Guild Wars 2

i see 2 -3 guardians complain on thieves forums every day , cause they lose vs thieves.
As an main guardian with alt thief i will point here few advantages that you guys should use vs thieves, personaly i never lost to an thief, except situations when i engaged with half hp or at least 2-3 utility’s on reuse
your strongest point vs thief is Armor combined with retailation. Retailation will reflect an fixed amount of dmg / hit arround 700 DMG. So as long as you maximize your armor, you will get less dmg and he will need more hits to kill you.
You must understand that guardian’s damage don’t come from pure power and critical , is combined with burn and retailation. every second that you survive increases your chances to win an 1 v 1, because your pasive regeneration and strong heals even with 0 healing power.
you can keep up retailation from : traits: 10 points in honor aegis give retailation on removal. utility’s : S Y/ stand your ground / singet that reduce incoming damage.
Area of effect skill ( AOE)/: staf :1 ‘st skill /scepter 2’nd skill (smite)/ hammer 2’nd skill , or simply normal attacks on the area where thief used stealth will hit him
just because you cannot see him doesen’t mean you cannot damage him.
Save yourselves (S Y) : maybe the best utility in terms of 1 vs 1
when to use it : never and never start with save yourselves when you engage an thief, he will just stealth away if he is smart enough, use it after he used at least 3 skills on you, you can start with stand your ground for retailation.
Know your enemy : most of thieves will engage with steal: and they have enough initiative to spam 5-6 skills on you. If you survive that burst they will have 2 choices : retreat or die. then is the time to release ur arsenal , activate virtue of justice , save yourselves and start spam aoe on the area where they use stealth.
Best weapons vs thieves, i find scepter on top because smite aoe, imobilize and the ability to use an off hand.
what not to do when you face an thief:
1. never and never start with racial elites, S Y or J I , safe this skills to finish your enemy
2. never run from them, they will catch you , they will punish you hard for this mistake , you will take 2 x more DMG
3. don’t stay on low hp, an smart thief will save intiative for finish combo. if he stealth away and you are on half hp or below , use any heal you got available.

Shelter is also very good vs D/D Thieves. So is Ring of Warding. There’s nothing better than blocking a pair of Deathblossoms, immobilizing a thief, smacking them for 4k+ with Mighty Blow, and then Ring of Warding, and watch them try and run in panic, only to get knocked down 2-3 times. (Yes RoW does bug sometimes, but works more often than not)

Yep, totally agree.

You get hit that first time, thier shrowd graphics pop’s around you, hit SYG + WW. They will back off of thier burst and re-stealth.

Just wait for the graphics to show again and the first damage: hit SoW, switch to Hammer and RoW + MB.

They’re usually on the defensive now and trying to kite you or re-stealth. Pop Virtues for heals on next attack + Shelter and do some auto attacks.

Personally, my next chain is Imobbilze, MB → switch to GS LoF, Chain, Save Yoruselves & WW.

Save JI for when they run. And they do run.

this is great. keep them tips and strategies coming. : )))
one of the greatest mistakes i ever made vs a thief was like OP said, i tried to run. lol sigh. this was in my early days of WvW. and i don’t play THAT much so even now, i am not that great, but definitely know how to stand up against my opponents.

however, having 3 thieves come after you and bleeding you to death, there really wasn’t much i felt i could do. :/// (was bounc and crippled at the moment too sigh lol)

The only time a thief will ever kill a guardian is if you are in WvW and already low on health, and one gets the drop on you and manages to land that backstab burst that everyone whines about. Otherwise thieves have absolutely nothing threatening so you can just do whatever you want, especially in SPvP where that omg so op burst only does like 5k and is super easy to react to.

If you are facing multiple thieves the easiest way to deal with them is just to kill as many as you can as fast as you can. Thieves have very bad damage outside bleed spam, which is easily avoided and cleansed even if it hits, and are the squishiest class in the game by far, so you can probably just outtank two or even three thieves at once with no difficulty.

Also, if a thief stealths and tries to run, just use Binding Blade. It’ll still track him and you can just pull him back in and whirl him to death.

that’s what happened to me. my cleanses were all on CD :/// after another fight, 3 thieves caught me and i just bled. if not, it’d be a lot easier to deal with. got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. slowly upping my skills and i’m learning more of their animations and skills, etc.

and good to know though! that binding blade still tags even if they are stealthed. do you know if hammer’s zealot’s embrace does the same? although it works differently from binding blades iirc.

