Guild Wars 2

Sometimes, I love solo roaming on my Ele. I enjoy taking supply camps, setting up an arrow cart, and messing with the zerg when they try to come by. However, I really struggle with thieves, and I don’t know what to do about it. They come in and harass me 1v1, and if it looks like I’m about to kill them, they stealth and run away. No matter how much control, aoe, etc I put down on where they stealth, they still manage to get away. Then, when they’re healed up, they come back and do it all again.

I really need general tips on how to kill thieves.

As I stated to the Engi asking this: You will not beat a competent Thief in WvW. You simply cannot. They own it, they control it. Unless the Thief is stupid, or wants to die. You cannot kill him.

Guild Wars 1 stealth was never implemented because they said “It would be impossible to balance”

Guess what, the new AA never learned from GW1.

The only way I’ve come up with to kill a Thief is to bring an insane amount of burst. Once he has “Revealed” on him, you have 3 seconds to take him from 100 to 0, or he’ll just reset and heal up.

Have fun. I usually burn defensives and run to a keep, because who’s got time for all that?

PinCushion.7390:

Have fun. I usually burn defensives and run to a keep, because who’s got time for all that?

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

According to Anet when they themselves & 5-6 others ran into a thief in WvWs, they said “just don`t bother” or words similar to that.

You can splatter them, but if one wants to kitten you off with constant stealth or stupid damage, then you have to kind of guess it all, hope for pot luck or just “/laugh @” loads hoping they get miffed & mess up.

Your best best is to play s/d burst as I do:

56-60% crit dmg%
25-45% crit chance

sigil of might+accuracy and power runes ( I’m broke so use centaur^^, if you’re rich go for scholar or ogre – my favourites- )

I use 0/20/0/20/30 with VI-X in air, V- IX in water ( variant of spvp build) and V-VI and XI in arcana.
I normally solo roam hence 3 cantrips to get (hopefully) away when heavily ganked but if in group I take arcane wave and use lightning flash and mist form.

Against s/d , wait for them to get close before unleashing phoenix ( targeted behind them to allow phoenix to hit 3 times) and jump to air for rest of the burst, d/p thieves – wait 1-2 before dodging forward, most times you’ll dodge their backstab attempt or go earth , you should receive 5-6s protection.

But the best suggestion is to just leave you won’t kill a thief in wvwvw determined to survive, after the thief see for a couple of times his HP dropping to 20% every time he tries to get close, he won’t chase you if you flee..he knows he can’t win and he’s wasting his and your time

The problem is: Your skills are cooldown-based whiel the thief’s ones are resource-based – which is much easier to control.

Heh, I solo roam with a s/d burst build, and I worry a lot more about mesmers and rangers than thieves.

If you are just stuck in a 1v1, there is nothing you can do. Thief is god-mode escape-ability in wvw. Try it out, you only have to have dagger and pistol abilities unlocked.

If you have an arrow cart set-up, you can try to get up to the level-5 arrow cart trait: toxic unveiling shot. It might help if you shoot that right where you are fighting every now and then.

If your only issue with a thief is that they don’t die, you should just leave them alone. If the thief is using all his initiative to survive, you are unlikely to kill it alone. If the thief is actually willing to take some risks to kill you, you have a solid chance of killing him. Most thieves I run into are very killable solo because they aren’t complete cowards.

Black powder + heartseeker is really the only way for thieves to stealth repeatedly or for long durations that you can’t stop fairly easily. If he is spamming black powder and heartseeker, hope he is too kitteny for his own good. If he is using cloak and dagger, dodge it. Save updraft for a last desperate effort to survive, to interrupt hide in shadow or knock the thief out of shadow refuge. Even competent thieves can miss a dodge if you lightning flash into refuge and follow it with updraft fast enough. If I actually succeed with updraft on the heal or refuge, it’s gg 9 times out of 10.

You can kill a thief but it just depends on if the thief stays to long. Most people will tell you that you should play a thief to understand them after that they are easy.

I have a thief I usually go for thieves I havent had a problem with one thief on elementalist.

If they disengage really quickly then just let them go. I don’t run straight bunker but I am not glass either I run knights with a few soldier piece rest is cav rings al stat access and trinket and cav backpiece.

It really is pretty easy to deal with a thief on elementalist you just have to now how a thief works. I usually kill thieves with out fire grab just drake breath and lightning whip. Just use your auras to help you when they go into stealth.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/humble-letter-question-to-Anet/first#post2143793

Gotta burst him down, that’s the only way. And that will only work if the thief is average. A good thief is unbelievably hard to fight.

