Guild Wars 2

this is something that should’ve been completely obvious in game design, but a skill like rapid fire (and most channeled skills for that matter) should not track through stealth.

if part of the draw back to multiple succession-type attacks is that it needs all of the attacks to land to actually hit to it’s fullest potential, why is it that they gets a free pass when it comes to stealth? shouldn’t a break in targeting = a break in tracking? or should mesmers and thieves just sit there and accept the fact that if a ranger catches you mid-fight with rapid fire there’s nothing you can do about it?

i specifically mention rapid fire because it’s a topical choice (and the range allowed on it is something extra ridiculous), but other channeled skills like unload on p/p thief should be set to follow the same rule. ranged channeled attacks should not track through stealth, it doesn’t make sense from a gameplay point of view and it doesn’t make sense from a “lore” point of view either.
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also funny thing: anet mods are now censoring me and blocking me from any further posting because i called out Coglin on his trolling. please be aware that it is unwise to respond to him at all, as he only seeks to drag out arguments to the point of exhaustion.

please keep the discussion going, otherwise anet will get what they want, a community submissive people unwilling to demand a healthier meta and more enjoyable game.

Ok. In exchange, I expect the following to reveal a Thief:

1. Successful blocks (duh)
2. Burning effect (flame = bright)
3. Nearby pets (hounds have good sense of smell)

Those make sense from a lore perspective.

sinject.4607:

accept the fact that if a ranger catches you mid-fight with rapid fire there’s nothing you can do about it?

-Dodge roll
-use an evade skill
-use and interrupt skill
-move behind obstructing terrain

That a whole lot of “nothing”

Eloquence.5207:

Ok. In exchange, I expect the following to reveal a Thief:

1. Successful blocks (duh)
2. Burning effect (flame = bright)
3. Nearby pets (hounds have good sense of smell)

Those make sense from a lore perspective.

rangers already have sic em and the first two dont make sense for gameplay reasons. if you’re gonna rattle things off as a “response” at least trying reading the context of the original post.

there are also other professions with access to stealth other than thief, namely mesmer.

Substance E.4852:

sinject.4607:

accept the fact that if a ranger catches you mid-fight with rapid fire there’s nothing you can do about it?

-Dodge roll
-use an evade skill
-use and interrupt skill
-move behind obstructing terrain

That a whole lot of “nothing”

absolutely none of this addresses ranged channeled skills and the way they interact with stealth at all, especially the interrupt skill portion given the range of the attack.

also using terrain as an answer to as how something can be countered is laughable at best.

Shockers that you have to time your stealth properly and not spam it for once in your life.

no.. your survivability would go through the roof its already hard enough to do enough damage to a thief using a target only weapon (most weapons with tracking ARE target only) if you want this then they need to give you the necro treatment.. 0 healing allowed in stealth, or like the other guy said skilful play by your opponent should be rewarding unlike the way it is now… (I evaded and got assisted blocks/ used fears 7 times against a thief and they just kept hitting 111222 till it hit where is the skill in that?) obviously not all in one go.

Lifestealer.4910:

Shockers that you have to time your stealth properly and not spam it for once in your life.

Shockers you can’t press 2 to win MR. Longbow ranger i presume?

Big Tower.5423:

Lifestealer.4910:

Shockers that you have to time your stealth properly and not spam it for once in your life.

Shockers you can’t press 2 to win MR. Longbow ranger i presume?

Firstly, i don’t play ranger. Secondly, even if pressing 2 to is win against thieves (its not), its about time thief stealth got more counters.

I am okay with channel skills not tracking you in stealth. As long as all of your skills get locked out while in stealth, so that you cannot channel a heal or attack while in stealth.

Rapid Fire tracking through stealth is a dumb mechanic and it really should not work that way.

Thing is, stealth is so ridiculously broken in gw2, nobody aside from thieves will agree with you.

Annoying as it may be, it’s a valid counter for ranger vs stealth kites. Working as intended but it does hurt :/

@coglin, thief has a channel heal?

Where did I mention thief? Other professions can stealth or be stealthed by team mates.

I would also be curious as to where the OP got this “lore about stealth” from?

