Guild Wars 2

I’m a poor player, I know that. (getting that out of the way).

Are there any videos of a warrior beating a ***good*** thief after being ambushed? I don’t care what the warrior’s build was, and it doesn’t count if the thief simply runs away.

So with that said, any videos of winning after an ambush?

-Jeff

P.S. I’ve honestly been trying, and when I walk into some small fights I’ve actually done well when mentally prepared and so on. But I haven’t the foggiest notion of what to do when I get jumped and I’m already down. Honestly, have the time I’m almost dead before targeting and orienting the camera.

P.P.S. No, I’m not running zerk gear/damage monkey gear all the time. I’ve tried a variety of builds. :-)

Seeing gear/build would help. But generally speaking, you should have little issue with thieves, even if they get the jump.

Yes and yes. Is there a video? :-)

Rather than QQ-ing, I’ve been watching videos and practicing things that I see (along with reading and trying builds). It’s really helped me to play “like I was 12” and just practice what I see, so I was hoping to watch a few ambush videos to break down what people did and practice it.

-Jeff

The thing with fighting any good Thief is they’ll just reset on you when things turn sketchy and come back at you while you’re on your cooldowns..

Something I personally like to do is have them spend initiative on the chase, then turn around on them. This also catches most less skillful Thieves unaware.. if you get lucky you can delete em’ in just 1 go.. ^^

Edit: Just something to add.. Use your Resistance buffs for the moments when you’re confident gonna land a sure burst rotation, or even when they decide to go toe to toe. Thieves are fairly confident about going in on you while you’re Blinded.. This is mostly a great time to catch them, while they’re focused on their offense. If you’re full Zerk then they’re as good as gone.. Hope this helps..

I’ll give you the best advice ever. And its super easy to do as well. And I need only use say two words to explain it to you. So pay attention caues this is really important:

STAND STILL

if you see a thief coming at you…..just stop moving. Sit and wait for them to hit you. You can easily read them if you just stand there. You can easily hit them if you just stand there. YOu can easily confuse them if you just stand there. You can easily kill them if you just stand there.

I mean I use gunflame. So when a thief comes at me, i stop moving. They get the first hit in, I hit my endure pain if I need to, activate berserker mode (taunt gets many of them), and fire my gunflame the moment they do a flip and land on the ground….it will hit if they do a second flip, since their jump attacks have a very small window where they don’t evade (theres some videos of this, i actually had some1 post 1 for me…..if u search a page or so back in my history you will eventually find it). Remember when you stand stil, the game automatically gives your attacks a 360 degree attack radius. meaning it will automatically turn you to attack some1 behind you, or follow some1 if they jump all around you. Killshots will aimbot to the target and follow them into stealth if it goes off.

Also be sure to have your minimap zoomed in to the max, so you can see whether or not you down the thief while they are in stealth. Then just cleave and aoe the spot they seem to be (you won’t always get them but most of the time you willl).

Ifyou encounter a thief when you are too low hp….generally just guess when they ‘will’ attack and activate some sort of endure pain/block if you have it. Otherwise just dodge when you think they r gonna hit…..I’ve saved my skin plenty of times by noticing a thief following me stealth, then I started counting how long it would likely take him to hit me, when I hit 8 seconds I automatically dodged and I evaded the opening attack and managed to completely wreck the poor guy since his stealth wore off soon after, and he didn’t immediately run away when he lost his opening strike..

Cerby.1069:

Remember when you stand stil, the game automatically gives your attacks a 360 degree attack radius. meaning it will automatically turn you to attack some1 behind you, or follow some1 if they jump all around you.

I think for me it doesn’t work unless I have “autotargetting” and “snap to ground” enabled in options, but I have them bound to a toggle key, at least that is what I think is causing it not to work unless it’s something else. I have keys to toggle them both depending on class and skills I use, as I hate targetting a leap trying to get away from enemies and instead diving back into a zerg cos I didn’t have enough time to click an empty space. Sometimes though even when clicking an empty space it goes to my last target which causes me to die XD

I main elemetalist and use power warrior als my main alt and guess i am average with it.
I can beat thief and somtimes even catch them. CC is your main weapon. And you need multiple because you can expect the thief to doge and mostly has bandits defence as stunbreaker. My experience is that i need 2-3 CC to get him.
My build is more personal and build to run fast and has a lot armor. We can discuss details in a PM or in game(TS). Last ambush was about 2-3 seconds and the thief was down. Shure it was perfect but warrior can do it. It was like bait dodge, bait stunbreak taunt with zerk 7k 10k dead …

Also don’t be scared to pop berserk util Just to fight his black powder ( blind ) after his spike on you,if that happens when you have full adren up start bursting with gs inside of it right away.Dont bother to land axe burst most thieves will easily dodge that.

it also helps to just roll a thief and equip him with dp/bow and see how long they can stealth,to see their mobility,the way init regains and how often they can dodge etc.That can really help to fight em aswell.

