Guild Wars 2

they just spam heart seeker or just restealth for backstab n hit me for 9k . there’s not enough cantrips in the world to save me or outheal their damage. what am i doing wrong?

You, the squishy ele, are only being hit for 9k with Backstab? Gahd, those are some noob thieves. Thank your lucky stars you haven’t fought a REAL thief

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmkbwx5gjDAkHm4CLiCPUeMTO2A-jEEBYgAYjgkIgUBAJfCiZPKrlhRs6KZlXBVbDT5CV7CWFTIyIGzaeI1G0QyAoPGA-w

Stealth thieves: have Shocking aura ready to stun – (particularly those running basilisk venom), updraft, switch to fire, burning speed, fire grab. STOMP.

Have fun :-)

Kill them before they kill you? Try triple arcana 0/30/0/10/30 s/f and you have the tools to deal with about any class 1vs1.

fight them near a tower or keep, then if you die just mist form back inside.
its only fair since they get to abuse a broken mechanic.

or fight near a pool of water, a thief trying to fight an ele in water is like a rat trying to fight a lion.

I’m afraid the only way to beat a good thief or even those that constantly stealth is with burst and precise use of your knock downed skills.

you guys do realize i run 1.5k tougness and i do run triple arcana _

it’s kinda hard to mistform when you literally get killed in less than 2 seconds

Jae.5138:

you guys do realize i run 1.5k tougness and i do run triple arcana _

it’s kinda hard to mistform when you literally get killed in less than 2 seconds

Then you already know what the problem and solution are: you need more toughness/vitality at the sacrifice of DPS.

Other than that, it’ll come down to skill usage. Armor of Earth to counter Basilisk Venom. Mist Form for emergencies. Immobilize, chill, cripple, stun, knockdown spam to counter stealth/movement. Know what skills you’ll have access to by switching into an attunement before you even switch (Ring of Earth and Magnetic Grasp are good examples of skills that you can rely upon being available when you swap attunements, and will be helpful against thieves).

Thieves are a broken class. It doesn’t matter if you outplay them because they have infinite do-overs. Between their unlimited mobility, spam blind, and going into stealth every 4 seconds, it is impossible to actually down them unless they are massively bad.

It has nothing to do with build or play, it’s that their class mechanics are better than your class mechanics. The best you can do vs. an even moderately competent thief is a stalemate because no matter how many times you get them low, they’ll stealth back to full over and over and over.

Thiefs are pretty much okei right now if you take out the silly stealth spec wich is comming to an end whne December 10th patch hits the game.

If you find a good thief roaming in WvW i am affraid there is not anything you can do if you yourself is not equal or better.As always in many games the stealth class has a high skill cap.

The only time i can beat thieves is when i run PVT armor with Divinity/Boon duration cavalier/berserker trinkets D/D 0/10/0/30/30.With guard buff i have a about 22k HP which is a bit ridiculous :P but i can take those heartseekers in the face and live to tell the tale.

One thing that i learned from a fellow guild is..when stealth..count 1..2..dodge.
I am currently leveling one to see how the play out in general but the class is horrible :/

answer: go glassy and 3 shot them. I fear no teef with 99% crit dmg zerk/celes d/d. anticipate when theyre about to attack you and dodge. if you get caught out, make sure to cantrip fast enough so you dont get burst..run around then turn around and crit their face off. when theyre stealthing and youre dueling, try turning around a bit to anticipate when theyre going in for the backstabs. try using about face, then updraft, and combo them to death till they run away. they definitely like to run. make sure youre packing the trusty fgs so you can run if you need to, too.

It is possible to win 1v1 vs a Thief, but you need to HEAVILY out-play them – so either you have to be extremely good, or they have to be terrible. At the same skill level, the Thief will always beat you because their class is simply better designed for PvP.

Actually the same could be said for most 1v1 scenarios involving Ele

As someone who has played Thief for a long time, I can second the “Shocking Aura” strategy. I know the Ele skills and I still noob it up on that stun. There a variety of other ways Eles can defend themselves without a target, especially with area denial, damage reduction, and temporary immunities.

