Guild Wars 2

I am not a new player but I am new to the Necromancer profession. I rarely survive attacks by Thieves in WvW combat. More correctly what is a good trait/equipment build to use to defend in small skirmish/ambush?

Several times I would be escorting Doylaks when a thief would attack by ambush and either kill the Doylak or me or both. Only once did I manage to stop the Thief out of several attacks. (It was rarely the same Thief.)

Any advice would appreciated.

I should have said in the opening statement, it was the long stealth Dagger/Pistol Thieves I have the most trouble with.

Redjac.9318:

I should have said in the opening statement, it was the long stealth Dagger/Pistol Thieves I have the most trouble with.

Run a condition build with burning and terror. Get them to waste their condition clears on bleeds/torment, waste their shadow-refuge, then after that you can burn them down, maybe.

If they play careful enough, you likely won’t stop them from killing a dolyak, but you can keep them from killing you in most cases. After patch has helped a lot with this as our condition burst is far higher now. If you can interrupt “hide in the shadows”, it is likely a kill as well.

If it is a really really good thief with lots of sustain, he will harrass you till you blunder, and then you will likely go down. More of his folks show up helps him, more of your folks showing up just makes him leave.

When we use the pistol off hanf 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, stakitten works well too. And save you DS, use it to eat backstab damage. Tainted shackles works well too now hope I helped

If the next guys name doesnt start with an R, there will be problems >: (

No hope for you.

You won’t be able to save the yak.

Terrormancer builds work well for me against thieves. I like staff + scepter/dagger. With a little practice you’ll find that you will be able to fight off thieves so that they cannot kill you alone.

I tend to run with signet of spite+epidemic+spectral wall. For a 1v1, I’d swap epidemic for any of: Blood is Power/Spectral Grasp/Spectral Walk.

Keep a mark of blood (or chillblains) under you at all times. When it procs, I usually dodge and turn around. Get a chillblains on them and swap to scepter spam. From here it depends on what the thief does. If he resets the fight, go back to walking with MoB under you. If he persists, you need to try to find the opportunity to get in a well timed cc chain + condi unload (golem charge + signet + bip + DS3+DS4, staff 5/3/2).

Spectral wall can give you some good distance.

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

RedSpectrum.1975:

They will heartseeker into you revealing themselves for 3 seconds.

lol hopefully I remember this the next time I see a D/P thief .

Every time the thief stealths you can assume they’ve wiped all the conditions they had.

…there is no cooldown on it, if they’ve spec’d for it.

You can assume that any bleeds from marks, that they step on while stealthed, will be instantly cleansed as well.

In other words, if the thief is built for stealth and you’re built for conditions, it’s basically a hopeless situation.

On the bright side, no one else can kill a f’n thief either.

Redjac.9318:

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

Spectral wall is a very good anti thief skill now because if you stand on the wall, you are basically immune to melee attacks for 5 seconds. If they get close enough to hit you, back up one step and they get feared. Dance around the center of the wall and they have to use a stealth to avoid taking damage, or suffer the consequences of crossing the wall.

Thieves have almost no stability against a necro, except for daggerstorm, and that is largely a death sentence for them against a condition necro, as you will just wail on them the entire time.

Ezeriel.9574:

Every time the thief stealths you can assume they’ve wiped all the conditions they had.

…there is no cooldown on it, if they’ve spec’d for it.

You can assume that any bleeds from marks, that they step on while stealthed, will be instantly cleansed as well.

In other words, if the thief is built for stealth and you’re built for conditions, it’s basically a hopeless situation.

This is why the Signet of Spite can be so good. It slaps 6 conditions on your target. If you have a Burnimancer spec, it’s likely he stealthed with 7 condi’s on him. It would take 20 seconds of stealth to remove them.

Granted, I think it’s completely asinine that the developers would create a mechanic that makes a target invisible, gives them health back for being invisible, removes DoTs from them while invisible, grants initiative/action points for being invisible, and grants bonus damage for attacking while invisible.

It’s one of the most poorly thought out PvP mechanics I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying a LOT because I played Rift PvP.

I’d say generally do more damage than they do and they die pretty fast., doesn’t matter if it’s conditions or just raw berserker love, just remember they seem to have easier access to counter conditions than raw dmg. If you can’t do much dmg you’re most likely going to lose in any case.

