Daredevil build with >70% Evade Uptime?

[babazhook.6805]

When arguing heal power against Toughness healing power can not be looked at in a vacuum. Yes some of the healing coefficients low but enough sources of healing and your return for that investment into that stat grows substantially. Obviously a hit taken to damage out but in a Condition build just as example with high toughness and low vitality SOM+ Assassins reward+ escapists fortitude all working in conjunction, gives you heals on an ongoing basis. This added healing is not tied to use any other skills but your attack wherein you heal as you lay out the damage.

This in fact where investing in heal power shines. It not in the singular withdraw heal. It in the fact you can heal AS you do damage. (This about the only type of build skelk venom really can be made to work). My warrior uses a high toughness low vitality combo while invested in healing so as to ensure the shouts and stun breaks apply fat heals on an ongoing basis. My DB Condi thief uses SOM, assassins reward and escapists along with the heal added off shammans/settlers to keep health topping up on every attack.

I would not invest in healing power UNLESS there multiple sources of incoming heals.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@"draxynnic.3719" said:Again, you're trying to beat my experience with theorycraft.

There IS no amulet currently available in sPvP that has both Toughness and Healing Power except Celestial, and that's just not going to hit hard enough to do anything but pure survival.

Isn't the the whole point of this thread? No damage but pure survival through heal and evades?

It seems to me that you're the one trying to convince everyone that you can stay in the node, preferably for 6 minutes, with your build when the numbers simply don't add up.

Toughness does nothing when you get hit by multiple conditions and it's useless when you're built to evade attacks in the first place. At any case that you get hit by either spike or condition, having high vitality and healing will bring you back up. That insight is not base on theory, but on experience.

Yes, there is no amulet with Toughness and Healing, but the staple stat is Healing not Toughness, so you should take the next best with both Vitality and Healing.

The build works because it's not just relying on Toughness. It's relying on rarely getting hit in the first place, and Toughness (along with Weakness spam) reduces the damage of the hits you DO take so that the healing you get can keep pace, even at base healing. Going Vitality instead provides protection against spikes, but reduces the value of your healing over time since the gain in "effective health" of each heal is less.

The build has high evade time. The frequency of receiving spikes is very low if you're paying attention and not distracted during combat. Even if you miss a dodge/evade, your high health pool can soak the damage and your high healing will heal it back up.

A simple comparison, with ZERo healing power Assassin's Reward heals for ~100/init while 900 healing power heals for ~180/init. Which means, your "effective health" is almost twice better.

I fully agree that being able to combine Toughness and Healing Power would synergise well - but the decision of the ArenaNet balance team is clearly that it synergises too well to be available outside of Celestial, and Celestial sacrifices a lot of your damage stats. The way I usually play the build, Demolisher is really the lowest damage I can afford to have and still be able to achieve anything other than not dying.

Clearly, though, this argument is going around in circles. You're obviously sticking your heels in, and I can tell you that you're not going to persuade me that the build doesn't work when my own experience is that, within the limitations of my latency and skill level, it does. So I think this discussion is well past the point where it could be considered productive to continue.

I'm not trying to persuade you at all. I'm actually pointing out that you're not convincing me with your build. You're so concern about dealing damage when the whole point of the thread is not about damage but surviving.

[ArthurDent.9538]

Decided to run the math on max evade up time for a thief in pvp since there is a build running around that seems to never stop evading so here is what it looks like:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAYZlNw6YXsFGJmaXbtbA-zpiIzKw1B

Initiative will be spent exclusively on Debilitating Arc (staff 3) which gives 1/2 second evade for 4 initiative which is stronger than vault's 1/2 sec evade for 6 initiative. Initiative regenerates naturally at a rate of 1 initiative per second (i/s). Roll for initiative off cool down gives 6/32 i/s, Quick Pockets gives 3/10 i/s, Kleptomaniac gives 2/26 i/s, Upper hand grants 1/5 i/s, for a total of about 1.7644 initiative per second. At (1/2 second evade/4 initiative) * 1.7644 i/s we get .221 seconds of evade/second or 22.1% evasion up time from staff 3.

