Guild Wars 2

Take any of the traits that reward sitting in stealth for an extended period of time, change their effect to “On reveal”, and re-balance the effects themselves.

There, you’ve solved most of SA’s issues in both PvP and WvW.

In WvW, there will no longer be an incentive to sit in stealth and wait, since it will no longer benefit them to just sit in stealth.

In PvP, you won’t punish players who want to cleanse conditions or heal using the SA traitline by forcing them to sit in stealth for an extended period, giving up caps and not contributing to their team.

A ranger who uses sic Em will now heal, blind your opponents, and cure conditions for you.

Who actually uses Sic Em though? rofl

Shinjo.6092:

A ranger who uses sic Em will now heal, blind your opponents, and cure conditions for you.

and deny stealth, which was the intention of the skill in the first place. The fact that it shuts down all a thief’s points in SA is silly, as I’ve said in the past.

Also, they wouldn’t blind – blind is an “enter stealth” trigger, not “Sit in stealth”.

The only traits effected would be Shadows Embrace, Patience (for completeness, it’s not like anyone uses it), and Shadow Rejuvenation. The idea is to remove all incentive to just sit around in stealth while traits do their thing.

Awesome, can’t wait to see the first “revealed lasts too long nerf plx” thread so i can start walking on the head.

muscarine.5136:

Awesome, can’t wait to see the first “revealed lasts too long nerf plx” thread so i can start walking on the head.

The effects wouldn’t be forced to last as long as revealed is up, like the new DA trait.

They would be triggered by revealed, and balanced individually however makes sense.

For example, Shadow’s embrace could be “Remove 1 condition when you enter stealth or get revealed”, effectively removing 2 conditions per stealth like it does now.

So since I got my 1st infraction point here and my post got deleted, I respectfully and totally without insults to your cognitive capacities and your knowledge about the mechanics of this game, ask you to take a look at this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-New-meta-no-OffHand-for-poor-people/first#post3837475
I consider this free educational advice about this game’s mechanics and do in no way want to be disrespectful.

Please forgive me if my inadequte english may create any bad emotional experiences for anyone reading this.

I totally respect you all I also do not wish to humor you in any way this game and anything about it is to be taken 100% serious…

Bazzoong.7145:

So since I got my 1st infraction point here and my post got deleted, I respectfully and totally without insults to your cognitive capacities and your knowledge about the mechanics of this game, ask you to take a look at this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-New-meta-no-OffHand-for-poor-people/first#post3837475
I consider this free educational advice about this game’s mechanics and do in no way want to be disrespectful.

Please forgive me if my inadequte english may create any bad emotional experiences for anyone reading this.

I totally respect you all I also do not wish to humor you in any way this game and anything about it is to be taken 100% serious…

I am not saying this to be rude, but I am genuinely confused as to what your point is.

If you’re trying to point out how cheesy the SA trait-line is for WvW, I agree with you. The point of my suggestion was to remove all trait related value from sitting in stealth – instead, SA’s most common traits will instead be tied to being revealed, which will make sure thieves have to be in active combat to receive the lines biggest benefits (healing, condition removal, etc). It would have the added benefit of also fixing SA for PvP, since now thieves don’t need to sit in stealth to reap the rewards of their spec.

My suggestions would make the build/playstyle in the video you linked much weaker – no more sitting in Shadow Refuge stealth to regen, most importantly.
Let’s also note that, of the fights I watched (the first 3), the posters opponents were laughably bad. That last Rage-inducingly-bad fight with just a dagger OH vs that awful mesmer would be impossible with my suggested changes, because you wouldn’t be rewarded with HP and condition cleanses for just sitting in stealth – you’d only earn them by using an attack from stealth and getting the revealed debuff.

Any clearer statement ofmy point of view will get me another infraction point, I do hereby respectfully acknowlege that you “do not get it”.

They guy in the vid does not even use a consistent “build”, surely the 300 or something hp he regenerates while stealthed and the condition removal offered by SA are what made him win (especially against the warrior, check the signets on that guy, hint… hint..).

SA was quite obviously what made him win against the S/P thief “challanger of the arena” means top 100 tournament player (hint… hint…).

Your suggestions would make that “build” and playstyle weaker (suposedly more fair)? It does not get any weaker that this, there is no more uphill fighting that what this guy did.
Even if you get all you ask for, this guy would still do this. Can you guess why?

Bazzoong.7145:

Any clearer statement ofmy point of view will get me another infraction point, I do hereby respectfully acknowlege that you “do not get it”.

They guy in the vid does not even use a consistent “build”, surely the 300 or something hp he regenerates while stealthed and the condition removal offered by SA are what made him win (especially against the warrior, check the signets on that guy, hint… hint..).

SA was quite obviously what made him win against the S/P thief “challanger of the arena” means top 100 tournament player (hint… hint…).

Your suggestions would make that “build” and playstyle weaker (suposedly more fair)? It does not get any weaker that this, there is no more uphill fighting that what this guy did.
Even if you get all you ask for, this guy would still do this. Can you guess why?

Because you’ve got an obviously biased view of how thieves work, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will sway it? Like most people who hate thieves without understanding the mechanics in the slightest, you’re here to reinforce and spread your view rather than being open to conversation.

The video you posted has laughably bad opponents. I was literally laughing out loud at the first 2 thieves who fought them – I’ve played alot of S/D, and enough D/P to know how inexperienced they were. Anyone with an iota of skill in PvP would have obliterated him. There’s a reason this was done in WvW instead of a dueling server in PvP – It wouldn’t have made as hilarious a video when mid-skilled PvP players tore him to shreds.

