Guild Wars 2

Ok so original suggestion was this
Grandmaster trait (XII) in fire: “Revealing Flames”

Reveals nearby enemies (3 sec) when attuning to fire

350 range

….but people thought it was crap. Fair enough. Some thought revealed wasn’t effective enough, and they underestimate the condition significantly. However suggesting that the skill is too easy to out-rotate by a thief is far more justifiable.

Yamsandjams.3267 came up with a couple of good alternatives for allowing ele glass to deal with thieves however..

Either to work revealed into one of the focus fire attunement skills, or the slightly less orthodox (but still cool) idea of causing the fire grandmaster ‘Persisting Flames’ to cause reveal on blast finisher. Also an interesting idea.

As for me I’m quite happy powning thieves on my med guard at the moment (when not warrioring ofc) but I do feel sorry for skilled ele mains getting shut out by them.

Love you guys, sorry if some of my posts are a bit blunt.

Totally wouldn’t jive with my Ranger or my Mesmer.

thefantasticg.3984:

Totally wouldn’t jive with my Ranger or my Mesmer.

Seeing as revealed doesn’t affect decoy on Mesmer, and as for LB ranger (even if full glass ele vs power ranger was a sensible discussion), revealing a longbow 3 would be good (plus power ranger will dominate full glass ele when they patch them anyway).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Would end up being another Diamond Skin. Worthless most of the time, horribly broken on those rare occasions it does something.

This is possibly the furthest thing from diamond skin on every level…

Phaeton.9582:

power ranger will dominate full glass ele

\o/

Phaeton.9582:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Would end up being another Diamond Skin. Worthless most of the time, horribly broken on those rare occasions it does something.

This is possibly the furthest thing from diamond skin on every level…

How so? It’s completely useless against half of the professions and the vast majority of NPC’s. Against two of the professions it can even affect, it still doesn’t mean much of anything. Against thieves and mesmers, though, it shuts down entire builds. Likewise, Diamond Skin is useless in PvE and does nothing against the majority of builds. Condition necros are the only ones shut down entirely.

In function, perhaps the proposed trait and Diamond Skin are completely different, but from a design perspective, they’re both terrible ideas for exactly the same reasons.

Even if they deleted every other class but mesmer and thief, I would still NEVER put 30 points in fire.

Razor.6392:

Even if they deleted every other class but mesmer and thief, I would still NEVER put 30 points in fire.

This. I’d wait until there are more decent Adept and Master traits even before going Grand Master. Using 30 points (and wasting another 20 on the way to GM) just to counter specific skills isn’t really ideal. Not to mention this would mean wasting points which usually goes to Water/Earth lines for more survivability (eles are pigeon-holed in Water/Earth if they don’t want to get instagibbed by Power builds in WvW/PvP)

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Phaeton.9582:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Would end up being another Diamond Skin. Worthless most of the time, horribly broken on those rare occasions it does something.

This is possibly the furthest thing from diamond skin on every level…

How so? It’s completely useless against half of the professions and the vast majority of NPC’s. Against two of the professions it can even affect, it still doesn’t mean much of anything. Against thieves and mesmers, though, it shuts down entire builds. Likewise, Diamond Skin is useless in PvE and does nothing against the majority of builds. Condition necros are the only ones shut down entirely.

In function, perhaps the proposed trait and Diamond Skin are completely different, but from a design perspective, they’re both terrible ideas for exactly the same reasons.

30 in fire is s/f ‘all in’ as the devs put in on ready up, a build shut out by thieves.

Revealed skills can have huge counterplay in pvp to a variety of classes that otherwise make 30 fire builds unplayable.

I was kind of hoping for some support from good ele players on this one, but I guess they’ve all either quit or rerolled warrior…

Honestly this could be a somewhat decent trait, since one of the big reasons why eles don’t like going full glass is to avoid being insta gibbed by a stealth user. They will still die to a breeze and fire will still be lacking in survivability, but at least have a way to counter the back stab other than pray you hit with aoe.

