Guild Wars 2

Evade evade evade evade

Their staff, perma evade, cheese build is basically a 1v1 nightmare for most melee centric classes. I recommend simply, not fighting them 1v1 If you can’t sustain long enough to get a +1 from your team. They typically can’t do well in a team setting so you may need to change your map rotational strategy so you don’t get caught in a long 1v1 fight against them if you die easily.

Immob them, also any Cc kills them, I run the regular D/p thief build and kill them easily.

the acrocondi thief has his best chances in 1v1 onpoint. especially if hes the opener.
your chances are doubled if u fight him in an open area as he only has full potential in close range and keeps himself alive by evading. more: there is no stealth.

as meta necro, war and mesmer the key is to strike only if u need to or u are sure it hits (immob, cc). every evade by thief means cleans, heal, vigor and swift. also pain response triggers if u hit them. so basiclly, YOU are the one removing thiefs conditions.
then theres shadowstep but if u make the condithief use this in 1v1 it means u have good chances.

For meta Rev, Thief, scrapper and druid it is madatory to rupt channeled vigor and watch for the imp.daggers/steal/dodge burst as this means 7 conditions in 1 sec with more then 10k dmg through poison only. if u manage to block/dodge the burst the thief needs to act more offensive by using the dd autochain more often. this means less dodges for him and more rupts/bursts for u. to better your chances watch bandits defense 12sec cooldown. place your bursts in between and dont give them access to the reflexive strike (chain). dont think the strike wont hit because hes not in range. i like to use reflexive strike midsteal to set up my impairing daggers or an autochain.

Pay close attention to your own conditions and care my advice now. Besides the single conditons effect (slow, immob, cripple,..) every condition the thief applys serves another purpose: so u dont remove poison but remove the others. poison is the main dmg source and i apply all the other conditons so u dont remove it. Heres an example:
If i do a simple imp.daggers/steal/dodge combo, then opposing thiefs shadowstep, mesmers cleanse or necros passive proc will cleanse some conditions, but most likely not poison. care ur timing so u clean especially this one.

i hope to help u out. im playing thief only since beta, started pvp about 2 years ago and play condithief for like a year.

If you think perma evade thieves are a problem in PvP….god forbid but stay away from WvW at all costs, it’s a cheese spec..nothing more to say

1) Interrupt Channeled Vigor
2) Kite
3) Kite more
4) Train with a friend who plays thief

If they’re running the d/d condi variant you can just pop retaliation and watch them kill themselves lol.

Not sure how to fight the staff version, don’t see it often enough to consider it a threat but I hear d/p thief counters it pretty well.

You don’t. You simply die.

Depends what you’re running, but if it’s the terrible condo evade build, just kite and use auto attacks. Fast, low dmg attacks are much better than big,long cd attacks that don’t land.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

You don’t. You simply die.

Yea totes why bother fighting our thief overlords!

I got to legendary with a 5 thief premade, how long will our oppression under our thief overlords last Anet?!

Haha /s

Conditions or any amount of sustain will rip thief open or at least cause them to kite off point and become useless

Time a skill for before they land, not after they land. Aim to hit the non-evade frame during the skill, not the gap between that and the next evade, which will almost always result in an "evaded!" PvP is awkward to learn in atm, because the skill gaps are so huge. You can reliably land something vs a class for days, then go against someone that is actually good at it and miss everything resulting in losing when normally you wouldn’t have done that, you’ve just been "trained to" by the bads.

The staff thief sucks to fight.. but aoe condi will get them, because it’s there to hit in the small gaps of there evade.

It’s not quite perma evade, there are small gaps. The trick is to lay down aoe and wait for it to hit the thief in those gaps. If you can stun, for example with [Shocking Aura,] you can hammer them.

Wards prevent them from spamming evades.

what really irks me is that Thieves got all these new evades, when this was a mostly Ranger skill

Ithilwen.1529:

The staff thief sucks to fight.. but aoe condi will get them, because it’s there to hit in the small gaps of there evade.

