Guild Wars 2

Simple question, how do you guys deal with Dagger burst Thieves in Tpvp? Assuming the thief is not a noob and he probably got Champion Shadow title. Whenever I roll condi build or power necro build, the one class I find hardest to deal with are the thieves, so any suggestions? I want some suggestions from experienced necros out there

What actual builds are you using, because it will greatly determine how/if you can deal with them alone.

well since deathshroud seems better with more vitality, I tend to run builds with either knight or carrion amulet and my fav weapons are either dagger dagger or sceptar dagger with staff

I can easily kill the noob thieves that spam 2 2 2 all the time, but good ones I can’t no matter what :S

Ken.9018:

well since deathshroud seems better with more vitality, I tend to run builds with either knight or carrion amulet and my fav weapons are either dagger dagger or sceptar dagger with staff

I’m talking full spec (traits, weapons, gear, utilities), you can use D/D with a bunch of different stats and trait combinations, all of which will give you different ways to handle thieves, some of them very simple (terror builds for example have built in fear on stun), some of them requiring more work/skill (MM builds chain CC to force the thief to waste their stun breaks at the beginning or die outright), and other builds you just don’t have much to work with.

In general, anticipate burst, soak it up with DS, try to Doom them out of combos, CC and kill them when they aren’t stealthed. When they are stealthed, take general guestimates as to where they are and lay down AoE.

I run khalifa’s d/d build with knights amulet and it does have high damage and stuff, but I can’t seem to land the full burst in because of their stealth all the time

and when i play condi, I run 10/30/30/0/0 with runes of the krait x 4 and runes of affliction x2

I believe Khalifa’s build has a lot of trouble with thieves. Your real chance is just to burst them down with your combo. When they are in stealth, switch to staff and lay down marks to keep track of them, and to keep them taking damage/conditions while they are stealthed. Remember though, his build is meant to be used with a coordinated team (which includes at least 1-2 people protecting you).

Ken.9018:

well since deathshroud seems better with more vitality, I tend to run builds with either knight or carrion amulet and my fav weapons are either dagger dagger or sceptar dagger with staff

Actually since necros have a big health pool and shroud doubles it, it scales better with toughness since your high pool becomes harder to drain

Hazor.3140:

Actually since necros have a big health pool and shroud doubles it, it scales better with toughness since your high pool becomes harder to drain

Very, very debatable as to whether toughness or vitality is better on necromancers.

Having just today rolled a sPvP necro working along the lines of khalifa’s power build thieves are one of the easiest targets for me (bunker d/d eles however… just wont die )

It may partially because I main thief however a few things to help out.

Dark Pact is essentially your best weapon against the majority of thieves, they’ll either be running burst or stealth builds both of which are highly susceptible to immobilize, once they are pinned down they have lost a good portion of their defense, often if you get the immobilize off and get there quickly with your dagger autos you can take them out there and then.

On top of that utilizing the chillblains from staff can also work in essentially the same manner.

If they are using stealth offensively just dropping your well of suffering and fighting as usual will get around that, though if you see them coming this is often uneeded and infact best to save the well and just utilize the above method. If possible deathshroud to take the brunt of any alpha they give you (though I found it wasn’t strictly needed)

if they are trying to flee and you don’t have dark pact ready your best bets are switching to staff for the ranged attacks plus the wells, again chillblains if you can will often guarantee their failed escape.

If they start trying to teleport thats when you break out deathshroud and dark path to doom, this will neutralize the teleport they managed and prevent them further while you either life blast them of drop out and continue with any other regular rotations couple this with spectral walk and you can keep up with them generally.

If they drop a shadow refuge that is the ideal time to drop your well of suffering, you wouldn’t beleive how many thieves I killed in the past 2 hours due to dropping just the well on their refuge as they try to escape, best case scenario they try and get the stealth and die, worst case scenario they give up on the stealth and continue fleeing, unless they blow their refuge really early the well WILL take em down.

Remember if they are hitting other stealth’s while running to keep your staff/life blast attacks going, even just staff auto attack in the direction will have a good chance at taking them down.

So recap: CC is your best friend against them, land the immobilize or chill and a good half or more of their defense is either totally neutralized or heavily reduced, hit them fast and hard when you can.

When they are stealthing keep the pressure on them, marks where you see them pop are both clear indications that they are there AND fairly lethal to even a bunkery thief.

Ample use of deathshroud to both absorb burst and to chase them down and stop them as they try burn their few teleports.

If all else fails lich form, the damage on skill 1 alone can take out a thief in 3-4 hits couple that with another chill and a knockdown and if need be a bunch of pets that hit them hard with conditions which many thieves are highly susceptible to (plus the advantage of the fact that pets don’t drop agro on stealth so will continue to chase them even if they aren’t actually hitting them)

Against the typical Backstab Thieves anticipation/good reaction time is your best weapon. As stated by others, Khalifa’s dagger build isn’t really meant for 1v1 very often, but if you get in a pinch you should be able to 1v1 most thieves (75% or so) at your skill level as long as you have LF to burn, because they just cant burst through everything you have.

Know the duration of his stealths and use lots of movement and shroud timing to your advantage. A thief will be shouting cursewords at you every time he burns backstab on you in shroud, which should be often if you see him coming.

Wells of Suffering, Darkness and even Corruption can ruin the squishy little guy’s day pretty fast. Use them wisely.

Staff 5 can break his stealth chain if you time it well and leave an opening to quickly Dagger 3 him. If the thief isn’t running Withdrawl, he is dead at this point. If he does have it, then he is still in trouble and will most likely have to run away to reset.

Remember that just because he is in stealth, he is not invulnerable. I have killed many a GC thief just by spamming Dagger 1 and making sudden changes of direction (they walk into the dagger 1 trying to backstab you). You can also start channeling Dagger 2 and/or shroud 4 while they are visible and continue to damage them in stealth. With Khalifa’s build these skills do decent enough damage to push the thief away and give you time to reset.

Unfotunately, you can’t make the kill unless they make a mistake. Thief mobility is too good for you to be able to catch him if he is smart enough to know when to run. That said, PvP in this game is all about punishing mistakes, and someone has to make one eventually.

I have my deathshroud hotkeyed for incoming spikes like thiefs popping out of stealth and GS warriors charging. I have it hotkeyed to the top key on my mouse while the second one is my heal. As soon as you get stunned and start taking big burst damage like mesmers pop and such just pop it and use 3 which is your fear and laugh at them for wasting that spike on you. Save your lifeforce and just use it against big damage from those classes.