Guild Wars 2

So first off, I chose hammer, because I don’t like GS builds, and 100spam. I’ve been practicing and practicing, but no matter what I just get jumped by thieves, and blind spammed to death, being smack by 6k backstabs. 3 times, I fought a thief, but it’s not like I could do anything as I was blinded 95% of the time, playing my kitten off while he he moves back and forth out of my range. I honestly don’t know what else I Could have done. Any advice is helpful as it’s annoying to roam through our WvW lowlands escorting yaks and I can’t kill someone by myself.

You have two weapon sets no? Hammer biggest weakness is blinds. When you face a blind spam thief you need to use your other weapon set or you could surprise Earthshaker him when you aren’t blind and chain stun him from there.

There is a high chance the thief has the trait that procs a blind around him when he drops to 25% HP or less though so be careful at that moment not to waste an important CD.

Whenever I feel like maining a hammer build, I keep a longbow in my offhand for any blind thieves/kiters. Use pindown followed by earthshaker so they don’t have a chance to spawn a blind field, then continue the stunlock chain. If the Thief is bad he’ll let you lock him down until he dies.

Thanks, I usually run a Sword and board as a second weapon set for the gap closer, but I’ll give Longbow a try

No problem, just keep in mind that it’s almost impossible to actually lock down a good thief, so if you run into a good thief, it really doesn’t matter what weapons you have, you’re already at a disadvantage. Their ability to disengage is insane.

Not sure if it will help you at all but the 5 point minor trait in Strength (Reckless Dodge) clears blind. I find it really helps against thieves.

hammer generally should be eaiser to counter thieves because of aoes

When I played Hammer, I always used Axe/Mace or Axe/Shield as my offset. Usually Mace, but either way >most< thieves didn’t give me much trouble.

I wouldn’t chain your hammer cc’s unless you have enough burst to finish him, cause otherwise they’ll get away with stealth

what I do is I try to use one at a time with autoattacks to drain their hp to force them to use refuge, after that hammer 4 them out and u should be good.

everytime they stealth weapon swap to sword for gap closing and switch back to hammer, if u have traits in discipline u should get adren to earthshaker each time

I used Shield bash plenty of times, In fact Shield bash into burst root is my strategy against kiters, it’s moderately successful

I’ll edit my post, I Was just frustrated that I was actually trying to the best of my ability and I lost 3 times. No hard feelings.

Mepheles, I can not give you skill or a perfect build to counter; however, what I can give you is the experience of a Warrior that actually played at a high level.
I have played every class at high levels of sPvP and WvWvW. I quit 3 months ago in favor of working out and looking towards finally entering graduate school, but I’ll help with what I can.

Ignore the majority of posters. They throw hypothetical situations and theories around, but very few of them have experience. Many confuse beating a noob thief as experience as well

It has been 3 months so excuse me if I don’t remember / get skill names wrong

1. Know your enemy. In this case, know the D/P thief.
This was my second class behind the Warrior. Playing it is the best way to understand it, but I’ll give you an overview.

First off, this is an insanely effective weapon set.

Dagger 1 = Normal attack (Back Stab from Stealth)
Dagger 2 = Heart Seeker
D/P 3 = Blinding Shot
Pistol 4 = Head Shot
Pistol 5 = Black Powder

~Utilities~
Default Shadow Step + Skill Steal (All thiefs have this regardless of build/set). Think of it like a Warrior’s F1… but much better haha

Heal ~ Usually either the roll back + weak heal or the invisibility + heal
1. Shadow Refuge (60s CD, usually to finish stomp or as a means to either reassess a situation or GTFO)..
2. Infiltrator’s Signet (Quicker initiative recharge + active use for shadow step)
3. Up for grabs. Some prefer more blindness… others another shadow step.

In order to understand the D/P, you need to know how the combo works. Pistol 5 (Black Powder) is the most overpowered tool in this set/build because people do not understand it.

Black Powder creates a smoke combo field. If you stand in that field (sometimes near, glitch), you will have blind reapplied constantly.
If they Dagger 2 (Heart Seeker, leap combo finisher) while within this smoke combo field, they gain invisibility. This can be repeated multiple times to keep them roaming in permanent stealth.

