Guild Wars 2

Yes, yes lets hurry and get this out of your system now…

“OMG Mesmer OP L2P trolololol!”

Alright, cool.. Just so y’all know. I have plenty of respect for all classes and I tend not to dismiss anything as “OP” or broken or easymode if I haven’t tried it myself. I’d rather put prejudices aside in favor of constructive information.

Just a quick question for any willing to give some advice. Whats the best way to face off a thief? Between hopping in and out of stealth, the only attacks I actually recognize are Heartseeker and Basilisk Venom. What attacks/animations should I look out for and what are some general tips against Thieves?

Basi venom isn’t an attack lol.

Most thieves will be in stealth for about 3s. When it stealths, wait 3s, then dodge.

If your a mesmer, use staff with the blinks, it helps a lot. If he doesn’t have condi removal it’s an iwin.

Also, as a mesmer, stand directly in your clones and it will literally make it impossible to land a backstab.

I would make a thief yourself and play a couple hot joins. best way to learn how to counter a class is to play one. thats why I made a thief, to learn how to counter it.

D/P:

This is the most important: Stand on the blind field that the thief use to stealth with heart seeker. Is a small red circle than blinds you, but if you stand there the thief will hit you and you will be able to see him also you will mess their entire iniciative bar.

D/D

Don’t let the thief get close to you, he will try to use CnD, this skills hits you and stealth the thief. if the thief fails this skill will lost a lot of iniciative.

S/D

I have no comments, since the only tricky mechanic is the CnD (same has the D/D advise).
Keep a distance from him, that will helps a lot.

For other builds I will not comment since are not being used often.

General:

2.- Use root: Root a thief, even if he goes stealth you can still hit him like nothing.

3.- If he goes invisible after 2-3 seconds dodge, he will try to backstab you in that moment because is the duration of stealth.

4.- Go tanky in WvW. most of the players that complain here are noobs in full berserker armor that dies with one backstab. The same happens to GC thieves.

Ranger is a perfect example of this, the best Ranger are the Tank pet master, almost impossible to kill when well played, and are incredible underwater killers.

5.- KEEP MOVING!!! This is the wrost L2P case of all. People specially Mesmer and rangers just stand up and hit, is very easy to us just backstab you.

If you keep moving will be very hard to us to hit you in the back, and because of that our damage will be a lot less.

A thief will never backstab a good player when it does this well.

6.- Use Cripple or chill. This are devastating for a thief. a thief with no movility is dead, we have no defense.

There is nothing special about thieves, the problem is that people wants to fight them as they fight a warrior.

Is the same case for Mesmer and ele, you must know the mechanics otherwise they will always win.

Are you seriously having a hard time killing a Thief? Mesmer is the profession I hate the most as a Thief.

Honestly, I think it would be more beneficial to learn being a Mesmer first before you try to learn your would be opponents. Ok STOP! This is not a L2P comment, it is based on an ancient wisdom concerning training.

So back to what I’m saying.

Even though Mesmer has a limited access to stealth, they can still hide in plain sight. This is what drives me crazy when a Mesmer knows their profession too well. The major part of being a Mesmer is acting — that’s right, learn from Norgu — learn to act.

What exactly am I saying?

If you can discipline yourself to act as if you’re one of your clones, I simply cannot tell the difference and always waste my skills trying to find the right Mesmer. Part of the discipline is to control yourself from shattering your illusions because this will give you away — unless — you know how to act and run towards your target just like your clones.

So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking. Instead, blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.

Another thing I hate the most is the Confusion upon shattering an illusion because if I get it wrong, I get a painful stack of Confusion.

@Sir Vincent III You definitely don’t play mesmer so sit back on this one. I am serious about this. Acting like a clone is not going to help vs anyone playing more than a week.

@OP whats your build? honestly a question like this belongs in the mesmer forums. Your build in this case is going to play a bigger part in how you handle a thief than anything.

If your phant flat out tank his kitten because the iZerker will handle the rest. Keep moving and every time he pops out of stealth there will be an army on him. Shatter is going to be trickier. It going to be all about having your burst ready for when he pops out if stealth (and you still have to out move his stealth burst). The honest truth is in most cases shatter is easy to out play because once you see the illusions running in you know to dodge and burst. Half the time your literally going to have to control them with knockdowns, immobilize, and stuns to get anything done.

