Guild Wars 2

So I am shaking my head after getting just baffled by this thief over and over again. I am a ranger and was with a group defending. A thief casts something (why a thief can cast is beyond me) and then disappears. Okay, then again casts something and disappears. Okay and casts something else and disappears. Then I die. So how in the world is that in any way a balanced class? There is no way to even respond. I realize they can stealth but CTFO. This is ridiculous. The Ranger class can’t even stealth at all let alone appear and disappear in battle . The thief class is seriously out of whack with the others. What is the defense against this crap?

1. Have your group AoE
2. Wait 2 seconds
3. Watch the thief’s death animation

I can do this alone even.

For the record Rangers do have a form of stealth in camouflage which does make you disappear in the middle of battle.

If a Thief disappears near you, get ready to use Lightning Reflexes and hope they don’t have an immobilize. Once you’re out of melee range you can avoid Cloak and Dagger which is what makes them disappear repeatedly and attempt to kite them. Pray they don’t have a shortbow equipped and have at it.

If the Thief is halfway decent, you’re probably not going to win. If you keep your wits about you and make good use of your utility skills (traps, Lightning Reflexes, Protect Me!) you’ll increase your chances of coming out alive substantially.

They are just strong against us currently since most ranger ability’s and skills are underpowered and lackluster. They nerfed rangers back in the day without actually testing what they did so there are a few issue’s still lingering. Kiting them is your best bet, but any non scrub thief will stick to you pretty well.

Juke and try and outlast them. blow your CDs at the appropriate time and cross fingers ;P

I actually made a thief to figure out how to beat them, and they are just designed much better and have nice synergy. I have come to the realization that they just have a clear advantage against us currently unless your a pro ranger – and even then they give us trouble. I’m hoping eventually they will get us tuned more inline with everyone else – but I’m not expecting them to.

Use sword on your 2nd weapon set and win.

nldixon.8514:

For the record Rangers do have a form of stealth in camouflage which does make you disappear in the middle of battle.

If a Thief disappears near you, get ready to use Lightning Reflexes and hope they don’t have an immobilize. Once you’re out of melee range you can avoid Cloak and Dagger which is what makes them disappear repeatedly and attempt to kite them. Pray they don’t have a shortbow equipped and have at it.

If the Thief is halfway decent, you’re probably not going to win. If you keep your wits about you and make good use of your utility skills (traps, Lightning Reflexes, Protect Me!) you’ll increase your chances of coming out alive substantially.

Well if the Ranger class can’t stealth at will, it does not have a valid stealth ability which iskitten Standing still while using stealth is next to useless. I like playing the class but it’s VERY underwhelming in WVW. In almost every other MMO, the ranger class is something to be reckoned with even in 1 on 1. I don’t find that in this game. And like almost every other MMO (in pvp) the thief type class is either entirely OP or useless. In GW2 they need some tuning to say it nicely. The level 40 thieves will gripe because they suck and when they get buffed it makes the level 80s even worse. I didn’t play beta, where the rangers nerfed? I should be used to this by now but I just wanted to vent.

vangedas.7358:

Use sword on your 2nd weapon set and win.

How do you hit nothing? They are invisible when they attack. I fail to see the win in this.

I don’t really have a bunch of issues in WvWvW or PvP on my Ranger. Could things be better? Sure. They could always be better, but the class is still fun to play and you can be effective. There are some minor issues that need to be addressed with Rangers, but overall it’s been a fun experience.

swilkers.5938:

vangedas.7358:

Use sword on your 2nd weapon set and win.

How do you hit nothing? They are invisible when they attack. I fail to see the win in this.

You can actually swing away at where the Thief disappears and still hit them. If you manage to contact them while they’re invisible you can spam the chain attack and you’ll stick on them, even though you can’t see them.

Just wait for them to make the first move. If you pick up lightning reflexs you get 4 successive dodges if you use shortbow. on top of that you’ll get 100% endurance regen after using lightning reflexes. Rangers have plenty of escape options and if you use a CC pet instead of a dps pet all you have to do is just dodge, harass and pick your moment to strike.

Use the wolf/dog pet, they have AOE cc abilities. There’s a wolf that applies fear for 2s in a 500 distance radius. And there’s a dog that applies immobilize in a 500 distance radius. Additionally if you have “Protect Me” and the condition removal signet, then you’re set to beat any thief 1v1.

Superior Rune of Svanir

I don’t PvP, but if the thief vanishes, wouldn’t your best bet to be to set a trap and stand on it? Then if it triggers, you know you should dodge and get away.

If I remember correctly, the activation radius on a trap is basically melee range. The effect radius is larger though (basically how they worked in GW1.)

Now as someone who mains a melee thief (as opposed to dual pistol), you wanna keep distance or use evasion. Slows, immobilize, gap creators, etc. For Longbows you have mostly Point-Blank Shot and short bows have Crippling Shot and Quick Shot. S/D is almost entirely evasion. GS has, I think, the first auto-attack skill.

Also, a well-timed evasive skill or something like Signet of Stone traited to share the activated effect can be very effective. Remember, Thieves use Initiative instead of cooldowns, so even if the attack misses, Initiative is still used.

