Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow rangers, I’ve a question for you !
How can I beat a skilled perma stealth thief in WvW?

I haven’t figured out yet how to kill them, I tried almost every build/tactic available but nothing as changed, I can’t even dream to stomp them.

The mach usually ends up in 2 ways :

a) I manage to bring him around 20/30% hp before he stealth, he will full recover and try to kill me using another tactic, if they don’t try any weak point they will just vanish away.

b) they stealth/bs me to the Death, no way I can survive this, they can outrun me easy, and like point a) they can stealth to recover and try again if they are in trouble.

I’m oc talking about those thiefs that realy knows how to play it.

Like :
Yesterday I saw 2 thiefs taking out 6 players with little or no effort, I watched them from distance, it was almost pathetic, the 6 players managed to down both thiefs at least 2/3 times, but the thiefs could stealth ress each other so it was impossible to stomp/kill them. One by one the 6 brave soldiers died by those 2 thiefs.

You can try a full zerker GS/longbow ranger build with wolf and dog. Bring him to around 45-60%, then use the knockbackshot followed by rapidfire. Rapidfire will follow him into stealth and deal around 10k+ damage which should finish him off except if he perma dodges in stealth which they usually don’t do.
I have finished alot of thieves with this tactic. On top of that you have the wolf knockdown and fear which help to control him.
For Shadow Refuge you should barrage the area immediately and use the wolf fear if he was not blinded by the stealth.
If you think that he lies there somewhere in stealth you can use your greatsword autoattack to find out where he lies. You will see the autoattack chain continue if it hits something. That’s decent to finish off thieves who still have 10+ seconds of stealth from shadow refuge.

Meh, I wrote long post and forum threw error in my face when I clicked to reply -.-

So in short now: what @up said + personally I’d just ignore them (can easily run as ranger), as they are poor loosers abusing broken mechanic. Also, if they aren’t hidding in tower or sth, they are harmless.
+ GS 4. when you expect back stab, followed with 3 -> 5 -> 2.

Also, 6 guys finished by 2 thieves means those 6 were bad. It’s normal they couldn’t kill thieves, but dying to them is fail. You always rez faster than someone is finishing – and I don’t think they used quickness.

Thanks for the replys guys.

@Arpheus . Nice and usefull tips, I did notice that rapid fire follows hidden ppl but never used it for this utility, also the auto attack of gs will help me. but which traits do you use ? I feel squishy with 30/30/10/0/0, even with 6 sec of immunity.

@Terkov. I’m sorry m8, I also have hard time posting on the forum. Any way, yes I can run from thiefs, but I’m too proud to run away.

The 6 man were not bad bro, how can you stomp an invisible thief ? as soon as 1 thief is down the other will go stealth and ress the downed ally, the only solution is aoe the target area and hope for the best, but in my experience 1 guy ressing>>>>aoe dmg.
And they also used to spike single targets —> stealth stomp —> next target —> spike —> stealth stomp —> next target —> and so on, how can you counter that ?

it is easy..you see where he will rezz his thief mate, just aoe on this spot, knockdowns, fears, posion and booth will die

OMG I wrote a long post but that awful error just deleted everything I wrote..
To sum it up:
30/25/15 is my specc. 10% damage, piercing arrows, 1500 range, 5 seconds vigor if hit by a crit, -20% cd on bows, first CC goes to pet
As utilities I use signet of the hunt, signet of renewal and protect me. As heal either healing spring in groups or heal as one for solo because I love beging able to instant heal up if I get dropped to under 50% by a thief.
So you have two stunbreakers, protect me is like a 6 seconds direct damage immunity and with signet of renewal you can transfer all conditions to your pet which helps in some cases when you get condition bursted.
As gear I use full zerker gear with melandru runes und lemongrass poulty soup food which offers good defense against conditions.
If you want even more defense against physical damage you can use the signet work for ranger trait and signet of stone instead of signet of renewal.
As Pet I like wolf/dog or bears if you play in zergs.

I’ve spend several months running the condition-regen bunker ranger build. This build is awesome for roaming and is very survivable against perm stealth thieves. However, because of the thief condition clears and the somewhat slow ramp-up time for stacking conditions, it was very difficult to stack enough conditions on good perm-stealth thieves to kill them.

I’ve recently been experimenting with power builds (longbow, S/D) and have found this to be far more effective against all thieves than the condition build. The key is to be able to survive their burst, so you want over 3000 armor (closer to 2000 toughness the better), some form of sustain (I run perma regen/shout though with 0 healing), and enough damage to kill. For damage, shoot for as close to 2000 power as you can, while keeping your toughness high and crit% and damage near 50%.