And as a sad PVT hurr durr ele you won’t even dream of killing a thief.

Razor.6392:

Gotta burst him down, that’s the only way. And that will only work if the thief is average. A good thief is unbelievably hard to fight.

And as a sad PVT hurr durr ele you won’t even dream of killing a thief.

Whats wrong with PVT?

Frostedblaze.9017:

Razor.6392:

Gotta burst him down, that’s the only way. And that will only work if the thief is average. A good thief is unbelievably hard to fight.

And as a sad PVT hurr durr ele you won’t even dream of killing a thief.

Whats wrong with PVT?

Thieves can, at any moment, leave the fight. This means the only way to actually kill one is to burst them down before they can react. PVT doesn’t have enough damage to do so.

Edit: It’s not exactly like this, but you get the general idea.

1 v1 with thief in wvw ? k. you brust thief like hell , when he reach 50% or 25% ,he will steath and run away to ooc .when he heath up ,he will back and “stab stab ,kill kill kill” u from the back dont spend your time to chasing him ,just “lol,keep running” to that guy

if ele can win thf easily, players would consider the game broken like scissors cutting stone.

if you meet a thf in the open, 1v1 situation.. with cantrips, you should be able to survive 1st assualt and figure out how good he is.

vs an average thf – prepare to stun/ burst him down w zerkers gear. if you have low dps gear, forget it.. he can easily flee and you cant do anything about it.

vs a good thf – flee to friends/ nearest camp and let loose your CCs from your behind.

A few more notes –
- thf is very susceptable to debuffs,
- chills does little to thfs once they reached you – skill recharge does not work on initiative and crippled does little to heartseeker (reduces range from 450 to ard 200)
- do not stand still. do not stay in the open. much easier to kite and throw spells while he chases you – unlikely he will stealth like that.
- learn to use ‘look behind’ command and ambush. e.g. if thf is chasing you, throw earth2, ice4, air5, anything around the corner and run thru it. yes, use corners. aoe can hit him, melee has to chase you down.

Jason.9643:

if ele can win thf easily, players would consider the game broken like scissors cutting stone.

if you meet a thf in the open, 1v1 situation.. with cantrips, you should be able to survive 1st assualt and figure out how good he is.

vs an average thf – prepare to stun/ burst him down w zerkers gear. if you have low dps gear, forget it.. he can easily flee and you cant do anything about it.

vs a good thf – flee to friends/ nearest camp and let loose your CCs from your behind.

A few more notes –
- thf is very susceptable to debuffs,
- chills does little to thfs once they reached you – skill recharge does not work on initiative and crippled does little to heartseeker (reduces range from 450 to ard 200)
- do not stand still. do not stay in the open. much easier to kite and throw spells while he chases you – unlikely he will stealth like that.
- learn to use ‘look behind’ command and ambush. e.g. if thf is chasing you, throw earth2, ice4, air5, anything around the corner and run thru it. yes, use corners. aoe can hit him, melee has to chase you down.

all this is for? to get him 50% desepear and OOC reset fight? or just to survive for 2min because you cant even outrun a thief, no matter what i use they always HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS all the kittening way

if anet dont make something about this broken mechanic, maybe one internal CD to stealth or some debuff to prevent permanent stealth i will kitten iy up this game.

kishter.9578:

Jason.9643:

if ele can win thf easily, players would consider the game broken like scissors cutting stone.

if you meet a thf in the open, 1v1 situation.. with cantrips, you should be able to survive 1st assualt and figure out how good he is.

vs an average thf – prepare to stun/ burst him down w zerkers gear. if you have low dps gear, forget it.. he can easily flee and you cant do anything about it.

vs a good thf – flee to friends/ nearest camp and let loose your CCs from your behind.

