Guild Wars 2

BurrTheKing.8571:

Lately, stealth has been going from a minor annoyance to something that is totally throwing off the balance of the game. Everything in this game has numerous amounts of direct counters except for Stealth. Control skills are countered by Stability, Blind, and Block. Conditions are countered by skills like Berserker’s Stance, Empathetic Bond, 409, etc. The balance between these mechanics may not be perfect, but they exist. As far as stealth goes the only real “counter” out there is Sic ’Em on the Ranger.

What we need is more skills to have the ability to put Reveal on stealth classes like Thieve and Mesmer. It does not have to last for long, just long enough that vs stealth heavy builds you throw them off their game long enough to mount a counter attack. Not all of them should require a target because skills like Shadow Refuge and Mass Invisibility are often times used when the target is already stealthed. These long duration stealths allow for them to totally reset the fight while the other person flails around trying to get lucky. It drives me insane when I hear people say “you can still hit them in stealth you know!?” (Yes, we know) as if that means you can magically always know where they are. Any stealth user with half a brain is going to get the hell out of danger and not stick around and they generally have shadowsteps/teleports to do it. The ability to also stack stealth after being downed is also ridiculous and can lead to the player being downed but conditions or what have you and being able to revive.

What I would like all of you to do is propose skills on your main class that seem like good candidates to receive the ability to apply reveal. I’ll start with Warrior:

Fear Me!: The best candidate by far. It has a fairly long cool down and if you want to reduce that you have to find 10 points to put into tactics and would also have to swap out Bull’s Charge.

Stomp: Even with the buffs it’s still not an amazing skill. It would be another reason to justify it being on your bar and once again has a fairly long CD. Might even give people a reason to grab Physical Training (but probably not).

Also, if ANet even gives Warriors an elite shout I’d like to see “None Shall Pass!” from GW1 brought back. It knocked down moving foes and it would be nice for it to have reveal as well.

I’m tired of being unable to reliably do anything about stealth heavy classes that have the ability to simply stealth up again after messing up and having to wait around for 10+ seconds wondering if maybe I downed them and don’t know it.

Because your guild’s hammer spamming isn’t enough.

I’ve brought up many times about reworking stealth but it seems it’s never going to happen. I think a good idea would be to decrease movement speed by at least 25% while in stealth.

BurrTheKing.8571:

EDIT 2: @Maugetarr.6823 I actually have started going back to old school glass cannon Axe/Shield + GS and if you time your skills right you’re correct that many Thieves can’t react fast enough before taking a ton of damage and an Evis and practically one-shot if they’re glassy enough. I almost feel bad for talking smack about it though it is basically a higher-risk Thief build since most of your damage comes from 2 really obvious attacks. The nostalgia for the start of the game is pretty fun as well, that being said a Thief can practically insta-gib you if you run what I do but at least the fight is short either way.

That was pretty much how I ran my warrior for a while and it worked pretty well. If you feel it’s too obvious a combo, you can also go Sw/Sh + GS on a 30/20/0/0/20 build. You get the burst from Sh #4 + Sw#3, and you get Sw F1 + 100b (and I like picking up both GS traits since its a great utility weapon). Really great mobility also.

Edit: Something like this. Yes, the food is correct
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAseRjMd01ZVIehwJaAw84HgK6ogKmUKsrOA-zECBYfCiEEg0HQUBAZmFRjtKqIasKkYaXER1kCAilRA-w

lol no hard counters make wvw a laughingstock of the gaming world. i know dozens of people who quit and rag on this game because they hated getting ganked by perm invisible enemies. I can’t blame them.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I do feel that I should point out that Stealth is, in fact, an immunity.

While not incorrect, being out of range is also an immunity, and very few players tend to complain about that. Yes, it makes you immune to targeted skills, but on the flipside the other player is immune to all but one attack during that time.

Stealth is a broken idea, that has been implemented over and over again in games for generation. Anet is trying to make “stealth” balanced but its far from it; However, in a fantasy world it is cool to have stealth, magic, and so on (since its fantasy). Perhaps someday, someone will decide to make “Stealth” as something High Risk(like really high) and very rewarding if mastered.

