Guild Wars 2

Stealth is currently over powered.
No one likes fighting stealth-builds because there simply nothing you can do about it. If a thief wants he can enter stealth and escape. Mesmers can be in stealth almost the entire fight while their phantasms keep bursting their target.

A lot of people suggest direct nerfs to stealth, and I think that’s actually not a good idea.
The game shouldn’t have a complicated system to nerf stealth (one of the game’s core feature is simplicity – limited amount of skills/boons/conditions to make the game easy to understand).
And it shouldn’t completely punish stealth builds into a point that thieves and mesmers are free-kills.

I suggest a different approach, which ANet already made the first step into.
Add anti-stealth skills. (not really adding new skills, just adding anti stealth to current under-used skills).
Players should be given tools that they can chose to take over others, in order to deal with stealth builds. Skills like “Sic’ Em!” (though they should be better because sic em is too weak).

This is the list of skill tweaks I think we should have as a start:

Ranger
- Sic Em! (shout skill): The ‘Revealed’ duration should match the actual skill duration, which is 10s.
- Bonfire (torch skill #5): Apply (once) ‘Revealed’ for 5 seconds to nearby foes range.
- Hunter’s Shot (longbow skill #3): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target if it hits. by applying Stealth to self and keeping your target in sight it would serve better the concept of the skill.

Engineer
- Analyze (Utility Goggles’ tool belt skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 5s to the target.
- Rifled Turret Barrels (trait): Turrets’ active skills apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target if it hits. This might need an ICD of 10 seconds.

Guardian
- Zealot’s Flame (torch skill #4): Apply Revealed to nearby foes as long as the effect is maintained (it can be maintained for 3 seconds).
- Binding Jeopardy (trait): Also apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds on immobilize (currently it only applies vulnerability.

Necromancer
- Banshee’s Wail(trait): Warhorn skills will also apply ‘Revealed’ if on hit.

Elementalist
- Lightning Surge(staff air attunement #2 skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target on hit.
- Lightning Flash(cantrip teleport skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to targets in the radius range(130).

Warrior
- “On My Mark!”(shout skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target.

Mesmer
- Signet of Midnight(signet skill): Also apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds (on the active part of the signet).

Thief
- Shadow Trap(trap skill): when using Shadow Pursuit on the marked foe it also applies ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds.

What do you guys think?

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

Zacchary.6183:

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness. I run apothecary, and a guildie runs Soldier’s. We don’t die out of stealth, and if we’re stealthing, we’re running from battle. Actually wear something that keeps your toughness and/or vitality up, you’ll die less.

here the solution for your stealth issue:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-Black-Powder/page/2#post3536597

Revealed counters like 50% of thief traits, its active defense 50 33%, All stealth attacks. So…no.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness. I run apothecary, and a guildie runs Soldier’s. We don’t die out of stealth, and if we’re stealthing, we’re running from battle. Actually wear something that keeps your toughness and/or vitality up, you’ll die less.

A thief doesn’t invest in toughness or vitality because it does not help, unless of course they want to hit like a dry sponge.

Another thing, revealed nullifies a whole traitline and kills thief survivability so giving them a small cushion like kitten protection on revealed would balance all those hard counters.

There’s really not that much wrong with stealth and I completely disagree with this approach to nerfing it. While I do think there should be more stealth counters I most certainly don’t think every class should have one. The Thief has other things to keep it balanced (lack of stability and protection for example).

The only problem with stealth right now is black powder and leap finishers. Simply changing this to a dark field instead of a smoke field would probably solve every problem with stealth left in this game.

The solution is to give stealthy professions better choices by giving them more skills that are not reliant on stealth. Mechanically, Thief are encouraged to go in stealth otherwise they cannot use their sneak attack skills. If Anet remove the stealth requirement on sneak attack and instead based it on position, then more stealth-less builds will be created.

However, stealth builds will still exists but you won’t have to see it often due to build diversity.

Changing bp to a darkfield wont be enough for Most ppl. Because you Know…perma blind! Perma evade! PermaFrost! Perma cnd chain stealth.
They want perma reveal Vs thieves!

Domey.9804:

Changing bp to a darkfield wont be enough for Most ppl. Because you Know…perma blind! Perma evade! PermaFrost! Perma cnd chain stealth.
They want perma reveal Vs thieves!

There are many stealth-less builds that could careless about revealed debuff with similar or more potent than a stealth build.

