Guild Wars 2

I’m not particularly “pro” at WvW but I get better the more I play. Against most, 1v1, I feel like I have a fair chance, and those fights are usually engaging and fun whether I win or not. However, Thieves and Mesmers are never fun encounters for me. I know they can be tricky opponents for any job, but as a Guardian I was wondering if y’all could tell me how you deal with these jobs.

Basically, what usually happens with a Thief is that they vanish, appear for what seems like 1-2 seconds, my HP drops 75%, and by the time I’ve hit a skill to recover they’re gone again. I spend most of my time trying to stay alive. I’ve been advised to put up Retaliation a bit after they vanish so that whatever move they try to get off behind me will end up damaging them, but it doesn’t seem to hurt them to any noticeable degree. Eventually all my tools are down and RF used, and they finish me off. Even when a I ran a full turtle they’d eventually just vanish and not come back. Some comments I’ve read suggest that I shouldn’t even bother fighting them, just try to outrun them or stand and wait. I guess…

Mesmers obviously give me trouble because I can’t tell which one is the player. I’ve read that unchecking “Show all NPC names” helps because you supposedly don’t see the clones’ names, only the player’s, but it doesn’t work. I can usually withstand the Mesmer’s damage for a while, but since I’m always killing clones, it’s pretty hopeless.

I’m not complaining, it’s not like these jobs are the only ones I ever encounter. Maybe it is true that it’s better to just cut my losses and run, but if there’s a way to at least try to beat them, I’d like to learn about it. So, how do you deal with them?

This is the build I run.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgqCnFyvDf4ES2jV6ATQsHYUG1RXFUIA
I have full clerics gear as well but i might change it to something else.

When i fight theifs they are super easy. I have 2 blocks on my character when they go into stealth i either use my block heal or my focus block and i negate all of their damage and they are on fire. I am alot tanker than them and most of them give up because they cant get a kill. When it comes to mesmers thats where the great sword comes in. There is the aoe pull that i use and i more times than not get them in the pull and then i start to aoe. Most mesmers that i see either run glamor confusion or shatter zerker. (if you dont know what that is its fine) the shatter build i just wait for them to lock me then i channel my block again and i get away with no damage done to me.

Retal can drop most thieves. For mesmers, I’d try to put a lot of pressure with hammer and gs.

Playing against good Thieves and Mesmers, is a damage game. If you can’t burst them down fast enough, then don’t bother. The Thief will just reset in stealth, and the Mesmer will create clones too fast for you to keep up.

There are some general tricks to playing against these professions, though. The most important one being; play aggressively. Both Thieves and Mesmers have an easy time taking you down if you just run away, so you have to turn the tables, and make them run away from you. This will give you some space, allowing you to run away from them. If you want to take them out, then you have to be right up in their face, and burst them down as fast as you can. Don’t give them any breathing room, even if you’re at low health. Use your boons, and keep pushing. If you do this well, then the Thief will mostly go down while attempting to stealth away, and the Mesmers clones will die so fast, that the Mesmer will be exposed and vulnerable to attacks.

The Thief will always go for the Backstab, or try to take you out with a shortbow from range. It’s very rare that you will come across a Thief that plays anything ells then this. So when he goes into stealth, be aware of the time it takes before he Backstabs you. Then remember this on your next encounter, and you will slowly learn to dodge it. If you play aggressively and deal enough damage, the Thief will mostly just run away, and not risk fighting you again. Thieves are very “safe players”, in that they only follow through on encounters, that they know they will win.

When facing a Mesmer, be aware of movement patterns. The Mesmer will usually be the one who’s standing the furthest away from you, so if his clones go down, he still has distance to you. Clones can’t dodge, so if you see someone dodge, that is the Mesmer. Clones generally also stand still a lot, and always move forward towards you, while the Mesmer player will be moving away from you, or from side to side. This is also why playing aggressively against a Mesmer is important; you force him to move. Only very few Mesmers will continue to stand still, even if you stand right next to them.

The first thing to do when you see a mesmer coming is to target the real body. After that you have to pressure the real one as hard as you can. If you fall to far behind, you are going to get damaged as they regain their calmness. Mesmers shatters require some setting up and they can’t do that as well if you are constantly on their tail. Also shatter builds will ALWAYS stun you before shattering clones so make sure u always have stun breaker AND RE/shelter off CL.

