Guild Wars 2

hi , i main guardian and decided to play with mesmer and been doing so for about 2-3 weeks.
obviously im playing meta chrono condi shatter.
my main weapons are scepter/shied and staff.
overall im playing this game for about half a year with 2 seasons of pvp under my belt (as DH) so i know the game and classes.

as mesmer pvp is really fun unless im facing a thief and here is what i need help with.
1st off , im currently not using moa since i feel its still a bit complicated for me (need to stun before using) and gravity well (with continium split) feels easier to pull off.
2nd im still not great at kiting especialy with escaping steal from thief or teleporting backwards to teleport spots.

so now for my questions

1. i have been thinking about changing from scepter to sword , solely because it might help survive better but i would love to know what mesmers with more experience than me think about it.
is sword better for survival than scepter? especially against a thief.

2. thief steal+damage obviously does ton of damage and gives him an early advantage (+when they steal from mesmer they get ton of boons)
so right from the start mesmer is at 40-30% of his initial HP .
so my question is , what does a decent mesmer intuition tells him to do now?
how do you regain hp while attacking the thief at same time?
i try to play it calmly myself using my defence skills while wait for 3 shatters and then shatter and put healing skill on the ground , but sadly most of the time i lose my life before i do enough damage or heal myself…is there some kind of preperation a mesmer does when he knows he might get attacked/stolen soon by thief?

3. i havent encountred staff thiefs as mesmer yet ( atleast not 1 v 1) meta says they are mesmer biggest counter since they can cleanse conditions easy , what is the basic strategy against them?

any tips would help , so thanks in advance

p.s as dh im used to be able to destroy most thiefs easy , as mesmer i feel like i could die any second if thief fully commits (which they usually do) so this is a strange sensation for me…wonder if all decent mesmer felt this at start.

It’s a kittenty match up you can only win as PU condi and in that case he can just disengage and +1 you whenever it is opportune for him.

Thieves are broken in pvp/roaming, period.

Well coming from DH I guess anything else must be a shock with having to face thieves.

You’ve got to anticipate the steal – know the range and be ready to counter, either with Blurred Frenzy, Scepter 2, dodge etc. If you see they have BV active, don’t use shield 4 or scepter 2 (one of the reasons I prefer Sword/Torch). If you don’t anticipate the steal you’re going to have an uphill battle.

Edit: If I fail to anticipate steal (or say Infiltrator’s Strike), immediate reaction is either F4 or Decoy straight into dodge, or hit phase retreat while in staff, or blink away. Got to react instantly or facetank some damage.

Aside from that in a nutshell it’s a case of timing your shatters around their evade frames, trying to bait out and make them waste initiative and condi clear from evades and things like SS.

I find Mirror Images very useful for instant burst. I know the meta pvp build tends to save F5 for Moa, but personally I like to use F5 to double up on shatter. A simple F5, Blink into Mirror Images F3 say when they’re about to HS into BP can be useful and you’ve saved all those skills as soon as you exit F5 whereas they have lost initiative. You can also use F3 into Mirror Images F1 if you’re quick – kind of like the condi equivalent of Blink into GS2 F1 power burst.

Condi thieves are actually really easy to ignore if you trait all the cleanse we have (RI, Menders, Mantra Heal, Cleansing Sigils, Pledge), although the meta build uses Well heal which also has cleanse, but doesn’t use Torch so loses one cleanse on prestige. They’re annoying sure, but don’t waste your burst on them as you’ll likely miss – better to focus someone else while they’re dodging around being useless.

I like torch currently because the burn is beautiful and the stealth is useful. Shield is ok but I don’t enjoy it.

In wvw yeah it sucks when a thief jumps you and you’re in a fight with someone else. Generally in 1v1 with thieves as a condi or hybrid build you shouldn’t lose most of the time – sure they will run but equally they shouldn’t be able to kill you easily. As glass power or hybrid (ie zerker, viper, assassin, sinister…) though, good luck because you’ll likely be one shot from stealth. Even on my hybrid build I take ridiculous amounts of damage from d/p thieves in wvw and can struggle to deal with them if caught with my pants down – which is when most thieves like to attack…

Edit 2: Anyway if you think it’s hard now, it was way harder when power mesmer was meta (pvp) and thieves had a significant advantage unless you succeeded in baiting them into eating your full burst. Currently while thieves have a ridiculous amount of evade, at least we have an easier time surviving, most of the time.

Oh, staff thieves – don’t eat their vault and again time shatters around the evade frames. Yes it’s much easier to type this than to do it in practice, but it is possible – again making them use up evades and initiative.

I have to confess this is a kittened matchup.

The result largely depends on whether you can evade thief’s steal burst. However, we all know steal has no tell. So it is completely a mind game and statistically you lose, as I said steal has no animation and thief can cover it further with stealth etc.

