Guild Wars 2

So I was strolling along in wvw the other day and ended up fighting a thief. Now I usually don’t have too much trouble with the dime a dozen backstab thieves but this one caught me off guard. I got them low but got outplayed and then a warrior came along and the thief completely wiped the floor with them right after.

I’m not certain but I think it was possibly a pistol/pistol, pistol/dagger thief that seemed to be fairly tanky and regen a fair bit between stealths, not to mention constant blinds and attacking me from awkward angles out of stealth.

Also I was a ranger, am I right in thinking that my pet pretty much gives them a free cloak and dagger unless I recall it till the thief is cc’d?

Yep Mesmer clons and Ranger pets make free stealt for Thief.Use chan spell vs Thief,your projectile hit him to stealth.

Did you die from bleeding or by power? If it was from bleeds then it was probably a p/d thief. Probably something like a 20/0/30/20/0 build with health regen and stacking bleeds from stealth. Pets are free stealths with dagger off-hand yes.

Some thieves switch between P/D (sneak attack) and P/P (unload). Even when P/D is more effective with condition damage, it can still operate with Power/Crit – and combine with Unload.

frans.8092:

Some thieves switch between P/D (sneak attack) and P/P (unload). Even when P/D is more effective with condition damage, it can still operate with Power/Crit – and combine with Unload.

This is probably it, I didn’t pay too much attention to the bleeds but I don’t think they were that severe, on the other hand based on the amount of bullets i’d guess it was sneak attack and unload which gradually wore me down after waiting out my defensive cooldowns.

What kind of gear would these two types of thieves use, since I doubt it was a full berserker thief?

For offence, P/D is most effective with condition oriented gear, P/P likes power/crit more, zerker mostly, but it is possible to mix in quite a bit of toughness or vitality. The P/D stealth build tends to have high toughness and some healing power, as they can have remarkable healing – and thus survivability – from a grandmaster trait. For a combined P/D P/P I would use toughness with power, as the first is important for survivability and attrition is the game, with power as main damage source – and add whatever condition damage / duration that fits in as third attribute.

I’ve watched a thief use P/D P/P build in sPvP. His play style revolved around stealthing to get close and dropping caltrops all over his foe. Then he overwhelmed them with sneak attack and 2x unload. Think he used caltrops, shadow refuge and blinding powder for utility and had 19k health(not certain though).

Lumn.2951:

What kind of gear would these two types of thieves use, since I doubt it was a full berserker thief?

My guess would be a combination of Valkyrie + ‘serker since that’s the combination I used to have for a while until I replaced my ’serkers with Knights.

The idea with this build is to pepper the target with Sneak Attack + Unload at a high crit damage rate. The Crit Chance in this build is low since the crit chance relies on the Superior Sigil of Intelligence.

Stealth -> “swap weapon” -> sneak attack -> unload -> repeat
Or
Stealth -> sneak attack -> “swap weapon” -> unload -> repeat

The condition damage is just a plus, but hitting for 6k-7k per Unload (vs heavy armor more dmg on light armor) is the key. The sneak attack usually serves as endurance drainer since in my experience, people like to dodge roll the sneak attack only to take a full Unload to the face (ok focus, stay with me here).

Since you’re a Ranger, you’re probably taking 5k-6k per Unload.

If you’re running a glass cannon, you would’ve been dead really fast taking maybe around 8k-10k per Unload.

I was under the impression that sigil of intelligence only proc’s on one of sneak attack’s many shots, is it really that valuable or am I missing something here with that sigil and channelled skills?

Lumn.2951:

I was under the impression that sigil of intelligence only proc’s on one of sneak attack’s many shots, is it really that valuable or am I missing something here with that sigil and channelled skills?

Nah, you can Sigil however you want. Whatever works for you.

But during that time, I also have a Sigil of Air in off-hand.

The Crit Chance of the build is low compare to the full ‘serker, but it’s not insignificant without the Sigil of Int. If I remember correctly, I was around 33%-36% Crit chance that time.