This is the best advice I can offer: Thieves are, in general, predictable creatures. When they stealth, chances are good they’re preparing for a Backstab. All forms of stealth except Shadow Refuge will give them 3-4 seconds to position themselves and strike. Plan your defense accordingly.

And, if they do use SR, they have an area that they cannot leave for several seconds if they wish to remain in stealth, which gives you plenty of time to nuke the area. Stealth does not make them immune to damage.

I play both classes and here is my 2cents:
- thief has mobility, stealth, very high single target spike and can easily reset the fight
- elementalist has nice animations

I am not much into bunker playstyle (“battle of attrition”, where you actually wait for your enemy to make a wrong step), so if I feel like going thieves-busting I will just go with s/d or s/f, full zerker, 30/30/x/x/x and thieves die like flies.
Killing Ele with Thief is way easier than the contrary (just stealth, poke it to have him waste its best burst, cloack again, go behind…222 loot)

If you played a thief extensively before and played a ele then you would know that thieves are pretty easy to beat on most occasions. I think the fight is even with equal skill except in the case of a condition X/X/30/X/30 with perplexity. Those are a pain in the but because they can steal 2 boons every 21 1/2 secs. With interrupts and don’t really have to get in harms way of your aoe to put damage on you all while being pretty tanky. My P/D setup on thief has 17.5k hp and 2.9k armor.

If we are talking typical D/D then there is good burst there just get ready to go to air for shocking aura, earth, for protection, water for frost aura. When you hit about 50% they will heartseeker you probably dodge toward them not away.

D/P doesn’t have the burst of D/D but has really good sustain pressure and can stick on you like glue also with good blind access. The major damage comes from backstab. D/P thieves are like this Backstab, 1 maybe 2 auto attacks dodge roll away black powder, heartseeker, repeat. That is usually how it goes with D/P thieves.

Keep your ring of fire down kite through there if they try to get away let them in most cases. They usually wont disengage until after shadow refuge is blown most thieves save that for last and usually don’t re-engage after they used it(most).

Really best way to see how thieves work is to play one or duel someone that has one but thieves should not be much of a problem once you become familiar with them.

Grevender.9235:

I (just stealth, poke it to have him waste its best burst, cloack again, go behind…222 loot)

This made me lol 222 loot

a class can t be predictable…
A player can be

Stealth is the best tool to be unpredictable forcing your opponent into guessing and totally taking away skill for “luck” (not even talking about balance).

This is the worst mistake ever done by people…..
Obviously some profession with lower skill floor have predictable players.

arcane shield, lava font, arcane wave
meteor shower
thief is now dead

bad ones, anyway

(I run full glass, btw)

Had the same problem. Solution: spawn fgs. Spam 1,3,4(for dps AND mobility) and kill this easymode(stealth + heatseeker spam requires so much skill :O ) class

90% of the thieves wont even touch you, because 90% of thieves are bad players.

Fasyx.9347:

Had the same problem. Solution: spawn fgs. Spam 1,3,4(for dps AND mobility) and kill this easymode(stealth + heatseeker spam requires so much skill :O ) class

90% of the thieves wont even touch you, because 90% of thieves are bad players.

FGS might actually be a pretty neat trick. It’s a bit of a shame to waste an elite on a thief, but that AoE 5 skill and the evasion dash 3 skill might even out the playing field vs stealth spamming if you’re playing a scepter main-hand.

As a staff elementalist, I have enough circles to draw on the ground that normally keep most thieves away or wreck them when they try to do something. From experience, I can say that [Lightning Flash] and [Arcane Shield] can help a lot. A nice trick is to cast [Meteor Shower] on top of yourself while [Arcane Shield] is up, follow it up with a [Lightning Flash] away when they waste the shield while you’re still in mid-cast, and then [Burning Retreat] back into the [Meteor Shower] area and throw down a [Lava Font].

If they’re like most thieves, they’ll probably still chase you into everything because they’re in burst mode. This kills the thief.

If they decide to break off, they’ll be sitting ducks for a bit wondering what to do which makes them prime targets for something like [Shockwave] or [Frozen Ground].

