Guild Wars 2

Everybody faced with this problem but this going to really boring , what can i do against Arenanet kids(FULL burst thieves) , bc there is no chance to click something , everytime same thing happen i saw thief (he attacks when stealth ) than in 1sec im on 2-5k hp sometimes even heal skill or blink or stealth cant save me bc after 1.5 sec after attacked by Incvis thief im dying. What can i do ? is there any tactic ?

first instincts, like I can always tell right before a invisible thief going to hit me, and so I can almsot always counter it.

Second if ya see one and it goes invisible, gets as far away form the spot it did as ya can.

Third use f4 key about a sec after they go invisble, becuase most of tehir skills dont alst more then 4 secs and so ya get 3 sec of dis.

Fourth you go invisible as well.

fifth get in a strong stance by summing phant def, and rdy to take teh damage and still live pretty well.

Their is other ways, but here some.

Having a staff helps. Using Staff 2 liberally really is essential in keeping melee thieves off your back… literally.

Any gap-openers in fact are useful, such as Blink. Spam your illusions and keep your distance, while stealthing when you can to break LOS.

It can be tough depending on the thief’s build and skill, but it can be done.

I have one crazy idea. If they are running at you and turn invisible, blink to the spot where they were. You should end up in the spot behind them which may be their blind spot too. A quick If you have a greatsword out, skill 5 will push them away and cause an interrupt and give you a second to breathe.

Honestly the best tactic against thieves for me has been the move to toughness gear. If I see a thief coming I go on offense. If I don’t, I blink out after he appears. If that isn’t up I use sword #2 or use decoy to move out of the immediate area.

Once you’re in combat, and a thief goes stealth, clone creation on dodge. Leave the clones up. When the thiefs stealth ends your clones will react immediatly to the thief’s whereabouts. You can tab to find a culling thief, or even shatter at this point. Dodge roll is an obvious option, or phase retreat etc. Dodge rolling for clone creation might burn your energy though so keep that in mind.

I use confusion, so stealthing thieves who want to come at me even from stealth have that to deal with. For anyone who doesnt know, sceptre 3 is a channeled ranged attack, therefore once you start casting it, it will continue to his the thief even once he’s gone invis. Since you can anticipate a thief stealth pretty easily if you’ve been playing against them a while, it’s very easy to time a sceptre 3 hit (you can even start the channel way early as it has a nice, steady attack speed.

Plenty of other stuff you can do, this is just one approach.

Good responses. Worst case is you have a GS with you. You do 5 to push them away and after that, you’re pretty much an open target. Staff is a better choice. Staff cd + illusion cd gives a very fast mini-blink.

So far the easiest way for me is to quickly blink away, put up a duelist, then disappear. Kite/dodge some attacks, and quickly put up a second duelist. After that you’re pretty much set. I have a bleed-on-crit build, so as soon as they come out of stealth, they easily get 1k+ damage from each phantasm and at most 16 stacks of bleed. This tactic is also very useful in WvW if you’ve got those annoying constantly disappearing thieves.

Have some vids dealing with thiefs, hope they help, most often dont have big problem with thiefs unless super stealthy bleed stackers. Those need some hard work.

First fight show how most encounters vs glascannon thiefs end. They just not build to take dmg.

This vid is dedicated to mesmer vs thief fights.

Rune of air is your best friend vs thiefs, and stealths ofc. Also sword of make life easier.

/Osicat

I used to have problem with thief, what I do, is always move, when I see attack, I quickly dodge to evade (generate clone), then somehow I manage to target them, sword #3, then #3 again TP to them, and then I make mirror images and shatter #1, sometimes #2, cause confusion melt the thief if he spams his attack (roughly 1-2k confusion) per skill used.
also during MW shatter use sword #2, and more profit

Honestly, stay calm. That’s the best PvP advice I can give anyone, ever. Once you fight a few bursty thieves and really figure them out, it helps tremendously if you don’t freak out when you see them cloak.