Do a “litte” bit damage then try to cc/fear whatever just when they realize they’re going to die and do a little more dmg and they usually die when they stealth and you put ds #5 and ds#4 on them.

Somewhat superdupernonpro lazymode but works in 90% of cases in WvW.

^^yeah, but the first condition removed (assuming it isn’t their condition removing stealth giving heal skill) is going to be bleeding, like 90% of the time…

you may force them to stealth a second time, but at that point they don’t need to cleanse the conditions… they will have mostly wore off on their own during the second stealth.

…and right now, in the thief forums, they are whining about not having enough condition removal.

The Signet of Spite and Spectral Wall are both good ideas. Thanks for the help.

Just a side note, got jumped by a thief and ran him off. He did not die but had to retreat. He hit me by ambush, so I used Spectral Armor, then DS to Torment him. He cloaked and healed and then used Focus to chill him. He cloaked again and got away. But I think I have fighting chance now.

If I had used Signet of Spite I might have got him….

RedSpectrum.1975:

When we use the pistol off hanf 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, stakitten works well too. And save you DS, use it to eat backstab damage. Tainted shackles works well too now hope I helped

Having played both profession, I can confirm that those are some well placed suggestions against a D/P!! Well done

If the Thief isn’t spec’d in Shadow Arts, then using condition damage will make for a relatively easy fight, however Shadow Arts and all those passive abilities on stealth are very popular, so as was said already ITT you should probably assume that they have removed your important conditions when they go into stealth.

When I’m fighting a Thief I like to use a lot of interupts, Spectral Grasp, Doom, and the daze on Warhorn. This means that not only am I interrupting their skills, I am also controlling their movement through pulls, chills and fears. A Thief’s best defence is mobility, stealth is secondary; if you deny them of that mobility, you have a huge advantage. Immobilize is also great for obvious reasons.

Then the standard anti-Thief tactics apply. If you can anticipate their actions while in stealth, that’s another huge advantage for you. Standard Necro tactics also apply, hand out weakness before a burst, absorb big hits with your Deathshroud, etc. If you get hit by Basilisk Venom out of nowhere, hit Deathshroud, if traited to autocast Enfeebling Blood you won’t only be absorbing that backstab damage with your Deathshroud, but you will also reduce the incoming damage by about 25% as well.

Personally I’ve never had a problem with an enemy Thief on my Necro, and look at them as either an easy kill, or someone who is going to run in fear of me… not the condition fear, but completely voluntarily running for their lives because they are legitimately afraid.

Also kind of funny related note, on my Thief I stay the hell away from Necros if I can help it… but then again I don’t use Shadow Arts and stealth that much.

Rennoko.5731:

Redjac.9318:

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

Spectral wall is a very good anti thief skill now because if you stand on the wall, you are basically immune to melee attacks for 5 seconds. If they get close enough to hit you, back up one step and they get feared. Dance around the center of the wall and they have to use a stealth to avoid taking damage, or suffer the consequences of crossing the wall.

Thieves have almost no stability against a necro, except for daggerstorm, and that is largely a death sentence for them against a condition necro, as you will just wail on them the entire time.

You keep making these utterly wrong statements today.

1. Thief blows his condition clears?…. What… you even played a thief? Shadow arts thief no matter the choice clears condition by simply sitting in stealth. Depending on choices even now you can maintain 90% stealth upkeep w/o trying.

2. Spectral wall granting immunity against melee….. W. H. A. T. ?
Last I checked except for thief every last melee class has so much stability that your wall is as irrelevant as it gets. Also if you dodge roll ends on wall you can sit on it just fine w/o stability. Ughh… so much wrong with all those.

3. It is no different from guardian bubbles/walls that block enemies. Except spectral wall can be dodged a wall that blocks you can’t be dodged and stability doesn’t 100% negate it. Oh and if 6 people run over it… even assuming no stability…. they are all too stupid to blink/teleport/dodge/walk around… it won’t even affect everyone. Thats like saying this pitiful thing can do something against a wvw zerg where 99% of people just run over it and a few unlucky sobs will have to deal with 1 second fear. Considering its duration and cooldown… yeah… soooo op.

