Guild Wars 2

Stealth use

For thieves, stealth gives them a choice to play either offensively or defensively.

Offensive Play
D/D
IMO, the most important aspect to a D/D is their initiation. A common initiation in this set is Basilisk→CnD→Steal→BS→AA. If you are in 900 range, unless traited, and carefully observing the thief’s CnD cast(watch for the thief’s left hand swinging) be prepared to dodge. Disrupting this combo cost half of their total initiative(12), this leaves the thief vulnerable and forces them to play defensively. Defensive actions in forms of a second attempt in CnD, dodging, stealthing(blinding powder, Shadow Refuge) or positioning(Shadow Step).

The weakness in this build is that CnD can be easily avoided just by watching and dodging at the right time. Denying CnD will be an easy win for you. However, if they manage to stealth there are some points to keep in mind:
*4 second of stealth
*They’re most likey behind you
*Count 1,2,3 dodge
*Create some distance by using utilities or weapon mobility skills
*Auto attack to try and figure out their position
*If you run out of dodges: 1,2,3 quick turn 180 degrees. (It’s better to take a face
stab than a back stab)
*AoE for zoning. It’s best to immediately lay it down on your position right
when the thief CnD as your chances of hitting him will be higher. Also,
Staff necro can use marks to figure out a thief’s position.
*Most importantly, be running at all times
D/P
This weapon spec has on demand stealth(3s) and mobility with BP+HS combo. This combo cost 9 initiative so timing the interrupt when the thief HS takes practices, however if you manage to pull that off you will have a dead thief. Now some professions lack interrupt abilities so what you can do is observe how the thief HS. There are 3 common ways:
*Stacking stealth by short leap HS 3x
When the thief is stacking stealth they are usually using a short leap HS by moving the camera angle to the top and HS 2-3 times. What you can do, which seems counter-intuitive, is walk in the the Blinding Power. Since the camera view for the thief is restricted to the ground he won’t know you’re coming. The thief will most likely HS you causing the revealed debuff, giving you the opportunity to burst and forcing the thief on the defensive since they depleted their initiative.

*HS towards the opponent
When the thief HS onto you, at that moment the thief is right in front of you. What is the thief going to do? He’s going to walk behind you and back stab. Sometimes cicle strafing and auto attacking is enough to keep the thief from backstabbing. A safer way is to count 1,2 dodge and tips mentioned above.

*HS away from the opponent
This a safer way to stack stealth by HS away→HS towards 2×. This also has its counters. Just walk in front of his BP and auto attack to prevent his other two HS. The amount of time for the thief to try to re-position for a backstab or stack stealth takes too long causing him to be revealed and 4 less initiative.

Defensive Play
Not much to say just that thieves will use their mobility+stealth to disengage fights. It’s best to burst combo a thief at 50% hp since most thieves won’t react fast enough to shadow step away. Remember just be wary when a thief uses Shadow refuge(SR) and inflict massive AoE or CC him out of SR.

I hope that this has enlighten some players that thieves aren’t as easy as you say it is. To truly understand how a thief works is to roll a thief yourself and learn the mechanics. Sooner or later you’ll find out that it’s more than just stealthing and backstabbing. There’s also a level of awareness and precision needed to successfully be a good thief.

The forums are saturated with people complaining how op thieves are because of stealth. Well to tell you the truth they’re not. What’s op is the skill of the player. Any player who is skilled in their class can defeat any profession. Here I’ll explain the mindset of thieves and their fight-style given the common weapon set D/D and D/P with traits X/30/30/X/X.To my fellow experienced players, feel free to add anything I missed.

TL;DR
Thief class isn’t just about stealth and backstab. You need to be aware, have good positioning, reaction, and intiative management. Also, stealth can be countered by reading the thief’s animations of CnD and HS.

Top picked utilities
*Hide in Shadows
*Withdraw
*Shadow Step
*Shadow Refuge
*Blinding Power
*Infiltrators Signet
*Smoke Screen

[b]Characteristics of an Experienced Thief[b]
*Aware of your surrondings
*Positioning
*Reaction
*Initiative Management

Aware of your surroundings
Most theif builds run a mix of zerk, valk, calv, or soldier gear to maximize their damage while giving some survivability.This class has one of the lowest base health and no invuln, stability(except dagger storm), protection, or aegis for damage/cc mitigaton. Instead they have positioning, mobility, stealth, and evades for compensation. Thieves are always moving when fighting because once they are stunned, crippled, immobilized, or chilled, they are open to attack and usually equals death unless they re-position. In WvW thieves would/should constantly move their camera 360 degree to ensure their safety from a possible gank.

