Guild Wars 2

(Recap)

First things first…I am not against stealth completely, just its in-combat usefullness.
This is becoming more and more of a problem in PvP environments and WvW.
Stealth fields, finishers, leaps, and stealth in general has gotten a little out of hand mainly due to the in-combat capabilities of it.

Stealth should be a tool to escape, initiate, even both but not be a constant hindrance to an opponent in mid-combat….with no cost, or penalty (no revealed does NOT count). This is simply bad mechanics.

Currently the amount of in-combat stealth some classes can bring themselves and allies can simply make for an infuriating experience. When initiating a battle, group or individual, stealth is a valid tactic and can alter a battle every so slightly in your favor if used correctly. But when it happens several times during combat it simply takes away from any form of equality in terms of success and failure between the combatants. It no longer becomes an equal fight, it becomes a mess, tipping quickly into one players favor.

This is a tricky thing to alter since its applications are rather widespread, for example a simple Smoke Field would yield no effect with blast finisher or leaps when used in combat if it was removed completely, but they are a great strategy before a battle to position yourselves for an advantage….and the field cannot have in/out of combat applications without becoming too complex.

Causing damage to reveal a stealthed character or show a trace view/silhouette of them (similar to what the player/allies sees as stealth), or perhaps have a passive ability attached to one of the 4 primary attributes (such as precision) that allows you to detect a stealthed unit nearby would solve some issues.

This would allow players to react to a stealthed character if they have a quick enough reaction time, still giving the stealthed player enough time to effectively initiate and also allow the stealthed character to use distance to stay hidden and escape if they need to re-position by moving further from the target. This would allow agressive plays against stealth to exist, actively searching for the player in order to prevent another impossible-to-predict ambush.

I have always enjoyed stealth in games, I tend to play sneaky classes in most RPGs and Shooters. But when you get detected in most games, you need to react quickly, find cover and carefully plan your next move…not simply make your own cover in the middle of a firefight…(some games have this, but taking damage shows you so….its a poor move usually to do that.)

The issue is in-combat stealth, not stealth in general.

if you were talking about the thief , balancing stealth should not end up in nerfing the escape Option to the ground because a whole ppl playing and loving this mechanic about thiefs, i also have to respect this fact.

The more important Thing is bringing some more tactic into stealth, but dont ask me how to do this …..
IM for another solution; by luring thief Players away from stealth mechanic into a more acrobatical gameplay Technik.
Here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-Power-of-Inertia-non-stealth-supp/first#post3482088
tell me what you think, plz?
It is a high risk playing without stealth but it should get rewarded high enough to Display another way of gameplay.
I also Play without any shealth in pvp, just the stolen skill of thiefs gimme stealth or an opener with x/p5 and sh2.

The frequency at which you can stealth is way too high. I post in another thread saying either remove the weapon skills that give stealth so it’s tied to utility skills/traits, or increase revealed to 5-10 seconds minimum.

i suggested a revealed debuff as Long as you were stealthed before, but it has its risks and buffs

Altering the length of Revealed is unfair to the Thief class since they rely on stealth for special skills. Altering the revealed duration would mean having to rebalance all Stealth skills as you are effectively increasing their cooldown.

I think they should make it clearer when you hit a stealthed target. There are currently already a couple of ways of knowing if an ability hit a stealthed target, Traps and Marks for instance go off and any Chain skill proceeds to the next step. I think they should apply that and show the white damage number whenever you hit a stealthed enemy with any direct damage skill. Not revealing them, just showing damage so you have a vague idea of where the thief is even if you can’t target them. This doesn’t remove the entire benefit of stealth as a defensive mechanic since the enemy only has a vague idea of where the thief is if they get damage numbers and still can’t target the thief directly.

Actually combat damage do appear. Just open a log with only combat information and you’ll see them pop up when you’re hitting

Enenion.8127:

Altering the length of Revealed is unfair to the Thief class since they rely on stealth for special skills. Altering the revealed duration would mean having to rebalance all Stealth skills as you are effectively increasing their cooldown.

Thief auto attacks, and skills like shadow shot, larcenous strike, cloak and dagger, pistol whip, cluster bomb, and heartseeker all do plenty of damage and don’t rely on stealth. The only skills that rely on stealth are the sword 1/bow 1 daze/immobilize, pistol 1, and backstab. Maybe revealed doesn’t need to be increased. Maybe the problem is just the damage that comes from backstab. Higher initiative cost to where it couldn’t be repeated every 5 seconds (really, how fair of a cooldown is that?).

My main problem with initiative is that there are so many traits that either increase the regeneration or just straight up give you initiative. With these traits

Quick pockets, quick recovery, kleptomaniac, preparedness, initial strike, infiltrators signet, hastened replenishment, infusion of shadow, patience, opportunist, and signet use all recover/grant/hasten regeneration of initiative. The worst part is that a lot of these can be used together with each other. These traits directly reduce the artificial cooldown that initiative is supposed to provide, making it so backstabs can be chained within at the LEAST 3 seconds of each other. I think revealed time and this initiative thing are the biggest problems with thief right now.