They rest of the skills are rarely used. Invisibility has a high upkeep, and usually the Black Powder (blindness) is enough to cover the few moments that the thief is not invisible.

How then can you counter it?

1. Don’t stand in the Black Powder. Don’t stand around the Black Powder.
Obvious, eh? Nope.
Too many people do not pay attention to combo fields. It is a HUGE part of this game. When you see a combo field while fighting a thief, you make sure to stay away from that field. It’s not something you want to run into swinging wildly.

…and that’s it. Seriously.
With Knight’s (or PVT as many warriors seem to use), you should be able to easily withstand the Thief pressure if you do not stand in the Black Powder combo field.
Shout heals make a fight with D/P a joke. As long as you aren’t pure Zerker gear, you should be fine.

Well… yea… just thought I’d check the forum quickly… see ya

Against a halfway competent D/P thief you cannot win with a hammer warrior. Swap you hammer out for something else, as otherwise it’s just a useless weapon set.

On the other hand most D/P thieves roll it because it’s easy to insta-gib people with, so most aren’t that good. Before somebody goes “OMFG, thief harderest class to play evah” I am not saying that all are bad, or that thief is an easy class to play well, just that it’s easy to insta-gib the average WvWer as a D/P thief.

Meh the advice is against a bad D/P thief. Wait till you run into a Sword thief who knows how to abuse the broken thief mechanics.

You will need a slotted shake it off, bolas, Fear me (if you don’t want them running away).

Stay away from the smoke field as they tend to blind you -600 range-. Also watch out when they are at 25% health as you might have a blind on you.

If you have food+melandru, blind runs off quick and throws thieves away if you kite them after their smoke field combo by using GS 5 or timing a dodge.

You can GS3 into the smoke field combo. You won’t be blinded and you will land a hit. If you are close OR Dodge towards the thief, that way you avoid the blind and run though heart seeker and is better than dodging back and staying in their line of sight OR if you are far, land the hammer Burst where you expect the heart seeker to land post combo field stealth.

Anticipate when the attack is coming, just imagine a thief is walking towards you and count to around 3sec, AOE stun. If you have GS or Sword on, use it to leap forcing them to blow their stealth by trying to catch up. Even then, they can shadow step.

Just bolas them when you are close to them and unload with 100b, axe auto, hammer etc. Bolas is on a short cool down but since shadowstep is superior to stability in this game, they can shadowstep away getting rid of it or simply moving away from you and by the time you reach them, immob is gone. The bolas is on short cool down so its better than nothing.

Fear is for ruining their AOE stealth, close the gap with any leap and fear then unload on them when they run out. Most of the time they are far so this doesn’t work and fear is on a silly long kitten cool down. Even if they are feared out of the circle they can still shadowstep or stealth away..lol such a carry me class.

You can always use sword/shield as off hand. Sword as a gap closer the immob& then switch to hammer -don’t wait for the sword burst animation- them switch back to sword as a gap closer again etc. Shield 5 can be used to waste their burst.

There is also a hack mechanic – I don’t care what anyone says, attacks blocked or not should reveal the thief- where if they attack you while you are blocking you don’t see them but you can see the block block block message direction and know where they are so just unload damage. As you can see by now, the class is just pure silly. Make sure you are vocal on the forums threads about thief nerfs in case the devs slip back into the ‘exciting’ pve content again and leave the job of balancing.

Slotted shake it off is for the basilisk venom or for blind if you need to. It will always be up for every basi venom attack, assuming you didn’t use it on blind.

Its a broken carry me class -worst most OP stealth class in the history of mmorpgs- so if you don’t win after trying, remember that Elder scrolls online is coming out and hopefully they won’t kitten up as much as the class devs here.

As you can see -like all the other game classes excluding the rest of the holy trinity (thief/mesmer/guardian)- The other classes have to work a lot around it and even spec certain builds traits for a thief. This is usually a red flag for a dev with normal cognitive functions that the class is broken. Sadly, not in this game.

