Guild Wars 2

Alright, so I’ve posted here before asking for help against thieves. I was pretty bad back then but I’ve gotten a lot better at least in my opinion, ~600 games played, containing ranked/unranked/hotjoin etc.

I mostly play axebow/hambow and I dunno what I can do against thieves. I cleansing ire/auto blinds off etc. Problem is I can’t even seem to land hammer skills on them. When I DO land a pindown he just presses lolwithdraw, or if I somehow land a hammer skill after his two dodges he just shadowsteps/shadowreturns.

I feel like I’m perma blinded against d/p thieves and taking completely autistic damage. Honestly 2 stun breaks on one skill is ridiculous. Against S/D thieves I literally never hit them 90% of the time.

As axebow the d/p thief destroys me in the opener unless I pop an early endure pain, so I dunno what I’m supposed to do against d/p at all. Anymore advice would be appreciated, thanks.

Hello!

First of have you played a thief before yourself? Figthing something that you vaguely understand is trickster, especially a thief.

A good thief will be one step ahead of you in terms of mobility, and with the weapon sets listed you are doomed to take hits. From here its a combo of being offensive, making them burn their utlities that have a longer cd than your hammer stuns or bow aoes (so that the longer the fight goes it should be in your favor). I personally run hambow and sit in my fire fields, make sure to rid myself of blinds before using stuns (by using a dmg attack), if you’ve played a thief before you should easier predict what is happening next timed with stances. All it takes is that 1 stun and theives are screwed. But keep pressure up with fire fields/burning onpoint.

Yes I have played a thief before, and it’s ridiculous lol. Just so we’re clear on some things, Withdraw is a 15 second cd, pindown is 25. Infiltrator’s signet is also only a 30 second cd. Backbreaker 30 seconds as well. Earthshaker is the only one with a 10 second cd and is sorta reliable. I appreciate the advice though. I just don’t understand how you get to the long fight duration with their ability to reset fights on a whim.

It just feels like auto’ing off the blinds while he’s unloading stupid damage into you takes too much time but I do auto them off as I stated above. When I go to do earthshaker as well he’s usually in lolblack powder and I get blinded before it lands. Ugh it’s the most frustrating thing in the world.

Edit: I have tried pre zerker stancing the blind when I go to earthshaker, but he just shadowsteps out of the stun if it does land.

You seem to mostly focus on hambow when you say you have trouble with thieves, so I’ll focus my comment on that. Note that Axebow does significantly better against a thief in 1v1 IMO, as your auto attacks with axe are fast and painful.

The key to pressuring a thief is not hammer, but longbow. try to have the longbow field up at all times. When you have baited out some of his defense, try using Hammer 4 to initiate a stun combo. Hammer 4 is the quickest and least telegraphed of the CC skills on hammer. Hammer 3, when paired with Leg specialist, is also quite good in this regard.

Another piece of advice, especially when fighting s/d thieves, is not to unload all of your combo in one try. Most thieves might get hit with the second skill, but will surely stunbreak and dodge before you can hit a third. Therefore, a good combo would be something like Hammer4>5>auto attack. That way, when you miss the auto attack due to him stunbreaking out of your combo, you still have Hammer 3 and Earthshaker to start off a new combo.

Off course, timing your berserker stance correct is crucial to ever hit the thief. You can not allow yourself to press it early, as the thief will have remaining defenses to counter any combo.

Pindown against a thief should be somewhat useless unless you can bait out withdraw and manage to hit it quickly after.

All in all, S/D thieves probably do pretty well most of the time against hambow.