23 replies to this topic

[Annihylus]

So I see a lot of thieves just dying over and over again in dungeons, I'm currently planning on making a P/P SB thief (maybe even main SB)

So the question is: is toughness or vitality worth investing in over toughness or vitality? Maybe having ruby accessories and valkyrie gear? but is 2200 hp worth losing 10% crit chance? I'm not even sure if 2200 hp is even a hit on a thief. So that leads me to believe maybe using berserker gear and emerald accessories for a little bit more armor.. but even that doesnt seem like a good trade off for the power/crit/crit dmg...

Any insight on if vitality or toughness is worth investing in for dungeons?

[lolevy]

Get vitality for things relating to enemies with cond. damage and toughness for direct damage. Though depending on what traits you like as a theif (vitality tree or toughness tree) get armor for the other. Though I generally find that most armors tend to more likely to have toughness hen vitality so take that into consideration too.

[Nabuko Darayon]

Yes it's worth it. Even going +power+tough+vita is a good way for a thief. Staying at range (pistols) is also the way to go since most bosses do a lot of damage. Having stealth is a plus for pistol damage and survivability.
Thieves are not guardians or warriors so they can't take a lot of damage, so I never roll d/d's vs. a boss. Killing regular mobs and vets is ok with daggers but that's about it.

[Loperdos]

The trick with running D/D against bosses is to get in, hit hard (or drop as many of your bleeds as possible if you are a cond D build) and then get out of range again (vs a melee boss, Ofc). I personally like vit better for dungeons (which may very well place me in the minority) because it gives you a higher chance of not dying on those rare occasions when you mistime your evades and get facestomped by the boss. Actually just ran a dungeon last night with some friends and went down the least in the group (not a slouch group either), but there were def times when the boss went postal and managed to hit with a big swipe and I got away with a few hundred HP left.

I personally find vit more useful in dungeons for the times I make a mistake with my dodges.

Edited by Loperdos, 11 December 2012 - 05:37 PM.

[Vysander]

Loperdos, on 11 December 2012 - 05:37 PM, said:

The trick with running D/D against bosses is to get in, hit hard (or drop as many of your bleeds as possible if you are a cond D build) and then get out of range again (vs a melee boss, Ofc). I personally like vit better for dungeons (which may very well place me in the minority) because it gives you a higher chance of not dying on those rare occasions when you mistime your evades and get facestomped by the boss. Actually just ran a dungeon last night with some friends and went down the least in the group (not a slouch group either), but there were def times when the boss went postal and managed to hit with a big swipe and I got away with a few hundred HP left.

I personally find vit more useful in dungeons for the times I make a mistake with my dodges.

Yeah, its been pretty widely discussed about which is better toughness or vit. Pretty much everyone agrees that vit is more usefull because thieves have a very low health pool to begin with. Of course it depends on how much of which you have as a starting point. Effective HP and all that, but typically vit is more beneficial.

[Ninja Battle Lion]

I read something about diminishing returns somewhere Broadly, I'd say I'd rather have 400 Vit + 200 Tough than 600 Vit

[Gilles VI]

Soldiers Armor

[CalmLittleBuddy]

Vit wins because it can up the number of hits you can take from a boss either from 1 to 2 hits, or from 2 to 3 hits. As a thief, if you take more than 3 direct hits from a boss, you dyin no matta what. Toughness only works as a 'layered' defense to eliminate a part of the normal incoming damage you receive. In general, having more health is better than taking less damage from only one source. Focus on Power then Vit then Toughness if you are getting knocked around too easy.

Never plan on sticking around in melee. In and out or never in at all. You should already be moving away BEFORE you see that big red number snap. If you wait until that first hit land, then move, you SOL.

EDIT: and yes, have BOTH but when you have to choose, put Vit first.

Edited by CalmLittleBuddy, 11 December 2012 - 06:26 PM.

