Guild Wars 2

I’ve been seeing more and more thieves losing a 1 on 1 fight against mesmers. Have the tables turned?
Are things more even now or do mesmers counter thieves in some way?

Short answer- yes they do.
What you’re seeing is a lot of people playing theif that aren’t… Well they aren’t good. A good thief will generally beat or stalemate an equally skilled Mesmer. A great thief will wreck a mes all day long. A bad thief on the other hand will run P/P and use 2 Unloads in a row with 15 stacks of confusion or face tank a gs 2 MW burst.

I think it’s a pretty fair match-up.. really just comes down to skill and who kittens up first.

WvW: thief because they can freely stealth, play the waiting game and blow your cd’s.

SPvP: mesmer because they have to attack you head-on.

A good thief will still wreck you, so yes they do.

But now it’s a lot easier for any player to be a decent mesmer than it is to be a great thief.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I’ve been seeing more and more thieves losing a 1 on 1 fight against mesmers. Have the tables turned?
Are things more even now or do mesmers counter thieves in some way?

It’s important to note that the notion of the thief countering the mesmer only has existed in sPvP due to the lower stats on amulets. In WvW, both have historically had the damage in their power builds to kill each other pretty easily.

I wouldn’t say the tables have turned, but rather the thief no longer hard-counters the mesmer based on the current meta for both classes.

See, the thief used to wreck and could punish power shatter mesmer. Since everything is running condi, and the thief has historically had terrible cleanses (up until Daredevil the worst in the game) and confusion got over-buffed with the DoT/condition rework, the mesmer in its meta-build-state does a way better job at being able to kill the thief, particularly the chronomancer with its extra blocks and defenses.

Most capable thieves no longer play the class since Daredevil is a total conceptual failure and the power creep from HoT is so real that the mindset of the profession as it once was is no longer a valid way of playing the class, and the learning curve and barrier of entry for the profession with the Daredevil got flattened tremendously, since it has very few resource problems and basically takes all the good things from multiple core trait lines, improves them, and combines them into one nice package.

Since condi mes used to hard-counter the thief, and now the Daredevil has good cleanses and condi mes got buffed in its damage, the matchup between professions themselves is pretty balanced, assuming the use of meta builds. If you look to core condi mes vs thief, the condi mes still wins, just as how core power thief has an advantage against core power mesmer.

Truth be told, condi mes has been the best dueling build since 2013, and still did not get countered by thieves (due to their massively limited cleansing pre-HoT).

in PvP, meta thief build no longer hard counters meta mesmer build.
I would say mesmer has the upper hand in this matchup, something like a 6-4 advantage. So it will come down to skill and who executed better.

As Deciever said above, depends what you play vs what they play and where you play.

Power builds I’d say the thief “should” win. The Mesmer in WvW can kill a thief in one big burst combo if it all lands and crits and the mesmer is full zerk. However if the thief gets the first hit in they can easily take off 50-75% of a mesmers health and some auto attacks can finish them off or impacting disruption.

In a prolonged fight a thief has the lower cool downs and should win depending on what each has specced as and what weapons they’re running.

If both are condition players then they both lose, by default, and a quaggan tearfully departs Tyria.

What Jace said, in my experiences.

Fortunately, you can have a long streak of bad Thieves that’ll make you feel like we have at least a solid fighting chance against them, but really when you run into a good Thief, he’ll learn ya different.

With the removal of the Merc Amulet, it’s become once again far too easy for Thieves (and others) to dominate us with their generally superior damage, sustain, and mobility.

Too much of our sustain in sPvP is reliant on Amulets, and with the removal of all Amulets that are both tanky in nature, but still provide adequate damage output, we have suffered greatly.

Consume Plasma says “Hi”.

when we´re talking about condi mes, so yea the thief has no chance

when we´re talking about power shatter against power dp thief it depends on the dodge trait mostly. Since Mesmer´s Mantra of Distraction got buffed along with the powerblock trait ages ago, d/p thieves were a joke for mesmers ( So i dont rly understand people who say thieves were a power mes hardcounter pre HoT =)))
Now with the Blast finisher on dodge, mesmers cant stop thieves anymore from getting into stealth, which turns the table.
But most thieves r using the mobility dodge anyway since its better for pvp/wvw roaming overall.

Id say a staff thief is very annoying for mes but with the right daze timing its doable.

In WvW thieves had much more benefit from the new HoT armor stats than mes (Marauder armor), since u cant oneshot thieves anymore with 1 burst (except for max dmg mental anguish) and thieves still do a lot of dmg

so yeah with the right setup thieves are back in a position where they can beat mesmers nearly reliably, but are far from being a hardcounter.

Weez.6315:

when we´re talking about condi mes, so yea the thief has no chance

when we´re talking about power shatter against power dp thief it depends on the dodge trait mostly. Since Mesmer´s Mantra of Distraction got buffed along with the powerblock trait ages ago, d/p thieves were a joke for mesmers ( So i dont rly understand people who say thieves were a power mes hardcounter pre HoT =)))
Now with the Blast finisher on dodge, mesmers cant stop thieves anymore from getting into stealth, which turns the table.
But most thieves r using the mobility dodge anyway since its better for pvp/wvw roaming overall.

