Guild Wars 2

I am trying out a staff build in WvW which attempts to utilize stealth to make Vault easier to land on enemy players. However, I found that many players would dodge my Vault even if I used it from stealth.

Does Vault give the enemy a red circle on the ground to warn them? Or were these players simply responding to my being stealthed by dodging at the appropriate time?

The later. Vault doesn’t give the red circle. You’re already in stealth. Why not hook strike > Vault? That should pretty much guarantee a landed vault.

Yes , if you have UC or hidden thief you better off using hook stike from stealth first. The enemy tends to see you stealth and will use a dodge block anticipating an attack from the same. Load up basi venom if you can first.

Generally if they evade the first you should have time to get a second off before stealth ends.

if you’re in stealth just use the auto attack of the staff since it knocks down, then quickly use vault.

Thanks everyone.

Hook strike is good too, but it is slow and requires melee range. Some opponents, when they see a stealthed thief, will drop AoEs on themselves to deter the thief from getting into melee range. This can make it dangerous to try a hook strike. But it’s good to have more than one tool in the toolbox, so I’m sure there are circumstances that favor stealth > vault, and others that favor stealth > hook strike > vault.

Yea, once you fight enough thieves, you tend to get a feel for when their stealth burst will land.

Don’t get in a hurry to attack from stealth and more importantly, don’t be consistent in how long you wait. For your first burst, you’ll probably want to jump out after waiting almost as long as possible (bait out a dodge or block if you can). If you’re using x/P for your other weapon set to use as the blind field, wait on that weapon after stealthing before swapping. If they do pop a long block, you may just want to refresh stealth before attacking.

Plus if the knockdown doesn’t trip because of a block you haven’t wasted the init.

@fluidmonolith,
If you have a port free(Steal or Infiltrators Signet), you can port> Hook Strike > Vault. or if you’re low on ini, you can port > weakening charge. Best case, you’ll crit them all for (2k-2.5k * 3) hits plus sigil procs. Other than that I’d say be patient and use hold off using vault until the last second of stealth, that way your opponent will burn some dodges.

Staff is more of a brawler’s style weapon and relies on utilities for stealth. You have plenty of on-demand dodges. 3 dodges from DD and a near instant evade from Debilitating Arc that only cost 4 ini. You can make stealth work but I’ve found myself dropping it if I play staff, counting my opponents’ dodges, and vaulting when they run out.