Just stop…

I have a personal strategy that works well against bad thieves (and I haven’t seen too many good ones): pop Lich Form. Either he is aware this is bad for him and leaves, or he learns the hard way. Being a power necro, Lich Form hits between 4k and 6k on auto-attack. Any uninformed thief will melt after his first dodges and your health pool in lich form will be enough to take a few backstabs.

A d/p thief usually uses the trademark move, drop blinding field and heartseeker to go invis. they usually heartseeker to you, and hit to, then backstab you for more damage. Thus they have to come at you.

If a thief is attacking me directly, i drop marks at my feet and stand in them. one he reveals, i try to move a bit in my marks to make them go off. I also drop spec wall at my feet and most of scepter 2 and dagger 5 if I think they are coming.

Best thing is to spike them when they reveal. Sigil of spite + terror gives them a good initial burst. If your fast enough and you do a Sigil + switch to DS/DS3 + leave DS+ and then drop your scepter 2,5, then switch to staff skill five for another fear. these guys run with about 15k-16k hps and are mostly glass cannons. Stealth will clean your conditions, so you have to spike them when they reveal and be ready for another combo when they come out.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Rennoko.5731:

Redjac.9318:

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

Spectral wall is a very good anti thief skill now because if you stand on the wall, you are basically immune to melee attacks for 5 seconds. If they get close enough to hit you, back up one step and they get feared. Dance around the center of the wall and they have to use a stealth to avoid taking damage, or suffer the consequences of crossing the wall.

Thieves have almost no stability against a necro, except for daggerstorm, and that is largely a death sentence for them against a condition necro, as you will just wail on them the entire time.

You keep making these utterly wrong statements today.

1. Thief blows his condition clears?…. What… you even played a thief? Shadow arts thief no matter the choice clears condition by simply sitting in stealth. Depending on choices even now you can maintain 90% stealth upkeep w/o trying.

2. Spectral wall granting immunity against melee….. W. H. A. T. ?
Last I checked except for thief every last melee class has so much stability that your wall is as irrelevant as it gets. Also if you dodge roll ends on wall you can sit on it just fine w/o stability. Ughh… so much wrong with all those.

3. It is no different from guardian bubbles/walls that block enemies. Except spectral wall can be dodged a wall that blocks you can’t be dodged and stability doesn’t 100% negate it. Oh and if 6 people run over it… even assuming no stability…. they are all too stupid to blink/teleport/dodge/walk around… it won’t even affect everyone. Thats like saying this pitiful thing can do something against a wvw zerg where 99% of people just run over it and a few unlucky sobs will have to deal with 1 second fear. Considering its duration and cooldown… yeah… soooo op.

Just stop…

Man, no need to go all defensive, he wasn’t stating it was OP, he was stating it was good against thieves because other than daggerstorm, they don’t have access to stability.

Azraeel.1238:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Rennoko.5731:

Redjac.9318:

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

Spectral wall is a very good anti thief skill now because if you stand on the wall, you are basically immune to melee attacks for 5 seconds. If they get close enough to hit you, back up one step and they get feared. Dance around the center of the wall and they have to use a stealth to avoid taking damage, or suffer the consequences of crossing the wall.

Thieves have almost no stability against a necro, except for daggerstorm, and that is largely a death sentence for them against a condition necro, as you will just wail on them the entire time.

You keep making these utterly wrong statements today.

1. Thief blows his condition clears?…. What… you even played a thief? Shadow arts thief no matter the choice clears condition by simply sitting in stealth. Depending on choices even now you can maintain 90% stealth upkeep w/o trying.

2. Spectral wall granting immunity against melee….. W. H. A. T. ?
Last I checked except for thief every last melee class has so much stability that your wall is as irrelevant as it gets. Also if you dodge roll ends on wall you can sit on it just fine w/o stability. Ughh… so much wrong with all those.

3. It is no different from guardian bubbles/walls that block enemies. Except spectral wall can be dodged a wall that blocks you can’t be dodged and stability doesn’t 100% negate it. Oh and if 6 people run over it… even assuming no stability…. they are all too stupid to blink/teleport/dodge/walk around… it won’t even affect everyone. Thats like saying this pitiful thing can do something against a wvw zerg where 99% of people just run over it and a few unlucky sobs will have to deal with 1 second fear. Considering its duration and cooldown… yeah… soooo op.