It’s not quite perma evade, there are small gaps. The trick is to lay down aoe and wait for it to hit the thief in those gaps. If you can stun, for example with [Shocking Aura,] you can hammer them.

What happens if they have 3 stun breakers (Traits/bandits defense) and What happens if they bandits defense in the aoe? It is on 12 second CD.

as far as i know, there is no way to cure cancer…. but you can try chemotherapy or radiation… i heard those can help.

Both D/D and Staff “perma”-evade Thieves aren’t in an evade frame for the entirety of the time.

Don’t facetank their attacks. Kite and dodge. If absolutely necessary, kite off the point.

CC them (hard CC or Immobilize), or hit them with condis, while they’re not in an evade frame, or while they’re casting Channeled Vigor. Both “perma”-evade builds have a ton of windows where they’re not in an evade frame.

Roll Tempest, use Shocking Aura. He has no interrupts so you can overload air as well for a second shocking aura. In a 1v1, he won’t kill you if you use your cleanses right. On other professions, good luck… you’ll have to time your attacks perfectly. There’s a small gap between each evade. Also, he cleanses condis by evading, so if you get condis on him, stop attacking till they’re gone. Then try again to reapply them. A stun will help you get condis on him. Or if you’re power based, whack him with a super hard attack while you can. In teamfights, they’ll melt between evades eventually.

It’s a wildly cheap spec, but inferior to D/P, or even vault spam.

Also, WHY THE kitten CAN THIEVES DO DAMAGE WHILE EVADING CONSTANTLY? HOW IS THAT GOOD DESIGN?

catch them with CC walls like Hammer 5 Ring from guardian

If you cant hit your direct cc make them run or dodge into the CC themselves

that one second that they get knocked back from the wall has to be used to burst and if you can CC more

Am i the only one that finds this incredibly hilarious. Grouch AKA Josh Davis at around this time last year said that thieves mindlessly dodge and announced that the studio will be killing evades. This made thief utterly useless till HoT release.

Just before HoT droppped Karl Mclain with such pride announced the daredevil spec which has even more evades thn what they destroyed thief for. The punchline is during a demo of the spec The Great Mclain literally used only one skill (death blossom) with lotus training to kill the chieftain.

So Anet complains about evades then destroys thieves.They then make evades permanent and make it extremely easy to apply pressure while evading.

Being able to pressure while evading is something that has always been limited, either you couldnt move while doing it or the attack damage was small, now we have cancerous d/d and staff thieves who just press one button to do amazing damage while permanently avoiding it

Lmao i tip my hat to these guys, great artists they have, but f#@kin confused class designers.

Don’t expect to hit them whenever you want. Hit them (preferably with a cc) during the evade gaps during skills (if you time a skill right at the end of dodge, or during a vuln period in an evade skill, it will hit). All in all, don’t be stupid.

It’s funny to watch them flop around like fish on dry land when you just let them waste evades.

D/D condi is even funnier to watch.

alchemyst.2165:

Don’t expect to hit them whenever you want. Hit them (preferably with a cc) during the evade gaps during skills (if you time a skill right at the end of dodge, or during a vuln period in an evade skill, it will hit). All in all, don’t be stupid.

It’s funny to watch them flop around like fish on dry land when you just let them waste evades.

D/D condi is even funnier to watch.

depends on the class, if you are a DH, warrior, ele or mesmer with high damage atacks that are very fast then you shouldnt have a problem, but with power necro, or revenant with high damage attacks that take a longer time to reach the target or hit max damage then taking damage while having your damage negated at the same time can be annoying.

Also you can’t really waste something that is permanent. You have to really try to run out of evades when using D/D, acro, signet of agility and channeled vigor

Orangensaft.7139:

catch them with CC walls like Hammer 5 Ring from guardian

If you cant hit your direct cc make them run or dodge into the CC themselves

that one second that they get knocked back from the wall has to be used to burst and if you can CC more

i wouldnt fight the condithief as a dh, especially with hammer. shortbow on condithief counters the dragonhunter in every way. u need to be VERY good and rupt him perfectly.

