Guild Wars 2

This topic has already been talked to death, with the latest thread about stealth on WvW subforum reaching over a thousand responses. With the arguments usually being very binary, either nerf or eliminate stealth or stealth is fine and should be left as is.

I think that stealth is in fact fine as is and should be left alone, what is however not fine is that as a game mechanic it has no counters. Stealth is completely controlled by the thief, once a thief uses stealth there is nothing anyone can do to reveal her until the thief either attacks, or waits until stealth wears off at which point she can immediately reapply yet more stealth, which can be very easily accomplished.

What I am suggesting is that most (or at least some) professions should be given some means of removing enemy stealth. And more specifically, I think that the Ranger profession should be the best at that. Both because it would be thematically appropriate for a ranger and also because rangers currently lack any real role in WvW, at least in my opinion.

As an example I think rangers traps should automatically remove enemy stealth and apply the revealed effect if a stealthed enemy steps in one. A ranger should also have a shout that could reveal stealthed enemy. Since ranger shouts are in effect pet commands, this shout should perhaps reveal all stealthed characters within, say, 900 units of their pet (1200 if traited) and apply revealed effect, this additional ability can be applied to an existing shout (or all of them) or perhaps a brand new one.

Other professions should also have some means to deal with stealth, perhaps engineer’s goggles can reveal stealthed characters as a tool belt skill, guardians’ consecrations could also strip stealth away (their powers are light based, while a thief’s powers are shadow based, light banishes shadow, get it), and so on.

Anyone stealthed hit by a melee attack should immediately be revealed and incapable of going back into stealth for 10 seconds.
Cannot stealth while taking damage from a condition (exception of this rule is the heal skill that stealths of course).

These two things would solve most anyone’s problems with stealth and force thieves to be more tactical instead of spammy with their stealth skills. I’ll support any solution that forces thieves to actually THINK while they fight. I’ve played the perma stealth style (it’s what people call it, not what it is honestly capable of, unbunch your panties) and it is boring in the extreme as there is no thought to it really.

Runiir.6425:

Anyone stealthed hit by a melee attack should immediately be revealed and incapable of going back into stealth for 10 seconds.
Cannot stealth while taking damage from a condition (exception of this rule is the heal skill that stealths of course).

These two things would solve most anyone’s problems with stealth and force thieves to be more tactical instead of spammy with their stealth skills. I’ll support any solution that forces thieves to actually THINK while they fight. I’ve played the perma stealth style (it’s what people call it, not what it is honestly capable of, unbunch your panties) and it is boring in the extreme as there is no thought to it really.

That would downright break non-burst stealth thieves. Certain thieves need access their stealth skills as often as possible (approximately every three seconds) or they suffer a lackluster damage output. These thieves don’t really use stealth for stealth but rather their stealth attacks due to all thier other skills being too weak offensively.

@OP: I think there’s better options then making it so certain skills render a single class inert. It’s like having a skill to make it so Eles can’t element swap. It should be handled carefully. I think just making revealed occur no matter is a better option. (For various reasons that I don’t care to re-recite at 2:00 am)

Dual.8953:

Runiir.6425:

Anyone stealthed hit by a melee attack should immediately be revealed and incapable of going back into stealth for 10 seconds.
Cannot stealth while taking damage from a condition (exception of this rule is the heal skill that stealths of course).

These two things would solve most anyone’s problems with stealth and force thieves to be more tactical instead of spammy with their stealth skills. I’ll support any solution that forces thieves to actually THINK while they fight. I’ve played the perma stealth style (it’s what people call it, not what it is honestly capable of, unbunch your panties) and it is boring in the extreme as there is no thought to it really.

That would downright break non-burst stealth thieves. Certain thieves need access their stealth skills as often as possible (approximately every three seconds) or they suffer a lackluster damage output. These thieves don’t really use stealth for stealth but rather their stealth attacks due to all thier other skills being too weak offensively.