Just stop…

Man, no need to go all defensive, he wasn’t stating it was OP, he was stating it was good against thieves because other than daggerstorm, they don’t have access to stability.

Read his first post then others. Not saying something and saying wrong things are not the same thing. Defensinve? Pointing out mistakes is me being defensive? Google it maybe?

HiSaZuL.2843:

Rennoko.5731:

Redjac.9318:

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

Spectral wall is a very good anti thief skill now because if you stand on the wall, you are basically immune to melee attacks for 5 seconds. If they get close enough to hit you, back up one step and they get feared. Dance around the center of the wall and they have to use a stealth to avoid taking damage, or suffer the consequences of crossing the wall.

Thieves have almost no stability against a necro, except for daggerstorm, and that is largely a death sentence for them against a condition necro, as you will just wail on them the entire time.

You keep making these utterly wrong statements today.

1. Thief blows his condition clears?…. What… you even played a thief? Shadow arts thief no matter the choice clears condition by simply sitting in stealth. Depending on choices even now you can maintain 90% stealth upkeep w/o trying.

2. Spectral wall granting immunity against melee….. W. H. A. T. ?
Last I checked except for thief every last melee class has so much stability that your wall is as irrelevant as it gets. Also if you dodge roll ends on wall you can sit on it just fine w/o stability. Ughh… so much wrong with all those.

3. It is no different from guardian bubbles/walls that block enemies. Except spectral wall can be dodged a wall that blocks you can’t be dodged and stability doesn’t 100% negate it. Oh and if 6 people run over it… even assuming no stability…. they are all too stupid to blink/teleport/dodge/walk around… it won’t even affect everyone. Thats like saying this pitiful thing can do something against a wvw zerg where 99% of people just run over it and a few unlucky sobs will have to deal with 1 second fear. Considering its duration and cooldown… yeah… soooo op.

Just stop…

1. I have an 80 thief, and their on stealth condition clear is hardly enough to keep up with our conditions. And no, they cannot maintain 90% stealth uptime, unless they are just jumping around in stealth and doing no damage, or cloak and daggering off critters/you/mobs while doing no other damage. You act like stealth is free and requires no work on their part at all…. if they smoke field just drop marks on the field, and they have to eat that damage while 2’ing through it. By blowing his condition clears, I mean his heal that removes burn/poison/bleed and shadowstep.

Don’t get me wrong, thief is completely easy mode in terms of survival, but you act like they get a pulsing stealth field that hits them every 3 seconds as a passive. They have limits on initiative and cooldowns just like everyone else.

2. The post was about a thief…. my response was tailored to fighting a thief. I am fully aware warriors and guardians are far less likely to have a problem with spectral wall. I guess I should be more careful and make sure I state melee from a thief since you are clearly out to paint this as a horrible skill that has no use anywhere, or apparently have some vendetta against reasonably useful information.

I have been using spectral wall since the patch and I have not had a single person pull off a dodge roll into the wall, that then allowed them to do damage to me, because you know what? I can just step back, or to the side, or whatever, and now they have to dodge roll again and I am no no real danger… The wall is a very good anti thief tool, bottom line, and that is not bad information.

You may as well say every thief is walking around with ecto queued up ready to own your necros face, and why waste time trying to fear him, just lay down and die.

3. I wasn’t saying it was OP, I wasn’t even saying it was good in a general utility sense, though it is. I was saying it was a good anti-melee-thief tool. The OP asked about help against thieves… But go on and get hostile about everything I am posting in this thread.

Every thief I come across is dagger/pistol anymore cause the zombies are getting better at seekers through the powder. Reguardless the only true chance you have is to go full aggressive and hope they arnt a above average player or you’re done for. To much stealth to much clearing and to much damage otherwise. Or break for the nearest tower /zerg/guards/mommy ASAP, in which case the good ones will still probably kill you.

Dagger/pistol is on its own playing field.

I know this will meet some ire, but … toughness/sustain build.

20 in blood for life siphon from minions, 50% minion hp from death, perhaps some in spite for minion damage and with the right itemization you basically become a walking, tanking freak show

nothing will kill you readily 1v1. nothing, but.. the question is whether you have enough to stop him from killing the dolyak quickly enough

At least you guarantee your own survival.

