Guild Wars 2

I’ll preface by saying that obviously, thief has the upper hand in WvW, especially one who knows their stealth build well, but I was wondering if any of you had any tricks or tips for dealing with a thief in a skirmish?

I’m still toying with builds and getting a feel for things – currently have a condition/trap heavy build, and it works well in some ways, especially against pretty much any profession except thieves or mesmers. Dealing with the stealth honestly baffles me.

Suggestions?

any kind of condition build will annihilate any thief. d/p culling exploiters just take a little longer. thats without traps. with traps, it’s not even a fight. if his cd’s are blown and you slam Entangle, you might as well just go afk.

power/crit burst builds with little sustain and toughness, well it comes down to who lands their burst first.

use AOE’s and immobilizes – torch 5 if traited can be a decent AOE with nice damage. muddy terrain is good, as is entangle. if you’re running with sword get the fire leap combo as it will burn them if they attack you.

knockdowns – run hyena for 2 knockdowns, and raven for burst! it will be glorious

Wanderer.5471:

use AOE’s and immobilizes – torch 5 if traited can be a decent AOE with nice damage. muddy terrain is good, as is entangle. if you’re running with sword get the fire leap combo as it will burn them if they attack you.

knockdowns – run hyena for 2 knockdowns, and raven for burst! it will be glorious

I’m kind of kicking myself that I never thought of using torch for AOE…

If they know their stealth build, they are likely traited to (1) Remove conditions while stealthed (2) Heal while stealthed (3) Regenerate initiative faster while stealthed.

Because of (1), I’m not sure I believe the “use condition damage” advice.

I’m running heavy prec build with omnomberry ghost and 2 traps.
You can partly burst thief when he triggers 2 traps and use 4th warhorn skill. In most cases it should be around 5.5k damage for me + shortbow him till he gets to you and by that way he is half hped with conditions around 700hp/s (i do only kittenage per bleeding).
Then throw next traps and after 2-3 sec of his stealth immobilize of fear by your pet (on WvW almost always best pet choice is dog and wolf).

And well, yeah. Condition build on ranger isn’t really strong one.
I run with 3k armor, 2.9k attack and around 60% critical chance with ~40-50critical damage and 16k health and tbh, biggest problems are mesmers since they attack as well from far. Thieves have to come near so traps almost always work and then with sb & s/wh you got 3 evade skills.

Sebrent.3625:

If they know their stealth build, they are likely traited to (1) Remove conditions while stealthed (2) Heal while stealthed (3) Regenerate initiative faster while stealthed.

Because of (1), I’m not sure I believe the “use condition damage” advice.

this is somewhat true, though it only removes 1 every 3 seconds, so if you’re applying multiple conditions they can still die before they’re all cleansed.

Additional tips: longbow 5 is nice AoE and LB2 can follow them if they stealth after you’ve initiated it – good for direct damage and you can throw down some aoe after it ends as you’ll probably have a sense of where they are from where you’re pointing.

Greatsword! forgot this weapon, love it against thieves – standard attack like a wild man after they stealth! as it does good aoe you’ll probably catch them a few times, it has a daze/stun which will prevent them stealthing for an extra second, and if they’re on you with daggers hit 4 to send them flying, and follow up with a 3 leap to get on them whilst they’re down. I wouldn’t hit 4 preemptively as they’ll just avoid attacking you if they’re smart.

Can i Say “Protect Me”

Lert.6287:

I’m running heavy prec build with omnomberry ghost and 2 traps.
You can partly burst thief when he triggers 2 traps and use 4th warhorn skill. In most cases it should be around 5.5k damage for me + shortbow him till he gets to you and by that way he is half hped with conditions around 700hp/s (i do only kittenage per bleeding).
Then throw next traps and after 2-3 sec of his stealth immobilize of fear by your pet (on WvW almost always best pet choice is dog and wolf).

And well, yeah. Condition build on ranger isn’t really strong one.
I run with 3k armor, 2.9k attack and around 60% critical chance with ~40-50critical damage and 16k health and tbh, biggest problems are mesmers since they attack as well from far. Thieves have to come near so traps almost always work and then with sb & s/wh you got 3 evade skills.

This is a lot of what I’m already doing – but to be honest, I think I probably just need more practice with it. I am running dog and wolf, with LB / Axe-Warhorn at the moment. Two traps, entangle, and fear.

