Guild Wars 2

I recently started actively playing PvP in this game and I’ve been trying to learn several different professions, so that if I eventually pick one profession to main I know how to counter the rest. I’m surprised by the lack of thief PvP guides that are being made. I mean, there are a couple of good ±10 minute videos explaining typical trait builds, skill choices etc, while for most other professions I have been able to find very lengthy guides that do not only state the obvious but also go very much in-depth on how to fight other professions and really play your character to it’s highest potential. My main issue with thief (S/D and D/P) is currently that thief is really squishy compared to most other professions, because of which perfect dodging, disengaging etc is even more crucial on the thief than it is on any other profession. Still I cannot find any in-depth guide explaining how to fight other classes as a thief. I understand that thief is not really meant to go 1v1 against other classes but more to decap points, finish off squishies etc, but everyone will inevitably find themselves in a 1v1 situation with another player every now and then where being able to kill that player or at least survive for a little while to contest/defend a point can be very benificial for your team.

I’ve found several topics where people asked a similar question, but there isn’t a complete guide on how to counter other professions as thief anywhere. I think it would be very helpful for the thief community to have one of those guides as thief can be a difficult profession to learn. I’d love to write this, but I’m a rubbish thief, so that would be somewhat…pointless. So I tried to think of a way in which veteran thieves can share their knowledge about countering other professions in an understandable and helpful way, and came up with the following:

How about we make a list of common professions/builds people will face in sPvP, and experienced thieves can then post a reply explaining their thought processes when they fight a specific profession/build. I will then copy-paste any well-written explanations in this first post (of course giving you credit for what you wrote), so we will eventually end up with a list of explanations on what you should be paying attention to when facing a specific profession/build. If enough experienced thieves contribute to this, I think we will be able to create a great guide that will help a lot of new thieves.

Please look at the third message in this topic for a compilation of the different explanations people have added so far (I initally overlooked the issue that there’s a limit on how long posts can be so it’s in the 3rd post)

I suggested some professions/builds to start with. Of course if you would like to cover another build that is not listed here, feel free to do so, and I will add it to the list. It’s probably a good idea if we focus on the most common thief builds in sPvP, so currently (December 2014) S/D and D/P. Again, if you would like to cover a different build, feel free to do so.

If all experienced thieves who read this would pick one build they know a lot about and write a short 5-minute section on how to counter it, we will get a great guide to help out new thieves in no-time. Thanks for reading, I hope you will consider contributing to this project\

Again, please refer to the third post for a compilation of all the different build. thanks

This is how you counter:
D/D Elementalist
Selver.1307:

Bait out their cantrips as best you can, play defensively when they are in fire until you can get past drake’s breath and fire grab. Watch out for RTL and updraft (sometimes combo’d) in air. Earth they can aa while not facing you, and earthquake is the skill to watch out for here. Churning Earth is easy enough to avoid, but careful of the cripple. Their 3 in earth is a projectile that will immobilize you and they can jump to you after it lands, it’s often a good setup for earthquake (the knockdown). If you can anticipate water, go ham, go ham and go hard. keep poison applied best you can, and try and get your steal from them off as soon as you can after they hit water. Once they switch to water and out of it is your ONLY (against a good dd) time frame to kill them. If they get water back up they may have a utility up again and you’ll have to chew through at least 33% of their HP again (if you can survive that long again). Keeping protection (and to another extent regen and vigor) off of them helps tremendously they can have great uptime on boons in general

Celestial Rifle Engineer
?

Bunker Guardian
?

Terrormancer Necro
?

Condi Ranger
?

Power Ranger
?

Hambow Warrior
?

S/D Thieves
?

D/P Thieves
Selver.1307:

you just have to keep them from getting that bp>hs combo off. I have found a great use in pistol offhand 4, scorpion wire, traited steal, to do this. They will get stealths off for sure. you can too. keeping blind off can be problematic, especially saving dodges for their inevitable stealth. it is thief v thief though – go play dp and get your butt handed to you and see how it happened. Once you get the hang of dp it’s stupid strong and you almost don’t want to go back to dd. I miss cnd too much though. That comment goes for sd too, those are mainly dodging larcenous, CnD, and the third aa chain, and keeping track of their return circle.

