Guild Wars 2

I fought a very good Daredevil recently from FA.
out of 5 fights, he won 3 and I won 2.

What could I have done better where I lost?

• very good daredevil @ the 5min 5sec mark – 5 fights in total and I lost 3 =(.

• a staff/DP daredevil at the 9min 37sec mark

• a SD/SB daredevil at the 3min 30sec mark

• two condi daredevils at the 13min 10sec mark till the end

Well…I’m definitely not a big WvW player and I haven’t played a ton as a necro, but here’s my thoughts, at least from watching your fights against the first thief:

It looks like your biggest mistakes in your first two fights were burning your shroud trying to close the gap instead of pressuring from range with staff/axe. Once you burned through your shroud, the thief jumped in and pressured.

It looks like you learned from that in your later fights for the most part, which is why your next two games were wins. You lost the last game because he switched his strategy and instead went for a hard burst at the start, which you weren’t expecting.

So basically, you’d want to be patient against a thief staying at range and focus more on building up shroud and when the thief pushes for a hard burst, dropping chill and using shroud to counter burst with shroud AoE.

Think of it this way: If a thief and necro at full health both go full DPS against each other and don’t use any defensive skills, the necro will win every time. However, if the same thing happens with a thief and necro at half health, the thief will likely win. Because of this, the thief will generally try to win the fight by resetting until you’re at low shroud + hp. Be patient at the start and save your shroud so that when they go for the burst, you can change what they expect to be a quick burst into a longer DPS match that you’ll overtake them on.

Anyways, that applies to dagger power thieves at least. Condi thieves are a whole other story and I can’t speak much towards staff thieves.

Dahkeus.8243:

Well…I’m definitely not a big WvW player and I haven’t played a ton as a necro, but here’s my thoughts, at least from watching your fights against the first thief:

It looks like your biggest mistakes in your first two fights were burning your shroud trying to close the gap instead of pressuring from range with staff/axe. Once you burned through your shroud, the thief jumped in and pressured.

It looks like you learned from that in your later fights for the most part, which is why your next two games were wins. You lost the last game because he switched his strategy and instead went for a hard burst at the start, which you weren’t expecting.

So basically, you’d want to be patient against a thief staying at range and focus more on building up shroud and when the thief pushes for a hard burst, dropping chill and using shroud to counter burst with shroud AoE.

Think of it this way: If a thief and necro at full health both go full DPS against each other and don’t use any defensive skills, the necro will win every time. However, if the same thing happens with a thief and necro at half health, the thief will likely win. Because of this, the thief will generally try to win the fight by resetting until you’re at low shroud + hp. Be patient at the start and save your shroud so that when they go for the burst, you can change what they expect to be a quick burst into a longer DPS match that you’ll overtake them on.

Anyways, that applies to dagger power thieves at least. Condi thieves are a whole other story and I can’t speak much towards staff thieves.

Thanks for the thoughts! Thats quite a new way of looking at a Reaper Daredevil matchup to me…I’ll try it out in my fights!

For one… use food buffs :P

First fight at 5:20, you should have released from Shroud on his disengage and healed. He burned his gap closes and SR, so he would have had to make it very apparent he was going to re-engage you. This period would have let you maintain better health and apply ranged pressure and regen life force in his moments of weakness.

Fight two you were just way too aggressive and left shroud when he didn’t burn any of his utilities, giving him a lot of options to quickly kill you with little risk.

The third fight near the 6:00 mark, you chased him while he had Shadow Return available, which would cause any engages you make to be wasted.

You’re very predictable in how you combo RS 3’s fear into Executioner’s Scythe when it comes to repeated duels, so this gave you away a little bit for the rematches. I’d also suggest maintaining the stability for a bit longer so incoming CC’s get negated, as you’re going to want to be able to apply as much melee-range pressure as possible.

my hint would be stop fast forwarding your videos.

Good thieves/Daredevils will never lose to a necro/reaper unless they make mistakes or they are not skilled.

DeceiverX.8361:

For one… use food buffs :P

First fight at 5:20, you should have released from Shroud on his disengage and healed. He burned his gap closes and SR, so he would have had to make it very apparent he was going to re-engage you. This period would have let you maintain better health and apply ranged pressure and regen life force in his moments of weakness.

Fight two you were just way too aggressive and left shroud when he didn’t burn any of his utilities, giving him a lot of options to quickly kill you with little risk.

The third fight near the 6:00 mark, you chased him while he had Shadow Return available, which would cause any engages you make to be wasted.