If you’re unable to see how changing SA traits to “On revealed” rather than “while sitting in stealth” would have made most of the fights in that video impossible, you don’t really have a strong enough grasp of the mechanics to contribute meaningfully to this conversation. If you can’t make your point without being infracted, you don’t really have a point to make.

If you still disagree that changing all the “Sit in stealth for benefit” traits into “triggered on reveal” traits would make the class more fun to play/play against in both PvP and WvW, you’re welcome to explain why you feel that way. Try to offer some analysis or logic though, “Because thief is broken” isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Edit: Your comment “It doesn’t get any weaker than this” is probably most telling of your lack of understanding of the mechanics. His lack of an OH mostly denied him stealth – you’ll notice all 3 of his utilities (Smoke screen for HS leaps) AND his heal grant stealth. The build is based on sitting in stealth for long periods to regen hp and drop conditions, while also letting CD’s tick down.

My proposed changes (of which the specifics are just a suggestion, mind you) would completely shut down his entire playstyle – he would have most likely lost every fight, even against the less-than-experienced players he was facing.

This would decrease the effectiveness of the thief’s stealth. In fact you would be punished for being in stealth longer. If you’re in stealth and you have a mass of conditions on you, you would have to attack the target and risk being killed for it. In fact, this would make thieves even more annoying to you guys. They would be in stealth, want to reveal themselves to you so that they get the bonuses from it, and then run away and re-engage because they don’t want to be killed. Counter-productive to what you want.
Thieves need the in-stealth bonuses of Shadow Arts to survive. Otherwise we are nothing and we melt instantly. We have no condi clear or outside healing other than SA. SA is fine as is.

What they should do is add more build diversity to thief. That way people who like stealth can use stealth and people who like dodging and being all over the place can do that.

alchemyst.2165:

This would decrease the effectiveness of the thief’s stealth. In fact you would be punished for being in stealth longer.

As something to just sit in, yes. It has no effect on stealth as a tool for gaining position, which is what it’s intended for. You’d be punished for sitting in stealth for no reason other than to take advantage of SA traits. Dev’s have stated in the past that they want to encourage more active thief playstyles, instead of just spamming dodges or stealth – this does this without penalizing SA or stealth heavy builds.

If you’re in stealth and you have a mass of conditions on you, you would have to attack the target and risk being killed for it.

Conditions aren’t a great marker to go by – thief needs access to better condition removal beyond the scope of this conversation – for a 10 point trait, dropping 1 condition on stealth and 1 condition on revealed would be plenty powerful – the traits current implementation is already a bit strong for its point cost in situations where you can just sit in stealth as long as you want (IE, not capture point PvP), and weak in situations where you cant just sit in stealth as long as you can afford to (capture point pvp). Why have that dichotomy instead of a traitline that’s useful across all modes of play? The entire point is to encourage active play rather than just sitting in stealth to “reset fights”.

In fact, this would make thieves even more annoying to you guys. They would be in stealth, want to reveal themselves to you so that they get the bonuses from it, and then run away and re-engage because they don’t want to be killed. Counter-productive to what you want.
Thieves need the in-stealth bonuses of Shadow Arts to survive. Otherwise we are nothing and we melt instantly. We have no condi clear or outside healing other than SA.

This is entirely inaccurate on multiple points.

Nothing I’ve suggested makes the playstyle you’ve described any more viable then it is right now. Thieves can teleport away while visible and restealth right now, my changes do nothing to make that better. It encourages actively playing (going in and out of stealth, using stealth attacks to get the revealed debuff), rather than sitting around waiting for passive abilities to fix you while in stealth.

The idea is to replicate those in-stealth bonuses when you choose to reveal yourself – my suggestions aren’t stripping those bonuses, it’s just shifting them to “On revealed”, so thieves have to be active in combat to get the bonuses. Your comment about conditions is true, but part of a larger problem – we shouldn’t put making SA better on hold because thief has awful condition removal options. Condition removal access should be expanded regardless of whether or not SA is changed, because it’s currently abysmal.

SA is fine as is.

Yeah….No it isn’t. It’s worthless in PvP because you can’t contest points or contribute much to your team while just sitting in stealth, and It’s annoying in WvW because there’s nothing preventing thieves from just sitting in stealth as long as they can afford to so that they regenerate health/init/etc. My suggestion fixes both of those issues while still encouraging the thief to use stealth to its fullest.

What they should do is add more build diversity to thief. That way people who like stealth can use stealth and people who like dodging and being all over the place can do that.

My suggestion opens build diversity in PvP and leaves WvW build diversity unchanged. You can still sit in stealth as long as you want, you just need to actively reveal yourself (IE, participate in combat) to reap the benefits of SA.

as a thief (who thinks SA its worthless), ill like that change, and ill add a grand master trait:

Brawless Assassin (DA): Thief is permarevealed, whatever he ttys to enter stealth, instead the thief gets Fury and 5Power.

It is interesting idea one I haven’t heard but it totally changes the way thief plays. The problem most people have with thieves is that the thief dictates the fight. With the mobility a thief can have they can do this anyway without stealth. Your suggestion makes them much easier to kill to satisfy the crowd that hates that a thief can dictate the fight.

It puts a arbitrary icd on all the stealth traits namely shadow rejuvenation and shadows embrace I am guessing is your targets here. Hidden killer not sure how that would work? You get 100% crit chance during your entire revealed? Some might actually like that.

