Guild Wars 2

Can we remove stealth spamming specs once and for all? Not to call it OP, but it pretty much ruins the gameplay of the player facing it. It’s not fun to fight and there are too less counters. The specs are too easy to master and sometimes are really strong.

Of course I mean D/P Thieves and PU mesmers with this. These 2 specs heavily rely on stealth. In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam. If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it. With D/P thieves you have blind spam just before stealthing. This makes it almost impossible to stun or interrupt them from stealthing and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

for me playing thief becomes too confusing:

1. What am I allowed to do? What not?
2. Should I go into stealth? – maybe there is somebody who doesn’t like this.
3. Dodging 3 times or should I play fair and only dodge every 4 seconds?
4. If I dodge too much my enemy will complain about me not using stealth – if i use too much stealth my enemy will also complain about my play style.
5. Maybe i play fair and rely on my block and invulnerable abilities.

PLEASE, PLEASE someone will have to write a manual for thieves including rules that say what are the combat-no-go’s for thieves.
It’s really annoying playing a class which no one wants to play against and which everyone counteract heavily outside the game. Nerfs are OK but sometimes i only wonder what i am reading.

50% irony and 50% truth.

I don’t play mesmer – can’t say anything at this point.

The problem with thieves is that they have to stealth in order to do damage. I’ve said it many times but they need a class rework so they don’t have to rely on stealth to do damage. Its not their fault that in order for them to do damage they have to spam stealth. Nerfing stealth for them even more will be a huge nerf. They really need a complete rework. Btw the debuff is already 4 seconds. And I do agree on PU mesmers stealth. They don’t need it like thieves do. Stealth is broken the way it is now.

BlackDevil.9268:

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

While I agree there are some builds that abuse stealth a bit too much, your suggested change to give diminishing returns on stealth dependent on whether or not you used it within the last ten seconds is just an awful idea. That would actually nerf D/D thieves and S/D thieves harder than D/P thieves, that’s the funny part. Not to mention, why the arbitrary ten seconds on that suggestion? That means if I were to successfully land my CnDs continually and hit my backstabs (which isn’t as easy as you think, particularly against non-kitten opponents), I would be punished for skillful play.

When coming up with ideas to change D/P thief and PU mesmer, you have to remember that any suggestion that would also heavily impact other weaponsets/playstyles will earn you a negative response from the community. Just because you don’t like the ease of entering stealth on D/P does not mean you should think it’s alright to punish an entire class.

Also your other proposed change, making revealed last longer, would just be one step closer to making thieves just crappy warriors. Reveal is already 4 seconds in sPvP, and even with that there are still complaints on this forum about thieves spamming evades with S/D builds or evading with pistol whip with S/P. No matter what thieves do, the community complains, that’s just the way it is, but that doesn’t mean something is broken.

If you truly want to see nerfs or rebalancing of stealth, you need to be willing to compensate with buffs to thief over all. With the lowest health pool, medium armor, and having the hardest time accessing boons, thieves would need something to make up for any nerf to stealth in general. That is the thieves defensive, and offensive, mechanic. If you nerf it, it must be compensated, plain and simple.

Also, btw, stealthing for every weapon set with dagger off hand is active play, not passive, and I would consider D/P at a middle point of some sort between active and passive play. I’ll let you know when playing as a D/D thief becomes passive enough to justify destroying my stealth mechanic.

BlackDevil.9268:

…
We need less passive play, more active play!

The irony….

Cush.4063:

The problem with thieves is that they have to stealth in order to do damage. I’ve said it many times but they need a class rework so they don’t have to rely on stealth to do damage. Its not their fault that in order for them to do damage they have to spam stealth. Nerfing stealth for them even more will be a huge nerf. They really need a complete rework. Btw the debuff is already 4 seconds. And I do agree on PU mesmers stealth. They don’t need it like thieves do. Stealth is broken the way it is now.

