Guild Wars 2

Poplolita and Ryu already highlighted why stealth isn’t a debuff and how it has enormous advantages over a non stealthed player.

Zacchary.6183:

EDIT: Secondly, why the hell are you burning skills while a thief is in stealth? Bust out your auto.

Auto only works if you’re not using weapons that have cleave. If they don’t, there’s no point because you will not hit anything.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

EDIT: Secondly, why the hell are you burning skills while a thief is in stealth? Bust out your auto.

Auto only works if you’re not using weapons that have cleave. If they don’t, there’s no point because you will not hit anything.

Yes it will. If a projectile hits something in stealth, it will deal damage and disappear unless it has piercing. Then it will just keep flying. If the stealthed enemy is in front of you and you are swinging with a (let’s just say) dagger, it is going to clip him and the chain will progress.

Try it sometime.

Zacchary.6183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

EDIT: Secondly, why the hell are you burning skills while a thief is in stealth? Bust out your auto.

Auto only works if you’re not using weapons that have cleave. If they don’t, there’s no point because you will not hit anything.

Yes it will. If a projectile hits something in stealth, it will deal damage and disappear unless it has piercing. Then it will just keep flying. If the stealthed enemy is in front of you and you are swinging with a (let’s just say) dagger, it is going to clip him and the chain will progress.

Try it sometime.

A dagger has a slight cleave to it. I mean things like Shortbow, Longbow, Pistol, Scepter, Staff, and Rifle, all of which need a visible target, because they have 0 attack chains and often shoot into the ground without a target.

Zacchary.6183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zacchary.6183:

EDIT: Secondly, why the hell are you burning skills while a thief is in stealth? Bust out your auto.

Auto only works if you’re not using weapons that have cleave. If they don’t, there’s no point because you will not hit anything.

Yes it will. If a projectile hits something in stealth, it will deal damage and disappear unless it has piercing. Then it will just keep flying. If the stealthed enemy is in front of you and you are swinging with a (let’s just say) dagger, it is going to clip him and the chain will progress.

Try it sometime.

Your example is rather one sided.

No they don’t. If you actually tried, you can aim your shots by holding down the right mouse button and using your head as crosshairs.

Seriously, try it. Hold down the right mouse button and aim at something with your head. Now use the Left mouse button and move the camera slightly to the side and watch where it flies off to.

Then come back and tell me you really need a target.

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

For sPvP it isn’t imbalanced since while in stealth you cannot capture points, which are the main gain of points in that mode, limiting its uses outside of defensive purposes. WvW is a separate beast altogether, and does need its own separate balance patches from sPvP, REGARDLESS of what the higher ups in Anet think.

That is your opinion.

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

You know, conquest won’t forever be the only competitive mode in this game. Once 2v2 and 3v3 death match is added, I can already predict Pu mesmer + thief + X/Y/Z everywhere. I used to watch some community made up courtyard tournament 1 month ago, thieves and mesmer were literaly everywhere.

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

They introduced that to keep you guys quiet, just like they gave thieves a trait that halves damage while stealthed to make us stop rioting so hard.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

For sPvP it isn’t imbalanced since while in stealth you cannot capture points, which are the main gain of points in that mode, limiting its uses outside of defensive purposes. WvW is a separate beast altogether, and does need its own separate balance patches from sPvP, REGARDLESS of what the higher ups in Anet think.

Without objectives it’s stronger, but not broken as a mechanic. You won’t see a thief win most of the time, vs every 1v1 build matchup. I don’t like the state of P/D thief though. Maybe I just haven’t fought with/against it enough, but currently I feel like that is too strong and is its own case that needs dealt with.

In WvW though it’s zerg vs zerg . Veil is the viable stealth there, which lasts for 3 seconds on a 72 second cooldown (buffs included). Besides that stealth skill, what impact does stealth play? The roamers fighting each other in WvW have a miniscule if any impact on a WvW matchup, would you not agree?

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.

So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.

Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.

So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.

Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.

Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.

Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.

You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.

Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

For sPvP it isn’t imbalanced since while in stealth you cannot capture points, which are the main gain of points in that mode, limiting its uses outside of defensive purposes. WvW is a separate beast altogether, and does need its own separate balance patches from sPvP, REGARDLESS of what the higher ups in Anet think.

WvW doesn’t need to be balanced because it wasn’t design to be balanced

the entire premise of all the complaints is basically “we want to negate stealth/evades/blinds and force the thief to play on an even playing field (AKA head to head)”.

what people need to understand is that the class cannot go “head to head” with anything. a full PVT thief is still one of the squishiest targets you can find. Take away stealth/evades/blinds what you get is a warrior with no stuns or sustain, with an ele without cantrips’ survivablity.