Overall though can’t say I’m a fan of what your suggesting here it is a major change in the way thief works. I’ll need to think it over more usually when I see a suggestion the first thing I think of is how can players abuse this which is usually what the players are looking for.

oZii.2864:

It is interesting idea one I haven’t heard but it totally changes the way thief plays. The problem most people have with thieves is that the thief dictates the fight. With the mobility a thief can have they can do this anyway without stealth. Your suggestion makes them much easier to kill to satisfy the crowd that hates that a thief can dictate the fight.

The point isn’t to “totally change the way thief plays”. Thieves are the kings of mobility by design, this sentiment has been expressly stated by the developers. I’m not trying to redesign the class. The idea is not to make thieves easier to kill – they’re still going to get healed by shadow rejuvenation and have conditions cleansed by embrace. Thieves will still be using stealth for positional benefits because that’s what thief does. If you’re interested in “Thieves without mobility and stealth”, roll a warrior (though their mobility can be pretty impressive).

It puts a arbitrary icd on all the stealth traits namely shadow rejuvenation and shadows embrace I am guessing is your targets here. Hidden killer not sure how that would work? You get 100% crit chance during your entire revealed? Some might actually like that.

Why would hidden killer change? It’s not a benefit that scales with time in stealth, it’s a toggle – Hidden killer would remain exactly how it is. Again, the idea is not to “weaken” stealth, stealth is fine the way it is. The idea is to shift the focus of SA from “Sitting in stealth to take advantage of SA” (Which is annoying to players and useless for PvP) to “Using stealth as it was intended while still getting a benefit from SA”.

Overall though can’t say I’m a fan of what your suggesting here it is a major change in the way thief works. I’ll need to think it over more usually when I see a suggestion the first thing I think of is how can players abuse this which is usually what the players are looking for.

…How is it a “major change in the way thief works”? It’s a change in when SA benefits are applied, and nothing more. Yes, it will change the way thief plays, but only in that you’ll need to continue fighting your target if you want SA’s traits to trigger properly. All it does is remove the incentive (and the need) to sit in stealth for extended periods to take advantage of SA’s best traits, which is beneficial for both WvW (in terms of how annoying thieves are to fight) and PvP (in that it makes SA a viable PvP traitline, finally). There’s nothing preventing thieves from sitting in stealth with these changes, it’s just that SA doesn’t beg you to do so anymore.

Yeah….No it isn’t. It’s worthless in PvP because you can’t contest points or contribute much to your team while just sitting in stealth, and It’s annoying in WvW because there’s nothing preventing thieves from just sitting in stealth as long as they can afford to so that they regenerate health/init/etc. My suggestion fixes both of those issues while still encouraging the thief to use stealth to its fullest.

In pvp, the role of the thief is to kill and support/roam. Other players are meant to cap while you destroy the other team. Also, with this maybe we should make mesmers able to cap while in stealth as well, if capping is the issue.
I can kind of see where you’re going with wvw, the problem is if you’re trying to stealth and escape from opponents, multiple especially, you cant really protect yourself unless you reveal yourself, which is being counter productive. Low hp, being pressured while inside a shadow refuge, conditions ticking away at your health and you can’t regenerate hp or cure conditions unless you reveal yourself and ask to get killed.

I think you’re also looking at this from a d/p permastealth build standpoint. I do think they should nerf d/p a bit imo. Not sure if you’re looking at it from a d/d or d/p standpoint or whatever but it seems like it.

Also wondering if you play thief, that can really change someone’s perspective on stealth. Lots of people who know how to fight thief can counter stealth easily.

stealth is fine the way it is.

So..why are you trying to change it?

alchemyst.2165:

Yeah….No it isn’t. It’s worthless in PvP because you can’t contest points or contribute much to your team while just sitting in stealth, and It’s annoying in WvW because there’s nothing preventing thieves from just sitting in stealth as long as they can afford to so that they regenerate health/init/etc. My suggestion fixes both of those issues while still encouraging the thief to use stealth to its fullest.

In pvp, the role of the thief is to kill and support/roam. Other players are meant to cap while you destroy the other team. Also, with this maybe we should make mesmers able to cap while in stealth as well, if capping is the issue.

Capping while in stealth would be an AWFUL idea…just, truly awful. My suggestions make absolutely no changes to a thief’s ability to support/roam, not sure why you brought that up.

I can kind of see where you’re going with wvw, the problem is if you’re trying to stealth and escape from opponents, multiple especially, you cant really protect yourself unless you reveal yourself, which is being counter productive. Low hp, being pressured while inside a shadow refuge, conditions ticking away at your health and you can’t regenerate hp or cure conditions unless you reveal yourself and ask to get killed.

There’s a new -50% damage while in stealth trait coming mid april- seems that’ll do just fine protecting yourself. You’ll still have shadow protector, cloaked in shadow, the heal from shadow refuge itself, and the dark field that shadow refuge is to help heal you if that’s what you need – the dark field would actually mesh well with my suggestions and projectiles, in fact. Bringing up conditions is, as I’ve already said, counter productive; thieves need some condition removal love regardless, sitting in stealth to remove conditions is a poor substitute – it’s just our best option atm.

I think you’re also looking at this from a d/p permastealth build standpoint.

I can’t imagine how, as there is no D/P permastealth build anymore. It was (rightfully) killed with the dec 10th patch. You can use D/P and utilities to gain access to long uptime stealth, which is fine (even the developers expressed that sentiment)

Also wondering if you play thief, that can really change someone’s perspective on stealth. Lots of people who know how to fight thief can counter stealth easily.