Ragion.2831:

Am i the only one that finds this incredibly hilarious. Grouch AKA Josh Davis at around this time last year said that thieves mindlessly dodge and announced that the studio will be killing evades. This made thief utterly useless till HoT release.

Just before HoT droppped Karl Mclain with such pride announced the daredevil spec which has even more evades thn what they destroyed thief for. The punchline is during a demo of the spec The Great Mclain literally used only one skill (death blossom) with lotus training to kill the chieftain.

So Anet complains about evades then destroys thieves.They then make evades permanent and make it extremely easy to apply pressure while evading.

Being able to pressure while evading is something that has always been limited, either you couldnt move while doing it or the attack damage was small, now we have cancerous d/d and staff thieves who just press one button to do amazing damage while permanently avoiding it

Lmao i tip my hat to these guys, great artists they have, but f#@kin confused class designers.

well thiefs concept as it was got useless as soon as others (more reliable) proffessions untertook the mobility, stealth and dmg. so with the elite spec there was another concept: fighting equals survival. and they implement this pretty well. cause as much knowledge u need to bring to stay alive, u need the same knowledge to kill the thief.

“what about those trickery/agilty signet thieves spamming only 3 and dodge? SKILL??” u ask? no, ofc not. but if he manages to stomp u without using impairing daggers, steal and autochain then ur at the same level as him.

As funny as D/D condi is they should probably leave thieves alone before they break something again. D/D condi doesnt seem to be the go to build for a lot of thieves, maybe because they only need the ‘3’ and ‘v’ to play it.

Its not a good thing to leave hanging around but its better than having the entire class destroyed again to make thieves pay for a fix through an xpac again

I recommend Trap Guardian, condi guard or Hammer guardian.

Trap Guard catches them off-guard with a well placed Elite trap, Condi Guard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brWTJZohy1A) blocks all the attacks whilst applying burning through the blocks (you don’t even need to attack), Hammer Guard has Ring of Warding to counter the evade spam.

For WvW I’ll build to countercomp if I find a DD roamer is regularly interrupting me. Dodge skills won’t protect the thief against wall effects such as Spectral Wall, which will waste their energy/initiative and possibly open up an opportunity for you to CC chain them.

This won’t help very much in sPvP though sadly. Not many meta builds run line effects. However I think that the standard Chill necro may have space on its bar for Spectral Wall if you are finding yourself against thieves who you know are running these dodgespam builds.

maybe try a condi trap perma stealth thief
fight cancer with cancer ;-)

Impact.2780:

Time a skill for before they land, not after they land. Aim to hit the non-evade frame during the skill, not the gap between that and the next evade, which will almost always result in an “evaded!” PvP is awkward to learn in atm, because the skill gaps are so huge. You can reliably land something vs a class for days, then go against someone that is actually good at it and miss everything resulting in losing when normally you wouldn’t have done that, you’ve just been “trained to” by the bads.

…this is THE WORST advice i have ever read…to anyone who read his message, please ignore…contains more kittens than what i put in my toilet. The easiest way to counter is thru the use of auras, traps, pets or just sustain.

Koru.8574:

Impact.2780:

Time a skill for before they land, not after they land. Aim to hit the non-evade frame during the skill, not the gap between that and the next evade, which will almost always result in an “evaded!” PvP is awkward to learn in atm, because the skill gaps are so huge. You can reliably land something vs a class for days, then go against someone that is actually good at it and miss everything resulting in losing when normally you wouldn’t have done that, you’ve just been “trained to” by the bads.

