Guild Wars 2

Death blossom, caltrops, stealth —--> bleeds me to death

Evasion so I can’t even hit him. Teleports around with shortbow or pistol to kite me, all while I’m crippled.

So anyone who can beat this 1v1 bleed thieves wanna share ur strats? And don’t lie…we know noone can beat them.

BTW Stealth mechanics have ruined the pvp in this game.

gwawer.9805:

Death blossom, caltrops, stealth —--> bleeds me to death

Evasion so I can’t even hit him. Teleports around with shortbow or pistol to kite me, all while I’m crippled.

So anyone who can beat this 1v1 bleed thieves wanna share ur strats? And don’t lie…we know noone can beat them.

BTW Stealth mechanics have ruined the pvp in this game.

You’d have to be a specific shout condition purging build with hammer/axe+something with the 1 second immobilize on cripple or the longbow to fire a combustive shot and arcing arrow onto their dancing field to beat them at their game.

Its really build vs build but it is kitten they can evade 50+ times in a row with d/d. I would know, my pal perfected this

Yes, yes, nerf condition damage thieves too, that is the start of the mass die off of 1/8 GW2 population who are pissed off due to the constant nerfs and uselessness of thief.

But really, it’s all about predicting his stealth. Thieves are predictable. If he’s slow, rooted, ect. He’s probably still in the same spot, just invisible

invisible doesn’t mean invincible, remember that.

It’s not possible as a warrior.

Any good thief (or any mediocre one) will always be able to avoid your attacks in stealth. Thieves are not predictable. Bad ones are, good ones will never be where you expect them to be.

Combine this with the fact thieves can stay perma stealthed if they want to. They can bleed you down and there’s nothing you can do.

Stealth should break on being hit. It’s not stealth, it’s invisibility. Which is why it’s utterly powerful in this game.

A smart warrior knows which fights he can win and which he can not.

A 1v1 against a Thief is almost a suicide, and this is true for every class not only warriors, you can`t out DPS them, you can`t stand too much time against them and they have better mobility.

When im in a 1v1 situation, i usually stop moving, stand my ground and wait my enemy screw things up while my HP is going down, at the slightest error, i burn my mobility skills to escape.

And im a very tanky warrior, a glasscannon one is condemned to die horribly, there isn`t much to do there, thief class outperform most classes on duels.

People complain about condition thieves now? They are like the crappy version of crit thieves.

I think the max a thief can burst out with death blossom is around 9 stacks of bleed. Also, DB is easy to avoid with a dodge roll.

If you know how a thief can stack 15+ bleeds in a single fight and chain stealth then please tell me.

ZombiesTT.3619:

People complain about condition thieves now? They are like the crappy version of crit thieves.

I think the max a thief can burst out with death blossom is around 9 stacks of bleed. Also, DB is easy to avoid with a dodge roll.

If you know how a thief can stack 15+ bleeds in a single fight and chain stealth then please tell me.

It’s called Caltrops and Cloak and Dagger. As a melee Warrior you’re either forced away from a point or at least leave the Thief in his own free zone, because if you step on those caltrops you’re as good as dead.

Its mostly due to how cripple is applied in caltrops. Condition thieves are quite specific in who they beat. Warriors are definitely one of the classes with few options against this build which would probably be resolved just by changing caltrops to not stack cripple if the target is already crippled.

I’ve come away with 25 sec cripples after facing some condition thieves….just insane.

I’m assuming this is an issue in sPVP when you have to stay in a very small place or something? I’ve always just found thieves’ caltrops to be a mild irritation. I’d almost like them for condition conversion with the WH, but I think they just give swiftness which is always up anyway.

phaeris.7604:

Stealth should break on being hit. It’s not stealth, it’s invisibility. Which is why it’s utterly powerful in this game.

THIS. 100 times this.
The only thing i would change is they stay in stealth if hit with AoE. If someone’s running around spamming their basic attacks and hits the thief then yeah, they’re no longer “stealth”.
I tihnk of it like this. If a guardian/warrior/thief is just swinging around and hits something they’ll feel it. If a ranger/ele/eng/mesmer is shoot off projectiles and one stops shorter then the rest then they’d notice, imagine shooting a bow then bam, one of your arrows is just stuck in the air. you’d notice that.
at the moment stealth is broken and there is no question about it. Largely because of the rendering issue, and seeing how that is not going to be fixed for a loooooong time then there needs to be some quick fixes. Longer debuff between stealths, being made visible when hit, always seeing DoT ticks even if they stealth, NO STEALTH CAPPING/PREVENTING IN WVW. That one is just plain stupid. You cant stealth cap in sPvP so why can you in WvW? Dumb move Anet.
Sadly this as been discussed before over and over and over again, and there hasnt been any signs of changes to come. GG

Making them show damage when hit (non-AoE, and I’d say non-DoT as well) would be much better than uncloaking them as well. Then you know when you’re on the right track, but they can still use it to evade if they’re not stupid and heading in a straight line. Disabling it on hit would basically relegate it to no other purpose but surprise attack.

