Guild Wars 2

Hey.

So, I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while and please have mercy with me if this topic has been brought up before yet but I feel there is some work to do.

First of all: Stealth in its current form is severely overpowered. Refrain from sending me hate-mail and “git gut scrub!” now, have a seat and listen:
My main character is a Mesmer, I use stealth alot and I can admit, that it gives me an unfair advantage over my enemies.

Why you ask?

Well for one, I can enter and leave a battle as I wish, I can make whole groups of people invisible for a surprise attack, I determine the pace of my battles because I can decide when I want to take a break or not… But most importantly: Stealth finishing downed enemies.

Seriously, Stealth finishing is a huge design flaw. As I mentioned, my main is a Mesmer. I usually run around with GS/Scepter+Sword when roaming so most of my skills are target-based. It’s even worse when in downed state as I have exactly one skill that is not target-based: The healing skill.
This goes out twice as much for the hordes of instagibbing Thieves out there, who made stealth an integral part of their playstyle. And yes, I am fully aware that you can’t have a counter for every build out there with you when roaming. However, think of it this way: How disproportional would the change of your build have to be, to counter stealth-based combat, compared to other builds?

If you made it this far and read my posting without foaming and are willing to take a look at my suggestions, here we go:

Number one: Change the [Revealed] debuff to the point, where not only dishing out damage but taking damage triggers it as well.

I know this would have a huge impact, especially when it comes to engaging battles in GvG via Veil or Mass Invisibility for smaller groups. Yet, it won’t be impossible and requires a little more skill. On the pro side, it gives people the ability do defend against Mesmers and Thieves in small scale battles and evens out the chances a little more.

Number two: Make stealthed enemies partially visible like stealthed friendlies, yet still not targetable.

I like this alot less than the first option because the problem of target-based skills remainds. However, it gives people the ability to position themselves appropriately at least. Also, sneaky thieves can still prey on unaware players.

Last but not least, Number three: Disable interactions (rezzing, finishing, looting, etc.) for stealthed players.

I like this option least because it only fixes the symptom, not the underlying problems of the stealth mechanic but I think it’s the most simple solution to this.

Please take your time to think about this, come up with hypothetical situations where these ptions might be good or bad and leave some feedback.
Also try to refrain from flaming or insulting if possible.

i would recommend playing a thief for a little bit. You will learn how thieves think and react to situations, making the thieves you fight more predictable.

Also, the majority of thief stealth skills have a tell— keep an eye out for smoke or shadow refuge and you will locate your thief.

Half the battles are determined by preparation, in otherwords, which person has chosen the best build/weapons for the situation. That being said, if you’re traveling alone in open field WvW, anticipate getting ambushed by a thief and build accordingly.

my first char was an Ele, so naturally i got rocked by thieves. After playing a thief for a while, i have a much easier time dealing with them on my Ele. I may not kill them every time, but if they run that is still a win for me.

1) Congratz, you’ve deleted thieves from SPvP, WvW zergs and end game PvE. (Well, unless that thief player likes playing Bullet Hells)
Scenerio: Go to a Dungeon or a zerg v zerg or an invasion and tell me where a stealthed player can stand without begin hit and still be effective.
2) Yah. This kind of defeats the point of stealth skill. I mean decoy would be worthless now. Props for taunting ranged players with this.
3) Feels kinda petty and kills one of thieves’ support roles. (Shadow Refuge is the closest thing we have to a rez skill)

Considering the first answers I got are from people who apparently main Thieves, I guess I’m on the right track here.

Scrambles, I am afraid you missed the entire point of this thread. Try not go all trigger happy when you read “Thief” and “adjust” in one sentence as this has barely anything to with Thieves and is directed at the Stealth mechanic which is used by more professions.

Dual, WvW/PvE and PvP have always been rather sperated from each other. Also, I don’t see why a PvP Thief would want to keep stealth strong in PvP, unless you care more about one-shotting people than capturing points. In this case, you strengthen my argument even more.
On your comments:
1. This hardly kills WvW zergs as those are mostly unorganized. GvG is dead due to the Bloodlust buff already and the only people who could(!) be at disadvantage are roaming guild groups. These usually wipe the floor with the zergs they engage anyway so I don’t see much of a problem in here. Also I don’t understand what this has to do with PvE but I’m not much of a PvE player anyways so feel free to elaborate.

