Hello, I’m a rank 35 PvPer, who now mains Thief. I began my PvP career switching between all classes and have experience with every single one. I play a mixture of hotjoin, free tournaments and paid tournaments (my focus being on free tournaments).
IMPORTANT
One mistake so many make when playing PvP games is not playing as their opposition. If you do not understand a class, you will not have the grounds to counter what they’re doing effectively.
On the grounds I have switched classes constantly since release, playing them all at a competitive level, I would I have a good understanding and give most a hard time.
Thief being one of people’s biggest problems, I thought I’d share some basic concepts for countering standard thief play which many seem to have trouble with.
Common problems:
A thief can be built to spike, be it the more common backstab build, or pistol whip. Both allow the thief to deal a huge amount of damage in a short period of time.
Counter: In order to counter a thief’s initial spike, you must negate a portion of the damage. How is more down to your class. Blocks, stunbreaks, dodges, blinds, teleports, protection- the list goes on. Just negating one of two portions of damage from the spike will leave the thief short of initiative making them a much weaker target. Be careful of a heartseeker spam and be sure to anticipate it as it’s often a backstab build’s last ditch attempt to finish a target, but again can be avoided through putting distance between you, dodging at the correct moment, using protection to lower the damage.
Stealth allows a player to attack and retreat without any consequences. Right? Wrong. Stealth is simply a mask. Cloaking doesn’t teleport a player, if a thief has just cloaked they’re still in that same area.
Mobility is important in any fight, as is using your surroundings to your personal advantage. Make sure to use line of sight when it’s available.
Counter: A thief works very well with levels which teleports allow them to quickly switch levels. Elementalists and Mesmers are the only ones really capable of following a Thief in such terrain and as such, any other class should try and make sure to fight in way which prevents them having this advantage. Teleports are what gives thieves their true mobility, which require initiative or an utility slot. The only way for a thief to easily remove conditions is to trait for it, while cloaked. Therefore immolise is a brilliant condition to apply in order to limit their mobility if you can predict their retreat.
And do not forget Just because you can’t target them, doesn’t mean you can’t kill them. Shadow Refuge requires the thief to stand in its radius as leaving will remove the cloak effect. Either pushing them out of it with a knockback, using AoE damage or even basic attacking can kill the thief. Be sure to AoE the area afterwards as it stands now, the cloak effect remains on a player dying and can allow them to self resurrect, thus it’s important to interrupt their channel.
One of the easiest things to counter. This is done using cloak and dagger, which is a melee range skill witj off-hand dagger. The skill is initiative heavy and requires the skill to land (damage being dealt).
Counter: In order to counter this and prevent the player from stealthing and gaining and endless source of healing, only one thing needs to be done. You need to count. The skill, with the minor trait gives a 4 second cloak, count from the moment you take damage and dodge, block, anything to prevent the damage on that fourth second. The thief will now have to use a cooldown or will be a free kill (as the only real reason to use this tactic is because you’re in trouble.
Thief is not the ultimate class, it is simply a class with a lot of tricks. Tricks which once understood put you at a huge advantage over the thief and allow you to use counters which they cannot then counter again.
Why have I given out this information?
It’s not fun seeing other people have a bad time when playing a game and having them know your classes dirty tricks simply puts you on a level playing field and can give fights a more meaningful outcome – as opposed to the common Alt + F4 ending.
Feedback is welcomed.
Corrections or additional content: please let me know in a civil manor!
I hope this post was of some help and a merry Christmas to you all!
How do you pronounce your name?
(edited by Rolyate.6753)