@OP: I think there’s better options then making it so certain skills render a single class inert. It’s like having a skill to make it so Eles can’t element swap. It should be handled carefully. I think just making revealed occur no matter is a better option. (For various reasons that I don’t care to re-recite at 2:00 am)

You have a point here, however there can be a way to allow them to have access to that stealth burst skill (I ama ctually a fan of doing the pistol one then p/p double skill the moment stealth wears off, sound slike you have magazine guns and not flintlocks for sure haha!) while not being able to actually go invisible/stealth.

Have that debuff prevent the thief from going invisible but yet still have the other benefits of stealth for example.

I’m just not a fan of games that use stealth and do not give people a means of negating it. The normal cost for having stealth is having no healing…however the thief can spec to where spending all their time in stealth (the bunker builds for example) causes them to constantly regenerate hp while also not being able to be seen…a HORRIBLE mix for balance purposes everyone should agree.

So instead of nerfing stealth, you’d rather introduce whole new game mechanics just to counter it? hmm…

How about we nerf stealth and give thieves other viable options. GG No Re

You want to remove stealth, huh?

Then, I want to

• Drain all the adrenaline a Warrior has built up
• Put all the Virtues of a Guardian on cooldown
• Destroy all the clones/illusions of a Mesmer
• Force Necromancers out of Deathshroud
• Put the attunement swap on an Elementalist on cooldown

Fair?

Or alternatively, just give Thieves the a single ability that puts all the skills and utilities of an opponent into cooldown.

You know what’s hilarious (and sad)? You compared a thiefs invisibility to other professions unique combat mechanics…

You know a thief can be played without invis at all right? That must have slipped your mind…

Olba.5376:

You want to remove stealth, huh?

Then, I want to

• Drain all the adrenaline a Warrior has built up
• Put all the Virtues of a Guardian on cooldown
• Destroy all the clones/illusions of a Mesmer
• Force Necromancers out of Deathshroud
• Put the attunement swap on an Elementalist on cooldown

Fair?

Or alternatively, just give Thieves the a single ability that puts all the skills and utilities of an opponent into cooldown.

You already can:

• Put all the virtues of a guardian into cooldown( by dazing them ) (and yeah, Aegis = 1 block, every 40 seconds is totally OP when compared to permanent invisibility)
• Destroy all the clones/illusions of a mesmer (with the attack of your choice)
• Force necromancer out of death shroud (with the attack of your choice)
• Put the attunement swap on an Elementalist on a cooldown (by dazing them)

You can not:

• Prevent thieves from stealthing (Instinctual Response for example stealths you automatically)
• Force thief out of stealth

Of course, pretty much everything you listed isn’t really comparable to stealth. Virtues = Thieves stealing ability, Andrealine = Thieves initiative, Attunements = Thieves got weapon swap too, ect.

I think it would be cool to have some mechanic to prevent or remove stealth, that would be more in line with the rest of the professions. While waiting for that, I’ll just play on my thief.

The answer could be pets. With the latest patch it removed any usefulness to the skill “Guard” from Rangers. Rangers really have no unique or really useful purpose in WvW. If a pet could sniff out stealthed enemies and continue to track the target, Rangers would have a purpose.

If this is about balance, this suggestion would help in multiple ways.

DeWolfe.2174:

The answer could be pets. With the latest patch it removed any usefulness to the skill “Guard” from Rangers. Rangers really have no unique or really useful purpose in WvW. If a pet could sniff out stealthed enemies and continue to track the target, Rangers would have a purpose.

If this is about balance, this suggestion would help in multiple ways.

Well, that would just lead to another type of rock-paper-scissors.

DeWolfe.2174:

The answer could be pets. With the latest patch it removed any usefulness to the skill “Guard” from Rangers. Rangers really have no unique or really useful purpose in WvW. If a pet could sniff out stealthed enemies and continue to track the target, Rangers would have a purpose.

If this is about balance, this suggestion would help in multiple ways.

I like this its kinda like red alert 2 when you create dogs to kill spies

yup, this is urgent. So far, stealth is the only ability without counters…

Simplest solution you cant go in to stealth when your in combat.

Shadow.3475:

Simplest solution you cant go in to stealth when your in combat.