All great information so far. Retreat! is also a very nice skill to have, as the aegis can very well nullify a hit that would normally remove half your health while at the same time, for 20 seconds, ensure you move faster than the thief.

If I built specifically for thieves, I would probably use a Greatsword and Scepter. I personally use a GS and Staff though

How do you deal with pistol/condition thieves?

Their tactic seems to be just dancing at 900 range spamming Vital Shot and escaping if I manage to get close.

pure of voice or soldier runes will remove conditions when you shout.

I have personnaly no issues against Thiefs with my build. 1vs1 I don’t remember any Thief able to kill me.

If I would complaint against Thiefs it will because they are just fleeing anytime they lost (QQ stealth).

And fighting the invisible is boring.

chtiyonki.6284:

If I would complaint against Thiefs it will because they are just fleeing anytime they lost (QQ stealth).

That’s their mechanic and complaining about it is the same as them QQ’ing about us healing.

Ninjah.6298:

chtiyonki.6284:

If I would complaint against Thiefs it will because they are just fleeing anytime they lost (QQ stealth).

That’s their mechanic and complaining about it is the same as them QQ’ing about us healing.

with a little, tiny… HUGE difference!
a guardian cant handle an enemy that flee all the time, no control conditions and mid\log cd on control skills, you can stop for few seconds, but you cant kill em in that space of time(most of enemys have 20k+ life, and thief have a disangage skill on every weapon) but an enemy can still damage us when we are healing.
im not complaining because a thief can stealth and go away, but i complain the fact that i can do nothing to stop them… and you know, there are few methods to “counter” healing: Big damage hits and poisons ^^

edit:
about healing, a thief with a double sigil of blood and lifesteal food, can completely heal his life with some pistolwhip, or heavy skill spamming ^^

best way to kill a thief is to pop spirit hammer and stun him twice he will start running as hell and thats why you need to have teleport and scepter/focus and he is dead

Ganzo.5079:

Ninjah.6298:

chtiyonki.6284:

If I would complaint against Thiefs it will because they are just fleeing anytime they lost (QQ stealth).

That’s their mechanic and complaining about it is the same as them QQ’ing about us healing.

with a little, tiny… HUGE difference!
a guardian cant handle an enemy that flee all the time, no control conditions and mid\log cd on control skills, you can stop for few seconds, but you cant kill em in that space of time(most of enemys have 20k+ life, and thief have a disangage skill on every weapon) but an enemy can still damage us when we are healing.
im not complaining because a thief can stealth and go away, but i complain the fact that i can do nothing to stop them… and you know, there are few methods to “counter” healing: Big damage hits and poisons ^^

edit:
about healing, a thief with a double sigil of blood and lifesteal food, can completely heal his life with some pistolwhip, or heavy skill spamming ^^

This.

But they are lucky I have not enough tools to catch a good Thief, else they will all die :p

if its WvW, I just run from them. There is no point fighting them since its a fight you cannot “win”.

Just now there was a thief being a troll around the borderlands so I decided to see if I can stop him. I loaded my skillbar with as much cc as possible.
Everytime you get them in danger/low health they will have way too many teleports and stealth abilities to run away from you.

I was using Hammer:
-#3 is way too slow on animation not to mention projectile speed that they will just dodgeroll it
-#5 either gets dodge rolled out or they use one of their teleports

Along with the hammer, my utilities
-Judge’s Intervention: I teleported to him, cool but after that it was just nothing else. Used it with hammer #5 to get him inside but (see above)
-Signet: (Forgot its name but it does a knockdown) Despite being a slow cast, He got hit by it. 1.5 Seconds used to catch up to him 0.5 seconds to hit him once and he ran off.
-Signet: (Imobilize) I whiffed this one its my fault. I casted it while i was out of range.

So at that I decided its just not worth it. You can fill your skill bar with cc but youll have no other useful things. You can take a couple of cc but it wont be enough.
So yeah, if you see them. Fight them, if they run then go the opposite direction and ignore them.

Theives are the one class that you do ~not~ try to control. Let them control the fight. Let them feel secure in controlling.

If they feel the control, they will most likely not run becasue ~they’re in control~.

This fight is one of Reaction. React to them, don’t become the agressor. Then, once you know you’ve got them within your Burst for the kill, quickly switch → CC + Burst.

You only have 1 maybe 2 attempts before they run away.

Korgov.7645:

How do you deal with pistol/condition thieves?

Their tactic seems to be just dancing at 900 range spamming Vital Shot and escaping if I manage to get close.