True, Stealth doesn’t work too well. I like this implementation much better than the perma-stealth-OOC other games had, as thematic as it is.

I think GW2’s stealth is good, but (just like with conditions and with boons), it’s:

• Too common.
• Too weak.

Make it less common, on abilities with 45-90 seconds CD and only lasting 4-5 seconds, but make it stronger since now it’s quite rare to stealth.

The Shadow Refuge should – IMO – be an elite skill, stealthing everyone inside and healing them up, but should have a 2-4 minutes CD.

In turn, stealthing should always improve something. Say, Endurance and Health regenerate while in stealth, and you gain a x3 modifier (everyone!) on their first attacks.

I’ve always found the way this game handles stealth to be a bit… odd. It is so binary.

I came form City of Heroes, which had a perception mechanic. There were various buffs and class abilities that could improve perception, and different kinds of stealth had different perception thresholds needed to see them.

Stealth only cloaked you until a certain distance away from your target. More perception means that distance is further and further. Stealth skills stacked their cloaking level, allowing you to put on multiple skills to be harder to see, but with each skill having more and more drawbacks this could be dangerous in its own right.

This was important, because there was something you could do preemptively to counter stealth. In GW2, there isn’t much of a pre-emptive measure, or even a counter measure. Once someone drops out of sight, your best bet is to guess and hope you are right. It is really hard to balance something with no preemptive or countermeasures.

BurrTheKing.8571:

As for Rifle, I have NEVER hit a stealthed target with an attack that wasn’t activated before stealth. A non-targeted attack shoots off at a semi-random angle rather than exactly where your character is facing. Again, physically possible but still practical immunity.

Your projectile when fired without a target will always follow the same path. It isn’t necessarily the line you would expect, but you can “aim” it after practicing a bit. I do this with LB fairly consistently, especially against stealthed targets.

Carighan.6758:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I do feel that I should point out that Stealth is, in fact, an immunity.

While not incorrect, being out of range is also an immunity, and very few players tend to complain about that. Yes, it makes you immune to targeted skills, but on the flipside the other player is immune to all but one attack during that time.

And that one attack can often hit for 6-7k in the case of Backstab. I just don’t think a class’s main source of burst damage in any PvP situation should potentially come from something with no opportunity cost, no telegraph (beyond surmising when it might happen), and no resource cost (initiative or cooldown). Yes, I know it can cost Initiative to do the BP + HS combo, or CnD, but Backstab doesn’t rely on those.

Honestly, I don’t think Stealth is inherently flawed, I think the Thief class’s ability to use it is inherently flawed. I would love to see the ability to go into stealth taken from all weapon abilities and turned into a utility they simply have more access to through utilities/traits, while giving them compensation in the form of the necessary evasions, ports, and compensated damage if necessary. And make the from-stealth unique abilities for Thieves utilities as well, not burst damage.

So I’ll revise my stance officially: Stealth is fine, but how it works with a Thief is, in my opinion, awful design. I guess now that I’ve reached this conclusion, I can leave this thread, since anything I contribute will be too biased against a single class’s implementation when in fact the discussion is on the Stealth mechanic itself (which I still wouldn’t mind getting a bit more feedback against players in stealth).

I can’t figure how a warrior main who is using rifle can voice his concern over a fast paced dueler as being unbalanced. I’ve seen several posts in this thread already giving counters to stealth without saying “L2P” and burr just shuns them. Doesn’t help that some “T-words” are feeding into his problems.

If you’re not open to help why are you posting complaints?

I agree that there needs to be more counters to stealth, but I honestly think that it is the Revealed debuff itself that is flawed. Until Anet change Revealed application from “when you land damage” to “when you land an attack irregardless of whether or not you caused damage” stealth will continue to be a tad ridiculous and very very accommodating.

But meh. Just stick it on the “never going to be addressed pile” along with immobilise stacking, rampant condi spam, ridiculous passive stacking and all the other things that prevent this game from harbouring a truly competitive PvP community.