That is no where a simple solution at all. It would include needing to overhaul the thief class over all. So many skills would have to disappear, and new skills would have to be put in as replacements.

Shadow.3475:

Simplest solution you cant go in to stealth when your in combat.

This. My big issue with stealth other then there is no counter, that a thief can dictate everything and isn’t forced to commit to a fight.

I agree with completely with the idea that the game needs more counters to stealth, if for no other reason than it’s very lore/logic/immersion breaking, if I’m a ranger, that has explored and survived From the Shiverpeak mountains, to the Ruins of Orr, i even have a trait called ‘eagle eye’ how can I suddenly lose sight of someone while I’m, say rapid firing, at them and my wolf is biting at their legs? Stealth is a great idea, if a player can sneak up behind someone and stab them in the back, then of course the damage should be horrific, but they shouldn’t be able to then just disappear again while they’re being attacked, it doesn’t make sense, and I think it would be much more interesting, and really sort the skilled thieves from the heart seeker spammers, if stealth enabled a player to sneak up on a key target and quickly take them out, instead of just being a near unstoppable escape mechanism. It would make playing a thief more challenging and interesting as well as pretty much just making sense…

If they allow a stealth reveal, I deserve a button that auto kills any ranger pet. You know, because once the ranger has a pet it is entirely in their control…. It is a prof mechanic, there are counters and ways to track a stealthed player. Big no to stealth reveal unless it is something crafty like being within 130 units of an enemy you get a faded outline of them (still non-targetable) or increasing time between stealth but also increasing stealth time (so longer stealths, but you are visible for longer as the trade off when you exit).

I don’t hate stealth, but this is the only game where you have stealth and no radar. It’s very annoying.

NinjaEd.3946:

If they allow a stealth reveal, I deserve a button that auto kills any ranger pet. You know, because once the ranger has a pet it is entirely in their control…. It is a prof mechanic, there are counters and ways to track a stealthed player. Big no to stealth reveal unless it is something crafty like being within 130 units of an enemy you get a faded outline of them (still non-targetable) or increasing time between stealth but also increasing stealth time (so longer stealths, but you are visible for longer as the trade off when you exit).

Because killing a big 40% of rangers dps because stealth is over powered makes sense?

Cloud.7613:

NinjaEd.3946:

If they allow a stealth reveal, I deserve a button that auto kills any ranger pet. You know, because once the ranger has a pet it is entirely in their control…. It is a prof mechanic, there are counters and ways to track a stealthed player. Big no to stealth reveal unless it is something crafty like being within 130 units of an enemy you get a faded outline of them (still non-targetable) or increasing time between stealth but also increasing stealth time (so longer stealths, but you are visible for longer as the trade off when you exit).

Because killing a big 40% of rangers dps because stealth is over powered makes sense?

Sure. You’re killing 90% of P/D dps and 70% of S/D’s control. (And CC is all S/D has besides auto-attacking.)

Ofcourse a lot for this hate would be gone if they simply made stealth cause you to fade out but still have an outline people could track. The outline forces you to be renderred thus cullign would apply on when it applies to everyone, no special stealth culling (the game does not bother to load a stelthed thief, thus culling is giving thieves a constant extra second in free culling enabled stealth). Thieves should be targetable while in stealth if they are in front of their enemy (stealth while an enemy is FACING you and they don’t drop target). Seriously…there is no logic at all with current stealth mechanics. Whoever thought these mechanics made sense obviously was only thinking about how fun it would be to create a class mechanic that requires no thought to keep the class alive (seriously, stealth build thieves require no thinking at all to win with) where is the risk/reward with stealth?There is NO RISK with stealth.

Know what? Fine…don’t like any suggestion, lets institute some risk/reward. Thieves have been getting nothing but rewarded for using stealth…time to add in the risk. All damage that hits a stealthed target is increased by 50%. That’ll make even a clip of a stealthed thief far more dangerous.