Post your build, I can’t help you if you don’t have a build or even a weapon set up there… If you’re squishy you gotta kill them first, which would be hard…

I know i don’t have very many issues with thieves, and i use staff, just put AoE down everywhere and dare them to kittening attack you.

oZii.2864:

If you played a thief extensively before and played a ele then you would know that thieves are pretty easy to beat on most occasions. I think the fight is even with equal skill except in the case of a condition X/X/30/X/30 with perplexity. Those are a pain in the but because they can steal 2 boons every 21 1/2 secs. With interrupts and don’t really have to get in harms way of your aoe to put damage on you all while being pretty tanky. My P/D setup on thief has 17.5k hp and 2.9k armor.

If we are talking typical D/D then there is good burst there just get ready to go to air for shocking aura, earth, for protection, water for frost aura. When you hit about 50% they will heartseeker you probably dodge toward them not away.

D/P doesn’t have the burst of D/D but has really good sustain pressure and can stick on you like glue also with good blind access. The major damage comes from backstab. D/P thieves are like this Backstab, 1 maybe 2 auto attacks dodge roll away black powder, heartseeker, repeat. That is usually how it goes with D/P thieves.

Keep your ring of fire down kite through there if they try to get away let them in most cases. They usually wont disengage until after shadow refuge is blown most thieves save that for last and usually don’t re-engage after they used it(most).

Really best way to see how thieves work is to play one or duel someone that has one but thieves should not be much of a problem once you become familiar with them.

I agree 100% with this post.

Yeah I’ve met good thieves in wvw. . . they port away with shadowstep and infil arrow so you can’t catch them. :P

I’ve met good thieves in wvw … they perma stealth and /laugh while waiting for MS to end … then kill you with nothing much left.

Dude the ele is intended to have ZERO chance against thieves. It’s the ultimate achievement in class balance in a game, to make one (ele) completely worthless against the superior class (thief).

When you see a thief just cast all your defensive spells and run for your life.

Xillllix.3485:

Dude the ele is intended to have ZERO chance against thieves. It’s the ultimate achievement in class balance in a game, to make one (ele) completely worthless against the superior class (thief).

When you see a thief just cast all your defensive spells and run for your life.

That isn’t what it is it’s thieves counter people not the class. Thieves and mesmers thrive on ignorance to their mechanics. Securing the kill is the hard part with thieves but putting them in enough danger that they disengage is not.

Mesmer is different since it can technically kill you without even touching you itself especially prior to the illusionist celerity trait moved to 25 in illusions. Mesmers though can be completely ignored as a Ele for almost all of their builds because they don’t have good mobility. The only time I feel like I HAVE to fight a mesmer is if they are really glassy and run great sword because iZerker hits like a truck if he gets the jump on you. I feel like S/D ele’s have a better chance fighting it out with a mesmer than D/D because on clone death traits can wreck a d/d ele.

All ele weapon sets have the tools to deal with thieves though staff has the hardest time imo unless you are running a high power high crit damage build.

Nothing against the op but he mentions heartseeker which should be the least of your problems against a thief you just dodge toward the thief not away. As soon as he opens with surprise burst you shocking aura or go earth for protection or frost aura(I like to save this one for kiting purposes). Why I hate ether renewal because thieves probably have the easiest time interrupting it.

Prior to the larcenous strike nerf S/D thieves where elementalists worst nightmare and they didn’t need to heart seeker or backstab. All the other sets are even fights if it is the same skill and both people have a decent understanding how each others classes work.

Specifically to what the OP mentions 9k backstabs sounds like a 25/30/0/X/X thief the last 10 points can go anywhere usually in trickery for thrill of the crime. They are usually pretty all in gimicky style builds that thrived at release running signets of power with assassin signet, and either infiltrator signet(usually this one) or signet of shadows.

A 30 points in deadly arts thief(which most thieves run now) 9k backstabs are not the norm 7-8k though is pretty normal on a target sitting around 2.5k armor(no protection) if you run hidden killer and high crit damage using Wish’s build.

It depends on builds and game mode. In sPvP, ele is in pretty good shape against D/D and P/D thieves. Their damage is limited by the game mode while your sustain is only slightly lower than WvW. Backstab isn’t going to hit you for 20k damage in sPvP, etc.

