Guild Wars 2

I don’t know how to beat one. I need help with this so I can finally learn how to counter one.

con thief has no business losing to the typical GS+A&S warrior unless you gib them with bull charge into burst immediately, and even then they’ll just leave and come back at full. it’s one of those builds you should pass over in spvp situations to go find a more palatable target.

you don’t, i play p/d and have 1v2ed warriors MANY times.

just don’t stand in the caltrops and you may live long enough for help to come

Get a riffle, keep superior range (dont stop running if they stealth) and use chain skills (#2, #3, #4, F1) before they go in stealth to get em even if you dont see. Get that knockback right and avoid C&D as much as you can to depleat their ini.

Its not easy, not a 100% win thing, but it can work if you make everything right.

i’ve tryed diferent builds vs cond thief , including sigil of purity /generosity+pasive regeneration.
But you cannot beat pro cond thief in 1 vs 1, cause poor condition removal. Signet of stamina got too long cooldown, shouts remove single condition , etc.
However you can dodge the fight easy-rush -whirlwind-savage leap -bye bye.

If the thief has a secondary hand pistol on anyone of his weapons sets there is no reason he should lose (if he is decent) to a Warrior. The “Black Powder” skill is completely broken against melee classes. Not only does it blind us, but even if we get distance he can just leap through it and stealth. It is a very solid defensive move.

The best bet for a Warrior to even have a chance at beating a Dagger/Pistol thief is to do your best to alternate between normal attacks and stuns/dazes in between the blinds to force him to blow his cool-downs all the while saving “Bulls Charge + Frenzy” for when he has nothing left.

Realize though, he has “Shadow Step” skill, stun breaker 1200 range 50 second cool-down, “Hard to Catch” trait, shadow steps away and gets swiftness for 10seconds at 1200 range when stunned/dazed/knocked down/etc 60 second cool-down, more than likely “Hide in Shadows” heal + stealth, also while in stealth heals a condition every 3 seconds/regen health/regen initiative/move 50% faster all while stealthed. He could use Pistol 5 “Black Powder” + Dagger 2 “Heartseeker Strike” to gain stealth. He more than likely also has “Shadow Refuge” a very long stealth that will basically take him to full health from 1 health point (if he has the above set up).

Also note, if he has his elite up “Thieves Guild” your best bet is to take a shield with the trait “Missile Deflection” Trait V. It can almost one shot the pistol thief with his unload, while also knocking down the Dagger thief instead of him knocking you down.

You will die 9/10 times to Dagger/Pistol thiefs solely because their class is much better suited for PvP in general.

Please note: Trying to instant gib a thief will not work if he is traited properly. You must waste his stun breakers first.

you cant. but u should have no problem to escape. i just ignore them, even though u could get them to low, they will just shadowstep away and u r 1200+ distance from him, not worth the time.

I beat P/D thieves only 1 out of 10 times and all the times of pure luck.
Simply put, they outlast you.
They come out of stealth only to apply bleeds so you have little time to throw some damage.

It’s a tad OP to be honest.
I have a Thief too along with my Warrior, never understood all the D/D complaints (seriously? learn to use invul/block) but P/D is just uncounterable at least on Warrior.
Unless for some reason when P/D thief engages you happen to have slotted all condition removal skills in the game.

Generally:

IX on Tactics
Signet of Stamina
Rune of Lyssa

At the end of the dodge, you can catch them with a CC. Dueling caltrops is pointless to be honest, takes less effort to just “carry better” than focusing on dueling.

I play both a P/D Thief (Venoms) as well as a glassy GS/A&S Warrior.

Once in a blue moon on my Thief a Warrior will get the best of me at a very inopportune moment with the Signet of Rage > Bull’s Rush > Frenzy > 100B combo, which in my opinion, is the best chance a Warrior’s got. If that combo fails for whatever reason, it’d be best to make like a tree and leave, then return when you got your CDs back.

