Guild Wars 2

I know i’m a terrible thief, just started one. I really like the d/d thief and I can take on most targets. That does not mean I always win but I can do some hurt to them.

Now there is the hammer warrior, I just cant seem to even dent his health, or even if I do ok against a decent one sooner or later the hammer hits me. I cant dodge or miss them all. The stun kicks in and it seems like even the tankiest war can easily take a massive amount of health from me.
Blind while doing stealth does not work on them, backstab hits like a wet paper. I am beginning to think I really am bad at this thief thing.
Any tips are really appreciated, and no I do not want to run hammer warrior myself =)

Well the easiest thing to do is wait till they get nerfed but since you picked thief that means you don’t take the easy way out

First, do not use the stolen ability from warriors on hammer warriors, way too risky and its basically a free stun. Second, if they are using healing signet, the fight just got a bit harder as this does not play to the strength of a hit and stealth backstab burst and you will need to utilize poison effectively(usually from shortbow or venom) to keep their healing down. You should not initiate the fight unless you’re in stealth. They will most likely try to open with earthshaker or use it if they see you go into stealth, dodge it. Before the Dec 10th nerf it is going to deal a lot of damage to you.

Oddly enough, one of the best weapon sets I’ve found against hammer warriors is P/D. The slot 3 skill teleporting you out of earthshaker range quickly and neutralizing healing signet all in one. Plus the constant bleed stacks will help suppress the healing. They say healing signet isn’t good vs burst but that is only half true. Against classes like thief whose burst relies on positioning, it works very well as many hammer warriors run mace/shield in other slot meaning they just block if you go into stealth.

Dodge the highly telegraphed skills and if they switch to a mace dodge the first few attacks because chances are it’s gonna be skull crack.

Pretty much what Necrotize said. Poison to cut his heals. Blinds to stop his attacks. Avoid using Dancing Dagger unless you absolutely have to because the cripple effect will trigger the regen boon for him since he’s most likely using the Dogged March trait. Use Death Blossom against his telegraphed skills for free evade plus bleeds. Keep your regular dodge rolls for emergencies or if you need to recharge your initiative.

If he doesn’t have sword or greatsword on his weapon swap, you can kite him freely. Use less stealth except for an occasional backstab and just concentrate on wearing him down since you can control the tempo of the fight. If he DOES have sword or greatsword and is pretty mobile, use stealth more frequently but mix things up to keep him guessing if you’re going for a backstab or just running around invisible. Basically, mind games vs mobile opponent, kiting vs slow opponent. Always keep up constant pressure on either, though.

And Necrotize hit the biggest point: don’t use the axe whirl stolen ability. Steal can still be used as a good source of poison, but be sure to unload the stolen ability at a safe distance because you’re pretty much a sitting duck while it’s active.

The fights can be really long against Hammer + mace/x warriors, mace/x + GS even worse, so always prepare to outlast them. And I’d suggest you to always bring a Shortbow as 2nd weap set.

Opening with the poison field from shortbow can be great.

While meleeing 10 points in deadly art for poison and mug is really useful, blind on stealth if you use a Shadow Arts build, blind counters both their main condition removal and also their attacks since they are pretty slow and highly telegraphed except skullcrack from mace.

Hammer: dodge the horizontal slam, the spin and the leap-hulk ability.
Mace: Is quite tricky, some opens up with auto attacks and a shield bash to make you waste dodges and stunbreakers. And skullcrack is really hard to dodge, so be prepared to use stunbreakers, blinding powder of shadow return if S/x.

Once you start feeling vulnerable (better sooner than later, be prepared for long fights!), create some range between you and the warrior, equip shortbow keep his hp at bay with the poison field and auto attack, infiltrators arrow or disabling shot to maintain the gap.

Once cds, initiative or whatever made you feel vulnerable has recharged, rush in again in melee.

as necro said, P/D is quite strong since you wont need to stay in melee range to keep pressure, P/P, D/P is really effective because of the high access to blind, S/P because of pistolwhip and good access to blind. S/D if you are lucky with your dodges and play good. D/D with blind on stealth, good positioning and dodges.

Thanks guys, i’ts hard work being a thief =) but so much more rewarding if you pull it off.
Appreciate all the tips and I will be practising tonight

And don’t take anything that people say to heart. Heck, I’ve had people tell me to stop 2 spamming when I’m using P/D and I’m just awestruck by how much people can hate thieves while simultaneously knowing so little about them. But at the same time, don’t let all the “thieves are OP talk” dissuade you from trying every build. Try out a perma-stealth D/P build to get down your backstab positioning. Switch to S/D to learn how to better time your evades. There’s something you can learn from all of the weapon sets.

in my opinion it is too simple to use S/D for longbow /hammer warrior. With DP or DD warrior use flame of longbow when u are in stealth and it is really annoying and letal. I am not a great pvp player and it is really hard to win but it is possible. You have to begin attack always with infiltrator strike and shadow return when block finisted . it is hard and it is only an hit and run strategies … and the fight can be really long

Easiest way to counter one is with black powder. Hammer attacks are so slow that if he is stupid enough not to move he can’t hit you, simple as that (unless he has -100% codi duration with berserker stance and runes/food).
So ether carry a d/p or a s/p with you.
d/p has the advantage of poison on auto attacking so you can kill him faster as it will cut his healing .
s/p is more defensive seeing how you can evade with pistol whip and you have weakness on the final hit of the sword chain (stand in black powder and just auto attack him he will be blinded most time and when he is not he is weakened.
This works assuming he is without backup.

