Guild Wars 2

I’ve been having hard times with them in w3. I can easily kill 1 on 1 every class (no exaggeration) xcept thiefs. At best i bring them down 10% hp and they just stealth (sometimes bow blink to run away). At this point i don’t know what to do. I unleash aoe in hopes they are close and that it will hit them. But they just heal up and resume hunting me.
Hence i could equip skills and set traits that counters them completely but you don’t walk w3 borders with solo builds.

What’s the tactics when dealing with them. What to do when they kitten out , heal up and resume fighting constantly?

It depends a lot on…

a) what build you’re playing

b) what build the Thief is playing

I’ll list some of the most popular Thief builds and highlight their weaknesses.

1. D/D Backstab Thief, often (but not always) a full glass-cannon.

These are the Thieves that can almost instant-gib other glass cannons, especially if they catch them off guard. Their Steal + C&D + Backstab can deal over 15000 damage in a second.

However they are very susceptible to crowd control. Their combo requires all attacks to connect and so a single stun or knockdown is enough to break their momentum.

I found Hammer builds counter these Thieves quite effectively, but you need to be quick and ideally catch them before their attack combo. A single snare, root or stun can be enough to break their momentum. And then it’s basically over as they rarely have more than 14000 HP.

Generally speaking though, Thieves are very susceptible to CC since they don’t have Stability and often opt to run without a CC breaker.

2. Pistol/Dagger aka. Stealth-Thieves

These are the hardest to beat 1v1, especially in WvW where Stealth skills last 1-2 seconds longer than normal because of rendering issues.

You’ll need to have a lot of condition removal to beat them. I’d also advise using ranged combat since their build relies on a Cloak and Dagger melee attack in order to Stealth. If you deny them the ability to melee you you’ll drop their DPS by 60% because their biggest hit is one they can only execute from Stealth.

The best thing here is to wear them down at range and then go for a Charge + 100 Blades kill once they’re around 50% HP. Also save your Condition Removals until you have at least 5 Bleeds stacked on you (normally right after their Sneak attack).

3. D/D Melee Bleed builds, aka. Death Blossom spammers.

These guys like to spam Death Blossom while kiting you over their Caltrops. Their passive healing can be quite strong as well.

The best choice here is again, to deny them melee range since their ranged weapons are typically quite bad. Get your rifle and keep them at bay.

They too are typically very susceptible to stuns and crowd control so make use of that.

TL;DR – Stuns and CC as well as knowing when to avoid melee brawls are the best ways to counter Thieves.

Singed,

A Thief

NvN.4321:

Hence i could equip skills and set traits that counters them completely but you don’t walk w3 borders with solo builds.

Thats exactly the problem. There is no cookie cutter build around which is both great for WvW and for chasing thieves 1vs1. Something like mace/shield + hammer is great for 1vs1 but for large scale battles its mediocre due to missing mobility.

CC them just before you expect them to stealth. It’s all a guessing game. There is no hard counter to them stealthing.

Personally, I use a condition build. I’ve had more than a few disappear only to reappear downed farther along the road, but they are probably not great players because it would appear they aren’t using the condition removal in stealth trait nor do the have some other form. Also, the most popular thief heal removes all damaging conditions, minus confusion. Make sure they use their heal before you load them up for the final push.

It can be surprisingly difficult for a Warrior to take down a Thief just because the Thief has so many ways to shadowstep away from the Warrior’s combos. Even if you manage to perfectly lock down the Thief with well-timed CCs, they can still slip away.

My advice is to simply not blow your cooldowns as a Warrior right away. Save your utility skills until the most opportune moment (when you know the Thief has used a stun breaker already or has burned their dodges).

This is a backstab Thief. Though this is one of the most effective Thief builds in tourneys, it actually doesn’t do so well vs Warriors if the Warrior actually has a clue of what’s going on (AKA, not using the “Please kill me now” frenzy button right away).