Sorry it makes sense that you are still hit after you stealth. Going invisible doesn’t mean you don’t take damage. If you are in the trajectory of attacks stealthed or not you should be hit. Also its one of the counters to deal with stealthed opponents.

I’ll counter with you should have a -33% speed debuff in stealth. If you are moving stealthily you would have to go slowly and quietly.

Any missed or blocked attack should reveal you.

Aoe attacks that knock down or immobilize should reveal you.

You should only be able to stealth out of combat. It doesn’t make sense that you can disappear in broad daylight right in front of the person you are fighting.

I couldn’t care less about this or the range debate. So long as ANet changes all skills to work the same way, they can decide to do what they want.

My only argument would be that they change them all at the same time as opposed to only affect one class at a time.

There’s no reason for a Warrior’s Longbow, a Engineer’s Grenades, etc to go beyond the stated range but only a Ranger’s Longbow is nerfed. Just likt there’s no reason for Thief Pistol Unload, Mesmer Greatsword, Elementalist Scepter, etc. to track through stealth and only the Ranger’s Longbow is nerfed.

Now that all said… Entange needs to be improved to hit stealthed targets just like any AE IMO.

Thanks.

Substance E.4852:

sinject.4607:

accept the fact that if a ranger catches you mid-fight with rapid fire there’s nothing you can do about it?

-Dodge roll
-use an evade skill
-use and interrupt skill
-move behind obstructing terrain

That a whole lot of “nothing”

^^

Really just a L2P issue here OP, sorry your stealth isn’t a catch all answer to everything.

And I’ll add Smokescreen and the hand full of reflect options mesmers have to that list.

It should Not track through stealth. In no way is that fair.
Every class has a few ways to avoid damage, thieves have dodges and stealth, stealth gets to be offensive because it doesn’t actual negate damage, and to take that away, is like lwtting rapid fire ignore a warriors stances, or a guardians protection. The ranger’s main defense is never getting hit through, massive range, a knock back, a stealth, and some damage mitigation. Thieves can only deal with closing the gap, they can’t hit a backstab and have a certain hit threw your stealth, they don’t get stability, and they normally can’t push through your pets health to get to yours.

Long story short, it does not deserve to track through stealth, nor does it deserve any compensation, the long bow is all around amazing, and will still function great, even without stealth tracking. If your having troubling with a thief, reveal him, then shoot. I would rather an active counter to the stealth rather than passive.

This comes from a Necromancer, who also plays every class fairly often. (Engi excluded)

OP, if channeled skills wouldn’t track through stealth, ranged players would never kill a thief.

To improve your survivability against rangers, watch out for the cc and dodge/evade it – saves your stunbreak for the real kitten moments. Most rangers are very predictable and I’ve seen even some silver/gold ranks go through all lb skills while I was in dagger storm (I even got stealthed from reflected hunter’s shot).

Rapid fire is already powerful enough, and rangers have a reveal skill. they shouldnt get free hits through the channel.

That being said, Thieves could just stealth after or before rapid fire instead of trying to stealth in the middle of it to avoid this problem entirely.

I think this just goes to show the ineptitude of some thieves. If you rely on stealth as a crutch, you let your guard down once you enter it. A skillful thief will recognize that the ranger has initiated RF before and react properly.

I know most thieves don’t use smoke screen, but it might do you some good on your skill bar. Destroys projectiles and can be used to stack up stealth with shortbow or dagger. Try timing your stealth while RF is on cooldown or at least keep an eye out after you stealth.

all channeled abilities track through stealth, it’s been like that since beta, endless treads about it have been buried and never once a-net replayed to any of them nor shown any interest.

so guess what’s gonna happen next…

Volrath.1473:

all channeled abilities track through stealth, it’s been like that since beta, endless treads about it have been buried and never once a-net replayed to any of them nor shown any interest.

so guess what’s gonna happen next…

They will feign interest and address a topic discussing something that is working as intended? Don’t be ridiculous.

I agree that the real issue here is stealth in general. There needs to be some sort of tradeoff for the benefit it provides, such as decreased movement speed, increased incoming damage, etc. It essentially needs balance checks that encourage it as a setup and discourage it as an escape.

