Guild Wars 2

Hi the title pretty much says it all . Is there anyway to prevent a P/D thief spamming cloak and dagger of your clones and if so how ?
That skill allows them to wear you down easily and pretty much spam skill 1 meanwhile you’re blowing all your utility stealth skills just to stay alive and when you do its pretty much GG . Any tips will be appreciated Thank you .

1. Spec for condi
2. Debilitating dissipation + Crippling Dissipation
3. Thief kills clone
4. ???
5. Profit

Power/shatter mesmer I’d expect to have less options available when the shatter skills are on CD.

Best bet seems to be condi spec with lots o’ dire gear. But now you will find that most thiefs tend to simply run away -__-

Thief is pistol and dagger so Debilitating dissipation + Crippling Dissipation wouldn’t have much effect on the thief since pistol is like 900 range

Running into the thief seems to help, also spamming clones on top of him.
Mender’s purity for this encounter is a must tho (napalm cat spec by Osicat)

If he runs away to maintain range, the battle is half won.

try the torment build mtd
shatter on him or use scepter block and he will go SR
while is SR create distance of 15 sec ore until the thief reveal himself and block again and combo shatter him

if he just cnd spam smartly then its hard fight but if he doesnt kill your clones he will get torment stacks on him 3-4 and bleed which the thief dont like

Condition mesmer is your mesmer death clone and especially shatter,negate the sneak attack there is not much to dodge anyway. He won’t kill you but you may not kill him.

Is no one going to suggest pushing Shatters? xD

Coulter.2315:

Is no one going to suggest pushing Shatters? xD

So bait and burst.

The thing to keep in mind is that to CnD he has to be in melee range. So stack your clones on a single spot. When he appears beside you, shatter + whatever = bursted thief.

Tried it, didn’t work.

Thief consumes plasma for protection+Aegis+other goodies, greatly reducing your burst while his burst increases.

If he missed his steal the fight is more manageable for any spec, but overall is still an uphill battle.

Just stand on the clone and wait for him if shatter just mirror blade(it tracks stealth)spike on self + diversion.Problem is most thieves have another ways of getting stealth.just keep 1 and only clone(prefer izerker) or bunch of clones on same spot and be there too.This is your best chance.also count the CnD stealth timer.

Hm, let me think. Thief p/d is a 100% dire build, and any melee attack is easily negated by a backward shadowstep. Getting in close only means standing in their caltrops, and their steal is traited to daze. You can outrange the thief, but I don’t think you could focus enough damage. Clone death traits could work, but you can’t always respec for fights in WvW. Short of asking a friend to gank the thief with you, I can’t think of any tactics right now.

Honestly, I would say don’t even bother. On paper, there isn’t a viable way to beat dire condi p/d. It’s the cheesiest build, and will give out heartburns.

On the other hand, this is a build designed to wittle away health. Even if it can be bursty, it’s slower compared to other thief builds. You do have that to your advantage. You could go yolo and try to burst them down, while timing a daze on their heals or CnD, although that would be quite difficult to accomplish.

Arikyali.5804:

Hm, let me think. Thief p/d is a 100% dire build, and any melee attack is easily negated by a backward shadowstep. Getting in close only means standing in their caltrops, and their steal is traited to daze. You can outrange the thief, but I don’t think you could focus enough damage. Clone death traits could work, but you can’t always respec for fights in WvW. Short of asking a friend to gank the thief with you, I can’t think of any tactics right now.

Honestly, I would say don’t even bother. On paper, there isn’t a viable way to beat dire condi p/d. It’s the cheesiest build, and will give out heartburns.

On the other hand, this is a build designed to wittle away health. Even if it can be bursty, it’s slower compared to other thief builds. You do have that to your advantage. You could go yolo and try to burst them down, while timing a daze on their heals or CnD, although that would be quite difficult to accomplish.

You may not kill him but he shouldn’t kill you either,condition shatter is the best thing that has a chance of a kill, toughness ignored+inferior cleansing+burn,confusion,torment+easiness to negate sneak attack+high cleansing uptime(mantra)+= you can win.

Trap p/d is more aggressive and will have more burst and evades but still has the same weaknesses. Don’t die vs him let him try to kill you,you can still deal with power thieves too.

Honestly, I would say don’t even bother. On paper, there isn’t a viable way to beat dire condi p/d. It’s the cheesiest build, and will give out heartburns.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRAsa7fl0npMtFqxGNcrNyqxY6WO5lTtUpvI7AA-TVCEAB2t/Qiq/MlyLJOJAapEpN9DA8AAa4IA4lSwAAIA3sNbz2MYoDdoDdoDtZOzhezbezSBAzyI-w

I don´t have much trouble with p/d thiefs when running hybrid lockdown with iDisenchanter. They won´t kill you anytime soon plus you´re able to interrupt CnD and their heal. Add guard stacks, bloodlust and 10 might, and you should be able to kill them if they don´t run.

