Guild Wars 2

So im sick and tired of seeing these little kittens running around WvW basically invincible, with all their evades, blinds, stealth, and just general disengage. It seems that 90% of the solo roamers i see are thieves. Fighting them solo is like bashing your head into a wall, either they kill you by blind/stealth spamming or you get them low enough for them to just pop stealth and run away. Only to come back 10 seconds later with full health and ready for another blind/stealth spam for another 5 minutes.

So this is my attempt at a thief killer build, as Rangers we have access to 2 things that can track them down. Sic Em and Rapid Fire.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnUqQBL2KIusAXLGQQoWGAzb7YIEaBm1bFcxGVJB-TlCFwAA3fAxhAgl6PKV+hVJ4GNBAeAACuAAZ0Bs4IAQKgiEGB-w

That is the best I can do, if anyone has any improvements or ideas for killing those vile cretins they would be greatly appreciated.

I take a different approach that isn’t popular around here. Glass cannon counters glass cannon. You can’t kill someone who can leave combat at any time they want by whittling them down.

IMO, load up on as much damage and as much CC as possible. I’ve literally killed thousands of thieves doing this. I can quote some of my posts for killing thieves, or if this is working for you then awesome, and I appreciate you repping ranger as something other than a bearbow.

imho
use malicious training instead
use the longbow trait that increases range
use sword dagger instead of GS. GS4 can be abused, GS5 is just….
swap hunt with protect me when you see a thief.
swap drakehound with jungle spider. Spider’s immob is guaranteed to land because it’s a venom.
Use the sword offensively only when protect me is up.

btw, if you lose to a trickery thief, don’t feel bad. I thought thiefs were easy pickings until I fought xi xii. Thankfully, the vast majority of thiefs in wvw are shadow arts.

Power ranger has a very good shot vs dp shadow arts.
double melee is better vs d/d and trickery
longbow s/d is better vs p/d
lb/sb is surprisingly good but boring.

Hey now, calling us vile is kinda mean. Besides, why go through this much effort to create a build designed around countering one class? Tbh, thief counters ranger since we can ignore the pet for the most part and fight the ranger while the pet struggles to catch up, or we can stealth off of it. it’s like making a fire type pokemon team that is good against water types. Regardless, rapid fire, sic em, and after my brief ranger session today, Counter on GS is LOL, Idk why GS rangers dont use this against thieves more often. AOES like traps and torch work well too, no new build needed

Swap SotH out for QZ before you engage. I use 6/0/2/6/0 SotF build. With read the wind traited and QZ I can usually burst a thief down within the Sic’Em window before they can stealth.

Slavi.9137:

So im sick and tired of seeing these little kittens running around WvW basically invincible, with all their evades, blinds, stealth, and just general disengage. It seems that 90% of the solo roamers i see are thieves. Fighting them solo is like bashing your head into a wall, either they kill you by blind/stealth spamming or you get them low enough for them to just pop stealth and run away. Only to come back 10 seconds later with full health and ready for another blind/stealth spam for another 5 minutes.

So this is my attempt at a thief killer build, as Rangers we have access to 2 things that can track them down. Sic Em and Rapid Fire.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnUqQBL2KIusAXLGQQoWGAzb7YIEaBm1bFcxGVJB-TlCFwAA3fAxhAgl6PKV+hVJ4GNBAeAACuAAZ0Bs4IAQKgiEGB-w

That is the best I can do, if anyone has any improvements or ideas for killing those vile cretins they would be greatly appreciated.

Try this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEqUua7K+rw1aADhqdKkBlA7AICmAXx7F/UlE-TFSFABrpbAgHAQc7PQp6P/pEUhLCwTK/S+IAQKAYGGB-w

The chances of a Thief killing you with this build is highly unlikely.

If you come across a boonsteal Thief, obviously use your evades, swap weapons and receive more energy to evade, use your sword for two more evades, dagger for another evade and SB #3 for your 8th evade. You won’t need that many though.

BM Sig works for me. Just abuse them for coming in to melee. I’ve one shotted many thieves flying in at me.