Alternatively, instead of increasing the cooldown, maybe something like: de-cloaking by using an attack could cause a condition* that lasts for x time, and if you stealth while that condition is up you can use no offensive abilities for the duration of the stealth. So you can run up, decloak naturally and attack, stealth once and break it with an attack, but if you stealth again you’re without attacks until it ends.

*I say condition, but I mean more like the stability champion mobs get, I just forget the word.

I never have too much trouble with thieves 1v1 with my build, don’t usually kill them because they will just teleport away and run off if things go south, which is stupid in my opinion, I liked the mmo’s where if you were an assassin type class you went for cloth/light armor classes because they were the easiest to kill and you avoided heavy armor classes because you could pick your fights and if you picked wrong you were dead.
That being said…
You can know when you’re hitting a thief in stealth, if you’re using an attack that has a chain, it will only further the chain if you hit something/someone.

I still think they should make bleeds visible on thieves when they stealth. Even if you can’t see them because they are “stealthed” (in the middle of a field, in day light) They would still be leaving a trail of blood.

Ill give you the short answer anyone can win but its not really worth it.

If he uses caltrops you know hes got at most 2 stun breakers. Caltrops can be rolled out of and just don’t stand in the spot again. If you really want to beat him or her know the fact. Condition thieves are mobile usually rock some sort of stealth bonus including healing and maybe even a condition wipe. The range on DB is actually pretty short and you can literally just move away if needed. DB burns a good bit of init but not enough to make a bow escape useless.

Honestly your best bet is to run. You can all but stop his dps but there is a good chance without proper aoe and stun you wont kill him.

I’m a freaking warrior. I don’t run away, especially not from a nasty little thief. It’s either fight or die trying.

Just frustrating as hell when it seems like I stand such little chance. I even have horn condition -> boon trait. Right now against many of these powerful builds/classes, I make a game out of seeing how well I can fight until they beat me. Makes me rage quit sometimes tho.

and to add salt to the wound, the times i do get them close to down, they just run away. no despite outplaying my opponent, i dont even get the satisfaction of beating
them

“don’t stand in the spot again or move out of caltrops doesn’t work” because he just moves (more like teleports lol) in the opposite direction and force you to run over to him (over caltrops again)…and kites you with his little toy bow.

i got a sword/horn axe/shield, so yes no ranged makes me especially weak against these guys.

Hammer them to death.

I don’t know which build you run, but warrior can remove a lot of condition via traits and sigil. shake it off remove a condition, a stun and has the potential of heal you also if trained, all of that on 20 sec cd.

Forget about precision and critical damage as raw stats and GG happy killing

also warriors have to be able to target to do dmg they have little to none AOE capability whatsoever, hammer and longbow have some limited aoe but that is it.

what gwawer says is also true even if you are a decent warrior and take on the challenge of trying to beat them when they see they will lose there’s nothing you can do to stop them from running away using their teleport abilities again due to warriors needing to target to do anything to the opponent.

Force target dropping is our demise in this case.

all other classes can lockdown opponent’s fairly easy while warriors have a hard time at it most of the time, the only hope of a warrior is hammer and having your burst skill of CD and even than it’s almost impossible.

Doesn’t warrior have condition removals? Also, don’t they have access to the most weapons? Don’t rifle skills have 1200 range? I need to pvp with warrior some more but I’ve had worse experiences with mesmers than thieves.

gwawer.9805:

I’m a freaking warrior. I don’t run away, especially not from a nasty little thief. It’s either fight or die trying.

Well, there’s your problem. If you had a build that didn’t have counters, it would be terribly imbalanced. At some point you have to accept that some builds are harder to defeat than others (or impossible, if the player’s skill is high enough compared to yours) and either adjust yours accordingly or avoid those fights.

In this case, it seems like your lack of range or maybe AoE is making you an easy target. I don’t think anyone could tell you how to avoid the effects of caltrops while intentionally running across them.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.2.12.11.0.0.0.0.0.0.29.39.38.47.50.0.0.41.0.0.0.0.0.0.107.115.0.121.128.132.138.145.0.0.0.20.30.20

greatsword has 2 movement skill that break immobilize, remove condition with heal and shout. nice aoe damage/immobilize with the hammer

awesome mobility, great control, amazing durability, good damage.

