Guild Wars 2

Running power necro for a few weeks now and loving it. There are a few things I wish were better but that is for another thread. Thiefs have been a problem for me since i started with this build. Most times in 1v1 fights i come out on top, but not by much. When things start getting too close i just pop Lich and fight is over. Then there was this one thief a few days ago who just smashed me over and over and over. No matter what I did he was just too fast, and strong. He would literally down me in about 4 seconds. (Stealth -> petrify -> few hits -> dead.) Then when i used Lich, he just ran away till Lich was done… then downed me again. How the hell do you counter this? Any suggestions?

You don’t… GOOD teefs, who don’t go ham, who know when to kite, who know how to spam shortbow, dodge all your 4 light year channel time skills, and backstab at the right moment will kill a power necro 95% of the time. You can only get better your self and hope for the best

Hope I didn’t discourage you 2 much

Keep Warhorn 5 up and don’t waste Death Shroud. When they stealth you want DS available to serve as a tanking mechanism and to apply counter-pressure.

Also, do yourself a favor and don’t let the Thief reset if you can at all avoid it. Oftentimes if you can chase and down it and let it bleed out, you’re better off than letting it reset and return to the fight before you could even cap the node. Of course, circumstance dictates what the best move in any situation really is, so just try to be mindful of the smart thing to do for your team as to whether you chase or hold at point.

What he said. Also note that your conditions prevent OOC regen resetting the fight for the their, so be aware of this and hit the thief with some.

This is why i dont use staff on a power build, take axe/warhorn, dagger/dagger. What kills thieves in 1v1 is dagger auto spam while you have protection up and weakness on them an well timed blinds.

I suggest running signet of spite. You have to land this thing the moment you are in range. Chain tainted shackles with dark pact then channel ghastly claws, that will probably start getting the thief nervous. If he ports out, just relax and leave area for a bit and let him come to you. When he ports back, evade becaue he will try to get the next hit and try and get behind him. Use swarm, and unholy feast then just kite spam dagger auto.

Somewhere in there try as much as possible to land the enfeebling blood on dagger at least once and have protection up if you can. Thieves is another reason why i dont use lich, a well timed golem charge is where its at because of the shorter cooldown.

If the thief is really fast and you miss the immobilize chain, use only dagger, weaken and blind them, kite and spam auto. Fire and air sigils will get them very afraid of standing next to you. Don’t depend on life blasts unless you want to chase, good thieves too fast for it.

Use unholy feast and life transfer if they stealth next to you.

If a good thief is involved in a gank, ignore all this and run. Oh wait, you wont be able to.

Ok. thanks for the replies all. @Holl, im not discouraged at all i was just frustrated. Im going to try out the axe/warhorn and drop the staff for a bit to see how that works out for me. I was also thinking of running with Well of Darkness for more blinds. What ya think? Not quite ready to drop Lich yet because the power is awesome.

Lich form is a waste in 1vs1. Specially against a foe that can disengage so easily.

Try go get retaliation going, drop wos and locust swarm so he cant waltz around you or dies for doing so.

When he goes invis, go to ds and use 4, which will hit him even while invisible. If you get a proc, he is dead. Dont let him escape or he will come back with full hp and you will have lost your life force. Take the downed trait so you lol him if he downs you.

Thieves are usually easy, but if the other player is more skilled, then you have to step up. Be aggressive and dont let him come to you first.

A truly talented thief is a nightmare. They’ll avoid or escape your damage and wear you down with smart hit and fade tactics – they’ll eventually use up your life force and interrupt your heal before you’re done. But most thieves are just lunch – the really great thieves are rare.

Thief’s are a joke for necros. I don’t understand how you can die from thief. They usually yust jump on you that’s why staff is so good. Put all marks on ground and thief is a goner. Not once did I witness thief die just from jumping on me whit all my marks from staff on the ground. Locus swarm, DS all do wonders, don’t forget fear it drives them mad buahahha.. When they stun you go to ds and fear them as you can do that under stun or any kind of cc…

2 Thieves are tricky if u are Power Nec, S/D and alot of evade and a P/D cheeze Condi since and as Condi Necro its imho our easiest kill next to Engi.

As Power Nec just dont use Axe vs Thief. I also like Spectral skills vs then for fast recharge of LF.

Majstor.2061:

Thief’s are a joke for necros. I don’t understand how you can die from thief. They usually yust jump on you that’s why staff is so good. Put all marks on ground and thief is a goner. Not once did I witness thief die just from jumping on me whit all my marks from staff on the ground. Locus swarm, DS all do wonders, don’t forget fear it drives them mad buahahha.. When they stun you go to ds and fear them as you can do that under stun or any kind of cc…

This is the first time I’m going to say this, but you legitimately have not played against a really good Thief. You’ll know you’ve found one when they go into stealth, you blow CDs/DS/dodges to try to avoid the imminent Backstab, then they reappear about 1200 range. You’re down cooldowns, endurance, and/or life force, and you accomplished nothing. Then they’re back in your face.

