Guild Wars 2

Ok….this makes no sense to me. I have 16k life. Thief does backstab for 8k then heartseeker for 8k. Bam I’m downed. 2 hit kill literally. Whereas it takes several attacks for me to down a Thief. How is 2 hits vs 6-7 by any means balanced or fair?

If you’d let us know what profession you play we could give you more help.

But you have to know that the thieves are pushing out the “paper” builds of sPvP exactly because of this.
You can kill them (many of us do it often) but you have to learn how to counter them. This is why I ask for your prof/build.

Aggrostemma.1703:

If you’d let us know what profession you play we could give you more help.

But you have to know that the thieves are pushing out the “paper” builds of sPvP exactly because of this.
You can kill them (many of us do it often) but you have to learn how to counter them. This is why I ask for your prof/build.

Mesmer

Mesmer is designed as a class for which your mitigation of damage is simply not being hit.

Actually same for thief, if you can land a burst on them, they are also as good as dead.
However in team fight, thief is definitely quite sneaky and post great threat to squishy target like mesmer.

So you need to be standing on your toes the moment you see a thief entering a fight. They will always target squishy target first.

For a long time, mesmer has been pretty much thief food. But the recent patch definitely gives mesmer both defensive and offensive tools to counter thief.

Tiips on how to survive a thief assault:
He will definitely attack you after going in stealth in 1v1. Stay close to your clones and count to 2 and dodge. If you are still not attacked yet, use blurred frenzy if you are on sword or be prepared to stun break and phase retreat if on staff.

Try to F3 interrupt their blind powder+heartseeker combo. You can burst them afterwards. Stay close to clones also helps you gain chance to deal shatter damage.
Take the blind on shatter trait, it is really good. If you see thief tryharding hearseeker you. Use F1 or F2 shatter to blind him.

Use terrain to get to place where they can’t instant teleport on you. Against shortbow, no need to try to dodge autoattack, it’s futile. Just try to trade back damage with GS AA /mirrorblade/izerker. Move randomly to avoid being hit by cluster bomb.

Save your mass invis for their shadow refuge. If you don’t have mass invis when they SR’d, go looking for some teammates help. You can also tell if the thief is still around by checking whether you are in combat or out of combat.

Also to OP:
I have to assume you are a somewhat new player. Don’t get affected by all the forum cry babies who do nothing but complaining about balances. 90% of the complaints are L2P issues. At least try to learn before talking about balance.

Exciton.8942:

Mesmer is designed as a class for which your mitigation of damage is simply not being hit.

Actually same for thief, if you can land a burst on them, they are also as good as dead.
However in team fight, thief is definitely quite sneaky and post great threat to squishy target like mesmer.

So you need to be standing on your toes the moment you see a thief entering a fight. They will always target squishy target first.

For a long time, mesmer has been pretty much thief food. But the recent patch definitely gives mesmer both defensive and offensive tools to counter thief.

Tiips on how to survive a thief assault:
He will definitely attack you after going in stealth in 1v1. Stay close to your clones and count to 2 and dodge. If you are still not attacked yet, use blurred frenzy if you are on sword or be prepared to stun break and phase retreat if on staff.

Try to F3 interrupt their blind powder+heartseeker combo. You can burst them afterwards. Stay close to clones also helps you gain chance to deal shatter damage.
Take the blind on shatter trait, it is really good. If you see thief tryharding hearseeker you. Use F1 or F2 shatter to blind him.

Use terrain to get to place where they can’t instant teleport on you. Against shortbow, no need to try to dodge autoattack, it’s futile. Just try to trade back damage with GS AA /mirrorblade/izerker. Move randomly to avoid being hit by cluster bomb.

Save your mass invis for their shadow refuge. If you don’t have mass invis when they SR’d, go looking for some teammates help. You can also tell if the thief is still around by checking whether you are in combat or out of combat.

Nice post, im just adding few things.. In the situation explained before, use your f4 to gain distortion and avoid dmg after the backstap if you werent unexpeting the opening. Also you can use sword/staff 2 or any other shatter skill for blind or stun (f3), but it is better to save that shatter skills and use just f4, or you can use a stun mantra if you are fast enought to target him and use it, like this you are going to interrupt him 100% sure. You have not bad distortions/teleports, so use them when the thief is likely going to burst you…

Enjoy!

Circuitnerd:

This explains a lot! The mesmers were hunted down by thieves in the past but now they can have their revenge! Exciton summarized it pretty well. Count to two (missisippi-missisippi) and DODGE! Also your sword BF can be really handy not just against thieves but against pewpew rangers or meditation guards as well. Your GS can counter the Shadow Refugee pretty hard (that floating house thingy).

And if you use Marauder or (God please forgive me! ) Barbarian amulette they have no chance to oneshot you.

Try to equip Traveller or even Speed Runes and Barbarian amulette… You still have decent damage, godlike mobility, and 28-30k HP

Your damage suffers a lot but hey! you have to stay alive to learn from your mistakes! :P