3000+ games (I looked it up, anticipating this question). You can also take a brief tour of my post history if you doubt my honesty.

stealth is fine the way it is.

So..why are you trying to change it?

…I’m not? Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed. You’re going to need to decouple those in your way of thinking to grasp the goal here.

I just don’t see why someone would want to reveal themselves JUST to get a small heal and maybe some condis cleared. Being revealed as a thief for prolonged periods of time is bad for your health O: But you’re not helping yourself by saying “Alright guys, I’ve regained a bit of hp and cleared my condis. Attack again now!”

There’s a new -50% damage while in stealth trait coming mid april- seems that’ll do just fine protecting yourself.

People will still take Shadow’s Rejuvenation. I think this is more of a support option for thief, or preference, but not everyone will take it. Every shadow arts builds has it and they’ve gotten used to it.

Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed

For a thief build, there is usually Stealth involved, and, in turn, Shadow Arts. (WvW standpoint, a lot of people don’t use 30 SA in spvp) That’s just what they were made to do. (Personally I would like to see more acro builds though) If any thief is hoping to run stealth (which most thieves have to) they use shadow arts or they’re incredibly glassy. Stealth is affected because you’re changing how people will use it. I mean, I guess stealth as a mechanic isn’t changed but thief stealth will be.

I understand your goal is to make stealth thieves more active in the fight? They already pretty much are. Thieves have to constantly watch their oponnents, think about how to approach (should I wait, or should I go for burst now), think about their own health and survivability, managing cooldowns, and if they are in a group, make sure they can res and rally properly. Plus, just sitting in stealth won’t really kill your opponent.

What do you mean by active in the fight? Do you mean button-pressing wise, movement wise, or thinking wise?

alchemyst.2165:

I just don’t see why someone would want to reveal themselves JUST to get a small heal and maybe some condis cleared. Being revealed as a thief for prolonged periods of time is bad for your health O: But you’re not helping yourself by saying “Alright guys, I’ve regained a bit of hp and cleared my condis. Attack again now!”

You WOULDN’T want to get revealed to get a small heal or some condi’s cleared – you get revealed because you went for Backstab/Sneak attack/Clutch head shot interrupt/etc. It is part of the natural flow of thieves, stealth and revealed. Sitting in stealth can be advantageous at times, but it shouldn’t be the focus of a trait line.

There’s a new -50% damage while in stealth trait coming mid april- seems that’ll do just fine protecting yourself.

People will still take Shadow’s Rejuvenation. I think this is more of a support option for thief, or preference, but not everyone will take it. Every shadow arts builds has it and they’ve gotten used to it.

Warrior’s have gotten used to their current situation – does that mean it shouldn’t be changed for the better of the game?

Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed

For a thief build, there is usually Stealth involved, and, in turn, Shadow Arts. (WvW standpoint, a lot of people don’t use 30 SA in spvp) That’s just what they were made to do. (Personally I would like to see more acro builds though) If any thief is hoping to run stealth (which most thieves have to) they use shadow arts or they’re incredibly glassy. Stealth is affected because you’re changing how people will use it. I mean, I guess stealth as a mechanic isn’t changed but thief stealth will be.

I understand your goal is to make stealth thieves more active in the fight? They already pretty much are. Thieves have to constantly watch their oponnents, think about how to approach (should I wait, or should I go for burst now), think about their own health and survivability, managing cooldowns, and if they are in a group, make sure they can res and rally properly. Plus, just sitting in stealth won’t really kill your opponent.

What do you mean by active in the fight? Do you mean button-pressing wise, movement wise, or thinking wise?

I mean “not sitting in stealth letting a trait passively heal/cleanse them”. It’s boring for the thief and for their opponents. " It’s a huge source of WvW QQ (not entirely unwarranted), and it makes the entire SA traitline completely worthless in PvP. From an Esports perspective (lawl, I know), it’s boring to watch, and it rewards sitting around and not playing the game. Watching your opponents" is not “being active in the fight”, it’s just a basic part of gameplay.

Of course some of your in-stealth time will sometimes be spent waiting and getting into position, but currently SA is designed to encourage you to sit and wait, even if you’re in position or have the potential to be helpful to your team with a stealth attack, because you’re being passively rewarded for sitting in stealth. It should instead encourage you to contribute to your team (with a Backstab or a Tactical strike or a surprise shot or a clutch interrupt, and so on). You still have the option to sit in stealth if you feel like waiting is the better call, but you’re no longer being rewarded for it.

And “thief stealth” is not changed. Ask yourself this – if you took 0 points in SA, is stealth any different between how it’s currently implemented, and my suggestions? The way thieves can use stealth is changed. It’s changed for the better, which is the point.

You WOULDN’T want to get revealed to get a small heal or some condi’s cleared – you get revealed because you went for Backstab/Sneak attack/Clutch head shot interrupt/etc. It is part of the natural flow of thieves, stealth and revealed. Sitting in stealth can be advantageous at times, but it shouldn’t be the focus of a trait line.

So…I’m guessing we should rename Shadow Arts to revealed arts? Shadow arts is about patience, a game of cat and mouse, being the predator. This goes with what you were saying about waiting and sitting in stealth. You can easily play psychological games while in stealth. Cause them to blow an unessecary cooldown, making them wonder when you’re going to attack, and overall scaring them. Purposely backstabbing when they have a block up just to make them think you’re going to backstab them again, but you don’t, is a very effective tactic.

