Guild Wars 2

How do you other rangers deal with thieves? I was playing sPvP and against a semi competent thief i cannot win. By win i mean just get away. I used the root elite, the aoe sticky floor , chill trap twice, lightning escape, hit him with all roots, 1 knockback on longbow, 2 dazes from shortbow, he stuck on me like a tick.

Should i just give up on using ranger against anyone somewhat competent?

Ranger should have no problem VS glass canon B/S thief, but VS other type especially P/D thief, the chance is basicly 0. But for them, the chance to take you down is also 0 as long as you escape on time.

Run a 2100 toughness build with 30 Wilderness Survival and BM with 10 in Nature magic. Wolf and Raven. Axe/dagger+sword/torch.

Stand in Healing Spring and eat them with conditions plus your pets. Time wolf fear for when they’re getting low to go all out on stacking conditions to finish them off or make it hard for them to recover.

Use your dagger/sword evades on top of your own dodges+vigor.

With Bond trait in WS for pet drawing off your conditions and healing spring and signet of the wild+signet of renewal they can’t keep conditions on you and they can’t burst you since you have renewal and reflexes, and your pet+ conditions will wear them down.

Use bonfire when you predict them coming in for a steal. If you want, you can use traps instead of renewal so they can suicide when they decide to go in for melee.

First of all, you need the right utility to face a thief, meaning Lightning Reflexes, Mass Root elite, and other stuff. Protect Me is also good if u have a bear as a pet, its basically being invulnerable for 6 secs, too many people overlook this ability.

I have axe and warhorn + shortbow for my weapons, u CANNOT have a longbow.
First I take my axe and warhorn, buff myself, I throw the birds and the chilling axe. From there, he will most likely stealth. At this point u can only lightning reflexes out or use some sort of pet utility like the wolf fear. Once he’s used his heal (don’t forget to keep poison on him)and he is out of stealth, you have to burst him down with your bow, try getting behind him for the bleeds and the stun. Against thiefs, the best heal is probably the heal-over-time. It heals for around 8000 over a duration of 10 secs. But remember that thiefs poison u, so always keep your distance.
Final suggestion and most important: NEVER EVER go into melee with a thief unless u can get out or control him somehow. If u go in with a greatsword, start hitting him, sure u might do some dmg, but how u gonna get out? Try running? He will either heartseek u or just change to pistols and unload. Simple as that…

How i do it?

My Glassless Cannon BM build where i just pop sick’em, QZ and spam warhorn 4 and spam 1 on the sword, kittens go down before they can even heal.

If those 2 skills are on CD? A little harder, but not much, i’ll just evade around the battle field like a rabid monkey and let my pet shred them, if i can get range on them (sword 2 allows that very easily) i’ll often swap to longbow and bend them over from range.

PS: When they go stealth just roll around and make it hard for them to get to where you are, it will make getting a back stab impossible which is how MOST thieves get their damage.

Durzlla.6295:

How i do it?

My Glassless Cannon BM build where i just pop sick’em, QZ and spam warhorn 4 and spam 1 on the sword, kittens go down before they can even heal.

If those 2 skills are on CD? A little harder, but not much, i’ll just evade around the battle field like a rabid monkey and let my pet shred them, if i can get range on them (sword 2 allows that very easily) i’ll often swap to longbow and bend them over from range.

PS: When they go stealth just roll around and make it hard for them to get to where you are, it will make getting a back stab impossible which is how MOST thieves get their damage.

don’t do this unless you want to die to any thief with half a brain. They cloak and all your skills will be burnt and you are going to die from like 5 heartseaker if you are glass cannon afterward.

2/3 of Siamoth’s items grant you stealth. Carry one with you, and a greatsword. Something happens you don’t like, stealth up and Swoop away. Your entire swoop will be invisible, and if you have Superior Energy sigils as well you can tack at max, 3 dodge rolls at the end, if you were already in combat. Plus the new speed signet.

It takes some getting used to, but I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with it, and for once I actually like the class has a competent escape mechanism. Of course this is no -real- solution… but it does work, especially against solos. Most people just stop chasing at the “where’d he go?” stage.

Also, I’ve started using Black Bear as my secondary pet. Weakness is SO good against anyone who wants to burst you, really takes the sting out of those thieves. (as does Nature’s Protection, I don’t see how anyone runs without it in this ‘boom you’re dead’ environment) And the roar is 600 range and is one of those few pet attacks that responds well to the “I’ll force you to use this move now by HOLDING F2” approach.