Schattenlied.4873:

Honestly, I would say don’t even bother. On paper, there isn’t a viable way to beat dire condi p/d. It’s the cheesiest build, and will give out heartburns.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRAsa7fl0npMtFqxGNcrNyqxY6WO5lTtUpvI7AA-TVCEAB2t/Qiq/MlyLJOJAapEpN9DA8AAa4IA4lSwAAIA3sNbz2MYoDdoDdoDtZOzhezbezSBAzyI-w

I don´t have much trouble with p/d thiefs when running hybrid lockdown with iDisenchanter. They won´t kill you anytime soon plus you´re able to interrupt CnD and their heal. Add guard stacks, bloodlust and 10 might, and you should be able to kill them if they don´t run.

Ooh, that’s interesting – I didn’t consider that. But is there a second option aside from mantras? I know they make very strong builds, but I feel they are too easy to interrupt on casts, and too risky to use out in WvW solo.

You´re right about the vulnerability to interrupts, that´s why I use torch (to replace Decoy) and 1200 range Blink. If you know your enemy´s interrupt skills, you can wait until they´re on cooldown or you interrupt them with MoD. LoS is another option, wvw is full of useful terrain. Nevertheless, I will always run mantra with at least 2500 armor so I can take some hits while charging.

Schattenlied.4873:

You´re right about the vulnerability to interrupts, that´s why I use torch (to replace Decoy) and 1200 range Blink. If you know your enemy´s interrupt skills, you can wait until they´re on cooldown or you interrupt them with MoD. LoS is another option, wvw is full of useful terrain. Nevertheless, I will always run mantra with at least 2500 armor so I can take some hits while charging.

Mantras aren’t too bad to charge vs a P/D thief. Obviously steal is a really strong interrupt since it’s instacast from range, but it’s on a long enough cooldown that you can just instantly start charging a mantra once steal has been used and generally be safe from interrupts since a P/D thief will only have that one interrupt.

Like i said before, thief are spam in a can….2-2-2..ur dead!

Vieux P.1238:

Like i said before, thief are spam in a can….2-2-2..ur dead!

Yes, this is eminently constructive and useful in this thread. This thread which is specifically asking about a P/D thief. The thief that uses their ‘2’ skill incredibly rarely. You’ve been spamming misinformed opinions all over the mesmer threads today, would be nice if you’d just sorta not do that.

I find stealth-spamming thieves to fall easily to my current Condi-Shatter. Every time they come out, I shatter on them for a good amount of torment+confusion+some other condition I happen to throw on them, burning or poison or both. With the cover condition and both burst conditions, the thief will wear down his health and be lower or at the same amount when he surfaces again. Repeat this. The strength of condition mesmer though is the defense of scepter-torch and staff, using your block or stealth or Chaos Storm.

Dondagora.9645:

I find stealth-spamming thieves to fall easily to my current Condi-Shatter. Every time they come out, I shatter on them for a good amount of torment+confusion+some other condition I happen to throw on them, burning or poison or both. With the cover condition and both burst conditions, the thief will wear down his health and be lower or at the same amount when he surfaces again. Repeat this. The strength of condition mesmer though is the defense of scepter-torch and staff, using your block or stealth or Chaos Storm.

But if it will be SA thief? tatadammm

Fay.2357:

Mantras aren’t too bad to charge vs a P/D thief. Obviously steal is a really strong interrupt since it’s instacast from range, but it’s on a long enough cooldown that you can just instantly start charging a mantra once steal has been used and generally be safe from interrupts since a P/D thief will only have that one interrupt.

You´re absolutly right, p/d isn´t much of a problem in terms of interrupts. I refered mostly to this “too risky to use out in WvW solo” part.

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Fay.2357:

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is. As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer. Why do you think ppl are complianing? Ill take thief speed or any other classes that have fast casting time over any mesmer skills. You sound like you get easally confuse my friend. Maybe you should try it more see how it goes before making an ignorent statement.

Vieux P.1238:

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is.

I’ve played Mesmer fairly extensively and I find it to be very much the opposite of clunky. Most skills work the way they should, and the effects they have are useful and helpful.

Vieux P.1238:

As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer.

See, you say this but it’s not my experience at all. Some Mesmer skills are slow, some are very fast. Knowing when to use the fast ones and when you can use the slow ones is part of the skill set required to play Mesmer effectively. Defense skills are often very quick, try using some of them to protect against that skill-spamming thief.