For thieves, it’s true that you have to drop them fast. Hammer is pretty great combined with sword/focus. Shield is also an option for it is awesome for pushing them out of shadow refuge. Also make sure you have retaliation on when it counts. Pistol thieves usually drop pretty fast if they aren’t careful.

Those classes are extremely overpowered in PvP. Ugh, thiefs are so kittening annoying, they have permastealth, it’s the only explanation and they hit SO kittening hard. Mesmers are annoying too, i’m feel completely useless fighting those classes.

I usually just panic and run away.

No, but constant pressure is pretty much the trick to downing Mesmers. Find the real one early and do your best to stay on him/her as much as possible. Force them to play defense first and you’re pretty much guaranteed a win as long as you play smart.

Thieves are tricky, since most of them are S/D now. I usually just play triple meditation in structured PvP these days in order to boon starve them (and not give Necros stuff to corrupt). That usually makes it a lot easier. In WvW though… I feel like my build is just capable of outlasting them as long as you can get used to blocking/blinding/dodging their larcenous strike and their burst. Between that they’re pretty much garbage.

It’s too bad they have the greatest ability to disengage currently, on top of all of their boon hate stealing and burst.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I usually just panic and run away.

I try to fight then i die.

Mesmers are easy to find because they’re the one that’s moving while the clones stand still and autoattack while phantasms are clearly labelled and use different weapons. They also stand still.

What I’ve found with my phantasm mesmer is the best way to get me is to spam blinds. If I’m blinded, my phantasm casts “miss” so I don’t even get one, my GS knockback misses and my pistol’s magic bullet misses. Against a shatter mesmer, just pop an invulnerability about half a second after being immobilised to completely negate their burst. Watch for a mesmer’s actual animations, phantasms casts are clearly identifiable so get ready to dodge.

aophts.9862:

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I usually just panic and run away.

I try to fight then i die.

Run away and hide in a friendly tower/keep/camp or zerg. If they are determined to fight me, I have to just try to knock some health off them and hope someone turns up before I die.

I usually call in for air strikes. Nothing like a pair of F-15’s dropping a few B-61’s to ruin their day and any future day for that matter.

Seriously though – out last them and wait for help to arrive. Usually works for me. Good players will either catch on and leave or wait for me to make a mistake (which happens) and get a goodie bag.

1. Activating Signet of Judgment is perfect for countering thieves and burst mesmers. Weakness is awesome.
2. Binding Blade will find targets that are in range even if they’re in stealth.
3. When you know a thief is nearby use a ward and run around on it, a thief will not have stability up.
4. Keep turning, not just moving, don’t leave your back open.
5. If a thief stealths, keep attacking it’ll still hit him even if you can’t see him.
6. Some mesmer spells can be reflected and if they hit it can make a clone of you.
7. If you don’t already, learn all of their skills so you’re never surprised.
8. Use Shield of Absorption to knock people back, you can instantly regain movement by taking one step backward.

Good thieves and mesmers won’t die, they’ll just run away, I consider that a win.

Excellent advice, thanks guys!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYgqC3FyIEf4ESmCRCBxUgRZ01DHiiYIA-jkyAYLAMGEZBgIAl9Y0YTgAVyioxqXwUnER1ejioVDA-w

this is the build i run in WvW, usually i’m just so tanky that thieves don’t even bother with me. on the rare occasion that i get singled out by a thief they either beat themselves up with the retaliation or spend so long trying to kill me that help arrives.

i think the longest fight i ever had with a single thief who i just would not let go was a little over 5 minutes. it started out with him trying to gank me, and ended with me running him down into the centaur camp and finally stomping him.

pistol dagger thieves are the worst however, but a good wall of reflection usually makes that problem solve itself.

Regarding dagger thieves … as other posters have noted, you have to be able to put pressure on them while surviving their burst.

I run a pretty standard 0/0/30/30/20 AH build with GS + Staff. Your goals when fighting a dagger thief with a build like this are:

1) Get Retaliation up ASAP and keep it up as long as you can
2) Put some damage out, forcing the thief to either eat the damage or back off
3) Survive the burst
4) Avoid and/or remove Poison, mostly from their dagger #1 chain
5) Prevent the escape

So how do you do this? Generally, the first thing I do when a thief opens is drop Symbol of Wrath, GS #3 leap, Whirling Wrath. The symbol gives you 5s of retaliation (baseline untraited) and does a decent amount of damage. The leap gives you another 5s and of course blinds. With the 25% trait you’re looking at 12.5s of retal. This combined with your WW, Leap, Symbol, and GS1 damage will take a good chunk of HP from a glass thief.