Spicyhash.7605:

My main problem with initiative is that there are so many traits that either increase the regeneration or just straight up give you initiative. With these traits

Quick pockets, quick recovery, kleptomaniac, preparedness, initial strike, infiltrators signet, hastened replenishment, infusion of shadow, patience, opportunist, and signet use all recover/grant/hasten regeneration of initiative. The worst part is that a lot of these can be used together with each other. These traits directly reduce the artificial cooldown that initiative is supposed to provide, making it so backstabs can be chained within at the LEAST 3 seconds of each other. I think revealed time and this initiative thing are the biggest problems with thief right now.

Changing Initiative recharge isn’t going to change a thief being able to do Backstabs consecutively, the Initiative pool is high enough to allow for that on it’s own. If you start with 12 Initiative, C&D is 6, Backstab is free but gives you 3 seconds of revealed. Even with the base recharge of 1 Initiative per second after 2 C&Ds you’ve regained enough for a 3rd one, giving you 3 possible back-to-back Backstabs. The D/P combo costs 9 so you need at least one trait to do it twice in a row with no downtime, the one that increases your cap to 15 would do the trick. Most people don’t survive past number 2, but even if they did one utility or heal skill can keep the spree going. Initiative recharge is not what’s allowing thieves to use Backstab multiple times in a row.

You still need cooldowns on skills, even with an “energy” system like initiative, I think this is where alot of issues with thieves steam all together, but that is a different discussion all together…

But changes need to be made, stealth cooldowns, in-combat use and COUNTERS. (not including consumables from WvW)

I’m very low level thief so can’t comment so much on end game stuff, but I’m guessing people dislike stealth because the stealth skills do a lot of damage. I guess stealth “resetting” a fight is also an issue.

What if they changed stealth skills to do a lot less damage but apply large stacks of debuffs? Say backstab gives 5 stacks of vulnerability, 10 if struck from behind. The others could give more stacks/ longer duration debuffs. I think this could help increase thief’s team utility too.

I don’t really like using stealth so much as a thief. I’d rather use dodges. Maybe while in combat, stealth skills could have different functionality? Like give extra boons or vigor to increase dodge rate?

Fine, tell me how i am supposed to fight without stealth on my thief! Spam heartseeker? No thanks…. You cant just nerf stealth…

Stealth is always risky to implement to an MMO/Multiplayer. The Fix:

1. Brake Stealth on taking & landing damage
2. Revealed should last minimum of ~8s
3. Stealth should not buff any damage at all. Maybe take a little…

Stealth leads people reckness, and its quite unfair advantage.
Even if NPCs see no difference between stealthed and normal players most of the time. (it just brakes aggro and hidden do-not-attack condition appealed)

Stealth should break on damage. It’s the only way to make it fair. If i’ve seen through your movements and land a hit then my skill should be rewarded.

Stealth confers so many advantages in a fight. It gives you the initiative, the ability to play the battle as you want. With the ‘in stealth healing’ you reset the fight each time.

You can attack again and again and even if the other guy dodges 2 attacks it makes no difference, as you still get the advantage of attacking a 3rd time whilst in stealth, and big moves like backstab don’t cost a thing. Even if you evade/avoid all attacks in stealth, the thief can just refresh it a moment later, no harm done.

It clears conditions every few seconds, so no kiting a thief off you with chill/immobilise spam. You get stacking might for doing nothing more than just going into stealth. The ele has to piano his keyboard to get 12 stacks going.

Currently the stealth mechanic just confers too many advantages with no real downside.

I’m not suprised so many people are rolling warriors/guardians, they’re just tired of being the bottom of the food chain to the numerous thief players out there. I played a thief for a year, i ran only shadow refuge as my escape and still felt safer than any other class i’ve played when i solo roamed.

It’s probably one of the worst implementations of the stealth mechanic i’ve seen in any game. It is in fact not stealth at all, it’s unbreakable invisibility.

I vote for 5 seconds of stealth (4 without the trait) and 10 seconds of revealed. Now in that same instance give us access to more evades, blocks/parries, and or mobility (not too crazy since we have decent already) to counter the reliance of stealth and makes us more agile fighters. The idea of spamming backstab is silly but lining up a planned backstab to finish the kill two or three times throughout the fight is the objective.

The daze on sword should be changed to stun and the blindness to daze. Both last 1.5 seconds.

Sneak Attack could get 1 or 2 more stacks of bleeds or allow the last bullet to cause poison.

Surprise Shot should cause Immobilize if you hit them from behind or side and Crippled (or other condition) from the front and bounces to two other targets for a total of 3.

