Guild Wars 2

I’m used to being insta-downed in 1-2 seconds by a thief who leaves stealth right next to me, being an ele squishball and all.. but this time I was downed in literally about 1/2 of a second. Wish I had it recorded. It was pretty unbelievable. 19k health gone before I could even dodge-roll.

So I guess there’s no better place to ask.. how do I defend myself against thieves?

I assume you are a staff ele? You didn’t mention. I also assume WvW.

It’s easy to slam 20k burst on a squishy ele, even for a marauder thief. Thieves unfortunately prey on squishy eles, however you do have a few options. This is what squishy eles do when I jump them.

a.) Run the Arcane Shield utility/trait that blocks damage for a few hits. That should make you survive a bit longer, enough to blink away.

b.) Pop mist form and escape into the nearest tower/keep.

c.) Don’t leave the tower/keep wall. Use /wave /dance /laugh to taunt the thief. Slam 5k meteor showers ticks on the thief as he tries to scorpion wire you off the wall.

Just predict the steal and 10+k followup backstab. Thats about it regarding counterplay unless you run focus or d/d. Thiefs are a fun and interactive class to play against….

Really depends on the thief’s weapons and your build, honestly. Celestial/offtank roamer or aurashare should be able to just facetank and out-sustain most thieves when played and rotated well.

FA and D/D are both pretty good options to counter a thief playing D/D power stab from the shocking aura interruption on their combo as well as good ranged blinds. Most people don’t play D/D power, though.

Against a D/P thief which is a lot more common (likely what you fought), it’s a lot more difficult, but crit damage immunity traited via Earth is strong to one that’s building power-stab. Signet power-stab D/P is pretty much entirely a gamble on how much health and armor its opponent has and since the AA buffs is also very easy to play and provide follow-through damage with. Just how it is.

Staff… not much you can do aside from dodge vault at the right time (practice this) and apply CC at the right time as well while trying to hit them hard and fast in the interim. This is also very tough if they’re good due to how much damage negation it has available.

Most things in general just crush berserker/DPS ele given the asinine damage buffs to the elites and how forgiving they are.

There are three ways to avoid being killed by a thief;

1. remain in the lobby
2. play PvE only
3. press alt+f4 as soon as you see it

As self defeating as ever? Some players actually do want to genuinely improve, Savrty.
Also you forgot dis lil bit:

4. Hide behind numbers and spam laugh.

At a certain skill level using FA ele you will destroy 95% of thieves in this game. The matchup is entirely how good YOU are not how good they are. This is the ideal situation to be in

Ive seen some amazing arcane vanilla ele’s burst harder than a DD and have those auras that negate damage for a few seconds.

Even seen these win a 3v1.

of all ele builds i fear the most is fresh air. ranged dps is a pain for a thief, let alone ranged burst. but it also depends how good of a fresh air ele he is.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

of all ele builds i fear the most is fresh air. ranged dps is a pain for a thief, let alone ranged burst. but it also depends how good of a fresh air ele he is.

Once a player becomes good enough with FA ele the thief is actually countered due to ranged burst, passives, & cantrips. The problem is the player playing ele has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so most of you thieves are safe.

Svarty.8019:

There are three ways to avoid being killed by a thief;

or play just about any strong bunker build… trying to kill an bunker engi or tempest even in pure glass is nearly impossible against a decent player.

Azukas.1426:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

of all ele builds i fear the most is fresh air. ranged dps is a pain for a thief, let alone ranged burst. but it also depends how good of a fresh air ele he is.

Once a player becomes good enough with FA ele the thief is actually countered due to ranged burst, passives, & cantrips. The problem is the player playing ele has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so most of you thieves are safe.

Once a player becomes good enough with thief the ele is actually countered due to stealth bursts, insane mobility, easy interupt procs, and huge evade uptime. The problem is the player playing thief has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so really good eles are safe from average/mediocre thieves. Let’s be honest here, top thieves just laugh when there is a non bunker ele on the enemy team they can farm all match.

ArthurDent.9538:

Azukas.1426:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

of all ele builds i fear the most is fresh air. ranged dps is a pain for a thief, let alone ranged burst. but it also depends how good of a fresh air ele he is.

Once a player becomes good enough with FA ele the thief is actually countered due to ranged burst, passives, & cantrips. The problem is the player playing ele has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so most of you thieves are safe.

Once a player becomes good enough with thief the ele is actually countered due to stealth bursts, insane mobility, easy interupt procs, and huge evade uptime. The problem is the player playing thief has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so really good eles are safe from average/mediocre thieves. Let’s be honest here, top thieves just laugh when there is a non bunker ele on the enemy team they can farm all match.

All of this is based on the assumption you see the thief coming. If you don’t and you’re on low health, there’s not much any class can do besides get lucky with dodges. That’s the nature of +1 classes in general really.

You don’t defend against thieves. Please don’t, stop defending yourself! LET ME KILL YOU!

- Signed, a Terrible Thief.

For real though…? Try playing the class for a bit if you already haven’t. Learn their abilities and traits and such. You’ll at least get a rough idea how they operate, and you MIGHT have fun in the process.

Depends on the build of the thief:

If it’s staff, these types will usually spam the #5 skill which can result in a quick loss of initiative (not all the time as there are some players who dont vault spam but a ton of them do)

P/P: projectile blocks ftw. Also runs out of initiative quickly due to Unload spam and if you force them to miss even 1 unload shot, they don’t get the bonus initiative. These types are also easy to interrupt

D/P: This one is kinda tricky where they can stealth when they need to. One trick is to stand in their red smoke field ring to force them to stop stealthing, thus wasting init on stealthing more. Shadow Shot can hit pretty hard (You see a dark projectile that when it hits you, they teleport to you). When they are stealthed, expect this (watch for the dark projectile) or the steal + backstab combo.

Being an ele yourself, you can negate a lot of the DPS damage by traiting in earth line and taking Stone Heart (its the crits that hurt the most and a lot DPS thieves rely on the crit damage for these 1 or 2 shot kills).

Earth also has blinds, which can really hinder a thief. If you are running S/F, you have immunities/reflects/blind/cripple (if tempest) all while on earth. D/F is crip/immob as well.

Ive seen some wicked Arcane vanilla ele’s take out thieves lik ethey were nothing, with auras (like that one that pops and you get no damage) and arcane skills for great damage even when ranged.

ArthurDent.9538:

Azukas.1426:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

of all ele builds i fear the most is fresh air. ranged dps is a pain for a thief, let alone ranged burst. but it also depends how good of a fresh air ele he is.

Once a player becomes good enough with FA ele the thief is actually countered due to ranged burst, passives, & cantrips. The problem is the player playing ele has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so most of you thieves are safe.

Once a player becomes good enough with thief the ele is actually countered due to stealth bursts, insane mobility, easy interupt procs, and huge evade uptime. The problem is the player playing thief has to learn how to play it. Most players don’t so really good eles are safe from average/mediocre thieves. Let’s be honest here, top thieves just laugh when there is a non bunker ele on the enemy team they can farm all match.

Spoken like a true player who refuses to practice then complain on a message board.

Get your personal skill ceiling higher than let’s talk