Guild Wars 2

Hi i just started playing some Necromancer pvp and i liked it.I got a pretty nice cond build and im doing well at most.But when it comes at thiefs they totally nuke me.My main is a Ranger and i didnt had so much prob.Can you gimme some tips?

I’m guessing this is completely your builds fault, necro shouldn’t really have issues against thieves. Or you don’t understand basic gameplay, such as kiting.

“I’m guessing this is completely your builds fault, necro shouldn’t really have issues against thieves. Or you don’t understand basic gameplay, such as kiting.”

For someone who whines incessantly about their profession you certainly are full of yourself now aren’tcha? You can’t kite a thief. At least, a thief with half a functional brain stem.

rickshaw.5279:

You can’t kite a thief. At least, a thief with half a functional brain stem.

So, you stand perfectly still vs a thief and let him pound on you?

Dardamaniac.1295:

Hi i just started playing some Necromancer pvp and i liked it.I got a pretty nice cond build and im doing well at most.But when it comes at thiefs they totally nuke me.My main is a Ranger and i didnt had so much prob.Can you gimme some tips?

to be able to kite thiefs you have to know how thiefs work once there initial steal and stealth is gone they have 1 more chance and then they can either fly or die

in my movie a few posts down you can see how i handle em personally maybe you can learn a thing or 2 from it shows quite a lot of staf work wich would work really well on a dot build like yours too. it’s all about preperation.

don’t let people give you the impression that your a 100% free kill for a thief.. thiefs are one of the easest classes for me to beat in general because the majority of the thiefs knows only 1 certain playstyle the moment plan a fails they won’t have a b plan avialable..

The more the battle drags on, the more I feel safer going against thieves. Know when they’re starting to burst you. Try to hold on until they run out of initiatives.

My necro either uses Rabid or Shaman’s amulet in PvP, with high toughness, you usually fare better against thieves than most builds do.

Thieves also do not have much in the way of condition removal, as long as you can kite and overwhelm them, they either have to GTFO or die. I have Reaper’s Protection traited, I also have Well of Darkness, DS Fear away them when they want to sit on you or mark the ground on you. Just don’t let them get a clean swing on you.

If they’re the leaping death blossom variants, well those kind of kill themselves by stacking bleeds on you.

Eh people are making this too complicated.

Let the thief get the jump on you, hit DS and then fear them. When they recover spam fear at your feet and then kite them.

Use wells
I’ve played both thief and necro and wells are a right pain in the kitten as a thief. You get in there with your melee weapons, (which is where your damage really comes from) and suddenly you’re hit with damage and vulnerability and all sorts. The staff is handy too. Staff 3 and 5 especially so. If you dodge a heartseeker, and have no evades left, drop a fear on the floor and another is countered. Now they are at half initiative.

The problem for a necro isn’t from D/D thieves but S/P thieves IMO. S/P has a better gap closer and 3 dazes. To counter a S/P thief you need to pop DS the second they jump on you with 2. Also pay attention to where they jumped from, and try to contain the battle in that vicinity so they can’t so easily dodge an attack of yours.

I don’t usually kite thieves. I run a bunker build (2kish toughness, 2kish vitality and 2k+ power) with well of power, signet of spite and corrupt boon. For weapons I use staff and axe/focus (I have been thinking of trying out warhorn instead of focus though), and I trait so that I get a reflective boon (reflectes damage back at the attacker) everytime I heal/enter deathshroud. Combine that with axe 3 and your’e looking at roughly 10 seconds with reflection. This rocks against high burst classes like thieves. The way I use Death Shroud is when I get jumped I go in and out if it, hit axe 3 and press my heal. It’s important to get as much out of the reflection as possible. If he stealths I either drop the well at my feet, dodge when I think he is going to jump out again or hit Death Shroud if I have life force (which is why I try to just jump in and out of it, I’m not always near a good and fast supply of life force so I have to make do with what I have) to absorb the incoming burst (hopefully I still have some reflection up still!). The rest of the fight involves just trying to get him down using the well, not allowing him to buff himself up, and not allow him to debuff me too much (you will get one and the other eventually, as they’re bound to be on cooldown some time) and using axe 2 whenever it’s up. I’m hitting 3k with this all the time so it’s not that bad in my opinion.

