Guild Wars 2

So now that retri is dead what do we do against thieves. Right now they are just kiting me around just out of range of ps and ua range spamming head shot for 3-4 k pulm impact procs. Can’t close the gap since they will immediately reopen it with a single dodge, can’t heal since you can’t actually land damage, and staff 4 will just get interrupted by head shot spam, can’t just do nothing since head shot and escence sapps will eventually kill you even with out pulm procs, so what can I do?

ArthurDent.9538:

So now that retri is dead what do we do against thieves. Right now they are just kiting me around just out of range of ps and ua range spamming head shot for 3-4 k pulm impact procs. Can’t close the gap since they will immediately reopen it with a single dodge, can’t heal since you can’t actually land damage, and staff 4 will just get interrupted by head shot spam, can’t just do nothing since head shot and escence sapps will eventually kill you even with out pulm procs, so what can I do?

Nothing. They gave them 3 dodges, a stunbreak that teleports and stunbreaks a second time in a single skill, a heal that restores those 3 dodges, and virtual immunity to snares/roots on top of permanent swiftness uptime and a bunch of leap skills on their weaponskills.

On top of the highest single target dps in the game.

You’ll have to somehow dodge one of their attacks if you still run Retribution to use Staff 4 (or anything else for that matter) without an interrupt risk if they’re D/P.

Glint can buy you some time between blocks/evades with protection from Chaos Facet if they’re power, and reveal them if they stealth upclose, but most competent ones will disengage out of range before trying that anyway.
If they’re Condi, Mallyx works well enough at culling their main source of damage, but you’ll be kittened on Power Herald as you’d expect.

You can probably force a disengage from them if you hold out through their bursts, but sticking to a thief who isn’t half asleep or garbage isnt easy.

Really, the first idea is a lot easier.

Full zerker trinkets/full burst builds works best against thieves.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAS8sn3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdskFNFiNMnpNtFIANwugJshA-TpBBwAQOCAcOIA12fAwDAIwFAocZAA

Mainly use Hammer that’s pretty much all your going to need. Shiro’s Elite stuns them for 3 seconds letting you autoattack them easily or letting you switch to sword and press 3 to finish them off.

I will front all of what I am about to say, with most of what I am suggesting works in wvw and I am not the greatest rev. I don’t exactly know if any of this advice will work for pvp. That and most of this will be advice for condi rev.

I’ve been running a lot jalis over glint.

For a bit I was running salvation for the blinds while you cast heals to prevent interrupts, but I found that the rest of the line to be really underwhelming.

For fighting power thieves I’ve been poping rite great dwarf and vengeful hammers when I know a thief is about to spike. I find if I can live through the initial spike, I can either force them to back off too condi cleanse with searing fissure which gives me room to heal, or trade with them in melee alternating between embrace the darkness and vengeful hammers. Most thiefs cannot handle that kind of pressure and have to back off which again gives you room.

Confusion has become one of my best friends for punishing dodge spam, banish enchantment and trait that procs it can really overwhelm lower skilled players.

The thing I’ve found with mallax / jalis build is you can get a lot out of hardening resistance from your up keep skills increasing your stats and giving you 280 toughness. On top of that the heals are much more reliable when they don’t get interrupted. This comes at a cost of being immobile, but condi rev was already pretty immobile to begin with.

Jalis is great for taunt is great for catching thieves trying to stealth much like you try to with glint elite. Not a lot of them are familiar with the skill and it catches a lot people off guard.

For condi cancer, I’ve been simply just standing in my own searing fissures, and either try to catch em with a jalis taunt, staff 5/sword 5 or load them up with banish enchantment. Then watch them spin to their deaths.

I’ve found thief’s mostly to be a coin toss honestly. Most of the time it’s dumb personal mistakes that cause me to throw fights because I am not used to running jalis. The changes really have made the class pretty unreliable.

Hirasaki.6208:

Full zerker trinkets/full burst builds works best against thieves.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAS8sn3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdskFNFiNMnpNtFIANwugJshA-TpBBwAQOCAcOIA12fAwDAIwFAocZAA

Mainly use Hammer that’s pretty much all your going to need. Shiro’s Elite stuns them for 3 seconds letting you autoattack them easily or letting you switch to sword and press 3 to finish them off.

