Guild Wars 2

Ok this is infuriating me… as D/D bunker I never had problems with any thieves and could kill any 1v1. However I’ve been trying glass cannon S/D with fresh air which is quite fun and is good as long as I don’t get focused down.

However how in the hell am I supposed to deal with stealth and shadowstep happy thieves? It is near impossible to maintain distance from them with all their shadowsteps. As soon as I cc them or burst them down to near death they stealth, heal almost completely, and then backstab me and daze me with tactical strike or petrify with basilisk venom. But unlike them once I am low on health I can’t just press the “oh kitten” stealth button and heal up. And S/D has so little cleaving compared to D/D so I can’t protect myself or try to hit them while they are stealthed without wasting phoenix and fire ring. How in god’s name are you supposed to deal with these kittens?

I’ve got a picture of a thief that was causing me a major headache in hotjoin. Maybe his build is not optimal for capturing points but for just random hotjoin battling how are you supposed to deal with it? He would stalk me randomly as I was traversing the map and burst me down from stealth (he had runes of ogre, sigils of fire and bloodlust and one more I forget), and even in fair starts it was near impossible to beat (once I almost killed him but a teammate intervened… but he probably would have stealth escaped anyways). He was rank 51 but still, I’ve beaten higher rank thieves before with D/D:

http://imgur.com/a/aYInb

That’s why you use focus offhand. Focus ele is underrated

You use Phoenix and Fire Ring AND Dragons Tooth to AOE the area around you. It isn’t a waste if it’s protecting you and damaging the thief. To use Dragons Tooth above you angle your camera down to the floor and use the ability. It should spawn above you.

Another thing, if the Air auto attack works like the Ranger Longbow attack that fires a lot of arrows, then you will still hit the thief in stealth. Don’t hold me to that, as I don’t know if the mechanics are the same, though they should be as they are both channeled attacks.

If you were doing this in sPvP, what amulet where you using? If in WvW, what is your gear like? I don’t normally have too much trouble with thieves using my build as I can hit them hard, heal more than they can and it’s ranged. The second I see a thief coming my way I will use the Air blind and try to dodge the incoming attack. Difficult, but needs to be done. If I don’t want to dodge I’ll Ring of Fire and Phoenix the area around me to make them back off or reveal themselves and use the hurl +lightning strike + electric discharge + arcane blast to hit them more.

Thieves in general are more difficult for S/D because you don’t have the Shocking Aura that D/D does and need to time those crucial CC’s better. You can also use water 2 around you to try to hit them or make them waste more time in stealth since they might want to avoid that.

Your “Oh kitten” button is your blinds/knockdowns and using Trident + Cleansing wave a lot. If you are running, launch Phoenix behind you and use your heal. If you still have him targeted, spam that lightning strike, arcane blast and blind while you are healing. With the new Fresh Air trait, that is even easier to do to spam that Lightning Strike and Electric discharge making your opponent use more cooldowns or back off giving you time to heal.

I was using zerk amulet with 0/30/0/20/20.

The dragon tooth tip is actually huge. Didn’t know you could do that, and with its low cooldown it should help a lot. The might stacking is icing on the cake.

Jabberwock.9014:

I was using zerk amulet with 0/30/0/20/20.

The dragon tooth tip is actually huge. Didn’t know you could do that, and with its low cooldown it should help a lot. The might stacking is icing on the cake.

You could try a Valkyrie amulet with berserker jewel. You “should” have enough crit with all the fury you would be building up from the constant swaps to Air with Fresh air. Might help with the survivability.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

That’s why you use focus offhand. Focus ele is underrated

^This

However it won’t help much against a stealth theif. S/F has no really useful spamable skills to fight off invisible thieves. Dagger main hand you can spam Fire Water and Air and have a chance at hitting, even earth if you are lucky. Scepter auto attack doesn’t connect unless you have a target, super lame but that’s is the case. That leaves Dragons Tooth, Phoenix, Flamewall when it doesn’t bug and Water 2, everything else is useless to damage invisible thieves.

Can you make a short video of casting dragon tooth above your char? I’m trying to angle my camera but it still keeps spawning in distance :S