Guild Wars 2

2 questions:

1) How to kill an elite-thief?

Thieves can pretty much invisible 24/7 and hit your for 4k-8k a hit. You are dead within 20 seconds, so you must kill the thief by then.

And assume the thief will run away at 25% health.

2) How to escape from an elite-thief?

Let’s say things are going very bad, and you are down to 50% health. You want to run away. How would you do it?

Reasons:

I ask these two questions because it is becoming a very serious problem in WvW in my server. There are always thieves ambushing people on the roads. They are pretty much the U-boats of WvW. Whenever I was spotted by an elite-enemy thief I am dead pretty much all the time. The only time I escape or win is against totally noob thieves that are predictable (e.g. my marks actually hits him while he was invisible).

Even when I travel with a group we aren’t safe. Very often one single thief can fight 3 people by himself. We simply can never see him. And before we know it one person is downed. The thief then invisible+"finish him".

Other times, the thief simply delay all of us and call for reinforcements. For while we were chasing the thief all over the place, his helps arrives and we all gets slaughtered.

CHIPS.6018:

2 questions:

1) How to kill a thief?

Thieves can pretty much invisible 24/7 and hit your for 4k-8k a hit. You are dead within 20 seconds, so you must kill the thief by then.

And assume the thief will run away at 25% health.

Combination of:

1- Just plain being better than him, usually evident in the timing of your dodges
2- Have better defensive stats — you shouldn’t take many 8k hits, if any
3- Reapers Protection is quite strong
4- In WvW, you should have the benefit of a good amount of LF to start the fight. Use it wisely.

2) How to escape from a thief?

Let’s say things are going very bad, and you are down to 50% health. You want to run away. How would you do it?

Use SW, or kite until SW comes up. Use SW wisely (utilizing LOS, mobs, height, etc) then teleport back and head the opposite direction.

Dark Path can also be very powerful against thieves. Chilling is one of the things only specifically spec’d thieves can cure reliably, and it really messes with them. A common misconception is that thieves do not rely on cooldowns, but it’s not true. Keep them chilled so it’s easier to predict their movements in stealth.

That said, it’s a very difficult matchup.

@Alanis

2- I have all exotic thoughtness gear, and DD thief can still hit me for 8k + other hit from the combo. Thoughtness is overrated, damage scall better. And P/D thief don’t care about thougtness.

3- We might fight different thief, but mine usually never use any hard CC? My Reaper protection dooesn’t trigger from thief.

Escaping a thief is no easy task. Elite Thief, like the OP mentionned, won’t be trolled by Spectral Wall.

You won’t outspeed a thief, they have the second best mobility in the game.

As soon as they switch to shortbow, they can outrun any necro build in this game. “Elite” thief won’t let you escape alive. You better fight and hope for a mistake and kill them.

retaliation and chill are your best weapons against a thief. you will also have to make sure you rebuild life force during the engaugement so that the thief eats it and not your health. there should be only a small window in which you should not have some kind of a cc on the thief. you have to control their movement during the fight. not much you can do about them running away. but if they are running, then you’ve done something right if it’s a 1v1 situation.

Watch some Thief vids and study your enemy. Most of this ‘Elite’ is mearly from people not knowing what to do when someone stealths. Its not damage immunity.

The best way to deal with a thief is to burst him to death, most WvW players run GC builds, but watch out for any using Pistol Dagger, they tend to be tankier and will win almost 100% of attrition fights against necros if you aren’t used to fighting against them.

I usually walk with Flesh Golem out and try to combo charge→ dagger immob→ well bombs.

Use DS and fear to break the thief’s combo, both skills have no casting so they can be used in any situation.

Don’t be afraid to try and run, sometimes that is your only choice.

If nothing else practice in sPvP at least you can learn some of their tells.

Go practice in sPvP where there is nothing to distract you from what they are ACTUALLY doing. No random mobs or anything or tons of zerg to get in the way.

Condition Necros actually have extremely good game against Thieves. Not so much Power/Crit necros though.

Kardiamond.6952:

@Alanis

As soon as they switch to shortbow, they can outrun any necro build in this game. “Elite” thief won’t let you escape alive.

no, if it’s looking bad for me I just turn invis and turbo boost away….

Its funny to see all the people who are used to killing bad thieves give advice here thinking they killed a good thief.