I very much doubt that any competent thief will be hit by that.

you should still use the retribution trait+ you need to have as many evade skills as possible.

so it goes like this:
Venom back stabs you
you use shiro’s riposting shadows to stun break and evade, roll,roll,riposting shadow maybe one more roll, now quickly switch to your other legend because we cant afford to waste shiro’s energy (if you did not start in shiro then you need to evade kite for 9 seconds) your aim is not to fight the thief but to get back to your group or keep, so use staff 5 in the direction you want to go then staff 3 to stall for time, then switch to your other weapon; if you use sword sword use sword skill 4 and skill 3 to stall for time or if you use sword/shield use shield skill 5 to stall, if you are a condi build and you have mace/axe then you need to use unyielding anguish, it has no evade skill but it creates a distance for a short time. you should get one more roll during this time thanks to retribution+herald trait line so dont forget to use it. by now 9 seconds are up so you can go back to shiro and repeat.

Best way to fight a thief now is not to.

With Enchanted Daggers’ heal/dmg being pretty useless against them now, I just cross my fingers in Glint that they’re squishy enough that sword 3/2 does enough damage that they try to run away, so i can use Glint Reveal/Swap Shiro PT to surprise finish them.

Or I guess if they’re D/D, a back evade + Staff 5 still works to a less effective point.

So, in summary, they hafta be bad.

Edit: I should add that I use Invo not Ret.

i main s/d thief and lack any of the stuff d/p can do so its still a tough MU, i do agree that the trait is stupid and there is no need for it, hammer revs are probabaly the biggst threat, even the AA can deal up to 3-4k, wouldn’t worry about trying to land the skill’s them selfs though. also the sword of had a pull dosnt it?

Current rev state :P

Fat Disgrace.4275:

i main s/d thief and lack any of the stuff d/p can do so its still a tough MU, i do agree that the trait is stupid and there is no need for it, hammer revs are probabaly the biggst threat, even the AA can deal up to 3-4k, wouldn’t worry about trying to land the skill’s them selfs though. also the sword of had a pull dosnt it?

Off hand sword has a pull: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grasping_Shadow

Unfortunately it is a weird melee range pull where you strike the foe, then you shadow step back wards pulling them with you. So useless in regards to closing the gap. Off hand axe can be used with for an extra shadowshot like gap closer but then you have even less healing against the constant kiting at range, and no block other than staff.

sword off hand helps a lot against thieves. It still is difficult because most thieves would just keep running and stealthing to reset their skills. O and rune of surging

I don’t usually have a problem with thieves, even with DA art kitteny teabaggers once I swap to axe off hand (secondary sword is still good too). Usually tames their kite-o-mancer hubris instantly. Just need to keep cold head, show them that they are not the only class that can easily disengage acting like they no longer care and countdown their steal CD (essence sap hurt plus most rev abilities go nuts because of slow condition, ugh), almost all of them spam it by CD. Of course it requires one to turn their brain on but same applies to thieves playing against you. Never underestimate thief mains.

Oh and yeah, I PERSONALLY find it easier to fight thieves with dev+invocation+herald instead of retribution because stability revenant is easily countered by Bountiful Thief (first thief steals your stability and then they apply daze to you). Rev’s main instrument is burst, one mistake from thief’s side should be enough with good burst.

Vasdamas Anklast.1607:

I don’t usually have a problem with thieves, even with DA art kitteny teabaggers once I swap to axe off hand (secondary sword is still good too). Usually taims their kite-o-mancer hubris instantly. Just need to keep cold head, show them that they are not the only class that can easily disengage acting like they no longer care and countdown their steal CD (essence sap hurt plus most rev abilities go nuts because of slow condition, ugh), almost all of them spam it by CD. Of course it requires one to turn their brain on but same applies to thieves playing against you. Never underestimate thief mains.

Oh and yeah, I PERSONALLY find it easier to fight thieves with dev+invocation+herald instead of retribution because stability revenant is easily countered by Bountiful Thief (first thief steals your stability and then they apply daze to you). Rev’s main instrument is burst, one mistake from thief’s side should be enough with good burst.