I use GS Mace/Shield and the amount of CC I have means they cant really kill me. Granted a decent thief will reset fights when they are low which is why I don’t really waste my time fighting them. I usually keep running in the direction I was going anyway and swat at the thief like its a fly. Basically turning around every so often to bash them with my shield or mace.

The thief will give up or I end up near my tower/keep so they have to engage the NPC.

short story thieves are annoying flies that shouldn’t be able to kill you and you wont kill a good thief unless he wants to go toe to toe or you get a really good stun rotation on him. (this is using GS/M/Shield. I don’t know about rifle.)

Edit: taunt GM trait works against them but I never use that unless im dueling a thief. I prefer Eternal Champion most of the time for regular play.

As i wrote and Spartacus mentioned. Taunt is my weapon to kill them. Otherwise they reset most of the time. I prefer the trait over eternal champion i have 2-3 stunbreakers and another stab source anyways which prooved to be enough unless hopelessly outnumbered which i don´t count and have to run early enough annyway …

@jaif.3518

There are many vids of Warriors coming out on top after being ambushed. Here are some things you should know about thieves however.

• I properly played thief, who gets the drop on you an catches you by surprise, should always win.
• They don’t always win, because the skill ceiling on a thief is very high, and one tiny mistake or delay in action would cause them to loose.
• A thief can 100%-49% a warrior in an instant. but they have to blow cooldowns in order to do that.
• 4 seconds later, after your defy pain wears off, they can 50%-0% you if they have managed to do everything right.
• The order is a bit different with Condition burst thieves. These guys take longer to kill you, there is just less you can do about it. you can Proc Berserker’s Stance, once that ends they can start doing their damage again. You may pop your signet for more resistance, but they may very well strip the boon right off you if they are set up for that.
• In either of those cases you can pop a stance (Either endure pain, or Berserker’s stance) to buy time to buy the time you need to land a burst skill. this will force the thief to fall back, delaying their burst, making them use cooldowns, and granting you your much needed AH.
• In WvW burst skills, like Evicerate, Decapitate, Arc Divider, Arcing Slice, can be landed fairly easily and deal massive damage to a thief. If you combo them (IE Decapitate>swap>Arc Divider) You stand a good chance of wiping a thief quickly.
• Thieves who rely on Dodges can stand in a fight with you longer without retreating, but they give up much of their burst to do so. Because of this, even if they get the drop on you, you can likely survive long enough to get yout adrenaline, AH, and boons machine working. at that point they are pretty much boned.
• A note on Adrenaline here. A good thief’s primary goal is not to get hit, which (whether they know it or not) makes their primary goal to deny you adrenaline, which denies you bursts, which denies you AH, which denies you berserker, etc. This is the reason Berserker’s stance is so good, because even if you don;‘t get hit, you are guaranteeing you’ll get your adrenaline in a fight. The same can be said for any skill that gives you adrenaline. Use them, even if you miss with them (i the case of rage skills) any time you see a chance.

• The longer a fight with a thief goes, the more the tide swings in your favor.

I’m not going to say that I’m a great Thief player but I do solo roam in WvW and beat most of the warriors I come across (besides the truely good ones which just blow me away) so I do have a few tips;

Thieves rely heavily on blinds and kiting to beat a warrior. Blinds because of how telegraphed you guys are, and kiting because most of you run full melee and your big CCs like Headbutt, Shield 4, Taunt, etc etc are melee range. A good thief will be constantly in and out, bursting down a little of your health and then backing off again. We can’t take you guys up close so we’re forced into playing that way. For this reason, its an absolute must that you don’t let up the pressure. We’re going to be pressuring the kitten out of you so don’t allow us to put you on the defensive, put US on the defensive. Close the distance as quickly as you can, making good use of your gap closers.

Do NOT waste your skills. Timing is crucial for us because of how quickly you can kill us, but its also crucial for you because of how slippery we are. Make sure you’re constantly baiting out dodges, catching us at the end of them and punishing us with CCs. Same with our skills, make sure you punish us for missing or making mistakes (e.g. if a Thief is stoopid enough to try to P5 D2 to stealth right next to you, you basically get a free Headbutt or Shield Bash if you’re quick enough).

Sorta in addition to the last point, Resistance is your friend so don’t waste it (Healing Sig active/Zerker stance). Like I said, we absolutely will spam the hell out of blind because of how susceptible you guys are to it, so take advantage of that. If a thief hits you with a blind, use a skill like Headbutt and then pop Zerker Stance right at the end of the animation, we won’t dodge because you’ll fool us into thinking it’ll miss when it won’t. Same with skills like Rush and Shield Bash that are slow and telegraphed – if we see you’re blinded we won’t bother dodging, so punish us for it.

