Guild Wars 2

Hey folks. I’ve been at the receiving end of the ever popular P/D roaming thief build. The thief build is viewable here: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_P/D_Condi_roamer

I couldn’t find a counter with my ranger (6 seconds of revealed from Sic Em isn’t enough, even with LB auto-tracking attack), so I’ve turned my eyes to the Necromancer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fREQNArYWlc0ozmN2w3G8rNRvQBdAUmHbkPQCQZXkFA-T1RAABQt/o8DgnAAtKBHUfQQq/Ah5PpPFAkCAmlVA-w

The thief can lose 2 conditions whenever he stealths (and he can stealth very often), so the general idea is to first disable with fear to force him to shadowstep (break stun), followed by overloading with so many condis that the thief cannot hope to cleanse them off. Giving his condis right back seems like a good idea too.

I don’t care that I do not have any means to run from overwhelming odds even though I’m roaming with a mesmer friend. I want a solution for this specific thief build.

First of all, condi thieves are pretty much the easiest matchup for necros you can find. You don’t even need Plague Signet unless you are too lazy to dodge. So yeah, if you want to hard counter them go with necro.

@build: you need to look at how you distribute your condition duration. +100% is the maximum. You seem to have +90% with food and sigils of malice. That means Hemophilia, sigils of agony, runes of the necro and Master of Terror are altogether just adding another 10% to bleeding and fear.
That means: lose the toxic crystals, normal ones are fine (and cheaper), change both sigils to something on-crit or on-swap, change Hemophilia to Weakening Shroud, change Master of Terror or the runes (or both).
Don’t try to max out every duration at all cost, it’s not worth it.
Also, Unyielding Blast seems an odd choice for a condi build, but whatever.

To be fair, a Necromancer, no matter what build, has a good chance against Condition Thieves regardless of what they run… All you need to be sure of is that they cannot hit Cloak and Dagger (use cripples, chill and fear), make sure their timers to stealth utilities run out, interrupt their heal and you are golden…

Might sound like a stretch, but it is very possible…

The best thing to do is train against them in PvP Arenas (granted, no food buffs), as you get a grip of their capabilities (And you learn how to counter them in stealth as well which is a huge plus)… Though if you see a thief, and you expect them to be condi, take Well of Power and Plague Signet to be safe… The more you feel comfortable combatting them, the more you can drop in order to get them down quicker

So without spending gold, and just a simple retrait/re-utility(?) you are looking at this build
Good luck!

OH dagger can be quite funny at the right time.

Overall you won’t win all the time if the p/d condi thief is quick to run but if you interrupt any key moment in their rotation such as CnD or hide in shadows or fear mark their SR, its a short fight.

The following skills and utilities will guarantee victory! Not really you actually have to play well but this is one of the easier matchups for condi necro IMO

Deathly Swarm – Putrid Mark – Plague Signet – Well of Power

Well of Power for when he is in stealth and you gotta get the confusion off

Plague Signet is instant and a stun break – use it after basilik venom/sneak attack/steal

I save my other transfers when I get them in a fear chain for extra bursties!

Since I run perplexity runes you can get 16 stacks of confusion on the Thief for extra lulz

In my experience, they also have a lot of boons on them which are good for Corrupt Boon. I tend to let them load me up with a few conditions before using Corrupt Boon > Deathly Swarm > Doom > Reaper’s Mark then chain-condition-nuke them to death while they’re being feared.

The best advice I can give for P/D Thieves is to be patient. The only time you can be patient with a P/D Thief is if you’re a Necromancer because we have so many ways of dealing with conditions and our naturally high healthpool also helps. Wait for him to make himself vulnerable and send the conditions back to him then fear his @ss and load him up while he’s disabled. If he uses Shadowstep, look for a tiny white circle and hang around it for a bit. If he uses Shadowreturn he’ll be right next to you which is the perfect time to pressure him again.

Honestly, P/D Thief, S/D Thief and PU Mesmer are all pretty much completely broken builds. I don’t tend to complain much about other professions/builds I prefer to figure out how to fight them. But these 3 are a bit over the top, if you can avoid them, do it.

just add well of power and plague signet, kill thief, then switch your utilities out.

flow.6043:

@build: you need to look at how you distribute your condition duration. +100% is the maximum. You seem to have +90% with food and sigils of malice. That means Hemophilia, sigils of agony, runes of the necro and Master of Terror are altogether just adding another 10% to bleeding and fear.
That means: lose the toxic crystals, normal ones are fine (and cheaper), change both sigils to something on-crit or on-swap, change Hemophilia to Weakening Shroud, change Master of Terror or the runes (or both).
Don’t try to max out every duration at all cost, it’s not worth it.
Also, Unyielding Blast seems an odd choice for a condi build, but whatever.