I’ve duelled Vas quite a bit on my thief, axe offhand is indeed a massive pita if you can time it with your burst properly. Retribution stopped headshot spam but it’s just as easy to alternate shadowshot and essence sap instead, so the most important thing is to get the thief on the back foot straight away.

Hammer also hurts a lot, as thief relies on being out of range for most of it’s attacks. Like was said above, don’t bother with anything other than 4 to block headshot, get quickness and spam autos and the thief will have to stealth or totally disengage if it doesn’t have steal ready.

The stab nerf was excessive imo, it was annoying for me having most of my interrupts negated but when that was your only source of stab then you really should have had compensation elsewhere.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Vasdamas Anklast.1607:

I don’t usually have a problem with thieves, even with DA art kitteny teabaggers once I swap to axe off hand (secondary sword is still good too). Usually taims their kite-o-mancer hubris instantly. Just need to keep cold head, show them that they are not the only class that can easily disengage acting like they no longer care and countdown their steal CD (essence sap hurt plus most rev abilities go nuts because of slow condition, ugh), almost all of them spam it by CD. Of course it requires one to turn their brain on but same applies to thieves playing against you. Never underestimate thief mains.

Oh and yeah, I PERSONALLY find it easier to fight thieves with dev+invocation+herald instead of retribution because stability revenant is easily countered by Bountiful Thief (first thief steals your stability and then they apply daze to you). Rev’s main instrument is burst, one mistake from thief’s side should be enough with good burst.

I’ve duelled Vas quite a bit on my thief, axe offhand is indeed a massive pita if you can time it with your burst properly. Retribution stopped headshot spam but it’s just as easy to alternate shadowshot and essence sap instead, so the most important thing is to get the thief on the back foot straight away.

Hammer also hurts a lot, as thief relies on being out of range for most of it’s attacks. Like was said above, don’t bother with anything other than 4 to block headshot, get quickness and spam autos and the thief will have to stealth or totally disengage if it doesn’t have steal ready.

The stab nerf was excessive imo, it was annoying for me having most of my interrupts negated but when that was your only source of stab then you really should have had compensation elsewhere.

you cant get a thief on the “back foot” when they can stealth and you cant , they will always reset the fight till they have the advantage.

the best too legends to fight a thief is shiro for its phase travel and glint for its stealth reveal, but these two legends have the worst heal vs a thief so any thief who knows what they are doing can win easy.

if you dont have stab vs a thief you will be cc to death, ret is better than invo, no point breaking a stun just to be stunned again, normally power revs use both invo+retribution, while condi rev uses retribution+resistant boon, but with the nerf to retribution both classes have taken a hit.

if you found it hard to kill a thief in wvw before you will find it impossible now.

hypehype.9047:

you cant get a thief on the “back foot” when they can stealth and you cant , they will always reset the fight till they have the advantage.

the best too legends to fight a thief is shiro for its phase travel and glint for its stealth reveal, but these two legends have the worst heal vs a thief so any thief who knows what they are doing can win easy.

if you dont have stab vs a thief you will be cc to death, ret is better than invo, no point breaking a stun just to be stunned again, normally power revs use both invo+retribution, while condi rev uses retribution+resistant boon, but with the nerf to retribution both classes have taken a hit.

if you found it hard to kill a thief in wvw before you will find it impossible now.

1) So what? If it’s WvW then ignore them and MOVE ON to something else. Why fight that pesky thief.
2) Good Glint’s heal timing still wins.
3) Interrupted to death*.
The only class out there that can actually cc you to death is dragonkittener lmao. Retribution is by no means better than invocation. That tree alone adds up about 30% dps along with condi cleanse on swap (helps denying shadow shot a lot). And don’t even get me started on Equilibrium, I usually only run celestial wvw build but that trail alone procs up to 4k sometimes. Some of my more meta oriented compadres reported even higher numbers with zerk gear. SINGLE trait procs for 4k in tanky gear Carl, just a single trait…That against easily strippable stability with taunt and Rite of the Great Dwarf (which is kinda useless useless for non-tanky builds since they changed it few months back btw).

