Primi Agminis Legio [PAL]
Yaks Bend
Lately I have been running into a lot of warriors that run Axe/Shield Greatsword and they are very tanky and they do a lot of damage. I only hit them for around 5-6.5k with a backstab but I have been hit up to 10k with some of their attacks. They also regen for around 400 HP a second which is insane. So how do I kill them? It seems like a very very unforgiving build to play against. One mistake and you lose half of your life. Are their any techniques to use when fighting against them or do I hope I don’t run into any decent player running this build?
For reference I run a standard D/D backstab 10/30/30/0/0 build.
2.3k Power, 2,550 Armor, 15.5K HP, 121% crit dmg
I just think its unfair that a class can be so tanky and out DPS/Burst a thief. :/
#WarriorOP2014
Insane skill. Seriously, warrior is so broken that you need to be a god to kill one.
Poison to reduce their healing and a TON of blinds.
I find using p/d and standing in black powder fields works very well and i almost never lose to wawrs anymore. if they pop zerkers stance switch to shortbow and kite with the 3 skill. if they are ranged make sure u hit ur steal and use the whirling axe skill to reflect all the projectiles.
I find it especially hard to deal with axe/sh and gs warriors because of the immense pressure axe auto attacks put on you- they hit me for 1.5-3k most of the time and I have around 2.5k armor. I also find that whenever I CnD they simply block, or dash out of my range with GS. They don’t even have to dodge my attacks because they tank all of it no issues. Thankfully eviscerate is fairly easy to dodge, but you can only dodge so many times, and when it hits it’ll hit for usually 7k or so on me. I normally run D/D and like it the best, but I switch to D/P JUST for warrior builds like this. Most warriors won’t even realize the blind is on them and you can dish out your damage a lot better. Also always try to keep poison on them w/ your AAs, it’ll help stop HS.
I usually don’t have a hard time with them and use asimilar build. Shadowstep is great for catching up/getting the hell out of dodge. I hav inf. signet for when they are about to reset. First things first
1. try to pull off a full D autoattackchani, the last one will apply poison.
2. Blindness on stealth (lifesaver!), you can CnD when they “leap” for the adrenaline stun and it wont hit you because he/she missed. A bit hard to time though.
3. Fight dirty. Reset if you need to because you will have to. Dodge the hammer push (the spin one) in SR to not get owned.
4. You’ve basically won if you get him to 40% or lower and catch him when he’s trying to reset. You need to apply constamd pressure and get the opening right so this happens.
5. For the love of Dod DODGE THE EVISCERATE and SHIELDBASH. You it’s coming when he’s switching his GS.
6. Don’t let ‘em run but chase carefully. Nothing is more annoying then getting a warrior close to the ground and then kiss the ground yourself. Endure pain is a nice tool for this so keep an eye on the buffs. If you’re revealed and he’s inv. apply poison and or get out of range.
7. Use the shortbow. The shortbow tele has a blind and evade. I usually use it when im in trouble. The poison field will reduce his healing effectively if he’s stupid enough to stand in it. Also poison field + clusterbomb = weakness. It will save you from those pesky 7k evisc.
While it’s true beating this warrior spec is kitten D/D it’s not impossible. You just have to play carefully and not allow the warrior to recover because YOU are their worst nightmare. the healing signet is weak against spike builds and if you get that CnD + backstab + autoattackchain off in the start be sure to cripple them with dancing dagger to not let them run away. They will probably use shield/enduer pain at this point so just try to stay alive and get that CnD + backstab combo again or just stay in stealth as soon as they can be damaged again, hit! If they are below 40% it’s a good idea to autoattack and heartseeker.
Practice makes perfect so don’t be discouraged.
Also if you want an easier fight do as the people before me have suggested, get pistoloffhand and stand inthe blindingfield + heartseeker when its about to dissappear. Much more forgiving. with D/D you’ll have to restealth quite a lot and be very aware of your opponents next move. It’s a bit late so I apologise for any spelling mistakes or errors in this post. Good luck fighting the goodfight
As an extremely self respected member of the thief community let me tell you that dire gear with apoth trinkets is what you need. i run that with tormy runes and warriors are like a cake walk. plus the build is mega under the radar, and you only get respect when you kill people with it. no hate. ever. period.