I usually don’t even wait in stealth unless im very low on hp. Even then I usually use a Mug-CnD-Backstab combo or CnD Backstab Mug to heal myself while dealing damage to the people I’m fighting. This is why I use 10/30/30/0/0 instead of 0/30/30/10/0. It’s because it gives me a heal and slight damage, so that I don’t have to waste as much time in stealth. It gives me about a 2k heal which is equivalent to about 6 or 7 seconds in stealth. I don’t find it boring to be in stealth for a few seconds. I don’t need to chain stealth as long because I have mug. If you guys think it’s boring to stealth and you’re running 0/30/30/10/0, run 10/30/30. Just mug makes you a lot more sustainable.

So, yeah, I don’t really think its boring to play mind games with people, choosing the best time to attack. Patience is very important with thief. If you don’t have a patient mindset you should be playing something else. But not everybody has that mindset, so I hope anet introduces new build opportunities to thief so that they don’t have to use Shadow Arts.

I used to hate Shadow Arts, now I’ve kind of embraced it and even like it.

evilapprentice.6379:

snip snip snip
…I’m not? Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed. You’re going to need to decouple those in your way of thinking to grasp the goal here.

I had the same exact problem with my Stealth as a Boon thread and it’s going to be a hard uphill slog. I wish you luck.

WTT in stealth passives for more On Revealed actives.

MonMalthias.4763:

evilapprentice.6379:

snip snip snip
…I’m not? Stealth remains completely untouched. Shadow arts is changed. You’re going to need to decouple those in your way of thinking to grasp the goal here.

I had the same exact problem with my Stealth as a Boon thread and it’s going to be a hard uphill slog. I wish you luck.

It’s like talking to some hardcore brick walls up in here. Thanks for the well-wishes.

Alch, you’re still free to play stealth however you enjoy it. The system I’ve proposed just rewards active gameplay as opposed to passive gameplay. You can still play all the “mind games” you want, you’ll just gain the benefits when you attack rather than while you’re sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

Since most stealth access is 3 seconds (base, without meld), my proposed system doesn’t really get in the way of you “playing mind games” and “timing things perfectly.” You might lose out a little bit on sitting in long stealth from SR/Multiple jumps through SS, but you’ll make up for it all the times you attacked shortly after stealthing (where as in the current system, you’d see less benefits out of SRejuv and Embrace in those cases). The only thing this really removes the incentive from is people stealthing, doing nothing, and stealthing again so SRejuv can passively heal them while they do nothing, which is a good thing. The best part is people are still free to do that (since recall, I haven’t changed how stealth works at all), it just removes the rewards for doing so.

I came up with another approach a while ago to punish players for excessive use and abuse of stealth uptime while encouraging players to play outside of it.

Mind you, this is also coming from someone with over 1k hours in a thief, with it being my favorite class to play by miles.

In that another “revealing” timer is applied whenever the skill first used to cast stealth would normally expire.

And that the revealed state duration increases with the amount of time the user spends under stealth effects while slightly increasing the duration of each stealth skill.

The “revealing” effect simply prevents chain-stealthing, something which works way too well with the SA line and also just works way to well in itself. Being able to just stack that much stealth duration/untargetable capability is crazy. This forces players into positioning themselves well to not die while under the revealed effect.

The latter effect punishes SA permastealth builds by reducing their effective ability frequency and also making the builds more technical, rather than just shooting for stealth whenever it’s available. Stealth now becomes much more tactical, for spending 15 seconds in refuge to engage would net you at a 50% stealth duration converted to extra revealed time would be 10.5 seconds of revealed – a hefty amount of time spent without stealth.

And of course, this also has good synergy with the new DA trait which gives you extra power during revealed. Stealth builds now may play with more investment of the “sneak attack” and skirmish while visible for extra sustained DPS.

The problem with that, deceiver, is that we melt outside of stealth . We would need more survivablilty to compensate. We would have no condi removal for that duration and we would have to waste a hide in shadows, unless you’re running withdraw.

As to evilapprentice, I like the idea of being active, I just don’t see how this is a buff defensively. I’m starting to open up to the idea more, you’re arguing this very well. But what happens when I get to about 2k health, my last refuge procs, I want to heal up but I have to reveal ourselves to get extra protection? Conditions ticking away, opponent still attacking. I suppose I could always shadow step away, but I’d rather try and win the fight than escape if possible. Plus, there’s gonna be conditions crawling all over the place. I would be dead in a few seconds unless I asked for more. There’s also people who actually know how to fight thief and predict where we are.

I tend to look at thief ideas first by defense, because we lack defense. I think the damage is fine, but survivablilty is not good. I understand you would still get the bonuses on revealed, but I just feel like that wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t get to prevent death unless we asked for the time period we usually die during.

alchemyst.2165:

As to evilapprentice, I like the idea of being active, I just don’t see how this is a buff defensively. I’m starting to open up to the idea more, you’re arguing this very well. But what happens when I get to about 2k health, my last refuge procs, I want to heal up but I have to reveal ourselves to get extra protection? Conditions ticking away, opponent still attacking. I suppose I could always shadow step away, but I’d rather try and win the fight than escape if possible. Plus, there’s gonna be conditions crawling all over the place. I would be dead in a few seconds unless I asked for more. There’s also people who actually know how to fight thief and predict where we are.

You’re looking at the end result here and not taking into account how you got there.
Lets take your scenario and examine it under both the current system, and my proposed system.

In the current system, if you were playing aggressively you likely didn’t receive much benefit from SRejuv, and only about half of the condition cleanse embrace could have delivered. Last refuge procs, and you sit in stealth to regen and drop conditions.

