Guild Wars 2

Ok, I have a power necro in wvw using axe/focus-staff and having difficulty vs this class…
they hit, invis, hit invis etc… me dead :-(

Tried wells, they move out of them, tried spectral skills, still no use, ds with life transfer has some use but still not enough to cause major damage…

Any tips?

Berserker Power Necro loses 1v1 to berserker thief, warrior, mes, etc. if the player skill is equal. We can deal great burst but we lack stability, mobility, escapes, and have less CC than the other professions.

The best bet to beating a D/P thief is simply to catch them without stunbreakers and burst them down before they can escape via stealth.

……….. change to staff, let him hit you and spam all marks, ds+2 and 3, voila toasted thief
could also drop well of suffering, he will suffer, and suffer, and suffer, and suffer some more
definitely need practice

I’ve just accepted good thief players as a counter to my build. They reset the fight till you have no ds and spectral skills are on CD and then take their sweet time killing you without posing to large a threat to themselves.

It does annoy me since a thief vs my meditation guardian is like a moth to a flame, but that’s an extremely unfair comparison.

Also, both our channels in death shroud can STILL hit the theif even if he’s in stealth, there will be no visual but you ARE hitting him, i’ve landed hundreds of kills like this, even more so on a berserker build.

Equip a mainhand dagger.
Keep pressure, dodge the backstabs.
When there is an opening; dark path (DS #2), dark pact (dagger #3), well of suffering, dagger auto attack.

What is your Health and Toughness like? I find 1 Vs 1 now that i have my gear sorted i rarely die to a Thief and if i do its down to:

1) I’m fighting camp, they come for easy kill – Doesnt always work as i managed to kill a Supervisor and a Thief which is pretty funny even when the thief would stealth and kill himself and the supervisor

2) Finished fighting someone and key skills on cool down.

My fav combo it – Spectral Grasp – Golem Charge – Into DS and Doom this gives me some time as it chills them, them being close to me gives them vul stacks as well and once i have used Doom i hit them with 3-4k Life Blast hits.

Locust swarm is great as well, if i know a Thief is about or i am fighting one and they go stealth, i wait a second or 2 and pop Locust Swarm this pulls them out of stealth and they cant BS me

When thief uses smokefield/heartseeker you need to time your DS fear or fear mark or warhorn #4 or golem charge or spectral grasp on him. If you manage to do that you usually win the fight.

Be patient because the thief can usually bail himself out a few times with blinding power at 25%, shadow refuge or shadow step. You need to put AoE pressure on him (marks, life transfer) but don’t waste the moves, try to predict where he will go and when he is going for a backstab. “Trash” marks (2 and 3) are good to place around yourself to prevent him from landing a backstab and to find out his location. Your enemy can’t kill you from range so it’s up to him to close the gap.

Remember that you shouldn’t spam marks (most importantly #5) all over yourself because 1 dodge roll can cancel out all of them without the enemy taking any damage, so try to place them with care. Save the fear mark for shadow refuge or smokefield spam.

Usually this type of thief wins because the enemy loses his nerve, goes for the kill too early and wastes all his moves while the thief doesn’t have to worry about cooldowns. But if you can interrupt the thief rotation and run him out of initiative, he will often stand dumb-founded in his smokefield which will allow you an opening to finish him off.

This ^ is all great advice. I love using doom right as they try to heart seeker through their smoke fields, and then hit them with a life blast or 2. Start casting it right away, use doom, and cast another. If you have them targeted when you start casting it should still hit them.

Life transfer and tainted shackles will both hit stealthed characters. Usually 2 life blasts and life transfer and most thieves are down. It’s that simple.

Axe 2, if casted when they are not stealthed, will hit them even if they stealth in the middle of the channel, which is good for half their health. Axe 3 hits stealthed characters, too.

I run the same weapon set up and I can’t remember the last 1v1 I lost to a thief. I’ve certainly been blown up by them when I’m fighting someone else, but I have so many ways to hit them even in stealth that it doesn’t really matter if they stealth or not. They don’t always die, but if they do manage to avoid my damage they will run.