Basilisk venom should not be an issue. You have an invul sitting there plus more stun breakers on short CD than any other class. True a thief can burst you down but it is rarely done without response from you. You got staff 2 as another pseudo stun breaker.

If your in WvW if you are ranger, warrior, or mesmer drag his kitten to water. Those 3 classes have a nigh absolute advantage in water.

All that said without knowing your build its nearly impossible to tell you what is wrong. You can just get out played sometimes but its better to know what type of build your running.

Either way the best advice your going to get in this case is going to be from other mesmers. Not that most of the advice here is bad. It’s good. It is just without pinning down what type of build your running its hard to say much.

Please input your build here share it either here on on the mesmer forums and your likely to get plenty of the help you need.

OP – you seemed hesitant about the reaction you might get from people here. I hope you were pleasantly surprised…we can be very helpful when asked politely. I play both thief and mesmer, and as a mesmer, I love taking on thieves…I’m fairly tanky though. As a thief, I really hate going against mesmers.

I’d like to add that there are two main archetypes to look out for in wvw/pvp: Stealth based (dagger/pistol or dagger/dagger) and dodge based (Sword/Dagger). They play very differently from eachother.

People have pretty much covered stealth, but here are a few other things. Our heal that stealths us is a bit longer cast-time (1s) so if you see that hand going up, you might be able to interrupt it.

Also mesmers have the best counter to shadow refuge. Thieves usually use it to get out of tough situations, or to res a fallen comrade, or pull off a stealth stomp. If you see it go down, and are running focus, you can immediately drop into the void to pull the thief out of it, and they will lose stealth. For that matter, if you see them pull out their gun to fire black powder as d/p, they are about to heartseeker through it to stealth. You can drop ItV and pull them out, and then it’s just a harmless heartseeker (never pulled this off, but I believe it’s possible…if you catch the blackpowder before it’s completed. Doing this will leave the thief unstealthed and low on initiative…if they haven’t already, they will start blowing cooldowns on utilities to get into stealth. Chaos storm also fits nicely over our stealth fields, and can do some nice bonus damage.

Regarding the acrobatic builds – they are sooooo glassy. They can steal boons, which is amazing, but they rely heavily on evades and mobility to stay alive, and mesmers can counter this somewhat. Flanking strike hits somewhat hard, but it is easily telegraphed and gives you a second at the end to pull off a shatter, or blurred frenzy. It also usually telegraphs larcenous strike…so if the thief is being uncautious, they might spam right into LS, which roots them for its 1 sec casting time. If you have that blurred frenzy going, that’s some solid damage right there…immediately dodge/roll afterwards if the LS hasn’t been used. The other thing to know is that these builds tend to be strong vs boons, but light on heals and weak vs conditions. So staff works nicely here, as long as you’re not giving away any amazing boons. Confusion is also very effective, as this is a melee pressure build, and rellies on fast attacks and constant evasion up-time. Most likely, the thief runs away, when damaged somewhat and they will be very capable of doing this. Mesmers also have several good gap closers, so focus pulls, iLeap, and blink can all help you…but if you don’t catch them initially, you should probably give up the chase. Osicat on the mesmer forums has some video tutorials about catching runners….that sort of tactic may work somewhat with an s/d thief on the run, though there will be less room for error.

swinsk.6410:

Also, as a mesmer, stand directly in your clones and it will literally make it impossible to land a backstab.

This is the best thing you can do against a backstab thief. Keep a clone behind you at all times. Even the mesmer trait that makes a clone when you dodge is very effective. I end up having to wait a few more seconds for the mesmer to dodge and blink out before I go for the backstab. This will give you time for your cool downs.

EDIT: In addition to clones, mesmers have alot of blocks( Scepter 2, Off hand sword 4 ect.) Use these skills when he goes into stealth. Also the chaos storm from staff is very effective against a thief as it not only gives you aegis but also dazes and cripples the thief.(Also when using the chaos storm run in circles around the inner perimeter so you still get buffs and it forces him to chase you while crippled.) Furthermore, if you have room in your traits, make your clones cripple when killed.

TheGuy.3568:

@Sir Vincent III You definitely don’t play mesmer so sit back on this one. I am serious about this. Acting like a clone is not going to help vs anyone playing more than a week.

Did you even understand what you read from my post?

Obviously not.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

TheGuy.3568:

@Sir Vincent III You definitely don’t play mesmer so sit back on this one. I am serious about this. Acting like a clone is not going to help vs anyone playing more than a week.

Did you even understand what you read from my post?