The complaints are enormous about the thieves but they are either leaving it because : A. They don’t know how to fix it -I’m assuming this given the way they handled the orb hack- or B. They are too busy with PVE content. Either way, ESO is coming soon.

Make sure you are vocal about the class in the forums as when the sales/customer base plummets even more, they will be forced to address the issues the customers were most vocal about on the forums so make sure you keep thief nerf threads updated.

XII.9401:

Its a broken carry me class -worst most OP stealth class in the history of mmorpgs- so if you don’t win after trying, remember that Elder scrolls online is coming out and hopefully they won’t kitten up as much as the class devs here.

As you can see -like all the other game classes excluding the rest of the holy trinity (thief/mesmer/guardian)- The other classes have to work a lot around it and even spec certain builds traits for a thief. This is usually a red flag for a dev with normal cognitive functions that the class is broken. Sadly, not in this game.

The complaints are enormous about the thieves but they are either leaving it because : A. They don’t know how to fix it -I’m assuming this given the way they handled the orb hack- or B. They are too busy with PVE content. Either way, ESO is coming soon.

Make sure you are vocal about the class in the forums as when the sales/customer base plummets even more, they will be forced to address the issues the customers were most vocal about on the forums so make sure you keep thief nerf threads updated.

Good advice but i’m already calling it. ESO online is going to suck :P
even with its flaws i dont see why anyone is looking for new MMOs after Gw2

Gw2 is just so many thousands steps infront of anything that has come out and will come out for a long time… Eso online lol :P

won’t eso have a ridiculous stealth class as well? I haven’t been keeping up on what is happening with it but its hugely a given that all new mmos will have a welfare class like thieves.

XII.9401:

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Jesus actual Christ. I can see the massive chip on your shoulder all the way from the Engineer forums. >>

Anyways, there’s some fairly easy ways to avoid Thief burst. Don’t play too glassy, always pay attention to your heal and use it as soon as you can reap a fair benefit from it. If a thief stealths and goes missing, swing once with your autoattack to clear any blinds and then immediately Earthshaker into the ground where you’re standing. The thief WILL come out of stealth at this point, at which point you will Backbreaker > Stagger > swap and start wrecking him with whatever auto you may be using. I personally use Axe/Shield + Hammer Knight’s gear in WvW on my Warrior, and I’m sure my Thief would have no chance against him ;-;

Berserker Stance is your friend.

Always AoE stun whenever you have the ability to, neglecting it is giving the Thief a free gank.

Cheers!

Gathslan.1870:

XII.9401:

Its a broken carry me class -worst most OP stealth class in the history of mmorpgs- so if you don’t win after trying, remember that Elder scrolls online is coming out and hopefully they won’t kitten up as much as the class devs here.

As you can see -like all the other game classes excluding the rest of the holy trinity (thief/mesmer/guardian)- The other classes have to work a lot around it and even spec certain builds traits for a thief. This is usually a red flag for a dev with normal cognitive functions that the class is broken. Sadly, not in this game.

The complaints are enormous about the thieves but they are either leaving it because : A. They don’t know how to fix it -I’m assuming this given the way they handled the orb hack- or B. They are too busy with PVE content. Either way, ESO is coming soon.

Make sure you are vocal about the class in the forums as when the sales/customer base plummets even more, they will be forced to address the issues the customers were most vocal about on the forums so make sure you keep thief nerf threads updated.

Good advice but i’m already calling it. ESO online is going to suck :P
even with its flaws i dont see why anyone is looking for new MMOs after Gw2

Gw2 is just so many thousands steps infront of anything that has come out and will come out for a long time… Eso online lol :P

One reply in order not to ‘derail’ the thread: Its an exact copy cat. I just want the:
Downed condition gone
No AOE limit to wipe zerglings
They have a better chance at balancing classes given Anet’s so far terrible record of addressing warriors -almost a year and we got destruction of the empowered crap! yay!-.

Berserker Stance is your friend.

why would you use that when we have signet of fury?