Great proposal. But we also need skills to counter all the other profession strengths too:

- Remove all adrenaline on hit
- Remove death shroud on hit
- Kill all illusions in a radius of 600
- Kill ranger pets on hit
- Kill all necro pets on hit (oh forgot, its called moa hehe)
- Interrupt blocks an invulns on hit
- Set all attunements on cooldown
- Set all kits on cooldown

When all those stupid garbage is out of the game, we finally can all smash everyones face by spamming #1 all day long.

Imagine running into a small group (think 2 or 3) made up of ANY combination of classes with these proposed changes.

0 stealth uptime.

Nope.

Zacchary.6183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness. I run apothecary, and a guildie runs Soldier’s. We don’t die out of stealth, and if we’re stealthing, we’re running from battle. Actually wear something that keeps your toughness and/or vitality up, you’ll die less.

A thief doesn’t invest in toughness or vitality because it does not help, unless of course they want to hit like a dry sponge.

Another thing, revealed nullifies a whole traitline and kills thief survivability so giving them a small cushion like kitten protection on revealed would balance all those hard counters.

i’m not one to say anything on this since i mainly run a build that doesn’t use much stealth but…if a thief only considers backstab as his primarily offensive means, he can invest in some defensive stats. the key is the hidden killer trait. the rest you can probably guess.

Mesmers and thieves need stealth to stay alive. That’s how Anet built those classes. I’m okay for toning down the stealth mechanics, but then you need to give something to those 2 classes to compensate the loss.
But those 2 classes only received nerfs so far, so you know where this is going.

Fhaeris.9237:

Mesmers and thieves need stealth to stay alive. That’s how Anet built those classes. I’m okay for toning down the stealth mechanics, but then you need to give something to those 2 classes to compensate the loss.
But those 2 classes only received nerfs so far, so you know where this is going.

yup agreed. well ill give u all my mesmer stealth if i get aoe dmg, bugs fixed, less ai and more ways to remove condis and immobilize and stability and all that. so im not a veilbot anymore and can actually survive yay!

Zacchary.6183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness. I run apothecary, and a guildie runs Soldier’s. We don’t die out of stealth, and if we’re stealthing, we’re running from battle. Actually wear something that keeps your toughness and/or vitality up, you’ll die less.

A thief doesn’t invest in toughness or vitality because it does not help, unless of course they want to hit like a dry sponge.

Another thing, revealed nullifies a whole traitline and kills thief survivability so giving them a small cushion like kitten protection on revealed would balance all those hard counters.

Then join the club… this is the same issue that every class faces except with perma-stealth you can go full berserker and still have decent survivability.

The poor old Elementalist in berserker doesn’t have this luxury.

Buff other defensive traits for thieves and mesmers, but the perma-stealth is ridiculous.

Avigrus.2871:

Zacchary.6183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness. I run apothecary, and a guildie runs Soldier’s. We don’t die out of stealth, and if we’re stealthing, we’re running from battle. Actually wear something that keeps your toughness and/or vitality up, you’ll die less.

A thief doesn’t invest in toughness or vitality because it does not help, unless of course they want to hit like a dry sponge.

Another thing, revealed nullifies a whole traitline and kills thief survivability so giving them a small cushion like kitten protection on revealed would balance all those hard counters.

Then join the club… this is the same issue that every class faces except with perma-stealth you can go full berserker and still have decent survivability.

The poor old Elementalist in berserker doesn’t have this luxury.

Buff other defensive traits for thieves and mesmers, but the perma-stealth is ridiculous.

mes doent have perma stealth its 4 stealthes:
veil(90 seconds cooldown,3sec stealth with pu)
massinvis(90 seconds cooldown, 6 seconds stealth with pu)
torch (if traited 24 seconds cooldown, 4 seconds stealth with pu)
decoy (40 seconds cooldown, 4 seconds stealth with pu)

the only one that happens more often is the torch one, but first off, not all pu mes carrie all 4 of these, second after decoy,veil and massinvis is used up, the only stealth left is the torch one, so there is no way a mesmer can perma stealth.

just fyi i cant go full berserker without a high risk, i dont have as many evades as a thief and also im a light armor class, plus most pu are condi based. im power pu with pvt gear as i fight in zergs, the only reason i use pu is because the torch removes condis and pu give me some protection wich i badly need in this terrible cc spam fest meta.
believe me id rather have less ai and more aoe on my mes. would make me more than a stupid veilbot or a roamer.
a glassy thief has a little less risk as the mesmer, but even with the thieves near perma stealth they gotta be careful. i destroy glassy thieves if they make a mistake.
i’d say give me stabiity and more viable options in wvw and u can have my stealth.
i used to not use stealth at all when there were more options for me.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness.