Try shortbow and sword/warhorn. Longbow will lead you nowhere against thief.
The good thing is when stealth runs away and thief is immobilized on spike trap and activated fire trap as well, you can hit him many times with shortbow.

The easiest thieves are the one with 100% cannon. I can tank them with 3k armor and 16k hp, they can’t tank me with 1900armor and 12k hp.
It’s important when you don’t see theif, but you’re sure he is going to burst you. Use either ’’3’’ skill in shortbow (evade), dodge or 2/3 skill in sword. Those are evade skills and mostly stealth last 4seconds. He won’t backstap you then with 6k damage, most likely his stealth will be gone and will either go stealth again or spam heartseek like an idiot since you’re evading.

There is no possible way a Ranger is going to kill a Good Thief, that said if you follow some of the advice in here, you’ll manage to kill bad Thiefs. I’ve got a bunker Thief build I play on my Thief for the laughs, because it is better than Guardian bunker builds, and I doubt two Rangers could bring the build down.

That said, most Thieves are glass canon builds, and if you’re BM spec, and can avoid their damage, the pet will either kill them, or they’ll run away.

If you do manage to kill a Pistol/Dagger Thief, he is either bad at the build, or new to it.

Sebrent.3625:

If they know their stealth build, they are likely traited to (1) Remove conditions while stealthed (2) Heal while stealthed (3) Regenerate initiative faster while stealthed.

Because of (1), I’m not sure I believe the “use condition damage” advice.

This is actually a pretty average build for Thieves lately, and don’t forget Hide in Shadows, the Thief heal will cure conditions before applying the heal, which puts them into stealth.

This is what a good Thief looks like, and how noobish he makes the Ranger class look.

Any BM or trap ranger has good chances to succeed against a thief. LB rangers in zerker gear on the other hand tend to die very quick…

Thanks, guys! I’ll definitely look into this. And yeah, I’m well aware I can’t take down a Good thief as a ranger, but tips to not looking like an idiot are always helpful.

guys rangers can take down thieves, if anyone wants to bring a thief to eu server pvp and try me, i will give you a masterclass in how to do it…

Trap builds and BM builds are the two best builds that rangers have for dueling and small scale skirmishes. That being said, the key to playing as a trap ranger vs a thief is the way you use your evades, the way you use your traps, and how you play with your pet.

These are the general strategies and tricks I use to engage thieves:
When engaging a thief, always put your traps right under you, and the moment they trigger, evade.
When they use shadow refuge, throw all of your traps into the refuge, because the thief has to stand inside the skill to gain the full benefit from it.
When you see the thief stealth, try to turn erratically and use random evades to mess up their burst skills.
Since a trap ranger is a very condition heavy build, you want to focus on variety when you attack thieves because they can remove a condition every 3 seconds while in stealth, use your skills to apply as many different conditions to the thief as possible while they are out of stealth.
I personally run Axe/Torch and Sword/Dagger when I use trap builds, and when duels and small scale fights are very close, the smallest things give the advantage. The sword #2 skill is a leap finisher, and you can gain a 1.5k heal (twice) during a healing spring, or you can use the finisher to gain a fire aura.
Your pets are also very important in your play style, I run two dogs for the 2s knockdown and the aoe skills, which work though stealth. If you learn your pet’s animations, you can sync skills like splitblade (axe #2) with your pet knockdown to put 5 stacks of bleed on your target.

There are a lot of things that good rangers do to gain the upper hand in duels, just take a look at the spvp forums to see all the new “ranger OP” threads and complaints. In some cases though, you won’t beat a thief. In the WvW video above, all of the rangers are running builds that are built for zerg vs zerg action. Those rangers aren’t packing mass evades and stunbreakers. Instead they are bringing drakes for aoe, and long range power/precision type builds. In those cases you won’t win against a thief, and you will either have to run away, outnumber the thief, or die.

jkctmc.8754:

This is what a good Thief looks like, and how noobish he makes the Ranger class look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOpACoX4ic

where do i begin?

1. it takes him 5 minutes to down a scrub sword ranger with a little bit of vigor and a few points in wilderness. that ranger btw uses a drake. lulz. i wonder how he would feel about a perma vigor / near-perma prot sword/dagger ranger…hmmm.