It’s worked well with LB/GS opening with RF as they generally probably associate you with the majority of Rangers. But I prefer GS/S/X as I can keep on my toes better.

In the build posted right above. Don’t use RaO vs a theif. They will boonsteal the buffs and make you sad.

If you want to catch a Thief, best you can do is evade his attacks and throw all kind of dirt to it’s face (conditions). Best if you can keep him immobilised and stunned.

I dont bother fighting them anymore, just avoid or burst them enough to put them on the defensive and move along. I know they wont bother sticking around if they are going to lose and most of them are skilled enough now to be aware of their own breaking point, so whats the point?

typically the way I kill thieves is use quickening zephyr, AA about 3-4 times, #4, then #2. it’ll down them in stealth 90% of the time, and they won’t be able to get near you before they need to stealth

(this is while using zerker trinkets and knights armor, so I AA for about 2k on crits)

@redspectrum I beg to differ, thief is the easiest class for me to kill, i’d go so far to say rangers are the bane-of-thieves with their ranged and channeled skills (and arguably large amount of CC)

Kilger.5490:

I dont bother fighting them anymore, just avoid or burst them enough to put them on the defensive and move along. I know they wont bother sticking around if they are going to lose and most of them are skilled enough now to be aware of their own breaking point, so whats the point?

Pretty much this.

When i roam in WvW, a lot of thieves like to start chasing me, assuming im going to be an easy kill, but as soon as i put up a fight, most of them will just stealth and run.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Hey now, calling us vile is kinda mean. Besides, why go through this much effort to create a build designed around countering one class? Tbh, thief counters ranger since we can ignore the pet for the most part and fight the ranger while the pet struggles to catch up, or we can stealth off of it. it’s like making a fire type pokemon team that is good against water types. Regardless, rapid fire, sic em, and after my brief ranger session today, Counter on GS is LOL, Idk why GS rangers dont use this against thieves more often. AOES like traps and torch work well too, no new build needed

Well the reason why I want to counter Thieves is because they make up the majority of roamers in WvW. Also its not like the class is incapable of killing anyone else, it just specializes in hunting down thieves.

@ ItIsFinished.9462 its a great build for fighting off Thieves but it can’t really kill them if they don’t stick around and try to flee. I’m trying for more of a thief hunter build, making sure they can’t get away

There is no one build wonder to kill thieves, they all come in different builds and skill levels. However thieves do have refuge which will provide significant advantage regardless of whom they fight. Knowing this, you should do your best not to waste your fear/knock back, or whichever other methods you prefer to push the thief out of the refuge. I prefer a high condi damage bleeding/bunker build using bonfire and fire trap, that takes care of nearly any thief I come across including condition p/d ones, the rest of that story will be up to your individual skill and if you don’t get ganked by other players as well.

IMO, the only real disadvantage a Ranger has vs. a Thief is targeting. Several of the best Ranger builds have no real way to spam any attack to hit the thief while he is in stealth, because they require a target to hit.

Play any heavy conditions AoE build (trapper) with a ranger or utilize a build that gets use out of heavy Greatsword damage that you can spam with no target selected, and suddenly Thieves aren’t that big of a deal on an equal skill basis… the catch is, there are no builds that utilize those two things that are considered to be relevant at very high level PvP, so very few rangers use them.

Targeting and autoaims are bad, just sayin’…

I feel like I’m obligated to recommend a trapper build. I’ve never lost to a thief. ever. Even in the beginning before the ‘revealed’ nerf, when thieves were rampant and OP as kitten none of them could beat my ranger. Problems with shadow refuge? Go over there and drop all your traps on their perfect trap-sized circle of stealth.

I thought rangers were already thief hunters. 3-4 auto attacks with the bow and then rapid fire to finish them off. This downs 90% of the thieves I’ve run into. If that doesn’t work GS is nice for dealing with them as well, the block and daze are fantastic for control and the cleave is great for shadow refuge.

