Guild Wars 2

I’ve been trying to get into the PvP scene with my Thief main, but I’ve been finding my ability to 1v1 Necros has dwindled quite a lot recently. My assumptions on your lower armor class giving me the headstart in fights seems to be a bit wrong now Thief has lost their trait for extra dodge rolls.

In the interest of making your games less of a rofl-stomp when I face you, what’s some techniques I could look into to surviving just a few seconds longer in a direct confrontation?

Overworld.9613:

I’ve been trying to get into the PvP scene with my Thief main, but I’ve been finding my ability to 1v1 Necros has dwindled quite a lot recently. My assumptions on your lower armor class giving me the headstart in fights seems to be a bit wrong now Thief has lost their trait for extra dodge rolls.

In the interest of making your games less of a rofl-stomp when I face you, what’s some techniques I could look into to surviving just a few seconds longer in a direct confrontation?

Sounds like you’re encountering more necros running a Soldier ammy that can survive burst pretty well. But beyond that, you’re best bet is to still disengage briefly to heal, then re-engage the fight, in terms of survivability. Not to mention stealth. Beyond that general advice, I can’t offer more (haven’t played around with Thief much)

When you steal a necro, you get very long fear which can really make life difficult for your target. Else, necro are a light armor but very high health pool, and since the patch often run fairly tanky (celestial/soldier). I think if you expect a fast kill, you are not in the right spot.

Dont do a direct confrontation. 1v1 is a waste of time for a thief (unless your opponent is already quite low or you know you can burst him down quickly). Due how thieves are designed they cannot really stay on point, meaning you always are in the worse postion even if you win the 1v1. You are more useful for your team if you use your superior mobility and stealth to create 1+ situations and decap points.

But if it is solely about 1v1s, mhh if you use your superior mobility and stealth correctly you should never lose (that doesnt mean you can win the fight). But that is easier said then done. Depending on the necro build, they can kill you pretty fast. Generally you best bet is to reset the fight at the right times and make sure the necro cannot gain enough Lifeforce. Necros without Lifeforce will feel the pressure and most likely will break under it. Also dont hit the necro while spectral armor/walk is active on them.

Well, thieves aren’t really 1v1ers, and it is hard to win as a thief in the first engagement. Here are a few tips:
1) If the necro has full LF wait for him to enter DS then disengage or create space and watch it degen. Waiting for them to leave to reengage, or burst. Generally speaking blowing your burst on DS in a 1vs1 is a bad idea unless it’s gonna push them out of DS like at the start of a match.

2) Learn the staff animations, you want to watch out for putrid mark and reaper’s mark, and get good at blinding, interrupting, or dodging them.

3) All the heals have big cast times and you should interrupt them with headshot or steal (If your using sword, the stealth attack from behind).

4) Watch for marks on the ground, smart necros will use marks to figure out when they are going to get backstabbed. If they do this, simply dodge through the mark and wait a second, the person you are fighting will probably rando dodge and then you can land your backstab, or whatever.

5) Try to get them to blow their cds. For instance, if your fighting a well necro, you can let them land dark pact and then watch as they blow both wells. Then you shadowstep or withdraw out and they just lost 2 utilities for 30 seconds. Similarly, if they use spectral armor you can just stealth or disengage for 6 seconds and they just lost a 50 second cd utility.

6) If they are running axe or scepter, learn to dodge the channel on axe 2 (dodge through them) and scepter 3. Then they will be starved of LF even more.

Honestly, and I main necro but I play enough thief to give an informed opinion,

You shouldn’t be 1v1 necromancer.

Or anybody else.

Right now thief is in sorry shape and the OPness of short bow 5 is carrying the class.

Concentrate on +1 fights. This means that you gank down already damaged enemies that are engaging your tanker teammates.

Also, you concentrate on decapping and capturing empty points and getting back to the main fight as quickly as possible.

Learn to disengage as quickly as possible once an opponent turn its attention to you. I’m still not great at this so I take instant invisibility in one of my utility slots.

Learn all of the z-axis teleport spots which speeds up your land speed 100%.