Remember everyone: 1v1 PvP. It’s the only game mode which matters! :P

DanSH.6143:

Stealth is currently over powered.
No one likes fighting stealth-builds because there simply nothing you can do about it. If a thief wants he can enter stealth and escape. Mesmers can be in stealth almost the entire fight while their phantasms keep bursting their target.

A lot of people suggest direct nerfs to stealth, and I think that’s actually not a good idea.
The game shouldn’t have a complicated system to nerf stealth (one of the game’s core feature is simplicity – limited amount of skills/boons/conditions to make the game easy to understand).
And it shouldn’t completely punish stealth builds into a point that thieves and mesmers are free-kills.

I suggest a different approach, which ANet already made the first step into.
Add anti-stealth skills. (not really adding new skills, just adding anti stealth to current under-used skills).
Players should be given tools that they can chose to take over others, in order to deal with stealth builds. Skills like “Sic’ Em!” (though they should be better because sic em is too weak).

This is the list of skill tweaks I think we should have as a start:

Ranger
- Sic Em! (shout skill): The ‘Revealed’ duration should match the actual skill duration, which is 10s.
- Bonfire (torch skill #5): Apply (once) ‘Revealed’ for 5 seconds to nearby foes range.
- Hunter’s Shot (longbow skill #3): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target if it hits. by applying Stealth to self and keeping your target in sight it would serve better the concept of the skill.

Engineer
- Analyze (Utility Goggles’ tool belt skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 5s to the target.
- Rifled Turret Barrels (trait): Turrets’ active skills apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target if it hits. This might need an ICD of 10 seconds.

Guardian
- Zealot’s Flame (torch skill #4): Apply Revealed to nearby foes as long as the effect is maintained (it can be maintained for 3 seconds).
- Binding Jeopardy (trait): Also apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds on immobilize (currently it only applies vulnerability.

Necromancer
- Banshee’s Wail(trait): Warhorn skills will also apply ‘Revealed’ if on hit.

Elementalist
- Lightning Surge(staff air attunement #2 skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target on hit.
- Lightning Flash(cantrip teleport skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to targets in the radius range(130).

Warrior
- “On My Mark!”(shout skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target.

Mesmer
- Signet of Midnight(signet skill): Also apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds (on the active part of the signet).

Thief
- Shadow Trap(trap skill): when using Shadow Pursuit on the marked foe it also applies ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds.

What do you guys think?

What do I think. LOL. I think you need to learn to play because your obviously a bad player that gets killed by thieves and doesn’t want to learn how to counter them. If professions can have anti stealth this is what i want.

Anti revealed trait like, whenever revealed is placed on you from an external source, revealed is removed.

I would also like anti stun skills against warriors, anti tool kit against engineers, anti phantasms against mesmers, anti fear/deathshroud against necros, anti healing and blocks against guardians, anti attunements [ie ele can not switch], and against rangers. hmm I can not actually think of one. How about anti pets/

There we go, if you want anti stealth that negates an entire trait line and makes thieves have literally 0 defense in an xv1 because if I try to fight 2v1 or 3v1 I will be revealed the entire fight, then I want immunity to revealed and counters to other classes.

Learn to play before whining on the forums. Just go pack to PvE where you belong because you obviously suck at SPVP and WvW

Carighan.6758:

RyuDragnier.9476:

I laughed. If you’re dying when not in stealth you’re obviously running something that has no vitality or toughness.

Remember everyone: 1v1 PvP. It’s the only game mode which matters! :P

I don’t 1v1 that often, I’m usually scouting through stealth, I’m with a small group, or I’m with a zerg.

In the case of scouting, I’m using stealth to watch the enemy, and even then usually at the furthest range I can see them. In the case of them chasing after seeing me come out of it or a few trying to chase me down, I Steal to a target that’s just within Steal range in the direction I want to go, drop some Caltrops, and start using Heartseeker to gain distance. If there’s a large group that has gotten too close to me to where I don’t think I’ll be able to escape, I waste Dagger Storm trying to get away in the hopes that they’re fools who won’t CC and don’t have retal up. Mainly so I can either survive long enough for Blinding Powder to come back off cooldown so I can start my escape, or I can take one of them out before I go down myself.