For endurance at baseline the cost per dodge is 50, each dodge lasts .75 seconds, and endurance recovers at a rate of 5 endurance per second (e/s). Endless stamina and permanent vigor from feline grace increase endurance recovery by 3.75 e/s. Signet of agility used off cool down grants 50/30 e/s. Bandits defense with brawler's tenacity grants 10/20 e/s. Stealing off cool down with endurance thief gives 25/26 e/s. Hard to catch grants up to 100/90 e/s. Staff master at 2 endurance per initiative with 1.8644 i/s grants 3.7288 e/s. Adventurer Rune grants 25/14.5 e/s. Double energy sigils grant 25/10 e/s. This results in a total of 20.94 e/s. At (.75 evade seconds/50 endurance)*20.94 e/s = .314 evade seconds/second = 31.4% evasion up time from dodges.

For stand alone traits/utilities: Roll for Initiative= .75 evade seconds/32 seconds, Withdraw = .75 evade seconds/14.5 seconds, Daggerstorm = 3 evade seconds/72 seconds, Instant reflexes grants up to 2 evade seconds/90 seconds. Which all amounts to .139 evade seconds/seconds = 13.9% evasion up time from other sources.

This brings the total evasion up time to 67.4% sustained evasion up time

With bandits defense being 1.5 block seconds/16 seconds resulting in 9.375% uptime on blocking, the potential up time on evasion or block = goes up to 76.76%. So op's 70% up time is actually possible.

This analysis doesn't take into account the potential for alacrity since the thief would be totally depended on an outside source though it could potentially reduce the cd of heal/utility/elite skills and various trait icd's for even more up time . It is also worth noting that since initiative and endurance work like ammo systems, they allow the thief to front load their i frame up time before gradually going down to the 76.76% sustained up time, however on the other hand proccing hard to catch and instant reflexes off cool down is unlikely so it will be a bit lower in actual practice. Feel free to double check my numbers.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@"ArthurDent.9538" said:Decided to run the math on max evade up time for a thief in pvp since there is a build running around that seems to never stop evading so here is what it looks like:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAYZlNw6YXsFGJmaXbtbA-zpiIzKw1B

Initiative will be spent exclusively on Debilitating Arc (staff 3) which gives 1/2 second evade for 4 initiative which is stronger than vault's 1/2 sec evade for 6 initiative. Initiative regenerates naturally at a rate of 1 initiative per second (i/s). Roll for initiative off cool down gives 6/32 i/s, Quick Pockets gives 3/10 i/s, Kleptomaniac gives 2/26 i/s, Upper hand grants 1/5 i/s, for a total of about 1.7644 initiative per second. At (1/2 second evade/4 initiative) * 1.7644 i/s we get .221 seconds of evade/second or 22.1% evasion up time from staff 3.

For endurance at baseline the cost per dodge is 50, each dodge lasts .75 seconds, and endurance recovers at a rate of 5 endurance per second (e/s). Endless stamina and permanent vigor from feline grace increase endurance recovery by 3.75 e/s. Signet of agility used off cool down grants 50/30 e/s. Bandits defense with brawler's tenacity grants 10/20 e/s. Stealing off cool down with endurance thief gives 25/26 e/s. Hard to catch grants up to 100/90 e/s. Staff master at 2 endurance per initiative with 1.8644 i/s grants 3.7288 e/s. Adventurer Rune grants 25/14.5 e/s. Double energy sigils grant 25/10 e/s. This results in a total of 20.94 e/s. At (.75 evade seconds/50 endurance)*20.94 e/s = .314 evade seconds/second = 31.4% evasion up time from dodges.

For stand alone traits/utilities: Roll for Initiative= .75 evade seconds/32 seconds, Withdraw = .75 evade seconds/14.5 seconds, Daggerstorm = 3 evade seconds/72 seconds, Instant reflexes grants up to 2 evade seconds/90 seconds. Which all amounts to .139 evade seconds/seconds = 13.9% evasion up time from other sources.

This brings the total evasion up time to 67.4% sustained evasion up time

With bandits defense being 1.5 block seconds/16 seconds resulting in 9.375% uptime on blocking, the potential up time on evasion or block = goes up to 76.76%. So op's 70% up time is actually possible.

This analysis doesn't take into account the potential for alacrity since the thief would be totally depended on an outside source though it could potentially reduce the cd of heal/utility/elite skills and various trait icd's for even more up time . It is also worth noting that since initiative and endurance work like ammo systems, they allow the thief to front load their i frame up time before gradually going down to the 76.76% sustained up time, however on the other hand proccing hard to catch and instant reflexes off cool down is unlikely so it will be a bit lower in actual practice. Feel free to double check my numbers.

add endurance from weapon swapping :D, once every 9s for 25 endurance so 0,35s every 9s

[foste.3098]

@ArthurDent.9538 said:SNIP

Seams more or less on point except that no thief would pick brawler's tendency over escapist's fortitude, so bandit's defense goes to 20 sec cd. Also consider that bandit's defense could be swapped for smoke screen which gives better defense potential as well as stealth access.