Shatter Mesmer
Selver.1307:

We all but hard counter. Dodge their zerker, their unload spam phantasm, and get out of or evade frame from sb#3 the lockdown from their sword, it’s a setup for their pistol whip equivalent (you wouldn’t believe I have a mesmer, I suck at remembering skill names of their class because I haven’t seriously played mine in over a year), or their full wad of burst. Use their clones/phants to gain stealth. pistol offhands can daze once on a relatively short cd, and it can bounce off of you to allies or them to you. mainly just keep pressure and avoid a lockdown of any sort when dealing with them even thinking about strolling by casually. their steal is useful to use during a stealth to open with, or before popping a refuge, the aegis is great against push/pull. be wary of them being annoying like you with all the in combat juking they are capable of.

Terrorsquad.2349:

The Shatter mesmer part is a bit.. incomplete.

Dodge/avoid/block/kite away from:
- GS 2 (the closer the mesmer is, the more it will bounce and the more damage it will do. Also, this is unblockable. If it lands, we’re looking at +7k damage in 1second)
Most experienced mesmers will combo this with Shatter F1 to have utmost dps. We’re looking at +13k damage if the full combo lands and 3clones)
- GS 4 (Is the animation you’re waiting for. This is where the Mesmer holds up his GS in the air and spawns a spinning clone dealing damage and cripple. Dodge 0.5 – 1.0s after the Mesmer is performing this skill to avoid the criple and damage. Note: aslong you don’t kill this clone, he’ll remain doing the spinning attack every 5-8s (?)
- GS 5 (hard to dodge but easy to know when it’s going to be casted. Mostly at start to land their GS2/GS4 OR at the end of it to land their Staff 5 Chaos Storm)

When Mesmer is in staff, there is not much of a burst here (except staff 3 but has no animation) but there is some condition pressure here due the auto attack, Chaos Armor (Staff 4 and/or Staff 5 + staff 2 combo out of it) and Chaos Storm (the noisy field dazing you, giving you conditions when standing in and giving the Mesmer random boons while he stands in it.

All in all, the way to counter/outlive mesmer is simply by dodging his GS/shatter bursts.
If you can dodge GS2 and GS4, there’s is not much to worry about.
The Shatters, however, could still apply pressure. We are talking about F1 power shatter, which deals a great amount of damage the more clones the Mesmer has up.

If you see the mesmer has +2 clones up and tries to get to you, be carefull.
Their shatters can be dodged/blocked!

Selver.1307:

All I have time for, correct me if I am wrong anyone and please have a great day! I tried to be generalistic, but I do have a wvwvw/dd bias. Sorry

Good luck1

Thanks for adding all these explanations, they were very helpful. I overlooked the issue that there’s a limit on how long a single post can be, so I moved the compilation of the different explanations to the 3rd/4th message. It would be fantastic if you could remove your post and repost it so the collection of different explanations moves up to the 2nd post. Sorry for that…..But thanks a lot for taking the time to write up some tactics for beating those 3 builds!

The Shatter mesmer part is a bit.. incomplete.

Dodge/avoid/block/kite away from:
- GS 2 (the closer the mesmer is, the more it will bounce and the more damage it will do. Also, this is unblockable. If it lands, we’re looking at +7k damage in 1second)
Most experienced mesmers will combo this with Shatter F1 to have utmost dps. We’re looking at +13k damage if the full combo lands and 3clones)
- GS 4 (Is the animation you’re waiting for. This is where the Mesmer holds up his GS in the air and spawns a spinning clone dealing damage and cripple. Dodge 0.5 – 1.0s after the Mesmer is performing this skill to avoid the criple and damage. Note: aslong you don’t kill this clone, he’ll remain doing the spinning attack every 5-8s (?)
- GS 5 (hard to dodge but easy to know when it’s going to be casted. Mostly at start to land their GS2/GS4 OR at the end of it to land their Staff 5 Chaos Storm)

When Mesmer is in staff, there is not much of a burst here (except staff 3 but has no animation) but there is some condition pressure here due the auto attack, Chaos Armor (Staff 4 and/or Staff 5 + staff 2 combo out of it) and Chaos Storm (the noisy field dazing you, giving you conditions when standing in and giving the Mesmer random boons while he stands in it.