I think the main problem with PU mesmer is that they gain access to very strong boons while they’re stealthed, yet can still summon phantasms that hit hard, but the mesmer doesn’t become revealed for the damage their phantasms dish out. You can fight a PU mesmer and be downed if you’re not careful without ever actually even seeing the real mesmer, which is sort of a problem (AI winning fights with very little input from the player, aka skill-less play).

Stealth should be an offensive / strategic tool, not something you can just spam to reset any fight as you wish. I would support buffs to the thief if the stealth spam was brought into line somehow.

You are arguing against a class mechanic. Similar to hunter pets or guardian boons. Adapt or find another game as they will never spend the time to completely retool the class to make such a change, and honestly why should they?

You don’t like fighting against stealth classes? Too bad, I don’t like playing against fearspam necros or AE spewing engineers, them’s the breaks.

I don’t even like thief because of the stealth. I like being able to use abilities freely (restrained only by the initiative system). Playing another class and waiting on cooldowns sucksssss

BlackDevil.9268:

Can we remove stealth spamming specs once and for all? Not to call it OP, but it pretty much ruins the gameplay of the player facing it. It’s not fun to fight and there are too less counters. The specs are too easy to master and sometimes are really strong.

Of course I mean D/P Thieves and PU mesmers with this. These 2 specs heavily rely on stealth. In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam. If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it. With D/P thieves you have blind spam just before stealthing. This makes it almost impossible to stun or interrupt them from stealthing and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

They would have to completely rework mesmer and thieves gameplay. What you’re asking of is never going to happen. There is so no such thing as spamming stealth. If you see the revealed buff that is your opportunity and responsibility to attack.

Zero Day.2594:

BlackDevil.9268:

…
We need less passive play, more active play!

The irony….

The IRONY indeed, the IRONY!!!!! even.

We need more active application of boon staking to allow more skillful, active face tanking.

Jelzouki.4128:

BlackDevil.9268:

Can we remove stealth spamming specs once and for all? Not to call it OP, but it pretty much ruins the gameplay of the player facing it. It’s not fun to fight and there are too less counters. The specs are too easy to master and sometimes are really strong.

Of course I mean D/P Thieves and PU mesmers with this. These 2 specs heavily rely on stealth. In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam. If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it. With D/P thieves you have blind spam just before stealthing. This makes it almost impossible to stun or interrupt them from stealthing and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

They would have to completely rework mesmer and thieves gameplay. What you’re asking of is never going to happen. There is so no such thing as spamming stealth. If you see the revealed buff that is your opportunity and responsibility to attack.

He’s referring to the ease of entering in stealth for those builds. PU mesmer, just evade on top of the 2 stealth skills you’ll already have. D/P thief, just Black Powder to Heartseeker, and just add Shadow Refuge and Blinding powder so it’s really easy to keep up stealth with the set. If they have points in the Shadow Arts line it can get even worse. There’s a reason why even other thieves hate D/P thieves.

Kadin.2356:

You are arguing against a class mechanic. Similar to hunter pets or guardian boons. Adapt or find another game as they will never spend the time to completely retool the class to make such a change, and honestly why should they?

You don’t like fighting against stealth classes? Too bad, I don’t like playing against fearspam necros or AE spewing engineers, them’s the breaks.

Yeah… too bad stealth is only 100 times stronger than those class mechanics you mentioned above. The problem with stealth is that it has no to barely any counter. I don’t call it op.
In fact, thieves who use stealth as luxionary are those who are the most dangerous atm. Maybe apart from WvW Roaming, I’d say S/P is the strongest build out there in all other parts of the game.

If I really don’t like something in a game I’d rather report it than just leave it alone. If no one would complain then I don’t really think this game would look anything close to what it is now.

Jelzouki.4128:

They would have to completely rework mesmer and thieves gameplay. What you’re asking of is never going to happen. There is so no such thing as spamming stealth. If you see the revealed buff that is your opportunity and responsibility to attack.

Thieves gameplay? Like what gameplay exactly? Sit in stealth and wait till you bore your enemy to death? Believe me, that’s not the meta. Though that doesn’t take away that the build is so idiotic to fight against.

