How do we fight certain classes.

[Nomad.5204]

I know SPB is the only competitive spec we have atm so this will primarily be asked from that perspective.

 

I mainly struggle vs ele's, mesmers, and thieves regardless of the spec. These three classes just seem to counter warrior hard. I'm still really new to pvp so I'm probably mistaken but any advice vs these classes and their specs would be really appreciated.

Feel free to include how you fight other classes too!

 

Thanks in advance!

[DanAlcedo.3281]

If one thing was true since forever, then its the fact that the only way to win against the other classes with all these fancy tools, is to outskill them.

[Hotride.2187]

I can only give advise for the GS/dagger/shield str spb build. I've not played the hammer defense one, no idea how that works vs those matchups.

Vs mesmer and ele, you do what thief does. Space them and let them waste their abilities. Then go in when they are waiting on CDs.

Eles have a rotation, bait the fire skills (usually its enough to engage them in melee and they start spamming) and then just wait at the edge of the circle. When they leave earth and their stance skill ends (the one that pulses fire/bleed and does a particle animation around them) you can engage. Do your normal stuff, dart in with dagger then dodge out, or dodge in with arcing slice and gs3, etc.; just don't stay at melee for long, unless they are in water attunement. Vs a good fire weaver / tanky tempest/cata, the best you can do is just contest the node and stall. You can down them 1v1, but it takes minutes. If you are defending the node, you are already wasting their time so you are doing good. But trying to take the node is usually a waste of time. The tanky sidenode builds are mostly useless in team fights, eles will just stay on a node and defend (which means the rest of the map is 4v5 for their team) so go to the other node. The fresh air builds (glass canon burst) are usually played by really skilled players, there you have to evade well or you die; not much I can say, its usually very touch and feel in 1v1.

Vs mesmer its harder, staff condi especially. You can beat them 1v1 but it takes a lot of space to avoid their shatters and staff aoe, which means you can't contest the node. Same with ele, go in, bait their shatter, dodge out. Use your defensive CDs (shield block, gs3) at the start, when most just  spam their abilities (cause that carries them in most matchups). Then go in with dagger burst, FC, dagger burst. Their clones will proc FC so you have no worries about it going off. That is usually your main source of dmg, make sure you don't waste it into distorts. GS burst will rarely land, but you can catch them if they are stealthed (usually stealthed players dont react to getting dmg, cause they think they are safe).

Thief is not an easy matchup, though in conquest its not as bad as in wvw (thief is weaker in spvp). In conquest thief will be your biggest problem when it jumps on you while you are doing 1v1. But if a thief tries to 1v1 you (for whatever reason, maybe they think they are good enough to kill you): Generally a good thief will try to get you from stealth and then pistol/steal interrupt you to death. If they cant do that, they'll spam smoke bomb and axe 5 they stole from you (even though you dont have offhand axe). Just  dodge their stealth attack (most are really predictable, you can chain evade at the time you think they'll go for it) and they are toothless. Don't stay on their smoke bomb to avoid the blinds they blast while doing axe cyclone. Your goal on a node is to keep the node, with all the stealthing and kiting they do they can't take the node. Every second they are trying to push you off or kill you, they aren't doing their job (decapping nodes). To kill the thief, try to land dagger burst to get them chained. The good ones will break the chain with shadowstep, so it takes 2 times to kill them (unless they run, which they should). As with mesmer, try to GS burst them while they are stealthed and they think they are invulnerable. A lot get surprised and then they panic (the good ones are used to playing at like 10 hp, so don't get too aggressive or you'll die). And in general almost never chase the thief, always let it come first. Chase them only when you are sure you can finish them off (e.g. they are out of dodges, you can dodge their counter pressure and so on).

Edited December 4, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[eXruina.4956]

"How do we fight certain classes?"

 

With Muscle Power. 💪

[Nomad.5204]

On 12/4/2022 at 7:06 AM, Hotride.2187 said:

I can only give advise for the GS/dagger/shield str spb build. I've not played the hammer defense one, no idea how that works vs those matchups.

