Guild Wars 2

first off, i’m not talking about d/d thieves or p/d thieves… only d/p

For example, today I had a duel with a thief for at least 6-9 minutes, I used my drop supply 2-3 times which has a 180 sec cd, and I couldn’t manage to kill him/her. This is basically what happens….

thief-
stone venom
backstab
blinding powder + hs = stealth
wait in stealth for 3-4 seconds for that regen
rinse repeat

if i stack confusion on them, they wouldn’t attack, so a tankcat build wouldn’t work on a smart thief. They’d just use that opportunity to regen with steath or w.e

I eventually lost cause their zerg came

I’m not qqing that I lose to these guys, but i’m qqing because I can’t seem to finish them off because they just run away when they’re too low and re-engage when they back up to 75%-100% hp… I can easily wittle them down with my conditions…
What I normally try to do is flamethrower or poison them with the elixer gun when they’re in stealth but they regen too much in stealth.

any pro engineers out there?

My experience with these theifs is they are actually quite easy to beat when you get to know them. I got an IRL m8 playing a Theif, and his tellling me all the tricks and weakness of the class.

I’m not sure what setup you use, but some general tricks to use against them is: Using a stun breaker when they jump you with Stone venom (Elixir S is the best), then start kiting them while you regen up, and lay pressure on them.

If they use blinding powder, just start spam attacks behind you you (grenades and bombs work best), cause that’s where they are going to hit you.

Most of them don’t run a lot of condition removal, most only have the invs. heal that also remove bleed, posion and burning or the trait that remove condition in stealth, which means you should focus on reapply conditions when they get out of stealth.

Immobileze and stuns should be saved for when they hit about 35%,they won’t break either when they turn stealth, so simply burst that area. A supply drop that stun them, followed by net turrent should pretty much finish any theif up (usual do for me at least), cause of the 4-5 seconds of beating you can give him.

Also tool kit is awesome vs them! magnet is great for perventing them gaining the distance to regen up.!

tho, I haven ever really been vs a d/p Theif, most I meet run the p/dor d/d, and not sure why they would use a d/p tbh

what I find works best for me against those thieves (and being p/d or d/p or d/d doesnt seem to matter much, what matters is that they have cleanse+regen on stealth, multiple stealth sources and basilisk venom) is:
use S when petrified, count to 3, drop supply crate on them, static shot, blowtorch (by now the stun from supply crate is going away), poison dart as they go into stealth (and get hit by confusion in the process). count to 4 and look for their corpse.
It does not work everytime obviously, a good thief will make you blow your cooldowns, wait for basilisk poison to be ready and get you again. Make sure you only use elixir S when they get you with basilisk as the cooldowns are similar.
I’ve had a number of fights like this, they take forever; good thing is you learn how to time your stuff :p
Something that works very very well too is pain inverter, if you are asura.

try stacking as many conditions as you can before they pop invis, since they only cleanse 2 conditions when they use stealth good chance your bleeding and burning damage are going to stick around, that’s how i fight them and it works just about every time in case your wondering with traits and all i can get 5-7 different conditions on them before they decide to use stealth, i have a good laugh when i see a thief use his heal and come out of invis with less hp then he went in

“They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, " I like how you used condition damage yet you can’t really kill them in this game, shows how much devs are biding by their own guidelines.

But to be back on topic, What utilities did you have equipped? Imo standing on your own mine is one of the safest ways to avoid getting backstabbed.
What I usually carry in wvw though is elixir s/net turret/a kit (Which one depends on how little I give a kitten that day) and a rifle. I find that netting them with any of my 3 nets guarantees me that I know where they are, so even if they turn invisible I can go to their location, blunderbuss, jump shot and overcharge their health to very little. Then when I know they are about to run away, and they stealth I drop a supply crate in the general direction of which way they were last running. Sometimes I down them, sometimes I don’t, but without any hard counter to stealth thats probably the best we will ever be able to do so far.

Also don’t use condition damage on thiefs, their Hide in Shadows heal skill cures burning, poison, AND bleeding. Making condition damage pretty useless against them.

dang… I guess the best I can do is aoe spam with grenades, but i don’t use that kit… and i do try to stack conditions but he/she would dodge so frequently and our kitten pistol misses half the time. then they would slip into stealth again. I think my real problem is that my build is pretty defensive, so it’s my fault

i’m not worried about the backstab or w.e cause i have a lot of cc

i’m running a cond/tough/prec build with emphasize on stacking conditions with critical hits

1) i’m running pistol/shield – magnetic shield to push them off and static shield to stun them
2) elixer gun-“aoe” poison, aoe heal, and gtfo skill
3) flamethrower – “aoe” burn and bleed with crit, air draft to push them away, and smoke vent
4) tool kit – 3 second block, magnetic pull, bar to the face, and cripple

I don’t have a problem with taking the hits cause i can easily use any kit to control the thief… I guess my build is too defensive.

btw, thanks for responding and not saying “l2p” lol

Penguin.5197:

“They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, " I like how you used condition damage yet you can’t really kill them in this game, shows how much devs are biding by their own guidelines.