YES fighting against stealth is annoying and YES it takes alot of practice. But counterplay is possible on every class (maybe not every weaponset). Introduce direct counters on a button press will turn the thief into a… squishy melee single target focused class… with… low to medium damage…. okay… Oo… that sounds… fair… why not…

I’m tired of the “i often lose to evade spam in pvp so lets nerf stealth” and “the dictionary meaning of this word is different from what you mean therefore stealth is broken” arguments. can we begin to be constructive instead of just flaming like idiots?

Your having trouble fighting against stealth builds fine. How you do see the thief class playing instead to be competitive and to make it fun for both sides? should the class be chaining ccs to get their kills? boon stripping viable for all weaponsets? some kind of utility role that can be used in z v z? or even (something that i want quite badly :P) the ability to effectively pick off backline players in z v z!

Considering that the top posts are currently almost all about stealth, I would say in general that there is a high discontent between non-thief/mes players and how stealth can be fought against. I did see their philosophy on balance stream and while they did point out why stealth doesn’t really have hard counters (they don’t want builds to be completely shut down) all I could think about is that… ironically that is really what stealth does to some builds. Not all builds have access to melee weapons and the “anti stealth technique” of swinging wildly into the air. Play with pistols or other weapons that require a target to hit anything and watch how painful fighting stealth becomes.
Personally I’m not asking for adding in anything that completely shuts down stealth, but more ways to play against it, like sic em. Similar to how someone has to “dance” around a warrior on endure pain till it leaves, forced revealed through sic em forces someone to dance around without stealth for a bit and doesn’t completely shut down any build.

I would like to devs to think about adding more skills similar to sic em, that is all.

Penguin.5197:

Considering that the top posts are currently almost all about stealth, I would say in general that there is a high discontent between non-thief/mes players and how stealth can be fought against. I did see their philosophy on balance stream and while they did point out why stealth doesn’t really have hard counters (they don’t want builds to be completely shut down) all I could think about is that… ironically that is really what stealth does to some builds. Not all builds have access to melee weapons and the “anti stealth technique” of swinging wildly into the air. Play with pistols or other weapons that require a target to hit anything and watch how painful fighting stealth becomes.
Personally I’m not asking for adding in anything that completely shuts down stealth, but more ways to play against it, like sic em. Similar to how someone has to “dance” around a warrior on endure pain till it leaves, forced revealed through sic em forces someone to dance around without stealth for a bit and doesn’t completely shut down any build.

I would like to devs to think about adding more skills similar to sic em, that is all.

Stealth has made a lot of people disgruntled since launch, lots of threads on it, numerous thread merges for it.

I was one of those people that didn’t like it, because my first main I made was elementalist. I had no clue how stealth worked, because I didn’t have access to it, so I couldn’t figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were. Then I started playing my thief more in PvP it made sense why it was the way it was, because stealth was balanced around the thief having low survivability.

Most people complaining in the forums don’t have very much experience playing as thief in PvP, or even mesmer. You can’t get superior positioning to deal ranged damage as thief, you can’t out sustain someone in a fight, you have to rely on your dodges, blinds, stealths, and evades. You also have to deal damage way faster than your opponent because they will have more sustain than you do. It’s probably the least forgiving profession to play, and that’s one of the draws of the profession in my eyes.

That all said, I totally understand why people complain about the thief, and that’s why I think it’s important to explain how to counter stealth builds. It’s something that is different than most of the other professions, and because thief is a snowflake and stands out there’s this natural psychological behavior to make the snowflake conform.

Shockwave.1230:

Stealth has made a lot of people disgruntled since launch, lots of threads on it, numerous thread merges for it.

I was one of those people that didn’t like it, because my first main I made was elementalist. I had no clue how stealth worked, because I didn’t have access to it, so I couldn’t figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were. Then I started playing my thief more in PvP it made sense why it was the way it was, because stealth was balanced around the thief having low survivability.

Most people complaining in the forums don’t have very much experience playing as thief in PvP, or even mesmer. You can’t get superior positioning to deal ranged damage as thief, you can’t out sustain someone in a fight, you have to rely on your dodges, blinds, stealths, and evades. You also have to deal damage way faster than your opponent because they will have more sustain than you do. It’s probably the least forgiving profession to play, and that’s one of the draws of the profession in my eyes.

That all said, I totally understand why people complain about the thief, and that’s why I think it’s important to explain how to counter stealth builds. It’s something that is different than most of the other professions, and because thief is a snowflake and stands out there’s this natural psychological behavior to make the snowflake conform.

Shockwave knows. I would not be surprised if one of the regular anti-thiefs replied with a bullcrap excuse, though.

However, it isn’t so simple as trying to make a snowflake conform but to guard a demolished ego. Let me explain….

For a person to be blindsided by something they do not know anything about is enough to throw someone into a desperate panic. Being caught offguard like increases the chances that they will not recover from the initial assault and oftentimes the player winds up dead before they can properly react.

