Thread: Burglar DPS - Gambler versus Quiet Knife

Hi, guys. I recently got back into levelling my burglar, and there's something which has always bugged me. While the Quite Knife line is supposedly our dps line, and many people swear by it, I find myself preferring the Gambler line for DPS, mainly because of the rather amazing DoTs on damaging gambles. While I realize the red line does give marginal benefits to the Quite Knife stance as well as a few other passive bonuses, I find most of the traits in there don't appeal to me, and the ones that do, I usually mix after taking five blues. Ultimately, I find that the bonuses from the Quiet Knife line are easily offset by Lucky Strike's DoT.
Could anybody please explain why most burglars prefer Quiet Knife to Gambler for DPS? I'm level 62 at the moment - does the situation change later on in the game?

First off, I'm more of a QK burg in playstyle, despite not traiting that way. I like the reliability, I spent some time in my 50s trying to get familiar with gambling, and went through all the resources and tried it all out, but the mechanisms don't suit my playstyle.

That being said, you can produce reputable DPS that way, particularly if you build your legendaries to maximize your bleeds. In fact there was an entire thread of someone who measured higher DPS with his gambler build a long time ago.

The reason you find most doing QK, is it's more straightforward. Also some folks like to hit for big numbers, even if it means lower DPS. I like to have high DPS, regardless of the peak numbers. Trait red, feel like you are hitting big, done deal.

If you go gambler, now you need to orchestrate your legacies with your traits and with your skills to maximize your DPS. Yes, you can compare, but you invest more effort in doing so.

All that being said, I trait rainbow for three and six-person instances. Draigoch? Since bleeds get cut off so quickly, and I want Improved Feint for another FM starter, I'm QK.

It comes down to what YOU play most effectively with. Mimicking others' setups won't provide the most of your abilities. It will limit you. That being said, be flexible too. I may appreciate the AoE DoTs of Startling Twist, but you'll find me traiting QK for Orthanc DPS races.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

I've tried both out, 5 deep in the trait line, on my Burglar and I really like them both. I love the Gambler due to the extra abilites to take on more mobs (their extra gamble mez means one more mob to mez ) and everything else. I just wish we had more gamble initiating skills.

I've also tried out QK 5 deep, and I love it as well. While not having as many cool abilities, it is a great way to go for DPS.

On my 53 Burglar, I did Stealth>Aim>SS on a Moria Warg Rider and the average is about 950 - 1000. This is traited 5 deep in QK.

I did the same test on the same mob with the same rotation, but I was traited 5 deep in the Gambler line. I got between 700-850ish. ^{I did conduct both of these tests several times.}

Your hits go for less damage in Gambler, but you get those potent DoT's and Debuff's and Mez's from the Gambler. So, in the end, it's a trade off. However, both of them are very potent play styles. QK is more straightforward, while the Gambler is a bit more complicated to play correctly, but immensely satisfying if played right.

If you are soloing/questing then the mobs are facing you most of the time, so the DPS between Gambler and Quiet Knife is quite similar.
Once you start grouping/raiding and get to stay behind the mobs most of the time, that's when QK DPS is a lot higher than Gambler DPS.

QK: extremely high positional/stealth DPS, normal burg debuffs
Gambler: good DPS, great gambler debuffs, very versatile

My favourite setup: 5QK, Opportunist, Leafwalker. Great damage, highest stealth speed, 80% chance to mez every 15 secs.

P.S.: When mobs die in <5 seconds, bleeds just don't cut it! ;-)

Originally Posted by MorkVomOrk

P.S.: When mobs die in <5 seconds, bleeds just don't cut it! ;-)

That's the main reason i run QK since unless i'm in a raid the mobs don't live long enough for the bleed to really matter. Why bother traiting for bleeds and taking 5-6 secs to kill a mob and have the bleeds wasted when u can trait QK and either 1 shot them or have them dead before u can finish your crit chain?

Gambler is QK with everything else added in. Yes you lose a little dps but you can still hit hard and fast. Mobs still die before a crit chain is finished. You just have to know how to use what youre given in each line.

If you want to go the easy route and have 1 trick, go QK. If you want the versatility and to push the class to the limits go Gambler. You lose nothing and you gain a world of possibilities.

As with most things, the advantages of Gambler vs. QK are situational.

