Guild Wars 2

No, stop giggling, I’m not making a joke. I’m serious!

How do you kill these heavy armored, heal happy, I-don’t-even-know-why-I’m-chasing-this-guy-halfway-across-the-borderland guardians!? Honestly, by the time their health is low enough to pile a burst combo, they just heal back up….And people complain about thieves being OP in resetting fights…

Yeah, okay, my hits can probably hurt more than the guardian I’m chasing…but still! There’s gotta be some way to kill these armored tanks.

by auto attacking with d/d and going as glassy as they are tanky

Clumsy.6257:

by auto attacking with d/d and going as glassy as they are tanky

I do that. They…just…heal…

Okay, if I go any more zerker glassy than I am now, I’m literally gonna get one-shot by any class. I need some survivability.

I have managed to kill one guardian recently, but I believe she was just an uplevel, so it wasn’t really a win. She would not even engage me until a zerg was nearby. (Thank goodness for shadow refuge. XD )

Don’t attack them? I personally just let ah guardians feel bad by leaving them be since that’s the only way they will get any kills.

Sort of like staff mesmers before Traveller runes.

Guardians virtually have no mobility, and in tournament play they are always burst spec (from what I have seen) so basically you must out burst them and last all of their meditations and play better than the guardian.

Or you can just work on another target, probably your best option.

The thing worst part about guardians is the retal. Once you get past the retal, they are just tanks that do no damage. My suggestion is to run a D/P build with boon stripping. When they have retal up, avoid autoattacking. Also have to time your backstabs. Don’t hit him when he has protection on. If they have it for long durations, strip is from them.

Steal their mace headcrack, do damage, when they are low, use said mace to prevent them from doing anything, thats it generally in a nutshell, results may vary

Go S/D and just constantly daze them using the stealth autoattack, using their headcrack steal spell against them when they are low.

i just AA freely
with p/d its very very easy

Chase.8415:

Guardians virtually have no mobility, and in tournament play they are always burst spec (from what I have seen) so basically you must out burst them and last all of their meditations and play better than the guardian.

Or you can just work on another target, probably your best option.

Most of the Guardians I fight in tournaments are mid-bunkers, not off guards, lol. :P

Since I’m not built to kill healing tanks, I just ignore them.
Otherwise, I guess any glassy dagger mainhand setup might do the trick, keep good
sustained dmg, spike them when they are going low and use their headcrack
to prevent them from healing up.

Fighting a skilled, well-built Sc/F + GS Guardian can be frustraiting though, lots of counters to spike dmg, lots of blind, lots of CC and lots of dmg. Always feels like I would need a tanky build with the dmg of a glass-cannon to kill them.

Against the rest of the skilled glass-guardians, survive their burst and let them blow all cds and they get vulnerable.

And the casual guardians, just keep high pressure on them and head crack.

Boonsteal is really useful to get rid of protection, and if you run a really glassy build try catch them off-guard as always. Time your burst in windows when they don’t have protection up, also look out for stability and aegis if you’ll use BV.

It’s boring fighting guardians.

As a d/d thief, throw dagger to blow aegis, c+d, backstab, back out as at this point they’ll do the GS spin/lay down a mark. Once their little dps display is over, move back in for some aa,c+d and backstab again.

You’ll have to go through some heals, their invincible ultimate, some more aegis. Yawn….it’s boring to even type.

All their damage is in a small circle around them, so basically duck in and out non stop.

Don’t ever go for one in a zerg, takes way too long to kill.

but could the guardian kill you?
as far as i know killing an average thief is almost impossible.
either you kill him or none dies.
thats why thieves are op.

jihm.2315:

but could the guardian kill you?
as far as i know killing an average thief is almost impossible.
either you kill him or none dies.
thats why thieves are op.

Yeah very very super OP. That’s why the most used class is thief . . . .

If you are measuring the OPness of a thief by their ability to run like !@#$% . . . well what can i say of your game play.

jihm.2315:

but could the guardian kill you?
as far as i know killing an average thief is almost impossible.
either you kill him or none dies.
thats why thieves are op.

Valid point, the neverending health guardian can’t kill me… (or at least I haven’t died to one yet)

But their high defense makes it all the more of a challenging fight.

Arikyali.5804:

jihm.2315:

but could the guardian kill you?
as far as i know killing an average thief is almost impossible.
either you kill him or none dies.
thats why thieves are op.

