Guild Wars 2

For Wpvp I mean..

something like 20/25/20/0/5 idea?’

Go with knights and valk gear..

Running exactly this in PvE, no idea how it’ll work in any kind of pvp but it melts mobs like nobody’s business.

GS + Staff for a while in WvW using either 20/20/0/0/30 or 10/20/0/10/30. It’s pretty good except for the part where stealth spamming thieves eat your face :/

Stealth is essentially a complete immunity to single target attacks, which is entirely what a GS/Staff set up is. In the end, not being able to deal with stealth spamming thieves was too big of a problem in WvW, considering they are everywhere.

I find sword/(any offhand) necessary for fighting thieves. The immobilize, invulnerability, and offhand utility (stun/pull/stealth/block) is invaluable.

I use this setup with 0/20/20/0/30, and it works great in wvw. The trick with thieves is to use shatters liberally since they are aoe and (in my build) inflict confusion, which means every time they stealth they are just killing themselves. I’ve killed countless thieves this way, though you usually have to look around a bit before you find them on the ground to finish them off. Also, the GS5 knock back is great for knocking thieves out of their shadow refuge, not to mention knocking people off cliffs. With illusionary persona, staff 2, and blink, thieves shouldn’t really be a problem. Runes of Air can help too, due to the 20% lightning strike, and the speed is very nice to boot.

Eliyahu.1467:

GS + Staff for a while in WvW using either 20/20/0/0/30 or 10/20/0/10/30. It’s pretty good except for the part where stealth spamming thieves eat your face :/

Stealth is essentially a complete immunity to single target attacks, which is entirely what a GS/Staff set up is. In the end, not being able to deal with stealth spamming thieves was too big of a problem in WvW, considering they are everywhere.

I find sword/(any offhand) necessary for fighting thieves. The immobilize, invulnerability, and offhand utility (stun/pull/stealth/block) is invaluable.

ehmm put a chaos storm under yourself for the block if you know a thief is around in stealth as just one simple solution, staff gives a LOT of good tools tbh against stealth thieves

GummiBear.2756:

Eliyahu.1467:

GS + Staff for a while in WvW using either 20/20/0/0/30 or 10/20/0/10/30. It’s pretty good except for the part where stealth spamming thieves eat your face :/

Stealth is essentially a complete immunity to single target attacks, which is entirely what a GS/Staff set up is. In the end, not being able to deal with stealth spamming thieves was too big of a problem in WvW, considering they are everywhere.

I find sword/(any offhand) necessary for fighting thieves. The immobilize, invulnerability, and offhand utility (stun/pull/stealth/block) is invaluable.

ehmm put a chaos storm under yourself for the block if you know a thief is around in stealth as just one simple solution, staff gives a LOT of good tools tbh against stealth thieves

Oh sure, you can play defensively for a while but that thief’s health pool is never going to drop and he is most certainly not going to die.

Moxic.5892:

I use this setup with 0/20/20/0/30, and it works great in wvw. The trick with thieves is to use shatters liberally since they are aoe and (in my build) inflict confusion, which means every time they stealth they are just killing themselves. I’ve killed countless thieves this way, though you usually have to look around a bit before you find them on the ground to finish them off. Also, the GS5 knock back is great for knocking thieves out of their shadow refuge, not to mention knocking people off cliffs. With illusionary persona, staff 2, and blink, thieves shouldn’t really be a problem. Runes of Air can help too, due to the 20% lightning strike, and the speed is very nice to boot.

I don’t know what you’re talking about as far as Confusion on stealth thieves. A] they’ll just remove confusion in stealth because they’ve traited for it or B] they’ll simply wait in stealth for the majority of the duration.

Plus, the main stealth thief builds run valkyrie gear (D/D) or carrion gear (P/D) giving enough survivability to survive a round of shatters — if the shatters hit at all, which is difficult to guarantee with no hard cc or immobilize readily available.

And I’ll reiterate my point earlier that all of the damage in the build (outside of shatters) is single target which cannot hit stealthed targets — including phantasm summoning (if your target stealths while you are summoning, you will not summon the phantasm).

The end result is that while you have a decent bit of survivability, the thief will always outlast you in a fight.

@Eliyaho – I don’t know what to say, as we seem to have very different experiences in dealing with thieves. Maybe you’re not shattering enough? Illusionary persona also gives an extra shatter, and you can do 7+ shatter combos pretty kitten quick, so they might clear conditions once, but rarely twice within the span of a couple seconds.

Moxic.5892:

@Eliyaho – I don’t know what to say, as we seem to have very different experiences in dealing with thieves. Maybe you’re not shattering enough? Illusionary persona also gives an extra shatter, and you can do 7+ shatter combos pretty kitten quick, so they might clear conditions once, but rarely twice within the span of a couple seconds.

If you do a 7+ shatter combo they only need to clear conditions once to get rid on the confusion — then your only additional source of confusion is your daze shatter. Not to mention confusion will barely hurt a stealth spamming thief especially when you’re not running +condition damage. Stealth thieves are all about initiative management and waiting out the duration of their stealth before attacking again. In no situation will they be spamming skills if they’re being played properly.

You seem to think 1 shatter combo is enough to down stealth spamming thieves sans any sort of reliable burst from your weapons. I don’t see how this is possible. Not even full berserkers will deal 19k damage from Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration alone.

I never said the shatters alone would down them, they do tend to finish the job after the opening fray. In regards how permastealth thieves manage their initiative and stealth/condition clearing, all I can say is that theory is vastly different than application.

I’unno,
I’m with Moxic on this one.

The only time I lose to thieves is when I get ganked while I’m fighting someone else.
In direct 1v1 encounters with thieves I just about never lose.

Not all thieves trait for condition removal in stealth,
And the ones that do are generally the ones who trait for max stealth and usually do complete kitten for damage and should never be able to kill you either.
Cry of Frustration is, in fact, very valuable against gank thieves.
Most of them are bads who won’t even realize they have confusion

Just fight with them until they drop shadow refuge then pull or knock them out of it.
That is just about always the turning point in the fight.

Lysico.4906:

For Wpvp I mean..

something like 20/25/20/0/5 idea?’

Go with knights and valk gear..

IMO you absolutely need the Bounce trait or your Staff will do super low damage, which is the big problem, because it basically forces you 20p into two trees just to make one weapon good in PvP (CD reduction talent is a must IMO since 5sec Phase Retreat = awesomest).
I give up GS specialization trait, because GS still kinda works without it, but Staff doesn’t work at all without the aforementioned 20p in Chaos and Illusions. Really wish they would make the Bounce trait a Tier 1 trait.

i run GS / Staff and i have never had too much of a problem with thieves well used CD’s sort them out, once i’m home from work i can elaborate.

I’ve been using this for a while in WvW now and it’s actually pretty effective in zerg v zerg gameplay and then it’s alright in small groups/solo roam.

I usually go 20/20/0/0/30 and pick up the three glamour = confusion traits in those lines. Put on Carrion Armor, with PTV trinkets and weapons and you’re extremely tanky, but stack enough power for your iBeserker to give added burst.

GS is offensive and for CC with the knockback and then Staff is great defensive and useful for in-combat mobility when you get too close.

95% of mesmers in WvW use the same phantasamal focused GS build. Of all classes, mesmer has the least build variation in WvW. And you know, that gs thing is simpler to run than most thief builds. D;