Guild Wars 2

yes i am still noob and i do have trouble with thieves on all professions.

on necro they just blind and stun me to death while running in and out of my body to force weapon cooldowns and spamming 1 nothing i can do about it and if i ask i just get kitten noob dey eazy response or “just go into deathshroud and cast 4 and 5” no thief is going to stand around and let that finish without interrupting it. this said i still can kill them or at least stall till help arrives if i have enough lifeforce. (me vs thief on necro)

on warrior it is worse they either range me to death with bow for the lulz or just go all in using the same tactic as usual pop as many blinds as you can if he attacks me in my little blind circle interrupt him or stealth and move away then just pop it back on him. and 111 for days.

i am not standing still waiting for the backstab.. i keep moving, they seem to move faster tho, if i try just attack them then they out damage me easily avoiding any high damage attacks.

this is in pvp only

should add this is with shield axe gs zerker warrior i have tried hammer but its the same outcome really…

Ive had success vs all average thieves and the better ones (the rare) on a GS / Mace&Shield build, either by playing the waiting game or aggressive risk/reward. We have the tools for it, but it gets trickier if thief uses teleport to higher ground and buy some time with his shortbow.

yeah… they all seem to just stay at range and shoot me with the bow till i get close then blind burst shadowstep away and continue to hit me with the bow if i reach them again then they shadow return for more range and continue with the bow. predictable but what can i do?

Practice! I use a GS/ M/S build myself regularly. I run a mix of knights and sentinel armor with pure zerker trinkets. I run typical stre/def/disc traits with heal sig, balanced, endure, and zerker stance with rampage. This is my ‘bruiser’ build. If you’re pvp i use marauder with strength or crusader with yak depending on how i feel.

Against a thief it depends. A general skrimish play for me – If it’s a D/D or D/P thief keep moving like you said. Try to run in circles quickly harder for backstab. If he stealthed then probably going to be within range of a sword swing. So use that to figure out where he is. I usually start in M/S when I fight. Shield stance is too good of a counter to burst. Especially if a thief steals in. Pop stun break and shield. He’ll probably blind powder wait a minute and stab then use counter blow in anticipation…then pommel then shield bash anticipate a stun break switch to gs and chase. auto attack some maybe pop one of your stance incase he counters. Switch back to mace WITHOUT using your burst…bait out some stun breaks. Use pommel again, use shield bash…no more stun breaks? Time to finish him! Skull crack → 1HB →Whirlwind = win.

That’s a best case scenario, but you get the idea. Necros is tricky if it’s a power necro use the reflect trait and watch him kill himself. Use GS as a gap closer. If you find yourself chasing too much then may need another gap closer or different build.

Other notes: Don’t find condi builds unless you’re fully confident you’ll win. Condi + Kite against a warrior is doomed from the start in most cases. Know your weakness. Don’t panic if you do you may miss some mitigation skills like stuns, shields, whirlwind is great for evasion which can coast you a fight. Try to pop your stances appropriately not too early not too late. Anticipate bursts most people use meta battle so learn those builds and rotations. Use Rampage before you’re below 30% health lol and pop your heal sig before you rampage 1) it doesnt work during rampge 2) the cd will be almost down when you’re about done rampaging. I’d find some thieves and necros to spar with. Maybe someone who plays a warrior so give you pointers during play.

All comes down to practice theory is great, but doing it is better. Good luck!

nacario.9417:

Ive had success vs all average thieves and the better ones (the rare) on a GS / Mace&Shield build, (…)

This. Add brawler’ recovery and (d/p) teefs become a minor annoyance. However, don’t bother trying to chase them.

I normally run a gs/s+sh (str/def/disc) build in wvw, and my win rate against thieves is very high these days, particularly in duels when they can’t sneak a gank when I have everything in cooldown.

There are a few threads in the first few pages of the warrior subforum with tips on how to beat thieves, and you should look for those. The basic gist is to stay out of their blindfields, and to use dodges, blocks, and invulns to deny as much of their burst as possible. If you’re tuned for high damage, you can punish them whenever they’re in close and leave themselves open.

Greatsword is your friend vs thieves. Whirlwind Attack and Arcing Slice in particular.