I'd like to add that even with so much evades the build is still not that competitive since staff has major shortcomings, the big one being it is way to easy to kite and the lack of z axis mobility, and for this build in particular lack of a 2nd weapon set which is huge.I know of only 1 player on eu that runs a version of this in platinum, and i can beat him with both my thief and ranger (the only 2 classes which i play in pvp, so i can't speak as to how other classes would fair).

I do play a staff daredevil build every now and then, though not a gimmicky double staff 'tank' but staff/sbow that is about mobility (shocking i know) and doing consistent damage while staying on top of a target, so how a warrior plays but it is a thief. My build cannot evade forever and has to ether kite or disengage after 15 sec or so when all resources are spent.

Regarding staff in general, you know something is terribly wrong with a weapon set when the best skill on it has to be bugged out for effect when otherwise it is beyond mediocre.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@ArthurDent.9538 said:

Bandits defense with brawler's tenacity grants 10/20 e/s.

By the way, that would be 10/16 ;)

If the attacker only attacks once every 4 seconds, Debilitating Arc will grant me 100% evade uptime if I evade every attack every 4 seconds. Thus, the evasion uptime is relative to skills being evaded.

With good initiative and endurance management, you can achieve 100% evasion if you can evade all the incoming attacks from a single source. At the same time, failing to evade attacks diminishes your evasion uptime.

Having initiatives and endurance available doesn't necessarily equates to evade uptime, you actually have to evade something for it to count. For instance, it is highly probable that I will dodge without actually evading anything, thus the expenditure of my endurance doesn't count as evade.

It was a good math demonstration though.

[draxynnic.3719]

@babazhook.6805 said:When arguing heal power against Toughness healing power can not be looked at in a vacuum. Yes some of the healing coefficients low but enough sources of healing and your return for that investment into that stat grows substantially. Obviously a hit taken to damage out but in a Condition build just as example with high toughness and low vitality SOM+ Assassins reward+ escapists fortitude all working in conjunction, gives you heals on an ongoing basis. This added healing is not tied to use any other skills but your attack wherein you heal as you lay out the damage.

This in fact where investing in heal power shines. It not in the singular withdraw heal. It in the fact you can heal AS you do damage. (This about the only type of build skelk venom really can be made to work). My warrior uses a high toughness low vitality combo while invested in healing so as to ensure the shouts and stun breaks apply fat heals on an ongoing basis. My DB Condi thief uses SOM, assassins reward and escapists along with the heal added off shammans/settlers to keep health topping up on every attack.

I would not invest in healing power UNLESS there multiple sources of incoming heals.

The same factors apply towards Toughness, though. Without heals, Vitality is outright better. It gives you more effective health overall, and that effective health is maintained against condition damage as well.

However, Vitality does nothing to improve the effective value of your heals. Toughness does - taking reduced damage means that each healing packet will last longer. Healing Power, of course, increases your healing directly, but doesn't increase incoming healing from allies.

Which is better depends on the HP coefficients of your skills (one of the flaws in the argument @Sir Vincent III.1286 makes is that Assassin's Reward is the most sensitive to healing power, and the relative importance of healing power to Withdraw and Escapist's Fortitude is much less, such that 900 healing power gives you lower effective heals off those than 560 Toughness gives) and whether you're expecting to get heals from allies or to dish out your heals to others. With a relatively "selfish" build, Toughness often works out better, since it increases the effective value of not just the heals you apply to yourself, but of any that come from your team. Toughness AND Healing Power combined is even better, but in sPvP that's only available on Celestial.