But yeah, mesmer does need a rework. Mesmer is probably in one of the worst states of the game right now. PU, that’s all we have. Try something else and you basically just handicap yourself. While not only that but also PU is really annoying to fight against and too easy to play. The build is also only good in small scale roaming.
Mesmer should be the illusionist, the mass interrupt class, the support class, not a 2nd thief to spam a broken mechanic (stealth) to win by boring your enemy to death.

Tetsuyja.7805:

for me playing thief becomes too confusing:

1. What am I allowed to do? What not?
2. Should I go into stealth? – maybe there is somebody who doesn’t like this.
3. Dodging 3 times or should I play fair and only dodge every 4 seconds?
4. If I dodge too much my enemy will complain about me not using stealth – if i use too much stealth my enemy will also complain about my play style.
5. Maybe i play fair and rely on my block and invulnerable abilities.

PLEASE, PLEASE someone will have to write a manual for thieves including rules that say what are the combat-no-go’s for thieves.
It’s really annoying playing a class which no one wants to play against and which everyone counteract heavily outside the game. Nerfs are OK but sometimes i only wonder what i am reading.

50% irony and 50% truth.

I don’t play mesmer – can’t say anything at this point.

Game mechanics decide the rules..
and those mechanics are the thing people complain about.. not the thief..
I also run full cheese on stealth.,. it’s quite fun if you know how it works..
it’s quite uninteresting for the one you are killing though.. considering they simply die while i am still in stealth ^^

Kadin.2356:

You are arguing against a class mechanic. Similar to hunter pets or guardian boons. Adapt or find another game as they will never spend the time to completely retool the class to make such a change, and honestly why should they?

You don’t like fighting against stealth classes? Too bad, I don’t like playing against fearspam necros or AE spewing engineers, them’s the breaks.

That is not a class mechanic relative to rangers pets and so on. That would be the initiative system or mesmers clones. Multiple classes have stealth.

Want to take away the stealth mechanics? Aight cool, lets take away guardian virtues, warrior burst skills, Ranger pets…
See what im getting at? Stealth is a class mechanic. If people spent the amount of time trying to counter as they did complaining about it, they wouldn’t get backstabbed or condi bursted like they do now. With thief, they NEED stealth. 1. that’s what the class is about and was meant for. 2. They can’t do decent damage without stealth. 3. They simply cannot survive out of stealth. Mesmers don’t need it as much, and while I don’t play Mesmer really, I think I see that they need it to “deceive” their enemy. It helps them keep control over the fight.
Why don’t we amass an army of people and hate on warriors and guardians now?

Cush.4063:

The problem with thieves is that they have to stealth in order to do damage. I’ve said it many times but they need a class rework so they don’t have to rely on stealth to do damage. Its not their fault that in order for them to do damage they have to spam stealth. Nerfing stealth for them even more will be a huge nerf. They really need a complete rework. Btw the debuff is already 4 seconds. And I do agree on PU mesmers stealth. They don’t need it like thieves do. Stealth is broken the way it is now.

Not really, thief autoattack deals pretty high sustained damage. Backstab is just dumb burst so of course it will be optimal to use it.

I propose they move the damage of backstab to leaping death blossom/shadow shot as a telegraphed burst skill that people can see and counter.

alchemyst.2165:

Want to take away the stealth mechanics? Aight cool, lets take away guardian virtues, warrior burst skills, Ranger pets…
See what im getting at? Stealth is a class mechanic.

Its not a class mechanic. Class mechanics are those that cannot be removed and you always have no matter what build you run.

BlackDevil.9268:

Can we remove stealth spamming specs once and for all? Not to call it OP, but it pretty much ruins the gameplay of the player facing it. It’s not fun to fight and there are too less counters. The specs are too easy to master and sometimes are really strong.

Of course I mean D/P Thieves and PU mesmers with this. These 2 specs heavily rely on stealth. In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam. If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it. With D/P thieves you have blind spam just before stealthing. This makes it almost impossible to stun or interrupt them from stealthing and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

Thief is probably most active played class in this game and yet you speak about passive play.