But the damage dealt to the player is two-fold. Dying in under a few seconds not only creates a feeling of being wronged but the death alone also puts a metaphorical sign above the player’s head saying “I suck” (which not alot of people care).

Now, it really isn’t that bad to die like that because there is always learning from mistakes made. In this case, the mistake made was a lack of situational awareness and timing which is something you need to maintain at all times in an open world pvp environment. Simply upping your game is enough to keep that stigma off of you.

Even if the player saw it coming and still melted, they can still reflect on the progression of the battle to determine the the causes that led to the player’s death. If the causes can’t be found through reflection, then seeing the battle from the other player’s point of view always helps.

However, that failure sticks and intensifies the more the player denies they have made a mistake. That pride is the root cause of every flame and troll generated from anti-thief threads. That pride needs to be addressed in everyone even if it takes outside sources to do so.

It starts by accepting that you failed and listening to the helpful and experienced player’s advice, not labeling their words as biased because “they are just defending their class”.

BobbyT.7192:

WvW doesn’t need to be balanced because it wasn’t design to be balanced

Uh huh.
Based on what exactly?

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.

So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.

Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.

Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.

Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.

You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.

Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.

You have too much of yourself invested in your posts about stealth that you can’t even say you are wrong. But don’t worry, you aren’t unique. Most people are this way were as they only want to be right.

I understand your comment about invulnerability perfectly and I’m telling you that you do not know what you are saying. You can’t counter invulnerability with invulnerability since its a identical force. It would have to be a opposing force for it to be considered a counter. Meaning there would have to be a skill that makes target vulnerable to all attacks or a skill still hits even when the target is invul.

Zacchary.6183:

Shockwave.1230:

Stealth has made a lot of people disgruntled since launch, lots of threads on it, numerous thread merges for it.

I was one of those people that didn’t like it, because my first main I made was elementalist. I had no clue how stealth worked, because I didn’t have access to it, so I couldn’t figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were. Then I started playing my thief more in PvP it made sense why it was the way it was, because stealth was balanced around the thief having low survivability.

Most people complaining in the forums don’t have very much experience playing as thief in PvP, or even mesmer. You can’t get superior positioning to deal ranged damage as thief, you can’t out sustain someone in a fight, you have to rely on your dodges, blinds, stealths, and evades. You also have to deal damage way faster than your opponent because they will have more sustain than you do. It’s probably the least forgiving profession to play, and that’s one of the draws of the profession in my eyes.

That all said, I totally understand why people complain about the thief, and that’s why I think it’s important to explain how to counter stealth builds. It’s something that is different than most of the other professions, and because thief is a snowflake and stands out there’s this natural psychological behavior to make the snowflake conform.

Shockwave knows. I would not be surprised if one of the regular anti-thiefs replied with a bullcrap excuse, though.

However, it isn’t so simple as trying to make a snowflake conform but to guard a demolished ego. Let me explain….

For a person to be blindsided by something they do not know anything about is enough to throw someone into a desperate panic. Being caught offguard like increases the chances that they will not recover from the initial assault and oftentimes the player winds up dead before they can properly react.

But the damage dealt to the player is two-fold. Dying in under a few seconds not only creates a feeling of being wronged but the death alone also puts a metaphorical sign above the player’s head saying “I suck” (which not alot of people care).

Now, it really isn’t that bad to die like that because there is always learning from mistakes made. In this case, the mistake made was a lack of situational awareness and timing which is something you need to maintain at all times in an open world pvp environment. Simply upping your game is enough to keep that stigma off of you.

Even if the player saw it coming and still melted, they can still reflect on the progression of the battle to determine the the causes that led to the player’s death. If the causes can’t be found through reflection, then seeing the battle from the other player’s point of view always helps.

However, that failure sticks and intensifies the more the player denies they have made a mistake. That pride is the root cause of every flame and troll generated from anti-thief threads. That pride needs to be addressed in everyone even if it takes outside sources to do so.

It starts by accepting that you failed and listening to the helpful and experienced player’s advice, not labeling their words as biased because “they are just defending their class”.

What are you even talking about? Stealth has only one counter, and this is a fact. It doesn’t have anything to do with my experience. How many time do I have to repeat that I’m talking from a mechanical perpespective only? It doesn’t have anything to do with my experience whatsoever.

Assumptions aside, are you aware I main a necromancer? How could you possibly think I’m having trouble against your class? What do you even know about my experience?

Carighan.6758:

BobbyT.7192:

WvW doesn’t need to be balanced because it wasn’t design to be balanced

Uh huh.
Based on what exactly?

it’s been their design philosophies for WvW since day one, (original article explaining this gone now)
But really, what else explains WvW balance tied with PvE, or that one character be buff to the kittens with guard leech, bloodlust, food and guild buffs, or a group of 50 taking on 5 people defending a tower.
You can’t balance this kitten, why even try?