If you’re up against a D.A./venoms thief, they’ll for sure be activating Devourer’s Venom to keep you from running; assuming you’re running Mobile Strikes (which you should be) counter the snares with Rush, Whirlwind, Shield Bash, Eviscerate and get out of there.

If you’re up against a Trickery thief, they’re probably running any of the following utilities: Signet of Shadows, Caltrops, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, or Shadowstep.
Aside from the innate 25% increased movement speed which they will undoubtedly be running, only Shadowstep should really pose as a deterrent to you getting away. However, given their limited options for snaring (Dancing Dagger), a Warrior’s quick movement bursts should be able to outplay Shadowstep.

That’s just what I’d try to do. Maybe someone else may have better advice.

I have an 80 warrior(main) who is running warhorn/sword and GS in full zerker gear + soldier runes and i cannot recall the last time i lost to a P/D thief.

The skinny of it is that you will have a very hard time killing a P/D thief but you have access to so much mobility as a warrior that you can literally dance around a thief and choose to run if needed.

P/D is a troll build made to outlast you for as long as you insist fighting at one spot. Most of the times you will be able to escape such a thief.

Tips:

1) Stay out of caltrops
2) shake it off on 5+ stacks of bleeds + “fear me” when you have an opportunity to go offensive.
3) In the name of all that is sacred, do not focus on bulls charge+frenzy+100b combos. Save your bulls charge for an escape in this case, or at an ideal opportunity to stun the thief and Whirl slash him until you wear him off.
4) Take the leg specialist talent and force him to waste his stealth abilities defensively

I follow the tips above and i have literally not lost to a P/D thief 1v1 in weeks or months.

I even fought against 2 P/D thiefs with a friend before and they could not down any of us simply due to their lack of burst

Hope this helps

EDIT: I also have an 80 P/D thief, if that helps the credibility of my post

Brutalistik.6473:

I don’t know how to beat one. I need help with this so I can finally learn how to counter one.

Heres how you counter a P/D Thief, press esc and “rush” away with your greatsword. (make sure to have swiftness.)

You will win every encounter.

Vanthian.9267:

If the thief has a secondary hand pistol on anyone of his weapons sets there is no reason he should lose (if he is decent) to a Warrior. The “Black Powder” skill is completely broken against melee classes. Not only does it blind us, but even if we get distance he can just leap through it and stealth. It is a very solid defensive move.

The best bet for a Warrior to even have a chance at beating a Dagger/Pistol thief is to do your best to alternate between normal attacks and stuns/dazes in between the blinds to force him to blow his cool-downs all the while saving “Bulls Charge + Frenzy” for when he has nothing left.

Realize though, he has “Shadow Step” skill, stun breaker 1200 range 50 second cool-down, “Hard to Catch” trait, shadow steps away and gets swiftness for 10seconds at 1200 range when stunned/dazed/knocked down/etc 60 second cool-down, more than likely “Hide in Shadows” heal + stealth, also while in stealth heals a condition every 3 seconds/regen health/regen initiative/move 50% faster all while stealthed. He could use Pistol 5 “Black Powder” + Dagger 2 “Heartseeker Strike” to gain stealth. He more than likely also has “Shadow Refuge” a very long stealth that will basically take him to full health from 1 health point (if he has the above set up).

Also note, if he has his elite up “Thieves Guild” your best bet is to take a shield with the trait “Missile Deflection” Trait V. It can almost one shot the pistol thief with his unload, while also knocking down the Dagger thief instead of him knocking you down.

You will die 9/10 times to Dagger/Pistol thiefs solely because their class is much better suited for PvP in general.

Please note: Trying to instant gib a thief will not work if he is traited properly. You must waste his stun breakers first.

Dude your mixing up builds.

So far you named P/D S/D D/P and P/P no thieve can run all those and those traits in the same build. the build you mention does not exist the initative cost would be astronomical and simply put you cant have 4 weapon sets at the same time.

Back to the topic

There are 2 condition builds P/D sneak attack spam and DD LDB spam thats about it.