All in all, the way to counter/outlive mesmer is simply by dodging his GS/shatter bursts.
If you can dodge GS2 and GS4, there’s is not much to worry about.
The Shatters, however, could still apply pressure. We are talking about F1 power shatter, which deals a great amount of damage the more clones the Mesmer has up.

If you see the mesmer has +2 clones up and tries to get to you, be carefull.
Their shatters can be dodged/blocked!

Celestial Rifle Engineer:

As all engineers, be it Turret, P/S or cele rifle, their weak spot remains the same: Conditions.

If you are not a class with many condition pressure, rather avoid the fight or keep him busy untill someone can rotate with you (take your spot in the fight).

If you have condition pressure, bait out his Healing Turret (double press and f1 as blast) and then apply as much conditions you can.

Do be carefull about the Toolkit block and it’s pull.

The Pull is an obvious animation (magnetic waves/wires) which stays for 1second.
The trick is to dodge right after that second. If you dodge mid-animation, you’ll still be pulled.(and get the 5 stacks of confusions to Toolit 3 landing)

Mind the red circles on the ground!
This can be Toolkit nr 2, which deals criple and bleeding every second you’re standing on it. We do not want that!
This can also be grenades, being fired from afar, so keep an eye on the ledges!

When Engi is switching to Rifle, mind the knockback skill. This has no obvious start animation, so this will be harder to dodge. However, when engi is closing in on you & switches to rifle, that is the time to actually dodge/break LoS/block.

After the knockback skill, they’ll try to land their immobilize (net animation) skill.
Dodge if possible or stand behind something to break LoS.

If u do got immobilized, they’ll use rifle 5 (the jumping towards u animation with red circle) and deal damage.

A great class/build countering this is the Condition Engineer with Pistol/Shield (3kit Rabid), a Dark Path Carrion Necro, Condition Warrior (mace/sword/longbow for example)

Terrorsquad.2349:

The Shatter mesmer part is a bit.. incomplete.

Hey yeah I know it was incomplete and that is my fault trying to be quick and cover a wide array of things. Thanks for picking up my slack. I tried to be as concise as I could starting out (like the dd ele section) but then time started getting to me hehe. I also obviously played ele more than mesmer

Keep those counters coming! Like I said I am no spvp person really so I was trying to be as general as I could!

Great work team thief!

engineer is a decent fight if you can predict them and properly kite. you NEED shortbow with generosity.

best thing to do is steal, stealth up and use the shortbow immobilize to quickly land their steal skill and start clusterbombing them and then throw down choking gas or switch to d/p and get ready to use headshot to deny their heal. shortbow works really well against engineers, especially when they throw down crate since the auto attack will start bouncing and your on-crit sigils will never proc on the turrets since you can’t crit them meaning no wasted procs.

Honestly, what sets apart some of the best thieves are the ones who know which fights to choose rather than those who expect they can win against every profession. It’s great to know how to fight against other classes, but in most situations, you help your team the most when you don’t try to 1 v 1 classes that counter you.

nice thread, really helpful +1 =)

I’d also like to contribute a bit, for Power Rangers; force them to waste their pointblank shot(knock back) with evade/blind before they can use it to set up RF. Next best thing you can do is breaking LoS when they rapid fire cause that is most of their damage(also if you have a hard time dealin with RF withdraw or roll for initiative will dodge like 98% of it), once that and PBS are down just rush them, force them to switch to gs or die. Once they are in GS the only skill i find you need to watch for is Maul(the big bear attack thing) it will chunk your health, but if you dodge it puts the ranger in a stick spot. After that just rinse and repeat, if you fudge it or something (mess up a skill or w/e) use obstacles to by time for your CD’s

Then with S/D thieves, kite them and bait out their evades, they have big gap closers but they have pretty long CD’s or require them to jump away before trying again. Outside of that condi bomb or some CC/interrupts will also serve you well. Worst case scenario just buy time till your teammates show up their burst isn’t high unless they get fire/air procs.

quick mention that this is stuff I PERSONALLY do and may not be optimal/the best but it works for me.
Hope I helped =)