Poplolita.2638:

What are you even talking about? Stealth has only one counter, and this is a fact. It doesn’t have anything to do with my experience. How many time do I have to repeat that I’m talking from a mechanical perpespective only? It doesn’t have anything to do with my experience whatsoever.

Assumptions aside, are you aware I main a necromancer? How could you possibly think I’m having trouble against your class? What do you even know about my experience?

Objective thought is apparently hard to understand.

But other classes can and do counter heavy stealth professions end thread.

BobbyT.7192:

it’s been their design philosophies for WvW since day one, (original article explaining this gone now)
But really, what else explains WvW balance tied with PvE, or that one character be buff to the kittens with guard leech, bloodlust, food and guild buffs, or a group of 50 taking on 5 people defending a tower.
You can’t balance this kitten, why even try?

I think what you mean is that WvW balance isn’t done on a one-per-one basis. Which makes perfect sense, it’d be quite useless to try that.

WvW still needs to be balanced overall. Has nothing to do with how an Engineer fights a Mesmer 1v1, but rather whether the effective scaling of classes is uniform between sizes and whether important parameters are kept in check by the class balance (overall, not per-class).

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.

So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.

Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.

Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.

Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.

You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.

Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.

You have too much of yourself invested in your posts about stealth that you can’t even say you are wrong. But don’t worry, you aren’t unique. Most people are this way were as they only want to be right.

I understand your comment about invulnerability perfectly and I’m telling you that you do not know what you are saying. You can’t counter invulnerability with invulnerability since its a identical force. It would have to be a opposing force for it to be considered a counter. Meaning there would have to be a skill that makes target vulnerable to all attacks or a skill still hits even when the target is invul.

Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.

This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession.

Mr Sharp seems to have been communicating for people who have perspectives such as your own, people who thinks stealth has no counterplay to it.

I recommend you try to take a D/P thief and fight a Sc/F | GS Dps guardian.

Feel and experience how hard dps guardian counters D/P thief, probably one of the most stealth dependant builds.

Take a Dagger thief build and fight any meta engineer build and experience how hard a counter engineers are to various thief stealth builds.

Fight a hambow warrior and see how long it takes to get anywhere.

Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.

Wow this has got to be one of the worst anti-thief threads to date. I feel bad for those who won’t take what shockwave has written into consideration. He’s legitimately trying to help you see that while no “hard counter” exists for stealth, many “soft counters” do through counter play.

I think that’s an important part of this discussion many of you are choosing to ignore. I’m pretty sure in the last ready up (which was about class balance) the devs even said they don’t like “hard counters.” There is counterplay to everything in this game, but very rarely do you find “hard counters” to anything.

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.

I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.

Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.

Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.

Here is the quote:

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

- Jonathan Sharp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.

Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.

So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.

Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.

Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.

Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.

You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.

Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.

You have too much of yourself invested in your posts about stealth that you can’t even say you are wrong. But don’t worry, you aren’t unique. Most people are this way were as they only want to be right.

I understand your comment about invulnerability perfectly and I’m telling you that you do not know what you are saying. You can’t counter invulnerability with invulnerability since its a identical force. It would have to be a opposing force for it to be considered a counter. Meaning there would have to be a skill that makes target vulnerable to all attacks or a skill still hits even when the target is invul.

Regarding invulnerability, I get the feeling you are looking at it within a silo. Invulnerability gives you the opportunity to play without risk when you would otherwise have it.

Take Scepter Focus fresh air ele for example. To play that build effectively you need to rely heavily on positioning, because it’s very squishy. Say you’re up against a dps guardian. If you’re both low on health and as the Guardian are attempting to LoS around a corner and the ele chooses to follow, then he’ll likely come around the corner casting obsidian flesh, then casting Phoenix and his air spike, because he thinks he’ll finish you by getting rid of your blinds and blocks as well as ignoring them. He’s also invincible so you can’t dps him down.

So how do you counter this moment of invincibility that he takes? By using renewed focus yourself to become invincible.

Invincibility does not remove Invincibility that is of course true. Also it definitely counters any opportunity Invincibility creates.

The problem is that all of the ways to “counterplay” a Thief in stealth are inferences. None of the game’s mechanics are specifically designed in such a way to help you combat stealth, and that’s the problem people have.

Yes, you can spam melee autos, and when your auto chains without triggering from some other source, you can infer that the Thief was just in your melee range. However, the game doesn’t pop up any messages or show any graphical indication to confirm your inference.

Yes, I can use Necro Axe #3, and if I receive Retaliation without hitting something else, then I can infer that the Thief is within a certain radius. I can also infer that the ability landed. However, it gives no indication of where in the radius the Thief might be.