S/D is the best counter atm; however that all changes in a month with the nerf to Infiltrator’s Strike, so don’t get used to that.

how will they nerf S/D ?

it seemed to me that the nerf on infiltrator strike will be only on stomping … not on fighting someone but i can misunderstand

oh i reread …this is really a great nerf …
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.

Hammer and/or Mace/Shield Warriors are most Thief builds’ worst nightmare.
You literally do not have enough stun breakers to break all their available CC even if you fill your utility bar with Stun Breakers. To win you need to completely outplay them by avoiding all of their CC in Melee.

Keeping distance with Shortbow won’t work either outside of an opening to stack some poison with 4, because it simply doesn’t have enough damage to overcome the ridiculous sustain these kinds of builds can bring.

Only S/x builds really have a chance against them at the moment thanks to Infil Return, but we all know where that’s headed.

I find the (my) best counter to those types of Warriors is P/D (condition) and being generous with Blinds.

D/P – Blind blind blind blind blind blind blind. If you see zerkers stance up, Headshot and kite. If you see Zerkers stance AND stability, don’t bother til one both fades, because they’re immune to ALL your survivability mechanics.

S/D – Inf Strike/Return (Note – this advice void after dec 10th) when you see them using their CC weapon skills, save FS for earthshaker. Always swing around their back when you IS in – I’ve noticed it tempts warriors into using staggering blow or ES at bad times.

D/D – Good luck? This is a really poor matchup – need melee range and 1/2s to access stealth, DB is a kitten poor evade that’s going to do kitten damage for you if you’re Power/Crit, No access to blind outside stealth+a trait (which they can go immune to with Zerkers Stance), and any competent player will make landing a backstab a nightmare with Earthshaker, Staggering Blow and to a lesser extent Hammer Shock.

Always keep a Sbow as your second weaponset – choking gas to nueter their heals (be ready to dodge ES though, or else they’ll effortlessly cleanse it right of), and cluster bomb in CS so you can do decent damage and stack some weakness.

indeed the hammer +mace/shield with healing signet which gives them about 800-900 health regen really hard to counter also with -65% condition duration and 3500 armor. after 2 min fight you will be really bored so if you manage to survive that long just walk away .
i have tried dual some good warriors which really said that i didnt do much dmg to them with p/d with 2k condition dmg and with d/d 3600 attack and 100% crit dmg)

lately in wvw i’ve noticed to many bunker build around which came from tpvp – the spirit ranger, the healing signet warrior , the guardian, the mm necro etc. they really cant hurt you much but also hard to kill fast

Since I use D/D + SB I have no choice but to use the blind on stealth trait in my build to have a counter to the massive amount of crowd control. I tend to open with auto attacks, not paying attention to doing a high amount of damage, but instead on avoiding their initial crowd control. I then proceed to C&D and watch the reaction; a competent player will immediately attempt to remove the blind and proceed with an area crowd control (e.g. Earthshaker). If not, proceed with a backstab. Rinse and repeat this process, with the key being to keep distance and continuously observe instead of attack, and the goal to burn the utilities of the Warrior. If the Warrior is an offensive Zerker/Cavalier with defense utilities, perfect play will give you a chance (you need to be much more skilled than the Warrior, which is very sad). If the Warrior is a bunker build, then move on as you can’t kill it at all.

if they stun u then you can do one of three things.

shadow step away. And reset

steal on the warrior and dodge roll as this breaks the stun.

Use infiltrators signet on the warrior and then dodge roll, u have to be fast.

With D/D? Nearly impossible. With S/D is much easier. With D/P, it’s nearly impossible to LOSE.

equip d/p, blind blind blind

I d/d the best warriors but I’m using a shortbow so I’m not sure what these other bros talking about. I shortbow 3 them to the point they get frustrated and make a mistake and go allin.

evilapprentice.6379:

D/P – Blind blind blind blind blind blind blind. If you see zerkers stance up, Headshot and kite. If you see Zerkers stance AND stability, don’t bother til one both fades, because they’re immune to ALL your survivability mechanics.

^ this.

If you blind a Warrior, it doesn’t really matter what weapon he’s using. But make sure to waste his condition removal on non-blind condition.

Peow peow.2189:

if they stun u then you can do one of three things.

shadow step away. And reset

steal on the warrior and dodge roll as this breaks the stun.

Use infiltrators signet on the warrior and then dodge roll, u have to be fast.

steal doesn’t break stun

You should play s/d thief. You have only ~25 days left, after that just reroll class;)

D/P blind and auto attack. I usually try to save my intiative for #3 as backstab will barely put a dent in their health. It’s better just to keep up constant poison with auto attack and poison field if you have to switch to SB.

This is how I usually do it as a d/d, but I have blind on stealth and blinding powder . Instead if using bas venom to open, I save it for after the CnD and cast it in stealth so it lands on my backstab and then I use the warrior spin from the steal while they’re standing still, if they break out of it, they’re blinded and u have blinding powder for backup also, but just opening The fight that way will usually bring most warriors down below 50% already for me

Honestly I will just ask you to reroll into hammer warrior.

a) If thief gets nerfed, you’re still playing an op profession
b) If thief doesn’t get nerfed too much (lol?), you now know what sort of weakness and rotations a hammer warrior has.

I’d say S/D but it’s getting nerfed soon.

I’ll figure out something when that nerf comes. If all else fails, you can always fight fire with fire. aka reroll dat warrior, hey it would be an upgrade.