Guild Wars 2

I had an approximately three-minute fight with a thief in WvW the other day. I think he was using the infinite stealth Black Powder build, but I’m not sure, as he also used dual pistols. (I don’t know enough about thieves to tell.)

We couldn’t get in enough damage on each other for a down, so we went in circles, trading bursts and healing for about three minutes. Is this normal? (Even though I’ve played a lot of WvW, I haven’t actually had a chance to fight many thieves.) Or am I missing something about how to kill these kinds of thieves?

If it helps, I run a bunker spec, but I have half Knights, half Beserkers for gear, to give me a bit more damage.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

I had an approximately three-minute fight with a thief in WvW the other day. I think he was using the infinite stealth Black Powder build, but I’m not sure, as he also used dual pistols. (I don’t know enough about thieves to tell.)

We couldn’t get in enough damage on each other for a down, so we went in circles, trading bursts and healing for about three minutes. Is this normal? (Even though I’ve played a lot of WvW, I haven’t actually had a chance to fight many thieves.) Or am I missing something about how to kill these kinds of thieves?

If it helps, I run a bunker spec, but I have half Knights, half Beserkers for gear, to give me a bit more damage.

thieves are the bane of our existence, regardless of your build, specially if the thief isnt dumb enough to go full cannon like he did. They can disengage any time they want and have enough burst/sustain to be able to contest even D/D ele. He is one of those classes (like mesmer) that it is not wise to take on alone, usually is better to be in pair. It can be done, but like that fight you had, it would be a pain, and he can run anytime he feels that his life is threatened, while you wont really have much of a choice if you are the now nerfed D/D.

To quote the dev’s advice when they did a live-stream of their exploits in wvw:

“Just move on, you will not be able to kill him”

The thief, with stealth plus insane mobility, cannot be caught and kill unless he wants to. He can continue to troll you forever. While you can be one burst away from being killed, you don’t have the burst to punish him back. With the current state of thieves, they are a complete waste of your time to fight in wvw.

However, if you were enjoying this duel for the practice surviving, some defensive tips would be:
- Your auras are great at slowing their burst, cast them near the end of their 3s stealth timer
- You can try hacking at the air, esp with lightning whip, but I wouldn’t drop your aoe’s unless he was nearly dead when he stealthed. It is better to try and give him your max burst when he reveals. You can drop your aoe’s when he stealth’s at low hp if you have an idea of where he is.
- Try to immobilize (earth 3) about 3 seconds after he reveals. If you cast it before he stealths, you might be able to lock him down and continue killing him, but he will still most likely port out of it. Still a good tactic if they haven’t seen it before.
-If you want to get away, use RtL (so you will get out of backstab range), then pop burning speed, ring of fire at a choke point, lightning flash, chill if he gets close, and use your auras for swiftness or defense. He will be able to keep up if he wants, but shouldn’t get close long enough to actually burst you.

im running a 0/10/0/30/30 tanky d/d ele cantrip with full soldier gear ,sometime i change to berzerk and thief not a big problem with me (expect pro or lagging) pop up earth armor or air aura to dodge the stun from them(always) ,and the rest is get close and kite them to death .if they pop up black powder ,just get out of skill arena and keep atk( ele have more melee range than some other classes)

I have duels like that too and its alot of fun but then I’ve never won because there’d always be another thief that popped out of nowhere to insta-kill me.
Nothing ya can do about it except Knocking him down and running away.
Also pistols don’t hit through walls and alot of PBaoe’s do so its nice if you hit churning earth right around a corner and use camera to keep watch to get the timing right for a lightning flash

Those fights are infuriating. It doesn’t matter if you make the thief run for his life at 1% hp everytime, because the guy will just reset the fight and come back again, hoping that this time his 8k damage backstabs will get the job done.

I have a thief played him for many many months. I am new to elementalist. The best advice I can give is to play a thief then you understand how they work. If that is not something you want to do then you can just practice dueiling them and ask friends.

I can’t speak for everyone but many people I know that have played thief alot and now play another class usually go after thieves. Thief is probably the easiest for me to kill on my warrior and my elementalist.

You said you don’t know much about thieves so I don’t really want to explain how the builds work and playstyle etc for each.

Dagger/Pistol – this will have the most stealth on demand he will put up a cloud of black smoke then leap through it with heartseeker for stealth. Run to the smoke and lay a few of your pbaoe’s into it. Optimally the thief will want to jump through it a few times for longer stealth. Dagger/pistol isnt really bursty like dagger/dagger its more sustained damage.

This is probably what you fought if you didnt do enough damage to kill each other. Mmmm this fight usually is a stalemate unless you are full burst or he is full burst or one of you makes a really big mistake that you can’t cover up. If you ran a bursty scepter build with the air 1 being channeled it would probably be in your favor.

All other builds you really shouldn’t have a problem either making them run or killing them. Thief play is pretty predictable all in all generally if it is a main hand dagger when they hit you with the open pop armor of earth for the prot and stun break lay a cripple or pop Ice armor heal up a bit then go to work. Smart thieves will get you to say 50% then heartseeker you but since we can burst heal up and easy access to prot its usually not a problem.

I usually just kill thieves with drakes breath, lightning whip with shocking aura, ring of fire, use frost armor for control. 9/10 usually drakes breath is very powerful since it has 300 range and you can kit will making them burn which means a fire grab setup.

You’re not going to kill a D/P Thief, sorry.

You can slow him in stealth with things like Ring of Earth and Frozen burst (whatever it’s called) to stop the backstab, but to kill him is flat-out impossible.

You can try running away though!

The best tip I can give you to beat any type of thief easily is: go with a burst build that is not glass cannon.

play chess and learn how to predict where your enemies move without needing to see them move. Like a kungfu master ^^. That’s how I do it anyways.