SharadSun.3089:

XII.9401:

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Jesus actual Christ. I can see the massive chip on your shoulder all the way from the Engineer forums. >>

Anyways, there’s some fairly easy ways to avoid Thief burst. Don’t play too glassy, always pay attention to your heal and use it as soon as you can reap a fair benefit from it. If a thief stealths and goes missing, swing once with your autoattack to clear any blinds and then immediately Earthshaker into the ground where you’re standing. The thief WILL come out of stealth at this point, at which point you will Backbreaker > Stagger > swap and start wrecking him with whatever auto you may be using. I personally use Axe/Shield + Hammer Knight’s gear in WvW on my Warrior, and I’m sure my Thief would have no chance against him ;-;

Berserker Stance is your friend.

Always AoE stun whenever you have the ability to, neglecting it is giving the Thief a free gank.

Cheers!

Cool story, bro. I’m constantly entertained by your replies defending the broken thief class/playing on your Engy.

Just a few points:
Shadow step breaks stun and so they avoid your cc and re open again with your hammer burst on 7-9 sec cool down with the need to fill the adrenaline bar. Takes only one shadowstep to avoid stun and get away with immobilized.

Your tanky warrior will drop to a good thief. I’m glad that you base your knowledge on fighting thieves from WvW and not spvp.

Yes your thief will definately lose to your warrior because you might be a below average thief.

Any thief with half a brain would watch for frenzy and instantly shadow step away making you blow it. Did you know that frenzy was nerfed on the warrior? Do you watch the opponent bar for buffs etc when your playing a thief?I highly recommend it., that way the thief class would carry you better.

Some of us posting here actually PLAY the warrior and want it fixed. Not play other classes, come trolling our forums and pretend to know the class.

Thanks for trolling by, Shyamalan! Cheeeers! >.>

XII.9401:

SharadSun.3089:

XII.9401:

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Jesus actual Christ. I can see the massive chip on your shoulder all the way from the Engineer forums. >>

Anyways, there’s some fairly easy ways to avoid Thief burst. Don’t play too glassy, always pay attention to your heal and use it as soon as you can reap a fair benefit from it. If a thief stealths and goes missing, swing once with your autoattack to clear any blinds and then immediately Earthshaker into the ground where you’re standing. The thief WILL come out of stealth at this point, at which point you will Backbreaker > Stagger > swap and start wrecking him with whatever auto you may be using. I personally use Axe/Shield + Hammer Knight’s gear in WvW on my Warrior, and I’m sure my Thief would have no chance against him ;-;

Berserker Stance is your friend.

Always AoE stun whenever you have the ability to, neglecting it is giving the Thief a free gank.

Cheers!

Cool story, bro. I’m constantly entertained by your replies defending the broken thief class/playing on your Engy.

Just a few points:
Shadow step breaks stun and so they avoid your cc and re open again with your hammer burst on 7-9 sec cool down with the need to fill the adrenaline bar. Takes only one shadowstep to avoid stun and get away with immobilized.

Your tanky warrior will drop to a good thief. I’m glad that you base your knowledge on fighting thieves from WvW and not spvp.

Yes your thief will definately lose to your warrior because you might be a below average thief.

Any thief with half a brain would watch for frenzy and instantly shadow step away making you blow it. Did you know that frenzy was nerfed on the warrior? Do you watch the opponent bar for buffs etc when your playing a thief?I highly recommend it., that way the thief class would carry you better.

Some of us posting here actually PLAY the warrior and want it fixed. Not play other classes, come trolling our forums and pretend to know the class.

Thanks for trolling by, Cheeeers! >.>

The thing is, I play PvP mainly. I barely touch WvW because I see it as an imbalanced zergfest, I only really go there to farm kills for the monthly.

My warrior DESTROYS thieves in PvP. Even some of the truly skilled ones, and I’m nationally ranked in the top 10%, so I play against the best in NA. I’ve put more effort and dedication into playing Valkyrie Warrior in PvP, more than any other class I think, and so your argument remains null.

I’m not trolling, either. Thieves are, after playing every class to exhaustion and burning tournaments with every imaginable build, mostly underwhelming. They die to cleave, they die to attrition and stunlock after blowing their survival CD’s, and if you’re being killed 1v1 by a thief who has little-to-no survivability besides their constant mobility, then you should really be the one learning to play your class.