Obviously not.

If you can’t tell what’s the real mesmer you are pretty kittened up,

Act like a clone just gonna work against a complete noob,

Sir Vincent III.1286:

TheGuy.3568:

@Sir Vincent III You definitely don’t play mesmer so sit back on this one. I am serious about this. Acting like a clone is not going to help vs anyone playing more than a week.

Did you even understand what you read from my post?

Obviously not.

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help. It just reduces their dps and makes getting close and landing hits easier since they aren’t moving.

Sad part is that i’m almost sure he’s able to kill players on WvW with such skills using a thief…

Go to whatever forum your main class is, and ask them.

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help.

The idea is that if you dodge / block /whatever a backstab near your clone, the backstab lands on the clone revealing the thief.
You can also use clones to block the stealth attack of p/d thief.

Even the mesmer trait that makes a clone when you dodge is very effective.

This trait works on both ways when fighting a thief. Having it makes it impossible to dodge cloack and dagger. You may not take the damage, but the thief will get stealth from the new clone.

This will give you time for your cool downs.

And also to the thief.

My attempt at putting my thoughts of how to beat thieves into words.

Build yourself up at least moderately tanky so you don’t die in one BV+Mug+CnD+BS combo. Also if you see your opponent has BV on it usually works to just dodge as soon as they get in range to make them waste it. You can also just use a block skill.

If the thief has bloodlust stacks on it usually means they’re a glass cannon and likely bad. Sorry any thieves out there (I’m not actually sorry) but from what I’ve encountered people who waste time on stacks usually suck. This part is not actually advice or helpful :P.

Moving on, snares work incredibly well on D/any thieves. They have very limited means of escape and if they don’t have the trait to remove conditions in stealth they are usually free kills. You can lead a HS spamming thief to follow you drop some cripple and just slowly kill him.

Worst thing you can do is just stand there and let thieves kill you. It seems a lot of people freeze up around thieves and don’t dodge them or do anything if they stealth. If you have swiftness and some kind of mobility skill just use it to get distance and make the thief lose stealth. If they chase you just take them down maintaining distance if needed. Even if they manage to get a CnD on you you can still avoid the backstab by putting distance between you two.

Blocking and dodging, this appiles when facing any class but you need to be able to dodge some of the more important skills such as BS and CnD. This combo is the highest damaging combo a thief can do to a single target. If a thief is HS spamming whether it be chasing or w/e you can just block them to get him to waste initiative.

SB thieves, if you lose to them its your fault. I have no advice for you here, just learn to not be phazed if a thief pulls out a SB.

D/D bleed builds, you just don’t want to stand there and allow bleed stacks to pile up. Keep moving and apply pressure to the thief, this build requires a high amount of initiative for a moderately low payoff so if you just have consistent condition removal they don’t hurt. Most of all just don’t stand inside their caltrops.

Sword I don’t have much to say about, they are one of the harder sets to beakittens the only set that makes me actually feel like I have a chance of death. Just play against them enough and you get used to them, kinda.

D/P builds make me sigh everytime. I have no idea why people make a big deal about them. They are pretty much just D/D builds in my eyes but they waste more initiative. My strategy for killing them is just to do damage to them and when they drop a smoke screen I just move away far enough away that they can’t HS me from the stealth and when they unstealth I just kill them. My actual strat since I play engie is just to condition the heck out of them and if they stealth I hunt them down so they can’t run.

The main idea is to stay mobile and maintain pressure on them, they’re thieves and die easy they shouldn’t be pushing you down.

Also make sure to push thieves out of SR, its like catching them with their pants down and makes me laugh everytime :P.

If I’m CnD’ing off your clones, shatter them when my stealth is expiring (usually every 3-4 seconds).

I really enjoy fighting Mesmers as a Thief because there’s a lot of cat and mouse stuff that goes on, but I usually feel like I have the upper hand. Staff is good for the defensive abilities, but if they stick with it, the lack of CCs and damage on the weapon means I’m never really in any danger.

Azraeel.1238:

Go to whatever forum your main class is, and ask them.

Ironic considering the common thief answer on how to fight a thief is that you need to play a thief to understand them., In fairness though mesmer is another such class that is the exact same in that regard.

@all: I’m writing on my phone right now, so I have neither the time/thumb strength to write a full-length response to the OP. However, I would suggest showing Chaos a bit of respect (y’all know who you are) as he is an extremely respectable mes and likely plays far beyond your playing abilities.