Positioning
Because of thieves’ low hp and toughness, they must know where to position themselves to avoid damage and create opportunities to safely strike. This is not easy since it requires knowledge of other professions and their builds.

Reaction
A thief player should always be watching their enemies’ animation to dodge their cc/burst combo which requires knowledge of the profession. Thieves are not like guardians or warriors where they can face tank the damage. It only takes one wrong move for a thief to be bursted to death or close to it. This why thieves must be precise and coordinated with their attacks. Usually when the enemy finishes their burst rotation the theif will safely go in for their burst.

Initiatve Management
Initiative management is key to a thief’s burst and survival. Thieves’ burst requires 6 initiative(D/D) or 9 initiative(D/P), when they attack they are vulnerable since they won’t have enough initiative to escape, unless they use an utility skill. Same goes if they use their initiative for survival(Shortbow #3 or HS), they won’t have enough to burst the opponenet. Knowing when to use inititive for burst or survival depends on the situation. If the enemey is on cool down go in for the burst. If their hp is low use HS, Shortbow #3 or #5 to escape. After numerous of deaths and learning, an experienced theif will instinctly react to the best option.

Thanks for adding to the thread. We need more veteran players like you to contribute and help out inexperience or new players.

Scouting

How can you defeat the enemy if you don’t know where the enemy is? This is why scouting is important it provides vital information in pinpointing the enemies’ location. Knowing a enemies location can help plan your attack. For example, if your scouts know the the enemy blue zerg is attacking on green’s territory then blue is very vulnerable to attack. You are safe to attack blue’s tower with little to no opposition.

Best locations to place scouts are the intersections to your side of the map. First you need to know where the openings are. Let’s take EB for example and for argument sake your world(red) has SM taken. IMO, all you need is five scouts: one at SM’s north gate, one at SM’s south-west gate, one at SM’s south- east gate, one at AP, and one at OC. These points cover important openings the enemy have when engaging red’s territory.

Roaming

Very similar to scouting, however you are more on the offensive than the defensive. They’re job functions similar to a zerg however in a smaller scale and mainly focus on capping camps, fending other roamers, or scoping out enemy zerg’s position. IMO, the most important part of roaming is that they serve as a distraction. Sometimes I see whole zergs popping out of nowhere attacking the roamers while our zerg is taking towers. The more time wasted a zerg is wasting on roamers the better off for the other team to capitalize on the opportunity.

Sometimes, solo roamers like a thief, can hinder a roaming party or zerg from completing objectives. The natural reaction when you see an enemy is to kill him. Inexperience roamers tend to kill enemies on sight and since the thief can successfully chain CnD the roamers or zerg aren’t able to react fast enough to kill him off. What did the thief accomplish? He manage to waste the roamers valuable time where it could have been spent on completing objectives. How should the roamers respond? Either by ignoring the thief or wait for the revealed debuff to cc and burst the thief.

Countering Blob Army

On the top of my head I can only think of one but there’s probably more options. Feel free to add on to this, if anyone else comes up with another strategy. If you are unable to defeat a blob army all you have to do is split up your forces to attack two different towers. The blob is usually run by one commander so he can only respond to one of the two attacks. You would at least get one capped tower if the commander decides doesn’t split his forces.

Basically Blobs can be weakened if you attack various towers. This forces the opposing commander to split up his army to respond to the multiple attacks or else he’ll lose towers.

Common Tactics

This is what separates a good and a great commander. Observant of your surroundings and knowing when to pull out from a fight.

Siege from a safe distance. Often times I would see commanders charge in to the gate with rams while arrows come raining down which depletes our numbers. The heals could not keep up with the damage output of the siege weapons. At this time we should pull out and set siege(catapults or treb) from a safe distance to break the gate/wall. This forces the enemy to engage us or let the gates break open.

Choose your fights wisely. Commanders would try to defend their towers even though their numbers are too low. Instead fighting an uphill battle, leave the tower and continue on with other objectives.

Deception

This requires some top notch thinking and high level play. You must lead you opponents astray. It has been mention above under roaming where commanders believe the enemy roaming party of 20 is the whole zerg and bring his 50+ zerg to drive them away. While wasting his time with the roamers SM has been capped.

For example, when commanders attack SM they choose one hallway to push their forces. While the enemy is focusing on the battle, a couple of mesmers and thieves from the opposite side of the hallway sneak their way to the top. I’ll let you guys figure out how that works. While they successfully sneak up the commanders forces would pull out which lets the enemy think they’ve won. However, given the right opportunity the mesmer would come down and port the whole zerg into the lords room taking SM with ease.