Also, the reason I don’t leave home without Berserker Stance and the Burst Mastery trait es exactly that: I can’t deal with not having Adrenaline. If you want to complain about not having that Adrenaline, then maybe you should find ways to get more. Berserker Stance refills your bar entirely to drop a CC burst, and then keeps filling you to prepare for a second. A single Earthshaker + Eviscerate melts any thief 1v1, in WvW or tPvP alike.

EDIT: Who the hell uses Frenzy any more? Not me. >>

SharadSun.3089:

XII.9401:

SharadSun.3089:

XII.9401:

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Jesus actual Christ. I can see the massive chip on your shoulder all the way from the Engineer forums. >>

Anyways, there’s some fairly easy ways to avoid Thief burst. Don’t play too glassy, always pay attention to your heal and use it as soon as you can reap a fair benefit from it. If a thief stealths and goes missing, swing once with your autoattack to clear any blinds and then immediately Earthshaker into the ground where you’re standing. The thief WILL come out of stealth at this point, at which point you will Backbreaker > Stagger > swap and start wrecking him with whatever auto you may be using. I personally use Axe/Shield + Hammer Knight’s gear in WvW on my Warrior, and I’m sure my Thief would have no chance against him ;-;

Berserker Stance is your friend.

Always AoE stun whenever you have the ability to, neglecting it is giving the Thief a free gank.

Cheers!

Cool story, bro. I’m constantly entertained by your replies defending the broken thief class/playing on your Engy.

Just a few points:
Shadow step breaks stun and so they avoid your cc and re open again with your hammer burst on 7-9 sec cool down with the need to fill the adrenaline bar. Takes only one shadowstep to avoid stun and get away with immobilized.

Your tanky warrior will drop to a good thief. I’m glad that you base your knowledge on fighting thieves from WvW and not spvp.

Yes your thief will definately lose to your warrior because you might be a below average thief.

Any thief with half a brain would watch for frenzy and instantly shadow step away making you blow it. Did you know that frenzy was nerfed on the warrior? Do you watch the opponent bar for buffs etc when your playing a thief?I highly recommend it., that way the thief class would carry you better.

Some of us posting here actually PLAY the warrior and want it fixed. Not play other classes, come trolling our forums and pretend to know the class.

Thanks for trolling by, Cheeeers! >.>

The thing is, I play PvP mainly. I barely touch WvW because I see it as an imbalanced zergfest, I only really go there to farm kills for the monthly.

My warrior DESTROYS thieves in PvP. Even some of the truly skilled ones, and I’m nationally ranked in the top 10%, so I play against the best in NA. I’ve put more effort and dedication into playing Valkyrie Warrior in PvP, more than any other class I think, and so your argument remains null.

I’m not trolling, either. Thieves are, after playing every class to exhaustion and burning tournaments with every imaginable build, mostly underwhelming. They die to cleave, they die to attrition and stunlock after blowing their survival CD’s, and if you’re being killed 1v1 by a thief who has little-to-no survivability besides their constant mobility, then you should really be the one learning to play your class.

Also, the reason I don’t leave home without Berserker Stance and the Burst Mastery trait es exactly that: I can’t deal with not having Adrenaline. If you want to complain about not having that Adrenaline, then maybe you should find ways to get more. Berserker Stance refills your bar entirely to drop a CC burst, and then keeps filling you to prepare for a second. A single Earthshaker + Eviscerate melts any thief 1v1, in WvW or tPvP alike.

EDIT: Who the hell uses Frenzy any more? Not me. >>

lol@ berserker stance. I would assume people use frenzy more than berserker stance..

Good thief players don’t wait for the eviscerate when they get stunned for 2/3 seconds. They shadow step away or blind you when they see hammer before they stealth..Are you telling me there are thieves who actually get stunned for 2-3 seconds, wait for you to fill your adrenaline bar again for an eviscerate with a heal or berserker stance(this takes time, by the way! Heal is quicker if you use heals in high end tourneys to fill your bar!) and then sit patiently waiting for eviscerate? What high end tourney good thief players are you playing against? I don’t think hot joins count.