Esrever.8613:

Durzlla.6295:

How i do it?

My Glassless Cannon BM build where i just pop sick’em, QZ and spam warhorn 4 and spam 1 on the sword, kittens go down before they can even heal.

If those 2 skills are on CD? A little harder, but not much, i’ll just evade around the battle field like a rabid monkey and let my pet shred them, if i can get range on them (sword 2 allows that very easily) i’ll often swap to longbow and bend them over from range.

PS: When they go stealth just roll around and make it hard for them to get to where you are, it will make getting a back stab impossible which is how MOST thieves get their damage.

don’t do this unless you want to die to any thief with half a brain. They cloak and all your skills will be burnt and you are going to die from like 5 heartseaker if you are glass cannon afterward.

Um, you just hit 2 on the sword, fly back wards, turn around hit 2 again GG they can’t get to you in time, especially if you’re using sig of the hunt like i do and keep running, it has a short enough CD that i don’t need to worry about it being up when i need it, and i can drop a thief in under 3 seconds (i’m no glass cannon either) so i don’t need to worry about them escaping before revealed is gone especially if i’m in melee range when they show up (or close to it).

Listen to the guy i quoted if you wanna die and constantly be back here QQing about how thieves are OP.

Durzlla.6295:

Esrever.8613:

Durzlla.6295:

How i do it?

My Glassless Cannon BM build where i just pop sick’em, QZ and spam warhorn 4 and spam 1 on the sword, kittens go down before they can even heal.

If those 2 skills are on CD? A little harder, but not much, i’ll just evade around the battle field like a rabid monkey and let my pet shred them, if i can get range on them (sword 2 allows that very easily) i’ll often swap to longbow and bend them over from range.

PS: When they go stealth just roll around and make it hard for them to get to where you are, it will make getting a back stab impossible which is how MOST thieves get their damage.

don’t do this unless you want to die to any thief with half a brain. They cloak and all your skills will be burnt and you are going to die from like 5 heartseaker if you are glass cannon afterward.

Um, you just hit 2 on the sword, fly back wards, turn around hit 2 again GG they can’t get to you in time, especially if you’re using sig of the hunt like i do and keep running, it has a short enough CD that i don’t need to worry about it being up when i need it, and i can drop a thief in under 3 seconds (i’m no glass cannon either) so i don’t need to worry about them escaping before revealed is gone especially if i’m in melee range when they show up (or close to it).

Listen to the guy i quoted if you wanna die and constantly be back here QQing about how thieves are OP.

have fun running away from anyone with half a brain.

Esrever.8613:

Durzlla.6295:

Esrever.8613:

Durzlla.6295:

How i do it?

My Glassless Cannon BM build where i just pop sick’em, QZ and spam warhorn 4 and spam 1 on the sword, kittens go down before they can even heal.

If those 2 skills are on CD? A little harder, but not much, i’ll just evade around the battle field like a rabid monkey and let my pet shred them, if i can get range on them (sword 2 allows that very easily) i’ll often swap to longbow and bend them over from range.

PS: When they go stealth just roll around and make it hard for them to get to where you are, it will make getting a back stab impossible which is how MOST thieves get their damage.

don’t do this unless you want to die to any thief with half a brain. They cloak and all your skills will be burnt and you are going to die from like 5 heartseaker if you are glass cannon afterward.

Um, you just hit 2 on the sword, fly back wards, turn around hit 2 again GG they can’t get to you in time, especially if you’re using sig of the hunt like i do and keep running, it has a short enough CD that i don’t need to worry about it being up when i need it, and i can drop a thief in under 3 seconds (i’m no glass cannon either) so i don’t need to worry about them escaping before revealed is gone especially if i’m in melee range when they show up (or close to it).

Listen to the guy i quoted if you wanna die and constantly be back here QQing about how thieves are OP.

have fun running away from anyone with half a brain.

Um, what? Do you realize how far you jump by just pushing the 2 button on the sword?

Mine is more of a matter of timing but I usually go:
Long Bow → Barrage in the general area as soon as they hit stealth
At that point if I hit my timing correctly they are now revealed and are crippled
Switch over to short bow, start stacking poison, blood, daze right before he goes into stealth, (the effect when they go into it is quite easy to tell apart from their other skills)
If they manage to go back in stealth, go back to longbow and try again

I usually use a white raven as a pet, nice simple and small, something that can’t be targeted easily by thieves. Nice little blind bonus to interrupt their chain.

Is there any way to detect where the stealth thief is with a ranger or with any other profession? In not, I think it would be a nice thing if pets would have this ability.

