Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, I’ve been having some major problems with thieves in world vs world, namely their damage taking me at an obscene rate despite fobbing them off with illusions and doing next to nothing to them. What do you guys do to smash those vile invisible gits?

Chaos storm on you if you use staff(to get aegis), dodge, stealth (if you have it moa while on stealth) and if you survived they have nothing left to use after theyr huge burst. Also phase retreat will move you back if you are knocked down, youll still be knocked but away from the thief. At least thats how average thieves work, good ones, well they are not that easy
Most thieves i saw rely completly in killing fast or run if the couldt.

I had problems with thieves for awhile. But in WvW most thieves rely on specific combos to take you out quick.. It’s usually quite easy to throw them off their game which is all you need to do.

For example, in one situation. As soon as they jump on me I will immediately blink away, usually when they first get on you they are going to spam some huge abilities as fast as possible, when you blink away a lot of times they will stand there and waste some initiative.. Next you have to predict the next move, some will steal to gain back the ground and others will stealth and move in on you. In either case stealthing yourself at the correct time with decoy will really throw them off their game again and you usually find them dumping some huge abilities on your decoy clone. This is the time to go full offensive and throw everything you have at them, they are quite squishy and are usually running away or dying within seconds at this point.

well 3 skills u have to get ready to counter all the times.
1-Dagger Storm
2-Thieves Guild
3-Shadow Refuge

Many use it in WvW and when u 1v1 any thief (pro maybe) u might be dead b4 u have time to hit him >.<.

Dank is right. They rely on specific combos to burst down their foes and most will run away when they cant … ( best runaway profession imo).

Make good use of your Decoy and Blink at the right time.

GS #5 and Pistol #2 kinda help keep them off you when well timed.

the occasional cripple from iBerseker going to help a lot with the kiting too.

Finally make good use of your clones.

Do not go on melee with them unless for Blurry Frenzy. They cripple a lot and the burst on melee is far greater than their range.

And as dank already mentioned u must predict his move nothing more.

PS: I personally use GS Sword/Pistol and sometimes Sword/Sword and lucky me all the thieves i encountered so far either ran away or got owned XD.

I use staff / scepter+focus and lived through my encounter with Decoy as well as Staff 2 (one of the best mesmer weapon skills in my game), alone with chaos armor and chaos storm.

Tbh he hit me so hard at first I was a bit panic’d. Ultimately he ran because I didn’t drop right away. My build is 0/0/25/25/20 which probably helped my longevity a bit.

They dam hurt and cause panic when they come out of stealth and attack you agree…

60% of Thieves fail if you Blink immediately.

The next 30% fail when you use Decoy or any defensive ability after the Blink.

After that, it depends. Blinking is the #1 counter though, because it moves you out of their burst combo. Many opening combos include Immobilize, Stun, and/or Daze — Decoy will not help you because their damage will still hit you (PW or Heartseeker trolol). Most will burn way too much initiative whiffing to follow up effectively.

They only kill me if I am pushing myself out there a bit too far, but I can never kill them if they are smart and run away. I guess thats the balance.

Thank you very much for all the feedback, I’ll give each approach a try until I stop failing against thieves!

fastcast blink > all melee burst combos

man mesmers have so many useful anti attacks it’s ridculous, manipulation skills are your friend, you have the #2 staff skill, @2 sword skill, #5 GS skill and other great tools to render your opponents hopeless. the only time a theif beats me is when im on another fight and I get ambushed/stunlocked outta nowhere with my stun breaks on cd.

fight stealth with stealth…

I’ve found tanky theives to be much more scary than the current trend of massive burst which can be easily countered with blink/decoy. Thankfully the are quite rare, at least for the moment.

Fight spamming abilities with confusion (Chaos Armor will just do it fine + Chaos Storm to apply Weakness/Aegis and add an other Chaos Armor) and or retaliation (don’t count too much on it because you don’t have any reliable way to have it).

Try to get some burst to finish them before they stealth (Mirror Images + Mind Wrack why not).

Heal yourself as soon as they go stealth. Remove poison before.