Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

I roam WvW quite alot just cus I like it and I do pretty well. I can handle most of the enemies I encounter, whatever build they may have but there’s just 1 build (or weapon setup) that I just hate and can’t defeat (if they are good) and that’s sword/dagger thieves.
They jump around like it’s nothing and I like to ressemble them with a piece of soap that is waay too slippy to hold on to. I normally run d/f but I change weapons quite alot but no matter what weapons or build I pick, I can’t win of those dam sword/thieves…
Any tips or tricks on how to beat them or should I just spawn my GS and take a run for it?

Hello, SD thief main here. It’s not too difficult a match-up, if you think about it. If you want to beat us, you must:

- Not play berserker. No Fresh Air S/D,S/F eles. You’ll lose every time.

- Time your skills to hit during the rare moments the thief is vulnerable, that is in the end of their Sw3 animation, just after they port with their Sw2 skill, if you see a CnD animation, or just after a dodge.

- Use AoE and cleave. If you use d/d, fire #4, fire #2, water #2 will deal the most damage to the thief, and he’ll be forced to retreat with Sw2 to cleanse.

- Take the trait Evasive Arcana if you can. When they try to burst, just evade over their head and they’ll drop.

- Slot Mistform or Arcane Shield to mitigate heavy bursts. Cleansing fire is an overkill for just poison, immob and sometimes vulnerability

- Run dagger offhand over focus. No need for these reflects, the CC of the dagger is better.

- Run a sigil of doom. Cover it with other condis and watch the thief waste his healing skill every time.

- Keep pressuring them at all time. Play extremely agressive. You’ll take a few bad hits in the beginning, but they will quickly be forced to disengage.

- Remember that your best skill is Shocking Aura.

Good luck!

one of their biggest weaknesses is they are rather predictable. Time your damage for those moments.

ok, thnx for the tips guys

@Sorel.4870 Nice to see a person giving advice here instead of the normal “get good” comments i see. Keep being awesome! as for handling thief on ele i use staff (pve) and im to lazy to change for WvW so when they vanish i drop lava font on me and that alone ends up deterring them most the time. I am not speced for heavy DPS but for more crit and might stack, so 2/3/1/1/2 usually kills them. and placing lava font on me keeps them from back stabbing me XD

There is another way to deal with Sw/D thieves.

Sw/D is a pure power spec, so most of their damage come from crits. Not long ago someone post a condi signet build (S/F) which would probably work very well on this kind of thief.
- Just by using “stone heart” (earth XIII) you negate 2/3 of a power creep damage
- On the other hand you deal condition damage which are pretty interesting against thieves that have low base hp and few way to deal with condition.
- This kind of build ain’t boon starving so you won’t be reliant on a regen or a protection to survive. On the other hand, the thief will nothing to steal.
- Lastly, this build is less active so you lose a bit of the “elementalist fun”

Sorel.4870:

Hello, SD thief main here. It’s not too difficult a match-up, if you think about it. If you want to beat us, you must:

- Not play berserker. No Fresh Air S/D,S/F eles. You’ll lose every time.

offc u can beat s/d thieves with fresh air s/d (my favorite playstyle)

when the thief is on you do all the aoe u have: fire 2, 3 and 4
use air 5 and earth 4 to interrupt their attack
use air 2 and electric discharge for insta dmg when the thief pops up (fresh air is lovely for that)
final shielding is, when the dmg is not too high, a nice help to survive a burst attack cuz at that moment u are protected for 3 attacks what means u can do ur burst on him + when it ends it explodes so again more dmg. Combined with swap air attunement… boem

and use the other tips above ;-)

gl and happy hunting

Sorel.4870:

Hello, SD thief main here. It’s not too difficult a match-up, if you think about it. If you want to beat us, you must:

- Not play berserker. No Fresh Air S/D,S/F eles. You’ll lose every time.

Not true at all, I main S/F ele and really have no problem with most S/D thieves.

pop phoenix in their face ez katka

I always found the hardest/annoying part against thieves (and somewhat mesmers) is the constant auto-detargetting.

With s/d theif is all questione of timing. If you use fresh air, with scepter main hand, you can litteraly oneshot them with a Phoenix in the right time. I usually wait they do the first attack, most of the time sword2 + steal, then i pop arcane shield and i do phoenix + lighing flash + air spike… If phoenix get all crit, it’s about 90% of the thief hp. Use aoe in to shadow Refuge, like water 2 and 3, dragon tooth or off hand skills if you are on s/d. When they are stealthed spam your water autoattack for pop the signet and get some hp back. Most of the s/d thieves will go costantly in and out of range, then if you play fresh air it’s a good thing take the “One with air” trais for close the gap fast without let them time.

p.s.: in pvp there are a lot of 1v1 servers full of thieves, it’s a good thing spend some time there for practice if u have problem with them

MyPuppy.8970:

I always found the hardest/annoying part against thieves (and somewhat mesmers) is the constant auto-detargetting.

It’s not so bad against thieves, because you can just retarget with a single tab. Against mesmers you will need to wait until the real mesmer destealths, at which point a single tab will again select the real mesmer. If you press tab while the mesmer is stealthed you’ll target a clone and any subsequent tabs will just cycle through them.

Anyway, a D/D ele doesn’t really need a target to deal damage.

Bitty.1409:

Sorel.4870:

Hello, SD thief main here. It’s not too difficult a match-up, if you think about it. If you want to beat us, you must:

- Not play berserker. No Fresh Air S/D,S/F eles. You’ll lose every time.

Not true at all, I main S/F ele and really have no problem with most S/D thieves.

Then those thieves are not being patient. All they have to do is force you to blow your invulns (on a long CD), then you are dead meat. Luckily man people playing S/D use it as a starting point (because it is more forgiving), and don’t learn all the nuances. Or maybe they just get used to following a rotation and rely on the evades to keep them safe 80% of the time. Regardless, the advantage if certainly in the S/D thief’s side by FAR if they know how to play it.

BlackBeard.2873:

Bitty.1409:

Sorel.4870:

Hello, SD thief main here. It’s not too difficult a match-up, if you think about it. If you want to beat us, you must:

- Not play berserker. No Fresh Air S/D,S/F eles. You’ll lose every time.

Not true at all, I main S/F ele and really have no problem with most S/D thieves.

Then those thieves are not being patient. All they have to do is force you to blow your invulns (on a long CD), then you are dead meat. Luckily man people playing S/D use it as a starting point (because it is more forgiving), and don’t learn all the nuances. Or maybe they just get used to following a rotation and rely on the evades to keep them safe 80% of the time. Regardless, the advantage if certainly in the S/D thief’s side by FAR if they know how to play it.

I’m not referring to bad S/D thieves… I’m referring to the top players of that spec. I can definitely see a less experienced S/F ele having trouble, but once you are able to land on air procs in between flanking strikes, it’s really not that bad. The reason why its tough is because you have to totally change your playstyle, you have to really slow down and make sure you are timing your skills correctly.