2. Absolutely not, as it balances Stealth to the point where it’s comparable with other “emergency skills”. Decoy would still work as you lose your target and create a diversion. In the heat of battle, most people would still lose sight of the target.

3. I kinda agree on this and as I mentioned, it’s my least favourite option. To put it simple though, in my opinion thieves don’t belong in a zerg.

Also on a different note, please try not to focus on Thieves as this would have a broader impact.

for further reading you may want to check out the WvW forum or thief forum. Pretty much every argument has been addressed and repeated. There is one side that wants stealth changed and the other that says it’s fine L2P. Very little middle ground.

There isn’t much you can change with stealth without nerfing thieves hard. This is a fundamental issue in the game. I’ve been wrecked by stealth thieves plenty of times, and i have wrecked careless thieves as well. Like i said, if you pay attention you can tell where the thief is, and if you play a thief, you can figure out where he’s going.

I didn’t miss the point of your thread. Winning in this game comes down to skill and preparation, if you lose a fight it’s because you were outplayed or unprepared. If you have weapons that are target based your going into the fight against a stealther at a disadvantage.

And if you are down you already lost—being able to knockback someone who is trying to finish you while stealthed is only going to make you take longer to lose.

edit; My main is an Ele. I rolled a thief in order to l2p.

(and before you jump on me for “maining thief!”, I actually have an engie main but I played a lot of thief and mesmer)

1) The big issue with this change is the raw number of targetless AOEs in the game. Grenade kits, necro staffs, ele’s, mesmers, rangers… I can’t actually think of any class off the top of my head that doesn’t have easy access to quick cooldown, targetless AOE damage. This change to revealed would be devastating with skilled players, when the mesmer/thief goes poof, just pop an AOE on their location to bring them back (and keep them there for 4s). It would be a massive reduction in the power of those skills.

I’m unsure if you also intend to include condition damage.

2) “partially visible” is a tricky target. GW2 works on many video cards and different cards handle transparency to various effects. A player on ultra may have a far harder time spotting a stealthed player than one on low, or nVidia players will have an advantage over AMD players… This totally ignores the issues with your change #1 where a single hit would cause the loss of stealth. Since this game does not require a target to deal damage (even with single target attacks), this change would mostly invalidate the use of stealth as an escape tool (since you would still be taking most of the damage you would without stealthing).

3) I’m actually ok with this, however it will require some serious re-balancing to mesmer and thief (namely their access to stability).

Sogradde.8016:

Considering the first answers I got are from people who apparently main Thieves, I guess I’m on the right track here.
.

Why open a thread for discussion if you instantly dismiss the answers of people who respond?
Do you want discussion, or a place for people to nod their heads?

Requiem.8769:

Why open a thread for discussion if you instantly dismiss the answers of people who respond?
Do you want discussion, or a place for people to nod their heads?

You seem to have missed the part where I wrote a lengthy answer on their comments?

Also, getting flak from the people who benefit the most from absuing an underdeveloped game mechanic kind of proves my point.

@ Scrambles and Imperatora. I see your concerns, I will write a more elaborate answer later on. However Scrambles, be assured that I frequently hang out in all class forums and that this is written from the point of view of someone, who abused the stealth mechanic for the past 13 months. This is not a L2P issue, this is about the disproportional high advantage of Stealth, compared to other mechanics in the game and the resulting imbalance those classes with access to Stealth have over others.

Ironically, the Thief players in the sub-forum who advertise themselves as above-average, claim to barely use any Stealth at all so I’m probably not that wrong.

Well, being Revealed when you take damage isn’t going to work. Simply because there are some classes (ele, necro) with absolutely ridiculous access to ground-targeting AoEs. A staff ele or a mark necro would basically neutralize stealth by the nature of triggering revealed before you get into range to use the stealth skill.

Stealth being a forced de-target with a visible outline also wouldn’t work. The main reason for this lies in the mechanics of certain stealth skills. Backstab would never deal double damage because you would know to avoid the Thief. Tactical Strike would never daze because, again, you could easily avoid it.

