Guild Wars 2

I still have trouble with DH following balance patch.

Anyone have any legitimate advice? Other than the usual “just dodge through the traps noob!”

its hard to know exactly when to dodge when there are 3 invisible traps just sitting there, sometimes not exactly on top of each other but overlapping.

https://youtu.be/1E2Y1Oiltio
You are welcome XD

To build on “just dodge through the traps”, the Dash dodge will help you more easily clear the distance of a trap during your dodge because it goes 50% farther. That makes it easier to push through overlapping traps safely.

Bandit’s Defense is something else that can help greatly with them now, after its buff, since you won’t automatically flail out with a kick after your first block. It gives you one and a half seconds to stand inside traps without taking any damage and consider your next move. If you dodge and wind up standing inside a Dragon’s Maw, for example, you can activate the block to stop the damage and application of Slow, and wait out almost half of the duration of the wall around you that holds you in place. Then fifteen seconds later (or 12, when traited), you can do that again.

Beating Guardians using good Block uptime. What is the world coming to?

What build are you using?

And honestly, baiting the traps is the main success. If they drop several at once, double dodge through. Save your stun break for when the elite with the warding is dropped. Run away and LOS until traps are triggered and stop dealing damage. After that, come back and own face. Just don’t blow big damage cooldowns when they have blocks up.

Really, just take your time and don’t get in a hurry. If you try to super rush burst them down, you’ll fail every time.

Me as a staff daredevil also have problems with DHs. The thing is they have so much pressure. Avoiding traps is not enough and their distant longbow damage is so dangerous that i cant kite them either.. Its mostly going all in and win or die

A DH not in team fight is already an inefficient DH.

It is probably not your best option to 1v1 a DH on point. You can simply poke, bait out trap skills. Stealth and go away so that you outnumber at another node. He will be the one confused and try to figure out where you go.

Just run homies, any good guard will use meditations now and no trap doge doge, I will find u, and EAT u 4 breakfast. NOM NOM NOM. Bye now little homies

A DH of equal skill on a decent build will generally wreck a thief at least in 1v1. The traps keep a thief off their melee game but the bow dishes out serious damage. We have to dodge the traps, but also dodge the pull and their big hitter on the bow. If you manage to do all that, you can probably expect at least one knockback when you get close, Aegis, at least one invuln and or course a big heal or two. Then they cycle all that over again.

Hard to imagine prior to a trap nerf they were even harder to beat. Course I would still rather square off against one of these than a bunker Tempest. They are unkillable at least with every build I have tried.

Straegen.2938:

A DH of equal skill on a decent build will generally wreck a thief at least in 1v1.

So much this.

Anyone claiming that he can beat regularly DHs in 1v1 with any thief build, has faced only really bad DHs.

In theory:
you can wait daze him first, to proc the trap,
→ then you have to bait his pull from traits, that also gives him stability
→ now you can steal stability and slash face with melee attack for a bit
→ here goes f3 op blocking → my advice to wait duration of 5 seconds and procceed to slash him.
→ try to wait and interrupt f2 wings, and heal. If you fail to interrupt trap-heal, at least don’t walk into it range.

When guard used his elite meditation, wait for F3 block again and then you can try finish him down if you’re alive at this moment.

In theory…

Galandil.9641:

Straegen.2938:

A DH of equal skill on a decent build will generally wreck a thief at least in 1v1.

So much this.

Anyone claiming that he can beat regularly DHs in 1v1 with any thief build, has faced only really bad DHs.

I’ve faced good and bad DH’s. As a class they are tougher than most to beat — but not unbeatable. I say that as a P/D thief running a very synergized build.

My general strategy, to the extent that one strategy fits all DH players, is to expect that the first HP bar is probably going to be healed. The plan is (1) Burst, (2) Sustain, (3) Burst. Sustain comes from a lot of different abilities. The stolen item from them is a good daze, switching to shortbow is a good evade/blind. Etc. Usually, given initiative and some utilities as the baseline, I get my burst back before they get their heal back.

The rest is positioning. Some will try to run and gun (with longbow) for example to run down their cool downs. You need to be able to apply your second burst as soon as it is available. Don’t get caught, Unhindered is great for that, so is shortbow 5.

Essentially — scare them into / make them blow their cooldowns, keep calm and go to evade/stealth/outmaneuver, re-burst to finish them.