Soloing - At level soloing is pretty easy, regardless of which trait line you choose. Experiment with all of the lines, and pick the one that you enjoy. I like Gambler, because even against multi-mob and elite opponents, I tend to come out of the fight with a nearly full morale bar. In QK, the fight goes faster, but I'm more damaged at the end.

Group Play - Lots of Trash Mobs - I love Gambler for this. There's nothing like ringing up three stuns and damaging gambles from your traited Dust + Advanced Twist. The auto-upgrade of one of the gambles to Tier 6 is extra bonus. Stealth + Provloke Mez + Gambler's Strike gives you the 60 sec mez in addition to a 30 sec Riddle on something else (no re-apply, however).

Group Play - Tank and Spank Boss - Don't let some of the other posts here fool you. If you have one boss with a tank holding it with it's back to you, QK's positional and stealth damage is untouchable. Gambler doesn't really come close.

Group Play - Boss with Proximity Damage - Whenever you take damage from standing too close to the boss for a period of time, I tend to go with Gambler. Run in, apply a couple of big bleeds (including Tier 6 damaging Gamble), run out. Mischief Maker can be good for these bosses too, however, since you can just put the Snag debuffs and your trait-improved RW and CD on it, and let everyone else do your damage for you.

Have fun!

I have some really old threads on this that may still be floating around the forum. Basically, it comes down to position. If you are in position, nothing other than QK can deal top dps, period. The stacked bonus for being behind the target multiplies up and is untouchable. If you are going toe-to-toe with stuff, whether that is lazy butchery of normal pest mobs or running out of stuns on an elite, TG and QK can be roughly equal. QK may still have an edge, but its much, much smaller and the numbers are close enough that you can enjoy a TG build for solo type play. TG will edge out QK if you pull 2 or 3 enemy, aoe dust and stun-gamble them.

To solo with QK "more successfully" than TG, then, you have to use the stun and position tricks, to get that overpowering positional bonus of QK. If you are not doing this, and enjoy TG, then run TG. But if you run TG, run it with the understanding that you could kill faster if you wanted to do so by playing QK properly.

A factor these recent couple of posts gloss over are legacies.

Originally Posted by MaxSydney

Group Play - Tank and Spank Boss - Don't let some of the other posts here fool you. If you have one boss with a tank holding it with it's back to you, QK's positional and stealth damage is untouchable. Gambler doesn't really come close.

The premise of this thought is essentially true, but the extreme of it isn't. Most of the replies in this thread have ignored legacies. If they are selected and maximized for QK, if one tries out each traitline, they'll come to that conclusion. However if one builds out legacies to maximize bleeds, they'll find Gambler compares more favorably.

Which is why I believe you tend to have folks who recognize both are comparable options circumstantially, and folks who tend to believe Gambler doesn't come close at all.

After I built multiple legendary weapons each way (I was at 65 level cap for a while and had resources to burn), I realized I could maximize things by taking advantage of both. Of course realize I'm a poor Gambler, as I mentioned before, it's not my style of play, hence usually going rainbow.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

I have a gambler dagger with a lucky strike cd, bleed dmg and bleed stack
and also a QK dagger - feint attack cd, critical response dmg, subtle stub crit mult, surprise strike positional dmg

So I can to some lvl compare gambler and QK dps - though on my gambler dagger I have icpr,evade and vitality relics, while on QK dagger I've relics for crit rating, phys. mastery, agility

My avg. dps while gambling - 900-1300, and QK dps - 1400-1800 (unbuffed). You cant do a serious test on a dummy since it wipes all your bleeds regularly, so those numbers are from regular playing.

So from my experience QK dps is undoubtedly higher, Gambler has ofcourse other advantages but his dps is good during long boss fights - you can stack a lot of dots. It relatively sucks when fighting trash Another advantage of gambler+bleed dps is that if you equip some survivability stuff it doesnt affect your dps as much as when being QK traited. And also gambler's dps isnt much lower when not dpsing from behind.

Gambler is neat and all, but I personally refuse to gear myself toward an 80% success rate when I can have closer to a 100% success rate in QK. Just when you're counting on that skill to go, the 20% rears it's head... Also, the DPS is not even close. I've traited full Gambler in the past, parsed against myself, friends, etc. There's no comparison if you know how QK works. Sorry, the Bleed multiplier doesn't even come close to making up for it.

