Guild Wars 2

Seriously, is there a single class that can run from a thief? So long as one doesnt get the jump on me I can 1v1 many thieves, but when they’re in a group you stumble across, they can close an inmmeasurable amount of distance in a heartbeat making you nothing but food for their group. Kind of bullkitten, especially when you dont know you’re next to a group because of the rendering issues. Christ.

When u are a lone and see thief is coming for u. just teleport to base fast :p

They have the highest mobility, it’s their class strength. Probably the highest potential for getting away is a warrior, but still, if the thief is good, nobody can escape.

So highest burst, highest mobility, and most effective single target cripples. Awesome.

I’d like to see them try.

Signed, a mesmer.

Dancing dagger is a pretty effective multi-target cripple.

Even the best mesmer will never escape a good thief, sorry. They can cover twice the ground you can. Your stealths will get you a small lead, but they’ll be back on you in half the time. Your only hope is portal dropping, but since the thief is with a group, half his group can just sit on the portal while the thief chases you down.

I’d like to see them try.

Signed, DD Ele.

heartseaker is a great gap closer…heartseaking then scorpion wire and the zerg descends on them before they cane escape

Heartseeker is a gap closer, but not a very optimal one. They’ve got way better options.

It always depends on the build and weapons the Thief is using.

But generally speaking they are one, if not THE most mobile class in game. Some classes may be faster over short distances but in the end…they all get caught eventually.

My warrior can get away from anything.

sword/greatsword both have charges and greatsword has the spinny-charge thingy and for utility skills, you have bullrush for another charge and signet of rage for swiftness

probably easier with a 1hand sword because the charge is only on like a 7 or 8 sec cooldown

I dont care if i can’t get away from a thief when he cant kill me.

signed, a guardian.

Why would I want to get away from them? They’re so predictable and squishy. Go down like a sack of potatoes.

Signed, an awesome mesmer.

P.s. Thief gank squads, and render abusers included. They’re all as predictable and squishy as each other.

I escape them all the time. Warrior.

As a guardian you can do it easy and also kill him fast. othercase if you are bad at pvp… lol

depend.

i’ve had a mixed outlook on thieves (as a ranger).

in a 1v1 (with no chance of zerg following) i will win 50% of my engagements. i find encounter’s with thieves are 1 sided with no room for middle ground (e.g. you die horribly, or he dies horribly)

so it’s either you die right away, or you just evade all his loads (i usually chain a 5 dodge, followed by a heal and trap) and then counter attack till he tries to reset. once he does that you start backing off (if you want to run), or stick around to try and kill him.

it get’s annoying though. i wish pet’s (like hawks and dogs) could attack invisible targets.

i just hate pistol whip… so much stun…

also when they go invisible. if you have a gs or melee weapon just start spamming 1 and run around. if you have a weapon that does AoE then you just start spamming it till he appears again.

Warrior here. Although I’m very capable of running away from a Thief if I utilize correctly the many gap closing abilities that I have using the Sword/Greatsword combo, I vowed never to run away from anybody. I never ran from a Thief, and never will. It’s just not a very honorable thing to do. As a Warrior, I would rather fight to the death than run away like a coward.

Ilesyt.7084:

I’d like to see them try.

Signed, DD Ele.

RTL (when it works), fire #3, lightning flash, and mist form will only get you so far when he’s got a mess of cripples and immobilizes.

For the record, Im not talking about 1v1’ing thieves. I’m talking about 5-10 of them and you have to get away fast.

I am always surprized when they pop on my warrior. I always wonder what do they think they are doing?

Why bother trying to escape?

How about putting up a fight? If you aren’t capable of taking off at least half the HP of your opponent, regardless of what class they are, in a 1 v 1, you are:

1) Not level 80. Go level.
2) A horrible, horrible, just horrible player.

If you think you’re going to die, regardless of the reason why, at least put up a fight. Why put up a fight?

1) Because you’re not a kitten.
2) Because a hurt enemy increases the odds someone else comes along and kills them.
3) Because a hurt enemy increases the odds they need to skip ganking the next person or two as they go hide and heal.

I never really understood people who just try to run away. The game isn’t a 1 v 1 deathmatch, and approaching it like it is is awfully myopic.

How to deal with stupid burst dagger thieves.

Drop blind.

Drop lots of AOE.

Pin downed thief when they unstealth or continue to drop AOE.