ArthurDent.9538:

Honestly this could be a somewhat decent trait, since one of the big reasons why eles don’t like going full glass is to avoid being insta gibbed by a stealth user. They will still die to a breeze and fire will still be lacking in survivability, but at least have a way to counter the back stab other than pray you hit with aoe.

No. It’s a horribly designed trait. Words cannot express how bad it is.

A grandmaster trait must impact a class’ gameplay. They must be significant, feel rewarding and be effective in multiple scenarios.

This trait is not only situational, but it also does it’s job extremely poorly. So what if you cancelled their stealth when attuning to fire? You can’t do it again for 9 seconds minimum, and they can still damage you (especially mesmers). Not to mention how they can re-stealth much faster than you can de-stealth them.

I already said this but against the other 6 classes, even against eles this trait would be complete trash. Even more situational for revealing enemies that are ocasionally stealthed by mesmers or thieves.

You gotta understand that eles are known to work the way they do because of their reliance on water and on second place arcana. It’s as if some traits were already engraved into eles gameplay. If you plan on giving those traits up, then the reward / tradeoff should at the very least come on par. You lose a LOT of defense and survivability (even damage), then you should get a lot of power in return, or at least something other than a pathetic and situational reveal.

Sorry but I don’t think any decent elementalist could rate this trait idea as ‘mediocre’, not even that adjective would cut it.

Razor.6392:

ArthurDent.9538:

Honestly this could be a somewhat decent trait, since one of the big reasons why eles don’t like going full glass is to avoid being insta gibbed by a stealth user. They will still die to a breeze and fire will still be lacking in survivability, but at least have a way to counter the back stab other than pray you hit with aoe.

No. It’s a horribly designed trait. Words cannot express how bad it is.

A grandmaster trait must impact a class’ gameplay. They must be significant, feel rewarding and be effective in multiple scenarios.

This trait is not only situational, but it also does it’s job extremely poorly. So what if you cancelled their stealth when attuning to fire? You can’t do it again for 9 seconds minimum, and they can still damage you (especially mesmers). Not to mention how they can re-stealth much faster than you can de-stealth them.

I already said this but against the other 6 classes, even against eles this trait would be complete trash. Even more situational for revealing enemies that are ocasionally stealthed by mesmers or thieves.

You gotta understand that eles are known to work the way they do because of their reliance on water and on second place arcana. It’s as if some traits were already engraved into eles gameplay. If you plan on giving those traits up, then the reward / tradeoff should at the very least come on par. You lose a LOT of defense and survivability (even damage), then you should get a lot of power in return, or at least something other than a pathetic and situational reveal.

Sorry but I don’t think any decent elementalist could rate this trait idea as ‘mediocre’, not even that adjective would cut it.

blah blah blah water blah blah arcana

Situational is how skill cap builds work. It doesn’t make it weak.

Phaeton.9582:

Razor.6392:

ArthurDent.9538:

Honestly this could be a somewhat decent trait, since one of the big reasons why eles don’t like going full glass is to avoid being insta gibbed by a stealth user. They will still die to a breeze and fire will still be lacking in survivability, but at least have a way to counter the back stab other than pray you hit with aoe.

No. It’s a horribly designed trait. Words cannot express how bad it is.

A grandmaster trait must impact a class’ gameplay. They must be significant, feel rewarding and be effective in multiple scenarios.

This trait is not only situational, but it also does it’s job extremely poorly. So what if you cancelled their stealth when attuning to fire? You can’t do it again for 9 seconds minimum, and they can still damage you (especially mesmers). Not to mention how they can re-stealth much faster than you can de-stealth them.

I already said this but against the other 6 classes, even against eles this trait would be complete trash. Even more situational for revealing enemies that are ocasionally stealthed by mesmers or thieves.

You gotta understand that eles are known to work the way they do because of their reliance on water and on second place arcana. It’s as if some traits were already engraved into eles gameplay. If you plan on giving those traits up, then the reward / tradeoff should at the very least come on par. You lose a LOT of defense and survivability (even damage), then you should get a lot of power in return, or at least something other than a pathetic and situational reveal.