S/D thieves are stupidly broken right now because of their ability to escape with shadow return even when stunned and the never ending evade spam. This is being addressed on Dec. 10th, unless ANet punk out on their plans again like they did with revealed always being applied when you leave stealth.

In WvW, thieves are just broken. Their effective power is easily three times higher than in sPvP while your sustain is maybe 20% better. Not having objectives to contest and a huge map to fight over makes the thief’s job far easier. He can attack you anywhere without warning, and then stealth away and repeat until he gets lucky.

As far as ways to deal with thieves goes, it depends on your setup and their’s.

Heart seeker heroes can be kited if you keep them chilled. It cuts the range of heart seeker by more than half and wastes their initiative as they get excited and just really pound that 2 key. It’s not a terrible idea to let a thief heart seeker you when you’re at full health because of the low damage:initiative ratio (assuming you’re not glass, then every hit is fatal).

Don’t waste shocking aura just to get fury for your burst. It’s a powerful defensive tool that can break up his combo attacks.

Don’t go completely defensive when a thief bursts you. If you’re running around at half health doing nothing but healing, the thief is just going to be encourage to press you even harder. You need to cc and burst him back to force him to be more cautious. A two second stun is going to prevent more damage than you could possibly heal in that time. Sending him running with your burst damage is going to buy you the time to heal up and get your cooldowns.

Against D/D burst thieves the 1 2 .. dodge method can generally prevent their instant spike. It doesn’t work that way against D/P users, because they’re not trying to land cloak and dagger just as stealth expires. You have to constantly move and deny them your back. When I see a thief stacking stealth preparing to attack me, I go into spaz mode and change my facing as rapidly as possible. It works for the most part and I rarely get hit in the back by a backstab from a thief that I know is there. With permastealthers, youcan’t know or anticipate when they’re going to strike because stealth is… permanent. Randomly dodging is just a waste of resources against them.

If you’re Sc/D, use your air and earth blinds intelligently. Don’t just spam them when they’re off cooldown. You can blind a Sw/D thief’s larcenous strike, allowing you to attack him instead of being forced to evade to save your boons.

If a thief drops shadow refuge and you don’t have AoE off cooldown to punish him for sitting in it, it’s not a bad idea to just leave the area. He can only travel so far before that stealth wears off, and you just sitting around waiting for him to attack you is playing into his game. Same for thieves’ guild. Condi spammers will pull out thieves’ guild to add direct damage to their condi pressure. I like to just kite away or LoS until I can either kill the adds or they expire.

Never run directly away from a D/* thief. He can activate backstab and then steal to you for a guaranteed full damage backstab. Strafe and keep your back pointed away from where you think he is approaching from.

So many posts about how to get thieves low. Getting a thief low is completely meaningless because they have infinite resets without even breaking combat. Unless you’re playing spvp and trying to cap a point, just getting them low doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get the kill, and that’s why thieves beat eles. I’ve had so many fights with thieves that lasted 5-10 minutes where they’d unstealth, I’d hit them a bunch, they’d go into stealth and come out near full health, and this would just continue until I finally made a mistake, and them bam dead because I can’t just sit around in stealth until all my health is back.

Maybe after the December patch that hits S/D porting and D/P stealthing it won’t be as bad, but right now it’s 100% in the thief’s favor purely because the thief can reset without limit until the ele finally makes a mistake.

Anet just likes thieves more.

MASSSSSSSSSIVE buff to all thief specs

What massive boost did Elementalist get across the board in the Dec 10th patch?

And attunement cool down does not really count for 2.5 reasons

1) It was only decreased by 19%
2) They nerfed the % reduction from 2% to 1%, so there is no net positive gain.
2.5) They moved Elemental Attunement to master tier, which is going to have a lot of builds going to 20 Arcana.

I think the devs (and more than enough players) like the idea of a class that can just walk up to unsuspecting players and backstab them with their target having little to no defense (the re-stealth backstab do-overs are really cheesy though, even by other MMO standards). There is a whole community of people who really get off on that.

There is also a whole community of people that like to blow stuff up, maybe Anet will realize that one day, or maybe there are too few of us for them to care.

And lets face it in games with actual class balance, the rogues are normally the natural balance to mages (now if only we were the counter to warriors). So this will probably never change.

