Guild Wars 2

If I put a complaint about stealth in this forums it will get flamed by an army of thieves so lets turn the table around. Assume that you are fighting a thief with any other character.

The thief inflicts a lot of damage due probably because of his gear and is invisible 80% of the time. How do you kill him?

You dodge his C&Ds, and you immobilize/cripple/chill him and burn him.

You look for black swirls, keep your ears sharp, and you target and repeat. You stun/kd/kb and continue the face roll.

If a thief is dealing a lot of damage then they’re also going to die quickly if you can hit them. Try to use some stun or immobilise them them burst them down if you can. They should have some sort of stun breaker, such as shadow step, so you may have to try and CC them a few times. When they are in stealth then just use aoe attacks.

Some builds rely on pulling off stealth attacks like backstab. Their damage outside of these attacks is generally quite manageable. Try and create some distance if you think a thief is going to backstab you or some aoe CC, such as updraft. Just moving and turning around so the thief may hit you from the front will half the damage of backstab. Apart from shadow refuge, all the stealths a thief can use only last a few seconds.

I would recommend trying a glass cannon build and just see how people counter it and the difficulties in pulling off some of the stealth attacks. Once you know how to deal with it they’re generally as easy to handle as 100b warriors.

As a thief, I will tell you the best way to do it:

First, most thieves are going to approach you 2 way. Either they are going to Shadow walk to you with “steal” or some other attack and following that, they will attempt to cloak and dagger you or Death Blossom you. Me personally, I am too lazy for that and I just use scorpion wire to pull you to me. However, when this occurs, you need to dodge as SOON as you see them, or take damage from them. Do your best to face where you think they might be. They only have a few seconds to get Backstab off (The strongest skill) and can only use Death Blossom 2-3 times depending on their build. So you want to dodge and look out for that. Next step would be to start doing as much aoe as you can, and I dont just mean field skills, even a lot of melee cleaves would be ok.

It’s important to remember that thieves operate on initiative, which isnt exactly the fastest recovering source. If you can survive the initial 3-4 seconds, then you stand an excellent chance at winning.

Alex Behemoth.4952:

If I put a complaint about stealth in this forums it will get flamed by an army of thieves so lets turn the table around. Assume that you are fighting a thief with any other character.

The thief inflicts a lot of damage due probably because of his gear and is invisible 80% of the time. How do you kill him?

Stay aggressive while the thief is stealthed and you turn it into a trade-off instead of a straight advantage. In particular if they’re in all-offense gear like you’re implying you only need to land a few auto attacks while they’re trying to position to get them down.

Everytime I get them bellow 50% HP they stealth and run and I cant find them.
If I see them again they are to far away for me to catch them.
So I have stopped fighting them and just continue until I find something that cant stealth and run away.

Melles.7352:

Everytime I get them bellow 50% HP they stealth and run and I cant find them.

The problem with this that people often forget is that they couldn’t catch the thief anyways even if the thief hadn’t stealthed. It is superior mobility that lets thieves escape far moreso than target-breaking.

Make him whiff the C&D = half his initiative gone. This means using blocks/blinds to make sure they miss even if you can’t dodge. If you have a ultility that grants you the ability to take no damage for 3-4 hits pop it when you think they will start heartseekering, turn around and burst the thief.

Any time the thief hits you from stealth or has been in stealth for 3-4 seconds start spamming tab so you target him even if culling is keeping them invisible (if you do this the thief will be target-able 50% of the time). If the thief uses shadow refuge, knock them the hell out of it (warriors/guardians/mesmer/engineer/elementalist all can do it). If you push them out of shadow refuge before the animation ends then it will remove their stealth and give them the revealed debuff. If you have no knockback just run in there and start spamming attacks.

Knock thieves down, immobilize them, and generally CC the crap out of them. AoE fear whenever they go in stealth to wasted their stealth.

If the thief is dying and running away watch for the black mists swirls when they use abilities in stealth. Unless they managed to sit in a full shadow refuge they will show up before getting out of sight.

If you have AoE type traps just set them down under yourself, melee thieves pretty much have to chase you, especially if they are going for a backstab and will be forced to go through it.

Heal before you get to 50% health, no reason to give them a free kill because you let their best weapon come into play (If you can spam blinds or blocks 50% health is the time to do it).

If for some reason you think you shouldn’t bring a ultility to take a thief out, then no wonder why you die to them. Things like the guardian signet the knocks people down at a range of 1200 are amazing at denying thieves an escape.

