Guild Wars 2

I’m relatively new to the thief class and I really like Sword Dagger. Although I constantly find myself being singled out by D/p thieves.

I hear that the odds are not quite in favor of S/D but is there any way to get better at fighting a d/p thief? what can I do to increase my chances of winning against one?

When you see them use black powder, 99% of the time they will HS through it to gain stealth, if you have 6 in trickery and sleight of hand, now is the time to quickly interrupt their HS, this will make them lose a lot of initiative and be vulnerable for a little bit.

If they do manage to get in to stealth, try to imagine where they are at by estimating the time it would take to get to your back, which is where they will be going. S/D has a lot of evades and you can dodge at the end of the 3 or 4 seconds they are stealthed, this will sometimes work and the thief will be forced to restealth. You could even be tricky and try your CnD when you think they’re at your back, just remember not to spam it.

Learn to use shortbow effectively. It is absolutely devastating against d/p thieves.

d/p thieves have a clear giveaway of when they are going to stealth. They pop their blackpoweder and then heartseeker through it, most of the time towards you. As Jrunyon said, heartseeker locks the thief in its animation, and will travel a set distance. You can exploit that animation lock and interrupt them with a traited steal, or you can use cloak and dagger on where you predict they will land.

However, you can also exploit that animation lock and deal massive damage to them with clusterbomb. When the thief heartseekers towards you, switch to shortbow and clusterbomb at your feet/where he will land. Then, start kiting and throw a few more clusterbombs at your feet. This will either punish the thief for following you and force him to retreat, or he will have wasted his stealth because he couldn’t approach you.

A thief who takes 2 direct clusterbombs will usually come out of stealth super low. You can just pick him off from a distance then.

Additionally, you can use your shortbow #3 to give yourself extra evades. Use it when you think he may try to backstab you. If you see an evade when you use it, he’s in range of your clusterbomb.

As Loki mentioned before me… swap to shortbow and kill them. Spam 3 for the evades if you need to, cluster bomb if they are stealth. Another tip is, if they are stealth and if you have another enemy targeted your arrows will bounce from the visible target and hit the stealth thief.