Caltrops can be taken out the equation by walking out of it. The area isn’t that big. Because warrior has weak condition removal your half SOL on cleanses. that being said most P/D thieves will die to a stun lock if you can pull it off. the thing to remember is on thief some traps and teleports are the stun breaks not stealth. If you stun lock them they are stun locked simple as that. The teleport skill you mention is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Strike to http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Return most condition thieves will not run this as an off set (some might) but it would kill their DPS which relies on keeping bleeds up. So its not something to worry about.

If you take a peak at the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun_breaker#Skills_that_break_stun you’ll realize that most thief stun breakers are on long CD and stuns. knock backs, knockdowns, etc are on much short cds. Thieves also have weak access to stability gaining it through http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dagger_Storm. You could literally keep them stun locked with hammer alone.

The best course of action is to kill their DPS chain by not falling for caltrops and dodging about half second (or immediately) after they close the gap causing them to miss http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger. Most thieves carry at least 2 other stealths. As long as your aware of it and how long stealth actually easy you could out ranger their Sneak Attack with a rifle or LOS them until stealth runs out.

the rest you can figure out but a word of advice. thief condition removal comes from stealth hammer is arguably the best stealth denial tool you have along with rifle.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hide_in_Shadows has a cast bar and long CD
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Refuge simply walk in the middle and hit hammer 4
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blinding_Powder instant but only has one blind and a long CD it does not break stun (you’ll likely hit the thief where he was)

Honestly warrior is one of the best stealth denial classes out there. So many of you Play GS or Axe solely that you forget your other weapons and how useful they are.

I used up play P/D long ago before it was “Popular”. I heard the whole hacks unfair etc etc. I am not bragging in anyway. The build is cheap and rather simple to play. However it actually has strong counters. If you read this I honestly hope it helps.

It’s a nice bit of theory there, theguy, would like to see a video of that.
Not considering D/D Eles who are broken and soon fixed, P/D is the only thing I could never counter on my Warrior.
If the Theif is any good he will just heal up the damage from ES, and either blind or dodge or shadowstep break the slow Backbreaker, then Warrior is out of tools for enough time to kill him twice.
Let alone any P/D thief will heal bazillions during stealth and due to omnomberry pie+sneak shot.

Unless I see it with my eyes I rest my case that P/D thief is a tad op.
On my Thief when I go P/D the only one that kills me is Guardian through massive AoE and ring of warding (if I can’t stability out of it that is).

The best way to counter a P/D thief is to ignore him and not fight him

They have no mobility… so…

Red Falcon.8257:

It’s a nice bit of theory there, theguy, would like to see a video of that.
Not considering D/D Eles who are broken and soon fixed, P/D is the only thing I could never counter on my Warrior.
If the Theif is any good he will just heal up the damage from ES, and either blind or dodge or shadowstep break the slow Backbreaker, then Warrior is out of tools for enough time to kill him twice.
Let alone any P/D thief will heal bazillions during stealth and due to omnomberry pie+sneak shot.

Unless I see it with my eyes I rest my case that P/D thief is a tad op.
On my Thief when I go P/D the only one that kills me is Guardian through massive AoE and ring of warding (if I can’t stability out of it that is).

Well like i said its about “denial of stealth” any one who plays thief realizes that stealth is the key. The primary denial of stealth is something every one should pick up with time. Evading C n D is part of any good player’s reputare. You should see it coming if it doesn’t come with steal. P/D (as you know) has weak access to blind. The most your looking at is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Shadows and blinding powder. Even so it stops one weapon swing and that about it.

" then Warrior is out of tools for enough time to kill him twice." your still thinking glass vs glass. ES is on a 10 second cd I am not going to hand hold here but if you f up your stun combo switch rifle and proceed to stall. The dps is heads up and if your traited right the thief wont be going anywhere or doing very much. If he dagger storms stop dps and go melee. Likely 1 of 2 things will happen hell stop the storm hold the stability and try to CnD just dodge it. Or he’ll keep to the storm if that the case punish him with melee.

As far as shadow steps go like I said at the end of the day your cc will beat his break if you both did what your’e supposed to. His CDs cant keep up (only S/D could do it).

