youkai94

My thief, watcha think?



Headpiece: CoE
Shoulders: Karma crafted armor
Chest: HotW
Gloves/boots: T2 cultural
Leggings: Vigil

youkai94, on 16 December 2012 - 10:37 AM, said:

New Giver's Intericate Insignia

You give up precision and power by swapping out the (mostly) Knight's gear for this insignia.

See Post #60 (page 2) for my writeup on what you would lose out.

Mainly, you would self heal on attack much less (crit = apply empowering might = multiplied self-heal based on mobs and allies in range), and hit for much less damage.

In exchange you get some healing boost on the controllable skills dodge (1:1 effect of healing power:healed, the 2nd strongest effect.), and the signet heal (1.25 health per healing power, the strongest healing coefficient we have).  

Lyssa is not a boon duration build, so that benefit does not have as much synergy as say, a 30 point Vigor build for an additional 30% boon duration (this build has zero Vigor)

Basically, do you want more frequent, small self-heals on attack (and also do more damage/shorten the fight?) or larger powered, occassional healing skills?

I find that I prefer (and need) healing all the time, even if small, vs a bigger heal some of the time.  What works for you will depend on the situations you find yourself in, and your playstyle.

My Guardian friend I run with built an all +healing set.  It is strongest as support, but she says it hits like a wet noodle (i.e. weak damage), and her precision/crit/self-heal is greatly weakened too.  A Healing Power build has it's uses and strengths, but is so different from this build that it should probably be a new thread (because this build is about healing through fighting/crits, not through use of skills).

Rune of Altruism

Again, see above on losing out on precision in exchange for healing power.  Also, your heal/rune effect trigger is only upon use of the #6 skill and nothing else. (otherwise it would be way overpowered). Thus, it has a limit of triggering once evey 32s (if using traited Signet of Resolve in this buid), or 30s (if using Shelter in an alternate version of this build). The 10s trigger limit is on the rune to prevent multiple effect stacking with other players using the same rune.

Therefore, the boons (and self-heals) given out will be limited in time, although multiplied by number of allies around, which could make for a significantly bigger signet heal (every 32s).

The tradeoff would thus be
Rune of Altruism:  Pros: much bigger signet heal (max 5x72 +3x5x72 = 1440 more heal), buffs allies with might and fury.  Dodge roll heals for 165 more.  Cons: more chance of overheal/wasted heal.  Lose 165 precision (roughly 9-10%), less self heals on attack. No "super power" synergy with Renewed Focus elite skill.

Rune of Lyssa: Pros: random boon on self heal (72 more heal plus random boon), Adds all boons, plus removes all conditions, on use of Elite (Renewed Focus). Adds 165 precision (roughly 9-10%, getting you to the 40% plus threshold where the self-heals on attack gets powerful).  Cons: not as much support to allies, smaller signet heal.

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Great link below on Healing Power effect on Guardian skills (note there is some debate as to whether Altrusitic Healing self heal is 69, 79, or whatever with/without healing power effect. I just use 72 out of habit. One day I'm going to have to watch the numbers on the screen really closely).

I've spreadsheeted this out to 1400 healing power.  Healing can have some powerful impact, but it's a totally different build/playstyle then what this build (and thread) is made for.

http://www.guildwars...guardian-heals/

GuanglaiKangyi, on 15 December 2012 - 06:58 AM, said:

I just finished a dungeon run with rampager/rabid and sigil of the earth. Indeed, condition damage build for grenades is now superior to direct damage in almost all scenarios. I don't think you'd even need to do those numbers to prove that now lol, 30% by itself would push condition damage ahead of direct damage on even trash mobs (hence, lower armor), neverminding the on-proc sigil with no internal CD (sigil of the earth) adding significantly to the bleed stacking. What more, with a buff to shrapnel and the significant reduction to grenade #1, it is now a lot easier to take 20% CD reduction over 10% explosion damage, further buffing the grenade condition spec.

The problem in my dungeon run was that, bleed never dropped below 25 stacks. Our ranger was keeping up 10-15 stacks without me, and I don't think he's even condition damage specced, he's just using a lynx. I told the other members to try to minimize bleed, but I mean realistically, some of them can't even really avoid it. We ran with the same group setup as we've always farmed before (HotW exp 3 path), and the 3 path run took 10 min longer (90 min instead of our typical 75-80 min), it is noticeable. Overall, I think although this could prove to be a dps INCREASE for condition damage grenade sets, it's time to visit some of the less damage dealing options like double pistol elixir dps/support build, at least it won't cap on bleed. After 1200+ hours of playing, I'm saddened that condition damage is still facing the same problem that it had faced all these time. As of now, I think it's actually not productive at all to put so many stats and traits into condition damage when it gets capped anyways --- The difference is, due to direct damage being nerfed significantly, there's no "ways around" the issue so to speak, so stats are better off going to things like boon duration perhaps. That way at least every bit of your stat counts, instead of some of them going to waste.

youkai94, on 10 August 2012 - 07:32 PM, said:

I still don't understand engineer's going for bleeding duration. (not trying to single you out, just a general comment) We have access to all 4 types of condition damage as well as a lot of non-damaging conditions that are also affected by expertise/condition duration. The other thing with slotting rune of the afflicted is you will lose condition damage from the nightmare's 4 piece for what will most likely be no extra bleeding tick, and you will lose extra ticks on conditions that last 2sec since they need that 50%. (it has to be a full extra second for duration to increase bleeding and confusion ticks, it will not round up.) Afflicted would only be adding 9% bleed duration since you removed 6%.

The only time going for bleeding duration only will work is if you don't want to put 30 pts in explosives. But even then you would have to do some close testing to see if bumping up your bleed duration gives as much as increasing the damage for all your conditions across the board.