As for the last part, I don’t really see what the issue is. There are other means to guarantee a stomp, plenty of which are more effective than stealth (blind, stability). As for resurrecting a player, that’s not as much of an issue as one would think. Resurrecting when you’re just one player is not going to work out that good. And group rezzing with or without stealth is going to out-do most damage anyway. Not to mention that the downed player is a dead giveaway of the location of the resurrector (not to mention that you can even tell if they’re doing it).

Sogradde.8016:

Requiem.8769:

Why open a thread for discussion if you instantly dismiss the answers of people who respond?
Do you want discussion, or a place for people to nod their heads?

You seem to have missed the part where I wrote a lengthy answer on their comments?

Also, getting flak from the people who benefit the most from absuing an underdeveloped game mechanic kind of proves my point.

@ Scrambles and Imperatora. I see your concerns, I will write a more elaborate answer later on. However Scrambles, be assured that I frequently hang out in all class forums and that this is written from the point of view of someone, who abused the stealth mechanic for the past 13 months. This is not a L2P issue, this is about the disproportional high advantage of Stealth, compared to other mechanics in the game and the resulting imbalance those classes with access to Stealth have over others.

Ironically, the Thief players in the sub-forum who advertise themselves as above-average, claim to barely use any Stealth at all so I’m probably not that wrong.

if i were to make any concessions on stealth, it would be that you should still see dmg numbers when you hit someone that is stealthed. I disagree with the argument that the stealth mechanic itself is to blame or is imbalanced, especially when other classes have access to straight up invulnerability.

You see dmg numbers for every hit in this game, unless the target is in stealth. That is an inconsistency with the implementation of floating numbers.

1) One is because on a thief, in most cases your most important attack is your stealth skill, and only BS is a pure oneshot burst. S/D uses Tactical Strike for control via daze, almost all of P/D’s condi dps is tied to Sneak Attack. Considering their other weapon skills, a good analogy would be, taking a x/D thief’s ability to stealth regularly is like taking Shatter mesmer’s ability to spawn illusions regularly.
2) I don’t know about you, but I can tell the difference between a clone and a transparent purple silhoette. If Mesmer tried using decoy in those conditions, I’d melee the silhoette to death. (Makes me wonder how much people use targetting for handholding)
3) No class should be banned from any mode of play. (Ranger, hope you get pet fixes soon) As said before Shadow Refuge what thieves are usually brought for in parties across all modes.

We’re talking about this again? The only thing broken with stealth is the perma-stealth that Anet is too lazy to fix.

Sogradde.8016:

Hey.

Number one: Change the [Revealed] debuff to the point, where not only dishing out damage but taking damage triggers it as well.

I know this would have a huge impact, especially when it comes to engaging battles in GvG via Veil or Mass Invisibility for smaller groups. Yet, it won’t be impossible and requires a little more skill. On the pro side, it gives people the ability do defend against Mesmers and Thieves in small scale battles and evens out the chances a little more.

Huge impact? Try breaking the class altogether. Seriously, thieves rely on stealth for defence, no matter how you look at it. All thief builds have it in some variation. Also thieves are incredibly uselss in gvg already, removing their ability to stealth in large group fights is just kitten ridiculous. Thieves are essentially assassin’s (not sure why they were named thieves anyways, but anywho), they excel at popping out and bursting people. Their support is whimsy and their sustain out of stealth is minor. If you’re roaming, be prepared to meet other roamers, and bring a stun breaker or 2. Stop asking for nerfs to a stealth class, and please l2p.

Mesmer can’t stealth for that long, and their aoe stealth is what thief should have as well. The idea is making group fights interesting, which is why you see almost every Mesmer run veil. Surprise attacks are what gives small sized groups in wvw the upper hand, something that wouldn’t be possible if things like veil and mass invis were removed or nerfed.

Also I rather be stealth stomped than watch someone waste a 75 second cooldown just to finish me (pointing a finger at you mist form). That to me is just horrible gameplay if people are that wasteful.

I really don’t care about stealth. Even so it causes so much trouble in my fights.
Except… Stealth finishing. This is just unfair.