In my system, if you were playing aggressively, you were receiving the full benefits of Srejuv and Embrace the entire time. It should have taken you longer to hit the point where last refuge procs, at which point you’ve already received a significant amount of healing and condition removal.

Instead of sitting in stealth passively to regen large chunks of health and drop heaps of conditions at the tail end of the fight, roughly equivalent healing and condi removal would have been spread out over the entire fight.
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This just leaves thief with no defensive options, though. You would have to go full aggressive mode, risking getting tunnel visioned into dying. This would kill outnumbered fighting for thief. What happens when we try to be aggressive but the opponent I even more aggressive? There has to be balance for those who want to play aggressively and defensively. With my build 10/30/30 I can choose when I want to be aggressive and defensive because mug saves me a lot of time waiting to heal. The current system allows players to choose whether to attack or stay on the defensive.

alchemyst.2165:

The problem with that, deceiver, is that we melt outside of stealth . We would need more survivablilty to compensate. We would have no condi removal for that duration and we would have to waste a hide in shadows, unless you’re running withdraw.

As to evilapprentice, I like the idea of being active, I just don’t see how this is a buff defensively. I’m starting to open up to the idea more, you’re arguing this very well. But what happens when I get to about 2k health, my last refuge procs, I want to heal up but I have to reveal ourselves to get extra protection? Conditions ticking away, opponent still attacking. I suppose I could always shadow step away, but I’d rather try and win the fight than escape if possible. Plus, there’s gonna be conditions crawling all over the place. I would be dead in a few seconds unless I asked for more. There’s also people who actually know how to fight thief and predict where we are.

I tend to look at thief ideas first by defense, because we lack defense. I think the damage is fine, but survivablilty is not good. I understand you would still get the bonuses on revealed, but I just feel like that wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t get to prevent death unless we asked for the time period we usually die during.

We don’t, though. Especially SA builds which are fairly resilient compared to most other ones. As a thief, good play just like every other class and not facetanking hits can yield positive results.

HiS’s condi removal doesn’t apply only when you enter stealth – it removes them anyways. Any thief not building SA has the same condi cleanse potential as a thief in revealed. Again, the whole point of this is to prevent exactly what you’ve mentioned: squishy builds capable of totally ignoring/mitigating damage or not being targeted through passive play.

Again, as I mentioned, stealth now doesn’t become something which players would just use whenever it’s available. The critical question of when to use stealth and for how long increases the skill cap on the class/stealth builds while not really restricting it too heavily.

evilapprentice.6379:

Bazzoong.7145:

So since I got my 1st infraction point here and my post got deleted, I respectfully and totally without insults to your cognitive capacities and your knowledge about the mechanics of this game, ask you to take a look at this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-New-meta-no-OffHand-for-poor-people/first#post3837475
I consider this free educational advice about this game’s mechanics and do in no way want to be disrespectful.

Please forgive me if my inadequte english may create any bad emotional experiences for anyone reading this.

I totally respect you all I also do not wish to humor you in any way this game and anything about it is to be taken 100% serious…

I am not saying this to be rude, but I am genuinely confused as to what your point is.

If you’re trying to point out how cheesy the SA trait-line is for WvW, I agree with you. The point of my suggestion was to remove all trait related value from sitting in stealth – instead, SA’s most common traits will instead be tied to being revealed, which will make sure thieves have to be in active combat to receive the lines biggest benefits (healing, condition removal, etc). It would have the added benefit of also fixing SA for PvP, since now thieves don’t need to sit in stealth to reap the rewards of their spec.

My suggestions would make the build/playstyle in the video you linked much weaker – no more sitting in Shadow Refuge stealth to regen, most importantly.
Let’s also note that, of the fights I watched (the first 3), the posters opponents were laughably bad. That last Rage-inducingly-bad fight with just a dagger OH vs that awful mesmer would be impossible with my suggested changes, because you wouldn’t be rewarded with HP and condition cleanses for just sitting in stealth – you’d only earn them by using an attack from stealth and getting the revealed debuff.

I think his point is that most people are pretty bad. I watched the video, and the Mesmer died to 1 skill. Clearly there is some barrier to entry when it comes to camera turning with A D vs your mouse (not saying you, saying your as in a general statement).

The thing is, this turns our condition removal into a 2 step process – you now have to go into stealth and successfully hit something in order to remove conditions. This makes movement impairing conditions like cripple, chill, and immobilize even more deadly for us than it already is since we may not always be able to hit something, and it boosts weakness and confusion against us since we have to suffer the negative effects by attacking first before being able to remove it. Do you really want to boost conditions against us at a time like this?

I think with some tweaking, u may potentially have a good idea here but I’m not sure what your goal is. Just so we have this clear, you realize that even if your idea goes through, everyone will still be complaining about thieves right? It never stops.

alchemyst.2165:

This just leaves thief with no defensive options, though. You would have to go full aggressive mode, risking getting tunnel visioned into dying. This would kill outnumbered fighting for thief. What happens when we try to be aggressive but the opponent I even more aggressive? There has to be balance for those who want to play aggressively and defensively. With my build 10/30/30 I can choose when I want to be aggressive and defensive because mug saves me a lot of time waiting to heal. The current system allows players to choose whether to attack or stay on the defensive.

My system also allows the player to choose whether to attack or stay on the defensive, that doesn’t change. It just rewards being aggressive rather than being passive.