So you either guess correct the steal or you kite to location they can’t teleport. You do want to play very aggressive if they mess up their initial burst. Thief’s initiative mechanics makes sure you lose if you exhaust your defensive CD. So make sure you either go super aggressive or plan an escape route ahead of time. Don’t get caught in a fight where you are not exactly sure what you want.

Idk I’ve fought thieves on a variety of situations before. but my build is like PU and when I’m wary I have my torch and decoy and MI, pretty much when they stealth, I stealth a little bit after them which grants me aegis too, when I don’t have stealth CD, which is honestly not that often, I have chaos storm aegis. I’ve found myself stealthing as often as the thief…. lol. but when I do manage to catch the thief, I’ve quickly burst them down with chaos storm, sword 3 to hold them there, sword 2, a shatter rotation. for survival other than that, sword 2, distortion or daze shatters, and blinks. I have condi cleanse on heal and shatters and null field. I stick a iDefender sometimes to mitigate some damage, but not necessary most of the time. I’m on mirror heal at 12 or 15 second CD and am constantly healing over and over and often remain at full health. I don’t rely on my boons or their boons, I just stay out of reach and when I am in reach it’s sneaking that aegis in at that moment, and swords. i find that our ranged Phantasm keep them distracted too. they’re still around while I’m running around stealth and then going up close for a burst. I didn’t have much issues with heavy hitting stealth thieves except when my fingers got clumsy or I got into 1vx. heavy hitting warriors were a little bit harder actually

For the record, I just recently came back from half a year of hiatus, but I’m getting back in the saddle. Before the latest balance patch, I feel that mesmer was about on par with thieves, now things have turned slightly in their favour due to quickness on Consume Plasma (and the unblockable buff to flanking strike, but let’s talk about D/P). Some of the advice I’ve read are pretty sound, mainly that you have to make a correct read on the thief regarding his steal. If you manage to dodge it, the thief is fighting an uphill battle against you, otherwise, it’s a pretty good idea to go into the defensive.
First of, I’d strongly advice you to take sword over scepter, Blurred Frenzy is a strong defensive tool and, even though it has been nerfed aswell, it’s still worth its salt. Second, you the iLeap is not only a gap closer but can also be used for kiting. The most important thing though is that your clone production is highly dependant on shield (I’d advice you to stick with shield, too, as it allows you to better contest a node when 1v1ing and shield5 is absolutely amazing, even moreso for Moa setups), namely the double block. But with great power comes great responsibility. On D/P Thief, Shadow Shot blinds you and the blind is further unblockable. Blind is terrible because it will deny you the phant coming from a successful shield4 channel. What was worked for me in the past is, especially if I don’t have any clones up, is to F1-shatter into the blind to get rid of it to get my phant to spawn. The second disadvantage is that the phantasm spawn, contrary to (as far as I remember) every other phantasm, can be dodged. This can be mitigated by jumping at the right time. At least in the past it could be, don’t know if that is still possible. What’s next .. oh, don’t mindlessly spamm AA’s with sword or staff since this will get you headshotted, dealing a load of damage in the process and try to only start shattering if you have three illusions up to proc iReversion.
On the topic of staff, you want to use Chaos Storm to protect both yourself and your clones, not only does it provide you with boons but also basically free Chaos Armor (it’s debatable how useful that one still is).
As the last tipps I’d advice you to play with the clock (traited!Steal has a 20s recharge, this makes it somewhat easier to land a successful read and avoid it in the process) and try to position your illusions between the theif and yourself. The clones will bodyblock both headshots and shadowshots.

Hope this helps and sorry for the wording, I’m terribly tired and working on my thesis rn.

PS: I’d take moa over grav well, too. Just practice the setup a little and your muscle memory will remember.

Just run bunker mesmer and ull never die against them

To add, most thief players are very obvious even the ones who’ve been playing for a long time. As soon as they’re in range to steal they will because it’s instant cast, no tell just teleport and get boons and an essential free win vs mesmer (doubly so vs power mesmer).

So find out what sort of range 1200 is and be ready to dodge, blurred frenzy or distort as soon as they get within range.

Another super obvious thing most thieves do is they use basi venom on approach, they might as well wave a flag saying I’m going to steal now at that point. Sometimes they will use black powder at max range, if you see this wait for them to use the stealth ability and dodge when they do as they will either heartseeker into steal for the free hit and almost guaranteed backstab or use bounding dodge into steal. Regardless you know when the steal will happen and preventing that means you’ll essentially not give them the upper hand straight away.

Cool down on traited steal is 21s so try to keep track of it and if steal is about to come off cool down and you have no defences jump onto or into places where you can’t teleport as it makes steal fail.

If you fight a thief who isn’t using steal off cool down and carefully headshots you when you have to heal etc then you found the 0.1% of thief players who actually are good with the class and you’ll probably not win. Go to a DH, thieves don’t like DHs.