[darkk zhaitan]

Personally, I think vit is best for my thief just because my thief dodges quite often (due to traits, sig of agility, and vigor).  The vit is useful for those not uncommon times where enemies create large aoe fields that give you conditions as well as for better being able to take a large hit if you don't manage to dodge.  Toughness I think is not for thieves since you should not be standing for any prolonged amount of time in front of an enemy or being hit for that matter.

Thieves are very agile and have many ways to avoid or mitigate damage via skills and traits.  You are taking very good wep sets for avoiding damage.  Both are long ranged choices, and p/p gives you mass blind, whereas s/b gives you an evasive leap backwards whilst crippling an enemy that may try to follow you.  Whether you want to invest in more offensive stats over defensive all depends on how good you are at avoiding damage in the first place and whether you are of the mind to outlast an enemy or kill it before it can do much to you.

[Orbasm]

The way I see it, vit is great against not getting 1 shot, and combating condition damage. Toughness for everything else. I'd say you have more utilities to avoid direct damage abilities than condition damage and should utilize the gear stats in that regard.

[pestizide]

just run zerk with SoM and omnom pie.  pistol whip for the evade and learn to dodge/shadow return.

[RawNG]

I run zerker with my accessories and rings being valk.  I have about 15k hp.  I run p/p sbow for dungeons and at the moment amd currently running 20/30/20/0/0 so I get the added toughness from the tree I specced into.  I have around 1300 toughness.  I find this to be overall good for me because I'm rounded off in pretty much all areas.  Before I put the points into the toughness tree I was running 20 in acro, but now that my comp runs lag free I dont need the survivibiliy from acro.  I have 43% crit chance and 105 crit damage and somewhere around 3.2k attack.
This is also what I run for WvW but instead of p/p I do d/d and it works out really well.  I still BS crit for 6.5-9k depending on the target.

Edited by RawNG, 27 December 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[Al Shamari]

I was running full Berserker's gear in the past, and I would say I dodge reasonably well as a Thief but even being a good player, you're bound to make a few errors at some point in high tension dungeons and if you're running full Berserker's that mistake is going to cost you. I just didn't enjoy the concept of having to pay dearly for my small errors by instantly being downed.

I've recently swapped out my entire armor set for a Valkyrie's set and the difference is amazing. I've still kept my Beserker's trinkets and my damage output in general is still hard hitting, so if you're worried about sacrificing damage output to the extent that you won't be of much use in high end areas, don't worry it's worth it.

I would say vitality is much more important, toughness doesn't really seem to play a major role until you have a reasonable health pool. If you've increased your health pool and still find yourself getting downed, then it may be some time to invest in some toughness, otherwise I would entirely ignore it because from my perspective it isn't needed.

[The Shadow]

Al Shamari, on 29 December 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

snip

+1

Valkyrie armor + Berserker trinkets is a great combination. You sacrifice a fair amount of damage for a very substantial amount of extra survival. Works especially well when paired with the 5% precision converted to HP trait.

The Tough V Vit debate is a long-running one.

OP, I think, in time you'll come to the same generalizations that I have, which are:

1) Classes with inherently low health pools (i.e. Thief) would find Vitality to be more rewarding.
2) Classes with inherently high health pools (i.e. Necro) would find Toughness to be more useful.
3) Toughness V Vitality depends on the content you are playing (I could expand on this if you want me to).
4) One of the deciding factors for Toughness V Vitality is which one works best, statistically, with the build you're running (could expand on this too, but I think you'll get the point I'm making).

[spirit 3ater]

I run full Berserker's with points in the Acrobatics tree and reach about 12k HP. Its REALLY LOW and little mistakes can mean you're downed, but on the plus side I put out so much damage its a bit ridiculous. Eventually I just started swapping out my gear. Vitality for heavy condition areas/dungeons and toughness for the high damage fights. There is diminishing returns on both so if you want a combination i would go like 400+ Vitality and about 200 Toughness.

