Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing this game a while now, and have still yet to find a good way to counter d/p thieves with my necro. I mainly run a 0/30/20/20/0 condi build with dire armor and scavenging or torment runes.

I understand that thieves that are well-versed in the whole stealthing forever nonsense are supposed to be difficult to counter, but they seem to be completely safe when around me lol… if it weren’t for the d/p thief meta, I would feel MUCH more confident in my roaming abilities. What are some of your thief counters?

In theory with thieves the intended way to fight them is to evade/absorb there initial burst, in our case with DS or evade because we have no block or invulnerability. Then immobilize and burn them down or aoe them down fast due to there low hp. Problem is in reality we have limited immobilize, there stealth drops our condi’s like crazy, they have near perma evade, and they can just endlessly reset the fight until you can’t avoid the initial burst because your out of LF and endurance.

Even worse if they are confusing spamming their skills because many of the necro skills are easily interrupted. I find this setup to be the worst 1-1 encounter with my necro. I dont think I have won any of them against these perplexity spamming pistol thiefs.

I actually have to admit I have a good track record against thieves but its more because of the thieves than myself. If they are aggressive and stay in the fight coming at me i usually beat them with sheer aoe. The ones who keep resetting the fight are impossible though. Eventually you run out of LF and have your utilities on cooldown. If I see a thief doing this I usually just leave the fight and hope I can get away. Never chase them!

Ok, good… so it’s not just me lol… I’ve tried various combinations to kill em, but it fails me when I need a target, and they seem to cleanse condis better than an ele.

aspirine.6852:

I dont think I have won any of them against these perplexity spamming pistol thiefs.

If you know you’re going to fight a perplexity user, you should slot Plague Signet. It’s a total hard counter to that rune and will give you an easy win.

@Brigg: picking the right utilities is half the battle, may I ask which ones you’re picking against thieves?

What flow said as far as perplexity. Toss that back on them and they MELT.

flow.6043:

aspirine.6852:

I dont think I have won any of them against these perplexity spamming pistol thiefs.

If you know you’re going to fight a perplexity user, you should slot Plague Signet. It’s a total hard counter to that rune and will give you an easy win.

@Brigg: picking the right utilities is half the battle, may I ask which ones you’re picking against thieves?

Good tip, I do not run it in small groups because of the condition transfers but never thought about it in this situation. ty.

My normal wvw utilities are epidemic, corrupt boon, and spectral wall… I definitely see where I can make improvements there. I run terror, so I’d like to keep spectral wall, but what would you suggest for the other two? normally I don’t have a lot of issues with the condi thieves. It’s the bursters that do me in.

Well, since D/P heavily relies on initiative gain (not as bursty as D/D), you should be completely save to setup your fear chain as long as your armor exceeds 2600 . No thief will live through one successful rotation wihtout blowing every cooldown he has.

Their only chance is to disengage, don`t try to get them, you won`t, unless they make mistakes. But I consider a running thief with 5% life desperately trying to save his sorry behind a win.

If bursters are problematic for you, I heavily recommend equipping spectral armor. 30% damage reduction for a while and a full refill of your DS should solve that.

Best regards

That’s an excellent idea. Maybe I’ll take another look at my roaming build and gear it towards ds and spectral skills. thanks for the input!

Brigg.3961:

My normal wvw utilities are epidemic, corrupt boon, and spectral wall… I definitely see where I can make improvements there. I run terror, so I’d like to keep spectral wall, but what would you suggest for the other two? normally I don’t have a lot of issues with the condi thieves. It’s the bursters that do me in.

Well, most thieves don’t get many boons, so if you see just one thief approaching you then there’s no harm in switching Corrupt Boon out. Same for Epidemic of course, that won’t do anything against a single opponent.
Spectrals is definitely a good way to go against thieves, Spectral Attunement helps a little to keep up with the attrition style of thieves. Also, a pretty good combo is Grasp and Wall because you get an extra interrupt and chill, plus you can try to pull your opponent through the wall with it rather than hoping he’ll run into it by himself.
Well of Darkness is also a pretty good choice against almost all thief builds.

