Guild Wars 2

So yeah, I’m making this topic because I just got my kitten handed to me multiple times in a row; in the obsidian sanctum jumping puzzle. This thief even won 2vs1 2 times in a row.

Basically, he would attack out of stealth and apply poison on me when attacking. I managed to apply 6 stacks of confusion on him a few times, but that didn’t bother him much, as he’d just go into stealth again and instantly remove it (cure conditons in stealth). He was always stealthed for most of the fight; I daresay he wasn’t visible for more than 1-2 seconds at once, even though that’s technically impossible because the revealed debuff is supposed to last 3 seconds. I simply could almost never target him, and if I did and actually managed to at least give him some confusion, he would just stealth anyway and remove it. I mean okay, I’m not fully exo-equipped yet, but still… he also didn’t do insane amounts of damage, “just” 1,5 – 3k every time he attacked. But together with being poisoned a lot (for some reason the poison actually did a bit of dmg as well), I couldn’t heal fast enough to make up for his dmg. I also couldn’t damage him, because 1. I couldn’t really attack him as he was almost perma-stealthed and 2. if I could get confusion on him, he removed it instantly without even trying.

So yeah, is there any way to counter this as a condition mesmer? I’m running with a mix of carrion and rabid gear; using staff and sword/torch for when I’m alone (thus, also in jumping puzzles) and staff and sword/focus while in bigger groups.

I always thought condition necros are the hardest to fight as a condition mesmer, but today I’ve learned that thiefs can be even worse.

If you figure it out let me know. I’m not running a condition build, more power, but I can almost never beat them 1v1 either. Sometime it’s just 10k BS, 2k CnD, 5k HS and I’m dead. Sometime I can blink away and fight a little, but it still usually ends up with me dead. It’s not like I have 0 toughness either, I’m wearing full exotic knights gear. Although after getting owned by them in 3-4 seconds countless times it makes me really happy when I do manage to get a pin on one.

You can’t take perma stealth thief, not with condition mesmer for sure. Even a group of 5 people can’t do that in general.. well.. most of the time. It’s a kitten build to makes you feel aggravated. Just run away. The problems most people have with this build is that that they don’t want to run away… because it’s so annoying, I understand. keeping engaged in the fight is just gonna get you killed.

Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do since he was prob running permastealth abusing the crap out of cloak and dagger etc. The only option would be to get like 10+ stacks at once and hope he instant downs himself or go power and shatter his brains in. Yeah abusing stealth mechanic to cover up lack of skill, this is the new age of mmo.

What I started doing as a mesmer to counter condition thieves is go with a reflect on focus, and reflect on distortion.

Though my build is a hybrid, i dont know if you have room in your build to put 20 points in the inspiration line.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8dlwzKqHTToGbNJyJFQ3yhqQ3RSRrpalUMbXIA;ToAg0UXZuSclVG3VyrWjM+Y/B

(copy and paste link)

Thats what im running.

Thief comes in- starts hitting me with pistol.
I dodge rolle the first C&D, and bait a steal +C&D
When he stealths, I have 2 clones up
I lay down curtain, returning the initial barrage, then I summon my warden and kite with staff around it while it whirls.
Then I play with its head.
Using mass invis and shattering, dodging and summoning another clone and a phantasm.
The thief will C&D a clone, and wait, until i reappear.
I take the 1.5k and heal to remove it, switch weapons and lay down another curtain after he C&D’s a clone.
This usually repeats until the theif either nearly kills himself from taking his own bleeds and shatters or he gets help and I bail.

You probably wont kill him, because thieves are really good at escaping in open world combat, but you will force him to leave the area and seek easier prey,

Saturn.6591:

So yeah, I’m making this topic because I just got my kitten handed to me multiple times in a row; in the obsidian sanctum jumping puzzle. This thief even won 2vs1 2 times in a row.

Basically, he would attack out of stealth and apply poison on me when attacking. I managed to apply 6 stacks of confusion on him a few times, but that didn’t bother him much, as he’d just go into stealth again and instantly remove it (cure conditons in stealth). He was always stealthed for most of the fight; I daresay he wasn’t visible for more than 1-2 seconds at once, even though that’s technically impossible because the revealed debuff is supposed to last 3 seconds. I simply could almost never target him, and if I did and actually managed to at least give him some confusion, he would just stealth anyway and remove it. I mean okay, I’m not fully exo-equipped yet, but still… he also didn’t do insane amounts of damage, “just” 1,5 – 3k every time he attacked. But together with being poisoned a lot (for some reason the poison actually did a bit of dmg as well), I couldn’t heal fast enough to make up for his dmg. I also couldn’t damage him, because 1. I couldn’t really attack him as he was almost perma-stealthed and 2. if I could get confusion on him, he removed it instantly without even trying.

So yeah, is there any way to counter this as a condition mesmer? I’m running with a mix of carrion and rabid gear; using staff and sword/torch for when I’m alone (thus, also in jumping puzzles) and staff and sword/focus while in bigger groups.

I always thought condition necros are the hardest to fight as a condition mesmer, but today I’ve learned that thiefs can be even worse.

Use your staff, chaos armor and chaos storm should be your friend. If you dont have fast cast ground targeting on then clicking and moving your mouse will def not keep you up to the thief’s pace. Use your chaos armor first, once it’s on cool down drop your chaos storm on your self.. before chaos storm runs out do a phase retreat and you’ll get chaos armor again (keep in mind it doesnt stack duration it just resets the counter to 5 seconds if you already have CA on) and if he’s hitting you at that time he’s hurting him self… if you have illusions traited to shatter on yourself you can do f3 when he shows up then pull out clones and shatter (aoe damage is extremely powerful against thieves, they are specifically made to take more aoe damage than other classes while invis).

I would also recommend you use a focus instead of torch.. while the stealth is great the phantasm is useless… with a focus you can power your iwarden and just stand right on top of him. That phantasm will rip him to shreds if he comes near you. Also stacking retaliation with chaos armor is incredibly powerful because he’ll just kill himself if he continues attacking you.

You could also use pistol to stun and iduelist. If the thief goes to take out the duelist then it’s your chance to attack him, if he doesn’t then that will be a big mistake. Even without traits and a power build it can easily do 5K damage. Use staff mainly and you should be fine.

Bottom line: You gotta aoe, and keep attacking while strafing even when you can’t see him. Condition build is tough if you’re relying on confusion, but using burn and bleed from staff will hurt him fast, and as soon as he goes invis if you drop a chaos storm on the spot he was you’ll stack more conditions and his stealth wont be able to remove it because it only works while going in to stealth, not while you’re in it. Remember to phase retreat and drop iwarlock as it’ll stick around even when he stealths.

If the real issue is him going into perma stealth, /laugh stealth and blink your way out of there. It’ll kitten him off that he couldn’t do anything to someone invisible laughing at him

Oh yeah, re: posion Sigil of geneoristy will give it back to him, null field can wipe it off, and arcane thievery will send it to him and take his buffs. as a condition mes you HAVE to have at least one of those since it makes fighting condition necros a lot easier

2 things generally work

Need to time your shatter3 after you stack confusion
keep retal up (sword/focus and retal on COF shatter); scepter/torch sucks against sd/pd

95% of the fancy stuff mentioned above wont work give you don’t have the luxury of time.