With that, y’all may continue.

As an answer to the OP, if you are in WvW there isn’t really any good counters to thieves there. Stealth traps are way too expensive to be used regularly to counter thieves and they can disengage at will from even the most terrible of situations if they are good. You can force them to run, for a short while, but you can’t kill a well played thief in WvW. Just play defensively and continue about your business or force them to retreat. Still, if they are good forcing them to retreat might not be an option either if you lack burst damage.

In sPVP I hear they are fairly well balanced. But I’ll leave the sPVP comments to sPVP players.

Simple basic before even engaging a thief. read there utility get use to what they look like if you see stuff like. Assassin signet + Signet of Angilty. that suggest there going to try bs you win in 1 hit. or let say there running Infiltrator signet this suggest there going to chain teleport on to you limit your option of ever running away meaning you should not try to run away fight straight on. last notable skill is Signet of malice when you see this most likely mean your fighting a high Con bleed build thief that going to use bleed caltrops to heal with.
alright now that we got that out of the way look at how to fight a thief.
D/D most D/D thief going to run skills like Infiltrator or Shadow step maybe movement signet probably shadow refuge. alright so know the know the 3 skills there most commenly going to be running what your going to do is stand far away from him becuase you know he going to open with vemon basilisk + heart seeker in to steal combo so you wait for it see him blink you gotta just auto hit dodge. if that misses the thief wasted 3 uility to engage limiting his max use already most thief wont even engage after failing attack like that. k so let say you got hit by it you gotta hit a stun break to stop that combo because he going to do 2 auto attack then CnD finish with a backstab. let say you stun broke it right at heart seeker what your going to do is accept first 2 auto attack hit if you see him go for that CnD you press dodge that waste alot of initiative putting Most thief down only 1 more try it alot easyer to dodge second CnD becuase you moved far enough away where just visally see it. once he try for that second CnD becuase that only thing a thief can really fallow up with you just dodge it again you won the match.
Let look at D/P thief most commonly going to be running Shadow step movement signet shadow refuge. Most D/P thief spec in to cloak on blind is very problematic skill nothing to really worry about. a D/P thief is going open with a back stab you should see him coming with black powder on the ground everywhere. best way to engage a D/P thief is to run at him well he in cloak it take alittle getting use to timing it but what you want to do is just run up to him when you think he beside you hit dodge then he uncloak beside you you have first attack off on him. he going to fallow this up with a black powder assuming your melee your range will out range the black powder but honestly what you want to be doing is just running away he press heart seeker after just keep blinding you with a cloak + blind combo making you do 0 dmg. say you back off he pressing heart seeker on you if you have any skill that do more then one hit say warrior Whirling axe that a great counter to blind it only block first hit then thief take next 9 or whatever it is. biggest aspect when fighting a D/P thief is mostly just trying to stay out of heart seeker range so you dont get blind status so you can hard counter when they try to heart seeker on you. that more or less hole fight if a D/P thief dies it because he over extended.

S/D thiefs in current meta S/D thief been running Shadowstep + Infilrator signet + withdraw. alright so S/D thief are not that complex to deal with there more so just really annoying first thing there going to do is jump on you root you ground press flanking strike fallow up with a CnD press Tatical strike then Flanking strike again endlesss combo. what your going to be wanting to do is only be dodging against CnD everything else does not matter. S/D has little to no dmg output if you block the CnD S/D can not support it initiative cost. forcing them to end up only auto attacking then you just burst them down or they will run away.
P/D thief this is one time you will see signet of malice on a thief. most likly be running caltrap + shadowstep + shadow refuge. fighting a P/D thief is simpler to fighting a S/D thief your main goal going to be blocking that CnD because that where there dmg going to come from fallow up sneak attack. biggest thing to note when fighting a P/D thief is to never stand on caltraps. sounds pretty simple to do when a lot of people forget that simple thing when fighting one. what you should be trying to do be running away from the D/P thief to lead him to running forward CnD so you can easily see him casting it on you to dodge. then hard counter him. if he running after you he cant use caltraps.
(mostly offhand weapon )Short bow thiefs: short bow has nearly no dmg output outside of cluster shot if you can eva that you more or less have the match won. i suggest using some kind of knockdown to limit the thief movements.
S/P thiefs: most likely going to be using Shadow step infiltrator signet and shadow refuge. S/P thief more of a support they deal ok dmg vs light classes but overall if you last threw first 5 seconds of there burst there more or less done. rotation going to look something like infiltrator strike pistol whip head shot pistol whip maybe another head shot. but by that point they just be completely out of initative so you want you be wanting to do just be trying to dodge that stun from pistol whip and draw the fight out to make it so they have no initative to use end up with only auto attack.
P/P thiefs: there honestly no one that play this i fought like 1 p/p thief in about 1700 hours of WvW. BUT if you want to know how to fight them put on a ranged weapon because they just zone you out with black powder never letting you get close enough to engage.
after all that being said there no clear way to tell you how to fight a thief because there many viable way to play one but that should give you basic understanding what you should be looking for in most thief play style. a lot of it just copy and pasted with different skills.