In the case of small group, I save the stealth for allies I need to save from downed state or in the case of us all needing to run.

In the case of zerging, I save it for helping those just downed.

In most cases, I’m actually never in stealth 90% of the time just because I know I can survive well outside of it thanks to the healing power and toughness (with Signet of Malice on as well). I’ve actually survived running through a 30 man zerg to get back into Bay while out of stealth.

I pvped for a long time in a game where combat was 10x faster and everyone had access to stealth/invisibility and I’ve gotta say, the stealth and counter stealth mechanics here are worst I’ve ever seen in my history of mmos.

my general feelings about gw2…
It’s disappointing to see anet/ncsoft put so little resources and effort into their class and combat systems when there is so much more potential here.

I like how a majority of people in this thread believe thief will be utterly broken without stealth. That alone should say a whole lot about the class.

Basically I would rather see Anet give you thieves far more evades in place of stealth. That way I can at least see you and react appropriately, and no more stealth stomping which is among the cheapest things in the game.

In fact, I really wish stealth would go away in the PvP environment in general. Mesmers have phantasms and clones, and thieves should have better visible evades. Why would you need stealth again?

godofcows.2451:

i’m not one to say anything on this since i mainly run a build that doesn’t use much stealth but…if a thief only considers backstab as his primarily offensive means, he can invest in some defensive stats. the key is the hidden killer trait. the rest you can probably guess.

Hidden Killer, while revealed? Are you sure you just said that? Or are you thinking they should change Hidden Killer to grant 100% crit chance while revealed?

Gotejjeken.1267:

I like how a majority of people in this thread believe thief will be utterly broken without stealth. That alone should say a whole lot about the class.

It will be, as damage (backstab, sneakattack), survival (condition removal and healing) and control (tactical strike, surprise shot and invis) depend it. Plus the thieves archetypical

Non stealth is played in PvP, which is quite different from Wvw. There are very few videos of stealth-less Wvw roaming thieves to show how viable non-stealth actually is.

I really enjoyed sword main, while it was viable.

Basically I would rather see Anet give you thieves far more evades in place of stealth.

They tried that briefly, then killed it again.

frans.8092:

godofcows.2451:

i’m not one to say anything on this since i mainly run a build that doesn’t use much stealth but…if a thief only considers backstab as his primarily offensive means, he can invest in some defensive stats. the key is the hidden killer trait. the rest you can probably guess.

Hidden Killer, while revealed? Are you sure you just said that? Or are you thinking they should change Hidden Killer to grant 100% crit chance while revealed?

He means if you’re focusing on backstab, you need to run D/D, have Hidden Killer, wear something like Cavalier’s, and then CnD followed by a backstab for the burst. Cavalier’s has Toughness there, so a full Cavalier’s set will still have the Crit Dmg and (to a lesser extent) Power from Zerker, except you’ll also have that tanky defense to help you survive out of stealth. It’s a pretty solid set for damage, though I suggest 2nd set S/P if you go that route so you can have some good evasions in there.

RyuDragnier.9476:

He means if you’re focusing on backstab, you need to run D/D, have Hidden Killer,

And how is Hidden Killer going to do anything when you are revealed most of the time, as was suggested?

frans.8092:

RyuDragnier.9476:

He means if you’re focusing on backstab, you need to run D/D, have Hidden Killer,

And how is Hidden Killer going to do anything when you are revealed most of the time, as was suggested?

3s reveal? Are you telling me you can’t survive 3 seconds? If so, l2p man, l2p.

RyuDragnier.9476:

frans.8092:

RyuDragnier.9476:

He means if you’re focusing on backstab, you need to run D/D, have Hidden Killer,

And how is Hidden Killer going to do anything when you are revealed most of the time, as was suggested?

3s reveal? Are you telling me you can’t survive 3 seconds? If so, l2p man, l2p.

Have you difficulty remembering the context of the posts? Are you reading seprate posts? Read the thread and place posts within context.

frans.8092:

RyuDragnier.9476:

frans.8092:

RyuDragnier.9476:

He means if you’re focusing on backstab, you need to run D/D, have Hidden Killer,

And how is Hidden Killer going to do anything when you are revealed most of the time, as was suggested?

