Guild Wars 2

Hello, I´m running a glasscannon elementalist in tPvP and on 1o1 servers from time to time. Now, when ever I loose to a evade thief he insults me and says I´m a noob for not beating him and that I have to time my attacks.

Now, how do you time your attacks against someone who can be 15 seconds “invulnerable” while dealing massive damage with a standard glass elementalist, only having two dodges and 1-2 huge burst combos with obvious animations?

Don´t tell me this game is not balanced around 1o1, I know this but when people call me noob for loosing such a 1o1 i get kind of curious. Also such a thief can basically charge thru teamfights without taking a scratch and still dishing out massive damage.

My current opinion of sword dagger on thief is:
1. Its terribly broken.
2. Having evade, unblockable boonsteal+highest damage ability of the weaponset on ONE skill with such low ish cost seems broken
3. The access to vigour and the abillity to infinitely teleport out of trouble is just broken.

This being said: How do I kill a sword dagger thief face to face. I´m not asking for a 100% win strategy, just for a way to have a 50% chance of winning at equal skill level.

S/D thief is not OP, it is however a counter to boon-reliant builds such as D/D ele.

Then tell me, what apart from the obviously more op spirrit ranger and maybe a higher skill level stunwarrior can beat S/D?
I´m running scepter dagger.
Still, i cant burst something that has infinite evades. I have to wait for him to go offensive. But until then I´m dead.
Also I don´t only run ele, with mesmer its just as impossible.
full three duelist lineup cant hit more then like 3 hits (not volleys. HITS) And you cant shatter him if he has more then three brain cells.

Blimm.5028:

Hello, I´m running a glasscannon elementalist in tPvP and on 1o1 servers from time to time. Now, when ever I loose to a evade thief he insults me and says I´m a noob for not beating him and that I have to time my attacks.

Now, how do you time your attacks against someone who can be 15 seconds “invulnerable” while dealing massive damage with a standard glass elementalist, only having two dodges and 1-2 huge burst combos with obvious animations?

Don´t tell me this game is not balanced around 1o1, I know this but when people call me noob for loosing such a 1o1 i get kind of curious. Also such a thief can basically charge thru teamfights without taking a scratch and still dishing out massive damage.

My current opinion of sword dagger on thief is:
1. Its terribly broken.
2. Having evade, unblockable boonsteal+highest damage ability of the weaponset on ONE skill with such low ish cost seems broken
3. The access to vigour and the abillity to infinitely teleport out of trouble is just broken.

This being said: How do I kill a sword dagger thief face to face. I´m not asking for a 100% win strategy, just for a way to have a 50% chance of winning at equal skill level.

Use condition dmg and aoe S/D is realy weak vs condition.
BTW Glass cannon elementalist is weak to,use soldier amulet and you’ll be fine

Evilek, im not talking WvW. If you run soldier ele in tPvP you are useless. And telling me to run condi dmg (for me=become a noob (sorry, but I´m kitten ed of the current meta)) is an insult.

Necro or AoE Condi in general wrecks them.

Blimm.5028:

Hello, I´m running a glasscannon elementalist in tPvP and on 1o1 servers from time to time. Now, when ever I loose to a evade thief he insults me and says I´m a noob for not beating him and that I have to time my attacks.

I really getting sick of chest thumpers as well. A good fight is a good fight. As soon as they gloat, even if they beat you, they’ve lost.

If s/d thief is anywhere good he will either kill you or run away. Basically (and i’m considering it is OP) pressing 3 with dodge button is almost all that build does, but to be good at it you should position yourself for infiltrator strike.
And here is where you can counter it. As long as s/d is melee you should find and fight with him near his shadow return circle, surrounding yourself with all kinds of aoe as much as you can. Time frost aura to the use of basilisk venom. Dodge only the lancernous (wrong spelling) strike, i mean the one which steal buffs and do damage. Not try to cc him when he has shadow return, and for god’s sake drop berserker. It is the thing that kills you.
But anyways, if s/d thief is good he’d run away from you in no time.