As for in-game, the staff is your friend. It’s useful in virtually every build – I never go anywhere without one. It’s great for mobility, survival, and buff/debuff. Even without blink, you can get away while producing a clone that can eventually be used for damage, confusion, dazing, or a moment of invuln.

Cool head + experience + staff = thieves will always ends up stealthing away from you.

Because every thief is a kitten.

Also helpful,

Decoy
Runes of Air

The really funny part about burst thieves is they’re typically pretty good at using their stealth, but awful at dealing with other people who have it. If you have a torch, decoy or veil you can really mess with them. Remember, they can “unload” with no cooldown, but initiative regain for those builds is pretty mediocre. If their burst misses then the fight is yours (i.e., the worst outcome for you is the run away).

But in WvW if you are rocking glass cannon and a burst basilisk thief targets you, you’re at a huge disadvantage. Burst d/d thieves are a build that is a very strong counter to other glass cannon builds; that’s what they are and what they do. No amount of skill can really make up for the mechanics combined with the current culling issues. The Moral Of The Story Is Toughness And Vitality matter.

Oh, and Mirror of Anguish (Chaos VII) is part of a totally amazing family of talents, and a particularly strong example of one.

Honestly, don’t anticipate winning. An above average thief will out run you once you got the upper hand. I feel like mesmer 1v1 thief, draw is a win for mesmer.

IF you are in combat with a thief and you see he has targeted you strafe don’t dodge because you will need to use that for when they finally do appear and your deceptive evasion clone needs to target the thief not some stupid bunny you didn’t notice until one of your pink dots is gone and you have no clue why. Another good thing to do is just after they go stealth use decoy…. I was in WvW fighting someone else and a thief came over and saw me as an easy kill… I dodged (my mistake) but luckily there were no furry animals around for the clone to kill so he just stood there WITH HIS WEAPON SHEATHED and actully scratched his head I had decoy up so used that (since no enemy was targeted I just went stealth) the thief then came out of stealth before me and began attacking the clone lol… It was hilarious. Needless to say he died… But just think on your feet and you will be fine… Thats the nice thing about this class is it requires a very ACTIVE play style to master which really preps you for thieves.

It also helps to roll a thief into sPvP and play them. I logged 45 games as a thief of various kinds and my win rate against them has very much improved because I can anticipate them much better now.

^ This same logic needs applied to people that complain about fighting mesmers in PvP. Go get a mesmer complete screw doing the pve quests keep it at lvl 1 for all we care. But take it to pvp play around with it and see what you can do against others.

Don’t expect to win vs good thieves in 1vs1 as they will (surprise) just cloak and get out with their incredible mobility before it gets ugly. Same goes for good ele’s.
If you ever are fully visible and at half health expect to die instantly. That is how it is with thieves.
IF you on the other hand are in a 1vs1 and the thief doesn’t get a clean 1-shot mesmer have a lot of nice tools: I Decoy and heal up, and then start doing pressure … I go full offensive from there.

Let me try to remember what i usually do. Running toughness and vitality gear and a confusion build staff + sword/torch. Decoy and blink for uilities. Traited for clone creation on dodge.

All given he hasnt taken me by surprise. He runs at me. I got sword and torch ready and once I think hes close to 900 range I use decoy. thiefscratcheshead. This is the moment i often try to use moa on him from stealth though success rate isnt that great. Illusionary leap. Immobilizes him and then sword skill #2. Dodge and torch #5 if I get lucky it will hit him before he stealths. When he stealths i instantly pop Cry of Frustration which due to my confusion build gives him some really nice stacks. Stealthing myself with torch #4. Wait for him to come out of steath and instantly retarget using staff #2 and #3. If hes close I put staff #5 on my position (chance for aegis or retaliation on me and some nice conditions on him). Dodge and shatter on him. This usually is the decisive point of the duell. Lots of them are dead by now. Some heal up others use shadow refuge. Against healing i use blink about 2 secs after they stealth directed into the direction they disappeared. Shadow refuge is argh. Still if i havent used my Chaos storm so far i put it on top of SF. Then sword #2. I think i had one or two who came back for another round which is dangerous cause at that point i wasted lots of useful cds. I’d say 70% are dead after the first seconds and 25% decide its not worth the effort and run. And the last 5%: Well. Happens. At least they had to work for that kill which they arent used to imo. Its a boring build. Just hope they fix culling some day. Too many free kills/badges for those guys.