Use the Taunt on Berserk, it absolutely wrecks us. Seriously. If we stealth up whilst in range, a taunt will force us back out of stealth and you get a free burst. If we don’t have a stunbreak, we’re dead if we get caught by that taunt. I actually got caught by it earlier today and ate an 11k Arc divider followed by Whirlwind and it literally deleted me, lol. CC is your friend against Thieves so why not have more of it?

Finally, make absolute certain that you know the CDs of our stunbreaks and Steal and you know at all times when they’re up and when they’re down. This is absolutely crucial. Landing Steal is often the difference between winning or losing a fight as a Thief, and if you know when its ready, it’ll make it much easier for you to dodge it. If you can consistently make us miss our Steal then you’re well on the way to winning the fight. Also, know that most thieves will be running Shadowstep (50 sec CD) and Bandits Defense (12 sec CD if traited, 15 if not – though most will have it traited, so its best to assume 12 seconds). Again, its important to be paying attention to how long it’s been since we used these so that you know that when you land a CC, you can get the full damage out of it. If you’re trying to go for a full combo like Headbutt – Berserk – Arc Divider – Decapitate and we just pop BD then you’re wasting your skills.

That’s about all I can think of ATM, I realise this is long but I just wanted to go through as much as I could. Like I said, I’m not exactly a great Thief but I think what I’ve gone through is sound advice. Finding videos on YT of Warriors roaming is really easy and they’re bound to have fights VS thieves on there. I’m actually good friends with Raijen who is a great warrior roamer and he absolutely deletes me every time I duel him so I’d reccomend checking out a couple of his videos, pretty certain he has fights VS thieves on there.

+1 to emkelly.
Berserkers stance is extreamly valuable. I always run it in WvW and cleasing ire. These two are key. I even don´t use defy or endure pain…. I would only need them under heavy focus which should be avoided annyways in roaming.

I run marauder rifle/gs in wvw and killing thieves is megaeasy. Don’t listen to the “advice” on standing still xD And always evade backwards. Keep track of his cds, especially steal/shadowstep, hit him when he is in stealth.

Thieves are forced to run berserker in order to kill anything which means 1 hit with arc divider will almost kill him. So you just have to land a hit with 1 skill, meanwhile he has to open on you three times to bring you down. If you do not manage to kill the thief in that time window you just need more practice. Ask some guildmate thief to explain you his rotation, maybe practice with you.

Avoid youtube tutorials as 99% of gw2 youtube videos is about stomping low skills/low levels.

Rifle is actually a pretty good thief killer because of how it eliminates our ability to kite, so getting good with Rifle/GS or the like is actually a good idea if you want an easier time VS a thief. However, vove, if you’re saying we’re forced to run FULL berserker to kill anything then that’s pretty incorrect – most thieves in WvW nowadays are actually forced away from that because of how easy it is to die, so either full Marauders or a mix of Zerk/Valk/Marauders is much more common. With a lot of us taking +Vitality food as well that means most will have upwards of 18k health, and at most I think I’ve been hit with just under 11k from an arc divider. So being left with 7k health and being as slippery as we are, I don’t believe its sound advice to say “you just need 1 hit whilst they need 3 engages” or anything of the sort. If you’re beating a thief that easily then you’re playing against incredibly poor thieves.

I use chavalier weapon, knights armor and captain trinkets (zerk back) and can two shot a thief. (Did over 7k arch divider followed by 10k+ rush in zerk mode). So nope you don´t need berserker .. Dead is dead. -1k or -5k who cares … catch him in taunt on zerk swap and burst + strike him down. At least that is what i try :-).

vove.2768:

I run marauder rifle/gs in wvw and killing thieves is megaeasy. Don’t listen to the “advice” on standing still xD And always evade backwards. Keep track of his cds, especially steal/shadowstep, hit him when he is in stealth.

I shoulda rephrased it to: not using wasd or turn. that’s what I meant by standing still. You can dodge all you want while standing still since it doesn’t change ur 360 degree attack radius.

And if the OP is having difficulty with fighting thieves what do you think their movement patterns are like presently? They are probably moving forward, backwards, side-side, thinking that standing there is what’s gonna get them killed……moving serves no purpose when fighting a thief ’that’s attacking’, it just makes it easier for them. I use seaweed (10% extra damage while moving) and I STILL opt to standing still when they come for me, cause landing the hits is hard and is infinitely times more important than +10% damage.

If you have no problem hitting or reading the thief then sure, ya don’t need to listen to me. Listen to the guy using marauders gear instead.