PS a lil’ tip: barely any thief would use 2 dodges in a row, there would be a brief (~1sec) time for you to hit him with blind or smth like this.

I don’t think S/D is OP, but maybe I have a few tips that could help.

Poison helps them in a big way, keep it off you. Applied by SB poison field, or Mug, mostly. Weakness/Cripple is another big one, don’t let them complete auto-attack chains. If you do, let it drop before you set up burst.

Pay attention to their return spot for Infiltrator’s Strike, if you can see it, (small white circle). Place AoE on it before you drop any CC or stand on it yourself so they get punished either way (no damaging effect on you when they return there).

Cripple/Chill will jam up the distance their rolls go.

Apply as much burning/blinds as you are able to without losing burst, they can’t drop multiple conditions very often and their S/D attack speed is fairly slow.

If they predictably roll in then use Larcenous, just dodge after the first roll. Actually a fairly obvious roll once you’ve seen it on all classes.

I’m S/D as of late. I can’t tell you how to win, but I can try to give a little insight into what S/D is.

Sword is by no means our strongest source of damage. Far from it. It’s got very little burst built into it. It doesn’t have things like backstab (though some may run dagger as an offset, and will switch to that after stealthing) or condition stacking. It has to take you down with raw, sustained damage. This is a boon and a curse. On one hand, they can’t just insta-gib you like a dagger thief can. On the other, there’s no “must avoid” attacks. They’re taking you down with attrition.

They WILL steal your boons. It’s not a matter of their boon stealing being cheap. It’s that S/D doesn’t have any great “spam to win” damage attacks. If you have boons, it’s the obvious tactic, and we’d still use it if it cost twice as much. A lot of burst Ele’s can stack up some serious might. For the love of god, don’t! Switch out of fire or something. Our boon steal could cost 12 initiative. It wouldn’t matter. A stack of 12+ Might would still be worth taking.

Larcenous Strike may, in theory, be the most damaging attack of the set on paper, but that says very little of real life use. Cloak and Dagger offers about the same damage. The cost is higher, but there’s no need to chain attacks into it and it offers all the fun of stealth. In addition to that, both of those “powerful” attacks aren’t that much better than our basic auto-attack chain. The set just doesn’t have a home-run burst button.

Infiltrator’s Strike is S/X’s primary teleport, and it’s dope. It’s a gap closer, escape, root and condition remover. It’s not a stun breaker. If I retreat while stunned, I’ll just be stunned somewhere else. Any sword user worth his salt will likely not engage you without having IS up. IS’s Shadow Return can only return to its original point. If you can camp that point, you’ll reduce their ability to escape with it. If you can’t, it’s still handy knowing where they are likely to end up.

That’s not all inclusive, but it’s a start.

@OP: I wouldn’t worry too much about anyone calling you a noob. In my experience only a low quality player even says that. For them, a kill is unusual. For anyone skilled, they’ve killed so many people that 1 more isn’t a big deal.

As for 1v1, an S/D shouldn’t lose to you as an ele. Similar, you should never lose to a P/D thief. Can the opposite happen? Sure. Its one that one player is way more talented than the other.

Ray.3780:

I don’t think S/D is OP, but maybe I have a few tips that could help.

Poison helps them in a big way, keep it off you. Applied by SB poison field, or Mug, mostly. Weakness/Cripple is another big one, don’t let them complete auto-attack chains. If you do, let it drop before you set up burst.

Pay attention to their return spot for Infiltrator’s Strike, if you can see it, (small white circle). Place AoE on it before you drop any CC or stand on it yourself so they get punished either way (no damaging effect on you when they return there).

Cripple/Chill will jam up the distance their rolls go.

Apply as much burning/blinds as you are able to without losing burst, they can’t drop multiple conditions very often and their S/D attack speed is fairly slow.