Well, I’m still leveling my necro, but from a thief-main perspective, there’s a couple of things you can do.

• DS 4 & 5 still hit the thief in stealth.

• DS 5 can be especially deadly if the thief doesnt have condi clear in stealth. Any sorts of immobilization are really powerful against the thief (such as Dagger 3)

• As others have mentioned, channelled abilities still hit in stealth. Axe 2 has the added benefit of clearing blinds from BPS very quickly with the multi-hit channel

• Staff marks are a great indication of the location of thieves, but don’t overlap multiple. When I see overlapped marks I do my best to use 1 dodge through both so it blows the CD.

• Fight away from the edge of BPS. If someone lets me, I auto attack from inside the smoke field and leap through it right before it disappears. With D/P you can get through 1 and 2/3 of an auto chain before needing to HS through it. Against power necros, thats a significant chunk of health.

• Interrupt the HS. The BPS + HS combo costs 9 initiative. Thats 3/4 of the standard initiative pool for thieves. Staff 5 and DS 3 are excellent for this.

• Eat the HS above 50% health. These only have a multiplier of 1. Save your dodges for under 50%

• Heal early. Depending on the thief, they might have executioner. Thats an additional 20% damage under 50% health. If you get behind too far this compounds with HS to really start to hurt.

I hope some of this helps.

And what do you when your ds is as usual empty because you are all out after a fight?
Which is most of the time unless you go each time to refill stacks and waste time there.

grave of hearts.7830:

And what do you when your ds is as usual empty because you are all out after a fight?
Which is most of the time unless you go each time to refill stacks and waste time there.

Your Axe 2 skill, your dagger auto-attacks, your staff-autoattacks, spectral skills, focus 4, warhorn 5… hit the Thief a few times with some of those, and you’ll have enough lifeforce. Especially axe 2, focus 4 and warhorn 5 shouldn’t be that hard to land, since they are either channeled or AoE.

grave of hearts.7830:

And what do you when your ds is as usual empty because you are all out after a fight?
Which is most of the time unless you go each time to refill stacks and waste time there.

What is worse is just how easy it for this broken class to reset a fight, get back to full health and do the EXACT same again because Anet cant accept the fact that they messed up not once but twice.

It is LONG overdue that they remove initiative and give the class skill cool downs, It is simply broken that they can spam there most powerful attacks 2-3 times, jump into stealth come back out and repeat the process over and over again.

Then they need to fix Thief stealth, i find it funny that people compare Thief stealth to Mesmer stealth – it just shows how little they actually know about the game. To compare a class that can go into stealth for long as they want every 4 seconds to a class that has VERY long cool downs on its Stealth – I even saw people saying that Mesmer has BETTER stealth than Thief :/

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

grave of hearts.7830:

And what do you when your ds is as usual empty because you are all out after a fight?
Which is most of the time unless you go each time to refill stacks and waste time there.

What is worse is just how easy it for this broken class to reset a fight, get back to full health and do the EXACT same again because Anet cant accept the fact that they messed up not once but twice.

It is LONG overdue that they remove initiative and give the class skill cool downs, It is simply broken that they can spam there most powerful attacks 2-3 times, jump into stealth come back out and repeat the process over and over again.

Then they need to fix Thief stealth, i find it funny that people compare Thief stealth to Mesmer stealth – it just shows how little they actually know about the game. To compare a class that can go into stealth for long as they want every 4 seconds to a class that has VERY long cool downs on its Stealth – I even saw people saying that Mesmer has BETTER stealth than Thief :/

Or they could just give necros visual again on where the conditions are ticking.
I could stand my ground when i was seeing a bunch of numbers running away so i knew at the least where the thief was and i could chase him so he wont reset.
Then anet decided to remove that,which lets be blunt was a biased change.
I am just tired of them,really really tired and anet doesnt understand that.

grave of hearts.7830:

Or they could just give necros visual again on where the conditions are ticking.
I could stand my ground when i was seeing a bunch of numbers running away so i knew at the least where the thief was and i could chase him so he wont reset.
Then anet decided to remove that,which lets be blunt was a biased change.
I am just tired of them,really really tired and anet doesnt understand that.

