Guild Wars 2

In PVP, how do we beat Medi Guards 1v1?

I mainly use D/P + SB but I guess I could try something else if necessary.

Thanks in advance!

I use S/d meta and dance around them using all evades and try to keep poison up as much as you can

poison is nice against their heal(s)
a tip with s/d, sb against gs, sc/f guards is to switch to sb when he’s on gs (gs outdamages your s/d and you can kite him better on sb while doing dmg/cripple/poison him) and use s/d when he’s on s/f as his s/f outdamages your sb
pay attention to his focus 5 and heal, dont spam 3 or waste f1 into it – hitting steal is always important
also, you can get focus 5 down before it explodes, it doesnt deal dmg and you wont have to use an evade/port back/kite to not get hit by it

d/p is about bursting him – let him heal as you cant interrupt that – try to burst again
i dont play d/p a lot anymore though so no real tactics for that

and against hammer… its a slow weapon, dont stay in the 3rd auto attack chain, dont get hit by 2 and 4, you could even stay inside of the 5 with blinding powder

hope this kind of helps

A combination of D/P, for initial burst, and S/D for boon stripping.

can’t they’re top 3 best duelist in the game

Condi thief.

Spam pistol #2 = immob. Vomit all your condis on them. Works with warriors too. Kite kite kite. Guard/Warri usually try and run away or dead. It’s fun.

I play with the “traits goal” (2 0 0 6 6) D / D + SB. Yes, D / D. I know it is “wrong”, but I play that style to 2 years and I have practice. The trick to win is to stay away with your shortbow and dodge whenever you notice a sudden movement. The shortbow is your best weapon, then explore quite all skills, especially the poison. Use melee weapons when you make sure you will not miss the burst, and do not forget to tell (mentally) the dogdes and the opponent heal CD.

Poison spam, dodge binding blade, whirl and sword 3. If you land the stolen daze its an easy 6k damage while they can’t do anything.

King Noob IV.3560:

can’t they’re top 3 best duelist in the game

I’m sorry but where are you getting that from? I have a medi Guard as an alt and a good thief should be able to take them down w/o too much trouble. The problem with them is that their movement skills are rather predictable and it’s easy to kite them around.

I actually got so frustrated with my Guard that I started playing a S/D Thief instead. Even if the Guard you’re fighting is highly skilled, you can always stealth and run away.

King Noob IV.3560:

can’t they’re top 3 best duelist in the game

wat? Maybe in WvW with a condi build, but not in sPvP.

2OP:

Dodge their biggest attacks and kite with poison. That’s all you need to do. After Shelter and RF are down he’s a sitting duck. Don’t kill yourself with Retal.

If you play trickery, be very aggressive with boon steals and with attacks, but also watch out for their hard hitting abilities and pull/ring.

If you don’t play trickery, dance around them and make sure you don’t get blinded. You have to be extra precise. Hit them when they are vulnerable and keep hitting until they go on the offensive again.

Thanks for the tips guys!

Will be putting them to use

Land mace crack. Back stabs come first.

kick in the gibblies?

Against medi guard, your best bet is to get ahead of their burst by laying your own down. In the long run you won’t beat them, you have to get them scared and hit them hard while you can. If it starts to look like there is no return, back off and recover because their burst can come very quickly which on the offense is bad for you. Most times when I can, I will stealth and poke at them to get them to blow their cooldowns before ever engaging.

Otherwise I run with my tail between my legs because they can be very deadly when they jump you.

I run two different builds, one in pvp, one in WvW. Since this is pvp, I will give u my opinions.
I run 0/6/2/0/6 with D/P. Full zerk with rune of the eagle. Works very well. What I do unique is run my other set as p/d. This makes me do guards a joke because you do a hit melee, use withdraw, switch to p/d, and kite them. The shadow shot crits for 3-4k, and stealth attack chains for 5-6k. Works real well against their low health pool and makes it a big surprise for them when u use the pistol 2 (immob) than switch and heartseeker them when they get low.
Really confuses people and is very effective I suggest you try it

From my experiences on thief, I’ve found the best way to deal with a guardian is to use sb and keep them at a distance while putting up pressure with the sb aa to force them to pop their heals and defensive cd’s, once those are done swap over to dp and burst them down. If you can’t kill them the first time you go into dp swap back to sb and just repeat the process until they are down. I’ve said this many times before and it has always proven to be helpful with people I’ve talked to and that is “shortbow is the thief’s counter to medi guard” It has amazing kiting ability and still has strong enough damage to force the guard to use all his defensive cd’s to not die to the damage you put out. It takes a little getting used to but it’s definitely worth learning because it will take you a long way as a thief. Good luck in your conquest to beat guards my friend.