You’re very predictable in how you combo RS 3’s fear into Executioner’s Scythe when it comes to repeated duels, so this gave you away a little bit for the rematches. I’d also suggest maintaining the stability for a bit longer so incoming CC’s get negated, as you’re going to want to be able to apply as much melee-range pressure as possible.

1) I don’t have spare gold for food/buffs lol. I have an expensive side hobby of creating many new toons and dressing them up to post on GW2 Style : http://gw2style.com/look.php?id=11063

2) TY for the great tips! I never even noticed that I almost always chained shroud 3 with shroud 5. I am definitely trying to vary my fighting style so as to be more unpredictable since we mostly fight the same few roamers in WvW. I’ve been doing the noob way of varying my looks instead of my fighting style so they don’t catch on and figure they are fighting the same person lol. But I should really learn to fight differently XD

MadVisions.4529:

my hint would be stop fast forwarding your videos.

Sorry I was trying to fit in the fights where I lost as a form of respect for those who dueled and beat me…and I can’t post videos of more than 15mins…so I had to fast forward some of the fights XD

MidoriMarch.8067:

Good thieves/Daredevils will never lose to a necro/reaper unless they make mistakes or they are not skilled.

I don’t know…

EremiteAngel.9765:

DeceiverX.8361:

For one… use food buffs :P

First fight at 5:20, you should have released from Shroud on his disengage and healed. He burned his gap closes and SR, so he would have had to make it very apparent he was going to re-engage you. This period would have let you maintain better health and apply ranged pressure and regen life force in his moments of weakness.

Fight two you were just way too aggressive and left shroud when he didn’t burn any of his utilities, giving him a lot of options to quickly kill you with little risk.

The third fight near the 6:00 mark, you chased him while he had Shadow Return available, which would cause any engages you make to be wasted.

You’re very predictable in how you combo RS 3’s fear into Executioner’s Scythe when it comes to repeated duels, so this gave you away a little bit for the rematches. I’d also suggest maintaining the stability for a bit longer so incoming CC’s get negated, as you’re going to want to be able to apply as much melee-range pressure as possible.

1) I don’t have spare gold for food/buffs lol. I have an expensive side hobby of creating many new toons and dressing them up to post on GW2 Style : http://gw2style.com/look.php?id=11063

2) TY for the great tips! I never even noticed that I almost always chained shroud 3 with shroud 5. I am definitely trying to vary my fighting style so as to be more unpredictable since we mostly fight the same few roamers in WvW. I’ve been doing the noob way of varying my looks instead of my fighting style so they don’t catch on and figure they are fighting the same person lol. But I should really learn to fight differently XD

I’d suggest running not-top-tier food. Hardened Sharpening Stones and pretty much everything but seaweed salad and Squash Soup will reduce your bill massively; 40 hours of play is reduced to like 2g – manageable by blobbing for a little while – and still gives hefty stat bonuses.

Typically I wait too long and miss the fear on my use of Shroud 3, but unpredictability is really the best way to kill any thief, which manages to help in the regard that while Daredevil has an innate advantage over the reaper and in an evenly-skilled matchup heavily favors the DD, one can overcome the hurdle by giving them a false sense of safety and then punishing them hard for it. Thief durability is almost strictly limited to reacting /predicting your enemy, so mixing up weird combos and throwing unexpected skills into the mix where applicable can work out well assuming you don’t burn important cooldowns frivolously.

MidoriMarch.8067:

Good thieves/Daredevils will never lose to an average necro/reaper unless they make mistakes or they are not skilled.

FTFY

DeceiverX.8361:

don’t burn important cooldowns frivolously.

Not gonna repeat what others have said, but tying into this, learn how to cancel-cast your elite by stowing your weapon. I noticed you missed it quite frequently due to dodges or being out of range, especially agains that s/d thief. On top of that, even when you cancel Chilled to the Bone, the animation will still complete, which can catch a lot of people off guard when you use it again a few seconds later.

Average Momo.8153:

DeceiverX.8361:

don’t burn important cooldowns frivolously.

Not gonna repeat what others have said, but tying into this, learn how to cancel-cast your elite by stowing your weapon. I noticed you missed it quite frequently due to dodges or being out of range, especially agains that s/d thief. On top of that, even when you cancel Chilled to the Bone, the animation will still complete, which can catch a lot of people off guard when you use it again a few seconds later.

Thanks for the tip! I noticed this too. Reaper Shout Elite is very easy to cast, cancel and then trick/bait opponents into wasting their dodge/cooldowns.
I am still practicing to incorporate this into my play-style though.
Hopefully I’ll get better at it!