Get some tankyness, if you get a scepter and off-hand sword as well as sword focus, the thief will not be able to land anything against you. With all the blocks from scepter, sword, and passive aiges, the thief won’t be able to land anything really. If they try to stealth up on anything, your clones and phantasms will immediately jump on him, dealing significantly higher counter damage than the thief can do to you. With focus skills, the thief won’t have a chance to clear the illusions/phantasms since everything they shoot will just make them shoot themselves. There’s also all that retaliation that makes the thief kill himself extra hard.

There are a lot more anti thief builds out there but that’s the one I’ve seen to work the best to wreck thieves, engis, and anything else really. It isn’t as bursty but the counter/sustained damage is insane.

Taobella, paragraph spacing, Text organization, maybe even a little bulleting. Because few people are going to read those blobs of text.

sorry guys i hit a text limit ;/ i trying to limit it as much possible

Ralathar.7236:

Azraeel.1238:

Go to whatever forum your main class is, and ask them.

Ironic considering the common thief answer on how to fight a thief is that you need to play a thief to understand them., In fairness though mesmer is another such class that is the exact same in that regard.

True, if you play a thief to know how to counter them, you will know their weaknesses and upon that you know which skills to use and when to use them. Alternatively, you can ask someone who plays your class, and already did the homework.

My point is asking a thief, on how to counter them, is a bit vague as they might not know which set of skills/combos are best used during the fight.

I actually think that for a clone based mesmer, not phantom based, a DD thief will be your worst nightmare since they ( and I do this tactic with clones mesmers) will just CnD off of your clones. Your main battle mechanic will make the fight easier. So stand in your clones to avoid a backstab.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help. It just reduces their dps and makes getting close and landing hits easier since they aren’t moving.

I said;
“Even though Mesmer has a limited access to stealth, they can still hide in plain sight. This is what drives me crazy when a Mesmer knows their profession too well. "

“So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking. Instead, blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.”

So where did you get your idea from?

And those who said that they can CnD the clones, this is what I said;

“Another thing I hate the most is the Confusion upon shattering an illusion because if I get it wrong, I get a painful stack of Confusion.”

It is fairly obvious who are those who has not fought a good Mesmer…only kittenty ones.

Take your aggressive judgmental comments somewhere else. Don’t even bother replying to what I said if you’re not even going to comprehend what I posted.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help. It just reduces their dps and makes getting close and landing hits easier since they aren’t moving.

I said;
“Even though Mesmer has a limited access to stealth, they can still hide in plain sight. This is what drives me crazy when a Mesmer knows their profession too well. "

“So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking. Instead, blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.”

So where did you get your idea from?

And those who said that they can CnD the clones, this is what I said;

“Another thing I hate the most is the Confusion upon shattering an illusion because if I get it wrong, I get a painful stack of Confusion.”

It is fairly obvious who are those who has not fought a good Mesmer…only kittenty ones.

Take your aggressive judgmental comments somewhere else. Don’t even bother replying to what I said if you’re not even going to comprehend what I posted.

Patient thieves shine on mesmers. If traited, CnD will stealth you for 4 seconds, if your CnD kills a clone, you have 3 seconds of confusion, your stealth will outlast and outheal the confusion and the dmg given by the shattered clone. CnD’ing off of the clone is one of the better tactics for a DD thief, and I don’t remember me ever quoting you directly and insulting you/doubting your playstyle. The mesmer class was one I, like many others, feared greatly. But it turns out that that tactic is actually one of the better ways to deal with them. As for hiding in their clones, anyone’s guess on how to counter that counter is as good as mine.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help. It just reduces their dps and makes getting close and landing hits easier since they aren’t moving.