Gosh that was cynical. I will end on a high by saying that I do really love my Endless Mystery Quaggan Tonic. Especially when combined with my Queen’s Jubilee balloon

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

Your signature doesn’t specify, but are you a WvW Roaming Thief using D/P? If so, of course it isn’t a problem in your opinion. It’s a solution. To everything.

And I’d love to see other buffs for Thieves in conjunction with the removal of weapon-based stealth capabilities. S/P seems to do well without Stealth. It’s a matter of giving Thieves enough mobility/evasion such that they can get in an out of a fight, but if they spam too hard, they find themselves vulnerable.

Unless there is going to be some nerf to it in the upcoming patch. Its never going to happen. Stealth gets nerfed then the thief class will literally be trash. Its the whole point behind playing the class. There has been hundreds of these threads about thieve’s stealth. Its not game breaking and it isn’t a problem. Thats why they haven’t done anything about it.

The thing is i’ve never died to a stealth thief or mesmer. Sure they’re annoying but they either die or run away. It doesn’t seem like that much of a problem to me.

I don’t even play a stealth profession and I feel if you cannot handle a stealthy player, that your being petty to demand it gets nerfed.

I handle it with limited difficulty myself. As well, I see others handle stealthy attackers with no problem on a daily basis.

@Cogbyrn: your assumption is false. I main a warrior as a roamer, but also play mesmer, thief and engineer. With thief, I play every spec except s/p in roaming, as it is lackluster in 1vX.

with dp, stealth is not the incrediOP thing you make it out to be. Positioning and blinds are equally as important. Thing is, remove one of them, and you would have to buff the other as well. Do you want maximum blind spam?

Stealth is powerful, and seemingly OP in the right hands.

Cygnus.6903:

@Cogbyrn: your assumption is false. I main a warrior as a roamer, but also play mesmer, thief and engineer. With thief, I play every spec except s/p in roaming, as it is lackluster in 1vX.

with dp, stealth is not the incrediOP thing you make it out to be. Positioning and blinds are equally as important. Thing is, remove one of them, and you would have to buff the other as well. Do you want maximum blind spam?

Stealth is powerful, and seemingly OP in the right hands.

I’m not even really arguing that it’s OP, I’m arguing that it’s terrible design. I don’t think Healing Signet is OP. I don’t really mind seeing Warriors with it in the slightest. I still think it’s terrible design.

I’m not convinced that D/P is the skillful balance between positioning and blind timings that you make it out to be. If Black Powder didn’t shoot a guaranteed Blind at your target, then it would be different. In that scenario, you have to be more careful. In the current scenario, the opponent basically needs 1 instant cast to break the blind (something that lands), and another instant cast to interrupt the Thief from HSing. Positioning is also a much easier game when the opponent can’t see you and has to guess as to where you are.

No, I don’t want maximum blind spam. Is that the only option to fix Thieves if you take away their ability to just go into stealth as it pleases them? Just the ability to blind/evade permanently until their opponent is dead? If that’s the trade-off, what does that say for the current incarnation of Stealth?

I’ve watched streamers play D/P Thief. I’ve payed close attention to D/P Thief opponents. Everything about it screams easy-mode, where the opponent needs light-years more experience fighting it than the Thief needs experience using it. That’s my issue. S/P might be similar in a 1v1 situation, but I regularly recognize S/P Thieves timing their shadowsteps to dodge abilities or break LoS.

I’m sorry for kind of hijacking this in a Thief-centric direction, but really don’t think people would be asking for more anti-Stealth if Stealth wasn’t so prevalent, and it really isn’t very prevalent on any class besides Thief. Mesmers have more access than any class besides Thief, but that’s their entire survival utility, and when it goes down it means bad times for the Mesmer. Engis have access to it, but it takes a combo and there’s only one combo they can self-create, IIRC.

D/P Thief might not bother me this much if it wasn’t the only thing in the game currently that I can’t rationalize/think is over the top, as a WvW Roamer. D/D Thief I can understand because to mostly guarantee the initial CnD you have to blow Steal as well, otherwise you can dodge their ability to go back into stealth. Even though Steal doesn’t have a telegraph so the Thief just suddenly blinks in for the stun/BS combo, it’s on a Cooldown. There’s a price for it not being pulled off without issue, because your next stealth might get countered. Countering the D/P stealth entrance is just playing at silly buggers, and probably a large part in why people want to be able to reveal, since Thieves are always going back into Stealth without really blowing cooldowns.