Use Wall of Reflection to force them into melee combat. Some will continue to shoot themselves, others will run, most will enter stealth and attack up close. Rarely you will get a smart one who will wait out the duration. I try to counter this by pretending to run away, then attack as soon as they start chasing, but guardians won’t catch a smart thief who really wants to escape.

Amins.3710:

Theives are the one class that you do ~not~ try to control. Let them control the fight. Let them feel secure in controlling.

If they feel the control, they will most likely not run becasue ~they’re in control~.

This fight is one of Reaction. React to them, don’t become the agressor. Then, once you know you’ve got them within your Burst for the kill, quickly switch -> CC + Burst.

You only have 1 maybe 2 attempts before they run away.

^Yup this. I tend to only kill stubborn thieves that get in over their heads. Apparently many players think a guardian with a staff can’t weapon swap ;P

While I normally run a different setup when raiding, if there is an excessive amount of thieves going after me I normally run this setup in a 0/15/30/20/5 build:

Hammer, Scepter/Focus
Signet of Justice, Stand Ground, Save Yourself/JI

I usually have JI on, and unfortunately I cannot dictate the fight against a thief; i.e., I have to wait for him to engage, and when he tries to leave stealth prevents me from using JI+hammer #5 to pursue. So really, you survive initial assault with shouts/sig, then plop down ring around him to pummel him into submission. This is where the scepter comes into play, allowing you to root and drop the ring. You’ll have 2 blinds, several blocks, and ~10s of retaliation for the fight, which is more than enough.

Run with our blocking heal if you deem that better than our signet heal. Also, consider using a hydromancy sigil to freeze them upon weapon swap; very, very nice condition to hit thieves with to turn the tide. If I run my normal build, I’m 50% win rate against a thief who jumps me, and 10% rate if he’s with someone else. With my old shout+sig build, I generally mop them up 2 at a time.

Thieves are rather skittish but also overconfident, so if you can lure them to a cliff, enjoy the show.

I want you guys focus on one thing.
you think is right that a guadian must change his equiment\traits, to challeange different classes? now i now that one spec can be weaker than another to conditions or some kind of damage, but i thing that our class is too much unbalanced, other classes can play (and before someone say something i know that all the other classes need fix and adjustment) they spec they want to play, and be quite sure to win a fight if they play well, and im sorry to say that with guardian this thing is not true.

lemme say this… now our is a defensive class and its ok if we cant do 10k with a single skill damage but this doesnt mean that we have to be forced to use predefinite assets of weapons and skills to be quite effective.
be a defensive class in an action game like gw2, dont mean that we have to not move, and wait tha retaliation kill someone, but that we can control the damage output of our enemy, by block, by walls and domes(that for me they MUST BE impassable by an enemy) , by simbols, make them Waste skills, and if we are forced to play only on melee range, slow their movement.
This is what a call DEFENCE.

How to defeat a thief?

Well. Here is how I do it.

Thief comes running at me.

I scream like a newly reamed cub at the Fahrar. I Run. Run. Keep running. All while being backstabbed.

I keep healing myself. and despite the thiefs efforts. I live, and He has grown tired of plink plinking me with his puny daggers.

That doesn’t end the threat. A guardian’s job is to save the land from the darkness. The only thing you’ll be defending is the cemetery of your ally’s bodies. You need to do more than just block it, you need to end it.

I’ve read the complaints about thieves as well, but I never had trouble with one.
I also roamed quite a bit and fought 80, not upscaled thieves just to check how terrible they really are, but I found them surprisingly easy than expected.

I use a Greatsword mainly, and though most professions just avoid me overall by running from Symbol of Wrath and Whirling Wrath, melee professions have no choice but to take it on.

So, I think the key to these types of fight is to not let yourself get on the chase, make them feel you’re the “prey”. They will only run away when they see no more chances of winning, and that’s the only time you should chase.
Other than that, drop Symbols, hold your ground, and do the basics and you should have an easy time with them.

A few tips:

1. They hit hard only with backstabs, which if you see them going stealth with about half their health, expect it, and use Aegis or Blind skills (Virtue of Justice with 5 Radiance works great). Don’t instantly dodge when they stealth, wait a few seconds, and dodge (just don’t spam it during the fight since you don’t need to). You might get lucky and have them waste an attack.

2. When they’re stealthed, look for black shadows around, that’s an indication they re-stealthed or shadowstepped, and DODGE immediately! You’ll also have an general idea of their location (either on that spot or really close to you).