I have always found thieves easy to kill, but maybe that is just because I play one.

If you can catch them without a stunbreaker up they often drop in 3-4 seconds. Usually one well plus dagger auto attack chain and they’re down for me.

For condition builds, its even easier simply due to how much beef they have when using Dire, and how much CC/damage can be bursted with Fear/burning/bleeds.

Always remember that Weakness is very important for surviving a thieves burst. If you get stunned, pop into DS for auto cast of enfeebling blood.

Flesh Golem is pretty good against thieves. Not his actual attacks, but Charge. Don’t use it to start the fight, let them think they are doing well against you first. Then use Charge. They’ll usually dodge at the end of your cast animation, but that’s too soon to avoid the Golem. Once they’re on the ground, they’re done. Lock them down with Fears and pile on the damage.

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab, DS, DS 5, DS 2, DS 3, SoS, scepter 1 spam or staff 5 to fear chain.

That’s 8 bleeds, chill, weakness, 3 torment, everything on SoS and whatever else of smear on with weapon 1 spammed crits. With Terror, that should pretty much kill the average thief.

Also remember that DS 4 hits cloaked thieves so you can still apply pressure this way.

When we use the pistol off hand 5, makes the blinding aoe field, we like to jump through it alot, you may think I am crazy but when you see them cast that, stand in it. They will heartseeker into you revealing themselves for 3 seconds. When you see them cast it, an alternative is to quickly Use Doom so that way you made them waste half of their initiative, staff 5 works well too. And save you DS, use it to eat backstab damage. Tainted shackles works well too now hope I helped- copy pastad from earlier thread months back that i wrote it :p

One of the easier classes for my power necro… drop 2 x wells, deathshroud 2 to chill, deathshroud 3 then lifeblast and finish off with life transfer.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab,..

…is a good way to waste Chillblains and Putrid Mark. If thieves see you standing on a mark they will always dodge through it first before attacking you, so at best Mark of Blood alone can serve as an early warning system.
I’m not against precasting marks, but you shouldn’t stack them, spread them out instead for area controll. Or save Putrid for the blast finisher, an extra combo blindness or weakness can make a big difference.

Don’t really have problems as MM necro, i’m fat – they’re squishy.

flow.6043:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab,..

…is a good way to waste Chillblains and Putrid Mark. If thieves see you standing on a mark they will always dodge through it first before attacking you, so at best Mark of Blood alone can serve as an early warning system.
I’m not against precasting marks, but you shouldn’t stack them, spread them out instead for area controll. Or save Putrid for the blast finisher, an extra combo blindness or weakness can make a big difference.

This. Spread them out so one dodge roll can’t blow them all or cast just one and hold the rest in reserve. Works against Mesmers who hide in stealth a lot too.

Overkillengine.6084:

flow.6043:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab,..

…is a good way to waste Chillblains and Putrid Mark. If thieves see you standing on a mark they will always dodge through it first before attacking you, so at best Mark of Blood alone can serve as an early warning system.
I’m not against precasting marks, but you shouldn’t stack them, spread them out instead for area controll. Or save Putrid for the blast finisher, an extra combo blindness or weakness can make a big difference.

This. Spread them out so one dodge roll can’t blow them all or cast just one and hold the rest in reserve. Works against Mesmers who hide in stealth a lot too.

I did say this was for the average thief — that is, backstab, spam auto attack and Heart Seeker. This is fine for those guys. Apparently, you fight a better class of thief than I do as the ones you encounter always dodge through it but this isn’t my experience at all. The good ones are tough but by and large, thieves are terrible players.

I’ll admit that staff 4 is overkill but the chill keeps them from scurrying away. Besides, I usually don’t need my staff for anything other than this so blowing a few marks doesn’t bother me. After the DS rotation hits, they’re either dead, running or getting spiked down by my dagger.