Until that happens, I’m completely okay with rapid fire tracking through stealth, as stupid as it may be.

I think if players were forced to manually aim their shots with projectile weapons it would not only create a new (and somewhat fun) way to play but it would remove the issues revolving around tracking by removing the tracking altogether.

yolo swaggins.2570:

I think if players were forced to manually aim their shots with projectile weapons it would not only create a new (and somewhat fun) way to play but it would remove the issues revolving around tracking by removing the tracking altogether.

The problem is that it would be to complicated for the casual player base the game is designed around.

This is just a personal opinion…

Channeled spells tracking someone in stealth feels half done.

It should either break stealth if someone tries to enter (no reveal applied), or
Prevent stealth/apply reveal, or
The channeling spell should be canceled.

Any of those three above make more sense than what’s in the game now. More than likely most would prefer one of the first two.

So if the change goes through, how exactly can ranger use LB against stealth heavy thieves or mesmers (which isn’t a minority)? Spam 5 against yourself and let the opponent happily wait outside the AoE? Blindly activate immune when the opponent was just trying to wear you out? Activate sic em in hope that it won’t miss? Burn through most, if not all, the cc during revealed to complement for LB? Please, there are already a high tendency for ranger LB to become a one trick pony (not necessary all the time, but very easy to slip predictable combos), stealth cancel channeling is only going to make this worst.

I understand zerker thieves can be eaten alive if they didn’t dodged RF at the right time, since I’ve been in that situation a lot of times. But what OP suggests is just creating another extreme due to limitations in range targeting system.

And yet you are allow to pistol barrage from stealth, hmmm

If rapid fire no longer tracks in stealth, then stealth must:

- apply revealed when your attack is blinded/blocked/or missed
– 33% lower movement speed to prevent people from running away in stealth so easily
– revealed increased to 5 seconds

shadowpass.4236:

If rapid fire no longer tracks in stealth, then stealth must:

- apply revealed when your attack is blinded/blocked/or missed
– 33% lower movement speed to prevent people from running away in stealth so easily
– revealed increased to 5 seconds

- you already have a counter to stealth on ranger, if you want to counter stealth then pack accordingly. stop whining about something you can do something about but choose not too. the whole “apply revealed on blinded/blocked/missed” is a terrible idea and has been proven terrible for ages now. it overly rewards mindless defense spam while harshly punishing a profession that already punishes mistakes harder than most.
- this would more negatively impact stealth’s use offensively seeing as it would be impossible to catch anything
- revealed has already seen an increase in duration.

the issue isn’t stealth. the issue is that rapid fire (along with all other channeled skills) gets a free pass when dealing with a defensive mechanic. it’s like blind not blinding an eviscerate because you blinded the warrior mid-jump instead of before it.

sinject.4607:

- you already have a counter to stealth on ranger, if you want to counter stealth then pack accordingly. stop whining about something you can do something about but choose not too. the whole “apply revealed on blinded/blocked/missed” is a terrible idea and has been proven terrible for ages now. it overly rewards mindless defense spam while harshly punishing a profession that already punishes mistakes harder than most.

Double standard much? How much blinds and blocks does ranger have. Please do go on and list them. Also please link us the proof of it being a terrible idea. I don’t recall reading any proof.

sinject.4607:

- this would more negatively impact stealth’s use offensively seeing as it would be impossible to catch anything

Yes, I mean they only hav access to gap closers on almost all weapon skills and a some utilities. Its not like they have access to cripple to slow their target down either, or do they? What would poor thieves do if they couldn’t juggle 2-5 opponents with easy access to stealh?

- revealed has already seen an increase in duration.

He is not talking about revealed on Sic’em, he is talking about the standard revealed.

What you are asking is basically near total damage nullification when someone goes into stealth, because 4 of the 5 ranger LB skills can’t hit someone who IS ALREADY in stealth. If you stealth while the ranger is channeling RF then honestly you made a wrong call or the ranger outplayed you. You can counter that mini-outplay with dodging rather than choosing to stealth.

People like to compare this situation with warrior stance and guardian heal, but they forget that those skills has relatively more cooldown than RF. Eventually one RF will goes through (and can only be mitigated with dodging) if the ranger is using it repeatedly throughout the battle.

