Guild Wars 2

Use hammer #5, save shield #5 for when the thief uses shadow refuge, its always funny seeing a confused thief being knocked from stealth.

Tryble.6819:

…should I just spin in place to keep it from landing on my back?

If all else fails this is probably your best bet.

Black Powder Shot + Lotus strike gives 3 sec of stealth unless you stack it and its hard to do if in melee range of BPS. So generally thief has 3 sec do backstab after BPS+LS also depends on a thief but LS will most likely leap him toward you.

If the thief stacks stealth a mile a way then it its hard to predict when hes gonna jump you since he has time to set it up, but its ether hes rushing straight for you or not.

If the thief is in melee range while he pops BPS its almost certainly is going to happen in 1-2 sec after LS. Your best bet here is to simply dodge backwards so even if he lands a BS it will not be full damage.

Good luck with that mate.

Lymphy.1276:

Black Powder Shot + Lotus strike gives 3 sec of stealth unless you stack it and its hard to do if in melee range of BPS. So generally thief has 3 sec do backstab after BPS+LS also depends on a thief but LS will most likely leap him toward you.

If the thief stacks stealth a mile a way then it its hard to predict when hes gonna jump you since he has time to set it up, but its ether hes rushing straight for you or not.

If the thief is in melee range while he pops BPS its almost certainly is going to happen in 1-2 sec after LS. Your best bet here is to simply dodge backwards so even if he lands a BS it will not be full damage.

Good luck with that mate.

Lotus strike:D

Heartseeker my bad i keep calling it Lotus Strike for whatever reason

For guard you have a couple options.

1. Soak it up, if you’re running bunker bs shouldn’t hurt that bad. The idea is to take it, then punish them for showing their face. Since you have hammer I’m sure you know where to take the rest of the show.

2. Most thieves I’ve noticed (watching pvp lobbies) don’t just enter stealth and immediately aim for a bs, the point is to actually get on their back so they plan and sit in stealth for the duration they can. If they have high stealth up time this can be an issue but if they don’t, you can usually just wait 1-2 seconds and dodge. They will miss bs and yeah.

3. Can try to free aim skills. Like banish. You’d be surprised how predictable most thieves can be, landing the skill especially a cc orientated one is great.

4. don’t dance in black powder shot. Guardian attacks are too slow to cover it up, and melee range exceeds the radius of black powder anyways.

otherwise, rest is just learning over time. Best of luck to ya.

Hello Tryble.

Keep in mind, Backstab does half damage if he strikes you from in front so make a good use of positioning and rotation of your character and try to predict the thief. Normally the builds with highest damage have 3s stealth and blackpowder+hs always gives 3s stealth no matter what build. So anything that will prevent him from hitting you will do the trick, be sure to also use the sigil which gives 50% endurance back on weaponswap to allow you to throw in an extra dodge if necessary. Having swiftness up and you move around will also make it hard for the thief to land a backstab.

Chain your cooldowns well, the better you’re at it the longer you’ll last against the thief, by throwing in some damage as well this will force the thief to play more defensively and will disable him from playing fully offensively which in the long run will cause too high pressure in a short time.

Also the block heal is really handy when the thief enters stealth.

If the heartseeker lands (you see this since you take damage when he enters stealth) dodge at 90° to where he came at you from then jump turn to face your old position and back off slowly, he then has the choice to “facestab” you and do less damage or drop out of stealth.

If the heartseeker does not land (you see this since you not take damage when he enters stealth) back of slowly while counting to 2 on 3 either use block or dodge at 90° and turn to face the old position, he should come out of stealth at that point.

If in either case he stays in stealth he has either used utlities or is wasting initiative on more BP-HScombos, either way keep moving and turning.

If at any time you know for sure he is close drop the bubble and onleash aoe, you can hit him even if you do not see him, thieves have no reliable access to stability other than daggerstorm, he will eat all your aoe damage inside the bubble, stealth will not help one bit.

Another tactic not listed here is you could always just accept the death. Just let the sweet damage roll in and fall over. If you see a white light at the end of a tunnel, maybe check it out and see what it has to offer.

turn around. stop treating backstab as a “they win if it lands” proposition. it is more like they certainly lose if it misses and are in bad shape if it facestabs.

so no, you cannot avoid every single backstab aimed at you.

1. Always auto-attack It may look dumb, but If you hit the Thief your auto-attack chain will continue, otherwise it won’t.(Note this doesn’t work with all weapons and especially not ranged weapons)
2. Prediction. He will aim for your back so you kinda know where he is gonna be right?
3. Know your enemy. I mained Thief and thanks to that I manage to avoid backstabs fairly well, because I know what a Thief wants to do.
4. DO NOT fear Thieves! This one is very important. If you encounter a Thief don’t just stand there and hope for things to go well, act agressively! Attack the Thief, try to hit him in stealth, if you just let him attack you when he wants, he will win.
(Obviously you are kinda limited in sPvP to attack him out of the capture point, but use this to your advantage! The smaller the territory, the less places for the Thief to be)

Also CC wrecks thieves especially with teammates around. Sumo ring will either wreck them or blow their cooldown. Scepter 3 is another great setup esp. since you don’t have to be facing them.

If your team is good and you lock them down + call target them… They shouldn’t be much of a problem.

if you’re a bunker you should always be running double energy sigils. That’s instant access to 4 dodge rolls. You also have aegis via virtues, shelter, and renewed focus. You can even use renewed focus without getting decapped since he can’t even reveal himself while stealthed if you’re invuln.

Tynyss.8237:

4. DO NOT fear Thieves! This one is very important.

it’s mentality.
In many MMO games when most people get 1 hit from a truck(here let’s say 10~15k) they start to panic and smash random keybinds.

In general the thief only has 3s to 4s stealth. This means that you have to “survive” in that time period. This also means that in that time period, the thief will run from his last known position (LKP) to your back. If he doesn’t use any shadowsteps, you can count the time he needs to get to you (while you’re kiting with your back away from LKP). Just before he would arrive you, you dodge forward and turn again (debatable).

I dodge forward cause I recon the thief is at my back already, which means that dodging forward creates more space than dodging backwards. But it’s debatable I suppose, some ppl recommend dodging backward cause it’s further away from LKP.

As a thief myself, I’d use the same tactic, only go offensive when he reaches close to me. Pistol whip for example has an inbuild evade which if lucky, also does some damage to him while I outlast his stealth. Mesmers can use blurred frenzy. Warriors, ele’s, necro’s (and maybe even others, Idk) can use PbAoE CC. Like someone said earlier, you have #5 on hammer and #5 on shield though I personally don’t like using #5 hammer because if you miss it, it has a high cooldown. On my thief, I have initiative so I just have to adjust slightly for missing my pistol whip and go more defensive. But the cooldown for the guard’s knockback is too much for a gamble imo. And like said before as well, shield knockback is held for shadow refuge.

Tao.5096:

Tynyss.8237:

4. DO NOT fear Thieves! This one is very important.

it’s mentality.
In many MMO games when most people get 1 hit from a truck(here let’s say 10~15k) they start to panic and smash random keybinds.

A bunker guardian should not take more than 4k dmg from a backstab in sPvP.

when im on my main 2 classes…. i pretty much NEVER get backstabbed. seriously idk what everyones problem is