The fact that stealth has a debuff after it gets used is proof enough that it needs to get reworked

Silhouette.5631:

The fact that stealth has a debuff after it gets used is proof enough that it needs to get reworked

How come ? Stealth has no debuff after stealth has been used.

karolis said it – if u use stealth and want to take an advantage by attacking while invisible, then revealed will be the cost of your taken advantage ;P

Karolis.4261:

BlackDevil.9268:

Can we remove stealth spamming specs once and for all? Not to call it OP, but it pretty much ruins the gameplay of the player facing it. It’s not fun to fight and there are too less counters. The specs are too easy to master and sometimes are really strong.

Of course I mean D/P Thieves and PU mesmers with this. These 2 specs heavily rely on stealth. In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam. If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it. With D/P thieves you have blind spam just before stealthing. This makes it almost impossible to stun or interrupt them from stealthing and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

Thief is probably most active played class in this game and yet you speak about passive play.

Thief is 100% active. Some baddies like to stealth and regen to full by abusing Shadow Rejuvenation, but that’s what they are: baddies.
A thief who is passive will not do any damage. A mesmer who is passive is still killing his opponent.
Anyway, I’ve thought of many ways about how to nerf stealth, but it’s impossible to do it with the current state of the game. Too many thief’s build are dependant on stealth, like it or not. D/P trickery, for example, NEEDS stealth, and I daresay that it’s the build with the highest skillcap in the game. Even SA D/P (assuming a good player and not someone who is in stealth for more than 50% of the fight) requires A LOT of skill to be effective with. Of course, if the opponent is a newbie than he will get killed anyway, but against a decent opponent D/P is far from easy to use

Ways to counter d.p or stealth abusing thief in general, AOE air, yeah gg.
stealth trap = not always work
AOE air.. owait
I have 2k hours on a thief, when d/p became the meta i put him down, spam stealth and bore an opponent to death, 5-2-5-2-1-5-2-5-2-5-2-1 Like hihey said, build clealey takes ALOT of skill toplay, like 5-2-5-2-5-2. Try playing a d/d ele and swappign the attunements to gain relevent boons/attacks for a fight, then you will know what it means to have a spec that is “far from easy to use” stop defending a gimick you like to abuse in wvw hihey, all you do is spam stealth on your thief be it home bl or any other map, i feel bad for the enemies having to go through the process of watching you spam stealth and run off when they hit you. :P

Karolis.4261:

Silhouette.5631:

The fact that stealth has a debuff after it gets used is proof enough that it needs to get reworked

How come ? Stealth has no debuff after stealth has been used.

Yes it does, if you attack that is, it causes you to be -revealed- for a few seconds. It has a debuff built into it, forcing the thief into open combat no matter how heavily specced they are into the stealthy arts. This is bad mkay

VaaCrow.3076:

Ways to counter d.p or stealth abusing thief in general, AOE air, yeah gg.
stealth trap = not always work
AOE air.. owait
I have 2k hours on a thief, when d/p became the meta i put him down, spam stealth and bore an opponent to death, 5-2-5-2-1-5-2-5-2-5-2-1 Like hihey said, build clealey takes ALOT of skill toplay, like 5-2-5-2-5-2. Try playing a d/d ele and swappign the attunements to gain relevent boons/attacks for a fight, then you will know what it means to have a spec that is “far from easy to use” stop defending a gimick you like to abuse in wvw hihey, all you do is spam stealth on your thief be it home bl or any other map, i feel bad for the enemies having to go through the process of watching you spam stealth and run off when they hit you. :P

My main is Ele, and atm I’m roaming with my engi or my necro.
You don’t know me, nor my way of fighting. I log to thief only when there are some mesmers who like to play #yolomodelookatmyboons and need a lesson to put them in place.
But you are right about one thing: the first weeks I played DP I really did only 5222521.

I quite like my stealth rework proposal which really only hurts builds which exploit it.