Vieux P.1238:

Why do you think ppl are complianing?

I think people are complaining for the same reason they ever complain: they lack the necessary skill to understand why their complaints are invalid.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re discussing burst thief builds in a thread focused on P/D.

Coulter.2315:

Is no one going to suggest pushing Shatters? xD

You are giving far, far too much credit to this game’s playerbase, muffin.

Vieux P.1238:

Fay.2357:

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is. As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer. Why do you think ppl are complianing? Ill take thief speed or any other classes that have fast casting time over any mesmer skills. You sound like you get easally confuse my friend. Maybe you should try it more see how it goes before making an ignorent statement.

Sorry,while GS skills are slow,staff(cept autoattack)/sword/scepter and pistol skills all are fast cast.all mantras are instant cast after you load them,only phantasms skills require cast time.

I dont see how slow,mesmers are,maybe the issue here is that you havent really mastered yet the basic gw2 mechanic as in how skills work.You might wanna play gw2 more cause it seems you are new.

Sandrox.9524:

Vieux P.1238:

Fay.2357:

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is. As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer. Why do you think ppl are complianing? Ill take thief speed or any other classes that have fast casting time over any mesmer skills. You sound like you get easally confuse my friend. Maybe you should try it more see how it goes before making an ignorent statement.

Sorry,while GS skills are slow,staff(cept autoattack)/sword/scepter and pistol skills all are fast cast.all mantras are instant cast after you load them,only phantasms skills require cast time.

I dont see how slow,mesmers are,maybe the issue here is that you havent really mastered yet the basic gw2 mechanic as in how skills work.You might wanna play gw2 more cause it seems you are new.

Mantra is barely viable since last patch. Phantasm build are more 1v1 focus & the only true viable is a shatter build.

Sword/scepter & pistol skill all have a minimum of 1 second cast or longer. Anoth for anyone one with an instant interrupt like the thief or even better, the warriors hammer. Theres no escape from a 15 second stun or immobilization no matter how many instant condi removal you have with your mantra. Once the mesmer is hit in that warriors hammer rotation, the mesmer is stuck & done for. End of story! & i’ve tried everything from casting frenzy & all. Your chances are slim if your unable to cast your skills. Making the Mesmers skills instant like the rest of the classes would dramatically turn the table. Why do you think PU build was so strong before the patch? Cuz of aegis when you turned invisible. The invisibility did not give you the advantage, aegis did making you immune for that one moment giving you anoth time to use your skills with out interruption. Put it anyway you want, wont change the fact that Mesmer has bin back slap becuz of players from other classes complaining they wher to OP.

Vieux P.1238:

Sandrox.9524:

Vieux P.1238:

Fay.2357:

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is. As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer. Why do you think ppl are complianing? Ill take thief speed or any other classes that have fast casting time over any mesmer skills. You sound like you get easally confuse my friend. Maybe you should try it more see how it goes before making an ignorent statement.

Sorry,while GS skills are slow,staff(cept autoattack)/sword/scepter and pistol skills all are fast cast.all mantras are instant cast after you load them,only phantasms skills require cast time.

I dont see how slow,mesmers are,maybe the issue here is that you havent really mastered yet the basic gw2 mechanic as in how skills work.You might wanna play gw2 more cause it seems you are new.

Mantra is barely viable since last patch. Phantasm build are more 1v1 focus & the only true viable is a shatter build.

Sword/scepter & pistol skill all have a minimum of 1 second cast or longer. Anoth for anyone one with an instant interrupt like the thief or even better, the warriors hammer. Theres no escape from a 15 second stun or immobilization no matter how many instant condi removal you have with your mantra. Once the mesmer is hit in that warriors hammer rotation, the mesmer is stuck & done for. End of story! & i’ve tried everything from casting frenzy & all. Your chances are slim if your unable to cast your skills. Making the Mesmers skills instant like the rest of the classes would dramatically turn the table. Why do you think PU build was so strong before the patch? Cuz of aegis when you turned invisible. The invisibility did not give you the advantage, aegis did making you immune for that one moment giving you anoth time to use your skills with out interruption. Put it anyway you want, wont change the fact that Mesmer has bin back slap becuz of players from other classes complaining they wher to OP.

Not the aegis,the perma protection.Mantras are viable enough to use at most two of them.And you can chain daze/stun 5x better than warrior hammer rotations..
thief range auto attacks have cast times like mesmer range auto attacks,scepter dont have any cast time part of auto attack,thief shortbow have cast times.
thieves have inti,that is far much harder than skills on cooldown.So it pretty much balances out.

Go condi, use staff, trait for extra bounce, hit the thief hard 1 time and let the staff clones do the rest.