Valid point, the neverending health guardian can’t kill me… (or at least I haven’t died to one yet)

But their high defense makes it all the more of a challenging fight.

cause we cant really run anything else than tanky builds,
i tried damage/support build with 2k toughness and 18k health and one backstab reduced my health to the one third ,
back to shield and full toughness cause otherwise wvw is unplayable.
guardians bet is to survive and find a safe spot
thiefs bet is to kill or just hide when he sees more danger

:D You re-roll a warrior, that’s how.
Seriously though, sPvP (not tPvP) wise, I’ve killed guardian with p/d condi bleeds… um their a bit of a pain but usually either I kill them because I can (and they suck) or because they give up trying to survive (long+boring fight). Sometimes I disengage and ditch them cuz it’s pointless…

Zero Day.2594:

:D You re-roll a warrior, that’s how.
Seriously though, sPvP (not tPvP) wise, I’ve killed guardian with p/d condi bleeds… um their a bit of a pain but usually either I kill them because I can (and they suck) or because they give up trying to survive (long+boring fight). Sometimes I disengage and ditch them cuz it’s pointless…

for you it might seem pointless,
other thieves might chase you to the other side of the map trying to kill you.
warrior might be a good idea since guardian cant really hit stuff properly.
im back to my tanky build already, a lot times better than trying to deal damage.

Honestly these post are just….sigh.

Look depends on the build. How to kill guardian is a bad question unless you are specifying WvW vs Spvp and Burst Medi VS Heal Away or shout tank it is hard to say what you need to do.

In WvW no guardian build has enough soft or hard CC to keep you locked down all by itself. In general vs tanky builds just run. The guardian ask the same question about thieves in general just ignore simple as that. PD wont do anything vs a bunker guardian. Your best bet (if you are feeling up to it) is exactly what was said above use SD and stun when needed use the stolen daze at low health. The main issue is any guardian half awake going solo vs you is likely going to have a block on heal and and invul state to recharge virtues. So even when they are low they will be fine for a minute opening the door to fight back if they were losing. From the guardian perspective almost any thief fight is unfair. They cant keep us in combat so it is up to the thief when the engagement starts and ends. Either way the fight is boring.

In Spvp S/D for bunker builds. Burst builds it is really about if you get caught off guard or not. He is running as risky if not much riskier than you are. If he lands his burst gg if not burst the guard down yourself.

Just go full zerker and you can kill anyone as a Thief. I really don’t see how a Thief can complain about not being able to kill a bunker build in WvW when everyone else cant even kill a zerker Thief ever. The slow Guardian cant escape you and if it’s two vs one he will drop fast as long as it isn’t two bunkers. If it’s another zerker build a Thief will always win or be able to reset the fight till he does win. You try to kill a zerker Thief one on one or even five on one he will always escape.

jihm.2315:

cause we cant really run anything else than tanky builds,
i tried damage/support build with 2k toughness and 18k health and one backstab reduced my health to the one third ,
back to shield and full toughness cause otherwise wvw is unplayable.
guardians bet is to survive and find a safe spot
thiefs bet is to kill or just hide when he sees more danger

If you’re playing a a tanky support build and running alone (either roaming or just trying to get to your zerg), you should expect to fare poorly in a one-vs-one against someone specced to kill single targets. On the other hand, you’re far more useful in a group or zerg than a thief. It’s just a tradeoff.

My staff elementalist gets wrecked by thieves if they catch him alone. However, once I get back on the commander chip, I will contribute more to my server’s success with the ele than I would with my thief. More bags, too!

glaphen.5230:

… when everyone else cant even kill a zerker Thief ever.

If you’re going to engage in the debate, consider starting off with a message other than “I am either dishonest or deluded, but here’s what I think…”

I play full glass/damage and honestly I don’t go out of my way to chase anything that’s too tanky/survivable, because it’s complete waste of time.

I call those “troll” builds. Any build that doesn’t kill you, but is really hard to kill. So best way to fight those? Ignore and walk pass. The kill isn’t worth the points anyway.

Instead, go for the glassy types!

Oghier.7419:

glaphen.5230:

… when everyone else cant even kill a zerker Thief ever.

If you’re going to engage in the debate, consider starting off with a message other than “I am either dishonest or deluded, but here’s what I think…”

Please master explain how to kill a Thief in WvW that isn’t a moron. The only counter to Thieves is a Thief using a zerker Backstab build. Anything else and the Thief will always escape. A fight with a Thief in WvW either ends with you dead or the Thief escaping and possibly coming back to try again.

glaphen.5230:

Oghier.7419:

glaphen.5230:

… when everyone else cant even kill a zerker Thief ever.

