Guild Wars 2

Hi.

I’m running a build which allows me to be victorious 1v1 with thieves. I’m a necro player, and I have access to a 3s chill every 10s, amongst other things (I use axe for the cripple etc). However, I can’t seem to trap a thief.

What should I be doing? When a thief enters their stealth bubble to run, I drop as much AoE as I have, but I can’t seem to trap the feckers.

Suggestions and tactical advice appreciated!

Thanks,

Spanks

Slowing them down is not enough. You need to immobilize. If they’re using refuge, you’ll need to find a way to knock them out of that bubble as once they get knocked out, they’ll be hit with the stealth debuff. I don’t play a Necro so I’m not sure what skills (if any) you have. You can also try and pretend you’re running away to lure them.

You need a box, a stick, a string and a cookie.

You put the cookie on the ground. Using the stick, you prop up one end of the box. The box must be placed so that the propped up end will cover the cookie when the stick is removed.

Tie the string to the stick. Hide in a nearby bush holding the other end of the string.

When the thief comes by to take the cookie (all thieves loves cookie…it’s similar to the effect catnip has on a cat), you yank on the string, ripping the stick out from under the box, the end of the box will fall to the ground and you have a thief trapped inside.

Voila. Easy peasy lemon squeezee.

Guardian is the only class that I know that can effectively “trap” a thief and it has to be the hammer variety and time his 5 skill on the Refuge Just as it dissapears.

Hammer warriors can charge in with there Hammer surge, and follow up with the 4 skill to Knock em out of the refuge before it despawns to give them the debuff.

Your best bet to getting a thief as a Necro is to use your Staff and Fear trap right on the refuge hoping you hit the thief and is forced to run out. Condition spamming is useless agaist a shadow specced Thief as they are actively removing Conditions on stealth and every 3 seconds. So your Chill is probably being cleansed faster than you can reapply it.

Thiefs counter shadow refuging with shortbow jumping in it while active and spamming the Kitten out of the 2 skill. or if they happen to have a necro steal on handy ((rare though has happened against me))

Rangers Blow all your traps on the refuge and Longbow 5 it….though can’t say thattle be enough sorry rangers.

Engeniers tough but a fully specced grenaider can make a thiefs life miserable inside it. also Rifle jumshot onyourself inside can sometimes insta kill us if your fast enough.

Elementalist Not sure don’t play one. although a D/D flame thingy harresses me alot inside refuge.

Mesmers are kind of SOL on the whole Refuge thing, they don’t a way to summon there primary damage against a refuged thief. And glamour spells are useless against a shadow specced thief who does absolute nothing during it and runs away and all there Crowd controlls are targeted.

If a thief drops refuge and you have access to fear, use that, not aoe. If they’re knocked out of refuge before the 4 second timer is up, they are hit with the revealed debuff and are unable to enter stealth with any skill until it goes away.

Use aoe to counter stealth when you don’t know where the thief is. With shadow refuge, you know exactly where the thief is. They absolutely cannot leave the refuge until it’s done. They can still be damaged while in stealth. Either find a way to push them out of the refuge (fear or knockback) or just dump as much high damage (aoe or otherwise) onto the refuge as it does very little healing, and thieves are generally very very squishy.

As a necro it’s impossible to trap a thief. If he wants to get away he will. Shadowstep> immobilize.

It pains me to have a thief apply 4+ conditions on me have them stealth for as long as they can, i cleanse and then have it all happen again over and over till i die.

There is no better damage mitigating ability in the game than stealth.

I would be happy if there was a cast time to stealth abilites so i could at least daze to stop it. Unfortunately there is nothing i’ve seen that can be interupted.

You want to beat a thief? Roll a thief. Then both of you can slap your face up and down on the keyboard and have a 50/50 chance of winning.

Plaxy.4617:

Guardian is the only class that I know that can effectively “trap” a thief and it has to be the hammer variety and time his 5 skill on the Refuge Just as it dissapears.

Hammer warriors can charge in with there Hammer surge, and follow up with the 4 skill to Knock em out of the refuge before it despawns to give them the debuff.

Your best bet to getting a thief as a Necro is to use your Staff and Fear trap right on the refuge hoping you hit the thief and is forced to run out. Condition spamming is useless agaist a shadow specced Thief as they are actively removing Conditions on stealth and every 3 seconds. So your Chill is probably being cleansed faster than you can reapply it.

Thiefs counter shadow refuging with shortbow jumping in it while active and spamming the Kitten out of the 2 skill. or if they happen to have a necro steal on handy ((rare though has happened against me))

Rangers Blow all your traps on the refuge and Longbow 5 it….though can’t say thattle be enough sorry rangers.

Engeniers tough but a fully specced grenaider can make a thiefs life miserable inside it. also Rifle jumshot onyourself inside can sometimes insta kill us if your fast enough.

Elementalist Not sure don’t play one. although a D/D flame thingy harresses me alot inside refuge.

Mesmers are kind of SOL on the whole Refuge thing, they don’t a way to summon there primary damage against a refuged thief. And glamour spells are useless against a shadow specced thief who does absolute nothing during it and runs away and all there Crowd controlls are targeted.

Mesmers are not SOL. #5 GS knocks em right out, #4 focus knocks em out, chaos storm is quite annoying in refuge and finally a blurred frenzy or just sword auto attacks can do wonders.

It all depends on spec. Problem is do you want to spec to beat thieves or do you want to spec to beat everyone else.

My condition build works fine on my Mesmer for classes I can target but breaks down when a thief stealths out every a few seconds. My build is quite shattery and that is part of the issue and with all the bullshhh about finding the ‘real’ Mesmer my clones are rather useless to anyone with half a brain.

But I won’t change my play style for one class so when a thief jumps me that’s fair enough.

I tend to get trapped with the lure of candy and whispers of sweet nothings in my ear. But hey every thief is different. I also suggest using condition damage and heavy amounts of AoE

Plaxy.4617:

Mesmers are kind of SOL on the whole Refuge thing, they don’t a way to summon there primary damage against a refuged thief. And glamour spells are useless against a shadow specced thief who does absolute nothing during it and runs away and all there Crowd controlls are targeted.

Mesmers are probably the best at refuge, actually. When a thief gets low and pops a refuge, it’s sword/focus time. Yank, dodge, sword 3, sword 2, dodge, shatter. If that’s on cooldown swap out the GS for your other knockback and continue from that set, even if it’s not ideal.

One of many reasons that shatter mesmers are probably the scariest thing a thief runs into.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

When a thief enters their stealth bubble to run, I drop as much AoE as I have

Another player who has been misguided into thinking that AEs are the appropriate response to stealth. AEs are the last thing you want to do, unless you’re dropping them on yourself as a defensive measure against a melee-based thief. I wish the community would stop giving this horrible advice. Auto attack is your friend against stealth, as well as reading their movements and and anticipating where they’ll be. Throwing AEs everywhere is just a waste of time and resources and turns you into a PvE-style target for the thief, they just stay out of the red circles and collect their kill.

tagnut.8621:

You want to beat a thief? Roll a thief. Then both of you can slap your face up and down on the keyboard and have a 50/50 chance of winning.

I dueled a thief as a thief. Shortbow vs daggers. It lasted forever.

In the end we both ended up getting bored and going our separate ways because neither of us was dying.

I’ve found tagging the target can help as once they pop back up you can spot them faster