Survival cool downs? Thieves have shadow step that breaks stun and bypasses immobilize with zero cool down on their sword, they have repeated stealth, they have two slotted shadow steps with 30-40 sec cool down that bypass stun and stability, too and they have group stealth that lats 15 seconds.

Their heal and weapon skills allow them to evade attacks while attacking/healing.

You mentioned that you beat thieves in wvw and now you suddenly do in high end spvp? You should apply for team Paradigm,they are accepting warriors..

Or better yet, join Thunderguard guild. They are willing to carry a warrior -especially if they have no choice in the matter if it is their leader!-.

Keep this thread updated by derailing it and boasting of your skills.

You’ll only beat a thief as a hammer warrior if you’re a substantially better player than he is. The match-up simply is not in the warrior’s favor. Regaling us with your tales of how you beat thieves all the time doesn’t change the fact that thieves have the exact tools that counter the hammer’s kit.

SharadSun.3089:

Also, the reason I don’t leave home without Berserker Stance and the Burst Mastery trait es exactly that: I can’t deal with not having Adrenaline.

I like that burst mastery trait but I never really tried Berserker Stance. I’ll give it a try in replacement of the signet of fury for a couple days.

If the Thief is worth their salt, you won’t win. They can reset as many times as they please until you either disengage and try to run, or get wittled down.

XII.9401:

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Funny thing is, I was rerailing it by explaining a good strategy to beat thieves with a Hammer Warrior, which I do fairly consistently.

There are THREE ways a Thief can blind you while he is stunned: Signet of Shadows, Blinding Powder, and the Blinding Powder minor trait in the Adept tree of Shadow Arts which activates at 25% health.

Most Thieves DO NOT use Blinding Powder (the skill OR the trait), and if a good player is using Signet of Shadows, then it would be wiser of you to autoattack instead of using high-volume damage skills which can be easily avoided.

My rotation usually runs Bull’s Rush into Berserker Stance > Backbreaker > Fierce Blow > Staggering Blow > Earthshaker > switch > kite into a Shield Bash into a 2- or 3-bar Eviscerate.

That’s what the Discipline line does for you: massive Adrenaline regeneration on weapon swaps and burst use.

I do agree that Sword Thieves wreck this setup, and that’s because they were literally designed to deal with heavy classes. If you can beat a Sword thief as a Hammer warrior (or any sort of warrior), good job and kudos.

But D/P Thieves fail against a properly tanky and intelligent Warrior. Your constant calls for unnecessary nerfs are hurting the community by instilling a terrible attitude amongst Warriors, and actually convincing them that Thieves are OP instead of getting them to open their minds and embrace new strategies.

Play a Thief for a day and try, just TRY to midfight. It’s rationally impossible and you will die to cleave in less than seconds. Mobility and disengage are literally the only reasons thieves are played any more, given that they’re notoriously bad at 1v1 (except vs. Mesmers, but that’s a different story).

Warriors do need a buff. I’ve called for many buffs, a rehaul of the Shouts line to include a Reveal shout, more AoE CC, anything to give Warriors the niche they need. So stop screaming bloody murder every time someone tries to post friendly advice, because honestly, it’s tiring.

G’day.

Jonwar.9205:

On the other hand most D/P thieves roll it because it’s easy to insta-gib people with, so most aren’t that good. Before somebody goes “OMFG, thief harderest class to play evah” I am not saying that all are bad, or that thief is an easy class to play well, just that it’s easy to insta-gib the average WvWer as a D/P thief.

No, no aaaaand no. D/P is the hardest weapon set to instagib, i doubt you even grasp the concept. Without mug being well… mug, thieves have no way of instagibing. A d/p thief will take advantage of multiple BS and the might he gains from multiple cloakings (arduous, painful work) culminating with a BS with like 5 stacks of might that deals around…6k. A joke really, considering a shield offhand helps you to withstand the predictable attack from stealth and u can just…walk away the blind field. Besides you`re heavy armored for god sakes…if u die by multiple BS you really should hone your skills by practice rather then theory.