Yes, I can use Earthshaker on an area, and if my Adrenaline is expended without the ability appearing to land on anything else, I can infer that it hit a Thief. However, I cannot infer the location within the radius because the game is not designed in a way that shows me any additional information.

Stealth is not designed to show you any information whatsoever with regard to what actually happened, so people had to find other ways to assist in the guessing game.

I don’t necessarily think that “Evade” messages should pop up when a Thief successfully dodges AoE abilities that land, because that’s like a successful stealth check if you want to think of it that way. They disappeared, someone tried to use an ability that would generally reveal their relative location, and they avoided it to avoid detection.

But even successful “detection” techniques only reward the detector by allowing them to make more educated future inferences in order to play against the Thief.

Sure, these inferences are a method of counter-play, but the rest of the game feels designed around reacting to visual stimuli. You watch animations, you watch boons, you watch conditions, you watch for AoEs, you watch for projectile reflection. Inference-based counter-play isn’t unique to Stealth due to the nature of some instant-cast abilities, but when you successfully time a dodge for a Scepter Ele’s air burst combo, you’re rewarded by not taking 10k damage or whatever it happens to do.

When you successfully time a dodge for a Thief’s Backstab, you are sometimes rewarded by just getting Backstabbed. If you pop a blind field to attempt to avoid getting Backstabbed that one time, you can still get backstabbed in it because the cast time is shorter than the blind pulse duration. Meanwhile, you can use abilities that don’t deal a tick of direct damage while in Stealth and remain in stealth (see: Phantasms, the fear that Thieves steal from Necro, etc.).

I get that there are ways to counter a Thief’s ability to enter stealth. Interrupting Hide in Shadows, reading Cloak & Dagger swings, knocking the Thief out of Shadow Refuge, etc. If interrupting the use of Stealth was the main counter-play, then I really don’t think combos like BP + HS should exist, nor should any instant application of Stealth. Normally, I would say long cooldown utilities could potentially have instant stealth application because of their cooldowns, and I do actually think that’s the case. However, I think Prismatic Understanding is almost offensive in its design, because it confers additional huge advantage for trivially entering a state that is not designed to give feedback to the person fighting against stealth.

I really just think it’s too easy to use given all of the advantage it has.

And regarding Invulnerability, Invulnerability is not used to counter Invulnerability. It’s used to counter bursts of damage that are about to be incoming. If someone uses Mist Form, do you pop Elixir S to counter their Mist Form? No, because Invulnerability is not countering Invulnerability in any meaningful way.

In the example above, you aren’t popping Invulnerability specifically because the Ele popped Obsidian Flesh. You pop Invulnerability because you know that the huge spike of damage is about to come your way. I don’t know what Guardians can do to DPS an Ele down in the time it takes him to use his Scepter air spike (which is near instant, right?), so that seems like a bad idea anyway.

Shockwave.1230:

Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.

This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession. Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.

You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think you are wrong, I already know that’s what you think. And its the core reason why you continue to post because of this fact. You are so far invested into your personal interpretations that you have even gone so far to say that Jon Sharp doesn’t know what he is talking about so that you can maintain the illusion that what you are saying is absolutely correct.

You do a lot to maintain the state of your perspective even when given irrefutable facts:

1. Jon Sharp is wrong when he states that stealth had no counter prior to sic em

2. Then it became Jon Sharp was only communicating to people who share my perspective or in other words he was only appeasing a certain group of people

3. A counter doesn’t mean it has to be a opposing force, even though the definition says so

4. When all else fails you revert to trying to talk about a deficiency in the players game experience in order to continue to maintain your position. In other words you feel players only experience stealth in a negative way because they aren’t applying what you have told them.

Every single last thing you do is to keep yourself in that position. There is no harm in being wrong, in fact you gain more in being wrong than you do right. But that is something you will have to figure out on your own accord.

Aza.2105:

Zacchary.6183:

@ Aza

Your comments are rather biased.

Not biased, I’m objective.

Nobody is objective. Which is not a problem until they believe they are being objective.

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.

This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession. Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.

You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think you are wrong, I already know that’s what you think. And its the core reason why you continue to post because of this fact. You are so far invested into your personal interpretations that you have even gone so far to say that Jon Sharp doesn’t know what he is talking about so that you can maintain the illusion that what you are saying is absolutely correct.

You do a lot to maintain the state of your perspective even when given irrefutable facts:

1. Jon Sharp is wrong when he states that stealth had no counter prior to sic em

2. Then it became Jon Sharp was only communicating to people who share my perspective or in other words he was only appeasing a certain group of people

3. A counter doesn’t mean it has to be a opposing force, even though the definition says so

4. When all else fails you revert to trying to talk about a deficiency in the players game experience in order to continue to maintain your position. In other words you feel players only experience stealth in a negative way because they aren’t applying what you have told them.