Runiir.6425:

Ofcourse a lot for this hate would be gone if they simply made stealth cause you to fade out but still have an outline people could track. The outline forces you to be renderred thus cullign would apply on when it applies to everyone, no special stealth culling (the game does not bother to load a stelthed thief, thus culling is giving thieves a constant extra second in free culling enabled stealth). Thieves should be targetable while in stealth if they are in front of their enemy (stealth while an enemy is FACING you and they don’t drop target). Seriously…there is no logic at all with current stealth mechanics. Whoever thought these mechanics made sense obviously was only thinking about how fun it would be to create a class mechanic that requires no thought to keep the class alive (seriously, stealth build thieves require no thinking at all to win with) where is the risk/reward with stealth?There is NO RISK with stealth.

Know what? Fine…don’t like any suggestion, lets institute some risk/reward. Thieves have been getting nothing but rewarded for using stealth…time to add in the risk. All damage that hits a stealthed target is increased by 50%. That’ll make even a clip of a stealthed thief far more dangerous.

1 phrase to respond to w/e it is you were trying to say

Invisible =/= Invincible.

Try again.

Runiir.6425:

Ofcourse a lot for this hate would be gone if they simply made stealth cause you to fade out but still have an outline people could track. The outline forces you to be renderred thus cullign would apply on when it applies to everyone, no special stealth culling (the game does not bother to load a stelthed thief, thus culling is giving thieves a constant extra second in free culling enabled stealth). Thieves should be targetable while in stealth if they are in front of their enemy (stealth while an enemy is FACING you and they don’t drop target). Seriously…there is no logic at all with current stealth mechanics. Whoever thought these mechanics made sense obviously was only thinking about how fun it would be to create a class mechanic that requires no thought to keep the class alive (seriously, stealth build thieves require no thinking at all to win with) where is the risk/reward with stealth?There is NO RISK with stealth.

Know what? Fine…don’t like any suggestion, lets institute some risk/reward. Thieves have been getting nothing but rewarded for using stealth…time to add in the risk. All damage that hits a stealthed target is increased by 50%. That’ll make even a clip of a stealthed thief far more dangerous.

This won’t work because stealth on it’s own provides no bonus to thieves other then being not seen, untargetable and unlocking thier stealth skill. No way to mitigate damage. In my experience partial stealth fools no one save for the completely in attentive. So if this happened, thieves, a class with medium armour in the lowest HP tier, a class with no defensive boons, blocks or invulnerable states, no stabilty, would be forced to facetank every attack directed at them. Oh and and their evasion is B grade compared to Ranger, Elementalist and possibly Engie.

Dual.8953:

Runiir.6425:

Ofcourse a lot for this hate would be gone if they simply made stealth cause you to fade out but still have an outline people could track. The outline forces you to be renderred thus cullign would apply on when it applies to everyone, no special stealth culling (the game does not bother to load a stelthed thief, thus culling is giving thieves a constant extra second in free culling enabled stealth). Thieves should be targetable while in stealth if they are in front of their enemy (stealth while an enemy is FACING you and they don’t drop target). Seriously…there is no logic at all with current stealth mechanics. Whoever thought these mechanics made sense obviously was only thinking about how fun it would be to create a class mechanic that requires no thought to keep the class alive (seriously, stealth build thieves require no thinking at all to win with) where is the risk/reward with stealth?There is NO RISK with stealth.

Know what? Fine…don’t like any suggestion, lets institute some risk/reward. Thieves have been getting nothing but rewarded for using stealth…time to add in the risk. All damage that hits a stealthed target is increased by 50%. That’ll make even a clip of a stealthed thief far more dangerous.

This won’t work because stealth on it’s own provides no bonus to thieves other then being not seen, untargetable and unlocking thier stealth skill. No way to mitigate damage. In my experience partial stealth fools no one save for the completely in attentive. So if this happened, thieves, a class with medium armour in the lowest HP tier, a class with no defensive boons, blocks or invulnerable states, no stabilty, would be forced to facetank every attack directed at them. Oh and and their evasion is B grade compared to Ranger, Elementalist and possibly Engie.

Wait, what? There are traits, for example, to combine with stealth for extra speed while in stealth, so it does provide extra bonus.

