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Help with thieves
Hi,
Good thieves can be a pain to beat, and you need to be patient. However, the warrior has the right tools to tame these beasts. There’s something I don’t get, though – only the evade and condi thieves are a problem to you? What about the usual stealth thieves? In any case, here follows some general advice about fighting thieves, in the hope that it’s useful to you.
About blinding: whatever their orientation, thieves are masters at blinding, making you miss your hits. As a warrior, you should therefore equip and activate the Berserker’s Stance as soon as the thief enters combat, and possibly trait the stance using “Sure-Footed” to increase its duration. Also, if you get blinded, don’t panic and keep on hitting the auto-attack – as the first successful attack removes the blind. Note that thieves can blind with weapons, with utilities, and by simply entering stealth.
About damage: thieves can inflict huge damage, especially when stealthed, and you’ll definitely take some. In PvP going berserker is fine as long as you react quickly enough, but in WvW this would be very dangerous, and I’d recommend mixing some toughness gear here and there. Also, “Endure Pain” should let you survive in melee and apply some pressure yourself.
About stealth: thieves are just invisible, they’re not immune to damage. Keep on hitting the autoattack regularly, even though you don’t see anyone. Also, count about 3 seconds from when they stealth, then dodge – in my experience, that’s the average time it takes for them to close in and hit. This should also helps with thieves teleporting to you, then back again.
About weapons: some work better than others. The rifle is fine, because of its channeled attacks that keep applying damage, even though the opponent is stealthed, also indicating you where the opponent is. The greatsword, on the other hand, is more difficult because the thief has a better mobility than you, and simply has to teleport away if you manage to root him. As alternate weapons, consider the axe, lethal because of its quick autoattack, and the shield, with a block letting you resist the stolen Whirling Axe and a stun letting you inflict a burst on a vulnerable target. The longbow is also interesting, because of its AoE and its burst, which lets you cleanse conditions easily, and the hammer can work as well if you manage to stun-lock the opponent.
HTH.
Nice guide and much appreciated, can you expand on the condition clearing be it through abilities or blasting etc.
!!!! YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR !!!!
Hi,
I’m not expert at condition thief, so others could probably be more helpful here – I prefer the usual direct damage thief, especially the D/D setup. Let’s try anyway.
First things first, before cleansing conditions, you need to know how the thief inflict them, in order to avoid them. Basically:
- Do not enter enemy AoE (applicable to all classes!). The thief has some poison and bleed AoE with the shortbow, and can scatter caltrops (which cripple and bleed), either through skills or on evade,
- Use Line of Sight to hide from projectiles. Thief condition builds are often based on pistol / dagger, the AA and stealth attack inflicting bleed, and the dual wield attack inflicting torment (and going back with a teleport). When possible, use the environment to protect yourself (like hiding behind a pillar), all the more that the thief is likely to kite you,
- The thief can also inflict confusion/poison on steal, possibly increasing the range of stealing to 1500, and it’s hard to protect against that. Basically: stealing, dagger 5 to enter stealth and blind, pistol 1 to inflict 5 stacks of bleed, pistol 3 to inflict torment and go away, switching to shortbow to start kiting the tormented opponent, is a possible opening for the thief. Maybe try it in PvP, against golems or training NPCs, to get a feel about it?
As a warrior, you can minimize your exposure using the tips above, and you can take advantage, again, of the Berserker’s Stance to simply ignore the application of conditions. Most opponents get aware of the berserker stance only a few seconds after it has been activated, as they are focused on their opening, so this gives you time to do your own damage.
I’m a minimalist at condition cleansing, so apart from using the tips above, I simply run with Cleansing Ire. This trait lets you remove 1-3 conditions every 7-10 seconds by using your burst skill, and can be used either without thinking (just keep on attacking and bursting, and your conditions get cleansed automatically), or with thinking (when you start accumulating too many conditions). The latter works as follows: if I have no blind, I burst right away, if I have blind I auto-attack first then burst, and eventually if I miss my burst for any reason, I switch weapons and start again.
Apart from that, you do have plenty of options for condition cleansing, but they imply certain choices in your build, which may or may not be compatible with the game play that you are seeking. I’d recommend that you have a look at the following, checking out things related to the warrior, and incorporating the cleansing option most compatible with your current build vision.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_removal#Skills_that_remove_conditions
Regards.
you need to time your attacks, like when a s/d thief finished his 1st phase of #3 skill, during the small window of him using the 2nd phase of #3 skill, he has no evade, also count his dodges
I count the dodges and then go in but recognising these combos is extremely difficult, as soon as i see them pull out pistol dagger or dagger pistol it’s pretty much game over if as i get tormented and perma kitted with poison being applied over and over by attacks that dart in and out so fast i can’t do crap.
They are completely nad utterly sucking the fun out of this game for me, there is nothing even remotely fun about playing Vs them, if i do beat one it’s a hollow victory because they are most likely extremly aweful or new to the class.
!!!! YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR !!!!