First off, this thread is to discuss strategies or ways to overcome the opposition in wvw. Please don’t bring your complaints, QQ, or any other form of negativity. This thread is here to help new or veteran players and feel free to add anything beneficial that I may have missed.

Here’s a common list that I think is important.
* Communication
* Scouts
* Roaming
* Countering Blob Army
* Common Tactics
* Deception

Communication

This is probably the #1 most important characteristic the player needs to succeed in wvw. Having a Teamspeak(TS), Ventrilo, Skype etc… can really help your world plan out attacks. Even typing in the chat box is better than nothing. For example, I was in SM while the enemy was attacking the inner gates. What did I do? I called out immediately in map chat and my world responded with a defensive counter attack which led the enemy retreating. Now this may seem common sense however I see players completely walk pass and ignore these kind of situations. A few words, “Zerg in SM’s inner NE gate” would suffice. Every player should adopt this behavior if they want to succeed in taking or defending objectives.

Having a good commander is difficult to find since they need to be coordinated and willing to listen. Another personal example from WvW, we had two commanders in attacking inner SM. One was attacking from the east while the other was attacking from the west. Luckily, we had a mesmer portal the commander and his fleet on the west. Knowing this, the commander from east was also asking for a portal. The west commander did tell someone to go help port them in SM however the east commander never got the port. The west commander assumed a mesmer was going to port them in however it was on cooldown. He launched a direct attack on the Lord and this completely wiped his fleet. This was the lack of communication and coordination on the west commander. He should have waited for the mesmer’s response to plan his attack.

A commander should always be willing to listen from other players. To keep this short, two heads are better than 1. In this case we have hundreds of heads is better than 1. The commander doesn’t know everything and they should be open to hear what other players may have to offer.

Lastly, don’t argue amongst each other this creates an uncooperative atmosphere and only benefits the other two worlds. If someone makes a bad call, instead of blaming and name calling, offer solutions. Negativity will generally induce a defensive response from the player and in-fighting will occur. However, offer ways to prevent making bad calls. Just be helpful and try giving solutions when problems occur. Not everyone is perfect, we all make mistakes.

You’re kidding right? This is another april fools joke.

Combo it with BP field which gives you an AoE blind.

How about this.

Last Refuge, when under 25% health it sends out an AoE blinding up to 5 targets. After 0.5-1 seconds you gain stealth. The 0.5-1 second should give the player should enough time to react to the upcoming stealth. If the player manages to stealth(CnD or other utility skills) before the 2nd part of last refuge triggers then it should not activate.

Thieves have a very predictable style, especially D/D. Now during stealth a thief can:

1. Immediately backstab
-Create distance by either dodging or blinking.

2.Wait till stealth almost expires then backstabs
-Stealth usually last 4 seconds(3 seconds if it isn’t traited) and dodge when stealth is about to end.

3.Chaining cloak and dagger skill
-Be careful about these thieves since thieves who chain cloak and dagger will kitten the situation and backstab if they see a good opening. However, thieves will need to cloak and dagger at the end of the 3-4 seconds of stealth so just dodge.

Tips:

D/D Thieves main defensive mechanic is stealth and do not have easy or any access to stability, protection, or aegis like other classes have. They create their advantages by out-positioning their enemy through stealth. A common initiation used by thieves is the CnD+steal combo. If you counter(dodge) this then the thief is wide open to be bursted.

Also use your dodges sparingly or you’ll be easily backstabbed.

@Impact

I always welcome constructive advice from players since it will help advance my play-style as a thief. I’m just expanding on what I said and how I go about my play-style. =)

I take 2 initiative gain from infusion of shadow since gives you more options to work with (disengage or damage) plus you’ll inflict more damage when you have initiative above 6.

If I use BP+2HS and HS to the enemy I’ll have initiative less than 6 which is 10% less damage.

I say the utility is enough to beat a D/D. Usually when i fight other thieves I make sure I have the best opener or I’ll get one-shotted. To have to best opener is the element of a surprise attack from stealth and I believe D/P can achieve this with more success than D/D. I use BP+3HS combo→steal and backstab now the D/D thief would usually heal at this point with Shadow Refuge or Hide in Shadows. If the thief uses Hide in Shadows I would pop headshot and HS for the kill.

Disengage:
You can use your utility skills for this however what if they’re on CD. For D/P spec you have the option of BP+1-3HS or SB 5 to disengage which I find much more reliable then D/D+SB spec. I’ll BP+3HS and walk the opposite direction and wait for initiative to regen to HS away. I’ll use SB if I know I can tele up on a cliff. For D/D+SB you most like HS away without stealth or use SB 5 to tele away. If you’re fighting a warrior with they’re high mobility then all I can say is good luck getting away.