However it is possible for a D/P thief to stealth every time he’s getting hit by RF, then there is a possibility that he nullify almost all RF damage (save first few hits) every single time without using dodging. It isn’t hard really. The extra dodges mean that thieves/mesmers have natural advantage over ranger LB, not to mention that LB#1-4 needs a target to function. This change will ultimately force ranger to fight in melee due to lack of reward from LB.

You should not be able to stealth in line of sight

sinject.4607:

shadowpass.4236:

If rapid fire no longer tracks in stealth, then stealth must:

- apply revealed when your attack is blinded/blocked/or missed
– 33% lower movement speed to prevent people from running away in stealth so easily
– revealed increased to 5 seconds

- you already have a counter to stealth on ranger, if you want to counter stealth then pack accordingly. the whole “apply revealed on blinded/blocked/missed” is a terrible idea and has been proven terrible for ages now. it overly rewards mindless defense stop whining about something you can do something about but choose not too.spam while harshly punishing a profession that already punishes mistakes harder than most.
- this would more negatively impact stealth’s use offensively seeing as it would be impossible to catch anything
- revealed has already seen an increase in duration.

the issue isn’t stealth. the issue is that rapid fire (along with all other channeled skills) gets a free pass when dealing with a defensive mechanic. it’s like blind not blinding an eviscerate because you blinded the warrior mid-jump instead of before it.

- you already have a Counter to projectiles (namely Daggerstorm and Smokescreen), if you want to Counter projectiles pack accordingly. the whole “stop channels when the target stealthes” is a terrible idea and has been proven terrible for ages now. it overly rewards mindless stealthing. stop whining about something you can do something about but choose not too. (See what i did there?)

McWolfy.5924:

You should not be able to stealth in line of sight

Blinding powder says “classic escape maneuver”.

McWolfy.5924:

You should not be able to stealth in line of sight

What does LoS have to do with casting a spell with an invisibility effect?

ITT: OP is QQing because he lost a match and rather than get better, he wants to nerf a class because he lost.

Must be an sPvP thread, because I see these sorts of complaints all the time due to sPvP.

vincecontix.1264:

Sorry it makes sense that you are still hit after you stealth. Going invisible doesn’t mean you don’t take damage. If you are in the trajectory of attacks stealthed or not you should be hit. Also its one of the counters to deal with stealthed opponents.

It working as intented get over it.

What about some sort of middle ground? Once you stealth the skill will still track, but once you dodge they lose target. Thematically speaking, it doesn’t really make sense how you can still pew pew at a target when you can no longer see them.

Also, let’s not just look at this from a Thief’s point of view. I would say this tracking hurts Mesmers using Shatter/CI builds more. Skills like Decoy/Mass Invis are used to set up your next attack and isn’t that long in duration or spammable. Having to expend both dodges after stealthing to not be basically instakilled means your skill was worthless because you ended up doing nothing different than if you weren’t stealthed and also didn’t set up any new attacks.

My view on Mes has changed a bit after playing it for the last few days. The only build that has a ton of reliance on stealth is PU which is only really worth taking for 1v1s which isn’t worth balancing around imo. Shatter and CI generally only have Decoy and Mass Invis. That’s pretty good design.

I think it’s Thief’s stealth design that needs to be looked at more than anything else. If they were made to use it more like Mes, then having skills activated pre stealth not track would seem reasonable.

BurrTheKing.8571:

What about some sort of middle ground? Once you stealth the skill will still track, but once you dodge they lose target. Thematically speaking, it doesn’t really make sense how you can still pew pew at a target when you can no longer see them.

I don’t know what “theme” your referring to. Appears as if your trying to argue around real world logic, which thematically speaking in the sense you are, seems you should be capable to go fully invisible with a skill refereed to as “stealth”……

BurrTheKing.8571:

Also, let’s not just look at this from a Thief’s point of view. I would say this tracking hurts Mesmers using Shatter/CI builds more. Skills like Decoy/Mass Invis are used to set up your next attack and isn’t that long in duration or spammable. Having to expend both dodges after stealthing to not be basically instakilled means your skill was worthless because you ended up doing nothing different than if you weren’t stealthed and also didn’t set up any new attacks.