Straegen.2938:

A DH of equal skill on a decent build will generally wreck a thief at least in 1v1. The traps keep a thief off their melee game but the bow dishes out serious damage. We have to dodge the traps, but also dodge the pull and their big hitter on the bow. If you manage to do all that, you can probably expect at least one knockback when you get close, Aegis, at least one invuln and or course a big heal or two. Then they cycle all that over again.

Hard to imagine prior to a trap nerf they were even harder to beat. Course I would still rather square off against one of these than a bunker Tempest. They are unkillable at least with every build I have tried.

Bunker tempest still exists?? I eat those for my warm up snack.

Than maybe they were as bad as the Dh’s?
Good Bunker Tempests with Earth are able to outsustain you, if they know when to dodge.

Sure they are beatable, same with Dh’s and other Classes. But those two are just annoying for a Thief/Daredevil, if played well. Wouldnt wasting time with them..

I came to this thread hoping to find some novel concept I hadn’t thought of, but I am not surprised at the responses!

If you fight a DH you’re gonna have a bad time.

The most success I’ve had has been with D/P (of course, D/P has everything).

If they have traps, you’re actually in luck, because that’s an easier encounter. Dodge through the traps can work, but of course they immediately burst anyone with their other skills as soon as they see their traps trigger.

A better option is shadow shot, followed by (wait for it), shadow shot, then auto attack (yay). The reason is that the blind portion of shadow shot is unblockable. So they are blinded before you teleport on top of their traps, thus the traps are ineffective.

You can also basil venom, then black powder>bound>steal>backstab since this will also go through their blocks.

I would recommending going as glassy as you can, really, because you’re going to need to burst them from 100-0 in-between their invulns/blocks/roflkitten-faceroll skills.

If they don’t run traps, good luck because they bring even more melee area burst and invulns.

If you try it as anything other than D/P I just high recommend blinding often, however you can find your blind source.

edit: a friend recommends PP through smoke screen. I’ve tried it in duels and have not had as much luck as d/p but ymmv.

Because PP is too expensive. 5, Bound, Stealth Aa through Smokefield. After that you have to Unload through the Field. Anything else does not enough Dmg/Burst to get them down. Way too expensive. Just Bound with 5 and Aa wouldnt be enough, but yes… can be annoying. Shadow Shot helps a lot (blind in general)

Other than that Staff works good too. Try to keep Weakness on them with Staff and Trait. Blind them and just use Vault when you are sure to hit.

I dropped Sb for Staff + D/P.

Maesto.9103:

Than maybe they were as bad as the Dh’s?
Good Bunker Tempests with Earth are able to outsustain you, if they know when to dodge.

Sure they are beatable, same with Dh’s and other Classes. But those two are just annoying for a Thief/Daredevil, if played well. Wouldnt wasting time with them..

Idk but ever since their Protection uptime was fixed and cele amulet removed, they haven’t had the same sustain as they did during the bunker meta. Steal takes away their protection and I just auto away with heart seeker near the end. If they try to heal, use pistol 4 and interrupt procing pulmonary impact.

But DH, yeah them and Druid and maybe Scrapper are the only classes a thief should not 1v1.

They will just one shot you with True shot/LB, if not from the traps, trying to contest or decap against them is usually pointless, even worse without shortbow.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

They will just one shot you with True shot, if not from the traps, trying to contest or decap against them is usually pointless, even worse without shortbow.

You know, you can just dodge that. It’s a pretty obvious animation (bow pulled back with glowy blue light) with a 3/4 second cast time plus projectile speed.

Or line of sight it.

Or blind it.

But agreed that jumping into a 1 v 1 against a DH is generally not a good idea. Just rotate to a fight somewhere else and +1 instead.

not sure about WvW but fighting dragonkitten as a thief feels pretty b/s in sPvP due to traps, i guess WvW is equally bad due to their range advantage in the open terrain but at least traps are less of a problem there

“huntaard” is censored, lmao

If I see a DH sitting on a point I just keep running past the point. If I see a DH in a group fight, I target the enemy that is farthest away from the DH so he can’t drop his traps on top of me. I’ve researched tactics against DH and tried everything that has been suggested, but the results have been the same. It’s just a horrible matchup for anything but highly skilled thieves, I think.