Guild Wars 2

Seriously – i have nothing that could ever put out this kind of damage. I see thief stealth, I run. I use two evades, 1 heal, my signet of rage for speed.

What else could I do? There’s absolutely nothing I can do when he can start with 11,000 points of damage lead. (Steal, cloak and dagger, backstab)

Do I need two builds – one to run from thieves, one for everything else? At least with my elementalist i have a chance of escape (and if I go dagger/dagger, a slight chance of winning if the thief forgets to run).

-Jeff

In WvW:

You die.

Option 2: You dodge/blow every defensive CD. THEN you die.

Oh, were you expecting something else?

In SPvP though:
You dodge/use defensive CD, immobilize that rat kitten because culling doesn’t protect him and nuke his butt down.

Ok – the rage is passing, but my question stands. What’s the SPvP option here? What weapons set do I want, what utilities are useful here?

The issue I have is that even if I hit (say) endure pain, heal, then do as you say, he’s starting with a 12K lead (I miscounted in the first post) – if I gear up better, it’ll still be in the 10k range.

Even if by a miracle I can close that damage gap, he’ll just hit his defenses and leave the fight, then come back and try again.

-Jeff

Your issue is that you handle it as a defeatist and your first reaction as soon as you see a thief is to run away.

Big mistake.

Grab a shield/Hammer build and never lose to a thief ever again. They key is control.

What you do is you don’t listen to whiny little girls who would rather blame the class instead of piercing through like a real man would.

Second, use 20/30/0/0/20 Mace + Shield and HB. Mace and HB can be a really bad match-up with Thieves because with Mace you can easily bait out most Thief stun breaks and then they become vulnerable to Bulls Charge + HB.

Third, learn to predict. If they go invisible and they’re melee range trigger-happy then..

1.) Random Whirlwind attacks can screw their incentive up
2.) Use Mace 2 to avoid getting back-stabbed when their stealthed.
3.) Sometimes you might even get them with skull crack if they over commit, effectively baiting out their stun breaks.

If they pull out the bow, use shield stance so you can close in without worrying about getting kited. If they’re using bow 5 to escape then YOU ARE DOING YOUR JOB SCARING THEM AWAY and messing up their incentive to kill.

AND ALWAYS try to catch them at the end of a dodge-roll (Which you can kinda force out if you get them with a Mace daze) with Shield Bash or Bulls Charge. If they don’t dodge you can mind game and use a quick skull crack to mess them up. It will be hard at first but you will get used to it if you actually try.

TL;DR Warriors should ALWAYS bait out a Thief’s stun break with a Mace to mess their team fight incentive up. Warriors can destroy Thieves if they don’t have a stun break available fairly easily.

Schwahrheit.4203:

What you do is you don’t listen to whiny little girls who would rather blame the class instead of piercing through like a real man would.

lul you really have your gender identity values misplaced in life. Methinks you are overcompensating far far too hard for your ’short’comings in life.

I have no idea how a hammer would help matters, but thanks a lot for the ideas with the mace. I happen to like maces in fantasy game purely on style issues – sounds like I can get some use out of it here.

Braxxus – I think there was a bit of tongue-in-cheek in the remark. :-)

-Jeff

In WvW, you’re kinda out of luck. Due to culling, stealth is stronger there, as well as the fact that they don’t have an “objective” like a point to cap + the map is much larger so its alot easier for them to run. Alot of thieves run a perma-stealth, high survival build just to troll you in wvw.

In sPvP, culling isn’t an issue, and the maps are smaller so its easier to hunt a thief down. Also, the answer to a backstab thief is a shield + defensive cooldowns. In WvW you’re probably running with a ranged weapon instead which makes you weak to thieves. In sPvP you’re almost assuredly running with a shield, and most likely running with endure pain as well. You only need 1 of these to stop the thief instagib; if you have both, you should win even easier.

As for sPvP weapon set, go with GS + any 1h + shield. Sword is probably the easiest to use since you have a gap closer/escape with it, as well as a long duration root (use sword burst > instaswap to gs > 100b. If they can’t remove the immobilize, you get a full cast 100b on them without frenzy) Mace and axe both work fine as well (slightly different nuisances/objectives when using those weapons -axe more more strait up damage/burst and mace for more control/defense.

Why are you running from a thief? Its supposed to be the other way around. Most of my encounters with thiefs in WvW consist of them hitting me from stealth taking a good chunk of my HP away, I hit them back. They get scared, stealth and run away.

i would suggest you take a look at ‘fear me’ and distracting strikes (strength trait 7).

of course, this wont work as well if you’re not condition spec, but ‘fear me’ has saved me from so many backstab thieves recently, and then they just own themselves when i hit them with shield bash.