I play engineer and mesmer very often. Both have utility or weapon skills with stealth. I do not find much solace in your suggestions. All other skills that channel, do so through stealth if initiated before stealth. Supporting singling out this skill, simply displays an unhealthy bias.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I think it’s Thief’s stealth design that needs to be looked at more than anything else. If they were made to use it more like Mes, then having skills activated pre stealth not track would seem reasonable.

Nothing makes having skills activated pre-stealth not track seems reasonable.

BurrTheKing.8571:

What about some sort of middle ground? Once you stealth the skill will still track, but once you dodge they lose target.

You’ve come up with the most logical counter to RF tracking in stealth. Dodge.

RyuDragnier.9476:

ITT: OP is QQing because he lost a match and rather than get better, he wants to nerf a class because he lost.

Must be an sPvP thread, because I see these sorts of complaints all the time due to sPvP.

literally nobody but the hordes of people hopping on the latest flavor of the month ranger train will tell you that ranger longbow is perfectly fine. that kind of damage from that range on that low of a cooldown isn’t healthy.

In 1v1/2v2/etc scenarios it’s fine because you usually have all of your tools available to you, but in almost any other situation ranger can snipe kills without worrying about any serious retaliation.

there is no other profession in the game that is able to invest entirely in offensive-only traitlines and walk away with a build that’s viable against human players.

sinject.4607:

RyuDragnier.9476:

ITT: OP is QQing because he lost a match and rather than get better, he wants to nerf a class because he lost.

Must be an sPvP thread, because I see these sorts of complaints all the time due to sPvP.

literally nobody but the hordes of people hopping on the latest flavor of the month ranger train will tell you that ranger longbow is perfectly fine. that kind of damage from that range on that low of a cooldown isn’t healthy.

In 1v1/2v2/etc scenarios it’s fine because you usually have all of your tools available to you, but in almost any other situation ranger can snipe kills without worrying about any serious retaliation.

there is no other profession in the game that is able to invest entirely in offensive-only traitlines and walk away with a build that’s viable against human players.

You know what else is also unhealthy for the game?.. thieves completely neutering all zerker builds for the past 2 years. Now lb rangers have a chance against bad thieves and you complaining. Thieves still shut out lb rangers at top tier play but you obviously don’t know that because you are too busy relying on stealth as a crutch.

sinject.4607:

RyuDragnier.9476:

ITT: OP is QQing because he lost a match and rather than get better, he wants to nerf a class because he lost.

Must be an sPvP thread, because I see these sorts of complaints all the time due to sPvP.

literally nobody but the hordes of people hopping on the latest flavor of the month ranger train will tell you that ranger longbow is perfectly fine. that kind of damage from that range on that low of a cooldown isn’t healthy.

I think it is perfectly fine. I also see a great deal of post that state it is fine. I almost never play my ranger. I am simply basing my statement on my experience fighting them on my mesmer, ele, thief, and engineer.

Seems fairly disingenuous of you to presume you can speak for others and thier opinions. Perhaps you should stick to speaking for yourself.

sinject.4607:

In 1v1/2v2/etc scenarios it’s fine because you usually have all of your tools available to you, but in almost any other situation ranger can snipe kills without worrying about any serious retaliation.

So can a grenade engineer, and a thief. You are simply using extreme hyperbole as your examples. That works against your argument, not for it.

sinject.4607:

there is no other profession in the game that is able to invest entirely in offensive-only traitlines and walk away with a build that’s viable against human players.

You mean like the 6/6/0/0/2 zerker grenade engineer that is one of the professions most popular builds? It seems odd, as much as that is discussed as one of the highest AoE damage builds in the game, at 1500+ range, and you claim it doesn’t exist for the purpose of your claim.

I would tend to agree with the OP, it seems odd that single target skills can hit someone in stealth. Whether this is working as intended is another question.

dancingmonkey.4902:

sinject.4607:

literally nobody but the hordes of people hopping on the latest flavor of the month ranger train will tell you that ranger longbow is perfectly fine. that kind of damage from that range on that low of a cooldown isn’t healthy.