Flux Qemist.6712:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmkbwx5gjDAkHm4CLiCPUeMTO2A-jEEBYgAYjgkIgUBAJfCiZPKrlhRs6KZlXBVbDT5CV7CWFTIyIGzaeI1G0QyAoPGA-w

Stealth thieves: have Shocking aura ready to stun – (particularly those running basilisk venom), updraft, switch to fire, burning speed, fire grab, wait for him to come out of stealth with full hp, die.

Have fun :-)

Fixed.

LightningBlaze.4913:

I’m afraid the only way to beat a good thief or even those that constantly stealth is with burst and precise use of your knock downed skills.

This exactly. Vs a good thief your only hope is to out survive them with a d/d build or knockdown/stun and then burst them before they can restealth with a s/x build.

Shadowfall.6543:

Anet just likes thieves more.

MASSSSSSSSSIVE buff to all thief specs
.

Actually the patch was a huge nerf to thieves.

Thieves had their sword line gutted.

Their initiative regen from traits and abilities was drastically reduced.

No more perma stealthing(not a bad thing though.)

Their vigor regen abilities were nerfed.

(if you look at prev patch notes, thieves have pretty much been nerfed every single patch since the start of the game. Any buff they did have was reversed not long afterwards.)

I’d be more concerned about perplexity mesmers and engis than thieves.

As a d/d thief when I face a decent d/d elementalist it’s a tough, long fight and at any point he can disengage and I won’t be able to keep up. If I miss a dodge roll/c+d i’ll probably be dead.

Elementalist is definately one of those classes where there is a huge skill disparity. Bad ele’s just fall over. Good ones are really impressive.

you have a ton of tools to deal with theifs as d/d ele. shocking aura, frost aura, water 3, earth 2, and dodgeing in earth all of these will slow them down and make it difficult for them to get there burst off. arcane shield is also very strong against them. when they go stealth and are getting ready for a backstab get protection up. all of your skills are aoe and require no target so you can spam alot of these where you think they will be. d/p theives will be a long and annoying fight with all the blinds and there ability to stealth anytime. you probably wont be able to actually down a good one by yourself if he is cheesing it out but he shouldnt be able to kill you either. it just takes abit of practice. i suggest finding a good theif and asking him for duels so you can learn to fight against them. the trick is to just try to keep them slowed and kind of kite them around.

phaeris.7604:

As a d/d thief when I face a decent d/d elementalist it’s a tough, long fight and at any point he can disengage and I won’t be able to keep up. If I miss a dodge roll/c+d i’ll probably be dead.

You’re kidding right? Or do you play a thief with D/D x2?

Lucidity.5947:

answer: go glassy and 3 shot them.

exactly that
30/30/10/0/0 zerker / celestial D/D arcane wave , arcane projectile, lightning flash
and lava tomb (most of the times in hot join ppl are stupid enough to try to finish you while standing on the lava field mwahahahaha, they die you know xD)

With this build I even almost oneshoted a necro (arcane skills go through instant so burning speed ring of fire and both arcane skills hit almost at the same time)
And gave some thieves a 11k facecheck firegrab, as well as a 12.5k facecheck firegrab to a mesmer.
Ah and in fire get fury using blast finishers on fire fields.

I mean you die very easily, but the seconds you live you can deal so much dmg, and if you meet an unprepared foe, they sometimes die before they realize it.
The best thing was a tripple kill against 2 thiefs and a ranger trying to capture a spot aoe burst booooooom.
Then they downed me and my lava tomb helped me ralley.

Depends what weaps you run, but S/d and D.D ele should pretty much destroy thieves.
With that you got so many hard hitting aoe’s, CC’s and spike damage. You can also easily bring down the damage of backstab with the protection of earth swap and frost aura and heal back up that damage in seconds.
Keep moving, dodge his C/D when he’s close, blind him as much as you can, etc etc.

Bunker ele stands no chance against a thief. The key is that you need to be able to anticipate their burst, bait them out of stealth, and burst them as hard as possible ASAP to pressure them into defense. If you build bursty enough (15 points in air helps tremendously here), with good power and crit dmg/chance, then most will panic and shadow refuge. This is exactly the situation you want, b/c shadow refuge just screams “AOE HERE!!! I AM HERE!! KILL ME WITH YOUR AOE PRESSURE!!!” A thief that shadow refuges as a last resort against an ele should be a dead thief.

