Guild Wars 2

When ever I get into a one on one situation in WvW I usually do pretty good against my opponents except for the thief. I can never beat the thief in one on one. Is there a build that a mesmer can do to defeat a thief?

single sword+torch+clone spam+shatter(F2), swap, great sword, push back, the whirling sword illussion, decoy

(repeat), killed ALOT of thief’s.

Torch are not good at all ( the 4 are so long to do something ) and the 5 are so long too.

Better to take a focus, for 2 reflect ( and the 5 of focus combined with combo field, can spam confusion or something else. )

blind, invisi, burn, and dont take long, LMAO…as i said i have killed ALOT of thief’s, also help’s to kite bigger groups in WvWvW or when out numbered(use decoy 1st), plus 5 i never use TBH.

I prefer have a grap, and two reflect btw.

IMO there are two keys to defeating Thieves. First is to mitigate their first strike: this can be done by using skills like Chaos Storm, Counter/Riposte, Blurred Frenzy, Chaos Armour, etc. It is best to use these skills just before a Thief strikes: try to guess when they’re going to Shadowstep to you.

The second is to use stealth. By using stealth you greatly weaken their second strike capability once you’ve countered their first strike. Preferably you want to reappear from stealth after the Thief does, although this is not always possible. Having Illusions around before you stealth gives you a huge advantage in the stealth game, as they will cover for you when you reappear and will immediately attack the Thief when he/she reappears.

IMO Torch: or rather, The Prestige: is great against Thieves. It’s another reasonably spammable stealth and the AoE Blind/Burning will likely hit the Thief, stealthed or no, giving you extra defence/damage.

Hell I just used GS, Stor and Pistol. All I do from there is just spam clones and illusions and make sure to have it to where my clones and illusions cripple when they get destroyed.

Just to also kitten them off I usually daze them none stop.

But yea using that with decoy at the start of a fight is funny cause they love to charge dead into the fake me.

dunno if its actually hard to play against a good thief when you’re running a squishy mes with no toughness but with my toughness (over 2k)/condition build i never had a problem. Then again, i do no spvp yet cuz pve is still fun for me and in wvw i never seen a good thief. Staff/GS, perma spam chaos armor (combo fields) and all you’ll get from thiefs is them running away hiding to regen on the other side of the map.

i make thieves run from me but of course impossible to catch them.

you have to have fast reactions and some or multiple forms of stealth in your bar, as well as pistol offhand for cc when you can see them.

only time i lose to a thief is when it’s not alone.

i run full berserker 20/30/0/0/20 gs/sword+pistol

Hard to defeat a “perma-stealth-thief” if you don’t see them coming but if you manage to see one coming there are a bunch of skills that will help you out

!!MOA!! – If I see the Thief coming and I have time to react I stop moving, switch my elite to Moa, wait until he’s in range (usually keep my back to them to pretend I haven’t seen them coming) then Moa them! It’ll throw them off guard as they aren’t used to getting in close without being able to stealth! Then I drop a berserker on them, mirror blade then either start blasting auto attacks or switch to Staff and drop a Chaos Storm/Warlock on them as they try to flee. Mostly this should do the trick. Keep blink handy for when they try to run and decoy in case they don’t die and then come after you.
Whenever they go invisible just keep moving, roll when possible, decoy/viel to stop them having an easy target on you.

If they’re in a group then you’re boned anyway if you’re alone lol! Non stealthy thief’s are rarely a problem since you can just throw clones out to distract them while your at distance!

There is only build of thieves that gives me a problem and it’s the “perma stealth” or “unicorn” or whatever name that is thrown at that build. It’s always a close fight in spvp and MOA is the elite skill of choose against this thief. I use Decoy and Arcane Thievery…a underrated utility. I swap out all his conditions on me to him and take his boons it’s great and I roll with it all the time in spvp.

I use scepter\pistol\staff with staff swapped out with GS from time to time.