This Thief makes good use of Black Powder to perma-blind the Warrior. This is probably the most difficult Thief build for a Warrior to duel against, but it’s an uncommon Thief build in tournaments.

Dee Jay.2460:

It depends a lot on…

a) what build you’re playing

b) what build the Thief is playing

I’ll list some of the most popular Thief builds and highlight their weaknesses.

1. D/D Backstab Thief, often (but not always) a full glass-cannon.

These are the Thieves that can almost instant-gib other glass cannons, especially if they catch them off guard. Their Steal + C&D + Backstab can deal over 15000 damage in a second.

However they are very susceptible to crowd control. Their combo requires all attacks to connect and so a single stun or knockdown is enough to break their momentum.

I found Hammer builds counter these Thieves quite effectively, but you need to be quick and ideally catch them before their attack combo. A single snare, root or stun can be enough to break their momentum. And then it’s basically over as they rarely have more than 14000 HP.

Generally speaking though, Thieves are very susceptible to CC since they don’t have Stability and often opt to run without a CC breaker.

2. Pistol/Dagger aka. Stealth-Thieves

These are the hardest to beat 1v1, especially in WvW where Stealth skills last 1-2 seconds longer than normal because of rendering issues.

You’ll need to have a lot of condition removal to beat them. I’d also advise using ranged combat since their build relies on a Cloak and Dagger melee attack in order to Stealth. If you deny them the ability to melee you you’ll drop their DPS by 60% because their biggest hit is one they can only execute from Stealth.

The best thing here is to wear them down at range and then go for a Charge + 100 Blades kill once they’re around 50% HP. Also save your Condition Removals until you have at least 5 Bleeds stacked on you (normally right after their Sneak attack).

3. D/D Melee Bleed builds, aka. Death Blossom spammers.

These guys like to spam Death Blossom while kiting you over their Caltrops. Their passive healing can be quite strong as well.

The best choice here is again, to deny them melee range since their ranged weapons are typically quite bad. Get your rifle and keep them at bay.

They too are typically very susceptible to stuns and crowd control so make use of that.

TL;DR – Stuns and CC as well as knowing when to avoid melee brawls are the best ways to counter Thieves.

Singed,

A Thief

Fellow Thief here and hes right about most of his above statements, save for 1… and he left something out. The thing about Thieves having bad ranged weapons is a little ridiculous. The shortbow will tear you apart and will set up a dangerous combo. I use Shortbow and S/D as a thief and its the golden secret people just dont use because d/d thieves are so popular. Thief 3 attack on shortbow evades everything so going shot for shot is a huge risk, even though you have more hp and armor, its a rough battle.
The real danger you need to look out for is Shortbow cluster bomb from medium range, which may make you evade. There are 3 scenarios here, either run left or right and let the bomb miss you, which is the right thing to do. getting hit by it, no bueno, and dodging is even worse. If you dodge it, you lose an evade, will get hit by either sword 2 and steal/mug in either order depending on range. you are now immo and lost roughly 4k health. sword auto attack will hit you for roughly 3-9k damage if all three hits connect. You can use a stun breaker, or evade again. Hopefully they did not sword 2 from a decent distance because they will move back and you will have no evades and Thief will chase you down with shortbow again. If they did not steal earlier during the 2-combo then prepare to get mugged with c&d, with a daze and auto combo again.

im just ranting now sorry… anyway, best way to beat a thief is conditions. Longbow/Sword/Shield. Unused really, but works wonders. sorry for my rant im tired

I don’t even bother chasing down thieves anymore in wvw. Alot of them just run full blown stealth builds and try to troll/kite groups of people around. Culling makes things worse since most stealths are basically 1-2 seconds “longer” in wvw due to it.

If you can kill it quick, then go for it. If you can’t, don’t bother chasing. I swear most thieves in wvw just like to annoy/get people to chase them into random areas.

If you can survive the initial burst, switch to rifle and hit Kill Shot. It tracks through stealth and most bursty thieves are of course, squishy.