I think it is perfectly fine. I also see a great deal of post that state it is fine. I almost never play my ranger. I am simply basing my statement on my experience fighting them on my mesmer, ele, thief, and engineer.

Seems fairly disingenuous of you to presume you can speak for others and thier opinions. Perhaps you should stick to speaking for yourself.

sinject.4607:

In 1v1/2v2/etc scenarios it’s fine because you usually have all of your tools available to you, but in almost any other situation ranger can snipe kills without worrying about any serious retaliation.

So can a grenade engineer, and a thief. You are simply using extreme hyperbole as your examples. That works against your argument, not for it.

sinject.4607:

there is no other profession in the game that is able to invest entirely in offensive-only traitlines and walk away with a build that’s viable against human players.

You mean like the 6/6/0/0/2 zerker grenade engineer that is one of the professions most popular builds? It seems odd, as much as that is discussed as one of the highest AoE damage builds in the game, at 1500+ range, and you claim it doesn’t exist for the purpose of your claim.

it is in no way disingenuous to say that there are plenty of people who disapprove of where longbow ranger is right now. you are (selectively) blind if you haven’t noticed the flood of posts talking about longbow ranger needing to be rebalanced post-september feature pack. anet’s decision to nerf point blank shot is direct evidence that the weaponset is far from “perfectly fine”.

ranger is the only profession in the game that is able to do that kind of damage at that kind of range. every other profession must put themselves within range (within harm’s reach) to actually do that kind of damage. if a thief wants to move in for a backstab, they have to get in melee range to do it. power/hybrid engie, while not necessarily needing to be in arms reach, must be within a range that exposes them as grenades are laughably easy to avoid at max distance and most of their heavy hitting attacks from rifle require them to be close to their target.

and lmao, 6/6/0/0/2 zerker grenade engie is a dungeon build. it has never come anywhere close to entering popular use outside of PvE and even if it did, it would still have to adhere to the same constraints i mentioned earlier. looks like you’re inventing things to support your own “argument”.

is anyone actually able to give anything close to a good reason as to why rapid fire is given a free pass against stealth?

What’s next do you need from aoe to miss you while in stealth as well?

dancingmonkey.4902:

nerf-fear-induced-response

Seriously dude, a grenade engineer? We are talking sniping, not locking somebody down and bursting. A ranger can Rapid Fire from 1500 range without any need for locking the target down. A grenade engineer makes these big red circles on the ground telling you to move out of the way… No need even to dodge.

Thieves can ‘snipe’ somebody, but not without serious danger for retaliation. You have to get up close and personal, which leaves you open to AoE, focus fire, lockdown, etc.

Rapid Fire in it’s current form is just another stupid crutch thing in this game that allows the terribads to have some fun in a WvW setting. Making it so that it can not track through stealth anymore would be a start, but not a fix at all.

How they could give Hundred Blades-like damage to a class at 1500 range… There is no justification IMO. Especially when you look at the real things that are wrong with ranger.

just quit it already read through all the other threads before making Ill informed comments that are not fact.

Pbs change was added because the shot was very Difficult to see or impossible to see while fighting, this was just a gameplay balance to make things fair for those melee types that couldn’t gap close because of said difficulty vs point blank shot.

now with the Intial cast time , it gives them a chance to react not though buttons but well timed useage of defensive/gap closing skills.

ps Full zerk Rf max does 17-22k with near full stacks , 25% bonus from Signet of the wild + signet of the hunt and 25 vun with a pet dealing damage.

how much does 100b do with maxed stacks i bet its more than 22k that dont use barely any utilities, in this case only .

apples and oranges.

and you saying Rf is a Crutch , so is hundred blades without a set up that only works against bads.

tracking vs stealth .
stealth is not a damage migration but a repostioning/gap closing a method to apply pressure (unnoticed/untargetable)
just reverse your combo, dodge>stealth gap close( near to no damage taken) , regen some hp in stealth and pressure that ranger.

using stealth as a means to avoid damage is bad gameplay.

whats the point of wasting a utility slot for sick em
when u have a stealth tracking rapid fire