Sorry for pestering so much recently :P
Ive got a big duel coming up against a thief and i was thinking up of a few builds to counter anything he could try and throw at me, now this guy is a D/D thief and well known for it, i cant imagine him rolling conditions but i put a bit of condition removal in there for safety incase he has immobs up his sleeve,
in the past ive had a lot of success against thieves using Offhand sword with the counter, it seems to be defensive and VERY offensive at the same time, and i used to (way before they added torment) run a Scepter offhand sword counter build, so i was thinking if it would be viable to try and run this again to counter his attacks, i reduced both counters as much as i could and thought it could be possible to combine with a shatter to make a new shatter build that he would never expect.
The idea is that when he comes in for the attack i put up my counter, he hits it and takes damage (offhandsword) then i immediatly shatter for a dual shatter from the clone that is summoned, then i would have the other counter to fall back on.
I question 20 in insp though – might be better off 10 in dom for mental torment, or chaos for blink cooldown.
even though its only 2 secs difference, the scepter reduction really gives you breathing space knowing that you have a fast spammable counter, 2 secs can feel like an eternity with thieves :P, its the defensive counter but yeah youre right, i could change that tbh, ive got a friend im gonna be training on tonight (poor guy :C) so ill try that ty
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
You need a GS to throw him away from the Shadow Refuge. Staff is not “that” good when fighting a thief.
Also, I prefer the Pistol over the off hand Sword, because the Phantasm Bullets will follow the thief when he stealths.
Don’t try a Phantasm based build because it’s really hard to kill a D/D with a zerker phantasm build.
I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.
you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on our server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for me, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
You need a GS to throw him away from the Shadow Refuge. Staff is not “that” good when fighting a thief.
Also, I prefer the Pistol over the off hand Sword, because the Phantasm Bullets will follow the thief when he stealths.
that didnt even occur to me tbh xD, the extremley short cooldowns on my counters had set me on a one track mind, that may have to change in the build ty
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.
you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on out server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for him, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0
It doesn’t really matter whether he ‘sees that coming’.
A duel between skilled players has a different dynamic than a duel between unskilled players. In unskilled players duels end up being build vs build. However, with skilled players the only requirement for the builds is simply that they work. Past that point, it becomes a question of skill.
Either a PU condition build or a shatter build or a phantasm build will serve to beat any thief build. The only question that remains is whether you have the skill to see it through.
I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.
you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on out server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for him, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0
It doesn’t really matter whether he ‘sees that coming’.
A duel between skilled players has a different dynamic than a duel between unskilled players. In unskilled players duels end up being build vs build. However, with skilled players the only requirement for the builds is simply that they work. Past that point, it becomes a question of skill.
Either a PU condition build or a shatter build or a phantasm build will serve to beat any thief build. The only question that remains is whether you have the skill to see it through.
oh cmon lol i rarely take and offensive stature in my comments but thats a bit of a mean thing to say, so youre telling me that if i dont beat him with the obvious and easy to counter phantasm build then im unskilled, this guy is good, phantasm isnt going to work, no matter how good the player is, i need somehting that he is unfamiliar with, duels tend to come down to precision of CD rotation compared to the other player, especially in power fights like a mesmer/thief
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.
you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on out server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for him, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0
It doesn’t really matter whether he ‘sees that coming’.
A duel between skilled players has a different dynamic than a duel between unskilled players. In unskilled players duels end up being build vs build. However, with skilled players the only requirement for the builds is simply that they work. Past that point, it becomes a question of skill.
Either a PU condition build or a shatter build or a phantasm build will serve to beat any thief build. The only question that remains is whether you have the skill to see it through.
oh cmon lol i rarely take and offensive stature in my comments but thats a bit of a mean thing to say, so youre telling me that if i dont beat him with the obvious and easy to counter phantasm build then im unskilled, this guy is good, phantasm isnt going to work, no matter how good the player is, i need somehting that he is unfamiliar with, duels tend to come down to precision of CD rotation compared to the other player, especially in power fights like a mesmer/thief
I didn’t say that you are unskilled if you lose. I said that you would simply be less skilled than him. That is the point of a duel, is it not? To determine who is the most skilled player.
Again, if you read what I said, I didn’t say that those builds are the obvious and easy counter. I said that those builds can counter any thief build. I also said that in fights where both players are skilled, the only requirement for a build is that it can work. All of those builds fit that criterion, therefor you can use any of them in the duel, and it will ultimately come down to player skill.
If he is more skilled, you lose, if you are more skilled, you win. That’s sorta how things work…
I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.
you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on out server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for him, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0
It doesn’t really matter whether he ‘sees that coming’.
