Guild Wars 2

Generally, I consider myself an above average mesmer (above average pvper in general). The only class that I consistently have troubles with is thief, and only when they are running the s/d evade spam build. Other classes can beat me, but for the most part, it’s due to player skill/error rather than permanent evades.

That being said, how do we counter perma-evade, or seemingly permanent evades. I’d assume immobilizing them, but if I can’t land the first immobilize, what then? Ground targeted AoE? My mesmer doesn’t have any. I can summon phantasms, which helps, but for the most part I’m dead or my phantasms are dead before the thief can get low. I’ve practiced 1v1ing against thief guildies running the s/d evade build, and I can get them really low and SOMETIMES beat them if I change my build entirely, almost to the point that I changed my build to something that is only useful for countering this thief build. How do the rest of you cope? Obviously an entire team of these thieves would be fairly useless if you have some reliable aoe, but for classes that don’t have that aoe…

you gotta get the jump on them, make one mistake and you can lose the fight, thief vs mesmer is probably the hardest match for mes.

(As a mesmer main aswell) The s/d build has major physical tells, that indicate certain attacks. Most thieves open with s3+s2 or signet; dodge 1 second latter as the thief does s3 to tie into the combo. Sword on mesmer is very useful, because if a thief does “jump” on you at the begginning, you can deal around 2k-4k to the thief because he got into range of it, because of skills, also you evade his biggest burst. Also if a thief lands a steal on you, its gg, Gotta learn to dodge/evade/invuln through those. Its also about dealing damage consistently to the thief, holding your big “burst” when the thief is either on CDs, or makes a mistake. Also save your gs#5 skill for Shadow Refuge, if you knock the thief out of SR, gg, if you dont, he had to waste a dodge to stay in. If a thief SRs away from you and you cant get to him quickly to gs5 him out of it: Run in the opposite direction wait six seconds then pop mass invis. a SR gives the thief 10 secs of invis, if you can get the upper hand on stealth gg. (kite and wait 6sec+5 sec invis from mass=11 sec of invis/kite, SR on thief=10 sec)

EDIT: Also when a thief spams s3, dodge/evade/invuln 1 sec after he STARTS to “spin” around you. This will “evade” the hard hitting attacks.

Sry for the bad english, im writing this at 2am :P hopes this helps.

There’s 2-seconds after using flanking strike in which they are not evading. You have to wait for that point to do anything to them. Spamming with those guys does not work.

You have to get really good at timing your skills to the end of their evades o_o
Most thieves will make spaces and are not in perma evade mode..
As soon as a space appears you can extend it with a Daze; hopefully your timing and the clone’s Rng movments coincide.
I’ve recently gotten kinda good at calling their shadow refuge and using my 1 second cast KB as they cast SR knocking them out of it as they cast it.

If you can play fearlessly and make the thief go into a panic you can win as a mesmer; but this is mostly mind games, and you have to disable their SR(Mostly luck here, because they can perma evade in it or cast it from stealth)

Basically, RUN!

From a spvp point of view avoid 1v1 against thieves like hell, even as a thief I disengage as fast as possible, as a mesmer you would have to specifically build just to deal with s/d and even then you will have an uphill fight.
Team up with some one at the start of the game and stick with that guy, focus on the group fights and 2v1 thieves.
Mesmers are there for interrupts and boon control in group fights let the solo stuff be done by thieves and warriors.

errr how do i deal with them as a hambow?

Camp the fire field on point, let burning and healing signet do their job spam bow 1 it outranges the ports, stack might up and wait don`t chase, slot fear and use it on the 2nd port then switch to hammer and go to town.

Bazzoong.7145:

Camp the fire field on point, let burning and healing signet do their job spam bow 1 it outranges the ports, stack might up and wait don`t chase, slot fear and use it on the 2nd port then switch to hammer and go to town.

ah, i see, thanks for the tips!

so i need to get the timing right then.

i play warrior, so i just keep attacking until they’re dead. /tactics

Liewec.2896:

i play warrior, so i just keep attacking until they’re dead. /tactics

hurr durr what weapons you use?

I main mesmer aswell, having the same struggles. What I usually do when I see a s/d thief running around when I’m alone, is turning my kitten around and leave him. Yes there is a small chance you get him down. But that tells more about the thief than about you, the current meta is not really supporting Thiefs Vs. Mesmers, just don’t give them the chance to jump on you, stay out of their range, as it’s really a 5 points you throw away if you even think of starting the duel. I know it’s a pain. But with the right party set up in your team, you might be able to get them and dance on their graves Sadly enough, you can’t do it on your own. But I guess we’ll have to learn to live with that fact.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Liewec.2896:

i play warrior, so i just keep attacking until they’re dead. /tactics

hurr durr what weapons you use?

its in hotjoin so i always play greatsword zerker, om-nom-nom squishy classes

Liewec.2896:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Liewec.2896:

i play warrior, so i just keep attacking until they’re dead. /tactics

hurr durr what weapons you use?

its in hotjoin so i always play greatsword zerker, om-nom-nom squishy classes

aaah i see. its been a while since i played a greatsword zerker in hotjoin.