Now your opponents:
D/D > Cloak and Dagger into Backstab is the bread-and-butter of this set for direct damage. If spec’d for it, its self-sustaining. The thief will probably not run out of Initiative for a long time. Heart-Seeker is usually used as a gap closer and/or finisher.
If condition spec, it changes to venoms on utility skills and Death Blossom for condition stacking and damage.

D/P > Honestly never seen a thief use this outside of unlocking weapon sets. Its an odd set, imo.

P/D > Kind of odd like D/P. Also uncommon as far as I’ve seen.

S/D > Gonna be honest, I don’t like this weapon set. I think its bad. I’ve seen it used once (against me in sPvP), and was utterly unimpressed by it. Maybe it was the set, maybe it was the player, idk.

S/P > Current FotM set. Relies almost entirely on Pistol Whip spam to do anything. Haste(utility skill) is almost as vital to the build as Pistol Whip. Basically, they get in close, use Haste and spam stun+damage via Pistol Whip. Note: Sword attacks on a thief typically also root them for the animation. If you use a stun break and then dodge out of Pistol Whip, most of the damage will miss. Bear in mind this will probably also make Haste time out as well (only lasts 4 seconds). Also, while Haste is active they cannot use movement dodges (skill-based dodges like Roll for Initiative, yes.)

P/P > Its a 900 unit ranged set. It has been toned down quite a bit since the betas, but is still decent. Unload spam is still kind of scary though. It has a Daze skill and a Blind skill, notably. The Blind skill is kind of made worse in that its a field effect so they can continue to blind while the effect is active.

Short Bow > Also a 900 unit set, excluding Cluster Bomb which 1200. Its mostly a multi-target set. Cluster Bomb is the heavy hitter of the set, but its slow as hell in the air. Infiltrator’s Arrow is a shorter-range shadowstep, with the additional effect of blinding close-by targets(mostly used for escape or as a gap closer.)

Also, if you see a Thief start spinning and tossing daggers everywhere, DO NOT shoot arrows at them. Dagger Storm reflects projectiles. I’ve seen rangers do 7k+ damage to themselves by dumping Rapid Fire into a Dagger Storm.

Tomkatt.1684:

I don’t PvP, but if the thief vanishes, wouldn’t your best bet to be to set a trap and stand on it? Then if it triggers, you know you should dodge and get away.

Thief’s seem to not trigger traps when in stealth. I remember setting traps on this only way to reach the Treb in WvWvW and the thief came up and went stealth and didn’t trigger them.

it was same in GW ranger have no Dev love :/

our attacks are soo weak and longbow attacks are easly evaded by strafing

pets that cant attack moving target, the useless spirits and pet skills (only protect me is good but the pet die in 1 second of using it)

we rangers rly need so more love

swilkers.5938:

The Ranger class can’t even stealth at all let alone appear and disappear in battle .

What are you talking about? I just saw a ranger stealth (his pet was plainly visible though).

He then turned around and started using Guardian abilities, after popping chaos armor on demand.

I’m sure it’s just the latest of hacks, but seriously…

Oh, and there’s no defense against thieves. See: World of Roguecraft.

If you have low toughness, you’ll need protect me or the protection signet traited to apply its effect to you.

You need to pop the signet or protect me when the thief uses its burst skills.

You should also have ice trap or a rune on your weapon that does an aoe freeze when you change to it.

Straight after protect me, drop the trap or change weapons.

Freezing thieves really reduces their effectiveness and will alow you to get distance.

Put your pet on them, now that they are chilled your pet will be able to hit them-also helps if you take the trait for pet speed.

They will likely have used their intiative trying to burst you. They will either try and come at you (hobbling toward you in a humorous fashion) or blow a stealth cd. Cripple them with shortbow or chill them with axe as you strafe around them trying to keep a distance.

If you have low toughness you should be pumping out high damage quickly and they will soon use the stealth heal cd.

If they are still alive they will try and come at you again, because everyone knows rangers are easy prey.

Remember if the go stealth keep attacking the area around where they were. You can use axe to bounce of other enemies/objects and it will hit the stealthed toon.

The best way to protect yourself though, is to take a really high toughness build-your damage will be terrible, but thieves will rarely bother you again. Some will still surprise you and burst you down in one go, but most of the time you will be laughing as the thief tries to get its head around why you just wont go down. The fights go along similar lines, protect me isn’t so important, but you have a high chance of coming out on top. Don’t expect to be doing 10K+ damage with rapid fire though!

Thieves are my favorite food at the moment, so soft, so over confident, so surprised that they can barely scratch me, yum yum.

I have no issues fighting a thief as a ranger. However my utlity skills are very defensive like protect me (pet takes damage), signet of renewal (pet pulls pull conditions), and lightning reflexes.

Swap pets to get quickness and then fire off barrage is a good way to hit/cripple them while they are stealthed.

Noob question. Someone mentioned Superior Rune of Svanir. I looked it up and it says “Runes of Svanir focus onToughness and modifying the duration of the Chilled condition.”. Besides the toughness which is obvious, how does the Freeze condition help? We can’t freeze them can we. I think we have a spirit that can chill, (I think) but anyone running a spirit right now won’t survive a thief no matter what sigil they have on.

Winter’s Bite applies the chilled effect, which is probably what that person was referring to.