A new timer is implemented which is a pre-cast of the revealed debuff. It has a non-stacking duration which cannot be overridden which is equal to the first-used stealth skill by the character.

The revealed debuff goes into effect after your first stealth skill duration ends or you leave stealth, and removes all active stealth effects from the player. This means stealth-stacking and chain stealth are no longer possible. As compensation, baseline stealth skill durations are increased slightly (like 20%) to allow for more accessible engaging/disengaging on one skill.

This prevents offhand pistol permastealth/blind exploitation by thieves and PU mesmer permastealth by forcing both classes into being revealed after each instance of stealth.

Mesmers can not perma stealth, they can stealth a fair bit but then they lose all utilities, and to be honest even then they still can’t come close to being “permanent”.

I’ve never said I thought thief wasn’t active play?

Stealth spamming specs are passive play, no matter what, but that doesnt mean I think thief overall is passive play.
Sure hihey, its the baddies spamming stealth, but does that give me a counter against them? And do those baddies survive? yes they do actually. Probably moa would be the only counter or any 4 second stun.
But hey then you have blinding powder and shaddow step. Even if, let’s say you get stunlocked, you can still escape with that spec. It’s just annoying to fight against, nothing more than that. I also don’t get why thieves play it, its not even that good.
But 1 thing I do know is that perm stealth should never be in any mmorpg.

Silhouette.5631:

Karolis.4261:

Silhouette.5631:

The fact that stealth has a debuff after it gets used is proof enough that it needs to get reworked

How come ? Stealth has no debuff after stealth has been used.

Yes it does, if you attack that is, it causes you to be -revealed- for a few seconds. It has a debuff built into it, forcing the thief into open combat no matter how heavily specced they are into the stealthy arts. This is bad mkay

As I said. There is no debuff after stealth was used.

Stealth should break on attack.

If they miss/you evade/block etc, they should still reveal.

For the advantages and sheer damage increase you get from a backstab, and how easy it is to enter stealth, if you fluff your attack you should be punished for it. Not just be able to try again and again until it connects.

It’s not stealth at all. It’s unbreakable invisibility. If i’ve predicted when you’re going to backstab me and I evade, then i should have the advantage, where in reality you just get to try again and again until you connect. My evades/defensive skills will run out, but backstabs and stealth never do.

Initiative system is broken.

BlackDevil.9268:

Sure hihey, its the baddies spamming stealth, but does that give me a counter against them? And do those baddies survive? yes they do actually. Probably moa would be the only counter or any 4 second stun.
But hey then you have blinding powder and shaddow step. Even if, let’s say you get stunlocked, you can still escape with that spec. It’s just annoying to fight against, nothing more than that. I also don’t get why thieves play it, its not even that good.
But 1 thing I do know is that perm stealth should never be in any mmorpg.

You can figure out who is halfway decent at using D/P from their build. A decent D/P will run Shadow Refuge, Infiltrator Signet and Shadowstep as utilities (heal can be either Withdraw of HiS). THOSE are the ones who are almost impossible to take down even if outmanned, because they will always have 2 escapes ready.
Even if they don’t have Infiltrator Signet, Shadowstep is still a 1200 range (double) teleport, so no matter what you do, unless you manage to down him from 50%→0% (which is achievable on some classes, like Eviscerate or Killshot warriors, Shatter mesmer or other thieves) in a single burst, he will get away if he is determined not to die. It’s basically the same as a Dogged March+Melandru GS+Sw/X Warrior. And I am afraid to inform you that no matter how you nerf stealth, the combination of Shadow Refuge+Shadowstep (or Shadowstep+Shortbow) is a guaranteed escape for ANY thief. Stealth based ones just have more potential to annoy people thanks to their traits, and I even laugh when people say “hey look I am 1v4ing and not dying lololol”, when all they do is go in stealth, backstab, then go back for 10 more seconds hoping that any of their opponents would leave. I have done this in the past, but realized that it’s simply not worth it as ANYONE can do it.

phaeris.7604:

Stealth should break on attack.

If they miss/you evade/block etc, they should still reveal.