Sorry but I don’t think any decent elementalist could rate this trait idea as ‘mediocre’, not even that adjective would cut it.

blah blah blah water blah blah arcana

Situational is how skill cap builds work. It doesn’t make it weak.

He gave valid points on how this trait will not work. You give him “blah blah blah”. Yep, this discussion is going somewhere.

OP is just getting mad at anyone who doesn’t support him.

Maybe don’t make it a trait, but add it to some kind of weapon or utility skill. That way, you wouldn’t have to adjust any of the current traits, and one existing skill would get a handy new situational benefit. It’d be just like what they did for “Sic ’Em!”.

I think having more of these reveal applying abilities is a good thing (without going overboard, of course), but I don’t think putting it into traits is the proper way to go about it.

Kyon.9735:

Phaeton.9582:

Razor.6392:

ArthurDent.9538:

Honestly this could be a somewhat decent trait, since one of the big reasons why eles don’t like going full glass is to avoid being insta gibbed by a stealth user. They will still die to a breeze and fire will still be lacking in survivability, but at least have a way to counter the back stab other than pray you hit with aoe.

No. It’s a horribly designed trait. Words cannot express how bad it is.

A grandmaster trait must impact a class’ gameplay. They must be significant, feel rewarding and be effective in multiple scenarios.

This trait is not only situational, but it also does it’s job extremely poorly. So what if you cancelled their stealth when attuning to fire? You can’t do it again for 9 seconds minimum, and they can still damage you (especially mesmers). Not to mention how they can re-stealth much faster than you can de-stealth them.

I already said this but against the other 6 classes, even against eles this trait would be complete trash. Even more situational for revealing enemies that are ocasionally stealthed by mesmers or thieves.

You gotta understand that eles are known to work the way they do because of their reliance on water and on second place arcana. It’s as if some traits were already engraved into eles gameplay. If you plan on giving those traits up, then the reward / tradeoff should at the very least come on par. You lose a LOT of defense and survivability (even damage), then you should get a lot of power in return, or at least something other than a pathetic and situational reveal.

Sorry but I don’t think any decent elementalist could rate this trait idea as ‘mediocre’, not even that adjective would cut it.

blah blah blah water blah blah arcana

Situational is how skill cap builds work. It doesn’t make it weak.

He gave valid points on how this trait will not work. You give him “blah blah blah”. Yep, this discussion is going somewhere.

sorry should of been more patient with him.

Any suggestion that a comment is ‘ill-conceived’ gets my posts deleted..

must be nice to the pve players ><

Phaeton.9582:

Kyon.9735:

Phaeton.9582:

Razor.6392:

ArthurDent.9538:

Honestly this could be a somewhat decent trait, since one of the big reasons why eles don’t like going full glass is to avoid being insta gibbed by a stealth user. They will still die to a breeze and fire will still be lacking in survivability, but at least have a way to counter the back stab other than pray you hit with aoe.

No. It’s a horribly designed trait. Words cannot express how bad it is.

A grandmaster trait must impact a class’ gameplay. They must be significant, feel rewarding and be effective in multiple scenarios.

This trait is not only situational, but it also does it’s job extremely poorly. So what if you cancelled their stealth when attuning to fire? You can’t do it again for 9 seconds minimum, and they can still damage you (especially mesmers). Not to mention how they can re-stealth much faster than you can de-stealth them.

I already said this but against the other 6 classes, even against eles this trait would be complete trash. Even more situational for revealing enemies that are ocasionally stealthed by mesmers or thieves.

You gotta understand that eles are known to work the way they do because of their reliance on water and on second place arcana. It’s as if some traits were already engraved into eles gameplay. If you plan on giving those traits up, then the reward / tradeoff should at the very least come on par. You lose a LOT of defense and survivability (even damage), then you should get a lot of power in return, or at least something other than a pathetic and situational reveal.