Vs mesmer and ele, you do what thief does. Space them and let them waste their abilities. Then go in when they are waiting on CDs.

Eles have a rotation, bait the fire skills (usually its enough to engage them in melee and they start spamming) and then just wait at the edge of the circle. When they leave earth and their stance skill ends (the one that pulses fire/bleed and does a particle animation around them) you can engage. Do your normal stuff, dart in with dagger then dodge out, or dodge in with arcing slice and gs3, etc.; just don't stay at melee for long, unless they are in water attunement. Vs a good fire weaver / tanky tempest/cata, the best you can do is just contest the node and stall. You can down them 1v1, but it takes minutes. If you are defending the node, you are already wasting their time so you are doing good. But trying to take the node is usually a waste of time. The tanky sidenode builds are mostly useless in team fights, eles will just stay on a node and defend (which means the rest of the map is 4v5 for their team) so go to the other node. The fresh air builds (glass canon burst) are usually played by really skilled players, there you have to evade well or you die; not much I can say, its usually very touch and feel in 1v1.

Vs mesmer its harder, staff condi especially. You can beat them 1v1 but it takes a lot of space to avoid their shatters and staff aoe, which means you can't contest the node. Same with ele, go in, bait their shatter, dodge out. Use your defensive CDs (shield block, gs3) at the start, when most just  spam their abilities (cause that carries them in most matchups). Then go in with dagger burst, FC, dagger burst. Their clones will proc FC so you have no worries about it going off. That is usually your main source of dmg, make sure you don't waste it into distorts. GS burst will rarely land, but you can catch them if they are stealthed (usually stealthed players dont react to getting dmg, cause they think they are safe).

Thief is not an easy matchup, though in conquest its not as bad as in wvw (thief is weaker in spvp). In conquest thief will be your biggest problem when it jumps on you while you are doing 1v1. But if a thief tries to 1v1 you (for whatever reason, maybe they think they are good enough to kill you): Generally a good thief will try to get you from stealth and then pistol/steal interrupt you to death. If they cant do that, they'll spam smoke bomb and axe 5 they stole from you (even though you dont have offhand axe). Just  dodge their stealth attack (most are really predictable, you can chain evade at the time you think they'll go for it) and they are toothless. Don't stay on their smoke bomb to avoid the blinds they blast while doing axe cyclone. Your goal on a node is to keep the node, with all the stealthing and kiting they do they can't take the node. Every second they are trying to push you off or kill you, they aren't doing their job (decapping nodes). To kill the thief, try to land dagger burst to get them chained. The good ones will break the chain with shadowstep, so it takes 2 times to kill them (unless they run, which they should). As with mesmer, try to GS burst them while they are stealthed and they think they are invulnerable. A lot get surprised and then they panic (the good ones are used to playing at like 10 hp, so don't get too aggressive or you'll die). And in general almost never chase the thief, always let it come first. Chase them only when you are sure you can finish them off (e.g. they are out of dodges, you can dodge their counter pressure and so on).

Thanks I'll have to give these tips a shot!

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

I promise Ill fix the formatting later.   o/

Eles:

• If core, watch for scepter nuke. Expect Arcane Shield. Expect gust. Make use of line of sight, cc then back off if they are in a hurry to press shield. Watch for the animation for gust, it will tear through your shield if you put it up and you havent made sure it's on cooldown.  
• Also expect signet of air and lightning flash, eles like to run that too. If you notice signet of air up, you can put resistance on yourself to ignore their blind when they decide to stunbreak and surprise them with more damage.
• If you see a heart on their tooltip bar, reserve your damage. when they swap out of earth you have a damage window, but until then you should be prioritizing moves that slow them down, like axe throw and bladetrail.
• If weaver, you will need to run from them for most of the fight. everything above applies. Watch for twist of fate and don't whiff your damage into it if they run it. CD on that is high. 
• If Tempest, don't let them complete air overload, it insulates them too much from damage. Watch their tooltip bar when they overload. If they have stability, they're running the stab on overload trait and youll need to cc them twice to get them out of it. 
• If catalyst and hammer, dodge Triple Sear and Surging flames. Expect catalysts to bring Relentless Fire, which makes their attacks unblockable, and Fortified earth which allows them to block attacks. Relentless fire will be used to guarantee the above two fire moves if hammer. If offhand dagger, it will be used to guarantee fire grab (which you should also dodge.) 