For the advantages and sheer damage increase you get from a backstab, and how easy it is to enter stealth, if you fluff your attack you should be punished for it. Not just be able to try again and again until it connects.

It’s not stealth at all. It’s unbreakable invisibility. If i’ve predicted when you’re going to backstab me and I evade, then i should have the advantage, where in reality you just get to try again and again until you connect. My evades/defensive skills will run out, but backstabs and stealth never do.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand let the battle begin….

sry but this argument doesn’t hit the topic of the thread. If u revealed after your BS or other attack ist “failed” will NOT prevent the player from using his stealth spamming build/abilities.

I always find stealth-“spamming” Mesmers a bit of a weird thing. We’re talking 24-30 seconds CD on one, 36-kitten on another, 90s on another and 90s on the final one.

And none lasts long either (3s, 3s, 2s, 5s respectively, +1 each for PU).

How is that stealth “spam”?

Carighan.6758:

I always find stealth-“spamming” Mesmers a bit of a weird thing. We’re talking 24-30 seconds CD on one, 36-kitten on another, 90s on another and 90s on the final one.

And none lasts long either (3s, 3s, 2s, 5s respectively, +1 each for PU).

How is that stealth “spam”?

Each time a mesmer use Deceptive Evasion in WvW become stealthed for 1 sec ( dunno if this is due to the fact that i dont have graphical options at maximun, but is unfair).

Carighan.6758:

I always find stealth-“spamming” Mesmers a bit of a weird thing. We’re talking 24-30 seconds CD on one, 36-kitten on another, 90s on another and 90s on the final one.

And none lasts long either (3s, 3s, 2s, 5s respectively, +1 each for PU).

How is that stealth “spam”?

Mesmers with 20 20 30 0 0, X/T+Y, Decoy+Veil+Blink+Mass Invis have a 42,2% of stealth uptime. Veil actually stealths you for 3s (untraited), and can and WILL be used twice.
That’s actually a lot of stealth uptime.

It’s a good thing that Mesmers are on the medium hitpoint table because clearly they have so few escape mechanisms….not like those elementalists with their 2hr cooldown ones, they deserve to be on the lowest tables.

alchemyst.2165:

Want to take away the stealth mechanics? Aight cool, lets take away guardian virtues, warrior burst skills, Ranger pets…

Read the Ranger CDI thread. Plenty of Ranger players are begging ANet to take the pets away.

That said, my main problem with Thief stealth is not perma-stealth, per se. My main problem is that thieves can stake while in stealth and there is no counter. My secondary problem is that thieves can heal up quickly while in stealth and come back and attack me fully healed while many of my attacks are still in cooldown. I’m fine with thieves using stealth for surprise attacks and to flee as their thing in the game. I’m not so fine with them being able to stake me while stealthed or with them quickly popping back in fully healed because they stealth heals them.

And I do have an 80th level thief I use in PvE. Not really interested in the play-style in WvW.

phaeris.7604:

Stealth should break on attack.

In almost every tabletop role-playing game I can think of, invisibility breaks on attack and it not easy to reacquire because being able to attack while invisible is incredibly powerful and most tabletop role-playing games prohibit it for a reason. It’s the same reason why the game doesn’t give longbows a realistic range, which would be 10 times what it currently is, and the game stops you from doing damage to NPCs that can’t hit you. Snipers are also incredibly powerful.

hihey.1075:

Carighan.6758:

I always find stealth-“spamming” Mesmers a bit of a weird thing. We’re talking 24-30 seconds CD on one, 36-kitten on another, 90s on another and 90s on the final one.

And none lasts long either (3s, 3s, 2s, 5s respectively, +1 each for PU).

How is that stealth “spam”?

Mesmers with 20 20 30 0 0, X/T+Y, Decoy+Veil+Blink+Mass Invis have a 42,2% of stealth uptime. Veil actually stealths you for 3s (untraited), and can and WILL be used twice.
That’s actually a lot of stealth uptime.

And those mesmers are food for my minion zoo condi necro and engineer respectively, as they have no condi removal.

