Guild Wars 2

Hey guys.

Question of the evening is: “As a thief, what are the ways you have found of best dispatching a necromancer?”

I have asked this question to a few friends of mine that main thieves. The consensus is “omg run away” or “burst them before they can touch you with sickness”. It’s hard for me to believe that one class can be this dominate to another class, and that there is potentially no a viable way of dealing with them other than what I’ve mentioned.

So, what are your thoughts?

Remove condition’s on stealth/Regen health on stealth.

My way to fight condition necro’s

D/D Shortbow
0/30/30/10/0 wvw survivable back stab build with faster movement speed in stealth to help land bs

Initiate with steal d/5 bvenom combo quick back stab and as many auto’s as you can before he stun breaks. If you can’t burst him below half back off and wait for his shroud. Switch to shortbow and evadeshot/autos/roll/evade shot/auto’s till it’s over. Don’t’ worry about a few conditions but watch for out for torment stacks and bleed stacks. DON’T let them get over 4, or let yourself have more than 5 conditions period. If this happens blow your heal even if you haven’t taken much damage. He’s melt you before you know it. Just get rid of them before they hurt you. You may think you’ve wasted your heal however his cool-downs are wasted for nothing and you still have a shadow refuge.

If you’ve negated all his initate burst and conduction stacking you’ve won the fight before it started. but you have to kite that death shroud. Also use you’re shortbow when he uses that shield ability. I don’t play necro’s so I don’t know the names I just learned how to fight them through experience. Don’t waste your intuitive trying to burst it down. Just hit him with a posion field and and a cluster bomb to negate his damage if you miss an evade. Keep your distance let him blow his cooldowns. He should be at about 50-75% health with no cool downs and a few utilities it won’t matter at this point though cause your next combo will finish him.

Switch back to d/d you need infiltrator signet or shadow step for this, signet is easier. Do your d5 combo again but with the signet instead of steal since it will prob be on cool down. Chances are he only had one endurance bar left at this point. Make sure you’ve noticed his dodging patterns. Does he roll forward, back left right? does he double tap to roll? you can see by the glitchy movement.

Roll forward = shadow step roll distance quick backstab
Roll back = pressing forward during d/5 combo to push farther behind him, make sure you rotate yourself or you’ll wiff your d5
Roll left-right = a roll of your own to get swiftness this roll is the best way to avoid a back stab.
Double tap = foward during d/5 instant back stab you’ll have time to pull it off
No roll= lulz

Anyway so you’ve used signite d/5 combo with a backstab from around 75% health he should be around 25% to 40% with no endurance hopefully.

Few options here
1.)Go all in, this can kill you if he has utilities he’s low not dead. he can still blow you up. You will take a lot of damage this way cause you are focused on bursting. I’ve died this way before cause a necro can kill you if you are both in the downed state.
2.) give a few autos or a heartseeker and switch to short bow and finish him off at ranged.
3.) blow your shadow refuge and wait for the final backstab
4.) use the fear skull you stole and heartseeker spam.

After this it’s a matter of stomping him. Make sure you stealth stomp they do good damage in teh downed and if your low they can still kill you. Here is a good stomp method. D/5 start stomp animation Shadow Step away utility skill. As you are about to finish stomp shadow return to avoid fear and to avoid getting spiked while stomping. if someone comes to help.

I hope you found this useful g/l

I run S/D D/P, I’ll usually CnD with S/D or spam D/P 5+2 skill(this combo deal damage if your HS hit the necro) and follow them while waiting for their form to goes off(Never played a necro, never bother what the skill name is, but I think you know what it is). The key here is to make sure their form is gone so you can easily dps them.

Against a good necro it’s difficult when running a DPS melee build. I do not recommend using D/X or S/X. Reason being is that they have a TON of aoe in the form of traps. They can stand in them all day. Well emit constant blindness as well, so it’s hard landing the CnD. I recommend using SB.

Switch to SB and 5,5,5 away.

30 points in SA :Cond removal /stealth heal
i’ve found blidning powder very strong against necro’s to counter the double fear
with shadow refuge you can disable all his aoe whells and remove all conditions before backstab. When necro’s utility’s are on cooldown they are vulnerable.

I run D/P. I find that if you can surprise a necro it isn’t that hard.. however, like some say a GOOD necro is difficult to beat 1v1. I’ve gotten the drop on some necro’s with Stealth + Basilisk venom backstab (make sure they aren’t in deathshroud)… get as many dagger 1 in as you can while they are stone. Usually when they break out of stone, they’ll try and pop a heal and if you pay attention you can headshot them to interrupt, then pressure them with rapid 1-1-1-1, then black powder + heartseeker them to stealth, and backstab again which drops them.

If you’re D/D you won’t have the pistol 5 + dagger 2 combo to stealth but like Jayw said, you can employ basilisk venom, a cloak and dagger + gap closer (steal or infiltrators signet) followed by immediate backstab to essentially get the same opening effect. I really think he has the best info.

I’m nowhere near pro yet, and good necro’s in 1v1 usually cause me to run away, but I’ve been learning to at least make it that far instead of dying lol.

P/D here. Necros don’t give me problems thanks to the condi remove on stealth with the healing tossed in. If I can get in and avoid a fear chain, they’re toast sooner or later.

If I can’t get in, or they get a handle on me, I’ve never failed to bail.

I usually shortbow from range. Dodge roll any aoe. Save shadowstep for fear. Burst when an opening presents itself. If they use lich or plague I rip the stability immediately. Lich form is easy to kill w/o stability. Plague just use ranged and your stolen fear after stability is ripped. Well played necro should not lose to thief but its still possible to beat them.

I run d/p 10/30/0/0/30 burst build with shortbow.

In wvw they are super easy with 0/30/30/10/0 in full zerkers. 10k backstabs and condi removal in stealth. Just don’t eat a chain fear with stun break down.