Guild Wars 2

It’s been a recurring theme that Necros are unable to effectively fight Thieves, so I created this thread to share what little experience and tips I have with them, and to motivate others who have successful encounters to post their ideas too.

I play PvE and WvW, so my encounters with thieves are only limited to the latter. My build is hybrid carrion/rabid and I use 0/30/20/0/20 in WvW, using greater marks, shorter marks CD, LF on triggered marks and shorter Corruption-skill CDs. Hence, my advice is specific to other Necros who roll with similar builds.

1. Using marks more effectively and having a greater chance of triggering them:
I think it’s safe to say that most thieves are melee oriented. There are usually two ways a melee thief would open – steal or backstab (you should be attentive to see them approaching). In both cases, to effectively have your marks land, you shouldnt be placing them as if you were fighting another class (predicting a few steps in advance where he’ll be). Instead, you should be placing the marks at YOUR feet. Believe me, the thief will trigger them. After, you should have some armor and health to soak up some hits, although moving forwards and back (the “About Face” move is pretty effective) will cause the thief to miss a few hits because he has to constantly re-aim to land hits.

Within 5s, he will stealth. Note, it is very important NOT to spam all your #3-5 marks because they have very different uses!! At this point, follow the direction he was running in before he disappeared and place a #2 and #3 (predicting his location). The reason for doing this is because most thieves have condition removal in stealth, so you want RNG to work against them – not removing the conditions he wants removed. #2 and #3, combined, give bleed, poison and chill, so if he’s left with the bleed – that’s a good thing.

Get used to counting 3s, and right before that, pop DS to absorb backstab damage, use #2, dance around with him, and even though you cant see him (rendering issue) you still can see your damage taken. Pull of #4 right before he disappears (this needs practice) and it will chain even in his stealth. The best thing about DS#4? You dont need to be facing him (like Dagger #2 or Axe #2), but you will still need to have some smarts predicting where he’ll be (generally his last known bearing is a good guess).

The other option is to BiP when he comes out of stealth, with #2 and #4 at your feet so he’ll take everything. This step and the previous is interchangeable, although if you have DS integration you should use that first.

In no time, he will have bled out, thanks to their low health pool. Note: Pre-placing #2 at your feet when you know he’s coming helps tremendously too. It should CD fast enough so when he arrives, you can place another one – 6 stacks of delicious bleeding. (Thieves’ hunger for blood won’t be stopped by a red circle at your feet.). I also have a high-90s success rate of landing my marks on thieves.

2. Dodging and Heartseeker:
Face it, your dodges are going to be useless against backstab. Instead, why not use it to waste initiative? When the thief is de-stealthed, dodge far away so he would try to HS you, but its range is not too big so he would miss the first one at least. Thief initiative lost.

3. When in a group:
Dont start running away from your group when you find you’re being focussed by a thief!!

4. Thieves like fighting around NPC mobs, so should you:
If you are able to fight on your terms, pick a neutral creature, like a Deer over a Wolf because they’re going to be chasing you! Also would be a very good idea to stay mobile. Thieves fight around NPC mobs because they can always pull CnD off these neutrals. Works against you because the animal will start attacking you. Or not? Being stealth doesn’t protect you from being AOE-ed. Drop BiP on the animal and Epidemic, it’s a sure way of getting your bleeds on the thief. Also, when the animal dies (easily), you get LF.

In all my encounters with smart thieves, I’ve been successful at chasing them away (you know, when they stealth and disappear to regen). For less smart thieves, I’ve always killed them. That’s all the experience I have with thieves as of now, if anyone has more tips, contributing it would be greatly appreciated.

