Guild Wars 2

Yesterday I ran up on a thief who was taking someone out in WvW. The thief was using Pistol/Pistol and appeared to be on a condition based build. After engaging him I noticed he was rapidly going in and out of stealth. At one point I even got reinforcements and it was a 5v1 and this guy utterly tooled us because every two seconds he’d disappear. He’d down one of us, disappear, then finish us. Eventually he realized he couldn’t down all 5 of us at once and so he took off.

My question is this possible? How is it possible?

(I am mostly curious, not looking to whine or anything else like that).

He may have switched to a pistol dagger build if you’re speaking of those rapid shots that sounds like unload, but it’s the P/D out of stealth 1 skill.

I run a build like that and I’m almost all the time in stealth while attacking. My build is heavily focused on survivability and condition damage with a SB to use as a get away ^^

I know exactly how long time I got between stealth and I often take down bigger groups solo. So a rapid use of condition dmg, CnD and number 1 skill will ensure that I’m in stealth and putting bleeds all the time. Also traits give me 2 initiative upon stealth an I’m in stealth for 4 seconds which give me back all my initiative after using CnD before attacking again.

It’s possible and very good for WvW, sPvP and PvE.

Could he have had an offhand dagger on weapon swap (P/D)?

Otherwise, he could 1. hide in shadows 2. blinding powder 3. ambush trap 5. shadow refuge….

Thats it really. Either he rotated through these abilities with a dagger offhand or he was using an exploit.

Also, between each stealth he would have the “revealed” debuff for a few seconds and it would have prevented him from using stealth

stealth doesn’t make you invulnerable.

Use AOE fields to get him or spam attacks (when he stealths).

To prevent much of the stealth in the first place, dodge whenever he gets close to melee range of you (because “Cloak and Dagger” is the melee skill that stealths him).

are you sure it was Pistol+Pistol? this sounds alot more like the playstyle of Pistol+Dagger. thats a build that actually does stack condition damage and go into stealth as often as possible.

I admit I am not sure it was Pistol/Pistol, just looked that way the 2-3 times we got up close but hard to tell when you’re moving and he’s moving. Pistol was definitely MH because I was catching him with Feedback and Temporal Curtain’s reflects. Maybe it was P/P and P/D?

The stealthing was rapid and often. It seemed like far more than 4 times. He definitely used in 4 times in our 1v1 before anyone got there. That is why I was asking, wasn’t sure cause our little party were pretty dumbfounded after he tore off cause we couldn’t target him for the likes of us and was far too mobile to really pin in any serious AOE. He certainly didn’t go Melee very often, only to finish us off after a kill.

Certainly wasn’t unstoppable, I later caught him and he either wasn’t able to replicate the results cause I chased him off fairly quickly but just the same was curious about the whole scenario.

Thanks for the replies!

Assuming you were in WvW, also keep in mind that you way have witnessed the current server side issue with “player culling” where players aren’t rendering properly on the screen, especially after stealth.

Did he attack you multiple times while IN stealth, or was it always just one Sneak Attack followed by visibility?

I use a P/D and P/P build on my Thief and do exactly what you’re talking about. Like Geiir.7603 said, with the right traits you can keep your initiative up (and your damage) so you can constantly be using Cloak and Dagger to restealth and stack/reapply bleeds from Sneak Attack.

I’ve never taken a group 5v1, but I’ve won 2v1s and even a 3v1 (by the skin of my teeth) with this build. It’s not a burst build, but you can steadily whittle people down.

Stormy O.7025:

stealth doesn’t make you invulnerable.

Use AOE fields to get him or spam attacks (when he stealths).

To prevent much of the stealth in the first place, dodge whenever he gets close to melee range of you (because “Cloak and Dagger” is the melee skill that stealths him).

hmmm well thats only partly true. Tbh if you run this build you likely traited “Cloaked in Shadow” which blinds aoe in range on stealth. And if you want troll there are 4 skills that stealth between support and heal. Dodging wont do all that much because for one your not burning initiative (you can cast C & D 3 times in a row) and you can just use a support skill to stealth. Honestly it is easy to counter. Think of it like this what would you do in most games vs a tank you likely wont kill but cant burst you down?