Edit: I forgot to mention that channeled abilities will continue to hit a thief even if they go stealth during it. So things like the ranger rapid shot on longbow will be hugely helpful when taking on a thief that stealths a lot. Always spam your autoattack while they are invisible if you have nothing else to do. The worse thing that’ll happen is you either hit the thief or unblind yourself (also if your auto attack is a chain, recognize when it goes to the next step, since it’ll do that when you hit the thief).

there are 3 main build of thieves.
Glass cannon – this kind of thieves will mostly run with singet of assasin, and /or basilik vennom – this boys will try to burst you down in 2 -3 seconds , target him from high range, check his buffs , if he got assasin singet and basilik vennom keep range, when he stealth or try to close range gap move back and use dodge roll/ area chill / blind – if he fail initial burst he is dead, he cannot stealth to much, and he is very fragile
Condition build – this thieves will use pistol and dagger -they lack burst damage, they will keep range and try to haras you. In order to win vs them you must have an decent condition removal and healing. They are ranged and there you will kill them on range ( any class got supperior burst compared to p/d thief on range) if they try to come near you dodge roll and keep distance. They got very low damage they will only win if you ignore the bleed stacks on you.
balanced/ tanky thief. this might be considered the best toe to toe thief. they got mediocre damage , they stealth a lot and can eat some damage. General counter for this build is CC. chill , cripple and knockback /knockdown is the way to win this build. They don’t have enough damage to burst you down, so you will have to play offensive vs them . Once they waste all initiative, they will try to stealth , then is the moment to punish them knockback from refuge aoe the area and start autoattack over there or just run intro other direction and force them to reveal or reset combat .

Dodging CnD is a thief killer. 5 ini down the drain. You cannot fully recover from that unless you pack blinding powder/shadow refuge. Also, immobilize, daze, stun, knockdown…us thieves hate all of those really bad

Backstab thief

Necro : External armor – absorb backstab
ele – mist form, absorb backstab
Warrior – endure pain, absorb backstab
Mesmer – invulnerability, absorb backstab
Guardian – aegis, absorb backstab
Thief – blind, stealth
Engineer – Place turrets to daze, immobilize
Ranger – I think they also have an invulnerability, not sure. If not, knockdown, aoes cripple, traps

Did I miss anything?

^ Norn Leopard stealth. But that’s ‘fairly’ uncommon.

I think it’s clear by now that dodging is your best friend exactly like against any other form of damage from any other class.

Remember – stealth is not limitless and thieves are quite squishy.

Doomdesire.9365:

Dodging CnD is a thief killer. 5 ini down the drain. You cannot fully recover from that unless you pack blinding powder/shadow refuge. Also, immobilize, daze, stun, knockdown…us thieves hate all of those really bad

Backstab thief

Necro : External armor – absorb backstab
ele – mist form, absorb backstab
Warrior – endure pain, absorb backstab
Mesmer – invulnerability, absorb backstab
Guardian – aegis, absorb backstab
Thief – blind, stealth
Engineer – Place turrets to daze, immobilize
Ranger – I think they also have an invulnerability, not sure. If not, knockdown, aoes cripple, traps

Did I miss anything?

Ranger’s Protect Me. Makes the pet take the damage instead. Quite useful for that sort of thing when it’s not on cooldown.

Alex.6940:

If a thief is dealing a lot of damage then they’re also going to die quickly if you can hit them. Try to use some stun or immobilise them them burst them down if you can. They should have some sort of stun breaker, such as shadow step, so you may have to try and CC them a few times. When they are in stealth then just use aoe attacks.

Some builds rely on pulling off stealth attacks like backstab. Their damage outside of these attacks is generally quite manageable. Try and create some distance if you think a thief is going to backstab you or some aoe CC, such as updraft. Just moving and turning around so the thief may hit you from the front will half the damage of backstab. Apart from shadow refuge, all the stealths a thief can use only last a few seconds.

I would recommend trying a glass cannon build and just see how people counter it and the difficulties in pulling off some of the stealth attacks. Once you know how to deal with it they’re generally as easy to handle as 100b warriors.

Oh. My.
God.

Did I really just read what I think I did?
An Elementalist who knows that Thieves aren’t OP at all, but that they just require a specific set of tactics to easily dismiss?
Alex, I commend you on your perceptiveness and situational awareness.
+1 for you, sir. From a Backstab Thief.

Yea dodging CnD is the dealbreaker. I can manage decent with 1 miss or so but 2 misses and I’m pretty much forced to run. I run a condition thief though so I have extra ini from trickery and shadow refuge.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Doomdesire.9365:

Dodging CnD is a thief killer. 5 ini down the drain. You cannot fully recover from that unless you pack blinding powder/shadow refuge. Also, immobilize, daze, stun, knockdown…us thieves hate all of those really bad

Backstab thief

Necro : External armor – absorb backstab
ele – mist form, absorb backstab
Warrior – endure pain, absorb backstab
Mesmer – invulnerability, absorb backstab
Guardian – aegis, absorb backstab
Thief – blind, stealth
Engineer – Place turrets to daze, immobilize
Ranger – I think they also have an invulnerability, not sure. If not, knockdown, aoes cripple, traps

Did I miss anything?