The high toughness allows you to shrug off bursts, perma regen, the 3 evades on the S/D plus the knockback and stealth from the LB provide a lot of sustain. The key is to keep the thief poisoned, use a bursty pet (birds), and swing even when you they are stealthed. Good ones may still run away once they realize they can’t kill you, but you will get your share of kills.

Arpheus.6918:

OMG I wrote a long post but that awful error just deleted everything I wrote..
To sum it up:
30/25/15 is my specc. 10% damage, piercing arrows, 1500 range, 5 seconds vigor if hit by a crit, -20% cd on bows, first CC goes to pet
As utilities I use signet of the hunt, signet of renewal and protect me. As heal either healing spring in groups or heal as one for solo because I love beging able to instant heal up if I get dropped to under 50% by a thief.
So you have two stunbreakers, protect me is like a 6 seconds direct damage immunity and with signet of renewal you can transfer all conditions to your pet which helps in some cases when you get condition bursted.
As gear I use full zerker gear with melandru runes und lemongrass poulty soup food which offers good defense against conditions.
If you want even more defense against physical damage you can use the signet work for ranger trait and signet of stone instead of signet of renewal.
As Pet I like wolf/dog or bears if you play in zergs.

error 500 ftw !

Nice build man, I’m gonna try out the gs/lb with my PTH/zerker armor and some more survival traits, and with your tips on how to discover stealth enemys I hope I can finally stomp a skilled thief :P.
p.s. Why do you have piercing arrows ? are you also run in zerg with that build ?

beastmaster apothecary or trapper

sminkiottone.6972:

Hello fellow rangers, I’ve a question for you !
How can I beat a skilled perma stealth thief in WvW?

I haven’t figured out yet how to kill them, I tried almost every build/tactic available but nothing as changed, I can’t even dream to stomp them.

The mach usually ends up in 2 ways :

a) I manage to bring him around 20/30% hp before he stealth, he will full recover and try to kill me using another tactic, if they don’t try any weak point they will just vanish away.

b) they stealth/bs me to the Death, no way I can survive this, they can outrun me easy, and like point a) they can stealth to recover and try again if they are in trouble.

I’m oc talking about those thiefs that realy knows how to play it.

hello,
as i said in my guide (look on the forum) this fight will be quite hard the most we can do is to play in a defensive way in order to avoid their burst (gs 4# is the way). Also the most important thing when facing a perma stealth thief is that “stealth” isn’t really permanent! so as you said there are 2 option:
1) if the enemy reduce your hp to 20-30% and vanish in stealth you need to run away and don’t waste your SoS. WvW is their battlefield… if you dont want to have surprises here play with a friend XD
2) if he/she run away you have to run away too… not much to say.

The only way you can kill a perma stealth thief is to see him before (really hard) and start with a barrage (i usually deal 1000-1200 damages per tick, non crit, to a full zerker thief) because you will gain an enormous advantage (also to use RaO before casting barrage can help to prevent them from stunning/knock/etc and increase your dps). I can ensure you: a barrage well placed can literally destroy smash crush splat bim bum and bam (XD) a thief (full zerker)! if you are not sure call a friend and go in HotM then tell him to don’t move and get you barrage in the face… there is ton of fun.

Oh and i’m not talking about full zerker ranger! i hate full zerker classes/builds because they are quishy while i want to be offensive and defensive at the same!

tell me if you need more info

I’m using some apothecary bunker build with spider pets. Spider are great for 1v1 and can put on quite a few conditions if you use the cripple trait and the mainhand axe.

So I usually just put a ton of different conditions on them and on top of me being bunker, they have weakness. So, often they just end up perma-stealthing away with their tail between their legs and I stand there for a minute waiting to see if they come back.

The only way you really win agains’t a thief is to just not to fight him. He has already won when you start wasting time fighting agains’t someone who is built for trolling you with stealth gimmick build.
Move on and do something contructive.

Yes I run in zergs too with this build and I love soloing camps with piercing arrows. You will solo supply camps really easy. I have also done 250 camps with this build with 2 bears before any mob respawned. But it takes good positioning. Piercing arrows are mandatory for camps.
Also to kill thieves guild, mesmer pets and nekro pets its awesome to have piercing arrows.

sminkiottone.6972:

Hello fellow rangers, I’ve a question for you !
How can I beat a skilled perma stealth thief in WvW?

I haven’t figured out yet how to kill them, I tried almost every build/tactic available but nothing as changed, I can’t even dream to stomp them.

The mach usually ends up in 2 ways :

a) I manage to bring him around 20/30% hp before he stealth, he will full recover and try to kill me using another tactic, if they don’t try any weak point they will just vanish away.

b) they stealth/bs me to the Death, no way I can survive this, they can outrun me easy, and like point a) they can stealth to recover and try again if they are in trouble.