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

That’s a very creative and possible solution…3-4 seems a bit much though. Only problem with it is the initiative cost…maybe 2-3 init.

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

the thing about making missed back stabs cost initiative
is it would only hurt in fights where it is thief VS anything in stealth.
the only time a thief will spam the stab in stealth is if they r trying to hit another player in stealth .
just making stealth on stealth fights harder for no reason

I am not asking for an excessive amount of Reveal skills, both of the skills I mentioned for Warrior have a long CD and I don’t want the debuff to last more than 3-4 seconds (which is the standard length).

In an average fight you would get to use it once.

Also, I’m not ignoring people but I have other things to do than respond to each and every negative post. Especially since most of them are “l2p” and other unhelpful nonsense. I clearly state my main because I know that it colors my views, but at least I’m up-front about this. I am not asking for direct nerfs to stealth, I am asking for some functionality on underused skills. While that is a indirect nerf it’s unlikely to actually change much considering most won’t swap out a skill just to counter one type of build.

anti stealth on a war that would be insane .
thats hands down the most op thief nerf i have seen requested on the forums
besides deleting the class lol
plz tell me this whole thing is sarcastic or a nightmare lol

caveman.5840:

the thing about making missed back stabs cost initiative
is it would only hurt in fights where it is thief VS anything in stealth.
the only time a thief will spam the stab in stealth is if they r trying to hit another player in stealth .
just making stealth on stealth fights harder for no reason

It is a perfectly good reason if you ask me. If you do not want to lose the initiative, do not swing at something you cannot see. Other professions have skills that lose their entire resource for said skill when they miss, and by that I mean every skill on every other profession. What your suggesting is exactly like suggesting that if a player on another profession uses a skill after a player is in stealth, that their skills used should not go on cool down.

{a auto attack with a cool down}. idk u may have your reason
but that just sounds wrong

EDIT ..of corse there is no “stealth auto attack” but u know what i mean ‘__’
and i guess u could say it has a cool down if u count revealed time

but if some one is blocking and u hit them i think it would be reasonable to add a revealed time

caveman.5840:

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

the thing about making missed back stabs cost initiative
is it would only hurt in fights where it is thief VS anything in stealth.
the only time a thief will spam the stab in stealth is if they r trying to hit another player in stealth .
just making stealth on stealth fights harder for no reason

Not true at all. Many, many, many times thieves have tried to backstab me while I’m blocking, evading, or dodging. When they miss, they just keep spamming until it lands. They should be punished for that somehow.

If I manage to predict the timing of the backstab and dodge roll, currently the thief loses nothing, but I lose half of my endurance. That makes no sense.

As I said, if an intelligent thief is skilled enough to clear my block using a stealth auto attack, I’m ok with that. It is just the free backstab spamming that needs to be fixed.

Best thief counter:
Turn around in circles spamming #1

man that gameplay.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Best thief counter:
Turn around in circles spamming #1

man that gameplay.

LOL that’s exactly what I do when im on my thief fighting another thief. I tank so much damage just by doing that…A lot of times they don’t even try to backstab.

cyyrix.6105:

caveman.5840:

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

the thing about making missed back stabs cost initiative
is it would only hurt in fights where it is thief VS anything in stealth.
the only time a thief will spam the stab in stealth is if they r trying to hit another player in stealth .
just making stealth on stealth fights harder for no reason

Not true at all. Many, many, many times thieves have tried to backstab me while I’m blocking, evading, or dodging. When they miss, they just keep spamming until it lands. They should be punished for that somehow.

If I manage to predict the timing of the backstab and dodge roll, currently the thief loses nothing, but I lose half of my endurance. That makes no sense.

As I said, if an intelligent thief is skilled enough to clear my block using a stealth auto attack, I’m ok with that. It is just the free backstab spamming that needs to be fixed.