A duel between skilled players has a different dynamic than a duel between unskilled players. In unskilled players duels end up being build vs build. However, with skilled players the only requirement for the builds is simply that they work. Past that point, it becomes a question of skill.
Either a PU condition build or a shatter build or a phantasm build will serve to beat any thief build. The only question that remains is whether you have the skill to see it through.
oh cmon lol i rarely take and offensive stature in my comments but thats a bit of a mean thing to say, so youre telling me that if i dont beat him with the obvious and easy to counter phantasm build then im unskilled, this guy is good, phantasm isnt going to work, no matter how good the player is, i need somehting that he is unfamiliar with, duels tend to come down to precision of CD rotation compared to the other player, especially in power fights like a mesmer/thief
PU condition is simply unbeatable by a D/D thief. Just remember to shatter your illusions everytime to deny him stealth (which he will need to cleanse conditions).
You can even go GS/Sc+P or GS/Sc+T for absolute denial.
No matter how you look at it, unless he rolls a P/D condi set, you will be absolutely fine with a standard 20 20 30 0 0 bandwagon PU condi build.
@pyro, i understand the point your trying to say but i believe winning a duel takes an equal combination of a good build (variable), skill, and knowledge (tactic diversity). its whats got me as far as it does, any player can have skill as soon as they pick up the game, but a player with skill who’s just picked up the game without any prior research wont have a good build or tactic diversity and will lose each time.
@Hihey, im not 100% sure but i think he’s running lyssa runes for his duel build, would that make using a Condi mesmer difficult?
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
PU condition is simply unbeatable by a D/D thief. Just remember to shatter your illusions everytime to deny him stealth (which he will need to cleanse conditions).
How does shattering deny a thief stealth? Could you explain a bit more about how you’d use this build to beat a d/d thief?
It’s not that easy since, at least for me, when i shatter my clones for F1-3 without a target the shatter is delayed by ~1s, but if they shatter the moment before a thief tries to CnD off them, he fails and thus loses initiative.
Shatter builds are great VS thieves in particular glass cannon thieves.
Honestly the best thing you can do to learn vs thieves is level one up and try to play one. I suck at my thief but i’ve played him enough to know what it is a thief is thinking to be able to counter it.
The fact that a thief has to touch you and you can self shatter for massive damage makes the thieves job very difficult. I used to spend evenings solo roaming looking for skilled thieves to fight. The number one rule fighting a thief is to always be at max range. When they stealth you need to juke the opposite direction so that a CND is hard to use or they can’t get in range of a backstab in 4 seconds. Blink the opposite way, use staff 2 at the 2 second mark, use blurred frenzy at 2 seconds. Anything that can be done to evade about 1.5 seconds after the thief stealths.
Fighting thieves is still my favorite thing to do roaming.
Some people come onto the forums just to argue. Ignore them.
Shatter builds are great VS thieves in particular glass cannon thieves.
Honestly the best thing you can do to learn vs thieves is level one up and try to play one. I suck at my thief but i’ve played him enough to know what it is a thief is thinking to be able to counter it.
The fact that a thief has to touch you and you can self shatter for massive damage makes the thieves job very difficult. I used to spend evenings solo roaming looking for skilled thieves to fight. The number one rule fighting a thief is to always be at max range. When they stealth you need to juke the opposite direction so that a CND is hard to use or they can’t get in range of a backstab in 4 seconds. Blink the opposite way, use staff 2 at the 2 second mark, use blurred frenzy at 2 seconds. Anything that can be done to evade about 1.5 seconds after the thief stealths.
Fighting thieves is still my favorite thing to do roaming.
Some people come onto the forums just to argue. Ignore them.
Just keep experimenting.
ive got to be careful not to blow all my CD’s though as a duel between zerk usually ends up being a rotation battle, mainly the reason why its easier for thieves with no CD’s
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
Shatter builds are great VS thieves in particular glass cannon thieves.
Honestly the best thing you can do to learn vs thieves is level one up and try to play one. I suck at my thief but i’ve played him enough to know what it is a thief is thinking to be able to counter it.
The fact that a thief has to touch you and you can self shatter for massive damage makes the thieves job very difficult. I used to spend evenings solo roaming looking for skilled thieves to fight. The number one rule fighting a thief is to always be at max range. When they stealth you need to juke the opposite direction so that a CND is hard to use or they can’t get in range of a backstab in 4 seconds. Blink the opposite way, use staff 2 at the 2 second mark, use blurred frenzy at 2 seconds. Anything that can be done to evade about 1.5 seconds after the thief stealths.
Fighting thieves is still my favorite thing to do roaming.
Some people come onto the forums just to argue. Ignore them.
