Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I needed advises on the thief / DH matchup ( I know, I know, I should never ever fight a DH but hey it doesn’t kill me to ask ) so for once I asked on the DH forum. Who better than a DH know it’s weakness right ? Here is the link if some of you are interested:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/How-can-I-pressure-a-DH-as-a-thief/first#post6307093

I got this answer from the thief of Never Lucky :

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

D/P Thief can’t really fight DH well. You need some sort of evade in your weapon set or you can’t dodge all of the important kitten. Staff is much stronger in the current meta. My favorite way to pressure DHs is to Vault on their backside when they use Shield of Courage. Use Weakening Charge on your Steal to apply Weakness for a little bit of wiggle room. Weakening Charge can also be used to break the focus block because it hits three times. When you use Bandit’s Defense, a good DH will follow up with Spear of Justice, so be prepared to dodge that. Debilitating Arc is stronger than Vault in this match up unless you’re sure he won’t dodge the Vault, but be careful because the end of Arc isn’t an evade frame, so you’ll take damage if you use it wrong inside Test of Faith. Dust Strike isn’t worth it. The third part of the Staff auto attack is a reflect, but it’s hard to plan that. Use it if it’s up, but don’t rely on it. Steal to interrupt the Wings.

So my question is, do you agree with that statement ?

I gave it a try, and there are some good point to staff against DH. But I felt like it isn’t worth over d/p. In my opinion d/p offers much more than staff, either interrupts, damage mitigation or dammage.

Thief is at a huge Disadvantage, Guard was he hard counter before DH was a thing, DH compounded, staff can help but still has a lot of flaws against DH the best way is with P/P since it has the ability to burst through their Heals and defenses, while making sure you are not standing in their traps/Symbols. Like I stated in that thread

I agree with it. Staff is a pretty decent weapon. The only thing it really lacks is reset potential via stealth. S/P you can do similar shenanigans by precasting pistol whip and then moving onto them via steal/signet/shadowstep. S/P allows you to still have access to stealth too and a nice interrupt.

The issue I usually have with DH when running staff, or s/p is that it’s not worth you time to kill one, as it takes too long. You would do more for the team +1 or backcaping somewhere else on the map. It’s the sad truth.

My post isn’t really clear. It’s not about the DH but the statement that Staff is a better weapon in this current meta.

Not a pvp player, but would staff with p/p work? This is hardly proof of anything, but in the little 1v1 I have done with guardians it seemed like neither one of us could take down the other. Maybe it surprised him, but I had been using staff the whole fight and suddenly dodged to range, swapped to pistols, and hit unload. He went down FAST!

I would think unload is pretty easy to avoid/reflect, but I know nothing about PvP or guardians. So you tell me!

Wargameur.6950:

My post isn’t really clear. It’s not about the DH but the statement that Staff is a better weapon in this current meta.

When fighting a DH, it’s all about applying pressure and staff might have a lot of burst, but it’s not very good at applying pressure without endangering the Thief in the process.

Keep in mind that in order to apply pressure using a staff, the Thief needs to sacrifice a lot of survivability, either armor or HP, which means, they are an easy kill for DH.

The only real practical way to continuously pressure a DH is to build condition damage, this way the Thief can deal high condition damage while staying tanky. It’s not a fun build to make, but it’s the build where ArenaNet wants the Thief to be.

Staff is a fairly crappy weapon against a skilled player. All decent players know the hitch in Vault and it is so telegraphed players have ample time to dodge or counter the big hit.

I agree D/P comes into a DH fight at a disadvantage. However, Headshot can be devastating and the fact that Shadow Shot cuts through blocks and blinds makes D/P a superior weapon compared to Staff outside of the previously stated Vault weakness.

I also agree with SV3 above, constant pressure is pretty much mandatory against DH since blowing them up just isn’t going to happen outside of poor builds and bad play.

I don’t think one set is necessarily better than the other, but it makes a difference in playstyle and how it benefits a team. Staff is good for both 1v1ing and larger fights due to AoE. However, LOTS of people really do not know how to use staff whatsoever, focusing more on spamming 5 than utilizing every single skill on the set for different uses and situations, which is why most thieves are bad at staff.

That being said, a good staff thief can add a bit more versatility to a team due to the fact that you have a better chance at most 1v1s and can also be more effective in teamfights. There is tradeoff, however.

With staff over D/P, you get:
+AoE
+Evades/Self-Sustain
-Stealth
-Interrupt on Demand

With D/P over staff, you get:
+Stealth
+Interrupt on Demand
-AoE
-Evades/Self-Sustain

So, in conclusion, it really depends on how you play, what benefits your playstyle, what your team needs and simply whether you’re better at one or the other. Most thieves are better at D/P.