Guild Wars 2

I just started playing sPvP with some guildies recently. I have a half a chance to kill any class except thief. These rats stealth in and burn all their cool downs and either kill me initially or then stealth out and seconds later finish me off,.. I’m at a loss because I got no idea how to deal with these ridiculously overpowered thieves in sPvP. I’m currently in a 20/20/0/25/5 build with a GS and sword/pistol wearing knight’s amulet and knight’s jewel in it. my Crit chance is decently high and I do ok but I’m at a loss on how to deal with these thieves! I apologize if this has been posted about before. Can anyone please explain or help on how to handle them? I really appreciate it! thanks!

Seabhac.6824:

I just started playing sPvP with some guildies recently. I have a half a chance to kill any class except thief. These rats stealth in and burn all their cool downs and either kill me initially or then stealth out and seconds later finish me off,.. I’m at a loss because I got no idea how to deal with these ridiculously overpowered thieves in sPvP. I’m currently in a 20/20/0/25/5 build with a GS and sword/pistol wearing knight’s amulet and knight’s jewel in it. my Crit chance is decently high and I do ok but I’m at a loss on how to deal with these thieves! I apologize if this has been posted about before. Can anyone please explain or help on how to handle them? I really appreciate it! thanks!

Since you are 25 into inspiration I would say swap out the pistol for the focus and use the wardens feedback trait… If you see the thief before they stealth you can throwdown a temp curtain and pull them away… It will take them quite some time to get back up and it doesn’t require a target to do the c/c unlike the pistol…

how does this build handle the thieves?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Immortal-Mesmer-Build/first

Stun breaks. Use one in time, get de-stunned, and then do something to avoid the rest of the attack. For eg, stun break mirror images, then blurred frenzy + shatter. The other option, which you don’t have, is to use illusionary persona for the 1 second stun / invulnerability.

Crit chance “decently high”? DPS specced in PvP?!?!

Ya there’s your problem. Try a more balanced design with defensive specs, using the staff and sword/torch (or GS/staff if you want some punch). Your survivability against anything will go through the roof. Also dont forget mirror images and decoy.

Most thieves rely on the initial punch. If you blunt that, they have the stamina of a wet noodle. Keep in mind that you are a Mesmer – master of avoidance. Use it. You should outlive your opponents, not straight up outdps them. You cant outdps a theif if they put effort into it, just not going to happen.

You only need to be scared when you meet a thief that does meh damage.

Dawdler.8521:

Crit chance “decently high”? DPS specced in PvP?!?!

Ya there’s your problem.

what? DPS spec is perfectly fine.

@OP – go to Osicat’s guide on thieves.

Also, stick with pistol and don’t change to focus as recommended above. You’re a phantasm build which means you need your iDuelist who’ll rip into your thief as soon as he pops out of stealth.

- Save your pistol #5 to interrupt his heal.
– Follow it up with a daze shatter to interrupt his heal again (which will 90% of the time, occur roughly 3s after the interrupt)
– Save your GS #5 to knock him out of refuge or for another heal interrupt (this one is situational)

Oh, and use bezerker not knight. You need more damage

out stealth the thief, go decoy about a 1.5 sec after they stealth, so they will unstealth before you do, now you have upper hand, use iDuelist to put pressure on him, when he stealth again, use some cc skill to rupt whatever he is doing, (temporal curtain then into the viod, or GS#5), blink out of sticky situation and let illusion do their job.

First of all, thieves are not overpowered. They can be easily countered and since youre new to sPVP you cant know every possible way to counter them.

I guess that youre using a phantasm build? If so, when you see them coming just spawn your phantasms and keep dodging like a madman, when he stealths and you know where he is just blast him away with #5GS. Your phantasms will do all the damaga for you so you dont need to worry about that hence why you can just dodge and run the whole time.
If a thief stuns you with basilisk venom for example, use a stun break like decoy, or mirror images and F4. It will ruin his whole combo and just spawn your phantasms again.

I play a shatter build mostly and since alot of thieves are very squishy I can kill them rather easy.

Personally I run with a confusion build. Most thieves like to spam attacks to burn people down as fast as possible. Very rarely have I run across a venom thief (though it has happened). Confusion works well against most classes in sPVP if they aren’t paying attention. If nothing else it will reduce the damage against you if the other player holds back to let the debuff wear off (or burns a condition removal). If they do keep attacking you, you’ll have the advantage, in all likelihood.

My confusion build is really simple: 20/0/0/20/30. It’s as plain a cookie cutter glamour confusion build as you can get, but it works wonders. Lacks mobility and buffs, but it has decent condition removal and excellent dodge-rolling capability when you tweak your gear right.

Here’s a link to it: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N3SZ-FKWPk61273VV71;9;4J;0JT07;518-48AQol6-FG4cV19cV192Ro

(Note: you need to copy and paste the link into your browser for some reason… clicking on it doesn’t work. :\)

Hi.

Its not spvp but for thiefs its the same abilitys etc so i add my wvwvw thief vid I posted last night here.