You made a good point about the ES dodge. The animation is wide enough to dodge. However, this is countable too. Literally you can land ES every time and the thief can’t dodge. There is no healing through ES you can either shadow step or blinding powder but neither will do much good in the long run.

I will tell you now WvW video is pointless and stupid. No one can play for you or you say “ooh that works”. Either you can do it or you cant and of course its not going to work 100% of the time. That simply doesn’t happen there are too many variables in WvW. Figuring the rest out yourself it makes more sense to just come up with something that work for you. The best counter is to play P/D yourself and see where the gaps are. If you can’t get out of WvW and head to spvp in the smaller arenas. Eventually you’ll encounter players who can counter your build. Either way in WvW most of the time you’ll wipe the floor with warriors and that wont change. Or the warrior can always run and the PD simply won’t catch up.

BTW as you would guess all this fall apart if hes landing his cloak and dagger consistently. So no matter hammer, sword, whatever learn to spot the cast.

BTW PD is not OP its about right. C n D still has a high cost. Most other classes have strong enough condition removal to deal with it and most players suck. PD is inherently weak because this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot will not win fights against good players. The main problem is the PD player is so unlikely to run into some one running a counter build to their own they can only assume the build is strong. This is primarily an easy build. 1 and 5 are the core skills of the build.

Sorry for the long reply.

TL: DR

PD is actually an easy counter (the skills you need to do so that is) what I said before holds true. I am not sharing a build just some advice.

TheGuy.3568:

P/D (as you know) has weak access to blind. The most your looking at is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Shadows and blinding powder.

Cloaked in Shadow.

The following skills that most commonly/are in a P/D build now apply blind:
Cloak and Dagger
Shadow Refuge x5 (pulses)
Hide in Shadows
Last Refuge (Adept Passive)

I heard your theories, theguy.
The issue is that a P/D thief is going to be in stealth 99% of the times, how do you plan on applying all those tactics on something you never see?
You can go by trial and error but the issue is cooldowns. Thief has no cooldowns, Warrior does.

I can do what you say but that’s only 1 out of 10 times that I win.
Most times he manages to win even if just by little.

Galsia.4102:

TheGuy.3568:

P/D (as you know) has weak access to blind. The most your looking at is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Shadows and blinding powder.

Cloaked in Shadow.

The following skills that most commonly/are in a P/D build now apply blind:
Cloak and Dagger
Shadow Refuge x5 (pulses)
Hide in Shadows
Last Refuge (Adept Passive)

You really have to read more I know its long. You dodge C and D when it comes up (this is natural). Every other stealth skill requires the stealth apply before the blind. Blind counts for one weapon swing that misses. Strong access to blind comes for D/P. Even with all those skill the blind itself is melee and short range. There is no reason for blind to ruin your chances as it should not apply often. Like I said before its about denying stealth.

Last Refuge (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Refuge) is very inconsistent has a long CD and is vulnerable to the fact you cant control it.

Btw if you carry all those then the fight shouldn’t be all that hard. At most he would have access 1 or 2 venoms (only on doing dps) and maybe poison from mug. That level of condition damage (if you are properly denying stealth) will not kill you.

Edit:
Another note blind on stealth isn’t always going to be carried. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Arts tree carries other popular skills. The most notable skill to take its place is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Protector. either way blind is one swing that’s it (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind).

Red Falcon.8257:

I heard your theories, theguy.
The issue is that a P/D thief is going to be in stealth 99% of the times, how do you plan on applying all those tactics on something you never see?
You can go by trial and error but the issue is cooldowns. Thief has no cooldowns, Warrior does.

I can do what you say but that’s only 1 out of 10 times that I win.
Most times he manages to win even if just by little.

Don’t take offense to this but do you really play P/D? Its not an insult but saying thieves have no cd and applying it to PD sounds a bit suspect. That being said your looking at with your basic PD build your looking at an init pool of 15. Most if not all healing is coming from stealth (some from food). While they may have 2 stealth utilities and one as a heal at least one of the utilities is for escape they aren’t going to be very stealthy unless they are landing C n D.