Hammer with a shield does help in my experience, however I find this build has a tenancy to have trouble with the kitten pistol thieves that just constantly go invisible and blind all over the place with how slow hammer is, everything misses due to constant blinds. So unless I time a shake it off perfectly with one of my good control hits the fight can be a struggle. However if I get control once, most of these crap thieves just die with they’re pathetic glass cannon builds.

thief is broken and will be fixed. there is a thread by Arenanet for suggestions already.

Go 10/0/30/10/20. For utility skills use the heal move that removes two conditions. Use endure pain, balanced stance and fear me. For weapons use gs and axe/shield. Right when you see thieves chances are they’ll test if you’re a squishy warrior or not. Let them come. When you see them cloak just anticipate when they’ll start their backstabbing attack. right when you’re hit just activate endure pAin. after endure pain is over use balanced stance and then use crippling throw with your gs. Depending if you slot in the 1 second immobilize move skill in your vitality trait tree or not it’ll immobilize them. Use the #5 attack and charge at them to close the distance. After you’re within range use the spinning blade move (#3), right after that switch to sword and shield and hit your leaping sword attack( #2) to get within distance, use the f1 attack or attack #3 to immobilize them. Switch back to gs and rinse/repeat. The trick to fighting them is to immobilize them as much as possible so that you can concentrate on aoe’ing them down. Don’t worry about health unless you absolutely have to ( depends if youre bad at warrior or not) because chances are you will not go down before they do. If all else fails and it looks like youre going to go down before they do simply use shield blocking abilities and wait for gs skills to cool down. Always heal only when you’re using gs. I’ve never had much problems with thieves. It’s usually those pesky mesmers and necros.

I usually wait one or two seconds and then throw up either shield stance or riposte while slowly walking backward, that seems to do the trick on avoiding the first blow.

Thieves have god mode in wvwvw due to perma stealth. Badly broken class.

Fun stuff.

Today I went into WvW, ran with a mid-sized group, sieging a castle, when suddenly they leaped out and cut me and a few others off from the main body. I backed away without a problem, but then a wolfpack (3 thieves) came up from a different direction and I figured I was toast.

I ran towards the main keep, and they caught up and attacked. I hit endure pain and kept running, but they immobilized me. I then yanked out hammer 4, hammer 3 , evades, heal…I threw everything I had into the mix. They finally downed me, but by then the main body came in and wiped them (and kindly kept me from dying).

As luck would have it, after a particularly dry day loot-wise, I got 3 loot bags from that. I was quite pleased. :-)

-Jeff

edit: through/threw. I hate words. :-)

1st What is your armor…? 2nd use endure pain right when he start to burst you.

Thief is kinda a glass cannon class that anti glass cannon, so re-roll a non glass cannon build.

Endure Pain is pointless against decent thieves because thieves are capable of disengaging from combat at almost any time. All they have to do is disengage with stealth/blink then reopen combat when Endure Pain wears off and is on cooldown.

Whats next?

Apart from shadow refuge, a thief can only be in stealth for a few seconds. Just survive long enough to avoid the stealth attack and then CC and burst them down when they’re out of stealth. They should have a stun breaker so you may have to try this a couple of time. To avoid stealth attacks just create some distance. If they stealth in front of you just turn around and create a gap with skills like sword 2, GS 3 and 5 etc and let them waste their stealth chasing after you. Skills like fear me and shield stance will obviously work too as will well timed dodges.

I would save endure pain for a mug + basilisk venon+ cnd+ backstab combo. They can only steal once every ~40 seconds. Also remember that, if you can get a thief to hit you from the front, you half the damage of backstab. Just walking and turning around can make it difficult to hit someone from the back.

It makes me sad when I see warriors getting killed by a glasscannon thief, cause they refuse to get some kittening Toughness/Vitality. You’re a WARRIOR for kitten sake! QUIT using berserker gear.

Glasscannon thief > Any other glasscannon ( most of the time, there are exceptions).

Get some  Power/Vit/Tougness (which is the best in my opinion).
Power/Vit/Toughness gear can withstand pretty much anything.(Use a few berserkers jewels if you like) 
As a warrior you have pretty much have permanent “Fury”( +20% Crit chance) . 40%  Crit chance with “Fury” is  ENOUGH.
No berserker noob (thief/warrior) can kill me. Go with 10/0/30/30/0 for passive regen and healing on shouts, but right now I’m using 20/0/20/30/0 which is better.
Going tankish beats pretty much any other class. Except for a tank guardian or tank/condition necro ( trust me I know).

But right now let’s just talk about how to counter a glasscannon thief:
-Use an axe to do some heavy pressure.Grab a kittening shield and use ‘5’ to block the stolen whirling axe. 
-Use "Shake it off " to counter the basilisk venom combo
- Use the 1 sec immobilise on cripple. I LOVE this trait. Immobilise > thieves.

