Guild Wars 2

When faced against a necro player with ultra condition damage, an hp pool of 15k is very low.
Couple this with no stability, makes almost for a perfect 1 shot down.
Aside from getting more vitality and going defensive, is there anything is a thief can do?
Or just run away and wait for the opportune moment, in wvw, to attack necros with fellow wvw’ers?

S/P is ridiculously good against the current meta of Necros. Coupled with S/D you can strip the boons and get back to pistol whipping them. Also using 2 (Shadow Return?), to remove 1 condition at a time is really strong. However, you really need a ton of initiative to support the playstyle. S/P is really good in general, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

Vile.5678:

Coupled with S/D you can strip the boons…

That actually can backfire when against a Necro. I learned that the hard way last night. Stripped the necro off of buffs, BAM, my buffs are now Conditions. >.<’

Maestria of Strat.2974:

When faced against a necro player with ultra condition damage, an hp pool of 15k is very low.
Couple this with no stability, makes almost for a perfect 1 shot down.
Aside from getting more vitality and going defensive, is there anything is a thief can do?
Or just run away and wait for the opportune moment, in wvw, to attack necros with fellow wvw’ers?

Dodge, dodge and more dodge
avoid our marks, interrupt our heal and burst us down

wish.1027:

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

So the trick to beating them is to find a newb necro in wvw and after waiting out plague form heartseeker him at full health? kitten that necro was bad.

Hype.8032:

wish.1027:

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

So the trick to beating them is to find a newb necro in wvw and after waiting out plague form heartseeker him at full health? kitten that necro was bad.

Its funny how you have Thief at 80 and dont understand using HS as a gap closer. You gonna complain about the one I used where he was at full health and I didnt even hit him next?

I do fine against the necros in solo queue with s/d. Pain response in acrobatics seems to help a lot even though it’s hard to notice sometimes.

It’s much harder as d/p but you can keep blinds up pretty often and it’s important to get in a ton of damage when you use the stolen fear from them. Headshot/steal-daze interrupt their heal and obvious animations. Shadow Return removes 3 conditions on the utility, use it at a good time.

Keep weakness off yourself at all costs and boonsteal protection when they activate spectral armor.

wish.1027:

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

Good video. That thief looks like full zerk which makes even more interesting fighting necro.

I wasn’t aware that shadow return removed conditions.

Thanks for tip.

Hype.8032:

I do fine against the necros in solo queue with s/d. Pain response in acrobatics seems to help a lot even though it’s hard to notice sometimes.

It’s much harder as d/p but you can keep blinds up pretty often and it’s important to get in a ton of damage when you use the stolen fear from them. Headshot/steal-daze interrupt their heal and obvious animations. Shadow Return removes 3 conditions on the utility, use it at a good time.

Keep weakness off yourself at all costs and boonsteal protection when they activate spectral armor.

Thanks for info. It’s interesting. Seems S/D is a good option. However, you use D/P and the use of blinds with some timed attacks.

Now that I think about it I’ve faced two necros at once, which is impossible. My mistake. This is when I started realizing they are a hard class to beat. The really good ones don’t really die to thieves.

Also, does full zerk work well against them? Seems prone to 1 mistake down.

Run DIRE or Carrion

> P/D

> Condition Food

> Spam stealth and caltrops

>???

> Profit!

does daggerstorm not grant stability after an early cancel anymore?

dont forget thieves abilities are go in and out fast and they should tank dmg. so yes go in and out fast and look the right moment to strike

against condition necro the match is very hard if they play it right
so you must have 3 conditions clearness abilities like S2, shadow return, shadow embrace, signet of agility

as s/p dont shadow inside his wells and try to interrupt his skills use with P4 , than look for the right moment to strike and S2 and S3 . he will probably go DS so just dodge his DS4 and DS5 or use P5 , save initiative points for S2 as condition cleanse and to confuse him where your location is as his scepter/dagger can kill you in seconds
try to make him dodge twice and u can use steal S3 P5 and AA in seconds

as s/d again save initiative point for S2 and spam AA as your main dmg and use S3 to remove protection/stability and dodge a lot . if he goes plague i use S3 to take stability and use SB from range or just spam AA

again its 50%/50% against good condition necro 1v1

The thing is even if we did “focus” on Vitality we would only gain roughly 2k more health. And that really doesn’t help much considering how much damage and pressure you need to give up in the process.

With the amount of splash damage and AI minions running around you can drop dead within seconds without even being targeted. It’s a joke really.

I have no idea how ANet intended to balance things between one class having 40.000 effective health and high Toughness and the other having 15.000 health and low Toughness.

They should really normalize HP a bit more so they can focus on getting other things right.

Maestria of Strat.2974:

wish.1027:

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

Good video. That thief looks like full zerk which makes even more interesting fighting necro.

I wasn’t aware that shadow return removed conditions.