IMHO this could counter everything you trow at it.

ZombiesTT.3619:

Doesn’t warrior have condition removals? Also, don’t they have access to the most weapons? Don’t rifle skills have 1200 range? I need to pvp with warrior some more but I’ve had worse experiences with mesmers than thieves.

yes, but like I said the problem is if you can’t target it it’s useless.
forced target drop will make it impossible for you to counter a thief or mesmer w/o AOE.

your best hope is to survive the initial assault than lockdown on him and apply damage as quick as you can, even than the best outcome you can hope for is the thief running away like a yellow chicken

Your Warrior can’t hit things that you don’t target? What game are you playing? I think maybe someone slipped another mmo cd into your GW2 box.

Don’t stand in the caltrops.
If you say “but I’m defending a BO”, warriors should rarely ever be bunkers.
Reroll a guardian or ele.

If you are running greatsword, just whirlwind out of it in his general direction (for some free dmg too).
Then the thieves dmg is mediocre, attack him in the gaps of LDB, its really easy when you get the hang of it. Shield bash or bull’s charge or eviscerate or flurry (which you interrupt after starting -> 100-blades) will kitten him up. Just keep an eye on shadowstep, only pop bull’s charge or frenzy after its down.
LDB thieves don’t tend to be a good 1v1 spec.

what works for me is Hammer + GS, spec tactics for 1sec root on snares, and precision for the GS traits, and Fury on immobilize, rest where you please. Trick is to build your adrenaline up to 3tick, hit him with hammer stun> kd swap GS> throw sword for the immobilize > 100blade. Usually a dead rogue or close to it. with fury up I usually have around 67ish Crit with knights gear and Rage runes. easily crit every 100blade strike.

Riddickk.7091:

what works for me is Hammer + GS, spec tactics for 1sec root on snares, and precision for the GS traits, and Fury on immobilize, rest where you please. Trick is to build your adrenaline up to 3tick, hit him with hammer stun> kd swap GS> throw sword for the immobilize > 100blade. Usually a dead rogue or close to it. with fury up I usually have around 67ish Crit with knights gear and Rage runes. easily crit every 100blade strike.

Pretty much no chance for you to land the initial Earthshaker, since it’s so slow and the DB Thief is invulnerable most of the time.

There’s really no way to beat him as a Warrior. Just run away.

Not possible to win against that as a warrior. I say that form a thief and warrior-view. The specc completely wrecks anything in a 1v1 >_> Also it’s very easy to play. No idea how a spell like Death Blossom made it into the game. Also on my Pistol/Dagger-condition thief with about +75% bleeding duration and “only” 1300 condition damage, one Death Blossom deals 5.5k damage over 17 seconds. Add caltrops, roll for initiative and caltrops on dodge and you will you deal crazy damage while being unkillable.

EDIT: Here is my secret very crazy tactic: Start with Death Blossom (Check what he is doing, if he stays in the caltrops: Death BlossomDeath BlossomDeath Blossom (Steal or roll for initivative incase you run out of Initiative) Death BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath Blossom -> profit).
If he walks out of the caltrops, chase him, dodge where he is standing to drop more caltrops -> Death BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath BlossomDeath Blossom -> Profit

Also don’t forget to use a few Death Blossom while you’re chasing him: Never let your initiative run full!

In case the warrior is getting anway, just switch to shortbow and chase him and throw a dancing dagger when you finally reach him.

Pff, stop trying to bunker condition builds, kill it with raw power. Glass GS or axe+mace powerbuild will rip through unicorns with ease.
That type of thief has high toughness, but is still a squishy due to very-very low hp.
Stay mobile, dodge his dancing and make him waste his iniative, if you have a shield use it to block his spam DB que and then stun and retaliate. Unicorn build has horrible mobility and enough CC will kill it. You can dodge through the caltrops without getting conditions. Don’t panic with condi removes, let him do his dance and then cleanse. If you want a direct counter then mending, shake it off, signet of stamina. Grab a high auto attack or bursty weapon and stun+frenzy them after they’ve used their dance.

GS is good against that type of build or thieves general, because it has a lot of capclosers and whirlwind is amazing against shadow refuge/evading/burst combo finisher. Time your skills to his rhythm. Bait out his stunbreaks and then burst him hard.

Never stop attacking or moving when he stealths. You can check if you tagged something from the combat log.

In my opinion that’s a horrible build for 1v1 and it’s only suitable for trolling or getting some bleed stacks going in team fights.