But to be back on topic, What utilities did you have equipped? Imo standing on your own mine is one of the safest ways to avoid getting backstabbed.
What I usually carry in wvw though is elixir s/net turret/a kit (Which one depends on how little I give a kitten that day) and a rifle. I find that netting them with any of my 3 nets guarantees me that I know where they are, so even if they turn invisible I can go to their location, blunderbuss, jump shot and overcharge their health to very little. Then when I know they are about to run away, and they stealth I drop a supply crate in the general direction of which way they were last running. Sometimes I down them, sometimes I don’t, but without any hard counter to stealth thats probably the best we will ever be able to do so far.

Also don’t use condition damage on thiefs, their Hide in Shadows heal skill cures burning, poison, AND bleeding. Making condition damage pretty useless against them.

yeah, this sounds great as well.. I’m just already specced for cond/tough/prec so i can’t really use a rifle haha.. fighting thieves are so annoying

backpack regenerator, elixir infused bombs, alot of toughness, power and healing power…

use smoke bomb, bomb heals, your pistol shield stun, wrench block, rune of vampirism and elixir S and make him rage for wasting his time

Run away.

Because if you don’t, he will and waste everyone’s time.

The flamethrower should do the trick to, at the AoE part, you just gotta keep truning around and do the cone attack, even trow a little flame wall behind you, and try do the counting game with the blind attack! Also, when he make the AoE Shadow Reguge you cna blow him out, removing the stealth!

Also, Condition damage the way Engineer (fast) do them, works great vs Theif, don’t listen the whine, it’s very effective, just a matter of timing it, Maska and I do it just fine

Amadeus.5687:

The flamethrower should do the trick to, at the AoE part, you just gotta keep truning around and do the cone attack, even trow a little flame wall behind you, and try do the counting game with the blind attack! Also, when he make the AoE Shadow Reguge you cna blow him out, removing the stealth!

Also, Condition damage the way Engineer (fast) do them, works great vs Theif, don’t listen the whine, it’s very effective, just a matter of timing it, Maska and I do it just fine

The flamethrower is a good point. I have been thinking for a while, but haven’t tested it yet: If you had the combat log open, couldn’t you theoretically track an invisible thief down, simply by using the flamethrower in the general area of where they would be?

Penguin.5197:

The flamethrower is a good point. I have been thinking for a while, but haven’t tested it yet: If you had the combat log open, couldn’t you theoretically track an invisible thief down, simply by using the flamethrower in the general area of where they would be?

That would work yus, the combat log would show it! Also, you can do it simply by playing the mind game with them! Reading their movement and counter their move before they do it! As said earlier, a lot of Theif’s move in easy trackable ways, like most allways wait the full duration on stealth before attacking, and the oens with MH Dagger allways try sneak up behind you!

ShaunZ.1098:

Run away.

Because if you don’t, he will and waste everyone’s time.

Everyone has given good suggestions but this one is probally the best.

The only way to beat him is to go GC and try to land a CC + Barrage or SD burst, this will leave you very vunerable though.

Otherwise if the Thief is good enough to save their cooldowns so they can always stealth+regen when they need to then their isn’t much you can do( sounds like this Thief was since it went on so long). Spamming AoE will only work if you get lucky so its not reliable.

If its in WvW just leave, the Thief isn’t killing anyone either same as most perma-stealth harassment type Thieves.

If its in Spvp just keep him busy till someone else arrives.

If you are in a group the best help an Engineer can give is CC for the stronger AoE hitters.

Bunker build he ll give up bothering you when he sees his backstab only plucks away 10% of your hp and that his attacks tickle you, downside is you’ll tickle everyone as well as your damage will be extremely mediocre.

Chills and Bombs. Works every time. Chill demolish thieves:-)

Against a good Thief, and not one of the thousands of fotm-rerollers, you simply cannot kill him.
He will always be able to simply run away if he realizes he is going to lose. And then he can just re-engage 20sec later.

When he runs away, count it as a win, because he realized he wouldve died if he stuck around much longer.

condition builds are working fine against thiefs. I do not know if this works against good thiefs but … you know I am not a good engineer

if this was a d/d or even p/d (p/d isnt very easy to 1v1 as a engineer) how to there was somethings you can do but d/p is one of the hardest builds to 1v1, if you ask me and i`m a veteran thief its the best 1v1 build in the game after trap ranger.
i dueled the best thiefs this game have to offer as a engineer never won vs d/p ever.
you can take comfort that not a lot of thiefs play it since it takes some skill to master
you cant kite em,you cant burst em,you don`t control the fight pace,thay will stop every important skill you use,they disengage easy,and land good burst(not a d/d head shot but still).
your safest bet is to go heavy cc build or bunker tho you will not kill em you just wont die
don`t count on conditions to much every self respecting d/p will have shadows embrace and feline grace as default as well as good regen from this and that as he choose to build.
also a good thief will stay back as you bomb/nads spam and not run into your aoe, d/p uses tactical stealth he will only bs you when its sure to land, and he cant spam it as easy as d/d, he will not stay in melee for no reason to eat what you can dish and he will avoid your nads easy from range.
but hey never say never all is possible if the stars align.