Counters:
Distance yourself where the BP is being place.
-This can be tricky at times since the thief can close the gap easily with SS, infiltrator’s signet and steal while stealth-ed. However, I don’t know any thief would blow their SS, infiltrator’s signet, and steal at the same time. If they do then that thief is as good as dead if he gets CC’d. Also you can place traps, marks, or AoE however use it sparingly.
*Interrupt they’re BP+HS combo by standing close to their BP
-If they HS towards you run directly in the line of the HS in front of the BP(maybe dodge just in case if they try a quick backstab) and AA.
-Some thieves love to BP and HS at the last second. This isn’t too hard to counter since you would know where the thief is at. They are right in front of you and going to walk behind for backstab. Give about .5-1 second before you dodge or use AoE and CC around you.

Let me know what you guys think.

Play-style:
Now here comes the deceptive play I use either during the initiation or throughout the battle. When you BP(full initiative) you can decide to HS 1 to 4 times. The 4th HS is rare, but I manage to pull it off sometimes thanks to infiltrator’s signet. Also each HS BP combo is 2 sec on stealth. Now you’re probably asking yourself that this is a ridiculous waste on initiative. Well yes, however you gain 8 sec. of stealth and during that time I will wait till stealth is almost up before backstabbing follow up by AA or dodge. After the dec. 10 patch I get most of my inititave back(missing about 3). I similar results from BP1HS, 2HS, or 3HS combo. The deception comes from how many times you decide to use the HS+BP combo. This will leave your enemies clueless on your backstab since you can attack from the end of the 2sec, 4sec, 6sec or 8sec window of stealth. Keep in mind that my last HS will be towards the enemy.

When they start to run just use #2 and #3 to close the gap. Don’t use BP+HS combo as it would drain your initiative and will leave you unable to down them or chase. Only BP+HS when they turn around and fight or if you can kill them. What I like about this is that I can kill warriors(only concentrating on escaping) with no problem with their high mobility GS+ Bulls Charge. If they Bull Charge I use SS for max range predicting where BC ends and AA. When they use their GS 3 and 5 I’ll use HS+ShS, infiltrator’s signet, or HS+steal to close the gap.

Management:
For this build to work you must be wary of your initiative at all times. You need to make every attack count because spamming your initiatives spells death. Low initiative= open to attack or unable to disengage. Most of the time when I BP I’ll wait till full initiative to engage again. This is a safer option since I will still have initiative left-over to disengage if I have to. You can BP with 3/4 of your initiative however when you have the reveal buff you have to play defensively since you probably won’t have enough initiative to perform another BP+HS combo.

-#2 to ONLY gap close or when enemy is under 25% health
-#3 usually use this when they’re health is about 40% then I HS HS HS…
-#4 use it when you see spell animation from the enemies. i still need to practice on this since I’m still not quick enough to react.
-#5 our best defense and offensive ability

Just want to share my experience as a thief player. It’s a bit long since I like to write out my thought process. If there’s anything I missed feel free to add as I am still willing to learn new things.
I want to see what your opinions between these two weapon specs while running these traits (using D/D Yishis’ build) on D/P. However, I use infusion of shadows instead of cloaked in shadows. First off, I’m a WvW player and I have been playing with D/D SB for a while and found it especially powerful against large groups and inexperience players. However, when encountering skilled players I find D/D much harder to win since they can easily dodge my CnD by watching the animation. Even if I land the CnD they know that I have a 4 second window to land a backstab and would either dodge or distance themselves. So I feel that D/DSB spec is too predictable while D/P+SB offers more deceptive play.

D/P provides:
-More utility and mobility
-Reliable stealth
-Chasing to secure kills
-AoE blinds
-Less stealth time(depends)
-Slightly less damage(No vuln. stacks from CnD)
-No chain stealth
-High initiative cost(Can be managed)

When I play D/P you have about 3 ways to initiate. There’s probably more, but I use these 3.
**BP->steal->AA->HS->backstab
This initiation is useful when fighting against players who doesn’t step out of the BP field. I can get a full rotation of AA + 2/3 AA before I HS in and backstab for full damage.

**ShS->AA->BP->AA->HS->backstab
When I ShS I wait till the blind breaks or when my initiative is full before I use BP. I make sure I’m up close to BP so I can get a few AA before the blind breaks. It’s best if the initiative is full when you HS in to backstab since you will deal more damage thanks to the first strike minor trait.

**The most common engage: BP->1-3 HS in BP field->backstab
This is straight-forward engagement, however I don’t use it much since I can dish out more damage using the above two initiation.