 

Mesmer:

• You can only fight power mesmers. If the mesmer is carrying staff or scepter, ignore them unless they are outnumbered. Condi mesmers are not designed to be fought and you should always run from them. If they have staff, pretend they don't exist. They're slow, the bulk of their damage comes from confusion, and they have too much damage immunity for you to deal with. The below is regarding power only.
• hide your key skills like heals behind an object until you can rule out the mesmer is not running power block. Mesmers have a trait where if they're looking at you and see you do anything and press a button before that thing completes, you get 15 seconds of cd added to it and weakness. Don't ask me why. 
• Dont whiff into sword 2 (Flurry).
•  The mesmer counts as a shatter, so if you are near them and they havent pressed their daze shatter, expect them to panic press it and dodge. 
•  Even if the mesmer is invisible, you can still fight them using object permanence. They have a small window within which to attack you if they want to do it from stealth. if they have a Greatsword, you can see it being thrown at you regardless of whether they are stealthed or not. be prepared to dodge. likely, the mesmer will be close to where you dodged from, because they like to get that extra damage boost from mind wrack for shattering right next to you. You can surprise them midshatter if you attack where you were after seeing mirror blade thrown. if you whiff, reposition. 
• Virtuoso same thing but hide behind a rock.
• Mirage same thing but they can ignore cc with dodges. 
• If you get BIRD UP turned into a flamingo, pressing 5 is an evade. Pressing 2 is a leap. use them to run. 

 

Thief:

• If daredevil, remember swipe goes through your blocks. Wait for them to spend steal before blocking (or, if you so desire, use block to force them to steal, then immediately stunbreak the daze to force feed them damage at the expense of cooldowns.)
• If Deadeye, hide behind rocks. Never fight deadeyes in the open. They picked the rifle class that is countered by rocks, you should use them. If they send you hatemail it's working.
• Resilient roll is your friend. If you are fighting a blindspam thief, dodge before your bursts to prevent any surprise blinding. Good thieves know your animations and will be looking to interrupt or blind your key ones like your heal or your bursts, so your priority should be making them think they are free to do that while ensuring your skill they think will miss or get interrupted will be unblindable/uninterruptible. The more successful you are at this, the more time you have to heal and the less time the thief can spend contesting the point or fighting you. 
• Stand on platforms, boxes, or other terrain where teleports do not allow the thief to get to you.  you can use this to frustrate some of their cooldowns. 
• If you are berserker, Wild blow and bloody roar can let you attack straight through even oppressive blinds like shadow shot and smokescreen. Walk up to a thief that thinks they are safe in smokescreen and hit them with wild blow right to force them to spend cooldowns.
• Even though thieves are often invisible, you can reliably guess where they are based on what weapons they have and their health state. IF they are below 50%, they will likely not be in a position where you can melee them. If they are above that and carry dagger, you can expect them to be within 600 distance if daredevil with line of sight to you for shadow shot. If they are DE, they are likely anywhere they have a clear shot to you based on where you are standing. You can use that information to put yourself in positions where they -have- to be in a small area that is suitable to attack you, then be ready to attack them the moment they appear.
• IF a thief stealths, any move you cast before they disappear will track their location. use this to line up bulls charge as they vanish. If you use an attack and your adrenaline bar goes up, you hit he thief and based on how much damage that attack normally does, you can predict how they will respond. 
• "On My Mark!" And magebane tether obliterate thief defenses for short periods of time. You can use these windows to damage them. 

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[xellink.7568]

You can only appreciate the weakness of other classes by playing the other classes.

[eXruina.4956]

51 minutes ago, xellink.7568 said:

You can only appreciate the weakness of other classes by playing the other classes.

👍