Besides, being invisible and untargettable is quite a perk, if someone is lucky enough to hit you with 1000 AoE dmg, that should be at least doubled imo. (Oh, did I forgot to mention that while a thief can’t be seen, he doesn’t turn blind himself. So just dodge the red circle for win.)

The counter for stealth is to attack where you think it is. If you’re not good at predicting it… just try playing as a stealth-reliant thief build for a while.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Dual.8953:

Runiir.6425:

Ofcourse a lot for this hate would be gone if they simply made stealth cause you to fade out but still have an outline people could track. The outline forces you to be renderred thus cullign would apply on when it applies to everyone, no special stealth culling (the game does not bother to load a stelthed thief, thus culling is giving thieves a constant extra second in free culling enabled stealth). Thieves should be targetable while in stealth if they are in front of their enemy (stealth while an enemy is FACING you and they don’t drop target). Seriously…there is no logic at all with current stealth mechanics. Whoever thought these mechanics made sense obviously was only thinking about how fun it would be to create a class mechanic that requires no thought to keep the class alive (seriously, stealth build thieves require no thinking at all to win with) where is the risk/reward with stealth?There is NO RISK with stealth.

Know what? Fine…don’t like any suggestion, lets institute some risk/reward. Thieves have been getting nothing but rewarded for using stealth…time to add in the risk. All damage that hits a stealthed target is increased by 50%. That’ll make even a clip of a stealthed thief far more dangerous.

This won’t work because stealth on it’s own provides no bonus to thieves other then being not seen, untargetable and unlocking thier stealth skill. No way to mitigate damage. In my experience partial stealth fools no one save for the completely in attentive. So if this happened, thieves, a class with medium armour in the lowest HP tier, a class with no defensive boons, blocks or invulnerable states, no stabilty, would be forced to facetank every attack directed at them. Oh and and their evasion is B grade compared to Ranger, Elementalist and possibly Engie.

Wait, what? There are traits, for example, to combine with stealth for extra speed while in stealth, so it does provide extra bonus.

Besides, being invisible and untargettable is quite a perk, if someone is lucky enough to hit you with 1000 AoE dmg, that should be at least doubled imo. (Oh, did I forgot to mention that while a thief can’t be seen, he doesn’t turn blind himself. So just dodge the red circle for win.)

Yeah but if you’d read what I’m replying to, they’re suggesting making thieves visible and targetable even in stealth. So aside from the traits all those bonuses you mentioned, out the window.

Dual.8953:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Dual.8953:

Runiir.6425:

Ofcourse a lot for this hate would be gone if they simply made stealth cause you to fade out but still have an outline people could track. The outline forces you to be renderred thus cullign would apply on when it applies to everyone, no special stealth culling (the game does not bother to load a stelthed thief, thus culling is giving thieves a constant extra second in free culling enabled stealth). Thieves should be targetable while in stealth if they are in front of their enemy (stealth while an enemy is FACING you and they don’t drop target). Seriously…there is no logic at all with current stealth mechanics. Whoever thought these mechanics made sense obviously was only thinking about how fun it would be to create a class mechanic that requires no thought to keep the class alive (seriously, stealth build thieves require no thinking at all to win with) where is the risk/reward with stealth?There is NO RISK with stealth.

Know what? Fine…don’t like any suggestion, lets institute some risk/reward. Thieves have been getting nothing but rewarded for using stealth…time to add in the risk. All damage that hits a stealthed target is increased by 50%. That’ll make even a clip of a stealthed thief far more dangerous.

This won’t work because stealth on it’s own provides no bonus to thieves other then being not seen, untargetable and unlocking thier stealth skill. No way to mitigate damage. In my experience partial stealth fools no one save for the completely in attentive. So if this happened, thieves, a class with medium armour in the lowest HP tier, a class with no defensive boons, blocks or invulnerable states, no stabilty, would be forced to facetank every attack directed at them. Oh and and their evasion is B grade compared to Ranger, Elementalist and possibly Engie.

Wait, what? There are traits, for example, to combine with stealth for extra speed while in stealth, so it does provide extra bonus.