Now I understand that we all loved facerolling our enemies without spending much efforst on thinking but let’s face it, everything is easily counterable in like 90% cases once you chill out and sit down to think about it. Thief isn’t biggest of our problems nowdays.

hypehype.9047:

if you dont have stab vs a thief you will be cc to death, ret is better than invo, no point breaking a stun just to be stunned again, normally power revs use both invo+retribution, while condi rev uses retribution+resistant boon, but with the nerf to retribution both classes have taken a hit.

As a power rev, I can say that I don’t think I could play without Devastation… 0.o

narcx.3570:

hypehype.9047:

if you dont have stab vs a thief you will be cc to death, ret is better than invo, no point breaking a stun just to be stunned again, normally power revs use both invo+retribution, while condi rev uses retribution+resistant boon, but with the nerf to retribution both classes have taken a hit.

As a power rev, I can say that I don’t think I could play without Devastation… 0.o

Agreed. A power rev without Devastation doesn’t have much “power”

I’ve had much better luck against thieves running condi. If they’re using the DD heal they’re dead the moment you torment bomb them, and with the burn trait just flashing the mallyx elite can put some serious hurt on them if they’re in range. A little harder against thieves running withdraw but the poison-on-torment trait helps there.

Torment is a condi that feels tailor-made for fighting thieves and its in no short supply to revs.

Hirasaki.6208:

Full zerker trinkets/full burst builds works best against thieves.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAS8sn3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdskFNFiNMnpNtFIANwugJshA-TpBBwAQOCAcOIA12fAwDAIwFAocZAA

Mainly use Hammer that’s pretty much all your going to need. Shiro’s Elite stuns them for 3 seconds letting you autoattack them easily or letting you switch to sword and press 3 to finish them off.

What kind of thief allows you to land a shiro elite on them?

I actually got better chances with the Melee Blob Build against thieves. Jalis for protection and if the thief runs away just taunt him. Hammer and Staff. But youre just static and need to hope for 2 good Hammer2 hits. Essence Sap is still the most overpowered steal skill ingame and thief can easily outplay you.

Plus the fact you’re running a ridiculously niche build just to have a chance against one class, as if a warrior catches you with a hammer, you might as well just die, and that goes for many other classes where having a hammer is to be a sitting duck.

Never had a problem with Thief, with the exception of an extremely skilled one I faced once with a friend, and only then because he caught us in the middle of a typing/chat talk.

You have several tools to counter them with on several legends. Use them. But, the greatest counter you can have is to know how they work.

Also, I didn’t even use the Retribution line before the nerf.

This matchup honestly depends on the thief more than anything. If you’re an average rev against an average thief, you will probably win solely because you put out too much damage, they panic, and one dumb mistake leads to their death. If you’re a slightly above average rev against a slightly above average thief, you should still probably win more often than not.

But now that retribution is dead, and even arguably before the nerf, no revenant should beat a truly good thief in a 1v1, no matter how good of a revenant you are. Any good thief can deny you stability procs more than often. The gaps in your stab provide them plenty of time to headshot you, and even when you do have stab, remember how low of a cooldown Steal is- you’ll just get interrupted anyway because they’ll steal the stab.

The combination of pulm procs being far too easy to get (because rev is always casting something- no instant damage), shield 5/staff 3 being a free pulm with basi, the ridiculous damage of essence sap/tooltip being incorrect, the fact that slow bugs out pretty much every revenant skill, the ability of thief to spam stealth and usually random dodge reveal, and ability to evade our pitiful Enchanted Daggers (wasting charges on nothing) all contribute to thief being the second hardest counter to power rev. Sorry for the run-on sentence.

These days I never swap off invocation, even to fight thieves. You won’t really have a chance against an expert thief no matter what you do, so keep the pressure on, and don’t get caught casting any skills while their character is facing you and is in d/p. Wait for them to make the first move, or wait till they are on the defensive since they cannot headshot while they are running away.

I second the advice to run axe offhand against thieves. Shield abilities are just too easy to interrupt. However, you can play around basi if you count the cooldown.

