Guild Wars 2

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Necromancer

LezardValeth.9453:

You don’t.

Unless Anet finally pays attention to the facts and nerfs them to the ground as they deserve.

“b-but we’re fragile”

What’s the point if you can’t even hit them? They have like 20 moves that attack and evade at the same time. Not to mention stealth.

To be honest, I don’t think thieves are over powered at all. (I don’t have one but I have seen a lot of them in action) They are actually pretty easy to kill as a necromancer.

The main reason people complain about thieves is because they don’t know what to do when they stealth.

Usually when a thief uses stealth. He/she is either:

- Disengaging (Running away)
- Healing
- Going to make their next attack

Depending on the weapon you are using. Staff and dagger (And maybe warhorn) is arguably the best weapons to use against thieves (Ill explain why later). Although any weapon works fine, sometimes you don’t even have to use a weapon.

If you are using the staff, When a thief stealth’s and you think that he is going to attack you, put Reapers Mark below you. Now if he tries to attack you, He will get instantly feared. You can put other marks on top of it, But if you have several marks below you, The thief is probably not going to attack (with melee at least)

As soon as you are able to attack him (When he unstealth’s) Use Spectral Grasp or Signet of Spite (Or both if you have them) Signet of spite can nearly kill a thief if you have high condition damage (As thieves are generally very squishy) I have killed some thieves with Signet of Spite and Blood is Power alone.

If the thief uses stealth while they are nearby, Go into death shroud and use Life Transfer. This will do a lot of damage and it may down the thief. If he doesn’t get downed and he un-stealth’s a distance away, Use doom and then spam Life Blast until he get downed or until he stealth’s again (I usually have killed the thief by now)
Wells also work against thieves pretty well if you can time them right (Especially Well of Suffering)

Dagger and Staff (and warhorn sometimes) are arguably the best weapons because dagger has a very high damage auto attack (Very useful if the thief tries to fight you directly or if he is close) and because of the Immobilize ability. Staff because of the marks you can put that can help you find out where he is or set traps. (If he stealth’s, Place marks around where he stealth’s. If he triggers one, He is within that area) And warhorn because of the daze ability and the locust swarm that damages anything that is close. These weapons are not required (I run D/D and S/F. But if you are having trouble with thieves, They can help.

Death Shroud is one of the most useful things you have to fight thieves. (Especially if you have the trait where you cast enfeebling blood or retaliation when you enter it) Very high AoE damage and long range single target damage (As well as providing you with a second health bar)

If the thief runs away and you can’t catch him (You usually can’t unless he is slowed/chilled (Signet of Spite does both) or nearly dead) Then there is not much you can do about it. Thieves usually run away if they are losing the fight. Which means you can usually beat them again unless they completely surprise you (Which is hard to do if you look around)

Using this strategy (and with my build, Although many builds should work) I can kill thieves very easily. The only time they have ever killed me is if i have been fighting someone else at the same time (And both the thief and the player were at least decently good at the game).

There are probably many other ways to counter a thief, These are just the easiest ways that I have found. Its easily possible to kill them while in death shroud alone (Assuming you have at least around half of your life force bar)

TLDR:

Signet of Spite or Spectral Grasp + Well of Suffering (Or some combination of these and maybe some other utilities) + Death Shroud = Dead thief

Staff, Dagger and Warhorn are good against thieves.

posthumecaver.6473:

The people are dreaming that can use a Cleric support build in ESL.

lol