Daze.6914:

Is there any way to detect where the stealth thief is with a ranger or with any other profession? In not, I think it would be a nice thing if pets would have this ability.

Sword #1 chain follows a thief while he’s in stealth.

For the OP’s question, if your a Signet build, then Pop your 6 second immune, swap to your sword, hit QZ then spam #1. If you do it correctly you’ll come out with 75% – 100% health and a dead thief. If its a P/D thief then you fight a little different. Save your QZ for your shortbow and wait for his Unload. Then use warhorn 4, then 5 then close in with Sword 1.

Get good with sword/dagger, you will find yourself roflstomping thieves….. I can occasionally kill level 80 thieves in 1v1 in WvW on my level 12 ranger atm >.< At 80, will be no contest.

i tend to take out thieves with a traps, and a kitten ton of cc.

knockdowns, interrupts, slow, and immobilize are deadly for thieves. i tend to use traps as a visual aid to time my dodge for their dodge. if they are gc thieves, i generally don’t have problem. spike traps are actually very useful for the 1 sec immobilize.

like what Crabbit said, a P/D thief is extremely hard to fight. dueling one multiple times will show this, especially if they are a competent player overall. the fotm for thieves is still backstab.

…that being said you have a 100% win chance underwater if we include downed-time as still in combat in 1v1…but that’s a different issue.

Where are you finding these thieves who will let you pop QZ and SoS and beat them to death with sword auto in melee? Seriously is this in wvw? What servers. t2 doesn’t have any thieves like that. I wish. Can I borrow your thieves?

No thief I fight will let me get them past 50% health without disappearing, and when a thief vanishes like that, you don’t stick around because they’re just waiting to recover and strike again, and I have cooldowns going, I can’t just play the reset game like that. So I swoop right out of there and don’t look back.

In my experience, when a thief decides a 1v1 fight is over.. it’s over, and you go home empty handed. It’s almost not worth fighting them—I just play it as a minigame, “Can I easily handle this guy’s burst?”, because it’s not like I’d ever get a stomp without a group with me. Only the most charitable thieves die in 1v1.

Ultravalefor.5038:

No thief I fight will let me get them past 50% health without disappearing, and when a thief vanishes like that, you don’t stick around because they’re just waiting to recover and strike again, and I have cooldowns going, I can’t just play the reset game like that. So I swoop right out of there and don’t look back.

In my experience, when a thief decides a 1v1 fight is over.. it’s over, and you go home empty handed. It’s almost not worth fighting them—I just play it as a minigame.

this.

I only fight them if I have no choice, other than that its the avoid game.

Ultravalefor.5038:

Where are you finding these thieves who will let you pop QZ and SoS and beat them to death with sword auto in melee? Seriously is this in wvw? What servers. t2 doesn’t have any thieves like that. I wish. Can I borrow your thieves?

No thief I fight will let me get them past 50% health without disappearing, and when a thief vanishes like that, you don’t stick around because they’re just waiting to recover and strike again, and I have cooldowns going, I can’t just play the reset game like that. So I swoop right out of there and don’t look back.

In my experience, when a thief decides a 1v1 fight is over.. it’s over, and you go home empty handed. It’s almost not worth fighting them—I just play it as a minigame, “Can I easily handle this guy’s burst?”, because it’s not like I’d ever get a stomp without a group with me. Only the most charitable thieves die in 1v1.

i’m t2 also, and i can drop them before revealed goes away, so it’s not that hard seeing as how they don’t have a kittening choice of running away… If you can burst a thief down 3 seconds it just means you are melee and have better than kitten poor damage.

PS: You can also poison + bleed+ burn them and force them to either blow their heal early or die while they’re stealthed not to mention you can keep whacking them once they stealth, if you use a melee weapon your combo will keep going as long as you hit them making it very easy to know where they are.

First of all, you will need to adapt a new strategy which is well explained by the above players. Making yourself a toughness/evasive machine and controlling your pet really efficiently are keys to destroying thief players. You can even bring down 3 of them if you play your cards right, as most thieves run a build that helps optimize their killing power rather than their toughness, which is of course not a bad move on their side. However your secret weapon is the one they tend to always underestimate: the pet. Giving all your power (yes I mean the actual status) is what frightens most players who face a pet hurling anywhere between 2-5k+ damage per hit.