Just keep experimenting.
ive got to be careful not to blow all my CD’s though as a duel between zerk usually ends up being a rotation battle, mainly the reason why its easier for thieves with no CD’s
If you miss your F3 you will be in a really bad situation
Anyway, I’ll give you a tip as a Shatter Mesmer:
When he moves near you to land his Cloak and Dagger, use Mantra of Distraction for an istant Daze. He will most likely dodge, so start channeling the Pistol #5 skill to stun him the moment he dodges. Then start your shatter combo (iLeap→Mind Wrack).
If he is any decent, he will Shadowstep the moment you cast iLeap.
Then you should attempt to do the same with the second charge of Mantra of Distraction, but this time without using the Pistol stun (just wait after he dodges for swapping with your clone).
He will most likely be at low HP now, and he will either Heal or cast Shadow Refuge (or both). If he heals, you must make good use of your Invulns+Evades+F3 Daze to wait until the Pistol Stun is ready again (you can always attempt an iLeap combo, but it’s hard to land it unless you predict his dodge).
If he uses Shadow Refuge, swap to GS and throw him out.
This tactic has proven useful a lot of times when fighting DD thieves. It relies on the fact that no one dodges 2 times in a low, unless they are at low HP. So if you “force” him into dodging, you will have an easier time landing your skills.
Ran in Spvp with a few friends last night against all types of thieves, i have to say that this build is absolutely delicious xD it feels so safe against them with the counters, and i took your advice hihey with taking the GS it works like a charm just to switch for that one knockback skill, i tested this build against some other classes and the one that it was terrible against was another mesmer, the fact that the enemies clones proc your blocks is bad but something is worse with the counters, if a clone procs your counter from your off-hand sword the dps will hit the clone, NOT your target, this severly reduces dps against classes and in group situations (after testing in WvW) it works like a charm it can be quite frustrating trying to focus dps onto a single target, so i think im just going to keep this build specifically for killing thieves :P
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
Ran in Spvp with a few friends last night against all types of thieves, i have to say that this build is absolutely delicious xD it feels so safe against them with the counters, and i took your advice hihey with taking the GS it works like a charm just to switch for that one knockback skill, i tested this build against some other classes and the one that it was terrible against was another mesmer, the fact that the enemies clones proc your blocks is bad but something is worse with the counters, if a clone procs your counter from your off-hand sword the dps will hit the clone, NOT your target, this severly reduces dps against classes and in group situations (after testing in WvW) it works like a charm it can be quite frustrating trying to focus dps onto a single target, so i think im just going to keep this build specifically for killing thieves :P
This is the main reason I don’t like to run with those blocks regularly.
Great against thieves, but as soon as you throw pet classes into the mix, the chance those counters will hit their intended targets is not great.
I have to say I was also not fond of the torment addition to iCounter – preferred the direct damage.
Sword thief don’t care what he hits. As long as you aren’t running cripple on shatter, you’ll lose to any decent sword thief.
That’s like saying you’ll lose to a decent PU mesmer simply because they have the trait.
Just having a sword doesn’t automatically mean a decent thief will win in a 1v1 – all down to the players and the situation (terrain, etc) – win some, lose some.
The counters, dazes and interrupts have a good chance of messing up any thief’s skill usage, providing they are timed correctly and followed up with a burst.
Not commenting on the build but rather a mecanic it use. I find the blocks be good but with 1 extremly annoying fact. Why do it exist a smal delay between the block and the counter hit?
A realy fast attacking enemy who hitting you when you have low health = you dont have time to “wait” for the conuter hit to hit as he will hit you again before it landing. This mean you need to use another defensive ability or dodge as soon “block” come up = you neevr land the counter hit.
Example = you have 5k hp, thief spamm attack, you use “block” you block, you wait for block to land = dead
Alt, you “block” you dodge = you never land counter hit but survive.
I would like counter to hit instantly, this would mean you can use next block ability for next attack or avoid the next attack without waste your hard hitting skill.
Beware that unless it’s been fixed in a recent patch, Malicious Sorcery and Illusionists Celerity do not stack for the #2 block. You will only get an 8s CD.
Beware that unless it’s been fixed in a recent patch, Malicious Sorcery and Illusionists Celerity do not stack for the #2 block. You will only get an 8s CD.