1v1 is irrelevant in WvW. When OP’s post anti thief posts it means they are doing something wrong. If you go into WvW and are not level 80 you should accept what you get. If you are alone in WvW, you should accept what you get.

Classes are irrelevant in WvW. Strategy is key. If none of the situations above apply to you then L2P.

I don’t have a great deal of trouble with them. The question is, “what’s your toughness?” I’m an engineer with power/toughness/vitality exotic gear and if I can’t beat the thief, I can generally run a half mile to the nearest tower before he can kill me. Slick shoes, elixir S, supply crate drop, that sort of thing. Just takes them too long. No 10k backstabs on me because my toughness is too high for that and I have over 20k hp.

Ender.3508:

Ilesyt.7084:

I’d like to see them try.

Signed, DD Ele.

RTL (when it works), fire #3, lightning flash, and mist form will only get you so far when he’s got a mess of cripples and immobilizes.

Zephyr’s aura, and pop electric aura. He get’s stunned and you got speed boon. And then there are so many possibilities, you can just rtl, go to water and cripple will be gone, if it’s sitll not gone, cleansing wave, and then there’s frost aura in water, he attacks you again, he gets chilled
Besides if it’s 1 on 1 I’ll just own him when I have electric aura on.

I don’t run from Thief. Thief run from me.

But honestly I don’t think the Thief is even the most mobile class. Last night I was chasing a Guardian who jumped forward four times in a row, it was pretty crazy. Not sure what skills he used, will have to go over my Guardian and find out.

All of you guys who are talking about not running from thieves or winning a 1v1 are dumb. Read the OP. The op is talking about escaping from a group of players, who uses a thief to slow runners so the group can catch up to and kill the runners.

Your ability to 1v1 a thief is irrelevant. You will die from the group. You cannot run from a a good thief. Luckily, most thieves, and most players, are bad. But an actual good thief, utilized correctly, will always catch you and cripple you, and then you will die to his group.

Yes, if you’re running solo, expect to die…but that wasn’t the topic of the thread.

Thief or not, a group of any classes is faster moving and able to run down a person. Except some thieves of course…

i’ve seen very good thieves all buffed up 1v5 people. Not even a joke, the rendering issue makes this even more possible. They are quite the handful when buffed and being played by someone competent.

bad thieves go down so easy but the good ones… they are scary and the rendering makes it worse.

Also all these people talking about owning thieves 1v1…you probably fight bad thieves, low level thieves or have 3 orbs. if youre fighting a really good thief who also has buffs, its easily the most difficult 1v1, especially with the rendering issue.

I have been caught in WvW by Thieves with my Ele, my Eng, my Ranger. I die everytime.

It doesn’t matter if I am solo or in a group… but I am almost always in a group in WvW…. and the thieves themselves are usually in a group.

Of course it would help if my characters were actually real level 80s. lol

I came to the conclusion it doesn’t matter in WvW… it a thief gets you, he’s got you. Get ready to cliffjump again.

@ Ender’s ‘highest burst, highest mobility…’ post

Also can only be targeted for 0.5 sec within the 3 secs it takes to kill you!

Enjoy!

Ender.3508:

So highest burst, highest mobility, and most effective single target cripples. Awesome.

Lowest health, low toughness, low CC breaks and not much in the way of hard CC of their own. Yup seems about right.

The whole point of the thief, is to murder the living daylight out of glass cannons and low level people. How many thief players run up to guardians? I for one just leave guardians alone.

And they aren’t even the most mobile. Engineers can have perma swiftness for example, which trumps our ONLY skill that provides movement speed (signet of shadows) as it’s 8% more speed.

If you want to moan about their burst, you must also contemplate giving thieves more health and toughness.

Hi, i’m a thief….and i’d like to think a pretty good one…and sometimes the internet gods smile down upon me & I just destroy everything I see…… I’ve played w/ all the different builds and setups & am pretty happy w/ where I’m at now. Can anybody get away from me? Sure, if I let them…..(insert evil cackle)

roll a mesmer, if the thief isnt very good you can get away most of the time. being a glass cannon i drop really fast though :/. stealth speed and illusions ftw!

mes’s can be one of the hardest to catch, for sure….i’ve gave up on more then a few of them.

AnthonyZdravko.2051:

i’ve seen very good thieves all buffed up 1v5 bad people.

Fixed it for you, but the rest of your post is mostly correct.

Katsumoto.9452

And they aren’t even the most mobile. Engineers can have perma swiftness for example, which trumps our ONLY skill that provides movement speed (signet of shadows) as it’s 8% more speed.