I said;
“Even though Mesmer has a limited access to stealth, they can still hide in plain sight. This is what drives me crazy when a Mesmer knows their profession too well. "

“So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking. Instead, blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.”

So where did you get your idea from?

And those who said that they can CnD the clones, this is what I said;

“Another thing I hate the most is the Confusion upon shattering an illusion because if I get it wrong, I get a painful stack of Confusion.”

It is fairly obvious who are those who has not fought a good Mesmer…only kittenty ones.

Take your aggressive judgmental comments somewhere else. Don’t even bother replying to what I said if you’re not even going to comprehend what I posted.

Patient thieves shine on mesmers. If traited, CnD will stealth you for 4 seconds, if your CnD kills a clone, you have 3 seconds of confusion, your stealth will outlast and outheal the confusion and the dmg given by the shattered clone. CnD’ing off of the clone is one of the better tactics for a DD thief, and I don’t remember me ever quoting you directly and insulting you/doubting your playstyle.

My reply was not directed at you or a direct reply to your post, rather about CnD-‘ing a clone in general against Mesmers who knows what they’re doing.

The mesmer class was one I, like many others, feared greatly. But it turns out that that tactic is actually one of the better ways to deal with them. As for hiding in their clones, anyone’s guess on how to counter that counter is as good as mine.

That’s the thing. There are people in this thread who are so hasty on calling others names when in fact they have no idea what they are talking about. A decent, but not a good, Mesmer knows this basic principle about their profession that standing inside your clone (meaning clipping inside the clone) hides you in plain sight.

That’s why I said;
“…blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.”

And if you review the responses to my post, it’s clear as day that either they are Mesmer who are full of themselves, or they never fought a good Mesmer while playing their Thief.

And the best advice he gave was,
“…The honest truth is in most cases shatter is easy to out play because once you see the illusions running in you know to dodge and burst. Half the time your literally going to have to control them with knockdowns, immobilize, and stuns to get anything done.”

lol, seriously? Obviously he doesn’t realize that the more he moves the more he stands out and I can escape his shatters by a simple Steal/Showstep/IS.

This is the advice of someone who said;
“@Sir Vincent III You definitely don’t play mesmer so sit back on this one. I am serious about this. Acting like a clone is not going to help vs anyone playing more than a week.”

lol. Well, I sure wish TheGuy.3568’s advice works for you.

Goodluck running around where I can pick you out and Steal+CnD+BS+HS you to the ground.

Oh yeah, take his advice and send all your illusion to me as soon as I pop-out of stealth, because while your illusions are running towards me, I will be up to your FACE in an instant.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I have to dissagree with your post as well, mesmers are very easy to pick out from clones and standing there with them is not going to help. It just reduces their dps and makes getting close and landing hits easier since they aren’t moving.

I said;
“Even though Mesmer has a limited access to stealth, they can still hide in plain sight. This is what drives me crazy when a Mesmer knows their profession too well. "

“So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking. Instead, blend in with your illusionary crowd and you’d be safe.”

So where did you get your idea from?

And those who said that they can CnD the clones, this is what I said;

“Another thing I hate the most is the Confusion upon shattering an illusion because if I get it wrong, I get a painful stack of Confusion.”

It is fairly obvious who are those who has not fought a good Mesmer…only kittenty ones.

Take your aggressive judgmental comments somewhere else. Don’t even bother replying to what I said if you’re not even going to comprehend what I posted.

Ok so mesmers are really easy to pick out from clones.

Simple things to look for:

-Item buffs

-Bloodlust stacks

-Chaos shield (clones can have this too so this isn’t a sure thing)

-Weapon being used

-The skills they use

-If they chase you when you unstealth. Generally if I can’t discern which is the real one I put space between us and see what chases and how it chases. I don’t play thief too much anymore so it’s much easier to pick the real one due to them auto attacking more frequently. If not using stealth just keep moving and occasionally put some distance between you two if having trouble finding the real one it creates much easier givaways.

-If they do or don’t move. This is more something you get used to picking up on but trying to blend in is a waste of time since it is almost impossible to move exactly like an npc would. Also I find most players trying to blend in don’t auto attack making it easier to pick up on them. Dodging and moving in a way that isn’t directly towards you (as their pathfinding allows) is also a dead givaway.

-Look for conditions and condition ticks. I don’t waste time attacking clones so typically it is most likely that the real one would be taking the most from conditions.