Marks and wells work really well against thieves since you can stand in them forcing the thief to take AoE damage if he wants to get in his licks. It’s also a great trick for sticking them with things like chill and blindness both of which completely frak up their usual attack skill rotation.

Marks and wells also care not at all about stealth since they’re not targeted on an enemy. Just spread them out nicely and there’s nowhere for the thief to go.

(and I can’t believe I’m explaining this since my main is a thief)

Kardiamond.6952:

@Alanis

2- I have all exotic thoughtness gear, and DD thief can still hit me for 8k + other hit from the combo. Thoughtness is overrated, damage scall better. And P/D thief don’t care about thougtness.

It certainly happens sometimes, but if you manage to let it happen outside of the opening attack that you didn’t see coming, then that is primarily user error. Again, being in WvW means you should have a decent amount of LF at all times.

P/d might not care about toughness, but they certainly aren’t fans of consume conditions and PM.

3- We might fight different thief, but mine usually never use any hard CC? My Reaper protection dooesn’t trigger from thief.

Steal>Fear is pretty common against thief’s I run across. I also have run into several sword thieves in recent weeks.

Escaping a thief is no easy task. Elite Thief, like the OP mentionned, won’t be trolled by Spectral Wall.

You won’t outspeed a thief, they have the second best mobility in the game.

As soon as they switch to shortbow, they can outrun any necro build in this game. “Elite” thief won’t let you escape alive. You better fight and hope for a mistake and kill them.

There are very few places in WvW where, if you get a full-duration SW-recall off, you won’t be able to get to a ‘safe’ location (keep, camp, allies).

For what I’ve seen I think that thief should not be Boom, you’re dead/can’t see me, die die die! profession but rather fingers crossed, hope it all connects.

Make it a profession fun to harass but don’t make harassment into murder without a chance of victory or escape. I don’t know mechanic behind thieves but apart from mesmer thief’s the only class that’s often impossible to kill or run from for my minion master necro (power+vit+toughness).

I don’t operate on statistics from my battles with thieves, but one thing I’m sure of – I either kill them without much effort or die after a while while trying my best to do anything. I believe that I’ve never had an even battle with a thief.

1. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Tips-for-fighting-thieves-in-WvWvW

2. Pretty much every Necro runs a Staff in WvW. Use your Staff #5 when you know a stealth stomp is going down on your ally. I’ve saved tons of people like that. On a side note, I’m really embarrassed when I see Necros spam marks in WvW. The only marks you should be spamming is #2 and #3. #4 and #5 are situational. For example, #5 is used to interrupt stealth stomps and Ele’s Meteor Shower casting (you have to react fast for this).

3. If you see one of your allies getting focussed by a melee thief, you should be placing your marks on that ally. Guarantee hit.

4. Watch some thief videos and learn their movement when they stealth.

5. Personal opinion: I feel condition-oriented Necros are more effective on Thieves.

Dude. Stop saying “thoughtness” instead of “toughness”.

pop in DS – fear – drop wells and staff marks at your feet, if he attacks you he’s dead. thieves in WvW are super easy kills since you almost always have full life force at the start.

Sprawl.3891:

pop in DS – fear – drop wells and staff marks at your feet, if he attacks you he’s dead. thieves in WvW are super easy kills since you almost always have full life force at the start.

I’d try not to use Wells against thieves. Any smart thief will wait that 5s before attacking you again. Your wells would be on long CD then.

The two classes that really lock head to head with this class are the healing/tank guardian and the bleed thief. Bleed thieves get a much more comfortable access to trickery and can stay in stealth almost the majority of the time you 1v1 them. If you’re taking 8k hits from them, you need to start obtaining toughness. Some players like to run w/ berserker gear and overblow it, but in reality you can take two hits, just like you can give two hits

When he stealths, drop mark3 and mark5. place them like a venn diagram, and strafe between the two. always have your middle figher (right clicker) pressed and ALWAYS strafe in a circle around your target. if you can, swap direction when you can.

this breaks LoS on the thief, which will make C&D and backstab VERY hard to land.