Gambler does require you to pay more attention to your skills and I just don't see that as a strong selling point when I can do more damage simply looking at my cooldowns and whipping through the same tried and true rotation. Granted, I don't attempt to reap much satisfaction from which buttons I push, so the same-old boring rotation doesn't bother me. The strongest Gamble (IMO) is only available in QK anyway (Feint -> Provoke mez).

QK crit Buff
further Increased Positional Damage
+5% from Feint Attack up to 2/3 of the time
an additional Stealth attack every 15s.

This is not even to mention that it's a rare case when I've found I could really have used an additional mez outside the Moors. In the groups I run with, they're just going to get broken anyway.
The Debuff Gamble is nice, but you can only realize it's max potential 1/3 of 80% of the time, which is actually only just over 1/4 of the time (unless you're lucky enough to pop a T6 off the bat).

The operative word here is luck, right.
I've seen Burgs tear it up in the Moors using Gambler and it's probably a titch more "survivable" than QK is, but I prefer to know what to expect and not get burned because my skill failed at the RNG.

If the proc chance was changed to 100% and the "luck" was only in the tier that proc'd, I'd maybe feel better about it. As it stands now, Gambler is an amusing toy at best IMO.

Originally Posted by Southpa

Gambler is neat and all, but I personally refuse to gear myself toward an 80% success rate when I can have closer to a 100% success rate in QK. Just when you're counting on that skill to go, the 20% rears it's head... Also, the DPS is not even close. I've traited full Gambler in the past, parsed against myself, friends, etc. There's no comparison if you know how QK works. Sorry, the Bleed multiplier doesn't even come close to making up for it.

Gambler does require you to pay more attention to your skills and I just don't see that as a strong selling point when I can do more damage simply looking at my cooldowns and whipping through the same tried and true rotation. Granted, I don't attempt to reap much satisfaction from which buttons I push, so the same-old boring rotation doesn't bother me. The strongest Gamble (IMO) is only available in QK anyway (Feint -> Provoke mez).

QK crit Buff
further Increased Positional Damage
+5% from Feint Attack up to 2/3 of the time
an additional Stealth attack every 15s.

This is not even to mention that it's a rare case when I've found I could really have used an additional mez outside the Moors. In the groups I run with, they're just going to get broken anyway.
The Debuff Gamble is nice, but you can only realize it's max potential 1/3 of 80% of the time, which is actually only just over 1/4 of the time (unless you're lucky enough to pop a T6 off the bat).

The operative word here is luck, right.
I've seen Burgs tear it up in the Moors using Gambler and it's probably a titch more "survivable" than QK is, but I prefer to know what to expect and not get burned because my skill failed at the RNG.

If the proc chance was changed to 100% and the "luck" was only in the tier that proc'd, I'd maybe feel better about it. As it stands now, Gambler is an amusing toy at best IMO.

You really don't need your gambles to hit tier 6 to be successful in the Moors, it's just a bonus when it happens. The provoke mez is used repeatedly as a defense response when someone notes gamblers additional mez capabilities...but, what QK would bother using it when he could just hit another SS. It's like having #### on a bull. (excuse my expression)

My burg is only 40, so doesn't have any legacies at all and not even lucky strike yet, but I still love gambler. Tough hard hitting mob? Disable+debuff gamble. Mob no longer hits very hard, if it hits you at all. Extra evade never hurts. Then there's satisfying "cha-ching!" of getting lucky with a t6 gamble. I hear that when I twist a mob, I give it a cunning attack and move on to the next one, the stunned+bleeding mob is going to die on it's own. Don't get me wrong, using QK and SS devs from stealth one-shotting mobs is fun too, it's just not as dynamic, not as fun to me. But the very best part of gambler is your most powerful skills are a gamble. You take your chances with it, and it's exciting.

Originally Posted by Reichpapers

You really don't need your gambles to hit tier 6 to be successful in the Moors, it's just a bonus when it happens. The provoke mez is used repeatedly as a defense response when someone notes gamblers additional mez capabilities...but, what QK would bother using it when he could just hit another SS. It's like having #### on a bull. (excuse my expression)

Well, you really don't need Gambles at all to be successful in the Moors.