Every single last thing you do is to keep yourself in that position. There is no harm in being wrong, in fact you gain more in being wrong than you do right. But that is something you will have to figure out on your own accord.

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I am simply stating he wasn’t thinking about the counterplay that exists when he made those statements.

The main evidence I use to understand that stealth has counterplay is the state of the meta. Stealth isn’t dominating entire team comps therefore people, such as myself have found ways to counterplay it.

Continuing to get caught up on this ‘polar opposite counter’ idea is not helping you understand that stealth does have counters that people can do.

Why you are so caught up on only that context of counter I don’t understand, but again the context of a counter that everyone else is talking about is a response to negate an initial action as I previously mentioned. ANet has stated that it’s intended to limited hard counters, which seems to be what you are asking for. They’ve also had stealth the way it’s been for as long as it has, so that should be further evidence of their intent for it to be that way.

I’ve also previously pointed out that besides sic ‘em stealthed players counter themselves by removing stealth and applying revealed to themselves. This is a polar opposite counter that you want. The only thing you don’t seem to like about it is that it’s not readily available to you for use. There’s a good reason for that, because if it was stealth wouldn’t be viable as professions could chain it on a thief heavily reducing both its offensive and defensive capabilities.

But none of this discussion actually matters because the reality is that stealth does have counters, because if it didn’t then it would be the only thing people ran.

I know this will probably never happen, but I wish there was a trait that allowed Necros to see stealthed individuals while in Death Shroud, or at least for a couple of seconds when entering DS since having it be active the entire time in DS would be too powerful. Lorewise, something about Death Shroud allowing the Necromancer to sense the lifeforce of everything nearby. Grandmaster in Soul Reaping seems like a good place for it.

Other than that—and this has already been mentioned many times both in this thread and others—improving targeting would go a long way towards “fixing” stealth.

Carighan.6758:

BobbyT.7192:

it’s been their design philosophies for WvW since day one, (original article explaining this gone now)
But really, what else explains WvW balance tied with PvE, or that one character be buff to the kittens with guard leech, bloodlust, food and guild buffs, or a group of 50 taking on 5 people defending a tower.
You can’t balance this kitten, why even try?

I think what you mean is that WvW balance isn’t done on a one-per-one basis. Which makes perfect sense, it’d be quite useless to try that.

WvW still needs to be balanced overall. Has nothing to do with how an Engineer fights a Mesmer 1v1, but rather whether the effective scaling of classes is uniform between sizes and whether important parameters are kept in check by the class balance (overall, not per-class).

The size/number/coverage variation between the different servers make it impossible to balance WvW. Regardless of how well the individual classes are balanced as a whole, it won’t matter.

They don’t balance for 1v1 though since it becomes build vs. build.

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.

This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession. Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.

You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think you are wrong, I already know that’s what you think. And its the core reason why you continue to post because of this fact. You are so far invested into your personal interpretations that you have even gone so far to say that Jon Sharp doesn’t know what he is talking about so that you can maintain the illusion that what you are saying is absolutely correct.

You do a lot to maintain the state of your perspective even when given irrefutable facts:

1. Jon Sharp is wrong when he states that stealth had no counter prior to sic em

2. Then it became Jon Sharp was only communicating to people who share my perspective or in other words he was only appeasing a certain group of people

3. A counter doesn’t mean it has to be a opposing force, even though the definition says so

4. When all else fails you revert to trying to talk about a deficiency in the players game experience in order to continue to maintain your position. In other words you feel players only experience stealth in a negative way because they aren’t applying what you have told them.

Every single last thing you do is to keep yourself in that position. There is no harm in being wrong, in fact you gain more in being wrong than you do right. But that is something you will have to figure out on your own accord.

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I am simply stating he wasn’t thinking about the counterplay that exists when he made those statements.

The main evidence I use to understand that stealth has counterplay is the state of the meta. Stealth isn’t dominating entire team comps therefore people, such as myself have found ways to counterplay it.

Continuing to get caught up on this ‘polar opposite counter’ idea is not helping you understand that stealth does have counters that people can do.

Why you are so caught up on only that context of counter I don’t understand, but again the context of a counter that everyone else is talking about is a response to negate an initial action as I previously mentioned. ANet has stated that it’s intended to limited hard counters, which seems to be what you are asking for. They’ve also had stealth the way it’s been for as long as it has, so that should be further evidence of their intent for it to be that way.

I’ve also previously pointed out that besides sic ‘em stealthed players counter themselves by removing stealth and applying revealed to themselves. This is a polar opposite counter that you want. The only thing you don’t seem to like about it is that it’s not readily available to you for use. There’s a good reason for that, because if it was stealth wouldn’t be viable as professions could chain it on a thief heavily reducing both its offensive and defensive capabilities.

