them. They said ascended armor would be out by the end of the year, so it shouldnt be to long.

Also, I dont argue about builds so much, I could care less what people want to trait or use, unless youre doing it just for DPS, as theres a right and wrong way to do that. Builds and picking traits should be just whatever you like that matches your play style. I only argue about gear sets, because you do it for the purpose of damage and defense, which means you can break it down into math, which means theres a right and wrong way to do it.

Nilgoow.1037:

wish.1027:

Oh ya? Im not naming it so much as describing the effect when I say diminishing returns. Its what happens when you add to whole numbers. I dont know why you want to argue about the name, but thats what its always been called in the other games Ive played, so I stuck with the naming convention. Its just 2 words that describe the effect of adding more and more of a single stat. And ya, every stat is like that. And the point of that equation is for comparisons of which stat you should add. Like if you wanted to compare different pieces of food with your gear set, thats how you would calculate how much crit damage is worth to your overall DPS.

You really don’t understand this on a basic level. Each point added has the same effect as the last. Diminishing returns is a real thing, and while you made a noble attempt at trying to quantify it, you are flat out wrong.

Regardless of whether soldier or valk is better, your math is wrong. I guess in that case nobody has posted math yet. :P

Sorry duder.

It’s actually you that doesnt get it, not me. Diminishing returns is referring to the fact that adding 5% crit damage when you have 100 crit damage base to start with gives less of a total damage increase than that same 5% would give if you only had 50% crit damage to start with. It has nothing to do with the fact that it gives the same static number.

Like lets say we hit for 100 base damage, and we have 50% crit damage. When we landed a crit it would do 200.
100 * (1.5 + .5) = 200

Now lets say we have 100 base crit damage and solve it.
100 * (1.5 + 1) = 250

now lets add 5% crit damage to each problem.
100 * (1.5 + .5 + .05) = 205
100 * (1.5 + 1 + .05) = 255

Notice how they each added 5 damage to the total? Thats what youre talking about. What I am talking about is how…
205/200=1.025
255/250=1.02
That 5% extra crit damage is worth a 2.5% total damage increase when you score a critical hit at 50% crit damage, but only worth 2% damage with 100% crit damage. That loss of 0.5% damage is the diminishing return.

Karolis.4261:

I really don’t understand what this argument is about … Valkyrie/berserker will do more damage then Soldier/berserker. Period. How the hell berserker with for example 6 soldier parts do more damage then berserker with same 6 valkyrie parts.

Again, seriously?

You match the EHP with the soldiers and valkyrie sets.

The Valk set uses all valk with berserker trinkets and the solder set uses soldier body, head, legs with berserker everything else.

Karolis.4261:

Oh and this thread is confusing becouse your are claiming that sodiers will provide more dps then valkyrie, thats what ppl think, unless they read it all, which is not true.

Thats kind of true, but I list the split off point where Valkyrie wins, and most people will never reach that point, and if they do its on an uplvl in WvW and it doesnt matter anyway because theyre already dead. But the basic idea is that you need 60% of your total damage to come from your ‘from stealth’ attacks with hidden killer traited for Valkyrie to pull ahead and win.

Do you seriously just CnD and BS people and no other attacks? Because thats what needs to happen for Valkyrie to win. Most people who run balanced builds will do BS > Autoattack chain > CnD, and even throw in some HS’s. Which makes the soldiers set win, because your crit chance matters. This isnt a discussion about a GC setup thats kills people with mug > CnD > BS and doesnt need to do anything else.

Daendur.2357:

How a soldier/berserker set can do more damage than a valk/zerk set ?

With the amount of damage that actually comes from conditions (poison – bleed – confusion – retaliation – fear – torment…) I think toughness is not a great stat to raise on thief.

For the 10th time in this forum the last few days, Soldiers/Berserker mix does better because of the extra precision, which is worth more DPS than the crit damage you give up.

For the 11th time in this forum the last few days, if conditions are killing you, and its really a condition damage meta on your server, stacking 600 extra HP is not how you defeat them, Melandru runes and Lemongrass is how you defeat them. L2P.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Just remember that stats aren’t everything. Either gear set will perform more or less the same at a given skill level, this is all just about min-maxing.

Stats are everything.

If two people of equal playing skill duel, the one who wins will be determined by which of them has a better distribution of stats if neither messes up.

There should be a rule against saying some type of gear is better than another type of gear if you dont post any math proving it. Seriously. Im getting sick of reading people say Valkyrie does better without any proof.