I’m oc talking about those thiefs that realy knows how to play it.

Like :
Yesterday I saw 2 thiefs taking out 6 players with little or no effort, I watched them from distance, it was almost pathetic, the 6 players managed to down both thiefs at least 2/3 times, but the thiefs could stealth ress each other so it was impossible to stomp/kill them. One by one the 6 brave soldiers died by those 2 thiefs.

off-hand axe #5. Retal and reflect. He/she will kill himself lolz

This is what I run in WvW.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjAV51BWKWoWCiVBB1ekJzjpniWFLXhRVwkK-j0CBIODimCAmWAk8IQ5RFRjtsmIasaCVPjIqWdDziL1GzDRTKgFlGB-w

Only times I have trouble with thieves is when they catch me me by surprise and hit me with basilisk venom from the start. After that it’s a burst that not many can survive. If they catch me with a backstab, I can usually dodge roll and avoid more damage.

I usually start with Axe #3 to chill and Torch #4 to burn followed by my pet F2 on bird to cause blind (keep in mind that the thief can dodge these attacks) your axe #1 will always be your back up attack to apply pressure.

once thief goes into stealth drop your frost trap and run in a circle around your trap throwing axe (you won’t hit him but by running you won’t get backstabbed. Once your trap goes off, swap pets, target thief, hit axe#2 and swap weapons to sword, (this combo with geomancy sigil will apply close to 10-11 stacks of bleeding) hit your elite to immobilize (thief should still be chilled) this will put up to 25 stacks bleed on him even if he gets out of vines. Pet F2 for wolf Fear, Sword #3 to add poison, dagger #4 (to evade cloak and dagger) dagger #5 to reapply bleed, sword #1 chain to cripple (don’t just spam all of these recklessly, use appropriatley to properly evade and avoid his attacks). Swap axe for geomancy bleed and torch #4 for burn. Even if the thief runs, he won’t clear burning and bleed from dagger #5. If done correctly, you should be able to stomp thief. If he’s really skilled, you’re SOL lol.

This is not how all fights pan out, but so far, if the thief is a D/D or S/D thief, it’s pretty much played out this way because the theif will always be in range of your sword, axe, and trap skills. keep in mind you’ll need to be constantly moving and keeping your torch #5 and frost trap up to slow down the thief. All thieves depend on mobility to strike you so the more cripples and chills you put on him, the more condition removal he’ll have to use to get rid of the mobilization conditions and get worn down by your damage conditions. If he’s busy defending himself, he won’t have too much time to attack you. Rangers are very evasive and you a total of 5 evasions with this build including your dodge rolls. Runes of perplexity will also help because if the thief is dumb, he’ll attack till he downs himself with confusion.

have fun and enjoy

Terkov.4138:

So in short now: what @up said + personally I’d just ignore them (can easily run as ranger), as they are poor loosers abusing broken mechanic. Also, if they aren’t hidding in tower or sth, they are harmless.
+ GS 4. when you expect back stab, followed with 3 -> 5 -> 2.

.

First and foremost, you can’t run from a thief. They can shadowstep great distance.
Against a thief who do the cheap C&D BS combo, their steal is 1500FT. Good luck

Second, Block is useless again backstab, You can block from your back but your reflect is to the FRONT. Basically you will just eat his backstab since he can stab you again after you block.

The high toughness allows you to shrug off bursts, perma regen, the 3 evades on the S/D plus the knockback and stealth from the LB provide a lot of sustain. The key is to keep the thief poisoned, use a bursty pet (birds), and swing even when you they are stealthed. Good ones may still run away once they realize they can’t kill you, but you will get your share of kills.

The only way is having high toughness and self-heal. Most thief look for easy kill and most of them attack solo careless target which are found near enemies Territory. Most of the time , these solo target become a group if fight take too long. Skilled one will unload his burst to check if he can take you down within 15sec.
If not, he run away.

it is easy..you see where he will rezz his thief mate, just aoe on this spot, knockdowns, fears, posion and booth will die

If these 2 thieves team with each other, it is impossible to take them down.
NOTE: Thieves can port when drown, so his friend can stealth him and he port himself away from danger.
You can try spamming AOE all over the place and hope for the best but a 3-4 AOE hit won’t kill him.

KOK.2650:

Terkov.4138:

So in short now: what @up said + personally I’d just ignore them (can easily run as ranger), as they are poor loosers abusing broken mechanic. Also, if they aren’t hidding in tower or sth, they are harmless.
+ GS 4. when you expect back stab, followed with 3 -> 5 -> 2.