And what does it matter? Unlike cheesy D/P thieves you can’t die to a PU mesmer if you don’t want to. Their damage ramp up is slow, and they can’t chase worth crap.

If you died to a PU mesmer it’s because you stayed around to eat all those clone deaths and the build up of bleeds that is much slower than a necro or engineer can stack bleeds.

For the most part anyone can ignore a PU mesmer and kite him around. They only become somewhat effective when holding a point in wvw, but in any fight where the opponent can move on without losing anything it’s a waste of a spec compared to playing a phantasm mesmer, which is just as good a duelist spec and can actually kill people in a short amount of time.

and OP. Thanks for the lol. If you are concerned about stealth that is one thing. You seem most concerned about passive play though. If that is the case, there is a whole slew of other issues that need to be deal with first.

Stealth with only 2 direct counters to it. 1 being a wvw trap 1 being a terrible ranger skill that is never used.

See the problem?

I also see this is a problem and agree with you. Developers need to look at this ability closer and take it out for players that do this in WvW and PvP play. Also, in WvW I found stealth gets more use time in WvW than in any part of GW2 areas (like Shiverpeaks, Maguuma, Orr).

Zenith.7301:

hihey.1075:

Carighan.6758:

I always find stealth-“spamming” Mesmers a bit of a weird thing. We’re talking 24-30 seconds CD on one, 36-kitten on another, 90s on another and 90s on the final one.

And none lasts long either (3s, 3s, 2s, 5s respectively, +1 each for PU).

How is that stealth “spam”?

Mesmers with 20 20 30 0 0, X/T+Y, Decoy+Veil+Blink+Mass Invis have a 42,2% of stealth uptime. Veil actually stealths you for 3s (untraited), and can and WILL be used twice.
That’s actually a lot of stealth uptime.

And those mesmers are food for my minion zoo condi necro and engineer respectively, as they have no condi removal.

And what does it matter? Unlike cheesy D/P thieves you can’t die to a PU mesmer if you don’t want to. Their damage ramp up is slow, and they can’t chase worth crap.

If you died to a PU mesmer it’s because you stayed around to eat all those clone deaths and the build up of bleeds that is much slower than a necro or engineer can stack bleeds.

For the most part anyone can ignore a PU mesmer and kite him around. They only become somewhat effective when holding a point in wvw, but in any fight where the opponent can move on without losing anything it’s a waste of a spec compared to playing a phantasm mesmer, which is just as good a duelist spec and can actually kill people in a short amount of time.

Where did I say that I lost to a PU mesmer?

I use “you” in general, sorry if that wasn’t clear. I’m just saying a 42% stealth uptime means nothing if you can’t efficiently kill targets and have zero group utility.

I believe the most effective way for them to change this, assuming they want to (of which there has been no indication) is to apply revealed whenever a player exits stealth (perhaps with the standard revealed duration of 3 seconds, but maybe shorter instead since they didn’t attack).

Currently, the player is only revealed if they hit someone with an attack while they are in stealth, and simply letting the stealth fade doesn’t apply any revealed debuff. This makes it possible to stealth again immediately.

If the player was always revealed when coming out of stealth, the opposing player would always be guaranteed a window of opportunity to do something before the player decided to stealth again.

For thieves, this would mean that a d/p thief would sometimes have to wait a few seconds before they leap through their black powder again to stealth. They could still use it as a means to hide, but they wouldn’t be able to simply do it continuously in someone’s face without that person having a chance to do anything.

It also means that a person cannot simply cloak and dagger, and time another cloak and dagger such that they immediately restealth upon the first stealth expiring. This technique can be countered by players if they correctly predict the thief’s timing, although they generally have no real indiciation of this other than trying to count or simply having a sense for it. Additionally, minions, clones, phantasms, pets, turrets, mobs, critters, or structures generally make no attempts to avoid or counter a thief in such a manner. Thus it’s possible for a thief to utilize a keep gate/wall, random creature, or uncontrollable minion to simply continually restealth while not affording the opponent any time to do anything (other than making their best guess at where the thief is to try and place some kind of CC or damage, which still cannot guarantee that the thief won’t just restealth again anyways).