Galandil.9641:

Zumy.6318:

What?

I feel stupid now.

He’s saying that comparing a +100 stat increase depends on the base value to which you’re adding those 100 points.

For example, if you compare a +100 vitality increase to a hp pool of 15000, you’ll have a relative increase of hps of 1/15, or +6.66%. But every hp added from equipment/traits is added to a base of 10805 for us thieves, so that same +100 vit gives an increment of 1000/10805 of 9.25% (since all the other hps come from equipment/traiting) in absolute terms.

Same goes for all the other stats.

Nilgoow.1037:

Big Tower.5423:

There is kind of a sweet spot on critchance around 50 %

There is no sweet spot. It is a linear increase in damage from 0 to 100%.

wish.1027:

So lets check 30% crit + 5%, then 50 + 5, then 90 + 5 then 120 +5. All with 100% crit rate so we dont have to solve for it.
(1.5 + .3 + .05) / (1.5 + .3) = 1.0277777777
(1.5 + .5 + .05) / (1.5 + .5) = 1.025
(1.5 + .9 + .05) / (1.5 + .9) = 1.02083333333
(1.5 + 1.2 + .05) / (1.5 + 1.2) = 1.01851851852
Notice how that 5% crit damage we’re adding is worth less and less the more crit damage we already have? Thats the diminishing returns coming into play.

This isn’t how you calculate diminishing returns. You’re calculating the relative increase in damage, not the absolute. You could argue that every stat, even vitality, has what you’re calling ‘diminishing returns’ if you used that formula because the relative contribution of subsequent equally-sized additions to a pool of stats will always be less because the pool becomes larger in comparison as points are added to it.

I’ve attached three charts showing the relative change (what you’re incorrectly calling ‘diminishing returns’) and the absolute change for each additional point of toughness (damage reduction and time to live) and crit damage (damage increase).

http://i.imgur.com/8o67p64.png

Oh ya? Im not naming it so much as describing the effect when I say diminishing returns. Its what happens when you add to whole numbers. I dont know why you want to argue about the name, but thats what its always been called in the other games Ive played, so I stuck with the naming convention. Its just 2 words that describe the effect of adding more and more of a single stat. And ya, every stat is like that. And the point of that equation is for comparisons of which stat you should add. Like if you wanted to compare different pieces of food with your gear set, thats how you would calculate how much crit damage is worth to your overall DPS.

wish.1027:

Power increase:
(oldpower + addedpower) / (oldpower) =1.XXYYYY
XX.YYY%= %damage increase

Crit damage increase:
(1.5 + oldcritdamage + addedcritdamage) / (1.5 + oldcritdamage) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY * .critrate = %damage increase

Precision increase:
21 precision = +1% Crit chance at level 80.
Added Precision / 21 = X.YYY
X = addedcritchance
(1 + ((.5 + critdamage) * (oldcritchance + addedcritchance))) / (1 + (.5 + critdamage) * oldcritchance) =1.XXYYY
XX.YYY= %damage increase

These are the formulas for determining damage increases gained from adding power or precision or crit damage to your build.

When subtracting from whole numbers, like -condition duration, you get ‘increasing returns’ from each additional point point of -condition duration too. Do you also have a problem with that name?

Im kinda tired, I think I replied to all this though.

Walker.3056:

Big Tower, you should stream so we noobs can learn a bit

Seconded. Please stream for us.

Big Tower.5423:

Screw critchance on damage…

You are aware Critical Hit Damage is only applied to Critical hits, which occur based on how much Critical Hit Chance you have, right? Higher Critical Hit Chance (Precision) means your Critical Hit Damage is applied more often to your attacks….

And you should show us all you know the truth and post some math to prove youre correct.

I think the only piece of gear you managed to get into the right spot is the Ascended Berserker back.

If you look at the crit damage offered by a piece of gear vs second stat offered, you can determine how many stats each point of crit damage costs on a piece of gear.

Pants for instance, 48 stats or 3% Crit damage.
48/3=16
So each point of crit damage on pants costs you 16 stats.
Ascended ring, 68 stats or 8% Crit damage.
68/8=8.5
Each point of Crit damage here costs you 8.5 stats. So you should have Crit damage on rings, not on pants, since you get almost double the amount of crit damage per stat paid for it.

Other than that… Berserkers beats Assassins for damage and if you mix in a few pieces of Soldiers with more Berserkers than you have on you will have increased DPS and Defense compared to what you have now. Math can be found by clicking ‘Thief’ in my sig and clicking on linked threads.