I am assuming you are d/d, so advice is tailored to that:

1. Spam lightning whip in air whenever they stealth. This is key, never run and show them your back, and keep attacking. If you move around erratically in the area and attack, the pressure from your attacks usually keeps them away. Also, wait for a couple seconds if you are going to pop an aura. Dodging at 2.5s after stealth is also reasonable. In air, even if it was unnecessary, you probably blinded them.
2. Hit your burning speed. I take Arcane wave too to more-or-less double the burst. Many thieves will be insta-downed from just this.
3. Even though you don’t have high condi-damage, proccing burning also puts them under pressure and keeps them away.
4. If they come out of stealth from distance, burning speed—>LF ontop of them with or w/o acrane wave also destroys them. If you are in air, earthquake—>LF ontop to start a burst. LF—>updraft is also acceptable b/c most will be too slow with their stunbreak, and thus eat your burning speed/arcane wave and die instantly.

If they aren’t stupid and build super-glass cheese-mode, then the fight is much harder. Glass thieves are the most fun to 1-shot, b/c they are stupid and predictable. I smile really big when I see a thief heart-seekering towards me like initiative grows on trees, b/c he is just asking for me to kill him.

You will lose to them every once in-a-while, esp when the hop in on you while you are weak from a prior fight. Don’t feel bad about it, but with practice you can take them.

PvPing a bit helps tremendously in this endeavor, b/c you can learn with being instagibbed all the time.

As a WvW thief, staff ele’s are generally roadkill. But then, I’m playing a spec focused on killing single targets, and they’re in an AoE build. D/D ele’s, on the other hand, often kill me so fast that I don’t have time to do much but wonder why I engaged a D/D ele. Stealth is invisibility, not invulnerability. Lightning Whip don’t care; lightning whip don’t give a kitten.

In short, there’s a lot of rock/ paper/ scissors stuff with specs, not just classes.

Oghier.7419:

As a WvW thief, staff ele’s are generally roadkill. But then, I’m playing a spec focused on killing single targets, and they’re in an AoE build. D/D ele’s, on the other hand, often kill me so fast that I don’t have time to do much but wonder why I engaged a D/D ele. Stealth is invisibility, not invulnerability. Lightning Whip don’t care; lightning whip don’t give a kitten.

In short, there’s a lot of rock/ paper/ scissors stuff with specs, not just classes.

Why do people bring up things like rock/ paper/ scissors when we all know that there are certain specs like Mesmer PU which have a winrate of over 90% in all encounters if played decently.

D/D ele is the only viable 1v1 build which deals good burst dmg if you set it up , but is still very weak against condition classes.

offence.4726:

Oghier.7419:

As a WvW thief, staff ele’s are generally roadkill. But then, I’m playing a spec focused on killing single targets, and they’re in an AoE build. D/D ele’s, on the other hand, often kill me so fast that I don’t have time to do much but wonder why I engaged a D/D ele. Stealth is invisibility, not invulnerability. Lightning Whip don’t care; lightning whip don’t give a kitten.

In short, there’s a lot of rock/ paper/ scissors stuff with specs, not just classes.

Why do people bring up things like rock/ paper/ scissors when we all know that there are certain specs like Mesmer PU which have a winrate of over 90% in all encounters if played decently.

D/D ele is the only viable 1v1 build which deals good burst dmg if you set it up , but is still very weak against condition classes.

The DnD classic ele has major weakness, first against 2 burst thieves who know what they are doing and a condi necro that knows what his doing. Mesmers, just avoid them , stupid shatter builds are annoying.

But if u r losing to a single thief all the time it means 2 things, 1, you are fighting someone really good, second , learn how to leave a fight.

dreztina.4820:

Thieves are a broken class. It doesn’t matter if you outplay them because they have infinite do-overs. Between their unlimited mobility, spam blind, and going into stealth every 4 seconds, it is impossible to actually down them unless they are massively bad.