D/D Ele:
- Fight duration: 2-3 Steals
- If you’re S/D, always have Infiltrator’s Return somewhere away as a cleanse for the burning.
- When they use shocking aura, kite using Infiltrator’s Strike (without a target) and Infiltrator’s Return, or wait it out in stealth or out of range.
- Maintain pressure - don’t worry too much, it just has to be enough to make them fight actively instead of spam auto attack. Make them need to stack might.
- If you find dealing damage difficult - some eles do kite around just out of reach quite well - you can simply cluster bomb the point. If you do this, do be sensible and don’t blow all your initiative. This should not kill them.
- When the ele switches to earth try and get the protection off using Larcenous Strike.
- When the ele switches to water be mindful of - and ready to cleanse if necessary - their chill. When the ele leaves water, land their stolen skill to give them a long cooldown on water attunement. They may cleanse it with Cleansing Fire. This is fine, as they will not have it to use for the second time (more important).
- When the ele is in air, be wary of a Ride the Lightning. Dodge it, and you’ll often dodge updraft as well. You may need to cleanse weakness if they land it.
- When the ele switches to fire, be ready to dodge burning speed, and often ring of fire right after.
--- S/D: If they have a lot of might stacks, wait until they have 3 boons and have Larcenous Strike ready. They dodge a lot so be careful with the landing of this, as it is key vs. a good D/D ele; a tip would be to land Infiltrator’s Strike first to get them immobilised. Combo Steal and Larcenous Strike. Steal will rip the two non-might boons, and Larcenous will steal the might stacks. Once you have their might, it’s easy mode. Auto attack them down for the most part, using Flanking Strike for mobility and evades as needed, and Larcenous to steal the protection when they get it. When the ele next enters water, they will chill you to kite you. This is where you chill them with the second use of their stolen skill.
--- Other: S/P may want to pull out, wait for the ele to have only might and one other boon, and then Steal to rip them, greatly reducing the ele’s damage. D/P may also achieve this, but should be able to apply enough pressure so as not to worry, with regular back stabs followed by a few auto attacks.

Bunker Guardian:
- Fight duration: 2 Steals
- Steal ASAP, and hold on to the stolen skill. Constantly pressure the guardian with either shortbow with poison or your melee set’s auto attack. Poison is useful to force them to use Stand Your Ground for the condi cleanse before healing. 20 secs later, when Steal is off cool-down, when you know the guardian’s shelter is also on a fair cool down or after they use it, and the guardian has no stability, use basilisk venom. Stun the guardian (optional: cloak and dagger + tactical strike), then after a couple of hits, just as the stun is about to end, use the stolen skill for a 4 second daze. It might help to immobilise them first with Infiltrator’s Strike to be sure you’ll land the daze - it’s important. Right before the daze expires, Steal again, and use the second stolen skill. They will be disabled for a total of 11-12 seconds unable to heal or block. In this time you should be able to down them.

Condi Ranger:
- Fight duration: Variable.
- Land all your steals. You need that stolen skill to cleanse the conditions.
- Manage the bleed stacks, try to dodge their weapon swap, and don’t waste initiative when they are evading. They have a lot of them. Patience is key.
- Condi rangers often run Bark Skin. Be wary of this - do not get "eager for the kill" when they get low health and try to take them down quickly, because it can cost you the fight and or get you killed. If they are low, what you are doing is working, so keep doing it. Bark Skin reduces incoming damage by 50% while below 25% health.

Power Ranger:
- Fight duration: Variable.
- S/D: obstruct their rapid fire - easy with Infiltrator’s Return. Interrupt their longbow 5 with Steal, or a Tactical Strike if you needed to use Steal to interrupt rapid fire when you were disabled.
- D/P interrupt their rapid fire and longbow 5 skill with Headshot or Steal.
- Dodge their longbow knock back.
- Dodge, Flanking Strike or blind their highly telegraphed greatsword skills (2 and 3).
- Watch the pet: usually a wolf; it will crouch before it knocks you down, and tilt its head upward when it’s about to AoE fear.
- The variable fight duration is because there are some rather tanky power builds which have Bark Skin and good protection up time.