It’s a legitimate nightmare playing against a Thief who actually has patience. Most don’t, and even they can be rough, depending on your build/theirs. It’s actually incredible to me how few Thieves I’ve seen really take advantage of their class strengths, but the best you can do is play against all of their usual timings and hope for the best.

Keep an eye on their debuff to see when-about a D/P Thief is going to BP+HS back into Stealth. If you can dodge it and get a DS→DS3, you can fear them out of their combo, which is devastating.

When they’re invisible, dodge after about 3 seconds or so. Or put a bunch of marks down, put down Spectral Wall and run through it, etc. If you have nothing else, just keep that timing in mind.

If a Thief wants to disengage, he’s going to, and you won’t catch up. The best you can do is light him up in that few seconds he makes a mistake and hope you down him.

Cogbyrn.7283:

This is the first time I’m going to say this, but you legitimately have not played against a really good Thief. You’ll know you’ve found one when they go into stealth, you blow CDs/DS/dodges to try to avoid the imminent Backstab, then they reappear about 1200 range. You’re down cooldowns, endurance, and/or life force, and you accomplished nothing. Then they’re back in your face.

Instead of blowing CDs/DS/Dodges, just put Mark of Blood on yourself and wait on point. If the mark pops, you know they’re there and can bomb them before they even get to backstab you.

Dealing with a Thief is unlike dealing with other classes, but Necromancer matches up fairly well against them in a 1v1 scenario, especially in a point-capture format like conquest.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Instead of blowing CDs/DS/Dodges, just put Mark of Blood on yourself and wait on point. If the mark pops, you know they’re there and can bomb them before they even get to backstab you.

At the time I encountered this particular thief I was running staff, d/d. I was using the marks as you suggested here. The problem with this “thief early warning system” is that he would petrify me before beginning his attack. So it didn’t matter if i knew where he was because there wasn’t much i could do. Even when i used Spectral Armor to break the stun, he had already inflicted a ton of damage.

I have switched over to Axe/Warhorn since and it seems to be working pretty well against thieves. Axe 3 gives you retaliation, warhorn can daze and cripple. i am also using Well of Darkness combined with Chilling Darkness. Makes them miss and slows em down. Ive been applying this when they go into stealth. The dumb ones so far have been running straight into the well and swing blindly hitting nothing but air, giving me enough time to inflict some up close damage with my daggers.

This new combo seems to be working great for me at the moment, but i have yet to meet another thief of this caliber. I am interested to see how it would work out.

LittleHorn.6728:

At the time I encountered this particular thief I was running staff, d/d. I was using the marks as you suggested here. The problem with this “thief early warning system” is that he would petrify me before beginning his attack. So it didn’t matter if i knew where he was because there wasn’t much i could do. Even when i used Spectral Armor to break the stun, he had already inflicted a ton of damage.

Your adjustments are totally reasonable. Since Basilisk Venom is usually the Thief’s opener it can be prohibitive to blow your own Stunbreak on it especially in the face of the multitude of other CCs that same Thief build carries. I tend to use DS to react to this kind of pressure, because you can DS and then use Doom on the Thief while it’s executing its burst and alleviate a majority of that burst pressure without burning your major CD’s.

Since you’re running a berserker build, you lack a lot of the durability the traditional terrormancer has from Carrion amulet, so you’ll definitely want a Warhorn for counterpressure. You can use Warhorn 5 as soon as you see the enemy go stealth after casting Basilisk Venom and as soon as you get hit enter DS. Since you’ll have Warhorn 5 up, you’ll gain DS as you take DS damage, and you can weather the pressure.

Also, if you are quick on the draw as soon as the early warning marks are popped you can execute a dodge roll and then roll marks on their face inside stealth. This is one of the greatest counterplays you can perform against the D/P Backstab Thief variant. You’ll want to spread your marks out more if facing the S/D Thief variant. Hopefully that helps!

In wvw I typically run a condi necro (6/6/0/0/2) glass with perplex runes and when I get petrified by a thief I immediately enter ds and hit #3 to fear him. If I have no one else targeted it almost always fears him because he is the closest enemy. The fear will give you some time to get out of the petrifaction before he backstabs you. I also typically throw down another fear to try and get some distance to coordinate my next rotation and some times slam him with signet of spite to keep him crippled. Not sure if it helps but it has become an automatic ha it to use ds3 immediately.