If you can dodge well,use Thief evasions and stealth to their best, I would just go full Berserker's personally. 80% of the time the thief has pretty good condition removal and bosses have pretty telegraphed atttacks.

Anyways have fun Thieving it up <3

[chullster]

Until they make the mobs AI not target those with highest toughness first/the most, I'll always say vitilaty, as it makes dungeons and fractals so much easier.

[Al Shamari]

spirit 3ater, on 31 December 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

I run full Berserker's with points in the Acrobatics tree and reach about 12k HP. Its REALLY LOW and little mistakes can mean you're downed, but on the plus side I put out so much damage its a bit ridiculous. Eventually I just started swapping out my gear. Vitality for heavy condition areas/dungeons and toughness for the high damage fights. There is diminishing returns on both so if you want a combination i would go like 400+ Vitality and about 200 Toughness.

If you can dodge well,use Thief evasions and stealth to their best, I would just go full Berserker's personally. 80% of the time the thief has pretty good condition removal and bosses have pretty telegraphed atttacks.

Anyways have fun Thieving it up <3

Speaking from personal experience, it's more so the "trash mobs" in dungeons that can make a Thief look at their worst, rather than the final bosses. As you said, bosses have extremely telegraphed attacks and a Thief can just pull out their short bow or dual pistols and have a ball. Even at range, the critical hits alone allow us to inflict enough damage.

However, in Ascalonian Catacombs for example, if I suddenly gain the aggro of a scavenger and they blind side me while I'm focusing on putting my DPS on that breeder, my world just became hell (this is all assuming I'm using full Berserker's gear).

Beefing up your health pool literally does wonders to any Thief who hasn't yet tried it. I understand, Thieves are supposed to rely on dodging and stealth, etc. All their little gimmicks. While these mechanics work out wonderfully in PvP when you're normally dealing with 1vs1 fights as a roamer, in PvE they're not always at the top of their game and you're going to get hit with things you don't expect from time to time. It shouldn't result in you being downed, regardless of how much "extra damage" Beserker's gives you. You're not dealing damage when you're forcing your team to rally you.

Regardless... it sure as hell feels nice to be able to stand toe to toe with several of the bosses and just roll out those backstabs without the worry of being one-hitted when the boss so much as sneezes.

[TGIFrisbie]

Al Shamari, on 29 December 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

I would say vitality is much more important, toughness doesn't really seem to play a major role until you have a reasonable health pool.

I would have to concur with this, especially considering the OP is running pure ranged weapons.  Being able to contend with condition damage would lead contending with direct damage, when it comes to ranged.  Just my opinion.

[Fenice_86]

I was plannin to go 3/3 armor Soldier's/Berserker's and, probably, full Berserker trinkets, it should be a good balance... isnt it?

[Meridya]

Personally, I feel a balance between toughness and vitality is best.  It's really situational and depends heavily on what enemies you'll be facing to determine which of the two attributes will be better.  If you don't know what you'll be facing or you know you'll be facing a combination of enemies, being half-way prepared for all enemy types will be better than being fully prepared for one type and then getting rolled by another.

For those that are interested, I ran some numbers a while back, just to see how Toughness compared to Vitality.  I calculated the top-most toughness a player can achieve with Full Knight's Exotic Armor and Weapons, Superior Toughness Runes, Full Emerald Jewelry, and 30 Toughness trait and then added that to the defense provided by exotic armor so that I could calculate how much damage reduction can be achieved through Toughness against direct damage.  Putting that info in context: I found that my necromancer (making that bold since necromancers have more base hit-points and a different armor class than thieves) would need approximately 27% more added Vitality than Toughness to achieve the same amount of protection against direct damage if I completely decked myself out like mentioned above.