S/D Thieves:
- Do not get eager for the kill. Be patient, and careful.
- Do not panic and spam evades. Once engaged, there is a rhythm to S/D, and it’s easy to time dodges to evade the next hit.
- Dodge Cluster Bomb.
- If you are S/D, use your Flanking Strike immediately after they do. If it’s not ready or you don’t have time for it to land at the end of their animation, dodge them instead. Try to "tag them" to get your sigil procs, and if their’s didn’t proc yet, try to deny them another hit until yours are ready again. Dodging right after a hit - thus skipping the after cast frames - is very effective.
- If you are D/P, use Shadow Shot to blind enabling you to get the first burst if you didn’t already, and Headshot to try and prevent a dodge.
- Be careful when they Shadow Refuge. They might be baiting you and land an immobilise followed by cluster bombs or sword auto attacks.
- Use your auto attack even when they aren’t close, because when they port to engage you might get a free hit on them.
- When you stealth, use short bow to immobilise them for easy damage dealing.

D/P Thieves:
- Do not get eager for the kill. Be patient, and careful.
- Land your burst first.
- Land all your steals, or as many as they land.
- Dodge Shadow Shot.
- Dodge Heartseeker.
- Dodge Cluster Bomb.
- Get aggressive when they use Black Powder - most thieves will just be standing in it not dodging or using Shadow Shot.
- When they try to Heartseeker out of Black Powder, interrupt it with Headshot or Steal. If they manage to stealth with the combo, watch where they go. Cloak and Dagger off them (dodge right after it lands), dodge their back stab, Cluster Bomb the area, or Shadowstep away.
- Be careful when they Shadow Refuge. They might be baiting you and land an immobilise followed by cluster bombs or dagger auto attacks.
- Use your auto attack even when they aren’t close, because when they port to engage you might get a free hit on them.
- When you stealth, use short bow to immobilise them for easy damage dealing.

How can an S/D thief counter a P/D Thief? Ran into one of these unicorns in unranked and they melted me so fast that I had no time to react.

I enjoyed advice from impact, but all above are probably for wvw, which you have time and chance to do 2-3 steals during a fight, in pvp, you barely have chance to do that many steals before you are killed. My message was just deleted but I want to give you an idea of what looks like in pvp and proofs of my points…

Your post in How to counter other professions as thief was infracted by a moderator:
Based on some pro’s video tutor and currently thief situation … it’ s simple….. RUN!!!!
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These are not from me but from others in this forum:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/PvP-Guide-for-new-Thiefs-in-Ranked-Arenas/first#post4670734
So to summarize it from this pro player’s video is what thief should do in ranked play…
1. Take a point while nobody there, once someone comes, run for your life!
2. Don’t jump in to even a fight, thief can not even a fight, leave to ele and others, keep running…
3. Your job is to kill those ones who is one touch away from dead or keep the downed one suffer from your poison… even it’s one touch away from dead, but you better do it while he/she is fighting another person and didn’t see you…
4. As a thief, you probably can only face another thief or mes, if others coming, keep running…
5. keep running and report what you see…..

here is another one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Has-thief-been-nerfed

Another one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Hambow-a-thief-counter/first#post4685103

another one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Raise-health-pool-to-match-mesmer/first#post4675237

In this topic, you could find a few videos and some pro’s video in pvp:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-burst-is-too-low-vs-other-class-now/page/5#post4684424

After reading all these, you could have a rough idea of how to counter others in pvp…. and the reason why you have such question and my statement was not meant to derail a thread ^

Pvp is like concentrated wvw fight, 10 people crowed in a small map, you engage a fight every few second, the map is full of AOE damage and CC which does more damage than single target spells, stealth can not fully protect you in most of the case, besides, channel skills can follow you even you are in stealth, not mention AOE skills, blind and stealth is useless when facing AOE damage and CC, with least HP pool, weak armor, weak burst damage. Thief is actually useless in pvp, what thieves can do is just running around or clean salvage kills. Try it in pvp yourself … no matter how hard you try, what you get is probably just frustration.

You might find some fun fights in wvw after running half an hour and encounter a kiddo player or catch someone off guard, or someone without enough food, team buff etc… this is a reason why these videos posted here are most wvw…

Anomaly.7612:

How can an S/D thief counter a P/D Thief? Ran into one of these unicorns in unranked and they melted me so fast that I had no time to react.

Dodge when they attack with venoms, dodge 3 and 5, if you take too many conditions, cleanse them by LoSing and spamming 2. You can also do it by short bow camping.