If you want to moan about their burst, you must also contemplate giving thieves more health and toughness.

Thieves have the most mobility, yes. Mobility isn’t just flat run speed. Thieves have a permanent 25% run speed with Signet of Shadows which is just a utility skill, no trait spec needed. They also have Shadowstep and Infiltrator’s Arrow, and Steal (to teleport to a target). IA is only on a 6 second cooldown. Mesmer blink is the same skill but with 900 distance as compared to IA’s 1200 and on a 30 second cd, and also takes up a utility slot.

Thieves have the most mobility. Which I think is fine. No, I don’t play a thief.

Warrior/Elementalist/Mesmer.

All 3 answers have been given prior, and what’s even more amusing is the OP is one of the above classes.

I’ve had a absolute kitten of a time catching a Elementalist, forget about Warriors, and of course Mesmers are absolutely annoying as heck.

Yeah, and I’m a D/D ele too, but even when exhausting all my tricks (RTL, Mist, Lighting flash) I get away for all of 2 seconds. Cleanse with water to remove cripple, get hit with a dagger, cleanse again, get hit again, swap back to lightning RTL still die.

Oh and immobilize counters every escape a ele has, and somehow a thief manages to drop a 5 second immobilize on me whenever he want.

Oh and they get steal and shadowstep too, just for the additional ability to murder your face.

You can’t escape, just accept your death. It’s what they are best at. Run with a group instead, and if a thief gets on you, time your dodges correctly and he will die, and you won’t.

A thief traited for WvW mobility can chase down anyone and flee most situations.

Too many options to immobilize (stealth→bow #1, sword→#2, venoms)
Too many options to chain cripple (sword #1 chain, offhand dagger #4, shortbow #4)
Too many gap closers (infiltrators *, heartseeker, steal)
Too many utilities (25% movements speed and/or perma swiftness, 1200 range teleport)

Steal – shadowstep giving the thief a potent weapon that excels at shutting down whoever you steal it from.

Oh, and broken stealth for gaining superior tactical positioning.

Strong class is strong

Let’s make it a race!

Signed, a Kit Swapping Engineer with Perma Swiftness.

I could say the same thing about eles! Perma swiftness, RTL, updraft and other cc to lock you down for years while everyone else catches up. Same for warriors – how do you escape perma swiftness + gs gapclosers? Answer: You dodge.

In the end it all comes down to properly dodging CC by knowing animations and ability ranges, or you can be caught by almost anyone that has built for mobility and lockdown.

If you panic and double evade before anything happens you will just die, gg no re. Player issue. Happens to thieves too.

That said, stealth is pretty much the last word when it comes to escaping ganks if you’re adept at juking.

Jsyk, D/D eles dont have perma swiftness, and though they can trait into speed with a dagger, and speed in air, its a waste.

You can maintain permanent swiftness with just heal glyph + elemental attunement if you have solid boon duration (30% from arcana, 25%+ from runes) even ignoring other traits like swift/fury on auras and inscription/quick glyphs.

Guess you would need traits/updraft for perma swift if you have 4pc earth rune (is that what people use now?)

Ender, Zephyr’s Boon is SO not a waste.

And they aren’t even the most mobile. Engineers can have perma swiftness for example, which trumps our ONLY skill that provides movement speed (signet of shadows) as it’s 8% more speed.

Thieves are by far the most mobile class in the game along with plenty of snares and immobilizes to keep people from getting away. If the thief plays 100%, a single player (other than a thief) will never, ever get away from their group. Engineer isn’t even close, seriously?

Any Norn. The Snow Leopard elite is amazing in terms of escapability. A 5 second stealth with a 10 second cd, as well as a charge with a 10 second cd that goes an absolutely ridiculous distance in such a short time. Dont be fulled by the tooltip btw. It says the range is only 1600 but that isnt the case. Its nearly 3 times that distance. Now imagine doing that 3 times in a little over 20 seconds while being stealthed a good portion of that time. Nothing can keep up. =)

Why run, just kill them, most are glass canon builds that melt in seconds when confronted with a well defended individual

I play a thief and i have killed all classes however i have been killed by all classes 1v1. I think it is different builds I personally never use Invis other than my heal and that is only because it heals for the most. However i have noticed ranged classes have a better chance to kill me especially if they slow or immobile me. Rangers can drop traps and spike me down. eles usually slow me then run and try to stay at their max range, mesmer clones, bubble, little speed strip are your friends use them against thieves.

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