If a theif use CnD they have 3 seconds to get behind you and hit you with backstab.
3 seconds if you wait 1 second then dodge they are revealed already.
Also there is no such thing as stealth autoattack. Any attack from stealth reveal them.
It need to stay like that because otherwise it would be way too easy to block every single try with any profession.

tom.7468:

Any attack from stealth reveal them.
It need to stay like that because otherwise it would be way too easy to block every single try with any profession.

So you would have to use more than 2 abilities in order to kill people, or otherwise adapt with proper timing? That certainly would be unfortunate.

I agree that stealth requires more counters, however they certainly should not be given to the Warrior, which is one of the few classes that’s actually effective at countering stealth-heavy specs right now, as well as being generally over-powered.

Give anti-stealth to Rangers, Eles, Necros, and Mesmers. Warriors, Guardians, Engineers, and Thieves don’t require it nearly as much, as they tend to be better at countering things like Thieves as is. Or, alternatively, just make revealed apply on block.

tom.7468:

cyyrix.6105:

caveman.5840:

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

the thing about making missed back stabs cost initiative
is it would only hurt in fights where it is thief VS anything in stealth.
the only time a thief will spam the stab in stealth is if they r trying to hit another player in stealth .
just making stealth on stealth fights harder for no reason

Not true at all. Many, many, many times thieves have tried to backstab me while I’m blocking, evading, or dodging. When they miss, they just keep spamming until it lands. They should be punished for that somehow.

If I manage to predict the timing of the backstab and dodge roll, currently the thief loses nothing, but I lose half of my endurance. That makes no sense.

As I said, if an intelligent thief is skilled enough to clear my block using a stealth auto attack, I’m ok with that. It is just the free backstab spamming that needs to be fixed.

If a theif use CnD they have 3 seconds to get behind you and hit you with backstab.
3 seconds if you wait 1 second then dodge they are revealed already.
Also there is no such thing as stealth autoattack. Any attack from stealth reveal them.
It need to stay like that because otherwise it would be way too easy to block every single try with any profession.

Dodging lasts 0.75 seconds. According to your scenario, if I wait 1 second and then dodge the backstab, the thief still has 1.25 seconds left to land the backstab. If I dodge a second time, the thief still has 0.5 seconds to continue attempting, yet I’m out of endurance. That’s terrible game design. Thieves literally have nothing to lose by spamming backstab over and over and over again until it lands.

As I said previously, my solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. This punishes thieves for missing a backstab, but doesn’t reveal them. Revealing the thief for a missed attack would be way too harsh.

Furthermore, I suggest moving backstab up to f2 to give thieves an auto attack while in stealth. With that, intelligent thieves can clear blind/aegis at no initiative cost before proceeding with a backstab attempt.

Have you even thought about what making bs cost 3-4 init would do to a thief that does play well? CnD, backstab, be left with 2 init for your troubles. Have fun auto attacking.

People always suggest such incredible overnerfs.

Warriors demanding thief nerf is too funny.

I don’t even teef and have zero problems.

T raw.4658:

Warriors demanding thief nerf is too funny.

I don’t even teef and have zero problems.

It’s not just warriors, people from every profession have said it. Even thieves have said that their class is utterly broken and has been since beta.

Cygnus.6903:

Have you even thought about what making bs cost 3-4 init would do to a thief that does play well? CnD, backstab, be left with 2 init for your troubles. Have fun auto attacking.

People always suggest such incredible overnerfs.

How is that different than any other class that has actual cool downs on their skills and have to auto attack while they wait for them come of CD? True that 3 or 4 might be too much, but there should be a cost to spamming your skills. At the moment ther isn’t.

I don’t agree that stealth is too strong right now, but the ACCESS to it however, is a bit too much. IMO, it’s because of the infamous D/P stealth combo causing it. It allows you to stealth without the enemy able to cancel it out in close range due to blind, and can only be interrupted at long range only if the blind missed. That set alone is what makes stealth annoying for people in this game. Get rid of the stealthing combo on that weapon set, and you won’t see complaints about stealth much anymore.

I would say offhand Dagger’s Cloak and Dagger is annoying too, but that’s way too easy to counter just because they have to be in close range (130 range) to have it connect. Meaning any and all AoEs near yourself, cleave attacks, etc, are going to hit a thief trying for it, guaranteed.