If the staff clones start their attack before he stealths he is toast. Try to move close to him. The orb moves slow but will hit him, bounce off of you and hit him again.

3 clones attack + extra bounce = getting hit 6 times with winds of chaos

2 sec fire for at least 1200 dmg (and 600dps for fire is not hard to get)
2 (7) sec bleed for 1400 dmg (200 dps but thief will probably cleanse)
2 stacks of vuln

Once the thief sees you can hit him while he stealths he will probably run away.

My youtube channel is in my signature, I have a video of my current build and a video on how to fight thieves.

Vieux P.1238:

Sandrox.9524:

Vieux P.1238:

Fay.2357:

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is. As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer. Why do you think ppl are complianing? Ill take thief speed or any other classes that have fast casting time over any mesmer skills. You sound like you get easally confuse my friend. Maybe you should try it more see how it goes before making an ignorent statement.

Sorry,while GS skills are slow,staff(cept autoattack)/sword/scepter and pistol skills all are fast cast.all mantras are instant cast after you load them,only phantasms skills require cast time.

I dont see how slow,mesmers are,maybe the issue here is that you havent really mastered yet the basic gw2 mechanic as in how skills work.You might wanna play gw2 more cause it seems you are new.

Mantra is barely viable since last patch. Phantasm build are more 1v1 focus & the only true viable is a shatter build.

Sword/scepter & pistol skill all have a minimum of 1 second cast or longer. Anoth for anyone one with an instant interrupt like the thief or even better, the warriors hammer. Theres no escape from a 15 second stun or immobilization no matter how many instant condi removal you have with your mantra. Once the mesmer is hit in that warriors hammer rotation, the mesmer is stuck & done for. End of story! & i’ve tried everything from casting frenzy & all. Your chances are slim if your unable to cast your skills. Making the Mesmers skills instant like the rest of the classes would dramatically turn the table. Why do you think PU build was so strong before the patch? Cuz of aegis when you turned invisible. The invisibility did not give you the advantage, aegis did making you immune for that one moment giving you anoth time to use your skills with out interruption. Put it anyway you want, wont change the fact that Mesmer has bin back slap becuz of players from other classes complaining they wher to OP.

Yeah I disagree with you too.

Shatter mesmers in sPvP are the prey of thieves. But outside of the torny comp setups, Mesmers have always had a distinct advantage over most thief builds.

Only things like P/D, particularly in WvW with perplexity runes offer a nasty counter to most Mesmer setups, but you can build to counter it. You can also build to dominate it. But really it’s a skill issue. Nobody said it was easy. My experience has not been that thieves dominate me on Mesmer. I’ve been playing Mesmer exclusively in WvW since release.

Not that you care or agree so I’ll just summarize: You’re wrong. L2P issue.

in tpvp i have hard time versus thief. not so much p/d ones but in spvp i encounter some which if they surprise you in the middle of the fight they can take you down fast with 1 condi burst 5 torment 5 confusion poison 5 bleed weakness
but if you prepare for them the mesmer should have the upper hand (power or condi)

versus s/d or d/p thief its the hardest

in wvw most thieves are average or below it so i rarely have a problem with them

messiah.1908:

in tpvp i have hard time versus thief. not so much p/d ones but in spvp i encounter some which if they surprise you in the middle of the fight they can take you down fast with 1 condi burst 5 torment 5 confusion poison 5 bleed weakness
but if you prepare for them the mesmer should have the upper hand (power or condi)

versus s/d or d/p thief its the hardest

in wvw most thieves are average or below it so i rarely have a problem with them

Are you sure we play the same game :o?

Sandrox.9524:

messiah.1908:

in tpvp i have hard time versus thief. not so much p/d ones but in spvp i encounter some which if they surprise you in the middle of the fight they can take you down fast with 1 condi burst 5 torment 5 confusion poison 5 bleed weakness
but if you prepare for them the mesmer should have the upper hand (power or condi)

versus s/d or d/p thief its the hardest

in wvw most thieves are average or below it so i rarely have a problem with them

Are you sure we play the same game :o?

you mean you kill all thief no matter what the situation and what the builds?

messiah.1908:

Sandrox.9524:

messiah.1908:

in tpvp i have hard time versus thief. not so much p/d ones but in spvp i encounter some which if they surprise you in the middle of the fight they can take you down fast with 1 condi burst 5 torment 5 confusion poison 5 bleed weakness
but if you prepare for them the mesmer should have the upper hand (power or condi)

versus s/d or d/p thief its the hardest

in wvw most thieves are average or below it so i rarely have a problem with them

Are you sure we play the same game :o?

you mean you kill all thief no matter what the situation and what the builds?

About wvw.Cause all thieves with x/d are facerolling me.