But none of this discussion actually matters because the reality is that stealth does have counters, because if it didn’t then it would be the only thing people ran.

I see logical fallacies everywhere… to the point where it’s getting redundant.

Poplolita.2638:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.

This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession. Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.

You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think you are wrong, I already know that’s what you think. And its the core reason why you continue to post because of this fact. You are so far invested into your personal interpretations that you have even gone so far to say that Jon Sharp doesn’t know what he is talking about so that you can maintain the illusion that what you are saying is absolutely correct.

You do a lot to maintain the state of your perspective even when given irrefutable facts:

1. Jon Sharp is wrong when he states that stealth had no counter prior to sic em

2. Then it became Jon Sharp was only communicating to people who share my perspective or in other words he was only appeasing a certain group of people

3. A counter doesn’t mean it has to be a opposing force, even though the definition says so

4. When all else fails you revert to trying to talk about a deficiency in the players game experience in order to continue to maintain your position. In other words you feel players only experience stealth in a negative way because they aren’t applying what you have told them.

Every single last thing you do is to keep yourself in that position. There is no harm in being wrong, in fact you gain more in being wrong than you do right. But that is something you will have to figure out on your own accord.

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I am simply stating he wasn’t thinking about the counterplay that exists when he made those statements.

The main evidence I use to understand that stealth has counterplay is the state of the meta. Stealth isn’t dominating entire team comps therefore people, such as myself have found ways to counterplay it.

Continuing to get caught up on this ‘polar opposite counter’ idea is not helping you understand that stealth does have counters that people can do.

Why you are so caught up on only that context of counter I don’t understand, but again the context of a counter that everyone else is talking about is a response to negate an initial action as I previously mentioned. ANet has stated that it’s intended to limited hard counters, which seems to be what you are asking for. They’ve also had stealth the way it’s been for as long as it has, so that should be further evidence of their intent for it to be that way.

I’ve also previously pointed out that besides sic ‘em stealthed players counter themselves by removing stealth and applying revealed to themselves. This is a polar opposite counter that you want. The only thing you don’t seem to like about it is that it’s not readily available to you for use. There’s a good reason for that, because if it was stealth wouldn’t be viable as professions could chain it on a thief heavily reducing both its offensive and defensive capabilities.

But none of this discussion actually matters because the reality is that stealth does have counters, because if it didn’t then it would be the only thing people ran.

I see logical fallacies everywhere… to the point where it’s getting redundant.

How so?

I’d be happy to elaborate on any concerns you have with the justification provided.

Shockwave.1230:

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth.”

“Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.”

You are saying he doesn’t have a idea what he is saying and wasn’t thinking like you when he made the statement.

Zacchary.6183:

Johje Holan.4607:

I have succumbed. I switched my thief to a stealth thief. I feel so dirty. But Anets bad design/balancing has forced me to do it.

Good. Maybe you’ll learn something.

You’re right! After playing for awhile, I learned that now, even I am OP. Whoo hoo!

Seriously, its amazing. What I can do. What I can get away from. What I can get away with.

Anet said They are fine with thieves going in and out of stealth. They just Dont want thieves to Stack stealth Without using Utility skills.
Accept that already. Learn from your mistakes or stick to your blob.

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth.”

“Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.”

You are saying he doesn’t have a idea what he is saying and wasn’t thinking like you when he made the statement.

I see you have a doctorate in spin.

I am communicating his statement was wrong not that he is incompetent.

Shockwave.1230:

I am communicating his statement was wrong.

This is exactly what I’m saying.

Cogbyrn.7283:

The problem is that all of the ways to “counterplay” a Thief in stealth are inferences. None of the game’s mechanics are specifically designed in such a way to help you combat stealth, and that’s the problem people have.

Yes, you can spam melee autos, and when your auto chains without triggering from some other source, you can infer that the Thief was just in your melee range. However, the game doesn’t pop up any messages or show any graphical indication to confirm your inference.

Yes, I can use Necro Axe #3, and if I receive Retaliation without hitting something else, then I can infer that the Thief is within a certain radius. I can also infer that the ability landed. However, it gives no indication of where in the radius the Thief might be.

Yes, I can use Earthshaker on an area, and if my Adrenaline is expended without the ability appearing to land on anything else, I can infer that it hit a Thief. However, I cannot infer the location within the radius because the game is not designed in a way that shows me any additional information.

Stealth is not designed to show you any information whatsoever with regard to what actually happened, so people had to find other ways to assist in the guessing game.

I don’t necessarily think that “Evade” messages should pop up when a Thief successfully dodges AoE abilities that land, because that’s like a successful stealth check if you want to think of it that way. They disappeared, someone tried to use an ability that would generally reveal their relative location, and they avoided it to avoid detection.

But even successful “detection” techniques only reward the detector by allowing them to make more educated future inferences in order to play against the Thief.