Sorry but I don’t think any decent elementalist could rate this trait idea as ‘mediocre’, not even that adjective would cut it.

blah blah blah water blah blah arcana

Situational is how skill cap builds work. It doesn’t make it weak.

He gave valid points on how this trait will not work. You give him “blah blah blah”. Yep, this discussion is going somewhere.

sorry should of been more patient with him.

Any suggestion that a comment is ‘ill-conceived’ gets my posts deleted..

must be nice to the pve players ><

Why? There are many pointlessly weak grand master (master traits as well) across all the profession, many of which are only at the current tier as the one below them already had too many option (not to mention that originally they did have them separated by tiers). You might be able to work your trait into the Sunspots master minor not sure it the developer would go for it, but that would make it a bit more accessible, but I am not sure that reveal as it is now is really working as well as it was intended. Maybe it is one of those baby steps kind of adjustments.

While I understand the intent, and think stealth could use some more counter-play, this trait doesn’t really do anything against the d/p build that destroys eles. They still would get their backstab off, as 80% of the time they backstab/steal (or shadowstep) to you mid-strike anyway (during the 1/4s cast-time of backstab). Giving them reveal when the ported would be too late as the skill is already executing. You are still stuck random-dodging or blowing defensive CDs.

BlackBeard.2873:

While I understand the intent, and think stealth could use some more counter-play, this trait doesn’t really do anything against the d/p build that destroys eles. They still would get their backstab off, as 80% of the time they backstab/steal (or shadowstep) to you mid-strike anyway (during the 1/4s cast-time of backstab). Giving them reveal when the ported would be too late as the skill is already executing. You are still stuck random-dodging or blowing defensive CDs.

Yeah its true it would be far from an auto win, but it adds a significant amount of counterplay (especially when a thief has already received substantial pressure).

In the builds we’re describing you’re really looking at either 10% more damage (25/30/10/0/5) or this trait with final shielding too (30/30/0/0/10)…. it would make you much more effective vs thieves imo..

Did a fair amount of testing with sic em on a glass ranger a couple of weeks back, and there’s a ton of stuff you can do with it.

Would only be viable if it was added to a current Grandmaster fire trait. On its own, it is horrible.

It would end up being a bad thing in a build overall I feel, making your performance worse. If you had this trait, now you’d be wary of switching to fire attunement before your opponent stealthed, otherwise you’d waste your reveal. This would hurt your dps significantly, as well as really cramp some of your rotations. Additionally, they could counterplay it with things like going stealth just to bait you into fire out of water or something, and then burst you down with burst they prepared with that in mind.

Overall just a poor idea.

Pyroatheist.9031:

It would end up being a bad thing in a build overall I feel, making your performance worse. If you had this trait, now you’d be wary of switching to fire attunement before your opponent stealthed, otherwise you’d waste your reveal. This would hurt your dps significantly, as well as really cramp some of your rotations. Additionally, they could counterplay it with things like going stealth just to bait you into fire out of water or something, and then burst you down with burst they prepared with that in mind.

Overall just a poor idea.

How would you suggest giving eles a reveal skill then?

Also important to point out that revealed on a visible thief can be just as clutch.

Phaeton.9582:

How would you suggest giving eles a reveal skill then?

Well, if you did want to add it to a trait, it could go to the 15 point fire magic trait. This already has an “on attunement” affect to it already, so it would just be a direct buff. I’m not sure if people really try to use the damage on attunement swap that much anyways… I guess maybe in a s/x spike build it could work well, but I’m not an ele expert by any means. Or perhaps it could be added to persisting flames so that the blast finishers also reveal enemies in addition to the other stuff.

I don’t think it’s worth dedicating a whole trait to this sort of revealing mechanism. Instead, I think it would be better to give it to something that could benefit from it.

Otherwise just add it to a weapon or utility, like cleansing fire or flamewall.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Well, if you did want to add it to a trait, it could go to the 15 point fire magic trait. This already has an “on attunement” affect to it already, so it would just be a direct buff. I’m not sure if people really try to use the damage on attunement swap that much anyways… I guess maybe in a s/x spike build it could work well, but I’m not an ele expert by any means.