3. Binding Blade can be used right after when they stealth, I also suggest not using right at the start of a fight with one, but shortly before you expect the stealth – they’ll always use it after a few hits, around over 50% if you haven’t bursted them yet, or if you did, right after or during the burst.
This skill will follow them and you can have an general idea where they are. If you use it around 75% health, it lasts for 10 seconds, and right when they stealth you can pull them to yourself and Whirling Wrath, it’s almost a guaranteed way to make sure they’ll just use their stealth duration to run, and not to backstab you.

4. Keep spamming auto-attack during stealth! If your attack changes to the 2nd motion, it’s because you’ve hit them, so keep spamming that!

5. Some thieves will change to a ranged battle either right at the start or when they’re about to lose. If they’re full health, avoid them and look for a better location, one where you can get them out of line of sight to avoid their projectiles. Don’t waste projectile negation skills right away, you will need them.
If they’re low on health and started to run, they might still try to kite you. This is when you should use your Wall of Reflection, they might just finish themselves off.
If they’re smart, they’ll stop attacking and run, if they don’t run, prepare to Judge’s Intervention to chase away!

6. If you use Shelter or Renewed Focus, don’t use them when you’re low on health, use them when you expect the backstab. Don’t worry about “wasting” it, because they’d have wasted their stealth if they didn’t backstab you either. Though don’t forget to use Virtue of Courage first for the Aegis boon, but this might be a little riskier: before their backstab, some thieves deal damage with another skill that break your Aegis.
Use any of these at your own discretion.

Most of these are tips on how to deal with Stealth, because you shouldn’t have any trouble on a 1v1 with a Thief generally. Their attacks will be weak and yours will hit for stupid damage since their armor and health are weaker, granting you’re not using a glass cannon build/gear.

If the fight starts with a backstab, don’t worry panic! This is a bit tougher since you don’t want to be lower than 50% health at any time – Thieves have traits and skills that benefit from you having lower health, but you also don’t want to waste a Shelter and Virtues just to get back up to 100% and lose their utilities to deal with stealth, so for this you should think for yourself what’s the best time to use them.
You can use them now, and try to avoid the next backstab with dodges and Binding Blade for example, or you might attempt a burst (basically, Whirling Wrath with or without Binding Blade) to get them to stealth, and then using your CDs to get your health back up.

If you’re losing to Thieves, it is probably a gear/build issue (or you’re upscaled in WvW). On equal footing, Guardians have no problems with Thieves if you deal with Stealth properly.

My main is a Thief but I’m levelling up a guardian at the moment because I played a Warrior Priest throughout my time in WAR. One vital piece of information that many people don’t realise is that Thieves only have one stability skill and it’s on their Dagger Storm elite.

A thief’s biggest weaknesses are knockdown/blowouts, and immobilisation. The Guardian is probably the best equipped profession to counter a Thief, using things like retaliation, aegis, blowout, immobilise and knockdowns, and even blinds. Heavy toughness will reduce a fully buffed backstab critical to around 7k, non-critical will be around 3k (I have done extensive testing on these numbers, a full combo of mug/cnd/bs will average around 10k on heavy golem for the perfect storm combo).

With timing you can completely negate 2 out of 3 of the backstab combo by hitting F4 after your initial Aegis is soaked up by mug or cnd. As soon as that backstab is negated you have a couple of seconds to react and trap him before revealed is down, but even if he can stealth again, he wont be able to pull off the big combo for another 35-45 seconds (Assassin Sig and steal will be on cool down). This is the time you need to trap him with either a knockdown, immobilise or blowout, keeping retaliation up as much as possible so that he damages himself trying to damage you.

I Hope this adds some insight to how they work, I’m looking forward to mauling a few thieves on my new guardian

Ganzo.5079:

I want you guys to focus on one thing.
You think it is right that a Guardian must change his equipment\traits, to challenge different classes?

How is this any different from other professions. Necromancers need to spec condition damage to tackle Guardians, Warriors can’t use burst-specs against us. There are probably more examples, but the point is: You can’t be good against everything.

Ynna.8769:

Ganzo.5079:

I want you guys to focus on one thing.
You think it is right that a Guardian must change his equipment\traits, to challenge different classes?

How is this any different from other professions. Necromancers need to spec condition damage to tackle Guardians, Warriors can’t use burst-specs against us. There are probably more examples, but the point is: You can’t be good against everything.