A good thief will back off and not fight in your symbol, not kill themselves on retal, and not eat your WW. However, the vast vast majority are not good, and are extremely greedy, which will get them killed.

At some point they will attempt to CnD you to re-enter stealth and Backstab you again, if you can dodge the CnD great, if not (or if the thief enters stealth some other way), you must not eat a 2nd Backstab, this is pretty much make it or break it here. Your primary options are dodge roll, Shelter, or pop VoC for Aegis. I typically use Shelter after counting to 2 here because I’m still missing a chunk of HP at this point, and the advantage of using a block over a dodge is that they will be destealthed by a blocked attack.

At this point it’s pretty much rinse and repeat, filling in with GS1. You’d be surprised how low many thieves get with the initial symbol combo here. If they pop Basilisk Venom you want to break it, if they pop Thieves’ Guild you want to dodge / stability through the ranged thief’s pull (you do slot SYG right?), and if possible, drop a Symbol and pull the mobs (and hopefully the player too) into the symbol + WW, and of course keep retaliation up as much as possible.

If the fight goes on for a long time or goes outside of this general sequence, you have to improvise, but the basic ideas / priorities are the same. Also keep in mind that thieves suffer from not having stability, which leads in to the final part of the fight, which is where the thief decides that they are losing and it’s time to run.

First of all, many thieves will get away — there is not a ton you can do about this. Our chasing power sucks compared to a thief’s escape, and chasing will often just get you killed when their CDs come back up, or zerged by their 10 friends.

However, there are cases where you can anticipate ‘the bail’ and secure the kill. I usually try to pre-Binding Blade them right before I think they’re about to bail. Ideally what you want to do is pull them into your symbol + Leap + WW combo. If they use Shadow Refuge to escape you just pull them right out of the SR radius and commence beatdown.

Staff #5 can also be used to cut off their escape (especially in enclosed spaces), or during the fight you can place it in between you and the thief and watch them get knocked down (often repeatedly) — this works best when your weapon swap CD is finished so that you can immediately swap back to GS and punish them while they are down. If they stealth you just pull immediately and use whatever you have to try to finish them off while they are knocked down in stealth at your feet. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But the basic idea is you want to knock them down a lot when they are sub-50% or so, and always pre-Binding Blade and wait until they stealth to pull.

If you use your CDs correctly you have the tools to rofl all over D/D thieves. Play aggressively and don’t be afraid to put some damage out, because while they are damaging you is your best opportunity to damage them, and many of them drop super fast. Hope this helps.

@Kintari

I always have a difficult time aganist Mesmers and Thieves too, in both PvP and WvW, either they kill me or they easly escape. I’ll try your tips, TY.

Also I must level both my mesmer and thief to see how their skills are.

In sPvP I kill every thief I find (only a great thief can make me problems) and I kill almost all the mesmer I find on my way.
Build 10-30-30-0-0 Berserker whit Meditations.
GS and Sword+Focus.
You block the fisrts attacks whit skill 5 of the focus, switch in GS, skill 5, grab it to you, skill 2, skill 3 and it’s at 1/3 of hp. Then swap to sword, skill 2, skill 3 while they try to flee. Then it’s only your ability don’t make them flee.
The same for mesmers.
If they use a defensive build, it’s only a little longer, but the way is the same.

You can heal your hp whit meditations, use the shelter to heal and block enemy attacks, and clean conditions whit the meditations.
And you’ve a very high DPS.
What do you want more to kill a thief?

I don’t fight mesmers unless I can’t avoid it. Thieves just avoid their burst with dodges, aegis, blocks, and invulns while they kill themselves on your retal.

—this is the video that completely changed my approach to theives:)

as for mesmers:: 1. keep track of the times for their phantasm like phantasmal berserker hits every 7seconds so you want to avoid that every 7seconds
2. have retaliation up, when they blurred frenzy if you do not block it, one way to do it is light fields/blast finisher
3. create space with leaps cause mesmers are slow too creating space gives you time to get your heals up and re engage the fight its also a good way to keep track of who the real mesmer is because they often assume your going to run away and start chasing
hope it helps