Im just curious are you the thief from Borilis pass or SBI that I killed yesterday ? Im also runing Axe\shield and GS and you cant be tanky while using this build or eviscerate will deal no damage. Im running full zerker and thieves hit me for 9-12k BS. But usually I pop endure pain+zerker stance and out burst them very quickly .
I think this build truly is an anti-thief build because of the burst it has but its terribad against everything else. You dont have enough CC to shut down a necro or an engi . Not enough sustain to kill a good meditation guard and so on.
My advice would be to save your basilik venom and not use it at the begining like most thieves. Because the warrior has the advantage over you , you already used your lyssa runes for nothing while the warrior did not .
The typcal thief mistake is basilik venom , CnD , BS and HS spam . This dosent works , all you have to do as a warr is endure pain + eviscerate and the thief will be almost dead. Your first strikes must be just to burn the warr’s cooldowns and never try to burst at the begining .
I have a warrior running this build and he has 2.9k toughness (w/ zerker armor and trinks). As a thief and as a warrior running this I have neither seen a backstab nor been backstabbed for 9-12k. I only hit 9ks and up on uplevels or EXTREMELY squishy ele’s or mesmers. Sorry, but I call. But yes the rest of your advice I agree with. Some warriors will pop endure pain if you startle them enough, so I sually wait for that then use basilisk venom. This build is also not “terribad” against everything else- it’s imo well rounded and only lacks against extremely good players. Always be extremely cautious around warriors: one mistake and you’re toast.
I find using p/d and standing in black powder fields works very well and i almost never lose to wawrs anymore. if they pop zerkers stance switch to shortbow and kite with the 3 skill. if they are ranged make sure u hit ur steal and use the whirling axe skill to reflect all the projectiles.
If you do use this, just remember that it’s possible for them to stand just outside the black powder cloud and still hit you if you’re standing in the middle of it. You’ll need to drop it and then back into it a bit, meaning they have to move into the cloud to hit you. Might have to do some bobbing and weaving, but it’ll also just allow you to stealth and avoid their offence if need be (assuming you haven’t burned you initiative on other things). Berserker stance also makes them immune to blind, so it won’t work if they decide to pop it (although you can just stealth away from them if that happens).
The cheese warriors can be hard. They simply have a lot of pressure. One of the best things to do is make sure you can keep range and do damage while staying out of melee.
If you are power, use short bow and keep pressure up with poison and auto-attacks. While using nr3 to evade backwards. It’s definitely harder for power builds.
Easier is a P/D condition setup. You can use nr3 to stay at range and apply torment. Then just back up using auto attack from pistol. While running my dire setup I almost felt sorry for warriors. If you manage to open up with a poison field from SB, then go P/D, steal, nr1, nr 3, nr 1 they go down so quick, especially when chasing you due to torment!
All in all, you cannot miss your dodge/evade against some of the high burst/stun stuff. One mistake and your shadow step is gone. Another and you are in really big trouble!
Easier is a P/D condition setup. You can use nr3 to stay at range and apply torment. Then just back up using auto attack from pistol. While running my dire setup I almost felt sorry for warriors. If you manage to open up with a poison field from SB, then go P/D, steal, nr1, nr 3, nr 1 they go down so quick, especially when chasing you due to torment!
This – Pistol/dagger is a direct counter to this kind of warriors. Shadow strike totally removes their damage output. The only drawback is they are going to flee with greatsword whenever they are low on hp, and most likely you won’t catch them. You could try using devourer venom at this point.
Problem with this is as mentioned, the warrior will just walk away if you keep cheesing him and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to catch up.
Also it’s a slow process, so the chances of someone else joining in the fight are high.
At some point they’ll also pop condition immunity, so that’s at least 8 seconds of not doing damage.
Personally I just hate the condition meta, it’s slow, boring death by small ticks of damage.
axe dps >scary than gs. Sigil of impact + shield bash + Eviscerate = pain.
I’ve dueled one before thinking they were going to drop easy (wvw), using d/p roaming build and even after jumping in the middle of a 1v1 between the 2 (the other guy was my team) and him having less than 50% hp he just regen back up and bs only hit for 6-7k. Constant blinds and stealth weren’t enough to throw him off, axe aa is quick and shield lets him regen freely for 3 seconds. The only thing stealth would of done if I had spammed it was drag the fight on until someone else joined in, against Healing signet you can’t prolong a fight.