3s reveal? Are you telling me you can’t survive 3 seconds? If so, l2p man, l2p.

Have you difficulty remembering the context of the posts? Are you reading seprate posts? Read the thread and place posts within context before continuing to make yourself look like a fool.

I followed the post chain. You made a nonsensical leap originally from godofcows post. In that post he was saying that you can get some equipment to help deal with the out of stealth survivability, and still do massive damage focusing around backstab thanks to Hidden Killer guaranteeing a crit when you use it. Then you somehow jumped to it not mattering while revealed, that it destroys the trait instantly. Except reveal only lasts 3 seconds, and the trait only activates in stealth, which made your comment nonsensical. I think anybody looking at this might wonder where your leaps in logic are coming from.

But if you’re referring to what the OP is asking for, you need to specify, otherwise it sounds like you’re referring to how we can build for backstab damage and survival outside of stealth with the current reveal of 3s.

@OP:

If there is an increase in revealed, then the thief needs a big increase in damage. Less stealth attacks mean they need to be stronger when they happen.

The big thing about stealth is not so much that you cant see the person its the effects that are coming with stealth thf and mez both have means of capitalizing on there stealth giving them a strong reg effect and other boons when in stealth. It makes the effect of stealth the strongest def skill in the game. You do not want to add in a means of destorying stealth for every class in that its only going to conter 2 classes in the game (eng rng can stealth too but its a great deal weeker and not a class effect). Its good to have some means of removing stealth but to placse it on a lot of effects may be over doing it.

What i think needs to be done is make stealth less rewarding maybe makes some skill brake the stealth effect have boon effects when in stealth weaker and go off at a slower rate. At the same time i want to see attk out of stealth very rewarding with the risk of going out of stealth if you miss some how. I think all attks out of stealth should be a 100% crit for all classes and have thf and mez able to push a higher dmg crit if they feel want to by building in such a way.

Over all i want stealth to have a risk but with a better dmg rewarded and not a def reward from just sitting in stealth for as long as you can (its non interacting its easy to get the full effect out of it and its boring painfully boring).

RyuDragnier.9476:

frans.8092:

RyuDragnier.9476:

frans.8092:

RyuDragnier.9476:

He means if you’re focusing on backstab, you need to run D/D, have Hidden Killer,

And how is Hidden Killer going to do anything when you are revealed most of the time, as was suggested?

3s reveal? Are you telling me you can’t survive 3 seconds? If so, l2p man, l2p.

Have you difficulty remembering the context of the posts? Are you reading seprate posts? Read the thread and place posts within context before continuing to make yourself look like a fool.

I followed the post chain. You made a nonsensical leap originally from godofcows post.

He made the non-sensical suggestion to use Hidden Killer + Cavalier to compensate for the reduced survival from the increased revealed time, while Hidden Killer needs stealth to work. More revealed -> less stealth -> less Hidden Killer, there is nothing nonsensical about that.

… reveal only lasts 3 seconds, and the trait only activates in stealth, …

Read the OP, his suggestions for reveal have longer durations then 3 seconds

I think anybody looking at this might wonder where your leaps in logic are coming from.

I am certainly amazed that you qualify the logical steps that more time in revealed means less stealth and thus less use of Hidden Killer as ‘nonsensical leaps’

But if you’re referring to what the OP is asking for, you need to specify,

No, it’s a discussion thread about his suggestion, I do not need to specify that, it is the given context.

Addressing the perma-revealed argument:

• Most classes mechanics/specs can be countered by a different mechanic/spec.
  - Poison counters healing.
  - Blindess counters one shots (example: d/p thief vs Rifle-Kill Shot warrior).
  - High mobility counter low mobility. (example: Fresh Air s/f Ele vs melee Warrior)l
  - CC counters lack of stability and stunbreakers. (Stunlock Warrior vs Terror Necro)l
  - Stability and stunbreakers counter CC. (Ranger with RaO vs Stunlock Warrior)l
  - Boon-removal counters Boon-dependant builds (s/d Thief vs Ranger with RaO)l
  - Condition spike counters lack of condi removal (Terror Necro vs Power Ranger).
  - Plenty of condition removal counters condition builds (Medit’ Guard vs Venom Thief)
  - Confusion and Retaliation counters channeling-spamming builds (PU mesmer vs s/p Thief)
  - Unblockable skills counter blocking skills.
  - Reflection counters projectiles-dependant builds (Mace/Sword Warrior vs Engi)
  - Stealth counters AI-dependent builds (d/p Thief vs GS Phantasm Mesmer)
  - Nothing counters stealth.