That would be so OP though ><

Yamsandjams.3267:

Or perhaps it could be added to persisting flames so that the blast finishers also reveal enemies in addition to the other stuff.

I don’t think it’s worth dedicating a whole trait to this sort of revealing mechanism. Instead, I think it would be better to give it to something that could benefit from it.

Otherwise just add it to a weapon or utility, like cleansing fire or flamewall.

Adding revealed to persisting flames is a cool idea I hadn’t thought of. The only problem is raising the skill cap on s/x glass, but frankly if all classes were ‘buffed’ in this manner ppl would be a lot more content by it.

Revealed on flamewall is also a good suggestion, as focus fire attune is in severe need of a buff. If any weapon should be designed to deal with thieves it should be this one too.

Phaeton.9582:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Well, if you did want to add it to a trait, it could go to the 15 point fire magic trait. This already has an “on attunement” affect to it already, so it would just be a direct buff. I’m not sure if people really try to use the damage on attunement swap that much anyways… I guess maybe in a s/x spike build it could work well, but I’m not an ele expert by any means.

That would be so OP though ><

Yamsandjams.3267:

Or perhaps it could be added to persisting flames so that the blast finishers also reveal enemies in addition to the other stuff.

I don’t think it’s worth dedicating a whole trait to this sort of revealing mechanism. Instead, I think it would be better to give it to something that could benefit from it.

Otherwise just add it to a weapon or utility, like cleansing fire or flamewall.

Adding revealed to persisting flames is a cool idea I hadn’t thought of. The only problem is raising the skill cap on s/x glass, but frankly if all classes were ‘buffed’ in this manner ppl would be a lot more content by it.

Revealed on flamewall is also a good suggestion, as focus fire attune is in severe need of a buff. If any weapon should be designed to deal with thieves it should be this one too.

To be honest I think Elementalist needs more play around Boon hate and Stealth in general, but triggering on Fire Attunement is probably not the way to go. I like the suggestions others have raised throughout the thread like reveal on Blast Finishers with Persisting Flames, but in general Stealth counters should also be incorporated into Boon Hate if they are to ever have more broad base applicability.

As it stands, only 3 classes (Engineer, Mesmer, Thief) have the ability to reliably stealth and to restrict Stealth hate to Stealth only without broader application will leave it ignored.

That being said, the Elementalist vs Thief matchup being so unfavourable does not entirely revolve around Stealth. The main reason is and remains the ability of Thief to exert enough threat to force Elementalist to blow 60+ second cooldowns to save themselves – whilst the Thief has the option to dis- and re-engage within that time frame. In some cases, multiple times. (Sword Pistol) This means that the Elementalist will always be at a cooldown disadvantage, if not a health disadvantage (assuming Elementalist played perfectly).

Thief didn’t get to shut out other roamers because of Stealth, or because of its mobility, or its damage – it got to do so because it can operate within the utility cooldowns of the roamers it shut down. Reveal or Boon Hate will address only part of the issue, but the matchup will always remain unfavourable unless Utility skill cooldowns for Elementalist and/or Mesmer are looked at, and Thief becomes less time-starved, such that more of its damage can be done outside of Stealth and Evade frames to make the fight more about the Weapon skills than the Utilities.

Razor.6392:

Even if they deleted every other class but mesmer and thief, I would still NEVER put 30 points in fire.

i dunno, personally i love having 10 stacks of might on my glass staff

As a Thief main, this would do absolutely nothing to stop me from rofl-stomping you 3 seconds later. You would be a sitting duck once in Fire.

This is absolute garbage and barely worthy of Adept, let alone Grandmaster.

I have to agree with Auesis, first of all. Think of how much you would be sacrificing in order to get that single stealth interrupt, which wouldn’t actually end up doing anything, because even out of stealth both mesmers and thieves have heavy advantages over eles. I might put the points in if it was adept, but that’s only because I already run 30 fire (I’m not part of your system, man) and the adept traits are mediocre at best.