Redjac.9318:

Just a side note, got jumped by a thief and ran him off. He did not die but had to retreat. He hit me by ambush, so I used Spectral Armor, then DS to Torment him. He cloaked and healed and then used Focus to chill him. He cloaked again and got away.

This is generally the best you’re going to be able to do against a thief unless the thief overcommits.

It sounds like you have a basic idea of how to fight thieves now: block their burst with DS, burst and crowd-control them as hard as you can when they show up, then blast the area with AoE when they stealth but save Staff #5 for when they use Shadow Refuge (that skill there they drop an AoE with a picture of a house over it that stealths them). If you can Fear them out of it, they’ll immediately drop out of stealth and killing them will be much easier.

When it comes to protecting Yaks, however, try to lead the thief away from it. If you can get the thief to wants to kill you before killing the yak, you can move him in the wrong direction thus giving the yak a chance to make it to the next tower. Without superior numbers, it can be very hard to protect yaks from anyone, to be honest, and thieves are one of the best yakslappers because they can disengage so easily.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Azraeel.1238:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Rennoko.5731:

Redjac.9318:

Thanks for the replies.

I confess my ignorance, how dies one use Spectral Wall in 1v1 fights? I thought it was a Zerg vs Zerg skill.

Spectral wall is a very good anti thief skill now because if you stand on the wall, you are basically immune to melee attacks for 5 seconds. If they get close enough to hit you, back up one step and they get feared. Dance around the center of the wall and they have to use a stealth to avoid taking damage, or suffer the consequences of crossing the wall.

Thieves have almost no stability against a necro, except for daggerstorm, and that is largely a death sentence for them against a condition necro, as you will just wail on them the entire time.

You keep making these utterly wrong statements today.

1. Thief blows his condition clears?…. What… you even played a thief? Shadow arts thief no matter the choice clears condition by simply sitting in stealth. Depending on choices even now you can maintain 90% stealth upkeep w/o trying.

2. Spectral wall granting immunity against melee….. W. H. A. T. ?
Last I checked except for thief every last melee class has so much stability that your wall is as irrelevant as it gets. Also if you dodge roll ends on wall you can sit on it just fine w/o stability. Ughh… so much wrong with all those.

3. It is no different from guardian bubbles/walls that block enemies. Except spectral wall can be dodged a wall that blocks you can’t be dodged and stability doesn’t 100% negate it. Oh and if 6 people run over it… even assuming no stability…. they are all too stupid to blink/teleport/dodge/walk around… it won’t even affect everyone. Thats like saying this pitiful thing can do something against a wvw zerg where 99% of people just run over it and a few unlucky sobs will have to deal with 1 second fear. Considering its duration and cooldown… yeah… soooo op.

Just stop…

Man, no need to go all defensive, he wasn’t stating it was OP, he was stating it was good against thieves because other than daggerstorm, they don’t have access to stability.

Read his first post then others. Not saying something and saying wrong things are not the same thing. Defensinve? Pointing out mistakes is me being defensive? Google it maybe?

No need to Google defensive when your giving a clear example….

Spectral wall is great, thieves have a lot of very quick movement skills that with a well timed wall can easily grant you the 1 second fear along with the protection. If you time it right you can capitalize on that 1 second fear to get some good damage in on the thief forcing them to reset the fight. Plus the protection can reduce quite a bit of the burst damage.

Point one, Yes stealth is a condi clear if traited for it (which most d/p are) but its only 1 condi 3 seconds. Any decent necro can put up more conditions then that can handle so forcing them to stay in stealth for long periods of time. If they are in stealth, they aren’t doing damage so you have time to get ready as well.

Stability and point 3 – Hes asking about thieves so any points on other classes are moot. Thieves only way to get stability reliably is dagger storm so using that to cross a wall? Complete joke. Also if your placing the wall down just because then I also wouldn’t expect them to just walk over it, Its more about placing it at the right time to give them little choice and force there hand. Also on the matter of other classes and stability, like I said it about the timing of the wall placement so if they don’t have stability up at the time its very unlikely that they would be able to put it up in time.

If you want to correct somebody please understand that your generalizing the skills and not thinking about how you can use them outside of what the obvious uses. But gratz on being a troll in a thread of someone asking for help. Real big of you…