The posts in the other threads don’t talk much about ranged attacks, so on those….

Shortbow. Yes, it’s a weapon that many thieves are only now starting to realize is more than just a way to move cover long distances quickly, gain stealth, and impede rezzing.

If you have trouble closing the gap on them, a build like m+sh/gs can be great (as others have mentioned), because you can make them eat a lot of their ranged damage and really punish them up close. Another approach is to pack a ranged weapon yourself.

You could use rifle, but I’d probably favour gs/lb myself. If you both have bows out, you’ll do more damage plus you have a higher health pool, and you can punish up close too.

Pistol mainhand. It’s not super common, but a standard lazy thief build was the ol’ condi p/d build. They apply condis from range, have lots of stealth, and can kite you for days if they’re any good. The only way I know to beat them is with something like a gs/lb build (hit them from range, use aoe when you think they’re close, dump conditions with Cleansing Ire). I’ve not fought any since the June 23 patch, but I’d expect making them eat their own conditions with reflect would go well too.

For ShoutBow (Settler):
No doubt, the easiest way to duel thief is ShoutBow (it doesn’t matter what build they use. ShoutBow will beat all kinda thieves). But you cannot kill them if they stop fighting against you but let them run away. Don’t use celestial ShoutBow, it just very bad against decent thief like Caed or Magic Toker and you will get rekt. Either warhorn or shield is fine if you equip Settler against thief class. just block, for shield, or inflict weakness, for warhorn, appropriately.

For GreatAxe:
To kill thief by a luck or chance, use gs/axe-shield on them. I think it will just blow up them if successfully inflicted.

For GS/LB:
GS/LB, nah, it is very old build and I don’t think it can kill them not easier than above builds.

For Hambow:
you can’t win.

For GreatHammer:
You have slightly chance to win but I wouldnt say it is as effective as ShoutBow or GreatAxe.

@Online
You’re wrong about GreatBow. First, the gs alone has enough power to kill a thief with just a whirlind and arcing slice if you’re geared in zerk. The bow gives you aoe when stealth in advance of a burst, but it’s main purpose is to out-trade damage when they’re using their shortbow.

As for GreatAxe, it’s not a matter of luck. You can play it well enough to kill thieves with a pretty high chance of success. It’s not like we’re talking about fighting an ele here.

The above builds are stance based, of course.

This game has too much blinds handed out easily

Choppy.4183:

@Online
You’re wrong about GreatBow. First, the gs alone has enough power to kill a thief with just a whirlind and arcing slice if you’re geared in zerk. The bow gives you aoe when stealth in advance of a burst, but it’s main purpose is to out-trade damage when they’re using their shortbow.

As for GreatAxe, it’s not a matter of luck. You can play it well enough to kill thieves with a pretty high chance of success. It’s not like we’re talking about fighting an ele here.

The above builds are stance based, of course.

for greatbow, i said not easier, which means harder but it can kill theif.

For greataxe, common~, inflicting evis is always half-luck against decent players. I know one guy 90% dodging it but he is like the one who have spent 3000+ hours in dueling arena only. Of course, shield bash too. They are so telegraphed.

Just a note on greataxe, the gs is your better weapon against thieves between the sets. But you don’t have to rely on evis when it comes to the axe… the auto provides good damage pressure as long as you aren’t in a blind field.

Choppy.4183:

@Online
You’re wrong about GreatBow. First, the gs alone has enough power to kill a thief with just a whirlind and arcing slice if you’re geared in zerk. The bow gives you aoe when stealth in advance of a burst, but it’s main purpose is to out-trade damage when they’re using their shortbow.

As for GreatAxe, it’s not a matter of luck. You can play it well enough to kill thieves with a pretty high chance of success. It’s not like we’re talking about fighting an ele here.

The above builds are stance based, of course.

Shortbow isn’t used for damage outside of the bouncing arrow in PvE for tagging. It’s primarily a support tool for poison stacking (shortbow 4 is terrible solo but great with other thieves and rangers who rapid fire into it, great against anything that can heal since poison reduces healing effectiveness), crippling while dodging (shortbow 3), and shortbow 5 to get out of trouble or reach a point faster (at great initiative cost of course.)