You see how pretty much everything in the game has a counter? but it’s not like everyone have access to boon removal/unblockable/reflection/stability/cond removal etc.
Every class has a few skills and traits that grants some of them. There are plenty of heavy boon-removal builds but heavy-boon builds are still very viable, they’re just balanced with boon-removal in mind. Same thing with unblockable.
When Signet of Strength (warrior signet) was changed (from granting 5 stacks of might to "your next kittens are unblockable) Guardians absolutely raged.
The forums were overloaded with Guardians claiming warriors will be able to get through all of their defenses and that guardians are going to be nerfed to the ground with this change.
But guess what, no warrior ever uses Signet of Strength, turns out timing it prefectly to get through a block is too much effort, and taking another utility is better.

You can get perma-CC’d, perma-poisoned, perma-blinded, perma-confusion, perma-boon-corrupted ATM. But builds with no stability are still viable, builds that rely on healing are still viable, builds that rely on 1-shots are still viable, channeling-spam builds are still viable, and boon-dependent builds are still viable.
I see no reason why players won’t be able to be perma-revealed. Even if the class mechanic depends on stealth. Ranger’s pets get instantly killed by aoe when fighting in numbers (even in small scale ones), same thing with Mesmer’s clones (That’s why Phantasm mesmer is not viable in tPvP).
Even though you would be able to be perma-revealed, you would also be able to prevent it. Half of my suggested changes are activate-on-hit, meaning you can dodge/avoid it.
You already apply revealed to yourself, so you don’t care if someone applies revealed to you right after you came out of it yourself (it would have almost no effect), you’d be able to waste the opponent’s revealers and keep using stealth successfully.

All of what I wrote now was addressed primarily to thieves, considering only PU mesmers rely on stealth. A lot of mesmers are either Shatters ones or simply don’t use torch, and only rely on “Decoy” and “Mass Invisibility” or actually don’t have stealth at all. I don’t know if you know it, but “Decoy” doesn’t handle with ‘Revealed’ it will always stealth you no matter what.
In tpvp there’s no perma-stealth builds, d/p uses short-term stealth to backstab and couldn’t care less about revealed, and other meta builds (s/p and s/d) only use Shadow Refuge to revive/stomp. So the revealed-skills would only be able to counter those.

Also, consider that if someone would want to use any of the suggested skills/traits he/she would have to give up on something else that’s also important. How many warriors do you see running around with “On My Mark”? even shout healers don’t normally use it. How many mesmers use Signet of Midnight, and how many Guardians take “Binding Jeopardy”?
Any one of the ‘Revealed’ skills/traits would have to replace something crucial. I doubt Bunker Guardians would use torch and that Terror Neros will completely trash their build and start walking around with a warhorn.

Maybe some of the numbers need to be abjusted (10s on sic em is too try-hard-anti-stealth) but the idea itself and most of the suggestions are pretty balanced.
Stealth builds would still exist and would still be very efficient.

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I do that all the time and survive. It’s called SPECCING FOR SURVIVAL, something zerker thieves like yourself don’t understand. Want all that damage on a Warrior without having to sacrifice toughness? Take Cavalier. They can do just as much damage while still being able to take some hits. Do the same for yourself, you’ll find you won’t need stealth as much then…but I know you won’t, since you like to use it as a clutch so you don’t have to use any skill.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I do that all the time and survive. It’s called SPECCING FOR SURVIVAL, something zerker thieves like yourself don’t understand. Want all that damage on a Warrior without having to sacrifice toughness? Take Cavalier. They can do just as much damage while still being able to take some hits. Do the same for yourself, you’ll find you won’t need stealth as much then…but I know you won’t, since you like to use it as a clutch so you don’t have to use any skill.

I actually did run tanky thief build for a while when i was scouting for my wvw guild. The build is still a joke compared to what warriors or necros can accomplish and is pretty useless for pvp. Nobody in their right mind will take your thief with your build for any high rated pvp team.

I also find it really funny how you say “speccing for survival” when entire toughness tree is based on stealth lol.

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I forgot to mention that I also play a thief and a mesmer.
I played all classes so far and learned how to use their different specs, I can roll either one when needed (most pvp players do the same).