If you’re going to engage in the debate, consider starting off with a message other than “I am either dishonest or deluded, but here’s what I think…”

Please master explain how to kill a Thief in WvW that isn’t a moron. The only counter to Thieves is a Thief using a zerker Backstab build. Anything else and the Thief will always escape. A fight with a Thief in WvW either ends with you dead or the Thief escaping and possibly coming back to try again.

…..if thieves were that OP, I think Anet would nerf them even more….

@OP

Pick-up a sword and a dagger and coat it with poison.

All right, so far it seems to be:

-S/D with strong use of the tactical strike daze
-strong use of venoms
-f1 to stun when not in stealth
-avoid retaliation

So the main idea is to focus on steady consistent damage while disabling their defenses. That would require a build that’s very different from my current setup, but this’ll be fun to try out.

Edit: So if my sole target was a tanky guardian, with the assumption I can avoid enough damage from simply being mobile, this would be build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlUmKNHaS7E/5EBXhk69Asj1saPk5NjJA-jECB4MCik0BiOAMFqIasVhFRjV3ATjiIq2joIa1SBo1aA-w

-I played with the precision values and crit damage, and couldn’t get them high enough without taking condition damage into consideration. So might as well just go full condition with steady damage and no reliance on crit.

-With only 2 skills to grant stealth, initiative is buffed to increase CnD availability. Also reduces the cooldown of stealing, which applies daze consistently, and can remove 2 boons.

-Only picked scale and venom (and basilisk) since a guardian is already reduced in movement. I chose scorpion wire to add in a control move, but I suppose it can be replaced with blinding powder.

-Gain might with venoms to make up for the lack of crit. can also swap the 10 points in Shadow Arts for 10 points in either critical strikes or acrobatics, as another source of might. (If going for critical strikes, drop scorpion wire for either assassin or infiltrator’s signet)

-Seeing what the new healing skill does, might switch out Hide in Shadows for it. But this would drop stealth availability to only 1 skill that takes a fair amount of initiative, so probably drop scorpion wire for blinding powder.

Thoughts?

I can tell as a Thief and Guardian main that Guardians are a real thief nightmare.

In fact, watching thiefs trying to gank my Guardian is simply sad, last one that tried I killed with the Staff for the fun of it.

That said, the headcracker strategy is the best (you can also use Pistol #4 if you have it around, anything that can interrupt a heal).
The idea is to take advantage of the Guardians low offensive ability by keeping pressure with Daggers 1#, cut their heal short and finish him.

Against offensive Guardians, pay attention to the Focus Shield Burst skill. If you can evade that you are good to go.

Nonethless, guardians could kill thiefs even in the days Thiefs WERE really broken. After all those nerfs, best is to leave that class to your partners and focus on something else.

EDIT: Oh, and for the love of Good, make sure to waste the Guardian Aegis before trying to backstab him. Wasting iniciative with C&D on Aegis is deadly against a Guardian.

In WvW I have a lot of success with P/D and perplexity runes. 10,0,30,0,30

I use my Steal to interrupt his heal. Then use skullcrack to stun again.

Typically if you Steal (interrupt) C/D and then Sneak Attack followed by a shadow shot they will have poison, 8 stacks of confusion, vulnerability, blind, bleed and torment on them. They see all the conditions and they start shouting to get rid of them and blow up on the confusion.

The fights really end fast. of course they have to not be great players but I find most WvW guards aren’t too savvy.

Arikyali.5804:

…..if thieves were that OP, I think Anet would nerf them even more….

You’re implying that they care about the WvW balance at all.

Burst them, then run circles around them.

Oh, and don’t pop your Basilisk venom until you’ve gotten rid of their Aegis.

Dahkeus.8243:

Burst them, then run circles around them.

I did that with the last guardian I fought. She attacked me, we fought for at least 5 minutes, disengaged, then we both looked at each other for a few seconds before going along our separate ways.

I don’t think bursts work. XD

You compain about guards?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
S/d just daze the hell out of them and when his health is down the mace bash thingy you steal from him and burst him or even place thieves guild near him and if he have reta use the stripping dual skill..

but serously guards are easy,on the other hand PREPLEXTY COND WARRIORS GOD ANET WHY WHYYYYYY

soooo based on this thread, guardians are both faceroll easy for thieves, but also so tough to take down that it’s not worth fighting them.

haha no wonder anet has such a hard time making changes to thiefs.