.

First and foremost, you can’t run from a thief. They can shadowstep great distance.
Against a thief who do the cheap C&D BS combo, their steal is 1500FT. Good luck

Second, Block is useless again backstab, You can block from your back but your reflect is to the FRONT. Basically you will just eat his backstab since he can stab you again after you block.

First: nope. They nearly always open with steal. I use swoop. They waste ini to get close, I turn, use LB 4. -> LB 3. If it’s not enough I can also use LR as gap maker. Trust me, not many thieves can catch me, and surely not perma stealth built ones (of which we speak here).

2nd: nope again. I will block backstab, and if you know how to use it (in other words, don’t hold RMB), your char will turn around and hit enemy – it even works against stealthed ones. Confirmed by experience of 1000s (to be exact over 2k) hours of playing my ranger.

About 6 vs 2 thieves: I said I understand they didn’t kill them, but I can’t understand how they could die. If they only tried to rez eachother as soon as they get downed, they could have bunkered like that for hours.

Against a good perma stealth thief, you won’t kill them unless they mess up. Here’s a video I have fighting one. I normally don’t try and 1v1 them, the fights take to long and they normally run, or I do.

Edit: oh and I was trolling around with pigs lol, they’re not the best pets to have against them.

Tricare.2946:

Against a good perma stealth thief, you won’t kill them unless they mess up. Here’s a video I have fighting one. I normally don’t try and 1v1 them, the fights take to long and they normally run, or I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y03hudKTyFI

Edit: oh and I was trolling around with pigs lol, they’re not the best pets to have against them.

I couldn’t help noticing you run Axe/torch and S/D with perplexity runes! Nice vid by the way. How do you like using SoN on your build? I’ve thought about it but felt I didn’t do enough damage

I just hope condition rangers aren’t hit too hard with the upcoming “balance”

When the thief drops shadow refuge to res his teammate, drop a few AoEs on it. He’ll either move, or eat the damage and most likely go down himself.

Regardless, two coordinated thieves on vent/TS > 6 random people with no means to coordinate.

Personally if you must go 1vs1 against a thief, go tanky build and run Sword and horn with some traps, its really the only build i’ve ever killed Thieves with and its very unpredictable at that.

Bows are useless imo against stealth

Thx guys for the inputs realy apretiated.

I tried to run with gs+s/d and it was a lot better, very good mobility and defense, I didn’t run LB ‘cause I think it’s broken, too slow and predictable.
I did 4 hours of roaming alone and with some friends, but no way I could kill a good thief, I think I’m missing something lol, I tried to aoe the place + auto attack + entangle only to find out he was far far away from me, maybe I just need more practice.

I completely agree with KOK.

He/she is a thief, why disagree with a thief?

As the saying goes, “only an Assasin know how an Assasin kill”

I do fairly well against them on my trap condi ranger. I’ll upload a video sometime tomorrow if I get the chance showing a nice long duel between me and a p/d thief. It’s all about who makes the first mistake really. The biggest mistake you can make imo when against a thief that is in stealth (and I see tons of people do this all the time) is stand still. You are basically asking them to set up a burst combo on you. Movement is vital in combat, even when you can’t see them as it makes them work that much hard to land those crucial backstabs (and as you will notice in the video he/she rarely lands a backstab on me). Also, you need to predict their actions, it is fairly simple as they only have a few seconds before the stealth wears off before they have to try something. Another thing you will see me do is make constant use of my fields (even when under threat!). Part of being a strong pvper is not getting anxious in fights. You need to keep your cool so that you can think clearly. This mainly comes from practice, so you need to get comfortable fighting thieves. You will see several times in the video where I ignore the thief and work on leap finishers through available fields for just that much more of an advantage (something thieves will abuse to a horrendous level against you while in stealth) or deselect the thief in combat and cast an evade to create distance. Fire Armor is much more valuable that many people give it credit for, even in a condi build as the might is fairly long in duration (10s) and the 1s burn is a nice increase to damage when on the defensive.

I know this is just a wall of text, but I’ll try to get that video up soon and post it here so you can see what I do against them. I was planning on creating a decent sized video (delayed it heavily due to a busy schedule as of late) centered on wvw roaming, but I wasn’t happy with a lot of the footage as the fights were too easy (defeating bads doesn’t make me look like I know what I’m doing) to upload. This video will be a preview/highlight of it as I will place this footage in there because I thought it was an excellent fight.

LB+GS mostly zerker with a bit of knights (30/25/15/0/0) the only theives that give me any trouble are p/d condi builds (because even if i dodge their C+D they can just hit my pet… and i have kitten condition removal); power thieves are a joke