I played a stealth built thief for a pretty long time, and then played s/d and s/p too.
in tpvp atm, stealth is almost exclusively used for reviving/stomping. d/p uses it for backstabs and they don’t stay in the fight long enough to care about survival – they hit and run.
In pvp s/d and s/p Thief are ridiculously OP, in 1v1 they only use Shadow Refuge as stealth and they don’t even rely on it in anyway.
Check out the 1v1 servers, if an s/d thief gets in, he won’t leave (you have to leave when you lose there).

for some reason you think that by giving a few underused skills(which means they don’t work well in the meta) very short ‘Revealed’ duration, all of the sudden you can’t stealth anymore.
I’ve just written a pretty long reply about this, and I guess you haven’t read the whole thing through.

You already apply ‘Revealed’ to yourself applying it again to you while you’re revealed, has little to no effect at all.
As you can’t be targeted while stealthed, half of my suggestions wouldn’t be able to reveal you.

Cynz.9437:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I do that all the time and survive. It’s called SPECCING FOR SURVIVAL, something zerker thieves like yourself don’t understand. Want all that damage on a Warrior without having to sacrifice toughness? Take Cavalier. They can do just as much damage while still being able to take some hits. Do the same for yourself, you’ll find you won’t need stealth as much then…but I know you won’t, since you like to use it as a clutch so you don’t have to use any skill.

I actually did run tanky thief build for a while when i was scouting for my wvw guild. The build is still a joke compared to what warriors or necros can accomplish and is pretty useless for pvp. Nobody in their right mind will take your thief with your build for any high rated pvp team.

I also find it really funny how you say “speccing for survival” when entire toughness tree is based on stealth lol.

I meant in terms of equipment, you fool. If you’re QQing because you can’t survive outside of stealth, it’s your kitten equipment. Grab something with Power/Prec/Tough or Power/Tough/Crit so you won’t die as much outside of stealth. Stop trying to encourage people to stick with stealth when we all know that’s just going to encourage Anet to nerf the Thief class’s damage down further, or nerf stealth in a way to where it completely destroys the class. Because I guarantee it’ll end up that way if you keep trying to act like you have no options to help survival outside of stealth when you have plenty. You have teleports, blinds, evades, and adding toughness into that you get a kittentail of destruction that absolutely destroys players and makes you hard to nail down.

they need to get that stealth under control it
Its like a portal if I lay down aoe with bow they can go rite thru it

DanSH.6143:

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I forgot to mention that I also play a thief and a mesmer.
I played all classes so far and learned how to use their different specs, I can roll either one when needed (most pvp players do the same).

I played a stealth built thief for a pretty long time, and then played s/d and s/p too.
in tpvp atm, stealth is almost exclusively used for reviving/stomping. d/p uses it for backstabs and they don’t stay in the fight long enough to care about survival – they hit and run.
In pvp s/d and s/p Thief are ridiculously OP, in 1v1 they only use Shadow Refuge as stealth and they don’t even rely on it in anyway.
Check out the 1v1 servers, if an s/d thief gets in, he won’t leave (you have to leave when you lose there).

for some reason you think that by giving a few underused skills(which means they don’t work well in the meta) very short ‘Revealed’ duration, all of the sudden you can’t stealth anymore.
I’ve just written a pretty long reply about this, and I guess you haven’t read the whole thing through.

You already apply ‘Revealed’ to yourself applying it again to you while you’re revealed, has little to no effect at all.
As you can’t be targeted while stealthed, half of my suggestions wouldn’t be able to reveal you.

you just stated yourself that d/p uses stealth for BS, take a guess where main dmg comes from d/p? what else are they gonna do while sitting in revealed forever? do you want everyone run evade spec? really? you might have as well rename your post into: i want thieves have only 1 viable weapon set in pvp

@Rye: no matter how much tanky gear you stack on your character, there is absolutely nothing that backs up thief survivability outside of evades and stealth which both are based on avoiding dmg but not mitigating it…we do not have any traits or utilities that support toughness or vitality stacking, we do not have traits/utilities that support condi clean… no matter how tanky you build your thief you will only end up doing kittenty dmg (in comparson) and still drop pretty fast

Cynz.9437:

you just stated yourself that d/p uses stealth for BS, take a guess where main dmg comes from d/p?

If anything, they should change backstab so it requires you to actually be behind the target to get the 2x damage. Currently you can land it from anywhere but directly in the front.