I STILL catch thieves in blinding powder while I am in Zerker Stance.

Honestly though, it’s a rough matchup unless you either outlast their major blindspam or catch them as they try to enter stealth. The best response I can give is that unlike Mesmers, Thieves have a couple more tells on where they are, you can almost always stay on them if they pop into stealth immediately when you are about to hit them but get blinded.

Oh, and have some cleanse vs Poison especially, a good thief will conserve at least 1 attack of poison after your initial counter-cleanse to reapply but a lot of thieves always want to try stacking the poison high just for it to get cleansed through a weaponswap.

Agemnon.4608:

Shortbow isn’t used for damage outside of the bouncing arrow in PvE for tagging. It’s primarily a support tool for poison stacking (shortbow 4 is terrible solo but great with other thieves and rangers who rapid fire into it, great against anything that can heal since poison reduces healing effectiveness), crippling while dodging (shortbow 3), and shortbow 5 to get out of trouble or reach a point faster (at great initiative cost of course.)

That’s mostly true, but some thieves are catching on that it can be used to pressure a melee opponent when closing is too dangerous. A glass thief with bloodlust stacks and some might can put out about 1.5-2k per auto, plus any sigil procs, which is enough to force a melee opponent to close before long. Disabling shot is used for an easy kite.

I agree that a thief will generally want to use the dagger for the high burst, but I guarantee more thieves are starting to clue into the fact that their other weapon set can be used effectively for more than travel, stealth, and poison field.

Keep in mind, I mentioned wvw in an earlier post, but this is also true in arena duels. I get that a thief messing around with a shortbow during an actual spvp match is not doing his job.

they all literally just range me to death with the bow… occasionally coming in for the kill with a fresh blind and daze each time and it doesnt matter what i do. they literally stand in my 100b and kill me

on another note i don’t see my traited stances activating at all. only the ones on my utility bar

ozzy.8059:

on another note i don’t see my traited stances activating at all. only the ones on my utility bar

Couple things about this:

Last Stand activates when you get hit with a disabling skill, even if you aren’t disabled. For example, if you activated Balanced Stance on your bar and you got hit with a daze, you wouldn’t notice the daze because of your stability, but Last Stand would still activate (your stability stacks will jump from 5 to 9). Try not activating a stability skill until Last Stand has already activated or just wait till you’re actually stunned.

If you aren’t running any other stability skills, I have no idea. LS was proccing for me all night tonight.

Defy Pain. This will also activate even if you’ve already got Endure Pain going. But, more commonly against a thief or any big burster, the major problem is if a burst takes you all the way to 26% health, and then the next burst is enough to take you to zero, Defy Pain won’t activate. 25% is only about 5k on a zerk warrior, so it’s not uncommon to never get the opportunity for it to activate.

Still, it usually does work, even if you don’t notice it. It’s a very good trait.

I found the best way is to go full glass and Whirlwind them. You can literally take out 80% of most thieves’ HP with a single well timed whirlwind. Whereas you have immunities to counter their burst.

However, a really well played D/P thief will be impossible to beat as a warrior with double melee. Same goes for when they camp shortbow, it is a hard counter to melee specs.

Try to learn defense against stealth a bit better. Shameless promoting of my channel incoming, but I have a vid in which I have a pretty long fight with a D/P thief (who was actually quite skilled), explaining what I do when I do it.

StickerHappy.8052:

This game has too much blinds handed out easily

And teleports and stealths.

Atticus.7194:

StickerHappy.8052:

This game has too much blinds handed out easily

And teleports and stealths.

And condition. Really why are thieves and mesmers even playable outside PvE?

I just run to the next water, jump in and wait for thief to follow, then i burst him down.

Wanze.8410:

I just run to the next water, jump in and wait for thief to follow, then i burst him down.

That works in WvW, but there are no more water maps in sPvP after they got rid of Capricorn.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Wanze.8410:

I just run to the next water, jump in and wait for thief to follow, then i burst him down.

That works in WvW, but there are no more water maps in sPvP after they got rid of Capricorn.

The first real nerf to Warrior.

:P