Now, I personally use a toughness/condition build, since this is what is going to support my pet the best. Shortbow easily helps in giving your target lots of conditions, your toughness will keep you alive the longest. Sword/axe are my melee strategy to countering my enemy. But why axe and not horn or dagger? In my experience, when you are in trouble, or you happen to be in the frey of a fight, the ability to return projectile damage has saved my life more often than the horn/dagger skills. That is my personal preference. I also find it useful against thiefs who just wasted their initiative in a burst which I managed to evade, however they still come at you from a melee range. The AoE damage from the whirling defense helps to provide some damage, but most importantly it keeps them close to me. This serves for my pet to dish out damage without having to chase the target. Again the pet is severely underestimated, at this point if you have survived the onslaught, the thief will hide to regain initiative. This is where you need to decide: is the thief escaping or not? If they come at you, time yourself really well to use a couple of your evade skills, cripple, Troll Unguent, Elite Root skill all while sending your pet to attack with Sick Em and Quickening Zephir. Make sure to use your avoid skills really efficiently, it will 100% determine the course of the fight. Also remember that thief players are often found fighting with groups. A great place to practice is WvW, even if you die 100% of the time, you will start picking up on opening opportunities.

My greatest advice on killing a thief: if you can see them first, stand back, send your pet (I use jaguar in stealth mode), see how it mauls thiefs to over 50% health damage. By the time they use their stealth: wait a few seconds and charge in for the kill. Be quick about it and careful too, there are a lot of good and bad thief players, just pray you find all the crummy ones

Great advice, all depends on whether you spot them coming- they can easily catch up to you whilst your running on your signet, bas venom, cripple, poison, etc all while you are rooted to the spot and dead in under a second before they even render. Even if you do somehow manage to evade steal/mug which can hit for 8k, you’re still at a disadvantage as he can disappear , heal up and come back to try again before you are anywhere near to healing and now with skills on cooldown- and you probably don’t have the right weapons equipped when you entered combat anyway, unless you are running a solo build in wvw.

If you are wide awake then you can beat them with LB/SB, but if they manage to land steal/mug and another skill you are going to struggle with 14k off your HP bar and some slow heal ticking away.

Practice using sword/x and you might be able to avoid dieing in group fights, but you’re missing out on some nice LB skills by equipping melee weapons in wvw.

Burst thieves are easy and they will probably die or run away in a 1vs1 (at less they pop basilik venom and my LR is on CD). But if you are a class cannon I guess protect me + signet of the stone + quickening zephyr and #1 sword should bring him down in a few secs.

P/D thieves are way harder, but why? Because they completely nullify our pets by constanly going into stealth (our pets are like free CnD for them, so my advice is to let it die as soon as you can, or send it to fight some mob away from the theif).
THAT in my opinion is absurd. Our unique class mechanic just stands there lossing aggro everytime a P/D thief goes into stealth so they are not just useless for us, but they are even usefull for them.
Of course this is my personal opinion, I usually start sending my Jaguar on stealth as Victory said, but even when I run with 15 points in BM, I prefer to have a dead pet by my side while fighting a P/D thief.

Anyway, what I do is this: If he’s already close to me, I use the knock back of the LB then QZ + Rapid fire. They may have more than +20k HP in full Carrion’s, but no toughness, so it drops pretty fast. He will probably heal and I’ll use barrage. After he comes out the “wait 3 seconds and dodge” game begins. I keep switching between my LB and my Sword/dagger (or Sword-axe atm, nice to see I’m not the only one :p), trying to dodge his sneak attacks and his CnD as much as I can, standing in healing spring when I need to remove the bleeds, and “bursting” him in melee eveytime I have the chance.
If he has a shortbow, and they usually do, pop Entangle, he’ll try to stealth but it will take a while until he can destroy the roots (then I #1 sword like crazy,)
Not easy against good thieves, but it works against average ones. And by “works” I mean he won’t kill me, because he’s pretty much for sure gonna get away when he realizes he’s not gonna win.

If I could ask for any “buff” it would be allowing pets to keep aggro when the thief “dissapears”. Then any thief who faces a ranger would be like “oh, hell no, if he’s a beastmaster I’m screwed”.

Anti thief = skills that channel because they hit through invisibility. GS is nice because you can hold the block and stop them mid heartseaker then stun them. Those are my methods.

Engels.8537:

Burst thieves are easy and they will probably die or run away in a 1vs1 (at less they pop basilik venom and my LR is on CD). But if you are a class cannon I guess protect me + signet of the stone + quickening zephyr and #1 sword should bring him down in a few secs.