Thanks for tip.

Its no where near full Berserker, lol. Im using a 10/30/30/0/0 setup with Soldiers Weapons, Hat, Body, Legs, Divinity runes, and everything else is Berserkers.

reikken.4961:

does daggerstorm not grant stability after an early cancel anymore?

Yes it does. This is one idea, once every 90 sec. I may have to use this, long cooldown though.

I use Basilik venom with rune of Lyssa, the problem is that once Feared it can’t be used to break “stun”.

wish.1027:

Maestria of Strat.2974:

wish.1027:

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

Good video. That thief looks like full zerk which makes even more interesting fighting necro.

I wasn’t aware that shadow return removed conditions.

Thanks for tip.

Its no where near full Berserker, lol. Im using a 10/30/30/0/0 setup with Soldiers Weapons, Hat, Body, Legs, Divinity runes, and everything else is Berserkers.

Interesting. I saw you did a couple of consecutive 4k hits. Must be coming from Divinity rune.

So you circumvent crowd control through shadow step…

Why toughness? If you are fighting a necro, what traits from toughness help there?

Maestria of Strat.2974:

wish.1027:

Maestria of Strat.2974:

wish.1027:

You have to play smart and make them burn their alternate forms and fears while you hide and kite, then you can get an easy kill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE5BJs0MQI

Good video. That thief looks like full zerk which makes even more interesting fighting necro.

I wasn’t aware that shadow return removed conditions.

Thanks for tip.

Its no where near full Berserker, lol. Im using a 10/30/30/0/0 setup with Soldiers Weapons, Hat, Body, Legs, Divinity runes, and everything else is Berserkers.

Interesting. I saw you did a couple of consecutive 4k hits. Must be coming from Divinity rune.

So you circumvent crowd control through shadow step…

Why toughness? If you are fighting a necro, what traits from toughness help there?

He’s not building to be a ghost buster…. He’s building for WvW in general.

Necros have no stability, use S/P and stunlock them forever.

You have gotten some good answers already. I run both classes and would like to add — as a necro fighting thiefs, it’s all about prediction to me. As a thief fighting necro:s, it’s about dodging and trying to be unpredictable.

If you ask me, unpredictability is thief turf, and you should always strive to fight on your turf.

You just have to burst necro’s down. When they pop their survival cooldowns like plague, spectral armor+deathshroud, just stealth and reset fight.

Save shadowstep for big fears, try to dodge their staff attack(the one where he points the staff at you), thats the fear mark.

I see a lot of minionmancers lately, so I started using s/p more often. It cleaves, and its strong enough to kill most minons in 2-3 uses while nearly killing the necro. Now they can fear you but that’s what blind and stealth are for. If they chain fear you and start stacking conditons on you break stun and recover. If you can’t stealth condi clearing is quite limited on a thief :/

You can get good stability. You simply need to give up something else……like every other class.

runeblade.7514:

Necros have no stability, use S/P and stunlock them forever.

They do have stability in alternate form if traited.

Sanduskel.1850:

You can get good stability. You simply need to give up something else……like every other class.

How? Give up what?

Stx.4857:

You just have to burst necro’s down. When they pop their survival cooldowns like plague, spectral armor+deathshroud, just stealth and reset fight.

Save shadowstep for big fears, try to dodge their staff attack(the one where he points the staff at you), thats the fear mark.

I think bursting is key, which requires a bit high dmg and decent crit. Thanks for suggestion.

“bursting” a class that might have 25k life and 3 life bars sounds funny
Not to mention the nearly 20 sec permablind for melee in plague form.

I think its extremely hard to fight a necro with thief.
You have to play rly smart and switch from melee to range and let the necro burn his cooldowns. Then you might have a chance to fight on equal ground.

Hey All. Thanks for the tips. When I played tonight it was much different. The shadow return to remove conditions is really effective. I was missing this.

I think thief vs necro is very competitive.

P/P with Lyssa runes (Basilisk) also works well against Necros. Usually 2x Unload will drop 90% of their non-form HP, and once they panic w/ Deathshrouds, they don’t have the option to fight.

“bursting” a class that might have 25k life and 3 life bars sounds funny

You’d be surprised at how easily a P/P build can burst most professions down — especially when you don’t need to be in melee range. Unload can effortlessly channel for 5-10k+ in <2 seconds, and be spammed consistently for quite some time. Against other thieves, it usually channels for 8-9k.

Maestria of Strat.2974:

Hey All. Thanks for the tips. When I played tonight it was much different. The shadow return to remove conditions is really effective. I was missing this.

I think thief vs necro is very competitive.

I play both, and it is a pretty even match-up right now.

Pre-Dire gear, I found I could kill good necros about 70% of the time, but the extra HP from dire makes them much harder, so its about 50/50 for me now. Fun fights for sure.