I ply thief, its stealth is laughably opd. It’s made this game an utter joke among gamers.

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

This would actually be even worse.

As you’d spend 6 initiative on CnD and against say, a guardian, which has permanent auto-aegis when entering a combat situation, thus requiring another CnD, putting you at around 5-6 by regen, and you’d spend the other 6 getting into stealth on the first defense break, leaving the thief at 0, and the guard could just pop blocks or his aegis again. Now the thief’s only option is to literally wait for his initiative to recharge before he can even make any attack at all, which would be exactly when stealth ends, thus leaving stealth and trying to just auto-attack the guard to death while waiting for init regen with an already-low initiative pool (good luck with that). Okay, so the thief autos the first aegis and manages a CnD on the second. He’s now got 4/5 init to stab, the guard re-applies aegis, and now the thief is back to less than enough to stab while stealthed. All this does is simply encourage thieves even more to build into SA/init regen builds which are already overly-prevalent and why people are complaining.

Thief’s attacks should not reveal from stealth. What should be done is penalize permastealth and stealth chaining by increasing the revealed timer based upon how long the thief was stealth for. Now you have thieves which either sit in stealth and do not re-enter combat to heal/reset (thus allowing the other person to effectively have a fight reset), or ones which utilize almost no stealth uptime and thus will be subsequently be revealed for constant short intervals.

Consequently, you also have very good interplay with the new Deadly Arts skill, which yields the user +200 power while revealed. Thieves could now stage and ambush with a stealth setup and then smack for some damage with P/P or S/P for an extended period.

I’d also like to see heartseeker spam nerfed. Having it take penalties to damage based upon the target’s current HP with a higher base value to compensate would let the skill remain to be a good finisher but prevent it from being spammable, such as having it take a 1% damage reduction for each percentage point of health the target has, with the value at 25% being the same as the current value is.

Therefore an opening HS will deal only 1% of its current maximum damage, but its finishing damage on targets <= 25% health will either be the same or increase.

Sanduskel.1850:

I ply thief, its stealth is laughably opd. It’s made this game an utter joke among gamers.

As someone with a fresh outlook (about 1 week in) on this game, the way the community acts is way worse than stealth could ever be. I mean, there are players willing to spell their profession out to those who know nothing about it but half the time those players refuse the advice and continue to get killed by them. And it isn’t exclusive to this game.

Also as someone who likes to do plenty of research before jumping on anything, I don’t mean to pry but I’ve seen how people react to your posts so I looked at your post history and I can see why they act that way.

You need to stop overexaggerating stealth. It isn’t op and can be countered, just not in a way everyone wants. And this counter requires more than just a button press. Needs work but easily doable. Why do you think I started one?

yolo swaggins.2570:

Sanduskel.1850:

I ply thief, its stealth is laughably opd. It’s made this game an utter joke among gamers.

As someone with a fresh outlook (about 1 week in) on this game, the way the community acts is way worse than stealth could ever be. I mean, there are players willing to spell their profession out to those who know nothing about it but half the time those players refuse the advice and continue to get killed by them. And it isn’t exclusive to this game.

Also as someone who likes to do plenty of research before jumping on anything, I don’t mean to pry but I’ve seen how people react to your posts so I looked at your post history and I can see why they act that way.

You need to stop overexaggerating stealth. It isn’t op and can be countered, just not in a way everyone wants. And this counter requires more than just a button press. Needs work but easily doable. Why do you think I started one?

This.

Just because you’ve met a really good thief who manages to completely destroy you, does not mean it’s a good representative of the entire class. It takes finesse to master the moves, and a good player can make it seem effortless and easy and OP. But more often than not, you’ve just simply met a player who has outplayed you.

On the flipside, you could just be an average thief, and completely own a newbie who doesn’t know how to play against thieves. That doesn’t make you OP either.

Well these anti-stealth skills best be unblockable because anet thought it would be funny to reward mesmers with aegis on stealth. Why should a mesmer gain aegis, protection, and regeneration, just for using decoy/the prestige? I will never know, but stealth’s offensive/defensive capabilities alone are enough for even some engineers to fight to get into it.