i remember the last time i did that, i would just lay down a hundred blades and somehow the thieves would just dodge right into the meat blender.

ah, fun times in hotjoin.

okies i shall now go and attempt to recreate those moments.

later!

youre hard countered just get a thief on your team to kitten on them

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

aaah i see. its been a while since i played a greatsword zerker in hotjoin.

i remember the last time i did that, i would just lay down a hundred blades and somehow the thieves would just dodge right into the meat blender.

after quite a bit of testing i managed to make a build with (what i believe to be) the most damage you can do with greatsword
its fully zerker but worth having a play in hotjoin for the mindless fun XD
here’s my build, all i ever use are the weapon skills and bolas, never the signets, (yep its totally faceroll) and i only swap weapons to travel and get out of a fight if i need to, this build can run away like a champ! XD

Isn’t it ridiculous that they designed a class with perma evade AND stealth.

I’m speaking both for the Thief who can’t survive long otherwise and the opponents who have to deal with this cheeze.

I’m struggling to conceive of developer meeting where they sit down and say “Yeah…this sounds like a great idea…let’s give this class with stealth the ability to evade almost every attack too…it will be fun for both sides.”

Ironically, they did it twice with mesmers too…albeit on a smaller scale.

Some people rage quit over anything…but I’ve seen people quit the game totally over the amount of cheeze that is in the game now. There used to be only a couple of cheezy things, but the last patch made it “balanced” where almost every class is running cheeze builds that either 1-2 shot you or never die.

GW2 used to be a game of skill with great balance in TTK…now, it’s Build Wars 2…not skill.

SPESHAL.9106:

Isn’t it ridiculous that they designed a class with perma evade AND stealth.

I’m speaking both for the Thief who can’t survive long otherwise and the opponents who have to deal with this cheeze.

I’m struggling to conceive of developer meeting where they sit down and say “Yeah…this sounds like a great idea…let’s give this class with stealth the ability to evade almost every attack too…it will be fun for both sides.”

Ironically, they did it twice with mesmers too…albeit on a smaller scale.

Some people rage quit over anything…but I’ve seen people quit the game totally over the amount of cheeze that is in the game now. There used to be only a couple of cheezy things, but the last patch made it “balanced” where almost every class is running cheeze builds that either 1-2 shot you or never die.

GW2 used to be a game of skill with great balance in TTK…now, it’s Build Wars 2…not skill.

only class atm that really is cheese is engi. everything else requires skill to be successful. engi is literally faceroll, you can be competitive at the highest level with less than a day of experience at engi.

I rage quit the game last night due the moronic thief whit perma dodge and stealth S/P. I know there is always a way to counter a class in some manner, but this is just too annoying to deal.
I was playing a zerker ranger and barely i have trouble whit any 1vs1

kishter.9578:

I rage quit the game last night due the moronic thief whit perma dodge and stealth S/P. I know there is always a way to counter a class in some manner, but this is just too annoying to deal.
I was playing a zerker ranger and barely i have trouble whit any 1vs1

S/P with perma dodge and stealth?…S/P doesn’t have anything near perma dodge NOR stealth.

Good joke.

mes vs thief?

If we’re talking glass (Shatter), it sucks because a mesmer needs to set up and has the 2nd most obvious animation for high burst damage, only thing more obvious is the long dead and gone 100B spec.

My solutions

tpvp no foresight: Summon phants and don’t shatter. if you end up solo on a point a lot of the times they cannot risk engaging if you time your defensive skills, and odds are you can take the point, or hold off till reinforcements arrive. (presuming you have a competent team)

With foresight: Moa. This is playing dirty, but frankly when you have to actually set up to do less damage, while having less mobility, less stealth and the only thing credited to you is “Potental” boon strip and somewhat more effective for team sustain. Take away their stupidity with your stupidity. To many no risk things work against you justifying this kind of play. If they cry because you can take away their dumb build for 10 seconds every 3 min, just tell them they are jealous. Be prepared for the verbal abuse tho.

The funny thing you notice about these thieves is a good majority of them are terrible with only 2 doges and are spoiled by the amount of no risk evades.

The only thing I have an ACTUAL problem with and am truly salty about is the uninteruptable heal, and I feel that way about engies.

Daishi.6027:

The only thing I have an ACTUAL problem with and am truly salty about is the uninteruptable heal, and I feel that way about engies.

Engi heal can be interrupted, it has a 0.5s cast. Of course it’s definitely not easy and almost impossible to interrupt it by reaction. Still, with some experience, you can pretty easily anticipate when your opponent will try to heal to land a CC and interrupt him.
The thief heal however you can do absolutely nothing about it yeah.

Daishi.6027:

The only thing I have an ACTUAL problem with and am truly salty about is the uninteruptable heal

I agree with this. I can take s/d thieves as a mesmer and acknowledge that even if I outplay them they have a good chance to win. But allowing for a heal to be truly uninterruptable is frustrating at times. Withdraw is probably the thing that messes me up the most when fighting thieves, since I’ll time my burst for after they’ve blown their normal dodges and boom they are healing.