I have killed the few of those warriors I have met and barely taken a scratch with a d/d and p/d hybrid setup. If one relies on straight conditions it will take a bit of time but I get his health low with conditions and build up my own might with dodges , hides and heals and then switch to d/d to inflict raw damage with a heartseeker or backstab.
Either devourer or basilisk is on the tool bar to freeze him for just that right time.
Dodging at the right time is key. With RFI, Signet of agility and withdraw on the toolbar you have around 7 dodges available which can be spaced out so as to ensure there always one you can use. #3 off the p/d dagger said is also very handy as can be the semi evade of the death blossom on the dagger dagger set.
Make a P/D condi build. Kill any warrior stupid enough to fight you.
I’ve fought a few of these 1v1 lately, I always outplay the hell out of them on my thief, problem is there’s no way I can catch up to them once they realize they have no chance.
Warriors getting free 25% movement speed with the ability to leap out of draw distance at a whim (or towards someone running, but i’ve never seen this) is hilariously broken, I can’t even consider chasing with shortbow because if I waste all of my initiative teleporting towards them they’ll be able to just turn around and instakill me.
Dagger/pistol+poison
weakness
Under-rated point of the thread. Don’t sleep on Weakness: it’s devastating to Power-based builds, and Warriors are no exception to this rule.
You’re limited to combos with Choking Gas if you are running D/D with the OP’s trait spec, but Lotus Poison is a great source of Weakness for 15 DA, and Weakness in the auto-attack chain is one of the things that makes Sword effective for fighting Warriors as well.
Everyone else basically said what needed to be said so I’ll add in this: You will get hit, it’s an extremely likely outcome of any battle. But if there is one thing you don’t want to be hit by, its bullrush to set up for one hundred blades, shieldbash, and worst of all, eviscerate. For the love of all that is holy dont get hit by eviscerate. I’ve seen numbers from that move my thief dreams about.
Poison to reduce their healing and a TON of blinds.
Naw, even poison/blind doesn’t work because of warrior’s insane healing, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance.
As for weakness (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), thief doesn’t have nearly enough of it to be worth much. Cleansing Ire and Zerker stance, again, remove any weakness that you’ll apply as well.
On my S/D build, when I play sPvP, I can beat the majority of warriors. They’re not so overpowered that it’s literally impossible to kill them, but against a half-decent warrior, it takes some extremely strong skills to get the advantage and pull out a win. There’s really no solution (like poison and weakness) to warriors; you just have to pull out the stops and go toe-to-toe with them.
In WvW, it’s almost impossible to kill any warrior. You’d better have some great gear on you.
Warriors are kid play with my P/D Condi build. And I recently got Perplexity Runes, with almost make me feel bad for them.
Warriors are kid play with my P/D Condi build. And I recently got Perplexity Runes, with almost make me feel bad for them.
lol okay then superstar
Naw, even poison/blind doesn’t work because of warrior’s insane healing, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance.
Oh please. Warrior healing (which is about to be ratcheted back, for those not paying attention to the devs) is significantly scaled back by our plentiful access to poison. Cleansing Ire only works if you connect, and Zerker Stance in this match-up is facing a class that can disengage at will.
There are countermeasures to poison/blind, but they are not some unassailable fortress of protection that makes those conditions “not work” for the purpose of winning against a Warrior.
As for weakness (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), thief doesn’t have nearly enough of it to be worth much. Cleansing Ire and Zerker stance, again, remove any weakness that you’ll apply as well.
Thieves without 15 DA or Sword are the only ones that have this problem, since they are forced to combo off of Choking Gas. Sword-users can re-apply Weakness at the end of the auto-attack chain (which means that if a Warrior removes it, you can put back on), and everyone else has Lotus Poison (suitable for Steal or Lotus Strike).
On my S/D build, when I play sPvP
This is a thread about fighting Warriors in WvW. Look at the OP’s stats. PvP is basically irrelevant to the point.
In WvW, it’s almost impossible to kill any warrior. You’d better have some great gear on you.
This is nonsense. I’m nowhere near the top 1% of Thieves, and I have plenty of Warrior takedowns. I can even kill those Benny Hill types that go Sword/Horn + GS and try to outrun everyone when it looks like they are going to lose.
WvW is full of people of all skill levels, so if you can’t take out a Warrior here and there, you either have a really wack build or you don’t play often enough.