It has nothing to do with build or play, it’s that their class mechanics are better than your class mechanics. The best you can do vs. an even moderately competent thief is a stalemate because no matter how many times you get them low, they’ll stealth back to full over and over and over.

lol

I fought an Elemental Weapon Elementalist once and I have to admit, it was a tough fight but I won that fight. I so hate the Lightning Hammer (stun) and the Earth Shield (pulled while in stealth – no running away from me). It’s like fighting Thor and Capt. America at the same time. Between the Attunements and the E.Weapons, that elementalist has an endless kitten nal to deliver a lot of hurt — but he screwed up and I won — barely.

offence.4726:

D/D ele is the only viable 1v1 build which deals good burst dmg if you set it up , but is still very weak against condition classes.

actually -specifically against thieves- s/f is way better, and s/d can create problems to any class. I see d/d more as a small party setup rather than a true duelist, but this is my opinion based on my experience.

I used to hate thieves back when I played this game on my toaster. Some important things to note:

1.When a thief stealths he is trying to position himself behind you for a backstab.
2. Air aura is your friend
3. They are weak against conditions. Even if you have like 300 condition damage, if you land a drakes breath on them it could take 3k of their health while they are stealthed.

Most thieves are horrible and easily killed if you aren’t glass, including my thief. However the ones that are really good AND have ascended equipment are the scariest thing in wvw, because there is no way to keep up with their damage and if they can avoid your attacks for 10 seconds you are good as dead. Even the super strong backstab ones which nearly one shot you, if they can’t play can be killed just with collateral damage and conditions (like burning from fire ring and drake’s breath), because they usually don’t pack condition removal. But yesterday I met a thief who shadowstepped all over the kitten place, bypassing my fire fields, curing conditions with shadow return and doing massive damage from stealth (though visibly not as much as a full glass thief). It didn’t help that she caught me off guard with basilisk vemon while I was looking at my map screen (is it just me, or does this always seem to happen?), but even after recovering with armor of earth I was barely able to scratch her. Hopefully the new cast time on shadow return tunes this type of thief down a bit (but more initiative could very well make it stronger). Also thankfully ascended armor will help counter balance ascended weapons, which right now are pushing the balance in favor of offense.

Spin around like a mad person. Then watch tv as they perma-stealth forever, confused about what to do next.

katniss.6735:

Spin around like a mad person. Then watch tv as they perma-stealth forever, confused about what to do next.

Lol I spin around spamming lightning auto. They don’t know what to do.

Yea, it should have been mentioned before:

If they have S/d as one of their weapon-sets, do your best to run. A half-decent s/d thief can crap all over an amazing ele all day long w/o trying. Luckily, the infinite pseudo-stunbreak on infiltrator’s return (sword 2) is being fixed, which should help.

Also, thieves that aren’t bad (not full glass) are REALLY hard b/c they have way more mobility, can easily evade your telegraphed burst, and take quite a bit to get taken down.

Edit: clarified that s/d craps on ANY ele, not just d/d.

Grevender.9235:

I play both classes and here is my 2cents:
- thief has mobility, stealth, very high single target spike and can easily reset the fight
- elementalist has nice animations

I giggled.

But it pretty much sums it up accurately though.

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, it should have been mentioned before:

If they have S/d as one of their weapon-sets, do your best to run. A half-decent s/d thief can crap all over an amazing ele all day long w/o trying. Luckily, the infinite pseudo-stunbreak on infiltrator’s return (sword 2) is being fixed, which should help.

Also, thieves that aren’t bad (not full glass) are REALLY hard b/c they have way more mobility, can easily evade your telegraphed burst, and take quite a bit to get taken down.

Edit: clarified that s/d craps on ANY ele, not just d/d.

This is so wrong. It might be your own personal experience and the experience of few other eles that don’t have the type of burst or/and type of playstyle to defeat these type of thieves easily. What is a lot more challenging is a skillful thief player running a condition build with perplexity runes. I find dealing high consistent burst damage to be the main counter towards these thieves. I also need to emphasize that having only the burst doesn’t make it possible to defeat any good thief player or any good player in general from the other professions… you need to be skillful too. Even d/d eles can land all their “telegraphed bursts” towards any good thief player, the only requirement is to know when it is the best moment to land them successfully.