Guild Wars 2

Hello,

This question is for wvw only, although i am sure same advice could be used for s/tpvp.

I used to play a conditionmancer and have recently swapped to a 30/0/25/15/0 d/f+staff powermancer using WoS/Spectral Walk/BiP. I’m having a lot of fun!

However, while I can generally hold my own against Backstab thieves, I now find myself having trouble with p/d thieves who load me up with bleeds and then stealth, healing themselves in the process. As I now have fewer condition management tools (no more dagger OH 4), they really seem to be out attritioning (is that a word?!) my attrition build which is based heavily on toughness, vitality and power.

Is there a trick to countering p/d thieves? My tactics so far (obviously will vary with each encounter) have been as follows:

- Dagger 5 / BiP to open at distance
- DS2/DS3 to close gap
- dagger 3 + WoS
- dagger 1 spam
- wait for Shadow Refuge
- Switch to staff and Putrid mark to transfer conditions back
- Spam rest of marks on top (start with 5 to fear out of refuge if possible)/ WoS if it is up / run around autoattacking like a loon
- Consume conditions
- DS 1 then rinse and repeat, with a dagger 5 to chill if I get the opportunity

My problem is that the thief spends so much time in stealth that I find it hard to land anything so I can burst, and my two condition management tools are on CD most of the time. Cast times on dagger/focus are also quite long and obvious, so the thief simply dodges me when I am using these weapons. As a result, I also find it hard to build life force.

Should I eg. switch Spectral Walk for WoP to help against this particular build or is there another way i can fight them? Are there any specific traits which I could pick up that I may have missed? Seems annoying to have to change builds specifically to fight one build of one profession but they seem to be becoming more and more common so I need to adapt accordingly.

Of course, it may be that my approach is correct and I just need to become better at it!

Your thoughts and advice appreciated, months into GW2 and I am still learning every day!

To be honest, this is one of the class combinations that I find to be nearly impossible for the build you are running to deal with, unless you invest heavily in retaliation, and even then its really hit and miss against a good p/d.

If you are running a p/t/v build you can have retal hits in the range of 400 or so with some might up, and a p/d is attacking often. Since you don’t run axe in that build (based on the above), you lose that extra source of retal. (also its not great in a 1v1 situation anyhow). You can go with the retal on heal, and the retal when entering DS, but again, a SMART p/d is just going to wait you out. They clear conditions better than you, and can drop target, and have the advantage of the visibility issues around stealth not rendering properly. Also their passive healing trumps ours even with a full life steal build.

That is one of the best 1v1 classess, and hardest to deal with. Oddly I rarely see them though.

they are good and hard, but I dont fight 1v1 much in WvW, specially peek-a-boo thieves+culling issues, so i’m not saying you’ll win, but @ shadow refuge, you open with staff#3, then #4. chill+poison, plus it’s a combo field, #4 a finisher (area weakness may be not that good, but u get in the habit of using it in groups for retal or regen – guardian/ele/etc).

I hardly ever use focus, because the cast times are too long, or BiP because it makes me anxious and sloppy trying to get hits in.

dagger #4 gives u an extra tranfer, plus blind. #5 not that good.
horn, daze +swiftness

I go nowhere without Locust, even before it was bumped to 25%, and with MH dagger, it’s easier to stay in their face as much as possible.

I play both Necromancer and Thief so maybe I can help, although I do not use your Necro build.

The thief build you’re seeing cleanses conditions on stealth, heals on stealth and probably returns 2 initiative on stealth. They’ll have 15 initiative and very little need to use skills 2,3 or 4 because they are, compared to CnD, ineffective aside specific situations.

That makes them predictable. P/D thieves do one thing basically. Stealth and shoot. Main stealth method is via CnD.

Dodge the CnD, and then they lose 6 rather than 4 initiative. For the ones that regen initiative in stealth also, you negate that opportunity. 2 CnD dodges in a row, and the thief is down to a mere 3 initiative at which point they HAVE to pop a utility stealth. That’s a good 40 sec or 60 sec CD (blinding powder or shadow refuge) blown, and they’ll be back up to 5 initiative + 1 or 2 for standard initiative regen. They can now CnD again but at most only twice (if successful) before running out of initiative. Dodge roll 1, and they must use a second utility stealth (if they have it). You will have a dodge available by the time they used their first utility stealth, hung around 4 secs then shot and 3 sec wait for debuff, so no excuses here. Dodge first one, 0 initiative thief. Have fun

As for ability usage. Try using staff 3 just after they shoot you with sneak attack, not when on usual attacks nor while they’re in stealth. This puts chill on them long enough that they’ll have it still on when stealth debuff wears off, making the dodge far easier to pull off. Use staff 4 also at this point for weakness, and throwing those conditions just put on you back onto him/her. Vs this type of thief crit chance is low so weakness actually does something, albeit not a huge amount as pistol hits for straight dmg are weak.

Save staff 5 for shadow refuge, pushing them out of refuge with that will force revealed debuff and waste a 60 sec utility. Also if they are using this, they are likely in trouble (initiative used up, low hp and need a long stealth for heal), so this is the fight winning move oftentimes.

Utility setup for this thief type:

1) Well of darkness
2) Plague signet
3) Spectral walk

Self explanatory really.
1) Blind them, essentially a free dodge.
2) Send conditions back to them. As their damage is nearly all conditions this is obviously good.
3) Swiftness makes it easier to evade them, also spectral recall is another free dodge.

For your second weapon setup i’d say wait on dagger use until you’ve wasted some of their initiative. Clever use of the immobilise will be invaluable, and don’t try to stack longer chill duration with staff 3 and focus 5 combo, save them for separate occasions in the fight. They’ll cleanse it on stealth anyway, chill is to make your dodging easier.