Overall though it’s not really unique to the thief class for a heal that is uninterruptable. Elementalists with their signet (although I don’t know if you interrupt their cast if the heal still goes off), warriors with their signet, and mesmer with its signet all have heals that really can’t be interrupted and whos only counterplay is poison.

The point is certain classes are going to have more trouble against other certain classes. I can’t expect to come into every fight thinking at the base level its a 50-50 win rate, that’t not how balance or mmos work especially one that is based around a 5 man team.

Also engi heal can be interrupted but at 0.5s cast time its a matter of prediction and knowing when they’ll be wanted to cast it.

Helly.2597:

Daishi.6027:

The only thing I have an ACTUAL problem with and am truly salty about is the uninteruptable heal

I agree with this. I can take s/d thieves as a mesmer and acknowledge that even if I outplay them they have a good chance to win. But allowing for a heal to be truly uninterruptable is frustrating at times. Withdraw is probably the thing that messes me up the most when fighting thieves, since I’ll time my burst for after they’ve blown their normal dodges and boom they are healing.

Overall though it’s not really unique to the thief class for a heal that is uninterruptable. Elementalists with their signet (although I don’t know if you interrupt their cast if the heal still goes off), warriors with their signet, and mesmer with its signet all have heals that really can’t be interrupted and whos only counterplay is poison.

The point is certain classes are going to have more trouble against other certain classes. I can’t expect to come into every fight thinking at the base level its a 50-50 win rate, that’t not how balance or mmos work especially one that is based around a 5 man team.

Also engi heal can be interrupted but at 0.5s cast time its a matter of prediction and knowing when they’ll be wanted to cast it.

Correct me if I’m wrong (obviously not a thief main), but if you’re dueling an s/d thief he’s probably saving his heal for your sword 2 into burst, as (at least to me) it’s the easiest way to cleanse the immobilise.

If an s/d thief couldn’t do that you would just one shot him:p

That’s not a problem; that’s counterplay. To me the biggest issue is in. A might stacking meta, this 20066 build is the perfect counter, all the while taking full advantage of the strength runes.

pu condi mesmer

Keira Ferland.5619:

pu condi mesmer

pretty sad that someone have to spec PU condition just to counter a mechanic, because is no the class for me the problem is the mechanic. I used to be like that.

crying in a corner

Phaeton.9582:

Correct me if I’m wrong (obviously not a thief main), but if you’re dueling an s/d thief he’s probably saving his heal for your sword 2 into burst, as (at least to me) it’s the easiest way to cleanse the immobilise.

If an s/d thief couldn’t do that you would just one shot

Oh I’m fine with counter play and everything. I’ll even admit withdraw is countered extremely well by poison.

I also do not run sword so them saving the heal to cure immobilized isn’t exactly the case.

The problem is besides using a condition, there is no counter to the counter, which a smart thief would just cleanse. Ie even if I expect his heal and see it coming there isn’t anyway to prevent it from going off.

Like I said before, I don’t have an issue with thieves and them being strong against mesmers. It’s part of the game.

My suggestion on how this game should be played from now on:

Key
Build A > Build B
Build B > Build C
Build C > Build A

Example 1

Build A: “hey are you build C?”
Build C: " Yeah!"
Build A: “Oh kewl you win GF!”
Build C: “Yeah!”

Example 2

Build A: “Hey are you build B?”
Build B: “Yeah!”
Build A: “Nice! I win! Gf!”
Build B: “Yeah!”

No silly skill required. Just walk up and ask what build they are using.

Just spawn more clones.
#Karl2014

Thieves are the reason why no other class can be played with zerkers amulet on a competitive level. Memser only works when he gets protectet by his own thief.

Also since the buff of air/fire sigil thieves can run full defense/utility traitline and still deal similar amount of damage as they did prepatch.

Blackjack.5621:

Thieves are the reason why no other class can be played with zerkers amulet on a competitive level. Memser only works when he gets protectet by his own thief.

Also since the buff of air/fire sigil thieves can run full defense/utility traitline and still deal similar amount of damage as they did prepatch.

Yes at the same time else, wars can trait defensively and take a celes or knight ammy and 2 shot said thief due to strength runes an might stacks. Also the condi DMG they(war/ele) do in addition to direct power is quite high.

ofc other classes go deep into their defense/utiliy traitlines too while their damage is carried by runes/sigils aswell, that´s how the game works if sigils/runes are stronger than traits.

Best example is the ranger class, from meta to almost not represented cause they can´t stack might to make use of op runes , nor can they spam weapon swap to benefit from op swap sigil, nor do they have enough critchance/power to benefit from air/fire sigils cause their mandatory traitline and weapons are build around conditions. There is nothing wrong with ranger, except that they don´t have synergy with any overpowered rune/sigil which define the meta.

Orbion.4360:

Just spawn more clones.
#Karl2014

Lol’d.
But seriously, I suggest using s/x-staff (presuming there running s/d or s/p). You will still be hard countered (presuming you play shatter) But you’ll be in a with a chance at outplaying them.

i had someone else’s fgs and rushed when they immob’d me and they dropped instantly. i ain’t dealin’ with no 3 spam teef