It give a good idea what abilitys I use when i fight thiefs. Its only 4:40 min long vid but after watch thru the filming of 20 duels verssu accended geared theifs they al loked the same so I cut down to 3 where I feel the mobility and counter show best.

Some things who might be missed, notice the timings, ecpecialy on immunitys. This is WERY important. like protection/agis and stealths. Alwyas have chaos armour/boonimmune etc up when a bs incomming.

Go to 0:30 notice how the protection/mass invis clipping so when 1 stop next come etc. Those timing keep you alive, keep rotate defenses when dmg extected to be incomming etc.

Another, 2:09 – 2:15, immunity up, no reason to dodge, and do a dodge just as immunity end to prelong the survival.

/Osicat

Well @Seabhac.6824, I hope if you are there please you can respond my question xD. When, you vs Thief you got to think 1st what the weapon set they using & build with 2 swap weapon they have.. Also, knowing all skills and trait including as well.

So, a question to topic 1st mostly thief pretty sure will be using D/P with 30 shadow arts possible added. With Shadow Rejunvation CR every 3s per 1 & don’t forget blind nearby foe when stealth or 2 intit when using hide skills it’s depend.

The Stealth they get mostly come within Black powder that give blind when hit during range and anyone stay in the radius for long as duration gone. So they used that and HS give them 4s stealth which a cost for some Initiative. So, when they use that be becareful and they might be hitting BS or not up to them.

Once, they has revealed 4s quickly on your Duelist straight away and it give tons dmg once they had debuff till they had to wait. So, they will repeated process again and if you might try use Staff I normally recommended that as you able to survivability & defense+ mobility while having able to do dps with on Phantasm Build.

On, Chaos Storm and stick it there that way when you vs thief it give block Aegis which is great and some condition to hit them+ minor dps. Also, another thing don’t try be outdps fast as how thief can do.

You a mesmer not thief to be junk fast dps to hit opponent foe down and always be Sustain defense & know when to be aggressive at all time. So have a balance in that situation!

The best way to deal with them is simply out stealth them. Dodge and avoid initial burst, once he pops stealth wait 2 seconds and use decoy or just use Mass Invisibility right away. He will get revealed before you and you can really go berserk on his kitten like that, because he instantly loses all his advantage and will have to go defensive or get stomped by phantasms and even if he starts dodging like mad your phantasms will spawn and just blast him later. He stealths again? Use Decoy or Mass Invi (whichever you did not use before) and you will again put him in kittenty situation.

Save your GS knockback for shadow refuge, it will destealth him which is a huge setback there. Also count seconds in your head, if you use Magic Bullet close to be moment when he will stealth, you will often hit him after he stealths and with Rune of Paralyzation he will be stunned most of his stealth which will let you gain some space and will give him little opportunity to make use of his stealth.

Also use energy runes on both GS and Sword main hand. Those extra dodges are golden here.

Thieves are tougher when your not condition specced.

First tip is to learn to bite the bullet and blow up your phantasms for distortion when you need it. Don’t be a slave to them.

When they stealth turn toward where they were and gs5 the area. Hopefully you knock them down and waste some of their time.

Learn timing. With phants up you can get a feel for using sword 2 to prevent damage on restealth while they attack.

Stand by your phantasms so he has to be in their attack range when he pops.

Before restocking on phantasms produce one or two clones and daze shatter.

Gl and kill those kittens ;-)

Go gc shatter and 7 clone shatter them when they appear.

But seriously. With a phant build u have so many options. Drop 15 points to get protection and regen from phantasm. Stand in your chaos storm. It gives u a guaranteed block. Look into sword and scepter. 2 blocks right there that can deal a lot of damage. Decoy to throw them off. You have more tools than a thief abuse them. Heck drop phant defender w sig if illusion if you need the extra def.

Hope this helps. They’re not really that bad as long as you know your class and how they work.

You’re lucky in that the Mes forum has people like Osicat, Pyroatheist, Fay, and others. They’re all excellent, and you should go have a look at their stuff.

As a thief whose second most-played profession is a mes, I can give you a few pieces of advice. First, your build looks pretty DPS-oriented, so I might suggest swapping to a different build. On my mesmer, for example, I run something akin to this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdWlwzipXTzoGb9IiJF9Gyd6RytcTXJF82FC-TsAg1CtIsRZjzGjNSbs2MKZRwMCA

Which I’m not saying is a pro build, or even a good build, but it’s one that I enjoy. However, there are a few important things here that could help you out:
- 2 stunbreakers. Blink is an excellent and easy-to-use teleport with a low cool down, and Decoy has a slightly longer CD but comes with stealth and a free clone. Stunbreaks are very good against glassier thieves.
- Staff is also very good as a pseudo-stunbreaker, as it gives you the opportunity to teleport away from enemies while stunned, which is incredibly useful.
- Lots of mobility allows you to force the thief into the position you want him or her to be in.
- Focus is extremely useful for pulling people out of SR.
- My defense in this build isn’t particularly high, but I offset that with the Chaos IV trait, mobility, and the LoS nuances that illusions naturally possess anyways.

That’s my two cents there.