I encountered a thief in 1v1, he downed me so i stoned him to death.

LordThroat.7890:

I encountered a thief in 1v1, he downed me so i stoned him to death.

This is sadly true, I downed a warrior on my thief, he proceeded to throw rocks at me for 1k+, knocked me down, spam more rocks, I get downed and then proceeded to beat me in a downs war. I was so disgusted with myself that I stopped playing thief for a whole hour.

Keiel.7489:

LordThroat.7890:

I encountered a thief in 1v1, he downed me so i stoned him to death.

This is sadly true, I downed a warrior on my thief, he proceeded to throw rocks at me for 1k+, knocked me down, spam more rocks, I get downed and then proceeded to beat me in a downs war. I was so disgusted with myself that I stopped playing thief for a whole hour.

thank you for making me laugh so hard XD, anyhow you should employ the tactic “RUN LIKE HELL” and try to drag the invisible theif to your team’s mob, then just pile him good

Warriors who have trouble with condition thiefs or other conditions builds in general (burn, bleed etc.) Try the Superior melandru runes and the -40% Duration on conditions food. This gives you -65% on conditions effectively reducing their damage by 65%.

This also makes it near impossible for people to cripple or kite you to death bc EVERY condition on you only lasts 35% of the time! Example would be 10 sec cripple is now 3.5 seconds! This is strong!

Problem solved!

You hold up your shield and wait for them to blow all their init, then kill them.

Keiel.7489:

LordThroat.7890:

I encountered a thief in 1v1, he downed me so i stoned him to death.

This is sadly true, I downed a warrior on my thief, he proceeded to throw rocks at me for 1k+, knocked me down, spam more rocks, I get downed and then proceeded to beat me in a downs war. I was so disgusted with myself that I stopped playing thief for a whole hour.

Cloak and Dagger/Black Powder is so difficult to use, right?

Nanashi.5704:

phaeris.7604:

Stealth should break on being hit. It’s not stealth, it’s invisibility. Which is why it’s utterly powerful in this game.

I tihnk of it like this. If a guardian/warrior/thief is just swinging around and hits something they’ll feel it. If a ranger/ele/eng/mesmer is shoot off projectiles and one stops shorter then the rest then they’d notice, imagine shooting a bow then bam, one of your arrows is just stuck in the air. you’d notice that.

I never understood this argument. Just because you hit something, doesn’t mean you know where it is after swinging wildly (unless the thing is standing still). Turn off the lights (or blindfold yourself) with a friend and try to find them with a stick while they move around with night vision goggles on (your friend has the night goggles, not you).
As for the bow, I’d go with stealth covers the arrow when the thief gets hit :P

Uhm, in case someone wants to duel such a lame thief, i’m here! Just add me ingame and give a short whisper (I’m going soon to bed though).

I also would like to play against warriors who think they can beat this specc because with my Warrior I have huge problems against those >_> Pretty frustrating getting killed by 33333.

Don’t stand in caltrops for starters. Dodge leaping death blossom. Oh, and keep moving and never stop attacking if they stealth cause you can still hit them.

Not that hard.

my strategy to fight a thief in a 1v1 is to go after him and wait for him to stealth. once he shealth, i will wait there swinging my wep around and wait for him to come at me. once he appear, endure pain, bola and hb

Guys look up and read my comment. Apparently it was ignored in full. -65% condition duration will win you this fight every time!

I play both a warrior and a thief at 80 in primarily WvW and it saddens me how often I tear through poorly played warriors as a condition thief. My advice would be 2 fold.

1. Make a low level thief and go spend some time in the mists goofing around with the ‘popular’ condition thief builds. Get a sense for how much initiative their skills cost, how their stealth movement speed works. If you have no idea about those 2 items, you’re probably going to have a tough time. Here’s a small idea: Using C/D generally takes up half of a thief’s initiative depending on their spec. It also has a brutally short range, meaning they have to be almost on top of you to get it to hit.

2. If your spec is built for burst damage with no consideration for survivability and tactical fighting, you are going to lose against condition thieves a lot. It isn’t because their class is broken, it’s because you have a spec that does great damage but is easy to counter.

Doomdesire.9365:

that is the start of the mass die off of 1/8 GW2 population who are pissed off due to the constant nerfs and uselessness of thief.

Their fault for picking the class with a broken stealth mechanic.

Wow, everyone hates thieves. I have a lvl 80 thief and warrior. Know what my thief is good for? Taking on massive amount of people using evasion, life leach sustain, and I only have 1 stealth. Most the time I’m visible. The thieves that don’t stealth are the most dangerous, because they don’t need to stealth to let you die from bleeding….They’ll just stay on you til you die. That being said, running multiple stealths can be annoying to deal with, but you should never be alone in WvW and in sPvP you should expect to have to avoid thieves or deal with them accordingly.