Once initiative is burnt, jump in there with the dagger, throw a chill on them to keep in range also.

Finally as another resort, if you’re out of dodges and everything, swap into death shroud and fear them to buy that little extra time.

Hope this helps.

If the thief is competent you can’t kill him.

From personal experience any good thief will avoid using CnD against a player and instead opt to use it on any random mob or against one of our minions if we use any.

I’ve tried to outlast P/D thieves buy popping DS every 5 secs to cleanse the bleeds, stack retaliation and fight them with scepter but the thief still outlasted me. They can regen upwards of 400 health a second in stealth while cleansing conditions and sometimes even emerging with boons, such as might.

Get used to this setup, it’s the most annoying and reliable kill Thieves have and from the amount of clamoring in their forums about pistol 1 attacks being weak, which is a ridiculous complaint when you compare it to our scepter 1, it might actually get a buff, making it even harder to fight.

i love fighting p/d thieves. its like dancing with a ptv build.

what i do is i mentally divide my toolset. one part is the immob/daze/fear/fear or fear/immob/fear/daze combo. while you are interrupting or locking him, do your power dps. be calm and worry about setting up your fields for when he stealths.

a lot of p/d thieves will double evade after stealthing right behind you, a direct 180 degree LoS break move, because they want some range to open up bleeds on their pistols.

near the end of your CC chain, you need to drop2-3 of your marks. chillblains being the one farthest from you. if you can, cast right as he pops out. the trick is to stay calm and learn how that specific thief moves when he stealths. some strafe right out of range behind you to get lucky with a CnD if they’re ballsy or double evade once unstealthed to gain range to re-chain.

lock, dps.
field drop, bubble. those are the two modes you swap between. and whenever you can, throw those bleeds back on him with staff4. anything else, pop a spectral util while he closes in on your with dagger to generate LF to soak bleeds when he’s ranged.

edit: but p/d thieves are definitely challenging to the class, as long as they’re competent. expect a draw, where he leaves with caltrops or evades off an edge or around a corner. in those cases, enjoy the sportsmanship and the fact that he realizes you’re a solid match for him.

Katsumoto.9452:

I play both Necromancer and Thief so maybe I can help, although I do not use your Necro build.

The thief build you’re seeing cleanses conditions on stealth, heals on stealth and probably returns 2 initiative on stealth. They’ll have 15 initiative and very little need to use skills 2,3 or 4 because they are, compared to CnD, ineffective aside specific situations.

……………..

Hope this helps.

Truncated that a bit, but I wanted to just draw attention to a the fact that you have a class circle strafing and using two skills, and the occasional utility, and the requires precise timing, practice, and skill to counter; utilizing all or most of our utilities and weapon skills; including those on our swap.

If that does not point to a disparity in the classes, I can’t imagine what would. The read was excellent information for someone who doesn’t play or know the thief class that well however, and I appreciated the information.

This is all really good advice, thanks everyone. Will persevere and hopefully be able to add my own advice at some point

Rennoko.5731:

Truncated that a bit, but I wanted to just draw attention to a the fact that you have a class circle strafing and using two skills, and the occasional utility, and the requires precise timing, practice, and skill to counter; utilizing all or most of our utilities and weapon skills; including those on our swap.

If that does not point to a disparity in the classes, I can’t imagine what would. The read was excellent information for someone who doesn’t play or know the thief class that well however, and I appreciated the information.

This is more or less the issue I have with it as well; It’s like saying, ‘If you play to absolute perfection, have complete mastery of the Profession, and you simply rely on the opponent to kitten something up somewhere in the fight, then you will win.’

I don’t understand that line of thought. How is that even a plausible solution? Should it not be that, ‘If you have complete mastery of the Profession, and play to absolute perfection, you will simply annihilate anyone that stands in your way, unless they play with very similar perfection and mastery.’?

Regardless, that was a nice read. Thanks for the information.

Arianna.7642:

Rennoko.5731:

Truncated that a bit, but I wanted to just draw attention to a the fact that you have a class circle strafing and using two skills, and the occasional utility, and the requires precise timing, practice, and skill to counter; utilizing all or most of our utilities and weapon skills; including those on our swap.

If that does not point to a disparity in the classes, I can’t imagine what would. The read was excellent information for someone who doesn’t play or know the thief class that well however, and I appreciated the information.

This is more or less the issue I have with it as well; It’s like saying, ‘If you play to absolute perfection, have complete mastery of the Profession, and you simply rely on the opponent to kitten something up somewhere in the fight, then you will win.’

I don’t understand that line of thought. How is that even a plausible solution? Should it not be that, ‘If you have complete mastery of the Profession, and play to absolute perfection, you will simply annihilate anyone that stands in your way, unless they play with very similar perfection and mastery.’?

Regardless, that was a nice read. Thanks for the information.

this to me is how necro vs guardian is in sPvP

Or you know anet should fix this bullkitten and add a cooldown to stealth in combat. I was on my ranger today fighting a p/d thief with one other person and it’s mind boggling that a game company find this balance.

Rannulf.9417:

Or you know anet should fix this bullkitten and add a cooldown to stealth in combat. I was on my ranger today fighting a p/d thief with one other person and it’s mind boggling that a game company find this balance.

There is a cooldown on stealth, its the “revealed” debuff. Yes, it lasts entirely too short for how long a thief is actually visible with rendering right now, which is about .5-1 second between stealths. I think the debuff is 2 or 3 seconds that prevents restealth.

It’s good to know I’m not the only person that’s struggling against these types of thieves. They have so many counters to nearly everything we do. If I get lucky my Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption can put a dent into them, but that’s only if they are bad.