Guild Wars 2

So, I recently came back from a hiatus and decided to look up new builds for my engineer. I see people are like “eww, grenades” and I sort of agree, so I see a few bomb builds. I try a couple of them, as well as a flamethrower build, and they worked okay, but thieves keep sending me my kitten on a silver platter. I can handle other classes OK most of the time, but I can rarely get a thief down below 75% HP it seems before they bend me over and fist-ram my balls into the dirt.

Now, I’m talking about WvW 1v1/small group situations here. Any advice?

Condition bombs are one of the best tools against the standard back stab thief imo. When they stealth place a glue bomb at your feet. 99% of the time they’re immobilized and your fire/ concussion bombs will hit them square in the face.

Big Ol’ Bomb also works as a good back stab deterrent, and you can combo it with smoke bomb for stealth.

Yup, …POWER!

THFs are one of the harder classes to fight 1v1, they have great sustain and they are able to restart the fight as often as needed. However engineer is one class that can consistently and reliably beat THFs.

How you ask (l2p lol) jk… Kind of. Keep in mind that while a THF may have good sustain/disengage there armor and HP is some of the worst in the game so they die when CCd and burst. If you can land a bob > magnet pull > crowbar > blunderbuss > jump shot combo most THFs will just eat it. If they don’t go down follow up with overcharge and net shot then lay on the damage, keep in mind that even if they are invisible they can still take damage so an alternative to using bomb burst is to go nades and just spam AoE, learn how a THF thinks and it’s not hard to tell where there going.

I almost never lose 1v1 to THF (can’t say never because there are some great thfs out there)

Accelerant packed turrets is going to be your answer down the Explosives trait line and a great way to shut down Thief’s. Particularly if you feel that Thief’s are that much of a problem. Simply lay the turret and stand on it, when they open detonate and don’t move simply fire your Net Shot/Glue Shot. You will swivel around and fire at their direction. Or if you have a shield you could try and glue bomb them although it will be unlikely to catch a good thief in those few seconds and may be more practical to simple gain distance. But regardless, you will have at least disoriented their burst and once a thief looses their momentum they run around like scared little rodents that they are. Knowing that most Thief’s have a 3-4 second window in stealth is your insurance and never be afraid. Most players panic at a Thief’s burst, I love Thief’s because they make gap closing easy and do all the work for me!

Op there has been an ongoing discussion on tactics to fighting both thieves and mesmers here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-vs-Mesmer-Thief-tactics-help/first#post3296618

I hope that helps.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

problem with thiefs is the Perma blind spam so youc an wipe your rear with em with simply sd build and googles

Bombs man, they do everything.

Rezzet.3614:

problem with thiefs is the Perma blind spam so youc an wipe your rear with em with simply sd build and googles

Utility goggles FTW they won’t know what to do when you can simply ignore blind.

Play around with a thief for a while in spvp and learn their skills. Thieves are probably my favorite class yo fight one on one when I’m an engineer since their “free kills” in my eyes.

A few tips:

Save shield 4 for when they use SR. A thief out of SR is a thief served on a plate at least 80% of the time.

Blinds, you have them as well. Bomb 4 and pistol three are great for denying a thief a CnD. If they use dagger/pistol (grrrr) try interupting them with the flamethrower 3.

AoE damage. What most people fail to realise and then cry about is that people in stealth arent unhittable, use your bombs and kite him around in them. The flamethrower 4 is useful here as well.

Don’t leave your back open. A front stab while reduce the damage you take drastically and leave the thief revealed (you can force him to do this or hit your side by backing up to a wall/cliffedge but I find that cheesy).

=P you’ll probably find more/the same tips at the discussion thread posted above. good luck!

To kill thieves, I run either condi bombs, or Static Discharge. Killing thieves with a tanky condi bomb build is pretty easy, but Static Discharge can be difficult if you don’t burst them fast enough.

I havent found a single thing i couldn’t kill fast enough with SD , if you don’t destroy your target you’re doing it wrong (obvi rite?) heh

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

I havent found a single thing i couldn’t kill fast enough with SD , if you don’t destroy your target you’re doing it wrong (obvi rite?) heh

A well timed enemies dodge roll can really mess you up though AS STATIC DISCHARGE (Some weird chat filter forced me to type like that….)

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

I havent found a single thing i couldn’t kill fast enough with SD , if you don’t destroy your target you’re doing it wrong (obvi rite?) heh

A well timed enemies dodge roll can really mess you up though AS STATIC DISCHARGE (Some weird chat filter forced me to type like that….)

You’re suppose to count those dodges accordingly but you’re definitely right.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

I havent found a single thing i couldn’t kill fast enough with SD , if you don’t destroy your target you’re doing it wrong (obvi rite?) heh

A well timed enemies dodge roll can really mess you up though AS STATIC DISCHARGE (Some weird chat filter forced me to type like that….)

You’re suppose to count those dodges accordingly but you’re definitely right.

Power (SD) engi (at least in PvP – i know power works a lot better in wvw because of scaling) should be dead by the time his enemy has used 2 dodge rolls.