A few more notes –
- thf is very susceptable to debuffs,
- chills does little to thfs once they reached you – skill recharge does not work on initiative and crippled does little to heartseeker (reduces range from 450 to ard 200)
- do not stand still. do not stay in the open. much easier to kite and throw spells while he chases you – unlikely he will stealth like that.
- learn to use ‘look behind’ command and ambush. e.g. if thf is chasing you, throw earth2, ice4, air5, anything around the corner and run thru it. yes, use corners. aoe can hit him, melee has to chase you down.

all this is for? to get him 50% desepear and OOC reset fight? or just to survive for 2min because you cant even outrun a thief, no matter what i use they always HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS all the kittening way

if anet dont make something about this broken mechanic, maybe one internal CD to stealth or some debuff to prevent permanent stealth i will kitten iy up this game.

while the above are workarounds – i surely agreed to nerfbat thf!

exactly how OP is stealth? – stealth does not break on missed/ blocked/ indirect (gas, traps, etc) attacks. does not break when thf is damaged/ cc’d!

but guess what, they can also shadow return – break stun + flee 1200 + lose 3 conditions. you can get them to 10hp, stunned, poisoned, on fire – and they can still flee.
(but this is a sword spec. probably less dangerous than dagger/pistol ones)

hence the only way is to burst him so fast, that he dies while busy trying to execute his 3-5 second combo. ele can only burst decently w glass cannon/ cantrip build, tanky builds dont stand a chance to bag an average thf.

Your talking Dagger elemental.

If your staff and stumble upon a thief. just drop the keyboard, go get a drink, and resurrect at closest waypoint. you cant do anything.

eldain stenlund.4306:

Your talking Dagger elemental.

If your staff and stumble upon a thief. just drop the keyboard, go get a drink, and resurrect at closest waypoint. you cant do anything.

I’ve found that bad thieves, which counts for a lot of them, don’t run much condi cleansing. I know they have a trait that cleanses on stealth, but for some reason the guys in our newest WvW matchup don’t often take it.

Let me just say that it’s hard to reset a fight when you have 30+ seconds of burning on you.

I don’t know what’s going on, honestly. With the WvW change I went from being on a winning server and getting schooled by thieves constantly to being on a losing server and absolutely wrecking thieves on a regular basis. Either I got a lot better over the weekend or they got a lot worse. The first time I beat a thief 1v1 I thought he must have been upleveled. Turned out he just didn’t cleanse anything. It was the strangest thing.

PinCushion.7390:

eldain stenlund.4306:

Your talking Dagger elemental.

If your staff and stumble upon a thief. just drop the keyboard, go get a drink, and resurrect at closest waypoint. you cant do anything.

I’ve found that bad thieves, which counts for a lot of them, don’t run much condi cleansing. I know they have a trait that cleanses on stealth, but for some reason the guys in our newest WvW matchup don’t often take it.

Let me just say that it’s hard to reset a fight when you have 30+ seconds of burning on you.

I don’t know what’s going on, honestly. With the WvW change I went from being on a winning server and getting schooled by thieves constantly to being on a losing server and absolutely wrecking thieves on a regular basis. Either I got a lot better over the weekend or they got a lot worse. The first time I beat a thief 1v1 I thought he must have been upleveled. Turned out he just didn’t cleanse anything. It was the strangest thing.

just checked, here are the ways that thf remove conditions, very limited:

THF needs sword/dagger spec for infiltrator strike (3 ini) > shadow return in 15s (2 ini) removes a condition.
shadow step slot skill > shadow return in 10s – break stun + 3 conditions (50s cd)
Shadow’s Embrace (shadow4 trait) Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

hence if you keep burning ticks on him and run around a tree, you may just win

not sure if shadow embrace proc again if you stealth twice in quick succession. e.g. black powder > hs hs hs.. – another tip, black powder is smoke aoe, usualy against pve mobs that wont move, so for pvp, just move away from it immediately.

Jason.9643:

just checked, here are the ways that thf remove conditions, very limited:

THF needs sword/dagger spec for infiltrator strike (3 ini) > shadow return in 15s (2 ini) removes a condition.
shadow step slot skill > shadow return in 10s – break stun + 3 conditions (50s cd)
Shadow’s Embrace (shadow4 trait) Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

hence if you keep burning ticks on him and run around a tree, you may just win

not sure if shadow embrace proc again if you stealth twice in quick succession. e.g. black powder > hs hs hs.. – another tip, black powder is smoke aoe, usualy against pve mobs that wont move, so for pvp, just move away from it immediately.

Thieves have amazing condition removal

-Shadow’s Embrace actually removes a condition immediately upon entering stealth, and another one every 3 seconds (so that’s two conditions)
-Hide in Shadows removes burning, poison, and bleeding. It even removes poison before healing you, so you get the full heal. (Works with above trait too)
-Shadow Return – Cures 1 condition
-Shadowstep return – Cures 3 conditions

I won’t include the ranger’s stolen skill, or any possible runes/sigils.

