Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I was using the trebuchet with my mesmer in battle of khylo. I was using a hybrid build (Condition damage + Burst using shatters + survivability with 2.6k armor). A thief came to destroy my treb but all he would do is teleport next to me (From below), attack a few times, dodge and teleport back down. He kept doing this thing over and over again. At some point he waited for a few seconds (I guess for initiative/cooldowns) but that wasn’t enough for me to regen my health.

I couldn’t attack him. I used my block skills (He would evade the counter), I tried to use blurred frenzy after the first attack (I would dodge his attacks but he would also dodge mine) and I tried to attack him from above with a scepter but he would either be obstructed or stealthed. Nothing worked! He wouldn’t deal extreme amounts of damage to me but after a while he destroyed my trebuchet and finished me off.

Can anyone give me some tips on how to deal with this?

Thank you

Go down and beat him up, it seems that he used the terrain in his favor to regain his cooldowns (which thieves do easily). What you need to do is go to where he is and start beating up on him.

If what worries you is that he might go back up again to destroy the treb then slot the portal skill on your build, place the portal before going down and if he goes up cast it, that way you can keep the pressure on him and he won’t be able to reset.

Hope this helps, with thieves it’s basically cleave cleave cleave until they die like the kittenROACHES THEY ARE!!

-stops to catch up breath- Sorry got a bit carried there.

put portal, leave the trebuchet, go far

These Sword thieves are really a pain.
They can have almost perma initiative. Blink around like crazy.
From what I saw usual teleport rules dont seem to apply to them.
And everytime they port they heal themselves and when they appear before you usually evade the first hit …
They are really a pain in the…..

You were fighting a Sword/Dagger or Sword/Pistol Thief.

Your best bet would have been to use portal to port back and forth between below and above at the same times he was.

You should also cast your phantasms to let them deal with him while you time his movements to apply your condi’s and apply your own damage. They will chase him down below or up above what you lie in wait at the other end.

You can also spread out your illusions and use your diversion shatter to apply a chain of dazes for 2-3 seconds. Also apply any other dazes you have, this will force him to blow his stun breaks.

If you try to fight a thief as a Mesmer, you gonna have bad time.

I also found no solid method to fight those types of thiefes.

The amount of LoS abuse Sword/X allowes is just ridiculous.

st desnuss.5738:

put portal, leave the trebuchet, go far

Mesmer = Rock
Thief = Paper

Honestly if every spec and class were balanced 1v1 PvP would be quite boring. The only mesmer spec this is going to have a chance at killing a thief 1v1 is a full zerk setup, with some well placed stuns/dazes, assuming you react fast enough to not die isntantly. Thief has the best disengages in the game, and the crappy damage you will do in conditions (conditions are more atrition than burst) will give him plenty of time to leave the area in the unlikely event he finds the fight going your way.

also sword thief is basically immune to conditions.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I’m kinda relieved now that I find out that other mesmers have problems against this type of thief or thieves in general.

It’s a nice idea to use a portal to do the same thing but I worry that’s he’s going to stealth until my portal runs out (10 seconds). Will try this next time though.

I did use my phantasms but they were kinda useless in this scenario. They would try to get close to the thief by going around the hill, and before they reached him, he would teleport back up. Then, my phantasms would turn around and try to come up, so they spent the whole time trying to get close to the thief.

I can place a portal and then leave trebuchet but I won’t know when someone attacks my trebuchet, so I won’t really know when to get back. Besides, I wanted to use the trebuchet

st desnuss.5738:

put portal, leave the trebuchet, go far

Zepidel.5349:

also sword thief is basically immune to conditions.

My engie disagrees

Silvanus.5821:

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I’m kinda relieved now that I find out that other mesmers have problems against this type of thief or thieves in general.

It’s a nice idea to use a portal to do the same thing but I worry that’s he’s going to stealth until my portal runs out (10 seconds). Will try this next time though.

I did use my phantasms but they were kinda useless in this scenario. They would try to get close to the thief by going around the hill, and before they reached him, he would teleport back up. Then, my phantasms would turn around and try to come up, so they spent the whole time trying to get close to the thief.

I can place a portal and then leave trebuchet but I won’t know when someone attacks my trebuchet, so I won’t really know when to get back. Besides, I wanted to use the trebuchet

Try and note what the offhand weapon is. If it’s pistol, that means they’ll be doing pistolwhip on the trebuchet. This is possible to interrupt if you catch it as it’s doing the first hit, and that can screw up their combo greatly. However, once it’s going they evade.

If the offhand is dagger, then they’ll be much easier to kill. They won’t be able to put nearly as much pressure on the treb, so just try to go all-out offense with phantasms.

Additionally, I recommend going for a full glass phantasm build. This sort of build is extremely strong in a 1v1 situation. Normally, an enemy has to choose between attacking you or your phantasms. When defending the treb, the enemy has to choose between attacking the treb, or killing the mesmer and phantasms. Usually people prioritize the treb, and this allows you to stack up phantasms rapidly for massive damage. The main reason that your phantasms were useless is that you were in a hybrid build.

1. Spawn your iDuelist and iSwordsman
2. Type “/sit” and watch thief explode

ignore him and keep firing the treb a few more shots. if you are taking too much damage then leave the treb alone and go mid or somewhere.

Several good pieces of advice here.

Overall, I suggest to burst the thief if you have a strong offensive build since the thief won’t bother teleporting back up if they’re too low on health.

If you can’t deal enough burst, then as others said, drop a portal and go somewhere else. It’s not always a good idea to defend the trebuchet. If you get a really tanky target attacking, you’ll want to do the same thing since a long fight next to your treb works to the advantage of the tanky enemy that can gradually cleave down the treb.

leave trebuchet, go 5man on map. Your job was done, you probably hit someone with the trebuchet and forced a player to move to the treb. If you go to help your team you will have 1 additional player on the map while thief is busy killing it (30sec).

If you are using sword mainhand and scepter mainhand your build is weak and you will struggle with all half decent players.

Blackjack.5621:

leave trebuchet, go 5man on map. Your job was done, you probably hit someone with the trebuchet and forced a player to move to the treb. If you go to help your team you will have 1 additional player on the map while thief is busy killing it (30sec).

If you are using sword mainhand and scepter mainhand your build is weak and you will struggle with all half decent players.

actually scepter/sword + sword/pistol if he is phantasm build is very good against thieves. just pull out sword 5 and pistol 4 when he is visible, and use scepter 2 and sword 4 to block in anticipation of his burst out of stealth – can use sword 2 and dodges if they are on CD. once you have your phtantasms out the thief can’t really come out of stealth or he’ll get melted.

Zepidel.5349:

Mesmer = Rock
Thief = Paper

In the current Meta, Mesmer isn’t Rock, Mesmer is more like cotton.

But the game still is Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Very good advice in this thread. Portal can be used in many ways here, you can even repair the treb just moments later with little trouble. Better yet, try have a portal to close or mid when you go trebbing so you can tilt the possible defense or teamfight in your team’s favor instead of struggling with a trolly Thief. Make him waste his time with your clones and go elsewhere to contribute.