Of course it was a bias change, just like the fact they wont hit Warrior movement skills with the same treatment they gave to Ride The Lightening they would rather have a few unhappy players than loads of them and both these classes (Thief and warrior) are high on the list of most played, remember (ages ago) that Warrior was TOP and that Thief was like Third i think.

Until they stop this bias, nerf and buff system they have this game will NEVER be anywhere near balanced.

I am very interested in how the act once Wildstart, ESO and WoW expansion come out along with several other games because if things dont change, this game will die off.

They’re not fun to play against because the counter is basically spamming skills smartly

Good thieves will be very difficult to beat. Some tips for berserker necro:

1. Axe 3 / WH 5 can be initial “thief detectors”. If you haven’t engaged with them yet, use one of the skills and if you slow down they are near

2. As others have said, DS 4 and 5 will hit even when the thief is stealthed. DS4 will do a ton of damage.

3. After using DS 5, there is a good chance the thief will be immobilized. Try to guess about where they are and drop a well of suffering

4. Dagger 3 is one of the most powerful counters to stealth thieves. If they don’t cleanse it, they will be in the same spot even when stealthed. Get the dark pact off and dagger auto where they were before they stealthed

5. Damage deing wells can also be used defensively. If you need a couple seconds before your heal is up, sometimes standing in a well can give you those couple seconds

EDIT: sorry if I mentioned things people already talked about. I was too lazy to read through the whole thread first

I’ve heard that thieves had a 3 second revealed debuff when they come out of stealth but, in wvw, I’ve seen a few that come out of stealth, attack and restealth as soon as I get a lock on them (1 second at most). Can anyone explain this?

Plexxing.2978:

I’ve heard that thieves had a 3 second revealed debuff when they come out of stealth but, in wvw, I’ve seen a few that come out of stealth, attack and restealth as soon as I get a lock on them (1 second at most). Can anyone explain this?

A thief has to deal damage coming out of stealth for revealed to apply. If they let it drop naturally, they don’t get the debuff and then will most likely try to hit with another CnD (the thing that gives them stealth). It can really benefit a thief to stealth, cast basilisk venom while in stealth, let it wear of and then CnD again stunning the opponent to set up an easy backstab (which will reveal them). A lot of thief offense and defenses are mostly smoke and mirrors.

CnD:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger

Revealed(if I didn’t explain it clearly):
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed

Stealth attacks:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Surprise_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tactical_Strike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sneak_Attack

Most thieves are relatively easy as a power Necro.

Skilled thieves are a big problem.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Then they need to fix Thief stealth, i find it funny that people compare Thief stealth to Mesmer stealth

Imo they needed to fix stealth as a mechanic. I know that will never happen but the way stealth works in gw2 is really cheesy since it is fire and forget. It requires no planning, no skill at all. You can stealth in front of somebody´s eyes, damage does not break stealth and there are no stats available which does allow you to reveal somebody in stealth, so in short low risk, high reward. Other games do have a lot more depth to stealth mechanics.

Are there skills that allow them to negate the revealed debuff and stealth anyway? 3 seconds is time enough to lock target and pull of an attack. The thieves I’m talking about are often stealthed before you can even target them with tab with no other targets around.

Plexxing.2978:

Are there skills that allow them to negate the revealed debuff and stealth anyway? 3 seconds is time enough to lock target and pull of an attack. The thieves I’m talking about are often stealthed before you can even target them with tab with no other targets around.

They can simply use the Black Powder and Heart Seeker combo to stay in stealth. They also have skills that stealth them, one being a heal iirc. The problem is that unlike any other game that LIMITS how much stealth they can use in combat Anet thinks it is fine that they have this much.

All they need to do it make it so that these skills cant be spammed such as the method above to gain VERY easy easy to stealth and to be able to easily escape. Remove that Initiative bullcrap.

It is a failed experiment, give them PROPER weapon skill cool downs and this would all be fixed.