Besides, being invisible and untargettable is quite a perk, if someone is lucky enough to hit you with 1000 AoE dmg, that should be at least doubled imo. (Oh, did I forgot to mention that while a thief can’t be seen, he doesn’t turn blind himself. So just dodge the red circle for win.)

Yeah but if you’d read what I’m replying to, they’re suggesting making thieves visible and targetable even in stealth. So aside from the traits all those bonuses you mentioned, out the window.

Yes, but if you’d read it more carefully, there was two alternative suggestions there.
Either outline them, OR institute some risk/reward if you didn’t like the earlier suggestions.

In my mind, there are some easily implemented counters to stealth. One would be that any damage dealt to a target in stealth still appears.

Another would be to add an additional PB/ targeted AoE component to a single skill from each class (perhaps those skills typically not taken) which would remove the stealth buff.

Example skills:

Ranger: “Guard” would allow the pet to target and unstealth any stealthed target that enters the area.

Engineer: “Elixir S”, or any elixir could have the F2-4 ability also have a destealthing ability, replacing the random stealth component of its existing current boon selection.

Guardian: “Hallowed Ground” could have a de-stealth component.

Warrior: “Fear Me!” has a relatively long cooldown, and is not tremendously popular, and could provide PBAoE de-stealth.

I could go on, but the idea would be to take skills that are not typically used in WvW, such that it is a trade-off between performance and de-stealth capability.

At the moment, a thief on the offensive requires regular, short duration stealth, and these abilities would not impact massively on that. My problem with thieves in WvW is their roaming and escape capability, which these changes could address.

Thieves fight tooth and nail to keep their OP status rather than willingly try and balance themselves.
EVERY single game where stealth=total invisibility also has multiple ways to force the class out of the invisibility. THAT is balance. Not just force them out but forcably prevent them from re-stealthing.

So yes, thief stealth needs something done to it, be it various abilities that strip thieves of stealth and keep them from re-using it for a long duration, or cause thieves to immediately drop from stealth the moment they take damage. Barring that…risk/reward is needed.

What? Crying because you can’t stealth stomp people if that was the case? Get over it, everyone else is targetable while jumping on people. Crying because you now have to think far more tactically and deal with the repurcusions of being outnumbered? So does everyone else. THIS is balance. Currently the thief is not balanced worth a kitten in this regard.

You cannot come with suggestions to nerf stealth in pvp. Without suggestions on how to buff them in other things to compensate. Give all other classes a skill that reveal any nearby theif will destroy the class. Stealth is not that gamebreaking as some of you make it out to be. They are often not even used in tournaments for a good reason.

Runiir.6425:

Thieves fight tooth and nail to keep their OP status rather than willingly try and balance themselves.
EVERY single game where stealth=total invisibility also has multiple ways to force the class out of the invisibility. THAT is balance. Not just force them out but forcably prevent them from re-stealthing.

So yes, thief stealth needs something done to it, be it various abilities that strip thieves of stealth and keep them from re-using it for a long duration, or cause thieves to immediately drop from stealth the moment they take damage. Barring that…risk/reward is needed.

What? Crying because you can’t stealth stomp people if that was the case? Get over it, everyone else is targetable while jumping on people. Crying because you now have to think far more tactically and deal with the repurcusions of being outnumbered? So does everyone else. THIS is balance. Currently the thief is not balanced worth a kitten in this regard.

Plenty of thieves have made nerf suggestions. It’s just we aren’t going to stand idly by when people who know nothing of how tied to stealth some thief weapons are, make suggestion that would literally cripple some some weapon step. The icing on the cake is those suggested changes, usually directed at D/x builds actually nerf the other builds worse then the D/x ones, actually promoting the use of backstab instagib and heartseeker spam. Others are so off base they’d make thieves unplayable.

tom.7468:

You cannot come with suggestions to nerf stealth in pvp. Without suggestions on how to buff them in other things to compensate. Give all other classes a skill that reveal any nearby theif will destroy the class. Stealth is not that gamebreaking as some of you make it out to be. They are often not even used in tournaments for a good reason.

sPvP isn’t the problem, for several reasons, such as smaller maps, more bottlenecks, balanced gear, ect.
This thread was about WvW.