-Target the real mesmer, yes this seems obvious but it seems a lot of people don’t do this. Mesmers don’t run directly at players or stand still when being chased. If a mesmer stealths wait for him to unstealth at which point it is easy to get the real one. Also target the real one from the start.

A mesmer standing amoung clones can only do damage and blend in if you let him. You can also CnD off the clones without too many problems and it can also be used to find out the real one as usually the real one won’t notice you for that split second you appear and dissapear.

WonderfulCT.6278:

Ok so mesmers are really easy to pick out from clones.

Simple things to look for:

-Item buffs

-Bloodlust stacks

-Chaos shield (clones can have this too so this isn’t a sure thing)

-Weapon being used

-The skills they use

A skilled Mesmer will know this and they know how to act.

As I said,
“Part of the discipline is to control yourself from shattering your illusions because this will give you away — unless — you know how to act and run towards your target just like your clones.”

I’ve seen this multiple times, when a Mesmer shatters and running along with their clones towards you. Then as soon as the illusions shatters, they pop Mirror Images , losing track of the Mesmer again.

-If they chase you when you unstealth. Generally if I can’t discern which is the real one I put space between us and see what chases and how it chases. I don’t play thief too much anymore so it’s much easier to pick the real one due to them auto attacking more frequently. If not using stealth just keep moving and occasionally put some distance between you two if having trouble finding the real one it creates much easier givaways.

They’ll never give you that time to distinguish which is which. Most of the clone generating skills are on a short cooldown.

-If they do or don’t move. This is more something you get used to picking up on but trying to blend in is a waste of time since it is almost impossible to move exactly like an npc would. Also I find most players trying to blend in don’t auto attack making it easier to pick up on them. Dodging and moving in a way that isn’t directly towards you (as their pathfinding allows) is also a dead givaway.

You’re describing an unskilled Mesmer.

This is why I said;
“So the lesson is, if you stay at the back trying to attack me from ranged — you’re a dead man walking.”

Only unskilled Mesmer stands out like a sore thumb.

-Look for conditions and condition ticks. I don’t waste time attacking clones so typically it is most likely that the real one would be taking the most from conditions.

Very situational and you’d be relying on the fact that they don’t bring condition removal — again, only unskilled Mesmer will not bring a conditional removal. They either have a Null Field or Arcane Thievery.

-Target the real mesmer, yes this seems obvious but it seems a lot of people don’t do this. Mesmers don’t run directly at players or stand still when being chased. If a mesmer stealths wait for him to unstealth at which point it is easy to get the real one. Also target the real one from the start.

Again, skilled vs unskilled. It only takes one visit to the Mesmer forum to know the difference between them. And everytime the Mesmer create a clone, via Mirrior Images or Phase Retreat (staff #2), you lose your target.

A mesmer standing amoung clones can only do damage and blend in if you let him. You can also CnD off the clones without too many problems and it can also be used to find out the real one as usually the real one won’t notice you for that split second you appear and dissapear.

The only problem is, this thread is about how a Mesmer can beat a thief. So saying that Thieves can simply CnD the clone doesn’t help the OP.

Besides, what kind of Mesmer doesn’t spec 25 in Dueling and not using a Sword in main hand? Obviously not a very good one.

I also see mesmers use blurred frenzy when they think the thief is near, that usually helps. Requires some educated predicting though.

Hey guys, I haven’t gotten to read through all of the replies just yet.. but just a thing of note (Ugh this really doesn’t help the Mesmer = OP argument but…):

Its not that Thieves give me any specific trouble more than any other class.. Its that win or lose I usually have no idea what just happened. The thief’ll jump in and out of stealth and attack with varying degrees of success and about 20 seconds later one of us is dead.
The problem is, I don’t feel like I’m learning anything from the fights.. Which is why I came here.

If it helps, in sPvP I usually run some variant of a Shatter build. I’ll take either Decoy(Stealth+clone) and/or Blink (Teleport anywhere within 900) and some sort of Condition removal.. and I always carry a 1h Sword. Everything else varies.

I tend to use PvP Knight’s Amulet with Zerker gem.

TY for all of the great info though, theres some really awesome stuff in this thread and if there’s more to learn please keep it coming as I’ll be checking back.

bobross.5034:

OP – you seemed hesitant about the reaction you might get from people here. I hope you were pleasantly surprised…we can be very helpful when asked politely.

Thanks man, I definitely was scared I’d be walking into another jaded forum (*cough*sPvP*cough*)