The only problem I have is 2-3 thieves running together and stealth reviving each other, but that’s only a problem because the downed state is the most stupid thing they could have possibly included in WvW

What I’ve tend to do in PvP is to have at least 1 sic em’ skill. the procedure for killing thieves is:

Long bow rapid fire, then cast sic ‘em, then quickening zepher. Followed by krytan drakehound F2.
If it doesn’t cast fast, feel free to switch your ulti to entangle but if you want to stick with Rampage as one, by the time your rapid fire is over, perhaps adding 1 knockback from the bow.
Usually the thief would want to stealth away by now, if they drop refuge, Longbow5 into the refuge or just aim in the general direction of where they are running to to prolly finish them off. goal here is to squeeze as much burst into them as possible.

Well, I tend to avoid a group of thieves unless with sufficient amount of people AoEing cause the more people, the more the thief can stealth off other players.. maybe at most I’ll be at the sidelines, perhaps with 2 thieves, and we focus 1 down.

Any power the if can be bursted down in a matter of seconds and take sic’em if you fancy since watching a their stand visible in shadow refuge is gold. No stealth using power the if will be able to stay alive for a full 7s after being pressure for a a few attacks. Also they tend to panic and use all their cooldowns and initiative trying to gain stealth again.
Condi thieves you need to learn but once you do it becomes as easy as power.
On the build I run with or without sic’em all thieves are a joke.

Never stand still when they stealth and always swing aeound youself/place traps or aoes. Another good tip. Learn to count to 3 ;-)

Out of all classes we have the most tools to deal with them I believe.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Hey now, calling us vile is kinda mean. Besides, why go through this much effort to create a build designed around countering one class? Tbh, thief counters ranger since we can ignore the pet for the most part and fight the ranger while the pet struggles to catch up, or we can stealth off of it. it’s like making a fire type pokemon team that is good against water types. Regardless, rapid fire, sic em, and after my brief ranger session today, Counter on GS is LOL, Idk why GS rangers dont use this against thieves more often. AOES like traps and torch work well too, no new build needed

B-But, you can make a fire type pokemon team that is good against water types!….right? Also, every class can ignore the pet with no penalty.

Also, also, If your in a full glass cannon build…. Counterattack + Signet of the Hunt followed by any other GS skill. Its very effective against Thieves and has a 80-90% success rate for me when fighting against that profession.

So after reading this post it is pretty obvious that Rangers beat up on Thieves pretty easily apparently. Yet when you go to Thieves forums and ask who their #1 target usually is they will say Rangers. In fact some even say they won’t attack Rangers because it is so easy that they feel bad afterwards. good stuff lol

People think that because glass rangers are soft. I can kill them with my longbow before they can kill me with theirs.

For a condi ranger or a power ranger with decent stats thieves are not a problem. Hardest I have fought was an evasion theif. Still won but got lower than usual. Glass rangers can kill glass thieves if they play will. 3x long range shot or 2x followed by rapid fire and holding still ( it tracks better when you don’t move so they can’t break it by moving behind you ) and they die.

Depends on the thief you’re facing. When it comes to thieves, there’s no “one size fits all” approach. I run a berserker DPS dual-longbow swap build on mine to maintain fury when I need it.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATTjMqUyaLLGsQ1ag9gadAUAndrhg9APChQBrmA-TFCBwAnVCid/R5CO1fAcJByqkKlGi86CY8kACAgAczbmNvZA38m38m38mFCY0CA-w

For signet D/D hyper-burst, you’re going to need to go long range glass to destroy them as fast as possible and simply get good at counter-playing their burst via good dodge timing/skill use. D/D signet burst’s success is dependent almost entirely on either catching the foe off guard/on cooldowns or simply having the target not know how to counter it. I consider this to be the most potent glass long range build on the ranger, for the on-swap fury with dual longbow yields high fury uptime for entry combos with QZ.

RtW is necessary to kill thieves with the longbow. If you plan on killing thieves, you have to go 6 in MmS.

For condi P/D, you’ll need to swap out LR for signet of renewal. For blind spam, you’ll need to just time your skills right for a stealth reposition and try yo fight on your own terms. Pistol offhand blindspam thieves are incredibly difficult to counter as almost every class, rangers not being an exception. Keeping them at your longest range and forcing them to use their initiative before they can get to you is your best bet, so playing hyper-aggressive at range and then re-positioning after they start getting close will offer you an edge.