That’s actually quite a lot of condition removal – when I play my Thief, condition builds are the easiest to beat. Not only can they not burst me down, the conditions just fall off when I enter stealth.

Edit: You cannot catch a Thief in WvW. It’s not possible, unless he is terrible.

one thief is no problem for me. First I act weak by not healing till the very last moment, he’ll be half health by then and I just cast a bunch of PBaoe’s near him or when he’s attacking. Then when he stealths I predict where he’s gonna go with my spidey sense and burst him down with a couple more PBaoe’s.
Sounds like I’m joking but I’m not. Only times I get beat by thieves is when they bring in another thief.

The honest truth is vs a good thief there is no way you can win. I do not mean every fight. I mean that on paper and in practice with perfect play a thief always wins. That being said there are things you can do to stop some of what they do. 1v1 your not going to out run the thief. However be aware of where you are in relation to water. If you can get to it then get to it. Thief water combat is weak and ele while low DPS is strong in the CC side. Once you get there if you do the right things for a glass cannon thief this is simply a fight they can not win.

In the wild far away from water its burst and hope hes dumb enough not the reset the fight. The higher the tier the less likely this is. However vs most thieves you’ll do just fine scepter dagger bursting. Remember channels follow you into stealth so use the ones you have. CC is good but most thieves carry enough stun breaks and ports to make ele CC a joke. Conditions will work vs many glass specs until they decide to drop shadow step.

The best advice I got is CC on the run and make a run fr it yourself. Never stand still and try to say aware of the thief’s location. Get some help.

Not to give an impossible to beat impression. Some classes can wreck a thief if things go just right. Mesmer has a shot with focus offhand and so does engineer with a tool kit and nades. However thieves are one of the best 1 v 1 classes and likely that wont be changing much.

Thieves have amazing condition removal.

Bad thieves don’t use it.

I don’t know why, but I kill them pretty consistently because they are bads.

Good players laugh at my conditions and get a free badge. That’s just life. If someone’s running a lot of cleansing then I’ve just been countered, and kudos to them for bringing a build that counters mine.

No points to hold in wvw i guess,,Its only logical for the thief imbalances when it comes to stealth and escapes/mobility to come out.
Personally in spvp i had no porblem with d/p thief or s/d( though alot harder to deal with) but for my minimal experience in wvw id say ..dont even bother.We play games to have fun afterall

Frostedblaze.9017:

Sometimes, I love solo roaming on my Ele. I enjoy taking supply camps, setting up an arrow cart, and messing with the zerg when they try to come by. However, I really struggle with thieves, and I don’t know what to do about it. They come in and harass me 1v1, and if it looks like I’m about to kill them, they stealth and run away. No matter how much control, aoe, etc I put down on where they stealth, they still manage to get away. Then, when they’re healed up, they come back and do it all again.

I really need general tips on how to kill thieves.

Not sure what this kittening is about. I mean, on my thief, I can get the majority of eles to run and when I’m about to catch up and finish him/her off I see fiery greatsword and 3 then 4 all the way to spawn point.

Thief can get away and ele can get away. Some players are just better at doing it. No reason to make a post about it.

Sunflowers.1729:

Jason.9643:

just checked, here are the ways that thf remove conditions, very limited:

THF needs sword/dagger spec for infiltrator strike (3 ini) > shadow return in 15s (2 ini) removes a condition.
shadow step slot skill > shadow return in 10s – break stun + 3 conditions (50s cd)
Shadow’s Embrace (shadow4 trait) Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

hence if you keep burning ticks on him and run around a tree, you may just win

not sure if shadow embrace proc again if you stealth twice in quick succession. e.g. black powder > hs hs hs.. – another tip, black powder is smoke aoe, usualy against pve mobs that wont move, so for pvp, just move away from it immediately.

Thieves have amazing condition removal

-Shadow’s Embrace actually removes a condition immediately upon entering stealth, and another one every 3 seconds (so that’s two conditions)
-Hide in Shadows removes burning, poison, and bleeding. It even removes poison before healing you, so you get the full heal. (Works with above trait too)
-Shadow Return – Cures 1 condition
-Shadowstep return – Cures 3 conditions

I won’t include the ranger’s stolen skill, or any possible runes/sigils.

That’s actually quite a lot of condition removal – when I play my Thief, condition builds are the easiest to beat. Not only can they not burst me down, the conditions just fall off when I enter stealth.

