Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I need some help.

As the title states, I’m having trouble standing up to condi engineers, perplexity and otherwise. They just do way too many condis and I melt before I can do much damage.

I’m just wondering, is there a way to beat these guys or is it just one of those things I have to live with. I run d/d, 0/6/6/0/2, valk armor with zerk trinkets. This is for WvW specifically for roaming/1v1’s.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Use your second weaponset.
Sbow, s/d… Those can help

Engineer vs. Thief is probably one of the hardest counters in game.

The excessive condi-spam combined with the large amounts of CC and kiting make it an extremely uphill battle.

As Domey pointed out, this is one of the few fights where a ranged weapon is actually useful. Harasses them from range, trying to avoid their condition and never fight them inside their supply drop. Once you’ve taken out his towers and chipped away at his HP….you can switch and try to go for some burst.

This prompts a lot of Engis to go into “kite mode”, blowing a lot of their CDs. So fall back again…harass with bow and wait for another burst opportunity.

The big problem with this tactic though is maintaining your health. It’s difficult to sustain yourself when you haven’t got any stealth to fall back on. So your dodges have to be spot on.

S/D tends to fare a little better since the dodge spam can avoid a lot of the CC and damage. But it’s a bit random and can easily go south if your dodge-frames don’t align perfectly.

What Dee Jay said really, but here’s a few thoughts of mine.

This fight is all about positioning, and figuring out what kits the engi has equipped. The engi is a zone control class which means they’re more dangerous in small/confined spaces, so you never want to try going toe to toe with them without weakening them first. Thieves are excellent at kiting, so keep moving around and save your steal and shadowstep for when you want to burst. Take advantage of your mobility and use terrain to juke him with infiltrator’s arrow. Don’t chase him going for a last heartseeker if he’s spamming bombs, and as other’s have said, don’t try to fight in his turrets. Play to your strengths, not his.

A lot of engi’s in WvW run toolkit and either bombs or grenades, often both. That means they will likely open with magnet pull>crowbar confusion>supply crate lockdown>condi spam. If they don’t have rocket boots, this will often be their main gap closer so save a dodge for that magnet pull and keep track of when it’s off cooldown if possible. They also often use incendiary powder which can trigger on any hit on a 10 sec cooldown, so you’re going to be on fire a lot and it will hurt, cleanse it ASAP.

Using so many kits for that CC also means that the engi has very little room for stunbreaks and condi cleanse, so take advantage of that. If you’re using shortbow, try to keep poison fields down and detonate cluster bombs just before they hit for the extra stacks of bleeding. Using thieves guild in a shadow refuge then using the shortbow sneak attack is a good way to set up a burst, since the summoned thieves will pull the engi out of his turrets and blind him too.

The lack of stability often means that daze spam from S/D will work well, especially since you can use the sword to close gaps and retreat without burning a utility. You can also use larcenous strike to hit him when he’s blocking. Try to only switch to D/D when you can burst him down with one CnD>backstab>heartseeker combo, as you’ll be vulnerable if it doesn’t kill him.

The best thing to do is to duel an engi friend for a while and get him to tell you what he did/what you didn’t do. I hope some of this rambling actually helps :P

Edit: Sorry about the wall of text :/

I’ve main’d both for a long time now. currently back on my engi since the april patch I’m learning more about how to counter engis in general. as stated before sb and s/d is your best method IMHO. tactics i used on my thief would be to waste my utility stealths like BP or SR to immobilize them. a engi standing still is a dead engi.

If you are facing a GOOD engi ON POINT, you as thief wont win. just wont. if its not on point you have a chance but its really tough. Gotta usa you mobility and keep the conds low

I find P/D and S/P builds to have the biggest chance against engineers, or S/D with some luck, unblockable LS and nice crits, otherwise the fight will always be in the average-to-good engineers favor. And ofc, disengage with Shortbow when needed, engineers work best in close to medium range, so staying slightly above medium range will give them difficulties to hurt you.

Engineers are really weak against conditions, applying poison along with 2 or more other conditions will reduce their sustain a lot. Even PU mesmers can create really high pressure on engineers. And confusion and torment hurts them a lot too.

I usually avoid engaging engineers 1v1 since I know very well how easy it is to outplay thieves with them.

Here’s a duel video from what looks like just after the patch (at least based on the amount of Might stacking on Sizer).

http://www.twitch.tv/teldoo/b/521536475

Teldo isn’t even using his supply drop and Sizer never really has much of a chance. So if the Engineer knows what he’s doing, you really don’t have much of a chance.

Condi engis have always been a thief’s bane…in fact any class with good burning upkeep is a thief’s bane – Condi engis, d/d celestial eles, dps guards.

Before lyssa nerf, I’d say the matchup isn’t so bad, but after lyssa nerf, thieves just simply cannot deal with the relentless condi(burning) spam. You can’t outplay incendiary powder unfortunately.

If you’re talking spvp then Condi engis will always be a huge problem in WvW however you can easily deal with them by
A) run shadow arts , shadow’s embrace , cloak in shadow and shadow’s rejuvenation.

b) have pistol dagger off hand , they melt to that set ( you don’t have to be condi , i am not , power p/d works just fine ).

The combo of throw gunk and sneak attack is so deadly , you easily stack burn , poison and confusion of them and engis usually have terrible condi cleanse.
actually. you can combo it with dancing daggers or even auto attack on short bow these are little things that matter when fighting an engi

I’m terrible at explaining stuff lol but if you are in game message me we’ll go into an spvp dueling room and i’d fight an engi there so you can see what i mean.

Swap to bow and kite. Condi Engi tend to rely on Grenades or Bombs to condition burst you. If you stay at range and kite them they should be relatively easy to kill. Disabling Shot is pretty horrible at the moment, but if you use that wisely to cripple while kiting it helps a lot.

Amaterasu.6280:

Condi engis have always been a thief’s bane…in fact any class with good burning upkeep is a thief’s bane – Condi engis, d/d celestial eles, dps guards.

Before lyssa nerf, I’d say the matchup isn’t so bad, but after lyssa nerf, thieves just simply cannot deal with the relentless condi(burning) spam. You can’t outplay incendiary powder unfortunately.

Yup Lyssa nerf hit thiefs pretty big yet people continue to complain how thief is so op nothing can really beat them bla bla bla.

Ghostwolf.9863:

I find P/D and S/P builds to have the biggest chance against engineers, or S/D with some luck, unblockable LS and nice crits, otherwise the fight will always be in the average-to-good engineers favor. And ofc, disengage with Shortbow when needed, engineers work best in close to medium range, so staying slightly above medium range will give them difficulties to hurt you.

Engineers are really weak against conditions, applying poison along with 2 or more other conditions will reduce their sustain a lot. Even PU mesmers can create really high pressure on engineers. And confusion and torment hurts them a lot too.

I usually avoid engaging engineers 1v1 since I know very well how easy it is to outplay thieves with them.

To be fair though not much can really beat a PU mesmer esp if they condi and its a duel to the dealth.

Thanks for the advice guys, I’ll be trying some of your tips out