As a guard main, I would say it’s simply a matter of looking for openings. Always keep an eye out whether or not their retaliations are down as well as their heal blocks.
Thing is, a good medi guard will play in a very reactionary manner to thieves once they know they are there. Don’t go head on in to the guard as you would probably end up blowing yourself up from their retaliation, and don’t use up your initiative if you do engage one. From experience, Mediguards can’t catch a good thief if they disengage.

It’s all about baiting their utilities/ invuln. If you can force a guard to blow them early on, it technically gives you a good 15 seconds to do as you please in terms of damage provided they dont catch you. Keep in mind they have 2 stunbreaks and a aoe nuke which hits hard if you put a condition on them so try to bait and avoid those if you’re going in 1v1.

In WvW though…. they can’t really catch you anyway if you disengage so there’s that (Provided you don’t kitten ). Their one ability to look out for however is their bindings, if you want to dodge anything, it’s that. If they do land it, it usually means a follow up combo that will mess you up if not outright kill you (Keep in mind most guards will either use it first thing or save it last).

Finally keep an eye out for the weapons they are using. The main weapons that a thief should be most careful around is the hammer and the greatsword simply because of the amount of counterplay/ control they offer.

TL:DR
Going all in with initiative bad.
Make guards use up their utilities
Keep in mind most medis have at least 2 instant gapclosers and 4 seconds of invuln.
Avoid binds/ CC at all costs.
Don’t engage with petrify or stealth. Save them for a disengage or when you know the guards have used their stunbreaks.

Kite, know what Guard utilities are, poison uptime, when they blow shelter and virtue recharge burst them and make them panic.

If they hit you first, disengage Dont blow initiative, poke at them from far range until they blow utilities.

get their mace crack. If you land it on them you win. For this reason its best to run 6 in trickery so you can steal every 21 seconds.

If in match:

• You don’t engage them unless u outnumber them

If in 1v1:

• Bait out blocks/blinds with SB but mind their medi-opening (Judges + Hammer5/Gs5)
• Poison
• Use Stolen skill when they’re 50%ish HP and already used the cleansing/stun break medi’s

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Kite, know what Guard utilities are, poison uptime, when they blow shelter and virtue recharge burst them and make them panic.

If they hit you first, disengage Dont blow initiative, poke at them from far range until they blow utilities.

get their mace crack. If you land it on them you win. For this reason its best to run 6 in trickery so you can steal every 21 seconds.

That and knowing when to kite with bow is what kills my guard.

Reminds me of one really good thief in EU T9 that managed to land every mace crack on me. While it is super annoying to be interrupted all the time, it’s also sooo sexy to fight someone skilled.

There are two ways.

The kite way is to use SB3/PD3 and kill them with a thousand cuts. Mediguards have no viable ranged attacks.

The debuff way is to use poison (Dagger AA, SB4) and boonstrip (Traited Steal, SD3) to remove their protection and regen, and reduce their direct heals while dpsing them to death.

Which method is better depends on how many people are fighting against how many. The first is slower, safer and requires less skill, but you have to run away in stealth if backup arrives. The second is blindingly fast, but requires very good dodging to work well.

Steal, kite until you know your steal would be up again.
Jump in with the stolen daze while on your D/P, burst a bit and make steal part of that burst, stolen daze again, burst some more (effectively 6 seconds of free damage dealing)
Pressure during your kiting with combo fields and see if you can lure him into using his cd’s with some cluster bombs.

The Stolen daze you get from them is simply amazing, it’s just burst happy hour if you got him to use his cd’s