Why quote only the inizial part, and miss totally the rest? i already stated that i know this, BUT you really cant justify a paper\rock\scissor sistem, when for 5 years the promise was exactly to broke this!

if my spec\equipment is less effective against a particular enemy, is ok, but if im challenged by someone(so i CANT change traist and weapon on the way) and my weapons are totally useless against him, there is something wrong.

Oddly, a spirit weapon build just chews thieves up.

The glowy hammer just decimates them and your burst just chews them up.

Ganzo.5079:

Why quote only the initial part, and totally miss the rest? I already stated that I know this, BUT you really can’t justify a paper\rock\scissor system, when for 5 years the promise was exactly to break this!

If my spec\equipment is less effective against a particular enemy, it’s OK, but if I’m challenged by someone(so I CAN’T change traits and weapon on the way) and my weapons are totally useless against him, there is something wrong.

I didn’t quote the whole thing for two reasons: 1) I disagreed with what you said and 2) I fix spelling and grammar in posts I quote, and your post would take to long to correct.

It’s impossible to make every spec/weapon combination/utility load-out… effective against every other playstyle. If I build a low-health/high damage Guardians, and I get completely pummeled by a condition Necromancer with high Vitality, the fault is in my build, not with the game. If you are getting reliably owned by Thieves, there’s something wrong with your build. You can’t prepare for everything and you can’t be strong against everything all at once.
No weapon is ever completely useless. I really don’t get what you’re talking about.

Have you try to handle a warrior or a thief when you have only staff and scepter on hands?.. i do this mistake a couple of time, and maybe im a complete incompetent with theese 2 weapons, but without change my weapons on the way, when i run this combo, i simply can do nothing. Now on WvW i run always with the inventory open, so i can try to change weapons before being engaged

Swapping weapons out of combat is indeed a bit more complicated than it should be.
But really, are you good against other professions with a Staff out? As a strictly combat-weapon it’s pretty bad in pretty much every scenario.

People want to do everything with their own opininion and kill what they want having 140% shure that they are untoutchable, i believe the most players complaining the “they cant do stuff” are being a little slackers and dont want to move much the mouse *

GW2 is a action mmo, and being that you must need fast actions and decisions, ""when i notice them"" i try to adapt traits and utility skills fast as i can before entering in combat.

Guardian is very well made for frontline situations, some utilities are just meh…

PS: sorry the bad english :<

Spirit weapons chew thieves up. The Hammer is lethal against them despite how much I hate that skill. I personally found most meditation builds effective against them combined with a mace/Shield and Hammer for when they decide to pull a runner. 1vs1 encounters usually result in a victory. However when there are 2 on me its usually goodnight Irene. They shouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as you don’t do the following.

- Turn Your back against them.
- Back peddle allowing them to strafe around you.
- Allow them to utilise the full duration of their stun.
- Roll or run into their spikes.

Why doesn’t anyone address the real issue:
We have to spec defense to fight a thief because let’s be honest here, their glass cannon specs survivability puts our classes glass specs survivability to utter shame.

A thief CAN roll full offense while taking complete advantage of a mechanic that offers 100% protection. If both classes blow their combo and fail, a thief has a much better chance of resetting the fight. It’s not even close.

“Just swing your weapon where they vanished” no other class except Mesmer can even touch that kind of survivability when spec for full glass.

The problem isn’t their burst so much as it is their survivability being extreme. I have a thief I pvp with often. Sound like a lot of you come across some scrubs.

We have to spec defense to fight a thief because let’s be honest here, their glass cannon specs survivability puts our classes glass specs survivability to utter shame.

I think this part basically counts for all classes, not just guardians and Anet already knows about this so expect changes to burst damage in the coming future.

Polle.6908:

We have to spec defense to fight a thief because let’s be honest here, their glass cannon specs survivability puts our classes glass specs survivability to utter shame.

I think this part basically counts for all classes, not just guardians and Anet already knows about this so expect changes to burst damage in the coming future.

I usually end up in a downed battle with thieves if they actually stick around. Its kind of funny.

the only way to do thief is to block his attack in any way possible: aegis x 3 (aegis is refreshed + aegis activated + aegis from “Retreat” + aegis refreshed from Renewed Focus) and blind x 2 from the usage of traited Virtue of Justice.

This chain should bring a thief in line and in par with you if not outright do him.

Even in dps gear – prot traits, in full CD fight, this works nicelly. A setup with shouts cleansing conditions (Soldier Rune) will make things alot easier.