Guild Wars 2

skip if td;lr After lurking on the forums for quite a while now, I’ve seen all sorts of threads regarding the thief, many on their possible builds, how to counter, etc. We all know it’s not that simple and that in-game, a smart thief really is nothing to scoff at. So, I decided that I would play a thief and see what the fuss was all about, and I won’t lie, the burst was indeed insane.

But it’s a double edged sword. In exchange for that godlike amount of burst and the legendary 11k+ backstabs in sPvP, anytype of damage/cc wrecks them. Any counter-anticipation wrecks their combo. Only crutch that I can legitimately see as a real problem is if they use Basilisk Venom (I do) so you really can’t do anything about being 100-0 bursted in literally 2 seconds.
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Basically, always anticipate the fact a good thief can wreck you at any time if you’re unprepared or alone and squishy. Always hover over your defensive skills and you should be fine. The best counter initiation to the glass cannon is to watch your back. If you see anything pop up behind you and you randomly take 2-5k damage, use a defensive skill, maybe a block. However, if they use Basilisk Venom before mugging you… You’re kinda screwed, no joke. Unless you can pop mist form or something you can expect a heavy hit.

The Glass Cannon thief can’t sustain himself in a fight, usually. They have initiation burst with high cooldown at a high initiation cost. After the initiation it’s usually a few auto’s and /or a Heartseeker if you try to jump a gap, but that’s it. Pop one defensive skill beforehand and stay and fight. If you survive the burst you’ll probably win the fight. Keep him in-front of you at all times, Steal is on a relatively long cooldown and all of his other steroids (Assassin’s signet, maybe Venom) are on cooldown as well.

P.S I wouldn’t say I’m a pro, by no means. I’m just putting out what I know to help out anyone that needs help with Burst Thieves. All the time in sPvP I’ll blow some poor sap up that probably could’ve gotten away if he just fought or used a defensive block. But, then again, I use Basilisk Venom

ZLE.8293:

What annoys people is not especially the HS damage alone,but the 450 range of it.
It allows such mindless and skill-less spamming without any basic effort of positioning.The guy can dodge twice in a row in a attempt to save him and still die,because you can spam at least 6 HS’s in a row.

If you let the thief hit you that many times then of-course you’re going to die.
If you so much as CC the thief, they’re going to back off. Most classes have a snare.

If you dodge twice immediately, you’re just asking for a rough time with anybody.
I don’t get the big gripe about HS. People usually die because they didn’t fight back, or didn’t attempt to defend themselves without panicking.