Secondly, hard counters (which is what this trait tries to be) are just stupid anyway and don’t really have a place in a game with any emphasis on player skill.

OP updated.

and @P Fun Daddy I wouldn’t call them stronger without any invis, then describe it as a hard counter in the same post, its a bit confusing. The ony thing it hardcounters is the Mesmer downstate IMO, having played around a bit with sic em on ranger. The rest is all quite manageable.

Phaeton.9582:

OP updated.

and @P Fun Daddy I wouldn’t call them stronger without any invis, then describe it as a hard counter in the same post, its a bit confusing. The ony thing it hardcounters is the Mesmer downstate IMO, having played around a bit with sic em on ranger. The rest is all quite manageable.

Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.

Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.

Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).

Ok.. Again sorry for not being clearer about the diamond skin comment earlier. The key difference is if you go 30 or 25 in fire you can still produce a very strong (and IMO the best) s/f ele build available. I know karsaib and phanta run 30 arcana, but honestly when you’re that glassy it’s basically kill or be killed. And fire traits can do a ton of things to help you kill. From watching phanta play I can see how effective he can make it for other things like might stacking, but personally I prefer the deeps up front.

This is crucially different from diamond skin, as 30 earth won’t make you capable of anything much (no sustain, no dps).

Furthermore I would say you might be confusing ‘hard counters’ with counter play. We’re not talking about giving eles heat signature recognition here.

Phaeton.9582:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.

Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).

Ok.. Again sorry for not being clearer about the diamond skin comment earlier. The key difference is if you go 30 or 25 in fire you can still produce a very strong (and IMO the best) s/f ele build available. I know karsaib and phanta run 30 arcana, but honestly when you’re that glassy it’s basically kill or be killed. And fire traits can do a ton of things to help you kill. From watching phanta play I can see how effective he can make it for other things like might stacking, but personally I prefer the deeps up front.

This is crucially different from diamond skin, as 30 earth won’t make you capable of anything much (no sustain, no dps).

Furthermore I would say you might be confusing ‘hard counters’ with counter play. We’re not talking about giving eles heat signature recognition here.

But it’s essentially the same thought process as diamond skin. Take something eles are especially weak to, and give them something that completely annihilates that but is useless against everything else. In the case of diamond skin it’s dire necros, in the case of the original suggestion it’s stealthspammers.
I definitely think that stealth needs more counters, but I don’t think it should be through traits, and especially not grandmaster ones. I could be okay with the revamped suggestion making it through flamewall, but I still think we would be better off making stealth a boon and making that skill and others across classes boon rips.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Phaeton.9582:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.

Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).

Ok.. Again sorry for not being clearer about the diamond skin comment earlier. The key difference is if you go 30 or 25 in fire you can still produce a very strong (and IMO the best) s/f ele build available. I know karsaib and phanta run 30 arcana, but honestly when you’re that glassy it’s basically kill or be killed. And fire traits can do a ton of things to help you kill. From watching phanta play I can see how effective he can make it for other things like might stacking, but personally I prefer the deeps up front.

This is crucially different from diamond skin, as 30 earth won’t make you capable of anything much (no sustain, no dps).

Furthermore I would say you might be confusing ‘hard counters’ with counter play. We’re not talking about giving eles heat signature recognition here.

But it’s essentially the same thought process as diamond skin. Take something eles are especially weak to, and give them something that completely annihilates that but is useless against everything else. In the case of diamond skin it’s dire necros, in the case of the original suggestion it’s stealthspammers.
I definitely think that stealth needs more counters, but I don’t think it should be through traits, and especially not grandmaster ones. I could be okay with the revamped suggestion making it through flamewall, but I still think we would be better off making stealth a boon and making that skill and others across classes boon rips.

Heh, my thread on making Stealth a Boon did not last 30 posts before being shouted down and dying a mourn-less death.