For the condition P/D thief, it’s a similar strategy, but they usually appear long enough to successfully place your marks at his feet. You also need to know how long to hold his bleeds before you Staff #4 and transfer them back to him (usually after 2-3 Sneak Attacks). By this time you should also have a nice stack of bleeds on him. When he runs towards you, it’s usually for CnD, so dodge at the right time (CnD costs a LOT of initiative). You can also use that opportunity where you know he’s coming in melee range to land whatever mark you like at your feet, for example #5.

you should have put a “in wvwvw” there.
Also, try fighting in areas that limit the thiefs mobility. Small corridors, capture points etc. obviously you cant always choose when and where to engage but if you get attacked by a thief and you know there is a restrictive area close by, try to retreat to there. No amount of mobility helps you if you only have 2 options: stay in the aoe and die or move out and lose the capture point. Another thing you can do when the thief enters stealth is placing 2 marks behind you in a way so that they cover your sides and back. stealth only lasts maybe 5 sec max. while marks last a lot longer. Obviously, because back and sides are coverd he cant back stab you, and if the thiefs tries he trickers one, which gives you enough time to retreat on top of the other mark. Or the thief tries to frontal heart seeker spam you which is just…. lol usually those people are the same ones that keep standing in your aoe trying to heartseeker you down. just drop whatever aoe you have and DS4 and watch him melt away.

Now, another thing is: usually a thief will start their combo with steal, backstab and the stolen 3s fear. So i usually try to hit DS as soon as possible and send them a fear in return. fear sends the thief in the opposite direction for 1s, which they also have to move back to. Which means the thief can only utulize 1 seconde (even less if traited for longer fears) out of the 3 seconde fear meaning they can pull of less damage before the fear ends.

Use CCs against thieves. Chill, stun, immobilize, and knockdown abilities make it so a thief cant do much.

Terror, Master of Terror, and Reapers Protection eat thieves.

@Alanis

I was fighting a really good thief yesterday.

He was a DD thief, and it has been a long time since I fought a good one.

He combo’d me with culling, and got me to around 6k hp(I have 22k hp and a lot of thoughtness) before I could see him. I fear, damage a bit and heal.

Shadowstep, combo me again, got me to half hp, I hit him with every marks I have that aren’t onCD, I get him to like 50%.

He heals and goes invis.

He combo me again, eat thru my DS. I used my DS fear, he just run around me and combo again.

While in stealth, he cures every bleeds I have put on him. I have no LF left, no heal up, and he finish me.

I landed every spell I had, sadly he remove every condition I had on him. He would drop me to 20% hp in about 2 sec each time he attacked.

He wouldn’t use CC, so Reapers Protection didn’t proc.

I’m heavy condition/fear build, with a lot of vitality and thoughtness.

I played thief, learned their pattern. I read every tips to fight thieves.

It still the class that I hate the most to fight in WvW.

People say they are glass cannon. No, they aren’t all glass cannon. Newb go class cannon. Good thief will get more hp/thoughtness, and still hit like a truck.

I will contend that a really good thief is nearly unstoppable in a 1v1 situation in an area where the landscape favors them. They can control the pace of the fight, reset when they want, and engage when they want.

The flip side to that is, if they slip up and get caught, there is a good chance they are going down. Not talking about full zerker builds with 13k HP, but the good players who balance out there defensive stats and know how to use cooldowns. A zerker build thief is likely to go down even if they do NOT slip up, just because of how little mitigation they have.

If they can time their condition clears well, they are very hard to kill, unless you can chain a really long set of fears on them from 1/2HP to down. Very situational and again, a good thief isn’t going to give you the opportunity.

I think the fight with them will get better if and when they fix rendering around their stealthing. Not being able to see them backstabbing you until the numbers have already flown by and the sound has been going on for 2 seconds make reacting to things like HS impossible. You can’t dodge roll a move you can’t see, without panicing and just blowing all your endurance hoping to miss the big hits or the skull fear.

I would say this all balances out in wvw in the long run because that thief (again after rendering fixes) has a sever disadvantage in keep combat, or zerg combat, so it’s a tradeoff. I do not have great insight into a one-size-fits-all combat tip, other than fears are the best/most reliable way to drop them and control them.

Wells and Staff destroy Thieves. Especially wells that turn their damage mods into conditions. That basically makes it impossible for them to kill something with 20k + health. 400 Toughness while channeling also makes a huge difference. Just start a channeled spell and Thief can’t do anything before you load them with conditions and send them off to die because they specd all that Rambo and no Band-aids.