Ranger’s Protect Me. Makes the pet take the damage instead. Quite useful for that sort of thing when it’s not on cooldown.

Not to mention Beastmaster’s Signet + Signet of Stone = Ranger + Pet ‘Endure Pain’.

The thief is only stealthed for at most about 50% of the time, not 80%, so my first suggestion would be to open your eyes and pay attention in battle.

I’m willing to throw you a bone. Here’s a guide to countering Stealth.

“How can you actually estimate the route of an invisible entity”

We’re not invisible all the time, we have to come out of Stealth eventually and we have 3 skills total that don’t require we hit you to Stealth us. Most Thieves rely too heavily on Stealth because of people who give up trying to hit us just because you can’t see us.
Tip: The direction the Thief is heading before he/she stealths is, get this, the same direction they’re heading after Stealthing.

“How can you know if he want to disengage the fight or land a backstab behind you?”

Simple, Pistol Dagger will typically put distance (i.e. dodge roll backwards) after Stealthing.
Dagger Dagger (Sword Dagger, too) will typically close the distance or position (refer to answer one for assessing their specific heading, i.e. to your left or right) themselves to your 90-degree rear arc for the backstab damage (for the Daze if Sword Dagger).
Deductive Logic does wonders against Thieves.

“How can you know the average movement speed of the thief?”

Do you see a Swiftness icon when they dodge-roll? Yes? Anticipate. No? Average movement speed for ANY CHARACTER IN THE GAME IN COMBAT.

“How can you know if he is using the Fleet Shadow trait?”

If it’s direct damage, and Steal doesn’t hurt, they have Fleet Shadow. If they don’t hurt with Steal (i.e. Mug isn’t slotted), yet gain Might on a dodge, or Vigor after popping their heal- they don’t have it slotted.
If it’s conditions, Power of Inertia is a much better trait to slot in the Adept bracket, anyway- so if they gain Might and Swiftness for simply dodge-rolling, you know what they are using.
Pay. Attention.

“Your suggestions seems lacking in foundations and are based on hypothetical 1vs1 situation where you can give all your attention to your enemy, which is less than 10% of the actual encounters.”

(If the above is what you’re thinking after reading this, see my reply below.)

I think we found your problem.
Go back to a game where you can mentally check out in PvP and just faceroll your macro’d rotation for the win. GW2 actually requires that you pay attention to the fight, ‘anticipate and counter’.
If you aren’t doing that, you’re dead.
It’s actually not very dissimilar to actual combat in this regard.

As a side note (errata):

If you want to believe/hold the opinion that the Thief is a “cheap” class made for people who want an easy mode victory, please roll a Thief, play it to 80 AND spend at least 50 Tourney games as the Thief build you hate the most.

I promise you that you will quickly see that the Thief is only as lethal as you’ve experienced because you encountered a very good Thief player who understands the nuances of the class they are playing.

The Thief, in real-world military terms, fights with the advantage of Asymeteric Warfare (Special Forces, Guerrila Fighters, ‘Minute Men’ to name a few modern and historic examples of military units who employ AW.) and much like these examples, when properly countered or stripped of their advantages they are typically some of the weakest front-line fighting units- because that’s not what they are geared/trained/oriented to doing.

And lastly, if this still doesn’t sit well with you- know that OBL probably shares your sentiment of AW (just instead of Thieves, he’s QQ’ing about DEVGRU.)

Biggest enemy of most backstab thieves = retaliation. Also, stealing their buffs helps mitigate the damage. The hardes thitting thieves will stack up 15-20 might with traited abilities, and if you steal it you take 30% or so of their damage away.

Blocks, blinds, and aoe condition fields that do decent damage and/or poison and the occasional CC ability to throw off the thief, but also keeping them at a distance helps. The thief will probably only have 2 activated stealth abilities without being close to you. And dont turn and run.

Finally have some vit/toughness and self healing. If you are running around as a glass cannon in WvW or don’t use decent self healing abilities you deserve to get instagibbed.

Alex Behemoth.4952:

The thief inflicts a lot of damage due probably because of his gear and is invisible 80% of the time. How do you kill him?

I’m locking him down in the 20 % when he’s is visible.
If the Thief does much dmg, it means he has around 12k HP and 2k Armor, which means he dies in around 4 seconds under direct attacks.

If i can’t do that, i will avoid/take away his access to stealth, therefore i will dodge obvious attacks like cloak and dagger, resulting in killing the exposed Thief.

Further, while the Thief is stealthed, i try to predict his actions, attacking him with non target skills (most common, even AoE’s which are basically guranteed to hit the Thief if you got half a brain to locate his general position).

At the current state of culling you shouldn’t bother to spend time trying to take thiefs down. Waste of time and energy to hunt something down that is half the time stealthed and not rendered when he starts attacking you. Just focus on the real objectives on the map.