Edit: You cannot catch a Thief in WvW. It’s not possible, unless he is terrible.

omg thf. u cant kill it with fire. more slippery than roaches. quick – nerfbat it!

MIrra.3604:

Frostedblaze.9017:

Sometimes, I love solo roaming on my Ele. I enjoy taking supply camps, setting up an arrow cart, and messing with the zerg when they try to come by. However, I really struggle with thieves, and I don’t know what to do about it. They come in and harass me 1v1, and if it looks like I’m about to kill them, they stealth and run away. No matter how much control, aoe, etc I put down on where they stealth, they still manage to get away. Then, when they’re healed up, they come back and do it all again.

I really need general tips on how to kill thieves.

Not sure what this kittening is about. I mean, on my thief, I can get the majority of eles to run and when I’m about to catch up and finish him/her off I see fiery greatsword and 3 then 4 all the way to spawn point.

Thief can get away and ele can get away. Some players are just better at doing it. No reason to make a post about it.

wow – check out how inherently biased this post is. thf is meant to hunt eles – eles better run and eles might manage to flee if hes got firey gs. no reason to make a post about it.

I am curious are the people that have a hard time killing thieves running some kind of full clerics build. I have a thief so I know how they work. If you have a thief and a ele I just can’t see how fighting a thief is difficult on a ele. All the pbaoe who cares if he is invisible he is till there.

S/D thieves just phase back and forth over and over. Just put fire all around you kite in fire. I just can’t wrap my head around these claims of no way to beat a thief on ele.

I run knights on helm, shoulders, and top. Soldier on legs, pants, boots. Cav stats on back, rings, and all stats on accessories and amulet 2 divinity runes and the other runes are monk and water. I do enough damage to kill thieves. I just don’t know why you guys seem to have such a problem with them.

oZii.2864:

I am curious are the people that have a hard time killing thieves running some kind of full clerics build. I have a thief so I know how they work. If you have a thief and a ele I just can’t see how fighting a thief is difficult on a ele. All the pbaoe who cares if he is invisible he is till there.

S/D thieves just phase back and forth over and over. Just put fire all around you kite in fire. I just can’t wrap my head around these claims of no way to beat a thief on ele.

I run knights on helm, shoulders, and top. Soldier on legs, pants, boots. Cav stats on back, rings, and all stats on accessories and amulet 2 divinity runes and the other runes are monk and water. I do enough damage to kill thieves. I just don’t know why you guys seem to have such a problem with them.

I haven’t been using my Ele for a while, in lieu of a Grenade Engineer and D/P (now S/D for a while)Thief, but my Thief rarely dies to any Ele.

They don’t have enough damage to instantly burst me down (I have 1600 toughness + 14k hp, and still pull off consistent 6-7k backstabs with lots of crit damage), and both D/P and S/D provide easy stealth that is nearly impossible to stop.

The only way to beat a Thief is to CC+burst them down while they are revealed and not dodging (short of bombarding the entire area with AoE damage, which only works with 5+ people), and Elementalists are sorely lacking in that area.

S/D zerker burst may be enough, but in that case my backstab takes out 3/4 of your health

I might not be able to kill all Eles because of their continuous healing, but rarely do I ever die to one.

Edit: You can kill bad Thieves who stealth and walk in a straight line, but that’s cause they are bad. Alternatively if a Thief decides to go “FULL OUT BERSEKER” then, like any glass cannon, he will die to a stiff breeze. Just not as easily because of stealth.

Master a burst build with s/d that is not glass and all thieves become the easiest enemy to kill regardless of their player skills, following bunker/cleric eles as the second easiest to defeat.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Master a burst build with s/d that is not glass and all thieves become the easiest enemy to kill regardless of their player skills, following bunker/cleric eles as the second easiest to defeat.

What do you do if the Thief has enough toughness/HP to survive your burst? After all, if you aren’t glass, your burst is not going to be anything amazing.

Edit: Unless you are referring to the RTL>Updraft>DT+Ring of Fire+Phoenix combo, which is easy to dodge.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Master a burst build with s/d that is not glass and all thieves become the easiest enemy to kill regardless of their player skills, following bunker/cleric eles as the second easiest to defeat.

In other news, Jormag can frequently be found sunbathing on the beaches near Lion’s Arch.

You need burst to kill a good thief. You can’t attrition any thief with traits in shadow arts down.

S/D is indeed the better build to kill a good thief as the burst is not tied to CC unlike D/D where you need the CC to land the burning speed.