I too have been on the receiving end of thieves with greatsword. I partially blame my play skill since I’m fairly new but I am thinking of immediately switching to a faster weapon like axe when a thief comes by because the blind on dagger pistol thieves coupled with a trait that blinds people around them when they stealth is so freakin annoying that the only way I can fathom countering is spiked armor, runes of lyssa at the right time, a fast and high damage auto attack, and correct timing / guessing when he’s coming out of stealth. All of those factors typically doesn’t line up well, especially in WvW when it’s big open space for the most part.

The way I see is, in combat stealth is inherently unbalanced, in any game, this game is no exception. However they can’t just up and change stealth mechanics, it would screw many things, over, but there is no way to fix it without breaking it too. thieves are squishy thats a fact, and rely on not getting hit as their only defense. that allows them to stack damage, damage, damage. another fact is the Rogue archetype has always been the natural enemy of the warrior archetype. nothing we can do about that, but I wish they would think of something to help thieves. and make their builds and gear set up more diverse instead of all rogues pretty much being the same except for their chosen race.

AlBundy.7851:

won’t eso have a ridiculous stealth class as well? I haven’t been keeping up on what is happening with it but its hugely a given that all new mmos will have a welfare class like thieves.

The stealth classes in that game will consume stamina. Stamina is also used to perform your attacks. The longer in stealth means the less attacks you can pull off besides auto-attacks.

If you hate stealthers in this game, you’ll be able to stomach them easier in ESO.

@OP -

If you have sword and board, than anticipate a backstab, drop your shield stance and when he comes out shield bash, switch to hammer, Backbreaker > Fierce Blow > Staggering Blow > Earthshaker > Hammer Shock > Swap weapons and stay on top of him. If he drops SoR, hit Fear Me, or save staggering blow for that situation. Keeping on top of a thief is hard to do but if you can catch him and CC him, he is yours. I still use Frenzy and Frenzy + hammer is great burst since it hits super hard.

SharadSun.3089:

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There is a trait that blinds on every stealth. Though most ppl take the “remove condition on stealth” with the current D/P meta. When D/D was popular, this trait was frequently taken.

Also, I do use blinding powder and I’ve seen many thieves use it. It’s an easy stealth should the enemy counter whatever way you were using to stealth. Also a very easy opener for example when running thieves guild (you can surprise the enemy who only saw 1 thief coming at him).

Just wanted to inform you

For all the people saying use fear me when a thief goes into shadow refuge are you joking?

To get the most out of fear me you have to be running 30 in strength condi duration gear, runes and food and literally have to be right on top of the thief which is literally impossible once the thief chooses to disengage. If what you said actually worked ppl would already be running it.

There are plenty of ways to skin a cat but that’s just one option. If not, you can blindly swing your weapon and hope you hit him a few times to drop him. We don’t have many choices for knockback to unstealth and even if you drop him in SoR, that’s waiting 10 seconds + him dropping smoke bomb. You may as well disengage when he pops SoR if you can’t tell if your hits are connecting.

SharadSun.3089:

The thing is, I play PvP mainly. I barely touch WvW because I see it as an imbalanced zergfest, I only really go there to farm kills for the monthly.

Combat in WvW can be just as competitive as PvP if done well, although perhaps without all of the chest thumping that comes with the latter. ;p

I’d say stealth in general needs looked at in WvW – thieves naturally fit with this because they so easily abuse the mechanic. Their escape potential is absolutely absurd…and it doesn’t stop there, because they can easily hang around to make sure the rest of your supply isn’t getting through either.

Its not too hard but me thinks you need to have a GS as your other weapon to have a chance.

Right now running greatsword and hammer. I took down some thieves yesterday but that’s only on the not so skilled to be frank. I start with greatsword keeping my bag of tricks hidden per say. Whirlwind is great to land something and evade their something if timed right. Charge is critical but if they have a sword main hand or shadowstep traited it can be bad because they can avoid the bulls charge 100blades.

What I did yesterday shouldn’t sound surprising. I opened with greatsword but took some advice above and slotted bolas and fear me. I used bolas, then switched to hammer and went through that combo.