Id say a staff thief is very annoying for mes but with the right daze timing its doable.

In WvW thieves had much more benefit from the new HoT armor stats than mes (Marauder armor), since u cant oneshot thieves anymore with 1 burst (except for max dmg mental anguish) and thieves still do a lot of dmg

so yeah with the right setup thieves are back in a position where they can beat mesmers nearly reliably, but are far from being a hardcounter.

Tbh, a lot of thieves in the past who ran full berserker weren’t very good. Mixed Valk or full Valk gave the thief 14-18k HP (Marauder equivalent) and didn’t affect crit chance much. The zerk/assassins people running around WvW were kinda clueless and did less burst damage than the tankier ones. A good shatter combo should still OHKO most thieves in marauder, since good power mesmers I run into often shatter for 5k per clone. The same is not said about the thief killing a marauder mesmer, though at 20k hp, unless the thief plays signets. Mathematically it can’t happen without huge might and the benefits of playing an all-in build, which means even no use of Daredevil.

Marauder didn’t really change much for the matchup. If anything, I’d actually have to argue it favors the mesmer since it’s a burst damage loss for the thief while not really affecting consistency or health, but a consistency and durability gain for the mesmer, with marginal damage losses as opposed to berserker gear.

Condi mes would still have some chance but power mes would suffer a lot in a head on fight. a fully amped backstab, if it crits, is guaranteed to take 80-90% of your hp on first hit. Then when the executioner trait kicks in, you’re seeing 7-8k heart seeker. It’s tough to win.

Deceiver, assuming you’re at 2583 power your mind wracks criting for 5715.5 for a 1 clones so that’s 11,431 and that’s assuming you’re getting the scholar bonus, no skill bonus and some 7% modifier from vulnerability. That’s a lot of maybes that can reduce damage by 25%.

Your mirror blades if they crit will be just over 4K combined and a marauder thief will usually be on 16-18k depending on how much they’re stacking on marauder. I myself am on 18k. Sure it will get me close to death but that is one hell of a glassy mesmer most likely going balls out on damage and they would most likely need a source of fury.

thief >power mesmer
thief < condi mesmer

this is all to it

Condi Mesmer wrecks thieves in WvW – They’re practically my targets. Too bad I run like I’m carrying a turtle shell.

apharma.3741:

Deceiver, assuming you’re at 2583 power your mind wracks criting for 5715.5 for a 1 clones so that’s 11,431 and that’s assuming you’re getting the scholar bonus, no skill bonus and some 7% modifier from vulnerability. That’s a lot of maybes that can reduce damage by 25%.

Your mirror blades if they crit will be just over 4K combined and a marauder thief will usually be on 16-18k depending on how much they’re stacking on marauder. I myself am on 18k. Sure it will get me close to death but that is one hell of a glassy mesmer most likely going balls out on damage and they would most likely need a source of fury.

I was assuming 2-3 clones with a GS2 combo. The thief would also need to be playing Dagger/Dagger DA/CS/Tr or DA/CS/DrD (all offense options in DrD) to 100-0 a marauder mesmer in the same amount of time, and the latter build would have the same issues in respects to not having reliable fury. Obviously this kind of matchup is rare and a very hypothetical situation, particularly a thief running such a build. The contemplative “what ifs” exist on both to a fair degree, though. I think it’s safe to say both professions have the guns and the health using marauder in their power builds to deal very similar damage relative to max health.

It is likely you kept the mesmer build in respect to traits pretty consistent with a decent build. The thief cannot afford such luxury, and without running the above (using the existing meta), would backstab the mesmer for roughly 8k.

It’s a very small edge, and why I don’t think it changed the matchup much overall. But a small advantage is still a very small advantage when looking at the gains from marauder.

dardy.4571:

Condi Mesmer wrecks thieves in WvW – They’re practically my targets. Too bad I run like I’m carrying a turtle shell.

is this still true in the current patch?

daredevils seems to be able to clear condi a lot better. Not sure if there were any changes or just people building condi clearance into their builds, but my condi builds can’t kill DDs that easily anymore.

I play with a variant of this build: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Chronophantasma_Shatter

And I don’t loose to thieves, 50/50 either I kill them or they run away. with a power build it’s tougher..

EremiteAngel.9765:

dardy.4571:

Condi Mesmer wrecks thieves in WvW – They’re practically my targets. Too bad I run like I’m carrying a turtle shell.

is this still true in the current patch?

daredevils seems to be able to clear condi a lot better. Not sure if there were any changes or just people building condi clearance into their builds, but my condi builds can’t kill DDs that easily anymore.

Daredevil provides thief with a good cleanse. Escapist’s Absolution elevated the thief from being incapable of fighting condition builds by and large to having a means to kill them. Pre-HoT, the best cleanse the thief had was either camping stealth and resetting (letting the mesmer also reset) or burning Shadowstep’s second-part skill, which for obvious reasons, the skill is is often saved as a stunbreak and would cause double-confusion damage since both activations of the teleport would deal damage.