Cynz.9437:

DanSH.6143:

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I forgot to mention that I also play a thief and a mesmer.
I played all classes so far and learned how to use their different specs, I can roll either one when needed (most pvp players do the same).

I played a stealth built thief for a pretty long time, and then played s/d and s/p too.
in tpvp atm, stealth is almost exclusively used for reviving/stomping. d/p uses it for backstabs and they don’t stay in the fight long enough to care about survival – they hit and run.
In pvp s/d and s/p Thief are ridiculously OP, in 1v1 they only use Shadow Refuge as stealth and they don’t even rely on it in anyway.
Check out the 1v1 servers, if an s/d thief gets in, he won’t leave (you have to leave when you lose there).

for some reason you think that by giving a few underused skills(which means they don’t work well in the meta) very short ‘Revealed’ duration, all of the sudden you can’t stealth anymore.
I’ve just written a pretty long reply about this, and I guess you haven’t read the whole thing through.

You already apply ‘Revealed’ to yourself applying it again to you while you’re revealed, has little to no effect at all.
As you can’t be targeted while stealthed, half of my suggestions wouldn’t be able to reveal you.

you just stated yourself that d/p uses stealth for BS, take a guess where main dmg comes from d/p? what else are they gonna do while sitting in revealed forever? do you want everyone run evade spec? really? you might have as well rename your post into: i want thieves have only 1 viable weapon set in pvp

@Rye: no matter how much tanky gear you stack on your character, there is absolutely nothing that backs up thief survivability outside of evades and stealth which both are based on avoiding dmg but not mitigating it…we do not have any traits or utilities that support toughness or vitality stacking, we do not have traits/utilities that support condi clean… no matter how tanky you build your thief you will only end up doing kittenty dmg (in comparson) and still drop pretty fast

As I already said multiple times, these said suggestions would berly impact stealth in-combat. You wouldn’t be perma revealed.

About Hidden Killer, the tricky parts is how you can kill without being hidden?
for me grand mastering Shadow Arts(Ninjutsu) + Hidden Killer d/d is the key as a thief.
oh and FOTM build for trolling

The best idea to counter stealth would be to remove it from the game. Why Anet introduced this mechanic I will never understand. Nothing brings more frustration and scares away newbies than stealth in this game. Get rid of it.

I think stealth is only a real problem in wvw. In spvp it is mostly useless as you cannot cap while in stealth and in pve who cares?

Well Anet added those traps, but they are useless in the situations where stealth is op (roaming).

Muchacho.2390:

I think stealth is only a real problem in wvw. In spvp it is mostly useless as you cannot cap while in stealth and in pve who cares?

Well Anet added those traps, but they are useless in the situations where stealth is op (roaming).

Well, unless you’re WILLING to put one down in a camp to troll a potential D/P thief. I’ve done it before…and then laughed my kitten off because the little zerker folded too easily.

Zacchary.6183:

Revealed completely turns them into mobile lootbags so I propose that thieves get protection on revealed to balance this.

Interesting concept, but I think this should be a trait, not an inherent mechanic of the Reveal debuff.

I honestly think the best answer is to tie stealth to skills with counter play already in place. Stealthing skills like CnD are perfectly fine (imo) and a thief who constantly gets it off on me deserves all the back stab/repositioning opportunities. Mass invisibility is another good example since it has a very telegraphed animation and a long cast.

Stealth from skills like bp + hs, blinding powder, shadow refuge, decoy, the prestige, and so on are problems because there are advantages on top of the already numerous amount of advantages you have for entering stealth and your opponents can do little to stop you.

Stealth is extremely powerful and rather than nerfing it to the point where it’s ok to be spammed, I’d rather see it get nerfed to the point where it’s usage is deserved. This way, we won’t have a similar situation to that of conditions (by this I mean your ability to combat stealth won’t be dependent on whether anet blessed your class hard enough or not) and both parties will require skill and timing to prevent/enter stealth. Of course I would expect classes like thief to gain better condition removal/damage mitigation abilities independent of stealth.

So, kind of curious…
What new roles will these changes bring to WvW thief?
And what are the current role(s) that the WvW thief has?
(nvm spvp, as the issue with capping… Plus majority of QQ’s come from WvW players)

DanSH.6143:

No one likes fighting stealth-builds because there simply nothing you can do about it.

No one likes to admit that they are too lazy to learn how to do something about it. I didn’t understand myself until I actually rolled a thief. Thief is only OP against the ignorant.