It also doesn’t kill outnumbered fighting for thief, or leave you defensless – if your only defensive mechanism is sitting in stealth, you’re doing something wrong – you should have blinds and/or evades and teleports as well, and possibly some interrupts. and you can still sit in stealth if you want to, nothing changes that.

You have all the same defensive tools as you have now, and they’re being triggered by you actively playing rather than just sitting around in stealth. Instead of long periods of not taking advantage of SA benefits (by fighting) followed by long periods of taking advantage of SA benefits (by sitting in stealth and doing nothing), you’re spreading out the SA benefits over the entirety of the fight.

I Don’t think you’re taking into account how much more pressure you’ll be generating by switching out “Sitting in stealth waiting for regen” with “Regenerating while actively fighting opponents”.

Shinjo.6092:

The thing is, this turns our condition removal into a 2 step process – you now have to go into stealth and successfully hit something in order to remove conditions. This makes movement impairing conditions like cripple, chill, and immobilize even more deadly for us than it already is since we may not always be able to hit something, and it boosts weakness and confusion against us since we have to suffer the negative effects by attacking first before being able to remove it. Do you really want to boost conditions against us at a time like this?

I think with some tweaking, u may potentially have a good idea here but I’m not sure what your goal is. Just so we have this clear, you realize that even if your idea goes through, everyone will still be complaining about thieves right? It never stops.

My suggestion actually mentioned dropping 1 condition on stealth, and 1 more on revealed, but that’s beside the point. Focusing on conditions doesn’t help with the overall discussion because thieves are in an awful position concerning conditions currently. Just because Shadows embrace is our current best condition removal doesn’t make it good, it’s just the prettiest piece of kitten in the dump.

The suggestions themselves are also just spitballing – any changes would need to be thoroughly playtested of course, the main idea is to switch any benefit that scales with time spent in stealth it into a static “on revealed” trigger. This would switch SA thieves focus from “Sit in stealth and do nothing while traits do their thing” to “Continue playing as I normally would while traits do their thing”

People are going to kitten and moan regardless – I Don’t give a kitten about them. The point of my suggestions was to make thief a more fun class to both play and play against, and open up some build diversity in PvP at least, all of which would make the game better as a whole. I think this suggestion accomplishes those goals.

As Shinjo said, this would make it a more dangerous, 2 part thing to remove conditions. And it can be pretty hard to hit people in the first place with d/d. Why should we have to hit people to get our bonuses? We get affected by blinds misses and blocks a lot more than most classes because we rely on hits already. It’s too risky to rely on hits even more. This is actually making it much harder to get bonuses. Thief is already a hard class, we don’t need more difficulty.

alchemyst.2165:

As Shinjo said, this would make it a more dangerous, 2 part thing to remove conditions. And it can be pretty hard to hit people in the first place with d/d. Why should we have to hit people to get our bonuses? We get affected by blinds misses and blocks a lot more than most classes because we rely on hits already. It’s too risky to rely on hits even more. This is actually making it much harder to get bonuses. Thief is already a hard class, we don’t need more difficulty.

And again, for at least the fourth time, talking about conditions is not productive to this conversation. Even if we leave SA exactly how it is, thief condition removal is severely lacking. Just because you’ve gotten used to how Shadow’s Embrace works does not make it a good trait – it’s actually pretty kittenty. If you’re in a situation where you can’t just sit in stealth (PvP, any situation where it’s smarter for you to attack your opponent rather than twiddle your thumbs in stealth), it’s fairly weak, and even when you can just sit in stealth you’re forced to remove yourself from combat just to drop a few conditions – that is not good design.

Just because it’s the shiniest kitten on the dinner plate doesn’t change the fact that you’re eating kitten. You’re consistently focusing on 1 aspect without bothering to look at the bigger picture. You’re talking about lackluster condition removal when that’s a thief problem, not an SA problem, and all the scenarios your thinking about focus entirely on “What about when this specific situation arises” while ignoring how you got to that point, thereby glossing over all the benefits the proposed change to SA brings with it.

What benefits? All this is doing is making it harder to survive. This punishes people for being in stealth Whig is what shadow arts is about. I was talking about conditions because the title of this article has to do with shadow arts traits in stealth, and one of them is remove condos in stealth. I’m not saying it’s a great trait, but it’s our best one in that line. I was saying that because the whole point of this is to get your heal and condos removed on reveal, and as I keep on saying, that’s being counter productive. I’m trying to see the whole scope of things, looking at each detail and how it will be applied in combat. You’re overlooking a lot of things here.

I support this idea. The only thing that would need some reword would be Shadow’s Rejuvenation. In the new system it would be too weak. It would need a buff that doesn’t make it OP. I’m thinking about making it heal for 1k (random number!) on 5-7s ICD. Compared to current 330-ish per second.

alchemyst.2165:

What benefits? All this is doing is making it harder to survive. This punishes people for being in stealth Whig is what shadow arts is about. I was talking about conditions because the title of this article has to do with shadow arts traits in stealth, and one of them is remove condos in stealth. I’m not saying it’s a great trait, but it’s our best one in that line. I was saying that because the whole point of this is to get your heal and condos removed on reveal, and as I keep on saying, that’s being counter productive. I’m trying to see the whole scope of things, looking at each detail and how it will be applied in combat. You’re overlooking a lot of things here.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I’m not sure you’re really capable of following this conversation. You just keep saying the same things. Over and over again, regardless how much I explain them.

I understand having a different viewpoint, but you keep backing up your viewpoint with something we’ve discussed half a dozen times at this point. You seem to be unable or unwilling to acknowledge any of my points, instead just focusing on narrow, specific “What ifs” that don’t take the whole picture into account.