This is a tactic I learned from a player named Taugrim (you can google him) back when he played Allods as a melee priest, which in that game was supposedly as crappy as what we’re considered now by popular misconception.

as long as you stay moving (strafe around your target, maintain LoS while breaking theirs) and you will feel more comfortable with getting the gank on him instead of the other way around. If he starts spamming heartseeker and you start to feel binded by your low HP, fear him. maybe twice. This will allow him to probably reconsider and try to go for a C&D move (as most thieves are used to performing as a deep habit when they see they have more initiative) Or if he’s a p/p w/ haste nub, he’ll try to p3 you to death. use that death shroud in either of those situations of when he decides to keep spamming heartseeker or when he wants to use a ranged burst weapon. (some slightly better thieves unstealth at a range, and perform combos when you misstep)

In power heavy axe builds dont forget retaliation.

Nickczh.6341:

Sprawl.3891:

pop in DS – fear – drop wells and staff marks at your feet, if he attacks you he’s dead. thieves in WvW are super easy kills since you almost always have full life force at the start.

I’d try not to use Wells against thieves. Any smart thief will wait that 5s before attacking you again. Your wells would be on long CD then.

i wait until they re-appear to drop the well, usually the marks are enough to make them run away if they didn’t land their opener.

Retalation is a not really the answer for thieves, as there hits are hard and infrequent. Retalation is not a % damage return, it is a flat base damage and then it scales up with power, which most Necros will not have a ton of. The thief could also just wait out your retal buf…. it doesn’t last long

Until rendering is fixed, I doubt that thieves are going to be a class anyone feels comfortable with. When red numbers are flying around you, you have limited options on what to do and how to react when you can’t see what is hitting you for 1-2 seconds. I don’t run wells because I don’t like skills that can be countered by moving two steps to the left. If you ran dagger MH, wells would be a good choice for thieves.

As far as running away from any thief, that isn’t going to happen. You could maybe make it to a camp if you get lucky, but running with your back to a thief is what they like best. Spectral juke would work against a less experienced person, but thief can easily cover twice the distance we can in the same time.

I would put the best thief I know up against any necro, and he would beat them. The healing they have available in addition to the stealth/control is going to trump what we can do. It may take him a while to safely burn through all the DS green, and toughness, but he would win.

That being said I beat thieves all the time. But that is because 80% of the thieves out there are bad and spam HS over and over again in a predictable fashion, then shadow house and run away. The best players who also play thief are nearly unstoppable.

Peoples in this thread seems to fight really bad thief.

Those thief are not a problem, since they mostly die in 3 hit.

I full mark rotation on a good thief, won’t kill them.

A condimancer vs a P/D Thief also won’t kill them, as when they are invis we can only rely on mark to hit them (auto attack with staff yeah sure? or scepter #2 and #5, if you are really lucky.

They can remove condition as fast as necromancer (they remove condition each 3 sec in stealth, remove bleed and poison on heal).

I fought a good P/D thief not long ago when I was condimancer specced. I’m not bad at all in pvp, as I rarely go down to anyone in a 1vs1. But I just couldn’t burst down this thief. He was kinda outhealing my conditions. Sure he didn’t hit hard ether, but he was having the best out of me.

I’m a condimancer with 3 conditions removal, I shouldn’t be afraid of cond thief, but he still got me.

One of the best ways to learn to kill a class is to play that class. There was a pretty good youtube vid awhile back explaining all of the thief stealth options and strats if you need a decent shortcut.

Kardiamond.6952:

Peoples in this thread seems to fight really bad thief.

Those thief are not a problem, since they mostly die in 3 hit.

I full mark rotation on a good thief, won’t kill them.

A condimancer vs a P/D Thief also won’t kill them, as when they are invis we can only rely on mark to hit them (auto attack with staff yeah sure? or scepter #2 and #5, if you are really lucky.

They can remove condition as fast as necromancer (they remove condition each 3 sec in stealth, remove bleed and poison on heal).

I fought a good P/D thief not long ago when I was condimancer specced. I’m not bad at all in pvp, as I rarely go down to anyone in a 1vs1. But I just couldn’t burst down this thief. He was kinda outhealing my conditions. Sure he didn’t hit hard ether, but he was having the best out of me.

I’m a condimancer with 3 conditions removal, I shouldn’t be afraid of cond thief, but he still got me.

Just curious what your spec was — I have mentioned it in other threads, but I have found much greater success vs. all specs of thieves once I went to a terror-condition build. That extra damage and CC (and a bit more LF/Prot) really is fairly significant.