…this is THE WORST advice i have ever read…to anyone who read his message, please ignore…contains more kittens than what i put in my toilet. The easiest way to counter is thru the use of auras, traps, pets or just sustain.

he’s not too wrong there mate. especially warriors and dp thiefs can time attacks to hit between evades and easy rupt death blossoms precast. dh traps and druids are helpful against them but dont counter them. there is no reason to mention auramancer as its like 2 rocks fighting each other.

So, I play the d/d variant. Played it before HoT at that (you know, when it sucked and nobody complained)

Here’s some stuff you should know:

To have enough damage to actually kill someone, evade builds need to be very squishy. So squishy in fact that one stun or immob that actually sticks can be a fight ender. Make sure you bait with on and WAIT to use the second unless you want to power up bandit’s defense and get kicked in the face. Alternately, auto during bandit’s defense and interrupt the kick if you have a ranged CC.

Immobilize, Immobilize, Immobilize The only reliable way a thief has to clear immob is taking dash, or blowing shadowstep. Dodge thieves that take dash can’t really bring enough pain to hurt you in the first place, as they’re constantly dodging out of their own weapon range. Shadowstep is not something a thief wants to waste on an immob simply because it’s a wasted stun break, and many dodge thieves don’t take shadowstep at all because of bandit’s defense.

Tanks for nothing. Seriously. If you catch the rare dodge thief that’s built specifically to tank, just ignore him. If you can’t nail him or run him off with some good CC or immob, then you can be almost sure that he doesn’t have enough damage to kill you anyway. Just leave him on his point to flap around uselessly and go fight over the other two. He’s going to come in to +1 and not contribute much to the fight.

Just hit them with a hard CC between their evade frames. They’ll pretty much melt after that. Condi transfer also works. Only class I can’t counter with is druid.

Eiffel.8937:

maybe try a condi trap perma stealth thief
fight cancer with cancer ;-)

Rofl, i remember when 3 perma stealth thieves could kill an entire zerg in WvW

Question: How do you counter evade thief, he evades everything thrown at him.

Answer: Just hit him with something, stupid!

/Thread

Ross you seem to be just bitter towards thieves since they filled Mesmers role better, really they are not perma evade and any good player can kill them easily if they aren’t a bunker class.

You can kill them. But “easy”? Nope, not going to happen. It’s not a 1v1 situation in pvp.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Ross you seem to be just bitter towards thieves since they filled Mesmers role better, really they are not perma evade and any good player can kill them easily if they aren’t a bunker class.

Why? Because I read through the thread and made a comment summarizing what I saw, albeit in a fun and witty fashion?

Please, tell me more about myself. I’d love to hear what you come up with. Bonus points if you share where you get your material!

I get my material from my bunghole!!!!!????

Edit I am really surprised Bunghole is not censored as…..sured is….

shagwell.1349:

You can kill them. But “easy”? Nope, not going to happen. It’s not a 1v1 situation in pvp.

If a core thief with minimal condie cleanse compared to every other build can do it running Zerker amulet then it’s pretty easy, XD but that’s just my experience

BlaqueFyre.5678:

I get my material from my bunghole!!!!!????

Edit I am really surprised Bunghole is not censored as…..sured is….

The forum mods would never survive Beavis & Butthead, so it’s no surprise they lack the knowledge to put it on the list.

I hear hazmat suits are worn when approaching “the list” too.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Ross you seem to be just bitter towards thieves since they filled Mesmers role better, really they are not perma evade and any good player can kill them easily if they aren’t a bunker class.

I don’t think he’s complaining about thief. He’s just pointing out that most of this thread isn’t that helpful to someone who can’t actually land any hits in the first place. I’ve only seen one or two posts here discussing the timing needed to interrupt their dodge chain, and if you can’t manage to hit them the question of what to hit them -with- becomes a bit moot.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

shagwell.1349:

You can kill them. But “easy”? Nope, not going to happen. It’s not a 1v1 situation in pvp.