By increasing the duration outside of stealth, we need to adjust the stealth abilities so that they are worth the difference in revealed time.

phaeris.7604:

Stealth should break on damage. It’s the only way to make it fair. If i’ve seen through your movements and land a hit then my skill should be rewarded.

Stealth confers so many advantages in a fight. It gives you the initiative, the ability to play the battle as you want. With the ‘in stealth healing’ you reset the fight each time.

You can attack again and again and even if the other guy dodges 2 attacks it makes no difference, as you still get the advantage of attacking a 3rd time whilst in stealth, and big moves like backstab don’t cost a thing. Even if you evade/avoid all attacks in stealth, the thief can just refresh it a moment later, no harm done.

It clears conditions every few seconds, so no kiting a thief off you with chill/immobilize spam. You get stacking might for doing nothing more than just going into stealth. The ele has to piano his keyboard to get 12 stacks going.

Currently the stealth mechanic just confers too many advantages with no real downside.

I’m not suprised so many people are rolling warriors/guardians, they’re just tired of being the bottom of the food chain to the numerous thief players out there. I played a thief for a year, i ran only shadow refuge as my escape and still felt safer than any other class i’ve played when i solo roamed.

It’s probably one of the worst implementations of the stealth mechanic i’ve seen in any game. It is in fact not stealth at all, it’s unbreakable invisibility.

I disagree with damage should break stealth because conditions are very accessible on all weapons and if a tick of whatever breaks my stealth then you have already destroyed stealth. On top of the fact that you can auto attack the air and glance us with a wide swing arc.

For the thief, if you’re going to be revolving your builds and damage around stealth, it’s a necessity and obvious choice to go 30 in Shadow Arts. You regain 2 initiative from gaining stealth, clear 1 condition every 3 seconds, and regen health every second. Thieves have that ability to reset the fight due to the fact that they have low health and low defense. If a thief builds heavier on the defense side, they don’t hit nearly as hard to win most fights. It’s a time game for thieves. If you don’t drop your target in the first 10-20 seconds, you have to run and reset. Too much focus on burst and not enough on sustain (unless your P/D).

I can see stealth not breaking if the player dodges the backstab. Blocking I might be more inclined to break stealth but logically, how do you block something you can’t see coming?

I try to not compare thief to ele really for the sheer difference in playstyle and class mechanics.

Shadow Refuge is a huge get out of jail free card if you don’t get knocked out of the ring. I wouldn’t mind seeing it moved to an elite slot and increase the number of bodies it can stealth.

The issue with stealth
Thief: Yay Im in stealth mode. Im gona backstab you
Guardian: I have Aegis on
Elementalist: Im sending a giant fireball at you
Warrior:Im doing a giant AoE knockdown
Mesmer: Im going to blur
Necromancer: Im going to have my minions swarm to defend me
Engineer: Ima firin my flamethrower
Thief again: I dont care, Im in stealth mode, Im going to backstab you now
Ranger : Sick em
Thief: **** my one counter!

Edit: I would also like to add that dodging to that list. What with the thief just getting to try to backstab you again

Double Edit: If stealth got balanced properly than Revealed debuff could be removed and thieves would be very very happy

As a thief main in pvp here are some ideas and little twists I thought up to add some counter play to stealth.

Using a combo finisher on a light or fire field would cause all stealthed foes in a certain radius of it to get there shadows revealed, or stepping on a light or fire field would reveal their shadows as well, and their shadows would be revealed for the duration of their stealth.

The only way I think the idea of a stealthed foe getting hit knocking them out of stealth would work, is if it didn’t cause the revealed debuff. That way skills like shadow refuge wouldn’t become completely useless. And if a thief gets knocked out of stealth they have to think should I blow my 6 initiative or utility to restealth attack again or make a calculated retreat.

If you are complaining about stealth in PvP, you must be a hot join player. Stealth is not used that much in tournaments. Why? Because it is a team liability. You cannot hold points or gain points while in stealth. Sure, it is used, but it is not that big of a deal.

If this was a WvW thread, it might be different.

KillerJacket.9735:

As a thief main in pvp here are some ideas and little twists I thought up to add some counter play to stealth.

Using a combo finisher on a light or fire field would cause all stealthed foes in a certain radius of it to get there shadows revealed, or stepping on a light or fire field would reveal their shadows as well, and their shadows would be revealed for the duration of their stealth.

The only way I think the idea of a stealthed foe getting hit knocking them out of stealth would work, is if it didn’t cause the revealed debuff. That way skills like shadow refuge wouldn’t become completely useless. And if a thief gets knocked out of stealth they have to think should I blow my 6 initiative or utility to restealth attack again or make a calculated retreat.

I actually like this idea of new combo finishers, or even just combo fields that would apply revealed. Or a new condition….oh god, I did not just opt for yet another condition to be added to the game, what am I thinking…