-If the thief tries to hide under “Shadow Refuge” just keep whacking …. he HAS to stay inside until that house animation dissapears, otherwise he will lose his “Stealth”
So If you’re using a  greatsword just use Whirlwind attack  or 100b. They usually reappear downed  on the ground.

- Also, do not use a hammer against a thief. If you don’t master the hammer then DO NOT use it.  PRACTICE WITH IT FIRST.

When I play with my thief I can dodge every warrior’s knockdown/CC, just because I have experience with pretty much every class.
—————

I have 5 lvl 80’s. Warrior (Main) , Thief, Mesmer, Guardian and Necro.
I have tried glasscannon builds on all of them  but going tankish is the best of all.
Conditions gear works well on thief, mesmer and necro.

A full glass cannon thief only has 10-11k health. (no WvW bonuses included, nor the trait that gives +5 %  vitality). This is incredibly low, if you manage to knocklock/stunlock/immobilise them and thendo a quick combo, they’ll die immediatly.
 
A Thief does not have perma stealth.
kitten! Go learn other classes’s mechanics. 
I cannot stress this enough… once you know how other classes work you’ll do everything much better. Practice makes perfect

Mace/Shield is the answer.

Never again will you lose to a thief. Block backstabs with mace. Block burst with shield. And if they are a ranged thief you trait for blocks to reflect.

Use a block skill, use endure pain, mash 1 on your axe while spinning around, use any stun/kd/kb (earthshaker on your own location almost always gets them, proceed to combo), run away with gs or sword and go back when he’s no longer in stealth.

Torres.2890:

[b]A Thief does not have perma stealth.
kitten! Go learn other classes’s mechanics. 
I cannot stress this enough… once you know how other classes work you’ll do everything much better. Practice makes perfect

Actually there is a method with D/P to perma stealth. It’s a bit of a pain in the kitten to maintain, but totally doable.

@OP, CC’s in general will screw a thief over, stuns and KD’s being the end all of most fights. I recommend Hammer or Axe/Shield.

Also the channeled range skills will follow thieves into stealth which is good if your trying to kill one, but bad if you happen to be on one.

I’m running hammer 0/0/20/30/20 at the moment and it’s pretty easy to farm the majority of WvW thieves. Good thieves you can mostly fight to a stalemate. Then look for a chance to bugger out, as via attrition they will eventually win, especially the condition thieves which I feel are far more dangerous and underrated.

Torres.2890:

It makes me sad when I see warriors getting killed by a glasscannon thief, cause they refuse to get some kittening Toughness/Vitality. You’re a WARRIOR for kitten sake! QUIT using berserker gear.

I Roll in full berserkers armor and accessories(with soldier runes). I do none the less have an “ok” amount of toughness.

The whole point is NOT sitting through a thief’s burst. To be able to successfully evade a thief’s opening attack and burst takes a lot of practice and as i mentioned earlier, control is key. Having said that, i feel that GS is mostly useless in pvp due to lack to control, thus i prefer my trusty hammer.

We have more than one tools to counter a thief(Assuming a 1v1), such as:

1) Fear me: You see a thief cloaking. Get ready for the opener. Your reaction has to be in the millisecond or else prepare to lose a huge chunk of HP. He opens, you fear him. At this point 50% of thieves will break a lot of cd’s to run away, restealth so they can either try again or never come back. Yes, they will do that because they lost their opener.

2)Shake it off(with soldier’s runes for Bonus condtition removal): Again same scenario, break the opener and proceed in controlling the duel. In this case more thieves will stay on you because you have not cc’d them yet.

3) Shield stance + shield bash is priceless. You can even pop shield stance as soon as a thief opens on you or right before(If they’re not using basilisk venom)

Now, in terms of my weapon of choice, Hammer is truly superior. Why?

Backbreaker
Staggering Blow
Earthshaker

Do you really know how its like on the thief when you successfully chain these 3 abilities? On a glass cannon thief its a 3 shot.

And let me share with you my finest secret combo which doesnt always work but its fun:

I see thief: Bulls Rush + Shield bash + switch to hammer and Backbreaker + Staggering Blow + Earthshaker + Fear me. If needed i will Hammer Shock to snare them

Count the control: 6 CC abilities. Now, They cannot always be chained but sweet jesus when they do…

Also, i use flurry of blows with the sword to snare them in place.

I’d love to post some videos (i have a lot of footage already)where i do 1v1, 1v2, 1v3 with my current build but i’ve been too caught up farming for my legendary. I’ll see if i can.

TLDR: Thieves are seriously a 0% thread 1-1, apart from the very very skilled players, who are good with whichever class they play. Stop rolling around with a GS and full signets. It has to be the most gimmicky build, one you should hve dropped at lvl 60 or so.

The worst part is, he’s just spamming his skills like a noob ..