The majority of 1 v 1 in WvW that I have encountered are against thieves since they like to gank people. I run GS/ Sword + Shield, and it works for a majority of fights. I usually start out the fight with the sword/board to prepare to block their burst or close the gap to stun/immobilize them in order to 100 blade them to death. I trait Leg Specialist so that your (2) cripples will add additional immobilization. Whenever they go stealth to run away I use the Whirling Attack in whatever direction they were facing. That usually is enough to get them downed.

You do realize that most thieves run builds that optimize their 1v1 ability, right? For the most part, they have no choice since thieves suck for pretty much any other kind of fight. ANet has also stacked the deck towards 1v1 builds by giving thieves some pretty cool choices in how to go about completely ruining the day for their opponent.

Next, most thieves (well, at least the ones you need to be afraid of) are very choosy in who they pick to take down. Rangers and warriors with greatsword are very high on that list as they are almost always glass cannon type builds. On the other hand, dagger elementalists, shield guardians, and the like will be avoided like the plague as most of them are bunkers.

Anyway, countering a thief is usually pretty easy. Just stun them or spam AoE’s in their general vicinity. This will wreck most thief builds as they rely very heavily on a carefully orchestrated attack sequence, and most are the glassiest of the glass cannons out there who use stealth and movement to make up for the near complete lack of defense.

side note: if you want to get better playing your main toon, learn to play a thief alt. You will be forced to learn dodge timings, circle strafing, etc., or you will die a lot. Those same tricks work even better for warriors who actually can sneak things like toughness and regen into high damage builds.

HAMMER/Mace, that is the anti-thief weapon.

I don’t know how to kill a thief, but survive the burst of the glass thief (pretty simple if youre tanky) they pretty much always refuge at this point, earthshaker the refuge or backbreaker and they run away.

pistol dagger condition thieves though, even with soldier runes they are very troublesome for me.

Xavori.3768:

You do realize that most thieves run builds that optimize their 1v1 ability, right? For the most part, they have no choice since thieves suck for pretty much any other kind of fight. ANet has also stacked the deck towards 1v1 builds by giving thieves some pretty cool choices in how to go about completely ruining the day for their opponent.

Next, most thieves (well, at least the ones you need to be afraid of) are very choosy in who they pick to take down. Rangers and warriors with greatsword are very high on that list as they are almost always glass cannon type builds. On the other hand, dagger elementalists, shield guardians, and the like will be avoided like the plague as most of them are bunkers.

Anyway, countering a thief is usually pretty easy. Just stun them or spam AoE’s in their general vicinity. This will wreck most thief builds as they rely very heavily on a carefully orchestrated attack sequence, and most are the glassiest of the glass cannons out there who use stealth and movement to make up for the near complete lack of defense.

side note: if you want to get better playing your main toon, learn to play a thief alt. You will be forced to learn dodge timings, circle strafing, etc., or you will die a lot. Those same tricks work even better for warriors who actually can sneak things like toughness and regen into high damage builds.

This is true, I had problems with thieves and mesmers as a warrior so I played them a while in sPvP, after over 10h playing with each you will start noticing the weaknesses. This works for every class: if you are having trouble playing against a certain build, play it yourself and you will have it easier to counter it.

As a side note, I have noticed , too, that a GS on a warrior as well as signets are a death marker for a warrior. Too bad though that I am tanky dps with moderate burst and use GS only for mobility and axe and shield is my fighting setup. I’ve had fun times when those BS thieves have been jumping on me and I’ve “bursted” them down in about 5 secs as they thought me to be a glass cannon and had their pants down for trading damage.

What comes to those shortbow thieves, I just don’t go after them since they can’t kill me and I can’t kill them.

P.S.
I survived from an assault from 5 backstabber/heartseeker thieves striking at the same time. (I got good laughs with endure pain and shield 5)

Check out my build Axe ’n Shield beefy DPS