Sure, these inferences are a method of counter-play, but the rest of the game feels designed around reacting to visual stimuli. You watch animations, you watch boons, you watch conditions, you watch for AoEs, you watch for projectile reflection. Inference-based counter-play isn’t unique to Stealth due to the nature of some instant-cast abilities, but when you successfully time a dodge for a Scepter Ele’s air burst combo, you’re rewarded by not taking 10k damage or whatever it happens to do.

When you successfully time a dodge for a Thief’s Backstab, you are sometimes rewarded by just getting Backstabbed. If you pop a blind field to attempt to avoid getting Backstabbed that one time, you can still get backstabbed in it because the cast time is shorter than the blind pulse duration. Meanwhile, you can use abilities that don’t deal a tick of direct damage while in Stealth and remain in stealth (see: Phantasms, the fear that Thieves steal from Necro, etc.).

I get that there are ways to counter a Thief’s ability to enter stealth. Interrupting Hide in Shadows, reading Cloak & Dagger swings, knocking the Thief out of Shadow Refuge, etc. If interrupting the use of Stealth was the main counter-play, then I really don’t think combos like BP + HS should exist, nor should any instant application of Stealth. Normally, I would say long cooldown utilities could potentially have instant stealth application because of their cooldowns, and I do actually think that’s the case. However, I think Prismatic Understanding is almost offensive in its design, because it confers additional huge advantage for trivially entering a state that is not designed to give feedback to the person fighting against stealth.

I really just think it’s too easy to use given all of the advantage it has.

And regarding Invulnerability, Invulnerability is not used to counter Invulnerability. It’s used to counter bursts of damage that are about to be incoming. If someone uses Mist Form, do you pop Elixir S to counter their Mist Form? No, because Invulnerability is not countering Invulnerability in any meaningful way.

In the example above, you aren’t popping Invulnerability specifically because the Ele popped Obsidian Flesh. You pop Invulnerability because you know that the huge spike of damage is about to come your way. I don’t know what Guardians can do to DPS an Ele down in the time it takes him to use his Scepter air spike (which is near instant, right?), so that seems like a bad idea anyway.

This poster gets it completely.

I’m pretty sure any damage or status effect a stealhed thief suffers will appear on your screen. That was enough for me.

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth.”

“Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.”

You are saying he doesn’t have a idea what he is saying and wasn’t thinking like you when he made the statement.

I see you have a doctorate in spin.

I am communicating his statement was wrong not that he is incompetent.

Another logical fallacies, but this time it’s even worse because you are trying to make him look like he’s the one using them. What is the point to even discuss with you?

Poplolita.2638:

Shockwave.1230:

Aza.2105:

Shockwave.1230:

I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth.”

“Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.”

You are saying he doesn’t have a idea what he is saying and wasn’t thinking like you when he made the statement.

I see you have a doctorate in spin.

I am communicating his statement was wrong not that he is incompetent.

Another logical fallacies, but this time it’s even worse because you are trying to make him look like he’s the one using them. What is the point to even discuss with you?

I’ll be happy to discuss if you’d like to provide details on what you’re referring to

Poplolita.2638:

Assumptions aside, are you aware I main a necromancer? How could you possibly think I’m having trouble against your class? What do you even know about my experience?

okay… Oo

“I have no problems with the entire class but nerf it because there are no mechanical counters for it”…

There are no mechanical counters for death shroud, can i have a utility to just end it for you when you press F1? oh? that would be OP? sorry!

There are also no mechanical counters for… ranger pets, mesmer clones, ele summons, traps, invulnerability, blocking skills, and who knows what else.

What is your argument exactly? I’m having a hard time finding it.

If you think stealth is OP then say so but this quest for moral higher ground is getting tiring.

Aza.2105:

This is also related to why zerker thieves have run out mesmers and elementlists in pvp. No other zerker can compete since they do not have the wide quantity of stealth skills to remove their opponents ability to make concrete counter play decisions.

Definitely broken, but of course you will have people come here and defend it viciously without a ounce of reasoning why it should stay the way it is other than their are in love with their class.

People who defend the class are biased, people who attack it are not. You understand that in itself is a bias? x.x

1. zerker thieves have not run mesmer and eles out of pvp. that is an exaggeration (bias? x.x). the zerker thief has made it much harder for zerker mesmers and eles to be viable in pvp, fine.

2. the zerker thieves in pvp do not spam stealth nor trait for it… because stealth is not viable in pvp… no team support, cannot cap or decap, and is honestly a substandard 1v1 build.

3. stealth builds are not viable in dungeons or fractals either… you would do much better with a non stealth thief in pve than a SA thief. Putting down shadow refuge once in a while does not a stealth build make x.×...

so where is the problem? wvw… where in wvw? 1vX to 5vX (AKA roaming).