*this a 1v1 scenario not any team play.

Been running duel pistols conditions build and finally finding that I can hold my own against them. Glue shot keeps them from running to much elixir s stops there burst and potentially gives stealth and the 3 conditions tear through there heath. I’m so in love with this set up. For me its the perfect amount of survivability damage and control. Only thing I miss are knockbacks.

Heres the build

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/3x-condition-pistol-alchemist-engineer-condition-build-pistol-alchemy-593kittenml

Theres a kitten hiding in your link.
Here is a working one:
http://tinyurl.com/ag3vozl

I’ve now dropped supply crate for Elixir X. I used to think it was worthless, but in WvW it is amazing. As a P/P Elixir engineer most of the time now, the cool down is actually really good.

Interrupt, Interrupt, Interrupt.

Lantz.7240:

Been running duel pistols conditions build and finally finding that I can hold my own against them. Glue shot keeps them from running to much elixir s stops there burst and potentially gives stealth and the 3 conditions tear through there heath. I’m so in love with this set up. For me its the perfect amount of survivability damage and control. Only thing I miss are knockbacks.

Heres the build

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/3x-condition-pistol-alchemist-engineer-condition-build-pistol-alchemy-593kittenml

Almost the exact build I use. I use cloaking Device instead of Incendiary Power, and Elixir X instead of supply crate. If you miss your knockbacks, then you’ll get knockbacks galore with Elixir X

Edit: Oh, and I only use Elixir U when soloing camps. otherwise I run Elixir C

Edit 2: I also run HgH and not (409)

How do I beat thief bs?

fixed

A: No idea. I just bunker until my team shows up and then drink the tears when the thief dies and sends me a nasty tell.

When you got elixir U, a good rifle, and a nice gear you just wait till they first regen, then with elix u u make a good damage in a fast pace, when elix u effect finishes you use an overcharged shot on them, they wont be able to do anything for a couple of secs, when they stand up they don’t usually go invisible inmediatly, it’s like another sec of runing around u, it should give u enough time to finish em. Oh, of course, supply crate.

+1 one for the magnet pull. Whenever I think a theif is going to run away I get out my wrench kit and start magnet pull followed by prybar, blowtorch, and glue shot. Remember just because they stealth while your magnet pulling doesn’t mean it failed, their still invisible but in front of you so kick their kitten

A well played thief cannot be beat because it can just get away. The best way to play against a thief is to play a bunker, and run toward good guys. Eventually the thief will find easier kills.

^
A Pistol/Shield build is probably the best against Thieves because you can develop brutal counter-attacks, the problem is that you might not dish enough damage to finish him before he decides to flee.

A glass cannon Rifle build is much riskier but also much more rewarding.

A D/P Thief has no CnD, and their stealth move cost alot of Initiative, the fate of your thief opponent will be in the engage:

If the Thief gets dangerously close to you, stand still and try to raise your Gear Shield during the moment he’ll be about to attack, you pretty much won if you manage to get his Basilisk Venom combo to go to waste, you’re going to answer with an Overcharged shot, giving the time for you to land your attacks then Magnet back to you for a Pry Bar, you can even ice this with Slick Shoes after you pulled him to you for maximum control so you can follow this Pry Bar with a Blunderbuss.

If your target tries to flee or use stealth, land the Supply Crate on his face.

Of course, written on paper it looks easy, but fighting a Thief is more of a mind game than actual fighting, it is never guaranteed to work as intended, especially when adding Dodge in the process.

Too be fair, if that 1v1 did last 9 min before help showed up, then I would have to say both the OP and that thief were equally matched. You couldn’t kill him and he obviously couldn’t kill you. I’m sure he was just as angry with not killing you as you were with him.
If one or the other were any less skilled, than the fight wouldn’t have last that long.

Would there be much to say if you fought another profession that long? I remember fighting a guardian with my own guardian (two completely different builds), and that lasted 15 mins before people came to help. What does that say about guardians?

Now people have given good advice on how to deal with thieves, but that only works so far. Until you meet a thief that knows how to work around that himself.

Stealth does not make him invuln, so just span your AE attacks.
try to dodge his opener ( preemtive dodgin )

Depending on your setup you can also stealth ( P/S + Bombkit, perhaps even HealingTurret ).
So you can stealth a bit after he stealthed and you can decide what to do after he is out.

If he decides to stay in stealth ( by using antother BP+HS combo ) he will be init starved soon.

Depending on thiefs traits he will lose either damage to keep some init regen in stealth or he will be very low on init but do more damage with his other attacks.

Goloith.6349:

+1 one for the magnet pull. Whenever I think a theif is going to run away I get out my wrench kit and start magnet pull followed by prybar, blowtorch, and glue shot. Remember just because they stealth while your magnet pulling doesn’t mean it failed, their still invisible but in front of you so kick their kitten

Really? I didn’t know this. Dang. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

It’s as Mask said, catching one with Supply Crate is pretty much an instant Thief death. Beyond that, you need to AoE the ground and make sure you land attacks whenever you can actually see them. It really depends on your build for specifics, but in my experience using a condi build even if they take the stealth condi-removal trait is more effective then running a power variant.