I used many build to counter thief.

• MM build → Awful

• Condimancer → average

• Master of terror (2x fear duration, Reaper protection, damage on fear, was working on nightmare rune) → average

• Glass Cannon Well-o-mancer → That was the best of the 4, in my experience, to counter thief.

It’s hard to say, since you don’t always fight good thief. But spamming some marks and wells usually insta kill bad thief.

But good thief and P/D thief will just laught and walk away fro my 42 sec cooldown wells.

Kardiamond.6952:

• Master of terror (2x fear duration, Reaper protection, damage on fear, was working on nightmare rune) -> average

I presume the “was working on Nightmare rune” as just a way of making it a little easier to get +100% fear condition duration, and you utilized a different rune set (Necromancer, etc) in the meantime — as you did say 2x fear duration.

I’ve found that double duration fears with Terror often allowed me to be the aggressor, and have been quite successful with this build.

Yep, or when I didn’t reach the 2x duration, I was using rare veggie pizza.

I thought i would, but 2 sec was just enought time for me to cast 1-2 mark, or one epidemic.

Kardiamond.6952:

I used many build to counter thief.

• MM build -> Awful

• Condimancer -> average

• Master of terror (2x fear duration, Reaper protection, damage on fear, was working on nightmare rune) -> average

• Glass Cannon Well-o-mancer -> That was the best of the 4, in my experience, to counter thief.

It’s hard to say, since you don’t always fight good thief. But spamming some marks and wells usually insta kill bad thief.

But good thief and P/D thief will just laught and walk away fro my 42 sec cooldown wells.

I agree with this series of statements almost completely. While I will conceded that I enjoy a fear build, and still use it, it doesn’t close the gap on that top 10% of thief players. Similar to the top 10% of guardians, who know how to use their defensive cooldowns and stun breaks are also nearly impossible for a necromancer (condition or condition/power).

Stealth is an insanely powerful mechanic because great players move unpredictably. All these people saying, “just hit them with marks”, apparently never ran into a thief that moves intelligently in one of any directions in a 360 degree area. Stand on your marks? They can just pop their stability and waste your precious long cooldown fear mark, or attack you from range.

In my opinion it comes down to the passive healing that both of those classes get and how well those options work. Since the necro version of passive healing, healing outside of the 6 skill, is the vampiric traits, which are complete garbage, it stands to reason we would not fair well in that matchup.

The tradeoff was that we were given DS, and you build life-force, thereby giving you that second health bar that can regenerate in a fight, etc. Its just too bad that our class skill disables all of our heals/utilites/normal health regeneration/most elites/normal skills and degenerates on its own naturally.

Not intending to complain here, simply pointing out the discrepancies when you try to engage these classes that can protect themselves, remain mobile, and heal passively- you are asking for it. As many people have pointed out historically, DS is our biggest liability, because any change they make has to account for the fact that every necromancer is walking around with 2 times the HP he has right now, ready to absorb burst.

Not related to thief only, but can certainly apply to them. The Necro is supposed to be the king of attrition class (maybe guardian too), but it’s just disturbing that so many other professions and builds can be made to out attrition us.

I think the reason that the Necro doesn’t get stronger as a fight gets longer (and hence not beat top thieves) is conditions are just too easy to remove.

We really need some kind of counter ability, or trait, that makes opponents suffer for removing our conditions. Because it can be too easy to find yourself 30 seconds into a fight and have an enemy basically reset the fight with no lingering effects on them, while their burst is now off cooldown and you have to start all over ramping up. Unfortunately, the fight isn’t going to last that much longer for it to pay off for you.

If life steal abilities worked like they should, that would also be another avenue for the Necro to persist like he should be able to against certain specs.

I do find though if you are specced into longer fears you can get most thieves to disengage you, as you can drag the fight a fair distance to somewhere that will be to your advantage. Either to allies, or a friendly camp / objective (talking WvW). This isn’t an answer to defeat a good thief (you can’t anyway they just run) but at least give them enough of a fight where they begin to think its not worth the hassle to keep pursuing you.

One way that can sometimes work to actually finish thieves is to play a dangerous game where you let them think you are near death as well, while having an ace in the pocket, like lots of life force, or a fear ready to finish them off. If a player thinks they are about to win they will often take extreme risks with their own health to get you. But this is of course very risky.