Guild Wars 2

can someone give me a build and hints on how you are dealing with these two classes?
everyone seems to be playing these two and rangers.
but i have no clue what to spec for against thieves. i use a shout build and stack toughness vital at the moment but they seem to chew through my cooldowns with their own and then both classes just blow me away with their elite.

Are the thieves specing into Venomous Aura and using Thieves Guild? If yes, you’re pretty much f—ked no matter what your build is.

If the mesmers bring Moa, you’re doom to fight him. The moa form will totally nullify our elite Tome of Courage.

build vitality, get condition removers and invest in signet of Wrath. A Mesmer or thief that stands still is as good as dead.

I never had any real problems with Thieves. They come in, seem to blow all their damage skills (which I don’t really have a problem surviving most of the time) and then I smack them around a bit with my Hammer. When they enter stealth I either AoE smack the ground or switch to my Sword/Shield and use Shield of Judgment. Most of my fights against Thieves end up with them dead, or running away.
Mesmers are tougher. The amount of Conditions they can put up in a short time can easily overpower even a defensive Guardian. The Moa ability can also be hard to recuperate from.
Try to keep the conditions on you to a minimum (this is probably the weakness of my build) or counter them with boons of your own. Phantasms and, especially, Clones can be a pain as well. Try to figure out who’s the real Mesmer (it’s usually the one moving or using interesting abilities) and pummel him/her as much as possible. Do try to use AoE while doing so (even the #1 attack from the Sword can be good enough) because the Clones can rack up damage pretty quick, but die easily.

thief is all about whether you can survive the lol-onebuttonspam burst. If you can *use blocks, invuls etc) then they die….or rather they stealth and run away stupidly fast so you cant catch them…..

Mesmers, kill phantasms, ignore clones (random aoe them), keep moving so shatters dont hit you. Try to keep dmg on teh mesmer, at least cleave/incidental dmg when taking out phatasms. Clear conditions if ou can, and watch out for confusion. If you get Moa’s either run(you can dodge) or attack the mesmer! Dont get all pannicy and do nothing.
Clones do not have offhands, clones either do not move or move predictably (ie into melee range) clones attack slower than the mesmer. But its pretty easy to spot a mesmer really.
Its hard to be specific as you’ll require different tactics if its a shatter build or a condition build or a phantasm tank.

Oh ya, forgot to mention a trick. If you fight a mesmer, mark him. Make it so much easier to find him in the millions of clones.

How do you mark?

The default set up is Ctrl + T.

Trungalung.7850:

Are the thieves specing into Venomous Aura and using Thieves Guild? If yes, you’re pretty much f—ked no matter what your build is.

If the mesmers bring Moa, you’re doom to fight him. The moa form will totally nullify our elite Tome of Courage.

Run away while in Moa. You can also still dodge.

If a smart mesmer is ready to Moa, he’s going for the kill. How do you know he’s smart? He moa’ed when the opponent just dodged twice while at half hp.

Trungalung.7850:

If a smart mesmer is ready to Moa, he’s going for the kill. How do you know he’s smart? He moa’ed when the opponent just dodged twice while at half hp.

Truth…but you’re giving most players WAY too much credit. Besides…you can still run away while in Moa. It’s what I do, and it works. Run away and break LoS as much as possible while doing it.

On a related side note. I actually had someone try and facetank my Mesmer while Moa’d for the entire 10 second duration. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out well for them. Moral of the story; don’t facetank as a Moa.

Thiefs can usually hit me for half my HP in their opener, but I can basically outheal them in my +Heailng set to the point I outlast them.

crewthief.8649:

Trungalung.7850:

If a smart mesmer is ready to Moa, he’s going for the kill. How do you know he’s smart? He moa’ed when the opponent just dodged twice while at half hp.

Truth…but you’re giving most players WAY too much credit. Besides…you can still run away while in Moa. It’s what I do, and it works. Run away and break LoS as much as possible while doing it.

It’s true that I give players too much credit. I have to. When I fight, I expect the other player to give 100%. If I don’t, I’ll start to get careless. So when I eventually run into the player that gives 100%, I’ll make more mistakes against him.

@Trungalung – I think you missed the point. If they wait until you’re out of endurance, then just run away. If they don’t anticipate that, then dodge AND run away. This has nothing to do with underestimating your opponent. Just that 9 out of 10 Mesmers are not going to wait for the precise moment that you’ve run out of endurance to Moa you.

crewthief.8649:

@Trungalung – I think you missed the point. If they wait until you’re out of endurance, then just run away. If they don’t anticipate that, then dodge AND run away. This has nothing to do with underestimating your opponent. Just that 9 out of 10 Mesmers are not going to wait for the precise moment that you’ve run out of endurance to Moa you.

They don’t really need to wait til a full two dodge to even use moa. They can just wait til your heal spell to come back up, then Moa you while you try to heal. You will generally have only enough endurance for one dodge when you’re in Moa form (you were fighting, so I don’t expect you to have full endurance). Well, the only choice is to LoS or run away. The mesmer should have been expecting that you will start running away when you get Moa’ed so he should be in melee already to minimize the chasing distance (this is even easier against guardian because most of our builds are melee base). When you get out of Moa and try to heal, you’ll get clone daze and pistol stun.

Not that I’ve ever lost to a mesmer. My meditation build gives me the needed survivability to overcome Moa + interrupts.

Trungalung.7850:

crewthief.8649:

@Trungalung – I think you missed the point. If they wait until you’re out of endurance, then just run away. If they don’t anticipate that, then dodge AND run away. This has nothing to do with underestimating your opponent. Just that 9 out of 10 Mesmers are not going to wait for the precise moment that you’ve run out of endurance to Moa you.

They don’t really need to wait til a full two dodge to even use moa. They can just wait til you use your heal spell to come back up, then Moa you while you try to heal. You will generally have only enough endurance for one dodge when you’re in Moa form (you were fighting, so I don’t expect you to have full endurance). Well, the only choice is to LoS or run away. The mesmer should have been expecting that you will start running away when you get Moa’ed so he should be in melee already to minimize the chasing distance (this is even easier against guardian because most of our builds are melee base). When you get out of Moa and try to heal, you’ll get clone daze and pistol stun.

Not that I’ve ever lost to a mesmer. My meditation build gives me the needed survivability to overcome Moa + interrupts.

Well, against a very good player…you’re gonna be in for a tough fight regardless of class. My post was directed specifically at your scenario, which was the Mesmer waiting for you to dodge twice THEN Moa. Of course he could vary it, and a good player will adapt depending on the situation. I was simply stating that in the average confrontation, when Moa’d, i’ve found running away/dodging and breaking LoS to be a reasonably reliable method of dealing with it. I think we can both agree that this is certainly a far more sound approach than hanging around and attempting to facetank the Mesmer.

Of course, it’s probably the only choice you have when you get Moa’ed. I’m still trying to find out if I can block Moa/Daze with Shield of Avenger. If it does, I can pop it and use Tome of Courage and bait his Moa.

if you are using a shout build, ‘Save Yourselves’ is like thief-be-gone spray. They see their own health drop so fast while you are sitting there taking it, they typically just run away. Make sure to pop it immediately when you get jumped.