My Warrior uses a GS/Rifle build. Handling a thief is easy when you have a cleanse shout, and if you really hate thieves, use a mace and warhorn. I’m getting very sick of people saying Warriors are underpowered when they feel STRONG in my hands. I murder those condition thieves. I cripple them, interrupt them, clean my conditions, and hurt them as much as I can. It takes at least 5+ stacks of bleed to mitigate all my regen and defense. And guess what? Conditions last 50% less because of runes of Hoelbrak and FOOD. (I really hate getting conditioned to death, so my build is all about KITTEN THOSE CONDITIONS AWAY.)

They slide off in 3 seconds. That’s hardly enough time. Unless they stack duration, at which point, I can still cleanse with a shout anyway.

Stealth isn’t broken, thieves are supposed to be escape and hit and run type fighters. They melt unless they build leach and have high healing power. You know what’s broken? The unwillingness to LEARN. That’s what broken. I rlled up a thief to learn how to counter them. I discovered thieves are FUN. And learned how to counter them with my warrior. You may need to adapt. It’s strategy and tactics, not one build to rule them all.

Thieves have been nerfed 4 times now. Leave them alone and evaluate your wn play style before being so defeatist about your own skill.

gwawer.9805:

Death blossom, caltrops, stealth —--> bleeds me to death

Evasion so I can’t even hit him. Teleports around with shortbow or pistol to kite me, all while I’m crippled.

So anyone who can beat this 1v1 bleed thieves wanna share ur strats? And don’t lie…we know noone can beat them.

BTW Stealth mechanics have ruined the pvp in this game.

stealth “mechanics” havent ruined the game, its just that the render bug has temporarily made thieves overpowered in most cases, especially when in 1v1.

but back on topic, if youre simply interested in beating condition thieves run a shout warrior build with soldier runes, (and if you REALLY wanted to go overboard you could also use a warhorn and an amulet with healing power with the vigorous shout trait so each shout does a 2k heal lol).

if you dont want to completely respec then im sorry but 1v1 thieves are basically easy mode and youll have a hard time no matter what you do. but to gain an edge just use some sort of condition removal skill/ability, otherwise survive long enough for a friend to come help.

GoneBatty.9048:

Thieves have been nerfed 4 times now. Leave them alone and evaluate your wn play style before being so defeatist about your own skill.

ok dude its a FACT thieves are in the top “tier” of PvP classes, and yes even after the nerf. its why they were nerfed (well the sword was at least) and why theyre being nerfed again in tmrws scheduled patch, at least thats what rumor says. and a mace warhorn build in sPvP? theres a reason you dont see it all that often LOL

I have one request and that is, when in stealth, a Thief cannot “finish off” anyone. At least the cowards should have to show themselves! Not this invisibility nonsense. At least it gives anyone around a shot at them.

you dont 1v1 a bleed/evasion thief. you die, QQ on the forum, nothing changes, you eventually stop PvPing on your warrior, and hopefully roll a thief until classes are balanced.

Become a part of the problem to bring about a solution

I’ve vs’d some thieves with my sword and board spec with great-sword secondary. I haven’t had to many issues with them because I’m also spec’d for shouts. Key to taking them on is to get your own bleeds on them, while purging yourself. That should put you in a survival situation, which places the thieves at a disadvantage. Some tend to take out their bow thinking they can kite while dropping you over time. Just make sure you have the 10 pt’s in you’re defensive tree for reflecting projectiles and even then the thieves melt in their own burst.

Obviously if they catch you off guard you’ll be hard pressed to beat them 1v1, but that’s just the benefit to being a thief. They are great at 1v1’s and surprise attacks, but group fights and fights that last longer than 10 seconds is where they lose their edge.

It be nice if wars had a utility similar to Scorpion Wire only instead of pulling the target to you right away when they get so far away they get dragged back to you and knocked down. Be funny to run that with sword and just jump away. I find it annoying that typically you are forced to chase and would like a way to make them come to me.

By being impractical of course.. that type of build is easy to out-damage with a rifle spec’d for both bleed/DPS (Carrion amulet in sPvP, rampagers in WvW) and specially if you have both Mending + Signet of Stamina.

In team fights though? Just have a Necro and Ele to transfer conditions/out-damage the Thieves conditions. Back-stab is still better and more rewarding anyways considering burst is more priority than condition damage on most classes.