Guild Wars 2

I have just started WvW with a PU mesmer. Standard build.

I have nearly 3000 toughness and up to 1700 condition damage. And I currently run Reaper of Grenth until I can grind the skill points for mass invisibility. Reaper is effective, with a 15 second chill and 800 poison/3 sec and -33% healing.

What’s the standard strategy to deal with a thief who comes eagerly running up to you and stealths about 900 yards away?

Currently I try to time the incoming burst and be ready with a Torment scepter block.

With 3000 toughness I can absorb the initial burst if I time it wrong.

But what would the best plan be for a thief encounter?

Thanks!

IF the thief is good and has remove condition on stealth/runes/ecc..( which a lot have) you can’t kill him with PU mesmer condition based, heres why :

You have only 2 major conditions which are confusion ( good against noobs) and torment which is applied by scepter 2 and only a noob will attack you, and even if you manage to block an attack the thief can 1) dodge 2) go stealth an clean torment, he will then come back and burst you down till he kills you.

I run P/D thief and I can get most mesmers just by sticking in close and using clones to CnD. The ones I can’t get are the ones that I just can’t seem to pin down. They move and use stealth and terrain very well so I can’t seem to stay on them. Eventually, I just wander off.

They key to kill thief with this build ( i run sometimes same build ) is the timing.

To mitigate the attack, u can use : 2 sceptre, F4, Stealth ( with PU you have one block free too ), 2 from sword and 4 from sword.

It’s a lot of utilities. The best one in your setup is 2 sceptre which apply a 7k torment if you are full Dire armour.

80% of thief just attack without thinking and timing. When thief stealth, you wait 1 or 2 second and use your sceptre. If he hadn’t attacked you when block is active, you stealth with torch or other skill. Try make some clones to brain him. If he kills them he gain some condition on him.

Try to heal in stealth and with 3 clones up if you use the active heal or just put almost every time 3 clone up if you use the signet.

2 sceptre is 10 second cool-down which is very short, use it a lot but with timing. with experience you will predict more easily when thief will attack and you can counter it.

Most of time with this simple tactic I kill them or they run off. I’m not a very good messmer but power thief are easy in this build. Condition thief is another problem …

I run a power pu build. A avg thief is pretty easy because cripple just screws them up so much. A good thief is a battle of his cnd off my clone and my dodging. In most cases the one who gets over aggressive and misses a rotation dies. If I time it right and interrupt a stealth skill I win, that is pretty hard though.

Jackums.3496:

I disagree. A good condi PU Mesmer should be able to outlast even a Shadow Arts Thief. Debilitating Dissipation alone will majorly hurt any x/d Thief CnD’ing off of your clones, plus the perma-cripple from Crippling Dissipation will keep them from landing their burst and mess up their overall general fluidity in the fight.

The only exception is a P/D Perplexity Thief, which can condition burst you with more than you can cleanse and doesn’t need to be at close range to do so.

Those are great point to stay alive, but I still can’t figure out how can you kill a competent thief, you can only apply 2 major condition to him and he can cleanse them very easily.. I might miss something ^^

TribesTom.7940:

They key to kill thief with this build ( i run sometimes same build ) is the timing.

To mitigate the attack, u can use : 2 sceptre, F4, Stealth ( with PU you have one block free too ), 2 from sword and 4 from sword.

It’s a lot of utilities. The best one in your setup is 2 sceptre which apply a 7k torment if you are full Dire armour.

80% of thief just attack without thinking and timing. When thief stealth, you wait 1 or 2 second and use your sceptre. If he hadn’t attacked you when block is active, you stealth with torch or other skill. Try make some clones to brain him. If he kills them he gain some condition on him.

Try to heal in stealth and with 3 clones up if you use the active heal or just put almost every time 3 clone up if you use the signet.

2 sceptre is 10 second cool-down which is very short, use it a lot but with timing. with experience you will predict more easily when thief will attack and you can counter it.

Most of time with this simple tactic I kill them or they run off. I’m not a very good messmer but power thief are easy in this build. Condition thief is another problem …

A competent player will never eat your torment, it’s very telegraphed skill and easily avoidable, its also easy to clean it.

And the OP has 1.7k condi dmg, I doubt Sword/sword will help him a lot…

BTW, I’m not saying it’s impossible to kill thief(same or better skill than you), it’s just hard for me to belive someone will actually autoattack with 14 staks of confusion or run all over the place with 5 stacks of torment… thief has generally more stealths than mesmer and also better access to poison/conditions in general…

Great discussion so far. Keep it up.

I am enjoying hearing the ideas.

I learn so much from good discussions from people who have actually implemented the strategies they advocate.

The theoretical stuff from people who have not actually tried it are not as helpful. Although they can get you thinking.

A competent player will never eat your torment, it’s very telegraphed skill and easily avoidable, its also easy to clean it.

And the OP has 1.7k condi dmg, I doubt Sword/sword will help him a lot…

BTW, I’m not saying it’s impossible to kill thief(same or better skill than you), it’s just hard for me to belive someone will actually autoattack with 14 staks of confusion or run all over the place with 5 stacks of torment… thief has generally more stealths than mesmer and also better access to poison/conditions in general…

A good thief will not eat my torment but like I say 80% of them just eat it.

Mesmer will not burn a thief but the thief can’t burn the mesmer too in this configuration.

Usually i play with sceptre/torch and sword/focus. I use sigil of fire on my sword, sigil of Doom on my sceptre and rune of perplexity on armour.

All this equipment help me put some more condition.

I don’t kill the thief in 10 second but the combat will take sometimes and in long run I kill a lot of thief like this.
Sword and focus help me to chase ppl who run.

But I know against a power thief it’s more about who make a mistake first. Against condition thief just run … I don’t know what to do they put a lot of condition in short time.