The key here is that you can catch a thief off guard with the hammer. However, if you’re notorious, they know you, or they’re skilled it’s really really hard as everyone else is saying.

I do like the dodge and damage concept because most of us spec 10 into arms (to break the blind).

Really they are just designed to take us down. The videos I’ve seen where warriors are taking them out I would say the thief is just a bad player generally.

Mepheles.2087:

So first off, I chose hammer, because I don’t like GS builds, and 100spam. I’ve been practicing and practicing, but no matter what I just get jumped by thieves, and blind spammed to death, being smack by 6k backstabs. 3 times, I fought a thief, but it’s not like I could do anything as I was blinded 95% of the time, playing my kitten off while he he moves back and forth out of my range. I honestly don’t know what else I Could have done. Any advice is helpful as it’s annoying to roam through our WvW lowlands escorting yaks and I can’t kill someone by myself.

Watch some of my videos. There’s ways to kill almost all thieves. You must be familiar with their variety in builds though. If it’s a perma dodge thief who has endurance regen out the max, then you most likely won’t kill him. Perma stealth thieves are fun because you wait till they HS out of their smoke circle then blind ES them. If you see a refuge come up, be sure to pop ES in that circle and then use hammer 4 while in the center. You’ll see a naked thief get knocked out it’s hilarious. Pistol thives I use my shield reflect on for a good 1/4 of damage to themselves. If it’s a glass thief you should be able to counter their venom with bal stance and then a shield 4, hammer 5 etc.

Link to my channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/alphabetEF/videos
All of those GW2 clips are warrior solos.

Mepheles.2087:

So first off, I chose hammer, because I don’t like GS builds, and 100spam. I’ve been practicing and practicing, but no matter what I just get jumped by thieves, and blind spammed to death, being smack by 6k backstabs. 3 times, I fought a thief, but it’s not like I could do anything as I was blinded 95% of the time, playing my kitten off while he he moves back and forth out of my range. I honestly don’t know what else I Could have done. Any advice is helpful as it’s annoying to roam through our WvW lowlands escorting yaks and I can’t kill someone by myself.

I’ve posted, but i’ll post again. Try out my build in the 29 minute video I have posted. If you can’t get ahold of all that just run full valk armor and exotic cavalier trinkets (balthazar temple). Lyssa runes and the sigils on my weapons are a must. Add me in game if you ever want some pro tips

Hahaha, reminds me of a pair of thieves I killed right in front of our Stonemist one time. I watched it and was about to say, “You forgot to /laugh”, but then I saw you used /dance. Good job.

Very interesting video. I tried the condition removal heal once before, but since I was using signet of Fury I just found it less useful than Healing surge, plus I use lemongrass.

Mepheles.2087:

Very interesting video. I tried the condition removal heal once before, but since I was using signet of Fury I just found it less useful than Healing surge, plus I use lemongrass.

Whatever works for you. So many people try to tell me that I should pick up Heal surge and drop mending, drop SoF and pick up SoS. In reality it’s what ever you prefer. There’s some pretty nice tricks I found to using SoF. It catches people off guard and lets you use your f1 for sword, pop SoF and land an ES no problem. Mending is a backup condi remover for me. 25sec CD is better than 30 sec CD. I don’t like to use util/heals as a main source for adren but love fasthands instead.

But it also depends how you build. I’ve found a happy medium and encourage anyone to try my build for who wants to.

I killed 3 mesmers and 1 thief one after another in the span of 2 minutes today in wvwvw. It’s not really a show of anything. People are so bad there.
If you want I can skirmish with you a bit in spvp Callahan, you can train against somewhat proper thief gameplay. I’m EU though, so I don’t know how it works out.

Psybunny.8906:

I killed 3 mesmers and 1 thief one after another in the span of 2 minutes today in wvwvw. It’s not really a show of anything. People are so bad there.
If you want I can skirmish with you a bit in spvp Callahan, you can train against somewhat proper thief gameplay. I’m EU though, so I don’t know how it works out.

Always down for improvement. There’s some specs in spvp that are a lot different than wvw though. I lack a lot of my build but mechanics are still there. I wasn’t sure if US can battle EU even in spvp?