@vikingjorun, he plays D/D but he often changes his offset to mix it up, probably one of the best d/d thieves ive seen, the issue is he is at your back stabbing way before you expect it, so things like blurred frnzy need to be used pre-emptivley, sword thieves tend to be squisher and a well time interupt can end up shutting them down, its just leanring self control when fighting s/d
@osicat, i dont think i could agree more but thankfully he runs full cav armour and trinkets so i just need to worry about his backstab, i know he runs zerk bow usually though with the Sigil of perception on, its best using the counters to avoid specific attacks, and when played well can offer an extremely high amount of active defence, i just would recommend using it against other mesmers xD unless you had a backup wep set
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
Speaking of thieves, I think I ran into some perm stealth thief with high toughness today. Must have ran into him like over 10 times. Me trailing him for about 30 min earlier in the day must have kittened him off so we both tried to kill each other after that. Even though we both ran into each other so much none of us managed to down each other. Every time I manage to get his hp down to 30% he just stealths runs away. The longest interval between stealths seem to be less than 5s. So made it really hard to land or chain anything.
Any one of you come across thieves like that that you just can’t seem to down?
Have no comment on the build. Maybe you’ll be able to surprise him. I newer use that build before and not big on PVP dueling. My experience comes from WVW and it is very different. I like traveler runes more tho against thief runes of speed provide more vit. I also dislike sigil of fire. Try some other sigil that proc on swap. Chilling or bleeding could be better. Fire is about 1 k and cooldown is much longer comparing to specification at list in my experience.
Personally i very rare able to kill good thief in 1v1 fights. Luckily for me good thief is rare enough creature
Not commenting on the build but rather a mecanic it use. I find the blocks be good but with 1 extremly annoying fact. Why do it exist a smal delay between the block and the counter hit?
A realy fast attacking enemy who hitting you when you have low health = you dont have time to “wait” for the conuter hit to hit as he will hit you again before it landing. This mean you need to use another defensive ability or dodge as soon “block” come up = you neevr land the counter hit.
Example = you have 5k hp, thief spamm attack, you use “block” you block, you wait for block to land = dead
Alt, you “block” you dodge = you never land counter hit but survive.
I would like counter to hit instantly, this would mean you can use next block ability for next attack or avoid the next attack without waste your hard hitting skill.
/Osicat
i do think the block skills would be kind of overpowered if so
i mean they alrdy hit srsly hard and make clone on top of it /or tormentx5
(even in pvp, sword block crits up to 4 k once in a while)
A good permstealth thief is basically impossible to kill, but he won’t be able to kill you either. Duels between skilled mesmers and thieves always end up in a draw where nobody kills the other – if the thief approaches he dies, if he doesn’t approach he can’t kill. Until someone gets bored and quits the fight.
Don’t forget phantasms lock targets. When he stealths all the phantasms will ‘save’ their attack for the moment he destealths. Use this to your advantage.
A good permstealth thief is basically impossible to kill, but he won’t be able to kill you either. Duels between PU mesmers and skilled thieves always end up in a draw where nobody kills the other – if the thief approaches he dies, if he doesn’t approach he can’t kill. Until someone gets bored and quits the fight.
.
A good permstealth thief is basically impossible to kill, but he won’t be able to kill you either. Duels between PU mesmers and skilled thieves always end up in a draw where nobody kills the other – if the thief approaches he dies, if he doesn’t approach he can’t kill. Until someone gets bored and quits the fight.
.
Fixed it for you.
lmao, pretty much as long as the mesmer has mantra heal, its looking like its gonna be an endurance match then
RedCobra – Ranked PVP Druid
Current Season – Platinum (Soloq)
Retired GW2 ESL Tournament Admin
A good permstealth thief is basically impossible to kill, but he won’t be able to kill you either. Duels between PU mesmers and skilled thieves always end up in a draw where nobody kills the other – if the thief approaches he dies, if he doesn’t approach he can’t kill. Until someone gets bored and quits the fight.
.
Fixed it for you.
lmao, pretty much as long as the mesmer has mantra heal, its looking like its gonna be an endurance match then
I find fights with good thieves come down to-
A: To start with, your defensive approach. How to you survive them?
B: Going on the offense. How do you pressure them back into the shadows?
C: Mind games. At the end of the fight what downs the good ones is their overextending, or making a mistake. Appearing weak or vulnerable to a thief is always a strong suite to tripping them up.
^Agreed.
Especially C – so often they think they’ve almost got you, they overextend, and that’s where you can turn it around pretty quickly.
Any skilled player has always in mind the cooldowns of the opponent part. I will never overextend if I know my opponent has a powerful Cooldown ready, unless I have a way out of it.
^Agreed.
Especially C – so often they think they’ve almost got you, they overextend, and that’s where you can turn it around pretty quickly.
Any skilled player has always in mind the cooldowns of the opponent part. I will never overextend if I know my opponent has a powerful Cooldown ready, unless I have a way out of it.
A lot of people do – some more, some less, but everyone’s going to make a mistake once in a while – I certainly do.
I run a lockdown burst damage build. works really well vs thieves. Esp after the last path most thieves are DD glass. Good thieves are still hard but that goes for good players of any class.