Warriors are kid play with my P/D Condi build. And I recently got Perplexity Runes, with almost make me feel bad for them.
+1 to this. P/D isn’t great at taking down the Warriors that run (due to lack of chase in that build), but they definitely can’t beat you, and will lose eventually if they stay and fight.
One of my funniest memories in WvW is when I was running a Perplexity build, chilling out standing still and capping a sentry point. A Warrior came flying in from far off (from clipping range: almost had enough time to make a sandwich), and lit into me. After a couple of timely Interrupts, he was sitting on 13 stacks of Confusion, and basically killed himself.
A noob, to be sure, but I still chuckle every time I think of him charging down the hill Braveheart-style, thinking this Thief was easy meat.
Naw, even poison/blind doesn’t work because of warrior’s insane healing, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance.
Oh please. Warrior healing (which is about to be ratcheted back, for those not paying attention to the devs)
Yeah, an entire 8%. Warrior’s going to be unplayable now.
is significantly scaled back by our plentiful access to poison.
It’s only significantly scaled back if there’s a 100% poison uptime. If it’s, for example, a 1/3 uptime, then the healing is only scaled back by ~1/9 of the original value. On the other hand, a burst heal can be entirely reduced by poison with a single 1s poison (for instance).
Cleansing Ire only works if you connect, and Zerker Stance in this match-up is facing a class that can disengage at will.
Not if your opponent is running Longbow. Either way, though, the short recharge and lack of adrenaline loss on missing Arcing Slice or Eviscerate makes it extremely easy to get rid of condis anyways.
Not sure what you’re trying to say about Zerker stance.
There are countermeasures to poison/blind, but they are not some unassailable fortress of protection that makes those conditions “not work” for the purpose of winning against a Warrior.
Why don’t you show me some gameplay where you use blind and poison as your primary mechanism for killing warriors.
As for weakness (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), thief doesn’t have nearly enough of it to be worth much. Cleansing Ire and Zerker stance, again, remove any weakness that you’ll apply as well.
Thieves without 15 DA or Sword are the only ones that have this problem, since they are forced to combo off of Choking Gas. Sword-users can re-apply Weakness at the end of the auto-attack chain (which means that if a Warrior removes it, you can put back on), and everyone else has Lotus Poison (suitable for Steal or Lotus Strike).
That weakness is only, at max, a 26.67% uptime if you’re absolutely optimistic about it, and if your opponent is getting auto-chained by the sword auto attack constantly, then he has much larger problems than just facing weakness. That you think otherwise makes me question how much you actually know about the weapon set, and, for that matter, thief.
On my S/D build, when I play sPvP
This is a thread about fighting Warriors in WvW. Look at the OP’s stats. PvP is basically irrelevant to the point.
I was making a comparison. Furthermore, to say that my point from the standpoint of sPvP is “irrelevant” is completely and abhorrently wrong; there are very few differences, statistically speaking, and the method of getting points and the size of the maps are irrelevant themselves to the nature of 1v1s, which is the standpoint from which I’m speaking.
In WvW, it’s almost impossible to kill any warrior. You’d better have some great gear on you.
This is nonsense. I’m nowhere near the top 1% of Thieves, and I have plenty of Warrior takedowns. I can even kill those Benny Hill types that go Sword/Horn + GS and try to outrun everyone when it looks like they are going to lose.
WvW is full of people of all skill levels, so if you can’t take out a Warrior here and there, you either have a really wack build or you don’t play often enough.
Yeah. that’s what it is.
I was talking about good/half-decent warriors, or warriors with good gear. I can kill just about anybody too if they a) suck or b) have terrible armor.
Also, stop with the veiled insults, you’re just making yourself look ridiculous.
Yeah I mean I understand that poison reduces healing but people seem to be thinking warriors stand still. Shortbow #4 is the best since it has a long poison uptime (until they clear it) but it’s only long if one stays in it for the full duration. On its own, the shortbow is ineffective toward warriors since it does little damage to them, which they passively heal, and most ini is spent evading to keep distance with the occasional cluster bomb.
That brings me to dagger mainhand, Lotus Strike, at the end of an autoattack. Yes it gets there, but a common tactic I see is just getting the wildstrike out and then evading because the warrior usually comes hard with an attack at that point, so even getting a lotus strike out is risky, let alone several.
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