If you want ultimate survivability with the build, Celestial is probably the way to go in an sPvP environment, but you're probably never going to be able to kill anything. I run Demolisher's as a compromise - my goal isn't to live forever but to have decent durability while also having decent potential to reinforce my team as well (which is why I also run shortbow rather than staff/staff or the like). Which seems to be something else @Sir Vincent III.1286 seems to be failing to recognise - I'm not saying that Demolisher is a 6-minute survivability build. Just that a) the ultra-survival build is probably something similar, albeit with a tankier amulet, and b) due to how the build relies on multiple heals to top it up, Demolisher works better than Maurauder (something which I have, incidentally, tested in action) despite his claim that having low health obviously makes it squishy. If all you want to do is sit on a point winning or holding indefinitely against 1v1s, there are probably other builds that can do it better.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:When arguing heal power against Toughness healing power can not be looked at in a vacuum. Yes some of the healing coefficients low but enough sources of healing and your return for that investment into that stat grows substantially. Obviously a hit taken to damage out but in a Condition build just as example with high toughness and low vitality SOM+ Assassins reward+ escapists fortitude all working in conjunction, gives you heals on an ongoing basis. This added healing is not tied to use any other skills but your attack wherein you heal as you lay out the damage.

This in fact where investing in heal power shines. It not in the singular withdraw heal. It in the fact you can heal AS you do damage. (This about the only type of build skelk venom really can be made to work). My warrior uses a high toughness low vitality combo while invested in healing so as to ensure the shouts and stun breaks apply fat heals on an ongoing basis. My DB Condi thief uses SOM, assassins reward and escapists along with the heal added off shammans/settlers to keep health topping up on every attack.

I would not invest in healing power UNLESS there multiple sources of incoming heals.

The same factors apply towards Toughness, though. Without heals, Vitality is outright better. It gives you more effective health overall, and that effective health is maintained against condition damage as well.

However, Vitality does nothing to improve the effective value of your heals. Toughness does - taking reduced damage means that each healing packet will last longer. Healing Power, of course, increases your healing directly, but doesn't increase incoming healing from allies.

Which is better depends on the HP coefficients of your skills (one of the flaws in the argument @Sir Vincent III.1286 makes is that Assassin's Reward is the most sensitive to healing power, and the relative importance of healing power to Withdraw and Escapist's Fortitude is much less, such that 900 healing power gives you lower effective heals off those than 560 Toughness gives) and whether you're expecting to get heals from allies or to dish out your heals to others. With a relatively "selfish" build, Toughness often works out better, since it increases the effective value of not just the heals you apply to yourself, but of any that come from your team. Toughness AND Healing Power combined is even better, but in sPvP that's only available on Celestial.

The thing is, the effective health value of Toughness is only relevant against non-condition damage, while the effective health value Vitality is relevant for both condition and non-condition damage. Choosing Toughness means shorter staying power against condition based builds and these builds are everywhere. With high evasion rate, I can evade non-condition damage however I can only cleanse condition damage. Toughness only mitigates one kind of damage and you are forced to exhaust your cleanse to deal with condition damage. Since there is no Toughness+Healing Power amulet, taking Toughness without Healing Power makes the build one dimensional. In addition, you cannot offset the reduced healing efficiency from poison. And with @babazhook.6805, Rune of Thorns build, the build you posted will melt since you'll exhaust your cleanse really fast.

If you want ultimate survivability with the build, Celestial is probably the way to go in an sPvP environment, but you're probably never going to be able to kill anything. I run Demolisher's as a compromise - my goal isn't to live forever but to have decent durability while also having decent potential to reinforce my team as well (which is why I also run shortbow rather than staff/staff or the like). Which seems to be something else @Sir Vincent III.1286 seems to be failing to recognise - I'm not saying that Demolisher is a 6-minute survivability build. Just that a) the ultra-survival build is probably something similar, albeit with a tankier amulet, and b) due to how the build relies on multiple heals to top it up, Demolisher works better than Maurauder (something which I have, incidentally, tested in action) despite his claim that having low health obviously makes it squishy. If all you want to do is sit on a point winning or holding indefinitely against 1v1s, there are probably other builds that can do it better.

Marauder is popular for a reason. Toughness only protects from one source of damage (non-condition), while Vitality can grant you buffer from both source of damage (condition and non-condition). And if your build has a lot of evades, Toughness does nothing since you don't expect to get hit anyway. What you cannot evade is condition damage and Toughness does nothing against condition damage. That's a lot of reasons for not taking Toughness over Vitality.

[draxynnic.3719]

Like I've said, the build shakes off conditions. Big burn spikes can sometimes take it down quickly, but generally I'm not too afraid of condition damage. Experience!

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@draxynnic.3719 said:Like I've said, the build shakes off conditions. Big burn spikes can sometimes take it down quickly, but generally I'm not too afraid of condition damage. Experience!

Of course, of course, all you have to do is disengage (aka run away). But that's not the point of the thread.