2. culling is culling. he is always able to get off 2-3 hits (about 2 seconds) before even rendering. great work ANet. sucks for about 80% of the wvw population who cant pvp.

3. when i play MY ranger, any thief bladestorming is essentially committing suicide. because what usually follows is muddy terrain, burning, double bird burst, and if i feel like it, spike trap + daze followed by 8-10 stacks of bleeds, poison and more fire for good measure. thats 1v1. in a smaller group, glass cannon thieves dont even get to duel me because my hammer warr buddy has already slammed him to the ground. so, bladestorming thieves go severely punished on my watch and i usually brighten up when i see one popping it

4. true, rangers cant do what he does. kind of impossible without at least one on-demand invis. but it needs to be emphasized that CnD chaining is a low skillcap procedure that is made even easier by culling. this type of gameplay is indeed fun to watch, but only because people are completely clueless. it’s a borderline exploit that can actually be easily countered.

5. rangers are meant to tank because they cant drop targets. if you dont evade/prot/regen tank your ranger, you will get crushed not only by thieves but by mesmers, condi necros, and berserker warriors – all of which do your “glass cannon” job much better than you. how many rangers in that vid are built correctly for the meta? it’s a sad sight, but how is “none” for an answer?

nerva.7940:

jkctmc.8754:

This is what a good Thief looks like, and how noobish he makes the Ranger class look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOpACoX4ic

where do i begin?

1. it takes him 5 minutes to down a scrub sword ranger with a little bit of vigor and a few points in wilderness. that ranger btw uses a drake. lulz. i wonder how he would feel about a perma vigor / near-perma prot sword/dagger ranger…hmmm.

2. culling is culling. he is always able to get off 2-3 hits (about 2 seconds) before even rendering. great work ANet. sucks for about 80% of the wvw population who cant pvp.

3. when i play MY ranger, any thief bladestorming is essentially committing suicide. because what usually follows is muddy terrain, burning, double bird burst, and if i feel like it, spike trap + daze followed by 8-10 stacks of bleeds, poison and more fire for good measure. thats 1v1. in a smaller group, glass cannon thieves dont even get to duel me because my hammer warr buddy has already slammed him to the ground. so, bladestorming thieves go severely punished on my watch and i usually brighten up when i see one popping it

4. true, rangers cant do what he does. kind of impossible without at least one on-demand invis. but it needs to be emphasized that CnD chaining is a low skillcap procedure that is made even easier by culling. this type of gameplay is indeed fun to watch, but only because people are completely clueless. it’s a borderline exploit that can actually be easily countered.

5. rangers are meant to tank because they cant drop targets. if you dont evade/prot/regen tank your ranger, you will get crushed not only by thieves but by mesmers, condi necros, and berserker warriors – all of which do your “glass cannon” job much better than you. how many rangers in that vid are built correctly for the meta? it’s a sad sight, but how is “none” for an answer?

True, but that video still pisses me off because of how many tools and high damage is available to the thief class. A few slashes and ppl drop to the left and right, and they have so many escape abilities it’s not even funny.

No other class can do stuff like this.

I go for a BM build, it helps me survive and I combine that with moderate power/slightly high condition damage/slightly high healing power gear. Anytime you take on a thief you need to realize that the outcome of the fight comes down to skill and anticipation.

In general, a poor/average thief will be predictable: heart seekers to get to you, stealth to seek a back stab, blinding powder when close to you, dagger storm when in trouble, stealth away + followed by melee combat to come back in, just like the above video. If a thief does that to you, train to anticipate and to be able to dish you max conditions on them. Since they rely 50% on stealth to survive + 50% of your mistakes to win a fight, then learn to use that to your advantage. Also note how many of the targets continue to show the thief their backs. It is true, you cannot avoid all the back stabs, but you can surely try! Unlike that ranger on the video, do not waste all your evades unless you need them. Keeping ‘guard’ skill might be useful since your pet will react to the thief when he pops out of stealth. Using Troll Unguent at the beginning of a fight can be a big lifesaver, or during the periods when the thief goes into stealth and you have received damage. Keep the Root skill handy, it may buy you a few vital seconds where the thief will try to get away from you rather than come to you, use this to recover. Jaguar is a great pet to use vs thief because they cannot see it, to efficiently exploit it: send it in stealth to attack the thief, become bait for a few seconds using your evades, once the jaguar is in range Daze the thief with shortbow + Quickening Zephir + muddy terrain on the thief, as a BM build your jaguar will not only dish out HUGE damage in an instant, but it will put more or less 10 seconds of bleeding on the thief. The gap for the attack is really small so time it perfectly. Also if the thief survives they will go in stealth, follow with 1 handed sword attacks and get ready for the next burst from the thief.

