Guild Wars 2

I usually main Warrior/Necro but have been wanting to get back into my Ranger. I used to be very good with my Ranger in WvW but I’ve moved on to PvP now (My server blows in WvW). One massive area I am having problems with on my Ranger is countering evasion thieves.

They are so annoying but haven’t found much of a way that really can hit them. Can anyone give me some good tips on countering evasion thieves? My build won’t matter much as I am not locked onto one yet.

Copy them by running as much evasion skills and utilities as you can!

Condition damage will be more useful than actual damage. Also S/D thief is getting a bit of a nerf in the next patch, in which there will be more of a penalty to using the evades without thinking due to initative cost and needing to land it to be able to rip boons.

Like nearlight said, go evades yourself and show them how it’s done. Sword/dagger + X will generally be able to deal with them quite well. If you want to go more condi or hybrid I recommend SB. If they are running full evades however it might pay off just to go pure condi because you can’t dodge condis. A dire trapper would probably end an evade thief. If you don’t want to go condi get as much immob as you can: Jungle spider, krytan hound, MT. You can’t dodge when immobd so that will be very beneficial to you.

Trap builds work fairly well against them. But the good ones will run away once they know you are running traps.

Speaking as an evasion based thief: The rangers that give me grief are the ones that can tank or evade my burst, that waste my initiative and force me to use utilities to survive, and that go on the offensive as soon as I move in. If you play too defensively, I will kite your attacks with my sword 2 and wear you down. You either need to be able to tank well, or if you’re glassy you NEED to get the first attack in, as if you do neither of those things you’re going to find it very difficult.

There’s two main damage skills to avoid with S/D thieves; larcenous strike and cloak and dagger. If you can deny those two skills you will waste a lot of the thief’s initiative and leave him with basically only auto attacks to damage you with, and force him to start playing defensively which is what you want. Remember that S/D burst isn’t as heavy as a dagger build, so if you can tank a few hits to get a CC off it can be worth it.

If you’re using S/D, try to time your evade skills as you see the thief use flanking strike, or use whatever damaging moves or CC you have mid animation; in the first case you’ll dodge the flanking strike itself (which post patch will cost 4 initiative and deny the thief access to larcenous strike, he can’t afford to do that too often), in the second case you’ll be more likely to hit the thief with your important skill as he’s vulnerable immediately after using the skill. This takes some practice, so you might want to find a thief who’s willing to duel you (always a great way to learn).

The thief has likely used sword 2 to engage; this means there’s a little white circle on the ground where he ported from which he will port back to after his burst. A little icon shows up on his buff bar when he’s got this ready. I like to chain sword 2 with steal against longbow rangers as it’s then a 1500 range shadowstep that snares the ranger, and I can port 1200 units back out of your longbow range when I’m done. So, find the little circle and stand as close to it as possible to make it harder for me to get out of range. It also removes one condition and I can’t dodge whilst using it, so consider throwing a trap on the circle as I won’t dodge it that way.

Hide in plain sight is a surprisingly annoying trait trait to use against trickery thieves due to the fact that a traited steal will daze you and trigger the stealth. I also like to daze lock glassier rangers by combining the sword sneak attack with basilisk venom and steal, so if you’re not confident about dodging every cloak and dagger it can help a lot. Stability is of limited use as I will steal it from you, so don’t use rampage as one unless you want the thief to be on steroids.

People like to mention traps as a good way to get the thief; with D/P thieves I’d agree with you, but with evasion S/D thieves you’re going to need to hold me in those traps somehow, as unless you’re placing them in stealth I can use flanking strike to just evade through them. Also, try not to move backwards out of your traps when I port into them, the amount of rangers that do this is silly, you’re just making it easy for me to keep attacking you without getting hurt by the trap. Tank the damage and hit me with some CC if you’re going to throw them at your feet.

Sorry about the uber long post, but hopefully some of this is useful. For what it’s worth, I struggle with S/D thieves when playing my ranger and I main one, so don’t feel bad if it’s not easy. And if it makes you feel better when one kills you, remember that every time that happens, another thief got owned by an engineer somewhere. Good luck! ^^

^^^ One of the main reason I stopped putting RAO on my elite bar lol.