I run an complete glass cannon shatter build. Double 1H swords. The block from the offhand sword is useful.

If you see them coming from a thousand yards away they’re simple enough to deal with.

If they get the opener, less so. If they open, you simply have to be quick with something. It doesn’t matter what you opt for (Blurred Frenzy, Blink, Distortion, Block) just be ready to survive it. Try to save your better survival ability for later in the fight; they’ll inevitably stealth to reset their fight, and in those situations one more hit will kill you. Stagger your survival based on your HP. After that control their burst, and engineer your own. Too many people focus on killing the thief as quickly as possible, which is perfectly doable if the situation suits you… but here’s the thing, the Thief class is built entirely around combat on their terms. Even with 15k health you can control the fight, mitigate their burst and then when you’re happy, and the conditions are good, kill them.

Just relax. They’re not that tough. Treat them like angry children; let them rage and tire themselves out, then (and this is where gaming and parenting advice differs) kill them. Most importantly though don’t try to reduce it down to a formula like so many do. Every fight is different.

vicious.2193:

Honestly, stay calm. That’s the best PvP advice I can give anyone, ever. Once you fight a few bursty thieves and really figure them out, it helps tremendously if you don’t freak out when you see them cloak.

As for in-game, the staff is your friend. It’s useful in virtually every build – I never go anywhere without one. It’s great for mobility, survival, and buff/debuff. Even without blink, you can get away while producing a clone that can eventually be used for damage, confusion, dazing, or a moment of invuln.

Cool head + experience + staff = thieves will always ends up stealthing away from you.

Because every thief is a kitten.

yeah, I usually notice that when you take things cool and steady, enemy thief will fall, wait, til right moment, then counterattack, profit, or they run away regretting what they did

And sometimes there are moment’s you just can’t do a kitten, and you die, like when you get turned into stone, and then insta killed

Anuxdei.2175:

Everybody faced with this problem but this going to really boring , what can i do against Arenanet kids(FULL burst thieves) , bc there is no chance to click something , everytime same thing happen i saw thief (he attacks when stealth ) than in 1sec im on 2-5k hp sometimes even heal skill or blink or stealth cant save me bc after 1.5 sec after attacked by Incvis thief im dying. What can i do ? is there any tactic ?

Thieves used to be the bane of my existence… Well, they still kinda are , but now I tend to kill the burst thieves more often than they kill me. Haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but burst thieves need to kill you quickly – extended fights do not work to their advantage. For me, the best thing is the Illusions II trait, Confusing Cry. If you can get a three clone confusion shatter on a burst thief, along with 15 secs of retaliation… Well, that burst thief isn’t going to be able to stop his own burst quickly enough to avoid downing himself. My fights with burst thieves tend to last about 5 secs or less, unless my confusion shatter is on CD. Also, works with just about any burst class/build.

Dhampyr.2104:

My fights with burst thieves tend to last about 5 secs or less, unless my confusion shatter is on CD. Also, works with just about any burst class/build.

My thief fights usually last one second
either me dead or he is dead, but often them is dead

problem is quickness and basilisk sometimes staff save me but generally i hate this
defence tactic for thief idea because every class must try defend against thieves and there is no difference (big) good or average thief really go quickness power pre and basilisk kill random target 2shot , and bc of thieves this game going boring and many people think like this and what about mods , thieves ok do something perfect and u can win . Why ? why i must do something Cool things for win , why thieves DONT do anything for killing people like thinking or playing good . and i really curious about is there any mod on this game wathing videos on wvwvw endless stealth thieves and 2 shoter thieves or not …