A really tough thief however knows how the ranger fights, as seen on the above video. Also they will likely use pistol/dagger to win a fight, since such a build is extremely difficult to kill due to range against melee damage + control by successfully keeping a distance + stealth constantly to avoid bursts and further confuse you. It is something very difficult to deal with, so in those situations I cannot really say I’ve been very successful. Another issue to deal with is when fighting a thief solo and they use Thief’s Guild Elite. It all comes down to whether or not you can connect your burst of attacks quickly enough, or whether or not you can survive all the damage that will be incoming to you. Personally I have, but its just difficult.

Anyone can see that the biggest issue when fighting a thief is the stealth. I have no idea why thieves are allowed to use such cheap tactics to fight enemies whereas all the other professions have to truly show skill to win fights, especially the ranger. IMO thieves should have less options to go in stealth, removing ‘cloak’ from ‘cloak and dagger’ and making it instead ‘stun and dagger’ or ‘poison and dagger’ or ‘cripple and dagger’ or whatever else… would only be fair when fighting players.

awge.3852:

Keeping ‘guard’ skill might be useful since your pet will react to the thief when he pops out of stealth.

Another major flaw with pet ai – vs a cloak and dagger thief, getting your pet to react before the thief vanishes in stealth again… gha, the annoyance.
We shouldn’t need to bring the guard skill just to cover up for faulty ai. Having to have that skill equipped just so that the pet should realise that “ah, look, my target has returned, maybe I should attack?” just points to a broken game mechanic.

Response time of pets need to improve tenfold.

How it should work (with wolf as an example):

Thief appears from stealth – bam – gets knocked down instantly by the wolf. No more standing around trying to figure out whether to attack in the first place, and after that having a long wind-up time to actually activate the skill. By that time, the thief (in this case) is most likely back in stealth.

Haha.
Theres like 10 People or more in that video and only 1 is having fun.
Quality Anet… Quality!
You should look at other game developers how they handle stealth.

The thieves you have to look out for are P/D Venom build thieves that use similar gear to the ranger (Healing/Condition, mostly shamans for example)

you’ll find you don’t have enough damage to take them down, and that They’ll put a large amount on you.

The way you defeat them is don’t send your pet in, and use Shortbow…If you don’t have shortbow you’ll find that it’ll be incredibly difficult to kill them…

As for why you don’t send your pet in? You’re basically giving them a free 8 bleeds on you whenever you send your pet to attack, They’ll C/D your pet and then pelt you with it.

If you keep your pet away, you slow their damage and force them to blow cooldowns to get in stealth.

I tried doing this with Axe/Torch but found that I don’t have enough range (though it could be more to not running speed at the time, I generally try and have speed up now a lot)

Against every other thief, you shouldn’t have much trouble.

Xsorus.2507:

The thieves you have to look out for are P/D Venom build thieves that use similar gear to the ranger (Healing/Condition, mostly shamans for example)

This, although given my food and rune choice the only ones that bother me are the ones that have +condition duration.

Confusion Mezmer’s don’t bother me much anymore either because of my runes and food.

Xsorus.2507:

If you keep your pet away, you slow their damage and force them to blow cooldowns to get in stealth.

AND this.

Xsorus.2507:

Against every other thief, you shouldn’t have much trouble.

Totally agree.

Drop traps under yourself, fire, spike and poison, equip sword + dagger to evade his attacks. Watch him die

Depends on whether the thief gets the jump on you and instawins using a macro (22k hp , 1800 toughness, 3 hits and under 1 second dead while still waiting for thief to render). Not a lot you can do about that one, which is what most people complain about when talking about thieves.

If you see him coming you can beat most types of thief with a LB/SB fairly squishy build, not BM traited. the trick is to interupt his combo at which point he will be looking for the exit- LB3, LB2 before he stealths with a nice shiny char racial and qz and wait for the downed thief to reappear out of stealth- oh and throw barrage at that tent too. No need for any fancy solo build (I spec for group situations, not one on one roaming, I’d rather be taking or defending points and group play).