If they predictably roll in then use Larcenous, just dodge after the first roll. Actually a fairly obvious roll once you’ve seen it on all classes.

You obviously didn’t read past the title … :P Our OP is an ele .. not a thief.
But yeah, how to beat S/D 3spammer? Hit them after every turn because they are vulnerable then. I can’t beat them on my current warrior because of my low mobility, but anything with a certain range or mobility can take on the fight.

PS: When they use shadowstep/infiltrator’s strike, lure them back to their original location so even when they retreat after being stunned, they’ll still be near you.

Thanks for the constructive information and the lack of flame keep it going, many ppl out there are in dire need of some help.

Even tho it seems that indeed S/D thief is not beatable by an burst elementalist at equal skill.

Honestly D/D ele would be very bad against S/D thief due to the predictable attacks and boon dependency. A Scepter/Dagger ele in an air burst set up would be a better matchup against in S/D thieves and in Tpvp in general becuase lightning strikes are instant and can be timed in between evades.

Here’s Jumper’s description of S/D. Near the end he goes into classes that are easy/dangerous. He notes D/D Ele’s as “warm, buttery toast”. Well, ok. Those are my words but he does spell out how easy it is for S/D to beat them. S/D Ele on the other hand is a “difficult fight” if they can time the lightning strike. His guide is well worth the time to read for an inside look at S/D.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/S-D-Guide-Now-On-IntoTheMists/first#post2669743

nearlight.3064:

Honestly D/D ele would be very bad against S/D thief due to the predictable attacks and boon dependency. A Scepter/Dagger ele in an air burst set up would be a better matchup against in S/D thieves and in Tpvp in general becuase lightning strikes are instant and can be timed in between evades.

I mentioned I´m playing S/D ele

S/D thieves are basically the reason ele and mesmer are weaker right now in tournament play. They can avoid your big attacks too easily. If you are fighting a S/D thief and you notice he is smart enough to dodge your burst instead of just spamming…chances are you aren’t going to beat him.

Good news is: ele counters spirit rangers lol and there are a lot more spirit rangers out there than S/D thieves

Thief’s are anti-glass builds. They are glassy by nature, so if you run a glassy build a thief no matter what his build is gonna poop on you unless you out play him.

I suggest a s/d build and running a lighting strike build. A glass ele still has teh hardest hitting combo in the game. You can still one shot him.

As gc anything any power thief is going to have advantage against you. However, if you attack at the right time you can blow the thief up. You need to time your burst in between evade frames. Just takes practice. S/d thief is vulnerable but only briefly.

well if you’re ele or guardians who depends on boons… S/D thieves will just gonna eat you.. way how to counter s/d thieves are tons of projectile conditions like engineers if i sit into their turrets im dead! or a good phantasm mesmers with lots of stealth utilities veil, decoy and elite mass and using their blurred frenzy for survival or D/P stealthy blinding thieves or mace/GS warrior if they caught me 3secs stun skull crack+hundred blades and when my breakstun is on cooldown im prolly dead!

while s/d thieves using their Larcenous strike (1/2 secs. casting time) that wud be the perfect chance to use your burst skill like Fire Grab… so its all about timing as swinsk said “if you attack at the right time you can blow that thief!” btw flanking strike (evading attack) sequence —-—> Larcenous Strike http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Strike_

Blimm.5028:

Thanks for the constructive information and the lack of flame keep it going, many ppl out there are in dire need of some help.

Even tho it seems that indeed S/D thief is not beatable by an burst elementalist at equal skill.

Yeah, trying to burst S/D thief is like bringing a butter knife in a sword fight, the weapon you’re using is simply not useful in this situation.

The only really way to wrangle an S/D is to put as much condition on them as possible at all times. I know that you might take it as an insult or it’s not the meta, or whatever, but this is the most effective way to deal with S/D thief — heavy condition application and condition damage.

I run S/D all the time and if you are not putting condition on me, I’ll simply dance around you until you die. This is the same reason for every burst build, they are too easy to handle.