Try checking some of Phantaram’s duels with thieves.

You see the people that kill thieves are thieves themselves, mesmers, and a well played s/d ele because those are the builds that don’t need heavy CC to land burst.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

As I stated to the Engi asking this: You will not beat a competent Thief in WvW. You simply cannot. They own it, they control it. Unless the Thief is stupid, or wants to die. You cannot kill him.

Guild Wars 1 stealth was never implemented because they said “It would be impossible to balance”

Guess what, the new AA never learned from GW1.

Wise words,

Sunflowers.1729:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Master a burst build with s/d that is not glass and all thieves become the easiest enemy to kill regardless of their player skills, following bunker/cleric eles as the second easiest to defeat.

What do you do if the Thief has enough toughness/HP to survive your burst? After all, if you aren’t glass, your burst is not going to be anything amazing.

Edit: Unless you are referring to the RTL>Updraft>DT+Ring of Fire+Phoenix combo, which is easy to dodge.

When I said all thieves I meant all kind of thieves. S/d have various burst rotations. No thoughness/vit thief can last against various bursts even if they constantly stealth. Then again if the burst ele all he/she does is pressing buttons to hit the opponent without using the profession skills wisely then it might take a long while or being unable to kill it. FYI ele doesn’t need to be glass cannon to do a lot of bursts. Finally I’m not glass and my burst is amazing.

Phoenix, ring of fire, double arcane spells, double lightning strike and they’re dead before they kill me.

TheGuy.3568:

The honest truth is vs a good thief there is no way you can win. I do not mean every fight. I mean that on paper and in practice with perfect play a thief always wins. That being said there are things you can do to stop some of what they do. 1v1 your not going to out run the thief. However be aware of where you are in relation to water. If you can get to it then get to it. Thief water combat is weak and ele while low DPS is strong in the CC side. Once you get there if you do the right things for a glass cannon thief this is simply a fight they can not win.

In the wild far away from water its burst and hope hes dumb enough not the reset the fight. The higher the tier the less likely this is. However vs most thieves you’ll do just fine scepter dagger bursting. Remember channels follow you into stealth so use the ones you have. CC is good but most thieves carry enough stun breaks and ports to make ele CC a joke. Conditions will work vs many glass specs until they decide to drop shadow step.

The best advice I got is CC on the run and make a run fr it yourself. Never stand still and try to say aware of the thief’s location. Get some help.

Not to give an impossible to beat impression. Some classes can wreck a thief if things go just right. Mesmer has a shot with focus offhand and so does engineer with a tool kit and nades. However thieves are one of the best 1 v 1 classes and likely that wont be changing much.

Pretty good advice. I’ve found that 1v1’ing a competent thief is impossible. If the going gets tough they just press their “i don’t feel like losing this one” button…and wait for cooldowns.

One tip for D/D that might give you a fighting chance against stealth is generally they do pop it when they realize “oh sh—- they’re actually reacting to me.” When you get their health to below 50% (this is assuming they haven’t killed you from 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, already) that’s when they usually press their I win stealth button. If you correctly anticipate this, cast your earth 3 ability to root them, followed by earth 4 for KD. Then unload all your PBAOE and pray that you actually killed him. I doubt you will get your earth 5 ability off in time, so you might want to use arcane wave, earth 2, fire 2, and water 2, and water 3 and throw some lightning whips in there. You won’t see any numbers indicating that you actually hit him so at that point it’s guess..and maybe you’ll see him in a downed state.

If you did, congrats you brought him to phase II.

Try to heal yourself up. Your first stomp won’t be successful unless you have lightning blast…and even then if he times his number 2 downed ability well, you won’t have time to locate him to lightning blast to his new location, so it may take 2 attempts.

More often then not though, I’ll spam every defensive cooldown…but it doesn’t matter. They just have to face slam 222222222222222222222222222 until you’re dead. You won’t be able to outrun him so don’t try. The most you can do is make him work a little harder for his kill.

Frostedblaze.9017:

However, I really struggle with thieves, and I don’t know what to do about it. They come in and harass me 1v1, and if it looks like I’m about to kill them, they stealth and run away. No matter how much control, aoe, etc I put down on where they stealth, they still manage to get away. Then, when they’re healed up, they come back and do it all again.

This was the complaint people had about D/D Bunker Elementalists, and ANET nerfed them alot, but they just let thief keep getting away with it.