P/D thieves are way harder, but why? Because they completely nullify our pets by constanly going into stealth (our pets are like free CnD for them, so my advice is to let it die as soon as you can, or send it to fight some mob away from the theif).
THAT in my opinion is absurd. Our unique class mechanic just stands there lossing aggro everytime a P/D thief goes into stealth so they are not just useless for us, but they are even usefull for them.
Of course this is my personal opinion, I usually start sending my Jaguar on stealth as Victory said, but even when I run with 15 points in BM, I prefer to have a dead pet by my side while fighting a P/D thief.

Anyway, what I do is this: If he’s already close to me, I use the knock back of the LB then QZ + Rapid fire. They may have more than +20k HP in full Carrion’s, but no toughness, so it drops pretty fast. He will probably heal and I’ll use barrage. After he comes out the “wait 3 seconds and dodge” game begins. I keep switching between my LB and my Sword/dagger (or Sword-axe atm, nice to see I’m not the only one :p), trying to dodge his sneak attacks and his CnD as much as I can, standing in healing spring when I need to remove the bleeds, and “bursting” him in melee eveytime I have the chance.
If he has a shortbow, and they usually do, pop Entangle, he’ll try to stealth but it will take a while until he can destroy the roots (then I #1 sword like crazy,)
Not easy against good thieves, but it works against average ones. And by “works” I mean he won’t kill me, because he’s pretty much for sure gonna get away when he realizes he’s not gonna win.

If I could ask for any “buff” it would be allowing pets to keep aggro when the thief “dissapears”. Then any thief who faces a ranger would be like “oh, hell no, if he’s a beastmaster I’m screwed”.

I will add that one good way to fight P/D thieves is to use ‘Guard’ right on top of where you will be fighting them. It is of course a trade off for the skills you can use instead of Guard, but at least it will keep your pet attacking anything that is in the guarded area. This of course will not be so great if the fight isn’t 1v1 as the pet might run off to kill -anything- in it’s circle of death, so naturally choose wisely. My best advice is: if you can see the thief, send in your pet in stealth mode (if possible) and charge in, that’s the most effective method I have used to open a battle vs a thief. But things change way too quickly in battle, learning how to fight thief players in all scenarios needs to be documented/stickied somewhere.

This may be a long shot, but what do you ALL say to contribute to this post with more detailed ways of countering thieves? We may be an under powered class but we keep on evolving, finding new ways to be efficient, it’s only a matter of time.

Durzlla.6295:

Esrever.8613:

Durzlla.6295:

How i do it?

My Glassless Cannon BM build where i just pop sick’em, QZ and spam warhorn 4 and spam 1 on the sword, kittens go down before they can even heal.

If those 2 skills are on CD? A little harder, but not much, i’ll just evade around the battle field like a rabid monkey and let my pet shred them, if i can get range on them (sword 2 allows that very easily) i’ll often swap to longbow and bend them over from range.

PS: When they go stealth just roll around and make it hard for them to get to where you are, it will make getting a back stab impossible which is how MOST thieves get their damage.

don’t do this unless you want to die to any thief with half a brain. They cloak and all your skills will be burnt and you are going to die from like 5 heartseaker if you are glass cannon afterward.

Um, you just hit 2 on the sword, fly back wards, turn around hit 2 again GG they can’t get to you in time, especially if you’re using sig of the hunt like i do and keep running, it has a short enough CD that i don’t need to worry about it being up when i need it, and i can drop a thief in under 3 seconds (i’m no glass cannon either) so i don’t need to worry about them escaping before revealed is gone especially if i’m in melee range when they show up (or close to it).

Listen to the guy i quoted if you wanna die and constantly be back here QQing about how thieves are OP.

That’s right, it’s not like there is nothing you can do while waiting for your cool downs to reset but to let your pet attack. If you are in a sticky situation, learn to combine your sword evades with your dodge rolls and time it right so that the thief attacking you gets some damage in by both yourself (minimally) and your pet (as much as possible). Try dodging in unpredictable patterns, there is nothing easier to follow than someone who dodges in a straight line, thieves do have lots of gap closers, so dodging in smart ways guarantees your pet will land more hits and you will confuse them.

I haven’t got down an effective dodge strategy, but I am getting there, it’s really up to the situation… it takes plenty of practice. But at least I know that getting behind them constantly works more often than not. I personally believe there is nothing more intimidating to a thief than an opponent who can survive bursts, while being able to almost kill them every time they dare to try. This all depends on the situation you are facing, but for now let’s assume it’s 1v1, even if you are surrounded by enemies who happen to be distracted with your team mates (it all adds up to distract you from that kitten thief).