I have less experience in playing a PU mesmer, so I don’t think I can fully understand the implications of such a change. However, it would tone down the overall amount of boon stacking that could be done, as well as generating phantasms from stealth that don’t actually reveal the mesmer (effectively allowing them to attack from stealth).

I don’t think it will really affect other professions that much as engineer and ranger have such limited access to stealth, and the other don’t have it at all.

This doesn’t prevent stealth stacking. That is, if a player wants to apply more stealth while still stealthed, they can still do that. The catch here is that they’re still hiding in stealth and generally not attacking the enemy (aside maybe from mesmers and phantasms/clones), and they’ll generally have to expend more resources to do such a thing (i.e. a thief that cloak and daggers may have to then use something like blinding powder if they want to stay stealthed longer since they couldn’t just chain another cloak and dagger).

The player would still be able to stealth frequently, but it would mean that they can’t constantly bounce in and out of it when they’re back on their heels in order to recover and reset the fight. They may actually have to fully try and escape from the battle to reset it rather than stay in the vacinity of their opponent.

The funny thing is that they were going to do this at one point, but then they introduced that weird longer revealed duration thing at the lastminute that they reverted for everything but sPvP. It made so much sense to me when they first said that they were going to do it that I was surprised they just suddenly decided against it.

BlackDevil.9268:

In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam.

u cnt spam stealth on mesmer. they have to be carefully timed. go check the cooldowns.

If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it.

cc a mes. we go no stability. we got stunbreakers, but again have to be off cooldown. and again a pu mes has no stability unless he uses a mantra…and mantras are terrible.

and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

yes, we can, time your stuns right. again mes has no stability., but we do have stunbreakers

When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

aint gonna happen would render veil useless as it only lasts 3sec. plus u are coming again from the spvp hotjoin 1v1 perspective. if this goes through. wvw mes will be even more useless and we are already veilbots only.

all in all id rather see the mesmer clss changed all around. less ai, less dueling, more aoe ,more multitarget skills, and if all this is changed then u cn reduce the stealth. instead of nerfing everything, how about trying to actually fix all our bugs first, then give us more viable wvw raid builds and then u will see many of theses builds dissappear.

BlackDevil.9268:

Can we remove stealth spamming specs once and for all? Not to call it OP, but it pretty much ruins the gameplay of the player facing it. It’s not fun to fight and there are too less counters. The specs are too easy to master and sometimes are really strong.

Of course I mean D/P Thieves and PU mesmers with this. These 2 specs heavily rely on stealth. In my opinion stealth should be a luxionary, not something you can spam. If you can’t handle the enemy’s damage and get outplayed, you shouldn’t be able to cast 2/3 skills and have a free escape ticket. With both specs you have kittenness outplaying you so you can’t interrupt it. With D/P thieves you have blind spam just before stealthing. This makes it almost impossible to stun or interrupt them from stealthing and with PU mesmers there’s a fair chance to get aegis so they can’t get stunned either. Not only that but mesmer’s gameplay is really dodgy, making it pretty useless to try to lock them down on 1 point cause they can easily blink away.

I would come up with a suggestion that demotes spamming stealth, but doesn’t affect those who use stealth as a luxionary:
When using a stealth within 10 seconds from the previous stealth, your stealth will last 1 second shorter. This effect will stack the more times you use stealth within 10 seconds of your previous stealth, meaning if you use a ’’3rd’’ stealth within 10 seconds of the 2nd stealth while already having the debuff your stealth will last 2 seconds shorter.

Making revealed last longer would ofc also just be just as good to nerf it as mentioned above. 3 seconds is just a joke. It should be at least 4, maybe 5 seconds.

On some way I still think stacking stealth should be possible since that can offer teams still some combo’s and surprise attacks, however spamming stealth should be punished.

We need less passive play, more active play!

I feel sorry for you all! Poor non Thief players!