Condi mes when played somewhat properly still counters the Daredevil by using cover conditions to force EA to not cleanse well, since at best it gets one per evade (1s ICD). Every evade also deals confusion skill-damage to the thief, which while Driven Fortitude (also 1s ICD) helps negate some of the damage, often isn’t enough when you consider the torment DoTs coming in as well.

Daredevil is huge powercreep to core thief, but condi mesmer is still a very dominant dueling spec and should at its worst be hovering around a 50% win.

Killing Mesmers on my Thief in WvW is becoming quite trivial again because I just have such incredibly high damage on my Daredevil. Condi Mes can be problematic but is still very doable if I’m patient and just have the right traits in place – unless it’s that PvP meta Mesmer build at which point I usually just don’t bother to engage.

A good condi mesmer is nightmarish to any thief. Power mesmer is at a disadvantage.

Zenith.7301:

A good condi mesmer is nightmarish to any thief. Power mesmer is at a disadvantage.

Let’s be honest. Thief is the least of the problems a power mesmer has to face these days XD

DeceiverX.8361:

apharma.3741:

Deceiver, assuming you’re at 2583 power your mind wracks criting for 5715.5 for a 1 clones so that’s 11,431 and that’s assuming you’re getting the scholar bonus, no skill bonus and some 7% modifier from vulnerability. That’s a lot of maybes that can reduce damage by 25%.

Your mirror blades if they crit will be just over 4K combined and a marauder thief will usually be on 16-18k depending on how much they’re stacking on marauder. I myself am on 18k. Sure it will get me close to death but that is one hell of a glassy mesmer most likely going balls out on damage and they would most likely need a source of fury.

I was assuming 2-3 clones with a GS2 combo. The thief would also need to be playing Dagger/Dagger DA/CS/Tr or DA/CS/DrD (all offense options in DrD) to 100-0 a marauder mesmer in the same amount of time, and the latter build would have the same issues in respects to not having reliable fury. Obviously this kind of matchup is rare and a very hypothetical situation, particularly a thief running such a build. The contemplative “what ifs” exist on both to a fair degree, though. I think it’s safe to say both professions have the guns and the health using marauder in their power builds to deal very similar damage relative to max health.

It is likely you kept the mesmer build in respect to traits pretty consistent with a decent build. The thief cannot afford such luxury, and without running the above (using the existing meta), would backstab the mesmer for roughly 8k.

It’s a very small edge, and why I don’t think it changed the matchup much overall. But a small advantage is still a very small advantage when looking at the gains from marauder.

Thing is, certainly in WvW you just can’t go all out damage like that anymore without being really really good as you run into a lot of condition builds now. Most mesmers I know now run Dom/insp/chrono, a few run Chaos or duelling instead of chrono but most run chrono. I also don’t think you can call a 2-3 clone mind wrack as burst as it does require set up, quite a bit of set up without DE, a thief will burst almost immediately especially if they come from out of your camera range.

Basically in realistic builds that most are running I would say power thief should win against power mesmer. I’ve seen one or two thieves that have constantly beaten me but most I come across are just terrible and predictable. I also think in general thief has the bigger advantage in WvW if the mesmer isn’t running portal as thief disengage is through the roof now while mesmer hasn’t gone up that much (assuming you were running 25% movement speed pre hot) but in contrast a lot of classes have gained stealth hate, ranged pew pew and increased chasing.

In my experience mesmer in the pvp meta counters thief due to them not taking condi clear on dodge but the interrupt trait. Power mesmer also has an advantage over the meta power theif because we can interrupt the stealth/land out burst easier.

In WvW condi still trumps thief, but power mesmer’s advantage gets severely diminished if the thief takes the damage on dodge trait.

Truth be told thief hasn’t hard countered us since the s/d nerfs long ago.

In WvW i think most ppl here seem to agree thief vs power mesmer thief should win. Thief vs condi mesmer, thief should lose.

I find on the power mesmer there is no way to force the fight, if they get in trouble because uve landed part of a burst they can kite you or camp stealth. Between all the blinds, dazes, stuns, evades it’s tough to land said burst. So much investment in that shatter, you get 2 goes at it before you have to recharge your mantra of distraction. Good luck recharging it vs any competent thief. And thats if you dont need to use your mantra/clones defensively at some point in the fight.

This isnt a problem for the condi mesmer once the condis land you can stop attacking, they can kite as much as they like. The dmg was done when those condis landed. And those condis keep on rolling in, the speed at which you can re-apply condis on chronophantasma is broken beyond hell tho tbf.

I mainly play wvw and as s/d thief. I win most of my fights vs mesmers (power or condi) though I find condi a bit more easier to fight thanks to double consume ectoplasm thing. How ever if I miss my steal then it’s pretty 1 sided for 21 seconds until I get a 2nd chance with steal. Power mesmers I find more scarier because they bust a lot harder then thief can (unless they go signet yolo bust) I am talking about 3x 4k mind wracks, mirror blade thing and mind stab, executed from stealth ofc and at point blank range so I didn’t even see the mirror blade to dodie but at the same time if I dodge that and bait out distortion its game over for them most of the time.

ChronoS have a lot of tools to fight us though can pull of more complex combos