As I’ve said before, I would prefer stealth stay as strong as it currently is but make it a reward for good play. In return give thieves/mesmers stronger out of stealth abilities (not so much mesmer). Skills like CnD, mass invisibility, and veil offer plenty of counter play should you expect it, but adding bp+hs, blinding powder, shadows refuge, decoy, and the prestige to the mix makes it difficult to leave the pace of a stealthing class. If stealth was a reward for good play maybe thief wouldn’t be riddled with ridiculous amounts of restrictions with many more to come imo.

Stealth is frankly over budget when used with stealth augmenting traits, but rather than removing them or adding equally cheesy unblockable counters, just add counter play to stealthing skills.

DeceiverX.8361:

cyyrix.6105:

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

I almost never side with thieves, but he’s right. That reveal change would destroy dp and dd.

My solution is to make backstab cost 3-4 initiative. If you spam backstab and miss, you should be punished somehow (but not revealed). Maybe move BS to f2 and then give a stealth auto attack so that the intelligent thieves can still clear blind/aegis at no cost.

This would actually be even worse.

As you’d spend 6 initiative on CnD and against say, a guardian, which has permanent auto-aegis when entering a combat situation, thus requiring another CnD, putting you at around 5-6 by regen, and you’d spend the other 6 getting into stealth on the first defense break, leaving the thief at 0, and the guard could just pop blocks or his aegis again.

Or ya know, you could not waste 6 initiative on a guardian’s auto-aegis and use an auto-attack to clear it instead…

I know, I know, way too much to ask for from a thief.

IMO the only thing that might need to be tweaked is how mesmers can stay stealthed and pop out phants. Phants are considered attacks after all (that’s why blind =’s no phant).

A stealthed thief isn’t dealing any damage and can’t cap when they are in stealth.

Thief’s stealth attacks are fine, the only means of entering stealth without risking their ini/utility cd is blinding powder. The rest can be countered.

You had your opportunity to counter it then and remove some important resources for the thief. Making the thief risk it again after in a way that’s so easily countered isn’t well balanced.

I know, I know, way too much to ask from a player to only have one opportunity to prevent the stealth… and then still be able to punish the thief while they are in stealth… and then another opportunity after they exit. Need more.

Lol a thief player defending stealth! Shocking!

Julie Yann.5379:

Cygnus.6903:

Have you even thought about what making bs cost 3-4 init would do to a thief that does play well? CnD, backstab, be left with 2 init for your troubles. Have fun auto attacking.

People always suggest such incredible overnerfs.

How is that different than any other class that has actual cool downs on their skills and have to auto attack while they wait for them come of CD? True that 3 or 4 might be too much, but there should be a cost to spamming your skills. At the moment ther isn’t.

it is different because the other class can use their skills without having to spend initiative.. ANY class other then thief has at least 10 skills available to them, weapon only. Whereas with this suggestion, if the thief uses cnd for instance, then backstabs, he would have two autoattacks and maybe one more low init cost skill available. The other class would still have eight.

thief has a weapon swap too, duh. But every attack other then auto and stealth attacks costs initiative.

Cygnus.6903:

Julie Yann.5379:

Cygnus.6903:

Have you even thought about what making bs cost 3-4 init would do to a thief that does play well? CnD, backstab, be left with 2 init for your troubles. Have fun auto attacking.

People always suggest such incredible overnerfs.

How is that different than any other class that has actual cool downs on their skills and have to auto attack while they wait for them come of CD? True that 3 or 4 might be too much, but there should be a cost to spamming your skills. At the moment ther isn’t.

it is different because the other class can use their skills without having to spend initiative.. ANY class other then thief has at least 10 skills available to them, weapon only. Whereas with this suggestion, if the thief uses cnd for instance, then backstabs, he would have two autoattacks and maybe one more low init cost skill available. The other class would still have eight.

thief has a weapon swap too, duh. But every attack other then auto and stealth attacks costs initiative.