If a core thief with minimal condie cleanse compared to every other build can do it running Zerker amulet then it’s pretty easy, XD but that’s just my experience

Insta cast skills with related stuns are the way to go, especially when those skills hit for 1million damage and proc subsequent immobs.

Hmmm… how many classes can do that in a single button press… gonna have to think about this one.

Ross Biddle.2367:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

I get my material from my bunghole!!!!!????

Edit I am really surprised Bunghole is not censored as…..sured is….

The forum mods would never survive Beavis & Butthead, so it’s no surprise they lack the knowledge to put it on the list.

I hear hazmat suits are worn when approaching “the list” too.

the infamous list gets me at the most random times or I just really like to talk about Kittens….

And continue you valiant crusade through the forums, it’s always a fun read especially when you venture outside the Mesmer subforums.

Ross Biddle.2367:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

shagwell.1349:

You can kill them. But “easy”? Nope, not going to happen. It’s not a 1v1 situation in pvp.

If a core thief with minimal condie cleanse compared to every other build can do it running Zerker amulet then it’s pretty easy, XD but that’s just my experience

Insta cast skills with related stuns are the way to go, especially when those skills hit for 1million damage and proc subsequent immobs.

Hmmm… how many classes can do that in a single button press… gonna have to think about this one.

Oooh pooh I know this one it has to be Rangers……. Or wait Engies…… No oh poop it’s them Condie Wars with all of the roots……. No that’s not right unless it’s a 20 second cd that needs the player to be 50% health, but how do I get the opponent to that if he dodges all of my attacks ??? It can’t be timing can it?

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Ross Biddle.2367:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

shagwell.1349:

You can kill them. But “easy”? Nope, not going to happen. It’s not a 1v1 situation in pvp.

If a core thief with minimal condie cleanse compared to every other build can do it running Zerker amulet then it’s pretty easy, XD but that’s just my experience

Insta cast skills with related stuns are the way to go, especially when those skills hit for 1million damage and proc subsequent immobs.

Hmmm… how many classes can do that in a single button press… gonna have to think about this one.

Oooh pooh I know this one it has to be Rangers……. Or wait Engies…… No oh poop it’s them Condie Wars with all of the roots……. No that’s not right unless it’s a 20 second cd that needs the player to be 50% health, but how do I get the opponent to that if he dodges all of my attacks ??? It can’t be timing can it?

I think we’re making this thread far more complicated than it needs to be.

OP, just hit the thief when he’s standing still. It’s much simpler that way.

People need to read and understand the toollips. All thief evades have a 1/4 of a second window where there is no evade frame and most if not all are at the end of the attack, pistol whip has none evade on the stun bit. All of there’s evade skills can be interuptd but it’s nit as easy as it sounds.

Because everyone playing has a ping between 20ms and 40ms. After that it will be pretty hard to time.

I dunno. It can be easily done with practice. I taught a guildy how to interupt vault with point blank shot with a very high success rate just by telling him when to use it on me we was dueling.

Shocking aura and wall skills like static field and spectral wall for the easy option. Or else you just have to practice timing.

Ragion.2831:

Am i the only one that finds this incredibly hilarious. Grouch AKA Josh Davis at around this time last year said that thieves mindlessly dodge and announced that the studio will be killing evades. This made thief utterly useless till HoT release.

Just before HoT droppped Karl Mclain with such pride announced the daredevil spec which has even more evades thn what they destroyed thief for. The punchline is during a demo of the spec The Great Mclain literally used only one skill (death blossom) with lotus training to kill the chieftain.

So Anet complains about evades then destroys thieves.They then make evades permanent and make it extremely easy to apply pressure while evading.

Being able to pressure while evading is something that has always been limited, either you couldnt move while doing it or the attack damage was small, now we have cancerous d/d and staff thieves who just press one button to do amazing damage while permanently avoiding it

Lmao i tip my hat to these guys, great artists they have, but f#@kin confused class designers.

It is Karl…hey…what did you expect ? ????