And RhysSebastian.7651s suggestion also works pretty good, interrupt his bursts, try to gain distance and stay mobile.

Hope this helps

Marks, Wells, and a decent amount of toughness and knowing when to DS dance to either soak a burst or apply extra conditions/cc tend to counter most of the fotm thief builds fairly well.

I don’t. I just die. jk

If you know they are invisible, put marks down.
If they are coming at you with daggers, quickly use DS and mitigate the damage or fear them. Combine this with staff 5 fear and then stack conditions.
I use wail of doom then dark pact in any order because they only have a single condition removal.

Burst them down with Axe 2 first, when they stealth death shroud and life transfer and then drop blinding + chilling, vulnerability and boon removal wells whilst transforming into lich.

Works like a charm every time.

That is a lot of firepower to bring into action to take on a single thief.

I don’t see why people fear thieves in WvW, it feels like they’re always running away anyway. Those cowards.

But yeah, what people have said here is quite true. Thieves aren’t that difficult to handle if you know a bit about their mechanics. They can burst for very high numbers but once they’re out of initiative they will either flee or die. Depending on the type of thief they will only have one or two condition removers and both remove only a few conditions. A DB condition thief shouldn’t be any problem for a necro, HS thieves usually aren’t a problem for anyone except low level, light armor using, low HP players, and backstab thieves can’t do much once their burst is over.

Mostly they flee and they can run far faster then we can and grasp seldom hits anything if it isn’t in a perfectly straight line. Same with my dark path, it seems to fail me in wvwvw if its not on level ground.

30pts into death magic, at least 15pts into soul reaping for last grasp (auto armor @ 50% health) and the rest into spite (25/0/30/0/15), wear 6 piece rune of earth and make good use of wells.

Problem is, you won’t be able to kill much.

I run an axe/focus, dagger/warhorn minion master build in sPVP, and I handle thieves mostly by knife fighting with them. I’m usually already on the axe/focus at the beginning of the fight, so if I see them coming I’ll use spinal shivers to lock them in place then unholy feast to get retaliation. That way, when they’re blowing their ambush they’re getting smacked right back by retaliation. If the heat is too much I can go into death shroud, but usually I switch to dagger/warhorn and start knifing them right back. Wail of doom lets me stop their attacks, Locust swarm lets me chase after them, and the dark pact + siphon life combo lets you healing off of them in the middle of the fight. Consume conditions puts a stop to those nasty venoms.

Built with soldier’s equipment, in a straight up knife fight between a thief and a necro, the necro has the advantage. I usually only get beat by theives that kite and use dual pistols.

I have problems with thieves. Always have. I don’t have the “Smoothest” running comp. I play on a laptop. I actually have problems sometimes.

But thieves shouldn’t be able to drop me in 3-4 seconds before I can get off a single counter. They will stealth, run into my kitten, but not take damage or get any conditions. This is a growing trend. I just wish I could 1v1 a thief over and over again to understand how they play.

Thieves are more of an annoyance than a threat to me. I’m a high hp high toughness minion master and use daggers. Skill wise I use Consume Conditions, Spectral Grasp, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem. Trait points are 20 Spite, 30 Death Magic and 20 Blood Magic. My traits are Spiteful Spirit, Training of the Master, Greater Marks, Minion Master, Flesh of the Master, Mark of Evasion and Vampiric Master or Quickening Thirst. Deathly Swarm and Shadow Fiend lets me blind them twice reducing their attack damage. With DS, siphon health and Consume Conditions I’m rather hard to kill. If they try to kite or run I have Dark Pact, Bone Fiend cripple and Rigor Mortis , Flesh Golem knock down, Spectral Grasp and Dark Path in DS to pin/slow/catch up with them.