I have a condition-damage-based thief and I am equipped with Exotic Rabid armor and Superior Undead Runes for my offense (and a minor boost to toughness).  I run Emerald Jewelry with Exquisite Beryl Jewels replacing the standard Emeralds.  If there were an Exotic level equivalent for the Shaman upgrade, I'd probably run those instead of Beryls.  I run the 6 Beryl Jewels because the Shaman Crests are bugged, providing Power instead of Condition Damage, and 6 Beryl Jewels provides almost as much Vitality while giving a really hefty boost to Critical Damage/more Power than the Crests.  I boost the Vitality even more by going 30 points in Acrobatics.

[Blaidez]

So I'm wondering is it better to have berserker gear and vit/tough trinkets or the other way around focusing on power and crits?

[beadnbutter32]

I have found that you should only add as much toughness as it takes to prevent dieing often.  Blindly maxing the stat serves no purpose.
if you feel like your toon dies too often in dungeons, gradually start adding toughness, see how you do, and repeat until you can tell it has made an acceptable difference. Don't add any more toughness, but go back to adding what ever other stat will work the best with your build, i.e. power, precision, etc.

[Etherion]

Al Shamari, on 29 December 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

I was running full Berserker's gear in the past, and I would say I dodge reasonably well as a Thief but even being a good player, you're bound to make a few errors at some point in high tension dungeons and if you're running full Berserker's that mistake is going to cost you. I just didn't enjoy the concept of having to pay dearly for my small errors by instantly being downed.

I've recently swapped out my entire armor set for a Valkyrie's set and the difference is amazing. I've still kept my Beserker's trinkets and my damage output in general is still hard hitting, so if you're worried about sacrificing damage output to the extent that you won't be of much use in high end areas, don't worry it's worth it.

I would say vitality is much more important, toughness doesn't really seem to play a major role until you have a reasonable health pool. If you've increased your health pool and still find yourself getting downed, then it may be some time to invest in some toughness, otherwise I would entirely ignore it because from my perspective it isn't needed.

The Shadow, on 29 December 2012 - 02:34 AM, said:

+1

Valkyrie armor + Berserker trinkets is a great combination. You sacrifice a fair amount of damage for a very substantial amount of extra survival. Works especially well when paired with the 5% precision converted to HP trait.

The Tough V Vit debate is a long-running one.

OP, I think, in time you'll come to the same generalizations that I have, which are:

1) Classes with inherently low health pools (i.e. Thief) would find Vitality to be more rewarding.
2) Classes with inherently high health pools (i.e. Necro) would find Toughness to be more useful.
3) Toughness V Vitality depends on the content you are playing (I could expand on this if you want me to).
4) One of the deciding factors for Toughness V Vitality is which one works best, statistically, with the build you're running (could expand on this too, but I think you'll get the point I'm making).

Hey, I'm using a 0/30/25/15/0 build D/P+SB, was glass cannon D/D before, trying to change a bit for PVE/Dungeons, in order to have more survivability and for the lvl 20+ FOTM.

I'm now getting up all my gear and was really thinking of going full Valk armor and berserker accessory or mixing 3/3 berserker and valkirye armor while keeping full berserker accessory, what would u suggest?

Moreover i would like to know which runes u advise (i'm not sure if going for divinity ones [rly expensive] or soldier maybe to push up my crit chance) and which sigil you will put on D and P (atm using Force on both, while i use strenght on SB to get might up).

Tbh i dunno what will be the result i'm just afraid of losing too much dmg choosing the wrong runes.

Thx in advance for your help =)

Edited by Etherion, 30 January 2013 - 10:54 AM.

[eiland]

IMO:
- vitality is better for burst - short fights
- toughness is better for sustained fights

Because toughness does not negate condition dmg, going in for a short encounter u will benefit more from vitality as u are ready for anything, and vitality is usually cheaper invest. but as the fight becomes long - multi opponents or just 1 after the other without existing combat mode a lot of time I see the player health no being able to return to full HP (after heal) as so all those ~10,000 vit point do u no good, and the value of each point of toughness actually multiples for each time u heal.

An easy way too see what I'm talking about is watching a gameplay video and just looking at the health bar, if the player spends most of the time in less the 50% that is a classic case for vitality --> toughness.