I’d necro it if there’s interest in developing the idea further, but Stealth based Thieves would beg to differ and would rather that their class remain in the state it is, which is only fair enough considering their nerfs. That said, Thief matchups should be normalised more such that their efficacy should be better against tanky DPS whilst not crushing squishy DPS as it is right now.

MonMalthias.4763:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Phaeton.9582:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.

Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).

Ok.. Again sorry for not being clearer about the diamond skin comment earlier. The key difference is if you go 30 or 25 in fire you can still produce a very strong (and IMO the best) s/f ele build available. I know karsaib and phanta run 30 arcana, but honestly when you’re that glassy it’s basically kill or be killed. And fire traits can do a ton of things to help you kill. From watching phanta play I can see how effective he can make it for other things like might stacking, but personally I prefer the deeps up front.

This is crucially different from diamond skin, as 30 earth won’t make you capable of anything much (no sustain, no dps).

Furthermore I would say you might be confusing ‘hard counters’ with counter play. We’re not talking about giving eles heat signature recognition here.

But it’s essentially the same thought process as diamond skin. Take something eles are especially weak to, and give them something that completely annihilates that but is useless against everything else. In the case of diamond skin it’s dire necros, in the case of the original suggestion it’s stealthspammers.
I definitely think that stealth needs more counters, but I don’t think it should be through traits, and especially not grandmaster ones. I could be okay with the revamped suggestion making it through flamewall, but I still think we would be better off making stealth a boon and making that skill and others across classes boon rips.

Heh, my thread on making Stealth a Boon did not last 30 posts before being shouted down and dying a mourn-less death.

I’d necro it if there’s interest in developing the idea further, but Stealth based Thieves would beg to differ and would rather that their class remain in the state it is, which is only fair enough considering their nerfs. That said, Thief matchups should be normalised more such that their efficacy should be better against tanky DPS whilst not crushing squishy DPS as it is right now.

That’s the one I was referring to
It’s just that stealth in it’s current implementation isn’t really something going for this game. Generally, stealth is either incredibly limited or imperfect in PvP games, because otherwise it’s sort of broken. Mesmer stealth is actually somewhat acceptable (outside of a few builds that base entirely around it) in how incredibly limited it is, but with thieves it sort of goes horribly wrong. This is because it hurts players who take more active options over passive ones, and classes that rely on active abilities more than those that rely on passives (because while passives don’t care if your target is stealthed, actives are far less effective on a stealthed target).
Mechanics that directly punish active playstyles with fewer passives and thus greater player involvement should be very limited, which is why I support active, intentional counters to stealth rather than passive ones. In the same vein, I dislike hard counters intensely for GW2 because they belittle player involvement. If something hardcounters a build, almost all skill is removed from that encounter. Neither of these are particularly fitting in a game that has high player involvement and reliance on skill-based play as a selling point.

Such a necro butttt….

….This post could be relevant for the upcoming balance patch. It seems the devs are thinking along similar lines now (blinding ashes/introducing revealed to other zerker builds).

So what about burning also revealing invisible players? Maybe lowering the cooldown on the blind too? You lose ALOT of QoL traiting 30 into fire – especially as s/f has enough dps while traiting 0/30/0/20/20 now anyway…

Phaeton.9582:

Such a necro butttt….

….This post could be relevant for the upcoming balance patch. It seems the devs are thinking along similar lines now (blinding ashes/introducing revealed to other zerker builds).

So what about burning also revealing invisible players? Maybe lowering the cooldown on the blind too? You lose ALOT of QoL traiting 30 into fire – especially as s/f has enough dps while traiting 0/30/0/20/20 now anyway…

Yey for releant necromancy!

I was thinking this – Blinding Ashes is pretty terrible, since it’s hard to reliably burn outsside of fire attunement and the CD is global rather than per-foe. Adding Revealed to it would maybe make it sliiightly more friendly when solo roaming, with burning AoEs like Ring of Fire or Flame Wall providing pretty useful area control.