Guild Wars 2

So I just encountered this in a match. A thief who never appeared and was able to lay condi traps everywhere I was walking around me. Was this an actual build or some kind of cheat? There seemed no defense from it at all in a 1v1. Note he never appeared and just lay traps constantly loading me with condis.

Its an actual thief build, its absolute kitten design that they can actually hurt you without ever breaking stealth but ANet seems ok with it for some godawful reason.

Its what we called Ghost thief build in WvW land. Annoying as hell, but in PvP it has major flaws.

As you see it has next to no stun break (can add one but at expense of stealth), so its a double edge sword in team fight. And in solo fight in PvP, say goodbye to your cap points. Note it only benefit team by 5 points when you stomp someone, but it only takes 3-4s to lose a capture point and more or less 6-8s to regain one from scratch.

It also only damage people by burning utilities to achieve condi burst every 24s or so, if anyone pop resistance or manage to survive initial burst, the thief have almost no sustain damage afterward. Mesmer doesn’t really have mass condi cleanse except inspiration + well. So mesmer is kind of countered when fighting this.

EDIT: oh and traps and cantrip are unblockable. So don’t think about using shield to block it on cap points. Get out of area and burn condi cleanse if needed. If you can pace yourself then that thief is a dead meat to his team since he can’t steal the cap from you either.

It’s garbage in PvP. Just leave the point and dance around a bit if you encounter one. Its strength is staying permanently stealthed, but that guarantees a loss of a point.

Enjoy the free win by having all team fights be effectively 4v5 on your favorable because some trashy player decided to play a build that’s total junk.

Also standing somewhere he can’t teleport onto you can really mess him up and either get you the decap, full cap or defence. Then if he’s still annoying cleanse and leave, well of eternity with inspiration is a cleanse all against this.

Not much you can do to actually fight them as Mesmer. Just slot inspiration and ignore them. Can try a stealth trap if you must. A well timed Gravity Well works nicely, but you need someone else to burst the well to actually kill the Thief.

Edit: Oh wait you said match as in sPvP. I’’m really surprised to see anyone use that there.

Pro conquest tip: If it comes down to it, just make sure you keep the point decapped if not capped, and stay alive. You can continually reset the fight on the point to decap it from him, or cap if he moves on. In this way you won’t be earning any points for the team with that point, but neither will he. It’s a zero sum neutralizing of anything.

Rotate around him with portal.

He was actually doing your team a favor running that build. You had a 4v5 on the rest of the map while a free decap on w/e point he was camping.

Win the 4v5 and then decap his point. Go wipe his team 4v5 on respawn then decap his,point.

Rinse and repeat that.

The key is that you have to resist the urge to actually fight the thief. Just go to his point, stay long enough to decap it, and leave. That’s all you need to do. If you stick around to try and kill it you’re just wasting time that could be spent making the main team fight unbalanced in your favor.

ArenaNet, fix this!

OriOri.8724:

Its an actual thief build, its absolute kitten design that they can actually hurt you without ever breaking stealth but ANet seems ok with it for some godawful reason.

It’s balanced because you win the point 1v1, it’s not hard to zone/out rotate (especially with portal), and in many cases is virtually -1 in team fights.

It’s dumb because people want to kill each other in pvp, not dance around points.

But unfortunately we balance for 5v5 conquest. lol

Daishi.6027:

OriOri.8724:

Its an actual thief build, its absolute kitten design that they can actually hurt you without ever breaking stealth but ANet seems ok with it for some godawful reason.

It’s balanced because you win the point 1v1, it’s not hard to zone/out rotate (especially with portal), and in many cases is virtually -1 in team fights.

It’s dumb because people want to kill each other in pvp, not dance around points.

But unfortunately we balance for 5v5 conquest. lol

Balanced =/= good design though, which is a fallacy too many people on the forums make. Its just bad design that in a game where applying damage breaks stealth, thief can continue to apply damage to you without ever breaking stealth. And you pointed out a big flaw with this build, it doesn’t have great pressure so at best its an annoyance for the other team and a disadvantage for the team its on. Is that not reason enough for ANet to do something about the build?

@OriOri

I agree entierly. It is terrible design.

A lot of the PvP in this game is.

But until A-net and the community at large recognizes that and gets their head out of their kitties, I guess… “No”, it’s not enough reason for them to do something about it. And even if they did think there was enough reason, there is worse going on that needs attention.

Maybe one day we’ll get a full overhaul, but I doubt it’ll happen within the next three years. (I hope I’m wrong.)