Thank you for the feedback folks. Can someone confirm what this Flow said? His claim is that “Condition duration” does not stack with specific condition duration modifiers such as bleeding and fear. I don’t think this is true: with my guardian for instance, I seem to be able to increase the burning duration from 1 second to 3.5 seconds?

Getting some conflicting feedback here though. Is the p/d thief an easy match-up or not? Does anyone apart from Spellof Iniquity actually have experience fighting them with necro?

Is it possible to develop a build for necromancers just to hard counter P/D or even S/D thieves? If one exists, please let me know.

P/D thieves need to be punished.

mrbunnyban.4578:

an someone confirm what this Flow said? His claim is that “Condition duration” does not stack with specific condition duration modifiers such as bleeding and fear.

I did not say they don’t stack, just that there’s a +100% cap on every duration. If you have +90% condi duration and an additional 70% fear duration then you can still only turn 1 sec of fear into 2 sec, not more.

mrbunnyban.4578:

I don’t think this is true: with my guardian for instance, I seem to be able to increase the burning duration from 1 second to 3.5 seconds?

Either of two things might have happened here:

1. You picked a trait that modified a skill’s base duration, in that way you get a new duration which can again be increased up to twice as long, hence not violating the 100% cap rule.

2. You looked at the tooltip of your skill.
Skill tooltips are calculated correctly, but they ignore the max duration cap. So in your case the tooltip of Reaper’s Mark would say 2.6 sec fear (90+70%), but it will still only last 2 seconds.
On a side note: there is a semi legitimate reason why the tooltip isn’t corrected. Against a player with lemongrass and melandru you’d still do 1.95 sec of fear. So the reduction is calculated against your actual duration increase and not the cap limit.

mrbunnyban.4578:

Does anyone apart from Spellof Iniquity actually have experience fighting them with necro?

DoomKnightMax.6592:

Is it possible to develop a build for necromancers just to hard counter P/D or even S/D thieves?

I believe everyone here has experience with fighting thieves, which is also a lot more valuable than trying to find the right build for it. In the end, the more skilled player will win, it’s just that as a necro the odds are heavily stacked in your favour.

flow.6043:

mrbunnyban.4578:

an someone confirm what this Flow said? His claim is that “Condition duration” does not stack with specific condition duration modifiers such as bleeding and fear.

I did not say they don’t stack, just that there’s a +100% cap on every duration. If you have +90% condi duration and an additional 70% fear duration then you can still only turn 1 sec of fear into 2 sec, not more.

mrbunnyban.4578:

I don’t think this is true: with my guardian for instance, I seem to be able to increase the burning duration from 1 second to 3.5 seconds?

Either of two things might have happened here:

1. You picked a trait that modified a skill’s base duration, in that way you get a new duration which can again be increased up to twice as long, hence not violating the 100% cap rule.

2. You looked at the tooltip of your skill.
Skill tooltips are calculated correctly, but they ignore the max duration cap. So in your case the tooltip of Reaper’s Mark would say 2.6 sec fear (90+70%), but it will still only last 2 seconds.
On a side note: there is a semi legitimate reason why the tooltip isn’t corrected. Against a player with lemongrass and melandru you’d still do 1.95 sec of fear. So the reduction is calculated against your actual duration increase and not the cap limit.

mrbunnyban.4578:

Does anyone apart from Spellof Iniquity actually have experience fighting them with necro?

DoomKnightMax.6592:

Is it possible to develop a build for necromancers just to hard counter P/D or even S/D thieves?

I believe everyone here has experience with fighting thieves, which is also a lot more valuable than trying to find the right build for it. In the end, the more skilled player will win, it’s just that as a necro the odds are heavily stacked in your favour.

Thank you, that clears things up entirely. You’re right, one of the traits SPECIFICALLY increases base duration for the burning duration of Virtue of Justice, and only Virtue of Justice. It’s interesting that the max burn duration somehow got sidewinded, btw. And the tooltip is probably wrong as you say.

Well, it’s nice to know that there are builds which are considered good matchups against that idiot thief build. It’s a pity necros are considered poor roaming due to no escape mechanism though. Is there any other matchup which is good against the p/d condi thief?

DoomKnightMax.6592:

Is it possible to develop a build for necromancers just to hard counter P/D or even S/D thieves? If one exists, please let me know.

P/D thieves need to be punished.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjc0UTbrN22webCchCy3MAi8CKBqjjz4ZB-TJBFwACODAy3foaZAAPCAA

is what I’ve been using for a while now.

It has high burst damage.
Good survivability thanks to rapid life force generation, death shroud & protection.
A pull/chill on a moderate CD.
Multiple fears
Very good Melee cleave with some ranged cleave
&
Allot of ways to either transfer conditions from you to enemies or consume them for extra health. (note they use your stats when transferred but still, better they tick away at their original casters health then yours)