Heavy DPS rangers often cause a lot of thieves to run away after the initial hits + RF when they try entering stealth due to the amount of health they will lose. Barrage is also a useful tool to cast before a PBS and knock them into it, or to cast on yourself if they get close to force cripple/AOE damage to make them move away.

For S/D thieves, you might run into some troubles as their evasion can be tricky and usually their sustained damage and skirmishing potential is much higher than the aforementioned. The best thing to do is really just nail your timing down to consistently get the right skills off when you need them, and maintain distance to deny the thieves initiative. Infil Strike is their best gap closer, and requires initiative to cast both when using it and to return, so making a thief like this less-sticky by denying them init is a great way to counter them.

S/P… just evade their PW and you’re fine lol.

most of the thieves currently running s/d build which as ranger you are completely defenseless as you simply dont hit them, rapidfire is too slow and because of crappy targeting system and bugged lightning reflexes you more or less end up dead ..
even if you hit thief with point blank shoot he still hit you with stealth and you end up immobilized/paralized (that mentioned lightning reflexes bug, when cc it gets on cooldown!!!!!!!!!)
gs is too slow and if you block their attack they evade counterkick just by weapon use
best thing is run …

Since blind on stealth exists (most thief run 20606 now regardless of weapon set it’s generally strong) and perma evade s/d (200666) you’ll have a very hard time killing any good player running this build as a ranger. I’d say your best bet is to zerk longbow sword/dagger and yolo it for 20606 and then run a hybrid condition build for 20066 , while 20066 has pain response and some soft cc removal on the heal coupled with s/d #2 return condition removal you’ll still be able to land enough condition damage to slowly take them out. Just avoid larcenous strike, that’s important – it deals insane dmg and if it crits you have a chance of taking air/fire sigil procs which are currently really op because they can be paired on top of it.

For those using longbow to fight thieves (or anyone for that matter), I just picked up a tip regarding ‘staying in place without moving while using rapid fire’ because this will make your character rotate itself around if the enemy makes its way behind you, or if the thief goes in stealth while you’re shooting them…. takes a bit of getting used to but it is a step forward in getting that kill.

It is inf strike spamming S/D thieves I’m having trouble against in a power build lb sw/wh. All the other types are not much problem if I’m playing right.

GS is a waste of time against good thieves and I go SW/WH for unpredictability and extra blast heal/utility/birds.

The stay in place thing sounds great but that also opens yourself up to stealth backstabs and easy bask venoms. I can’t believe people win like that versus good thieves.

DeceiverX.8361:

D
For condi P/D, you’ll need to swap out LR for signet of renewal. For blind spam, you’ll need to just time your skills right for a stealth reposition and try yo fight on your own terms. Pistol offhand blindspam thieves are incredibly difficult to counter as almost every class, rangers not being an exception. Keeping them at your longest range and forcing them to use their initiative before they can get to you is your best bet, so playing hyper-aggressive at range and then re-positioning after they start getting close will offer you an edge.

I find the condi p/d far, far easier than the inf strike perma evade s/d type. I don’t find signet of renewal anywhere near enough for the condi meta and run empathic bond in all builds now is one reason. Another reason is I am extremely fast to kb/evade and keep distance and they either have to use all their inf to tp to me while pet sic em eats them or get kb’d out of a smoke pool because they had to stop to cast it.

On the other hand the s/d perma evade played well is eating me alive, neither I nor the pet can hit it pretty much, sic em or no. I get like one bird off in stealthed warhorn before I’m in trouble. It and some well played warrior that know when to bow and when to stick to me in melee are my toughest matchup. Everything else can be handled.

I run 4/4/6/0/0 both lifesteal sigils, vamp rune, zerk amulet lb sw/wh mainly vigor lb traits and anti cc traits, empathic bond. Sic em, LR, and Signet of the Hunt usually.

Just a quick tip with people debating over blinds: Sic’ Em will apply Revealed as well as buff your pet through blind. This makes it very convenient to use when a thief drops Black Powder to deny him stealth and shifts the fight in your favor when played well since the thief has no way to counterplay your shout, through blinds at least.