I get that, I have a thief. I know how the initiative works and it is incredibly easy to get kills with (even easier than with my OP warrior). When people ask for anti-stealth it really is anti-thief measures they are looking for. Stealth problems aside, what is terribly broken, and is a source of a lot the QQ, is how initiative works. It allows spamming of some pretty high damaging skills. No other class has anything remotely like it in the game. It encourages the type of play which everyone hates and we all see in WvW (stealth in, spam kitten, stealth out, rinse repeat until enemy is dead).

So a thief sneaks up on you, spam BS or pulls a PW (Iknow this one isn’t technically spamming but the frequency at which you can pull off PW is too short), before you realize what happened and gtfo of the way you lost 20 to 80% percent of you health. If you are lucky (cause that what it takes to catch a stealthy thief, guessing his location is not skill) and manage to lock him down and burst you might stand a chance at killing him There should be a cost for spamming the same skill over and over again. Maybe if the amount of initiative needed increased with every consecutive use. it would still allow you a full range of skills, you just need to manage you initiative better. In the case of PW, an ICD should occur if it hits.

I don’t know about mesmers, but as a thief player I wouldn’t mind if they nerfed stealth in favour of being able to stay alive when NOT in stealth. Almost everything hits like a ton of bricks, and without stealth and running away, I would certainly die in any fight I end up in…

And lets be real, the only ‘long lasting’ stealth these days is the more then obvious telegraphed one, and more then often I get downed in this due to ele.bombs, swinging warriors, or feared out, or even immobilized with entangle. If you keep mobile than the dagger5 is hard to pull off, and the only really annoying instant stealth ‘blinding powder’ only lasts like 1,5 sec since the recent changes (even when traited for longer stealth, if it wasn’t instant it would be worthless beyond believe). Then there is the ‘heal stealth’ also telegraphed…

So really, ‘yes’ stealth is annoying at times, but there are tons of skills to counter ‘going into stealth’, and being in stealth doesn’t stop ‘condition ticks’ or even ‘being hit’. So yes please, moar hard counters please!! And balance it with more survivability for the thief, and stat.options other than ‘glass’… because now it is ‘hit and run or die’ … and any sole nerf to stealth would make it merely a ‘die on encounter’ class…

Cygnus.6903:

Julie Yann.5379:

Cygnus.6903:

Have you even thought about what making bs cost 3-4 init would do to a thief that does play well? CnD, backstab, be left with 2 init for your troubles. Have fun auto attacking.

People always suggest such incredible overnerfs.

How is that different than any other class that has actual cool downs on their skills and have to auto attack while they wait for them come of CD? True that 3 or 4 might be too much, but there should be a cost to spamming your skills. At the moment ther isn’t.

it is different because the other class can use their skills without having to spend initiative.. ANY class other then thief has at least 10 skills available to them, weapon only. Whereas with this suggestion, if the thief uses cnd for instance, then backstabs, he would have two autoattacks and maybe one more low init cost skill available. The other class would still have eight.

thief has a weapon swap too, duh. But every attack other then auto and stealth attacks costs initiative.

So you’d have to invest more heavily into your weapon “cooldowns” in order to get a burst of damage + the avoidance of stealth. Failure has consequences and might make you have to use a utility in order to be safe, or maybe weapon swap to have other options available given the circumstances.

That doesn’t sound reasonable to you? Why not, exactly? Would you rather they removed Initiative, put CnD and Black Powder on 25-30 second cooldowns, and gave you the potential to use all of your weapon abilities? I dare you to say yes. I dare you to claim that spending your cooldown resource on only the best abilities you have is suboptimal to having long cooldowns on them and needing to switch weapons.

Cygnus.6903:

This is a thief nerf.

therefor, it should never be implemented without significantly buffing thief survivability options out of stealth. D/P and D/D would become unusable instantly otherwise.

IMO, stealth is not a problem right now.

This is a very misleading. You are asking for thief survivability to be buffed for compensation. But what you don’t realize is that a zerker thief has the highest survivability out of any zerker class, this includes the heavy classes like warrior and guardian as well.

The question is how can that be? Stealth and blinds. Not being hit is the best form of mitigation. If stealth was nerfed the compensation is for thief players to pick up a defensive trinket like cleric, soldier etc if they want to survive. This is what every other class has to do, why should thief be any different?