Lol when Shiro the “legendary assassin” cant deal with a mere thief.. One has to ask why these figures are even considered to be legendary in this case.. i personally dont know.. i guess legends are just that.. legends and nothing else. We need to start channel actual real champions not some weak af guys from tales for kids.

Rev is probably the only class I would recommend to fight a thief in full zerk gear. Dev/Inv/Herald. Then land your Staff5/LegendSwap/WeaponSwap/PrecisionStrike Combo (see metabattle for details) or die.

Revs burst damage is so ridiculous that it has by far the best one shot capability to a thief. At the same time high armor values won’t help you as you can’t heal yourself properly. The thief will just peel you. So try to end the fight as quick as possible.

It’s pretty much the opposite I would recommend to the other classes. Normally running 2,5 to 3k armor and a few defensive skills will make you laugh at any thief (you can’t kill him if he runs but he also can’t kill you – just walk to the next tower).

Regarding to some of the postings in this thread one might think everyone is running full zerk in WvW. Thieves are weak vs. everything that is not full zerk. That’s part of their mechanic.

spam sword 2 and 3 just like always

A lot of talk about headshot spam or headshot PU proc being a focal point of defeat in this thread. A lot of thieves, myself included don’t use Impacting Distraction. I barely use headshot as is, and especially not against a rev. I’d rather save the initiative for re stealthing frequently to confuse and disorient them.

Headshot spam generally only works against opponents who mash skill #1 when other skills are on cooldown. You don’t win player vs player fights simply auto attacking.

Turk.5460:

A lot of talk about headshot spam or headshot PU proc being a focal point of defeat in this thread. A lot of thieves, myself included don’t use Impacting Distraction. I barely use headshot as is, and especially not against a rev. I’d rather save the initiative for re stealthing frequently to confuse and disorient them.

Headshot spam generally only works against opponents who mash skill #1 when other skills are on cooldown. You don’t win player vs player fights simply auto attacking.

On the contary, a lot of thief vs thief fights have become more about head shotting, even vs aa then anything else. It’s sad but PI is just too op and easy to use (ofc stability counters this)

Sindd posted a video fighting s rev from zen and he beat him 4 times in a row, just by head shotting and keeping the gap open, very rarely did he stealth.

You have to fight this matchup like a thief. Instant burst is the key to victory and reading their animations.

The fact they can keep distance and head shot sucks tbh.

The primary burst of each really is the deciding factor in most cases. If a thief misses a steal, the the fight takes a serious turn against them. Essence Sap is extremely nasty from a thief, and denying them all the benefits of steal, usually healing, initiative regen, endurance recovery and an easy interrupt, can mean a quick fight.

CutesySylveon.8290:

The primary burst of each really is the deciding factor in most cases. If a thief misses a steal, the the fight takes a serious turn against them. Essence Sap is extremely nasty from a thief, and denying them all the benefits of steal, usually healing, initiative regen, endurance recovery and an easy interrupt, can mean a quick fight.

Kind of hard to do when the skill is kittening instant. And in the thief’s case, they can just keep resetting until the wind blows their way or they run you out of cd’s.

Zenith.7301:

CutesySylveon.8290:

The primary burst of each really is the deciding factor in most cases. If a thief misses a steal, the the fight takes a serious turn against them. Essence Sap is extremely nasty from a thief, and denying them all the benefits of steal, usually healing, initiative regen, endurance recovery and an easy interrupt, can mean a quick fight.

Kind of hard to do when the skill is kittening instant. And in the thief’s case, they can just keep resetting until the wind blows their way or they run you out of cd’s.

That’s why I said initial burst usually decides it. A good thief isn’t predictable with his steal, and that, along with it being completely instant, makes it extremely difficult to avoid, yes.

At least in WvW, a lot of thieves open with steal the moment they get in range, if they don’t do it from stealth, and most I see are typically full or nearly full glass. Hammer can help here, especially if they drop Shadow Refuge, but becomes useless the moment they get in your face.

Avoiding steal is a guess, in the end, but any class that fights thief has this issue, not just rev.

Thief wins rev always, unless you run a ppwer creeped wvw build and manage to hit a PS and delete the thief. And even then its all on thiefs fault, so..