Guild Wars 2

I find I’m having a pretty difficult time versus mesmers, thieves and to a lesser extent guardians. I feel as though this is because I’m not as good as I could be. Does anyone know of any dueling videos of warriors against any of these classes?

I find that with mesmers, I never know which one is the real mesmer and that I’m constantly killing clones. I’m sure I’ll get it eventually, but for now, are there any tips in general for fighting against mesmers?

With thieves, I find that I’m constantly blinded so I’m ineffective in close quarters or almost always crippled when the thief pulls out a ranged weapon.

I’m looking for general tips to fight against these classes, but if it helps, my build is 0/0/30/10/30 and I’m running mostly berserker gear.

Thanks!

Against a decent mesmer, a warrior will never win so don’t feel too bad if you get trashed by one.

Tips on finding and targetting the real mesmer quickly would be look for their dodges and skill animations. If they have chaos armor on them, it is most likely the real player.

In order to give yourself a chance in beating one you have to try and block/dodge their major bursts, which would be either shatters or phantasms. You need to put a lot of pressure on them from the get go while at the same time AoEing and destroying their clones. You need to burst them down very quickly so glassy builds tend to do better although they will die faster. Or spec into heavy condition damage but even then a good mesmer will pack 1 or 2 condition removals.

With thieves it depends. If they use an S/D build they will be significantly harder than a D/D build due to their large amount of evades and kiting ability. The main reason you probably find yourself blinded is that you are stepping in their AoE circle. You need to be patient yet you need to react quickly against a thief when the time comes. Stepping outside of their blinding circle and then using a good old shield bash would help. Move sporadically, and keep swinging your weapon when they are in stealth you might catch a few autoattacks on them. Predict when they are going to come out of stealth so you can prepare to block their burst and then counter attack. Thieves hate immobilize so use that to your advantage. If they summon thieves guild destroy them as soon as possible. If they use ranged weapons a good trait to pick up is Missile Deflection. Most thieves do not have a lot of condition removal so they hate bleeds and burns as well. A good combo if you use a longbow would be to cast your F1 on the ground, Pin Down the thief when he is in your combo field and switch weapons to Shield Bash the thief. They will take a lot of burning and bleeding damage.

Or if you use a mace, Shield bash them, use your Skull Crack, switch to greatsword and hundred blade them.

It’s glaringly obvious which one the real mesmer is, he strafes and uses skills and basically behaves nothing like ai does.

But yeah you’ll still lose with a 90% certainty to any decent mesmer. Their mechanics just carry them that much.

As for thieves just pray that anet recognizes how insanely bad the new blind is for melee characters and applies some kind of fix. Otherwise just make sure you are clear of blind before blowing an important cc cooldown like bull’s charge or shield bash.

You will never defeat another class that plays competently. Maybe a Ranger. The non-BM variant.

Talking tpvp or WvW?

I only WvW and dont really find any class that hard to beat. Sure some classes are harder then other but it all comes down to the spec, weapon setup, gear and food.

Knowing your own class and the other is a most of course but thats a give away

If you’re killing anyone with warrior they are just bad.

This is a montage of random 1v1s (extra footage) from WvW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq1JmiOaPiQ

While the footage was when I first started playing this build and I was making way more mistakes than I do now (and the warrior has a much easier time in WvW than sPvP) it might be of some help.

If you want to improve your 1v1 simply play the professions you’re having a tough time versus and learn their abilities and strategies. In sPvP as a warrior on 1v1 servers I’m doing really well vs most opponents with the exception of a few OP 1v1 builds played by some really good players. If I was to exclude those losses I would say I’m having an 80%+ win ratio.

So in other words practice, learn when to use and how not to waste your immunity abilities/blocks and gap closers, learn how not to miss your bursts and as long as you put the effort in it, you’ll be able to do pretty well!

Play other classes. You will learn how to kill them by how other people kill you.

A little tip against mesmers you can do to tell who is the real one until you learn how to discern the real one (kind of the lazy way as some will put it) well the "lazy way " is as follows.

Under options, deselect “Show all enemy names” this will drop the names for the clones and keep only for the real mesmer. (only the real mesmer will have a name above their head so you can easily find them).

Or, you could go into spvp (or find a nice guildie who plays or even better if they main a mesmer) and fight against them over and over. This not only teaches you how to fight a mesmer, but it also teaches you how to play a warrior properly against a class such as a mesmer. Giving you a better chance at survival against the random mesmer you find in wvw/spvp.

Oh, and about thieves: figure out what spec they are first: (like melee with D/D, S/D, S/P, D/P| or range with p/p, P/d, or SB)

~If melee, and they disappear into stealth, do “NOT” be one of those who walks slowly backwards or doesnt move at all. You are just a large sitting duck, as the thief practically gets a free backstab or daze. Keep moving forward, and if you can spam your first attack (if you see it cycle to second attack on first skill you connected with thief and know where they are now). And do not just walk into their black powder if you can help it, eventually you will be able to tell the difference between a good thief who uses an off hand /p and one who isnt as experienced.
-Difference: good thief will use blackpowder as an interrupt (causing your attack to miss) and will properly use headshot to take out your heal.
-not so good thief: uses it only as a condition, and forgets the blind is also a interrupt in a sense. so they will waste it when they shouldnt have.

-Ranged: If you can, get up close and personal with that thief, and make sure they pay for going ranged. You got enough cc’s to punish them, so use them wisely. Good rule of thumb against a P/D (since most use the regen health in steath trait) count down 3-4 secs, and than dodge. This can help you miss their stealth burst, and nullify a little of their damage.

For melee’s who use off hand /d, again do the countdown. Some thieves tend to have an “itchy” finger and want to attack as soon as possible, so do a 2 sec countdown as soon as they stealth (3-4 secs if they used Shadow refugee) and than dodge, doesnt matter direction just dodge. Chances are you will have dodged their stealth daze/or backstab.

This is from what i’ve experienced while fighting thieves, and as playing one. Hope this helps you.