I didn't say they had to be T6. Gambles aren't a virtual guarantee, that's my problem with any Gamble.
The most effective use of Provoke mezz is while 2B/5R anyway. In the moors, 2B is generally more useful than 2Y IMO, so you aren't really giving anything up to get it. AoE Dust maybe. Now that it can proc the x3 stun, it's knida nice I guess. I shouldn't talk though, I rarely play my Burg in the Moors these days.



I'll just stick with Gambles are a toy. You should be able to take-on a group of several (4-5) landscape mobs just fine in QK. Even more if you have all your cooldowns.

Everyone is going off topic, the Author asked "Burglar DPS - Gambler versus Quiet Knife"

There is only one possible answer.

Answer: Quiet Knife

If you disagree or don't think it's as clear cut as that, then you need to look closer.

My two cents worth

Trash mobs
5QK - Surprise strike, IFA, BA = dead mob & wait on stealth cooldown

5 Gambler - Surprise strike, GS, BA, DES = dead mob & wait on stealth cooldown

UPSHOT: Either way I kill VERY efficiently and the real holdup is my stealth cooldown

Group Content
If a tank is holding aggro so I can get positional DPS all/most of the time then 5QK dps blows 5 gambler dps away

Elite Mobs (80k+ morale)
5QK - There is a good chance I will need to use touch and go and/or mez the mob and wait some. This means I have to wait for touch and go cd before I start the fight and my dps my will plummet if I have to mez/wait

5 Gambler - I can kill the mobs with no need for touch and go or using the mez/wait tactic. Since frontal gambler dps is VERY close to frontal QK dps (see below) and I never have to wait around I think gambler is the clear winner here.

General Frontal DPS Comments
- Dont forget that a gambler spec burg gets an extra 400-550 damage every time they use surprise strike. Since that's a 10s cd it basically gives a 5 gambler spec'd burg a 47.5dps boost. When fighting from in front of the mob that actually makes up for the 5% damage boost from QK stance, the 7.5% "in stealth" damage boost from IFA, and the +30% crit magnitude bonuses from 5QK

- Gambler's strike damage/bleed blows IFA damage out of the water. However, if you factor in 2 "from stealth" frontal surprise strikes & 2 "from stealth" cunning attacks (one using aim) every minute for IFA then all of those things together edge out the damage from gamblers strike.

NOTE: I am assuming the 5 gambler burgs is slotting ambidextrous. (Ambidextrous is hands down the most important dps trait for a burg.)

UPSHOT: 5 QK can just barely out DPS 5 gambler on frontal dps but iI dont see it happen on a dummies since they wipe the CA bleeds. Overall for solo play 5 Gambler DPS is just as good as 5QK and the gambler burg has more flexability (can use mischief mode without losing the use of their legendary capstone skill, can use clever retort in all fights and gets a nasty debuff as icing, can apply a minute long mez about every 20s). If you are writing off 5 Gambler dps in solo play then I suspect you haven't adjusted your attack rotations to the gambler trait line.

for what it's worth... I'm trying out 4/3 (gambler/qk) and against multiple mobs things seem to be melting a whole heck of a lot faster than running straight qk.

Hey anyone remember when stealth/combat break was 5sec instead of 10sec!?

Rangers not only remember...they never forgot and still use 5sec restealth.

They also look like slightly less of a pansy while moving in stealth.

Originally Posted by Nuth_KM

for what it's worth... I'm trying out 4/3 (gambler/qk) and against multiple mobs things seem to be melting a whole heck of a lot faster than running straight qk.

Incoming derail:

I'd like to try this, but I'd hate to lose out on Gambler's Strike and or Improved Feint.
What traits do you have slotted?

I'm running Gambler in the moors and i'm very happy. Most of the time you can't do positional damage (vs good player at least, vs bad player you don't need at all positional damage). The big difference is only in the first SS from behind that do more damage in QK.
I run gambler because i like fight, not just oneshot someone and then die or hips away.

The survability is great, and also the fun of gambler your enemy 115% of the time. (yep 45%+20%legacy+10%gambler strike+40% devasting buff) So it's not a matter of luck.

For Raid Content : QK all the way for boss. Mischief for trash pull (those extra 5s mez are great in ToO T2)