Cloak and dagger should not be landing if it is rework your playstyle no matter the class it should not be landing. The animation is flagrant and easy to spot. If the thief is closing the gap (inherent flaw in P/D since its ranged. Think about it.) then you know its coming. C n D uses 6 init even with a large poll that’s 2 cast back to back. at most. As long is it not landing they aren’t getting much stealth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger has cast bar and the animation is of a hand moving across the body. There are skills that actually activate faster and can counter (one being http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rifle_Butt). However honestly the only counter you want to be using is dodge.

The main way to land c n d on an enemy that is dodging it is to use a shadow step. Of course Steal + C n D is nearly unstoppable (there are lucky ways with perfect timing but its way to inconsistent). So you have to eat that stealth in most cases. The rest are counterable. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Signet can be used as a shadow step. Now if hes running a cookie cutter P/D condition build you know a few things. First is that this skill likely has its full cd of 30 seconds. Another thing to note is that this should be the thieves main stun break. The trick here is to remember that if hes stun he cant precast C n D and if he tries IS to C n D you can just dodge counter. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep would be the other. I wont lie there is no good way to counter this as an escape tool but as an access to stealth its weak. Same rules as IS above just remember he can step back to the place he stepped from.

the key thing to remember like with all /D thief builds is that they have to close the gap to get the stealth they are going to kill you with. P/D is the most predictable and the only build that should be able to land its stealth whenever it wants is S/D. If you can figure out why it can do that then you know how to stop a PD thief and force its stealth utilities and cool downs.

Kill shot + volley

The key is to save your channeled attacks until they are low because channeled attacks (the ones with the progress bar across the bottom) will continue to hit targets even after they have stealthed.

TheGuy.3568:

Dude your mixing up builds.

So far you named P/D S/D D/P and P/P no thieve can run all those and those traits in the same build. the build you mention does not exist the initative cost would be astronomical and simply put you cant have 4 weapon sets at the same time.

That is one build. It is the build I use on my thief. So you can say, “No thief runs with that” and “That isn’t possible” but I am here to tell you, it is quite simple to set up that exact build and that is only with D/P that doesn’t include the secondary weapon.

Small Edit: Also note in the original post I said “Smart Thieves run with this”. I have no clue as to why you would not put in points to trait for Hard to Catch. That alone would stop your “chain stun”. Also, a lot of thieves run with Shadowstep (which would also stop your chain stun) + Shadow Refuge.

Big Edit: I honestly can’t sit here and see that post against mine saying it can’t happen. It is painfully obvious that it can. I mentioned 1 trait/2 utilities/2 weapons skill. How is that not possible? Let me recap it for you since you are having trouble reading it in the larger paragraph. Since you link links so much I added in the link to wiki.

Shadow Step: Utility skill http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep
Shadow Refuge: Utility skill: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Refuge
Hard to Catch: Trait: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hard_to_Catch
Heart Seeker Strike: Dagger 2: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heartseeker
Black Powder: Pistol 5: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Powder

Now lets recap….. If you get Hard to Catch you will have access to…
Fleet of Foot: Adept http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fleet_Shadow
Pain Response: Master http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pain_Response

Now if you trait up the Shadow Arts line you get….
Last Refuge: Minor: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Refuge
Meld with Shadows: Minor: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meld_with_Shadows
Shadows Embrace: Major: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace
Infusion of Shadow: Major: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infusion_of_Shadow

So longer stealth, 2 initiative on stealth, remove condition while stealth, move 50% faster while in stealth, two 1200 range shadow steps that break stun, aoe stealth for 10 seconds, stealth for 4 seconds on Pistol 5 + Dagger 3, regen for 10 seconds and remove bleeding/poison/burning if hit below 75% health.

So yes, it is quite possible.

Runes of the soldier and run shouts = Useless Condi theif

Or so it seems from my past experience.

Edit – i have also fought a few where i hae just spammed 100B and they seem to enjoy running into the middle of it