You say
“But what about all the time I spend in stealth, I’m losing so much defensive ability”

I say
“But what about all the times you don’t sit in stealth, and you just use it to quickly get in position and use a stealth attack? You’ll have roughly the same defensive ability, but instead of it all focused into a 10s SR stealth where you sit with your thumb up your kitten , it’ll be spread out during the time you’re actively fighting.” Active > Passive.

You say
“But what about my ability to sit in stealth for 10 seconds and remove conditions”

I say
“That’s a terrible, terrible tradeoff. It’s sad that even with how bad it is, it’s one of thief’s best ways of removing conditions. Condition removal for thieves has to be reworked, regardless how SA works now or could work in the future.” My suggestion (and recall, its only a suggestion) for how SE would work keeps it fairly strong, without having to sit in stealth with a thumb up your kitten waiting for the trait to passively fix you.

You say
“But it’s going to make thief harder”

I say
“No, it’s going to make thief harder to keep playing if all you want to do is sit in stealth and have passive abilities fix you. It’ll be easier to play if you’re actually interacting with targets, using stealth for positioning and going for stealth attacks when it makes sense, rather than just sitting in stealth waiting for your passive SA traits to do enough to justify taking them.”

scabrous.7835:

I support this idea. The only thing that would need some reword would be Shadow’s Rejuvenation. In the new system it would be too weak. It would need a buff that doesn’t make it OP. I’m thinking about making it heal for 1k (random number!) on 5-7s ICD. Compared to current 330-ish per second.

You could potentially tie it to the length of revealed (which would help keep it balanced between PvP and WvW). The actual HPS would probably have to be a little bit lower than shadow rejuv currently is, because you’re no longer forced to sit in stealth and not do anything to get the heal.

Off the top of my head, I’d probably set it 200 HPS while revealed, no idea on the HP contribution. That of course is just a thought, it’d need to be playtested.

All this time I’ve been saying why reveal yourself to get the bonuses? I’ve said before that would kind if make it revealed arts, and it’s counter productive. I’m wondering if YOUVE been following what IVE been saying, you seem to be avoiding that point. I like your goal to make thief more of an active class but this isn’t the way to go imo. And on your points about sitting in stealth for 10 sec, you can’t really do that. I don’t play like that. I use my utilities only in defense because thief lacks defense. You’re implying that I use my shadow refuge offensively, which I do not. I think the reason for this conflict is because we have different play styles and builds. Look up iammugis build, that’s what I run. In interested to see what you run.

Anyways, I don’t want this to become an argument of immature name calling and blind rage. I’m just voicing my own opinions on the ideas that have been suggested.

We should have people play test this.

alchemyst.2165:

All this time I’ve been saying why reveal yourself to get the bonuses? I’ve said before that would kind if make it revealed arts, and it’s counter productive.

How is it counter productive to take away the incentive to sit in stealth for no other reason then to take advantage of SA traits and change it to an incentive to fight your targets? In what way is that counter productive exactly?

I’m wondering if YOUVE been following what IVE been saying, you seem to be avoiding that point.

I’ve addressed that point in nearly every single post. Thieves won’t have less defense from SA – their defense will be more evenly spread throughout a fight rather than concentrated in stealth uptime. It will be more easily accessed. It will encourage and reward active play rather than encouraging and rewarding passive play. Encouraging Active play will go a long way in making thief a class that is both more fun to play and more fun to play against.

I like your goal to make thief more of an active class but this isn’t the way to go imo.

There is no other way to make thief a more active class with the SA line – as long as Shadow Arts creates an incentive to stay in stealth where they wouldn’t normally be one, SA will encourage passive play – there’s no way around that that doesn’t remove the incentive to stay in stealth.

And on your points about sitting in stealth for 10 sec, you can’t really do that. I don’t play like that. I use my utilities only in defense because thief lacks defense.
You’re implying that I use my shadow refuge offensively, which I do not.

You can “sit in stealth” as long as you want, in most situations. With D/P, as long as you’re looking to avoid a fight, you can BP->HS, wait, and repeat. It won’t last forever, but you can spend a good 10-15 seconds in stealth regenerating easily. You can leap through smoke screen multiple times, or just sit in an SR if you’re confident you wont get knocked out of it/AoE spammed to death. I also don’t recall ever implying that you use your SR offensively, not that it really factors in either way.

Stealth is a defense all on its own – not the best of them, but it has its uses. It doesn’t need SA rewarding you for sitting passively in stealth to make it better when it could instead reward you for being active while still making stealth a better defensive tool

First of all I play d/d… Did you even take a chance to look up the build? Next I want to address that even when I play shadow arts it’s never boring for ME. I find great joy and thrill in playing it. I don’t know about you but I’m always trying to figure out when to strike or not and at the first sign of trouble I cnd. I’m not losing health in the firsts place, which I think is your problem.

People who sit in stealth aren’t actually killing their opponents, and that’s fine, because while they regenerate, the opponent can take the chance to heal up too. There’s already not much to gain from sitting in stealth. D/p permastealthing? Okay…but they’re not killing you. D/p IS a bit much at times but that’s besides the point. We’re already being rewarded for being active in the fight because we have our good burst out of stealth, and just the few first hits can determine the outcome of the fight.

If you’re just sitting in stealth in the first place you’re doing it wrong.

Also shadow arts should be more passive than the rest of the trait lines. Problem is, acro is our only other defensive trait line…and it sucks. Buff acro and make it an active play style. More build diversity will be introduced that way.