SgtBAP.2837:

In my mind, there are some easily implemented counters to stealth. One would be that any damage dealt to a target in stealth still appears.

Another would be to add an additional PB/ targeted AoE component to a single skill from each class (perhaps those skills typically not taken) which would remove the stealth buff.

Example skills:

Ranger: “Guard” would allow the pet to target and unstealth any stealthed target that enters the area.

Engineer: “Elixir S”, or any elixir could have the F2-4 ability also have a destealthing ability, replacing the random stealth component of its existing current boon selection.

Guardian: “Hallowed Ground” could have a de-stealth component.

Warrior: “Fear Me!” has a relatively long cooldown, and is not tremendously popular, and could provide PBAoE de-stealth.

I could go on, but the idea would be to take skills that are not typically used in WvW, such that it is a trade-off between performance and de-stealth capability.

At the moment, a thief on the offensive requires regular, short duration stealth, and these abilities would not impact massively on that. My problem with thieves in WvW is their roaming and escape capability, which these changes could address.

Thats still stealth reveal, and cond ticking would be considered dmg still and completely track the thief once again, leaving them useless. Stealth is our defence, and there are more than enough ways to track a stealth thief unless they are good in which case they won’t run straight down the path you were chasing them. Just sayin..

Runiir.6425:

Thieves fight tooth and nail to keep their OP status rather than willingly try and balance themselves.
EVERY single game where stealth=total invisibility also has multiple ways to force the class out of the invisibility. THAT is balance. Not just force them out but forcably prevent them from re-stealthing.

So yes, thief stealth needs something done to it, be it various abilities that strip thieves of stealth and keep them from re-using it for a long duration, or cause thieves to immediately drop from stealth the moment they take damage. Barring that…risk/reward is needed.

What? Crying because you can’t stealth stomp people if that was the case? Get over it, everyone else is targetable while jumping on people. Crying because you now have to think far more tactically and deal with the repurcusions of being outnumbered? So does everyone else. THIS is balance. Currently the thief is not balanced worth a kitten in this regard.

So mist form and mini stomping (engi) or stability or blind stomping? thats fair? Sure you did your homework..

Thieves do higher damage while in stealth, in fact stealth is the reason why they have such high damage output. However when not stealthed thieves also take alot of damage and coupled with a low hitpoint pool they are quick to go down

Thieves that are set up as glass cannon, burst dps are not that easy to play. You have to have your timing perfect and your eye/hand coordination has to be impeccable. I cannot play my thief in that fashion as my reflexes just will not allow it. However I rely on stealth to allow myself a chance at survival. In WvW with my exotic equipped Guardian I can easily solo capture a supply camp and even survive one or two enemy adds while capping that camp. My exotic equiped thief can do a solo camp but it requires time, timing and patience and any enemies coming by would mean his end except for having the luxury of stealth. Yes there are thieves that can easily cap a camp solo with adds but they are not as common as you may think.

Any changes to stealth would also require changes to damage output/mitigation and a higher hitpoint pool to balance. One thing that could help and not take directly from the thief would be to remove the ability of the thief to use enviromental mobs or siege to C&D especially in WvW. However they would need that ability in PvE.

And theirin lies the root of the problem What you change in PvP/WvW in regards to stealth mechanics would destroy most thieves in the PvE enviroment.

They could remove stealth altogether by buffing the Shadowstep line of skills.

Infiltrator’s Arrow
Infiltrator’s Signet
Infiltrator’s Strike
Ink Shot ?
Smoke Trail
Shadow Shot
Shadow Strike
Shadow Trap ?
Shadow Pursuit
Shadowstep ?
Shadow Return
Steal

Buff that line of skills as well as a thief’s heal ability and thieves would still be viable without stealth. Those skills however would need some work on durations, damage output, etc.

Theftwind: I’m curious how this would work. Particularly how it’d work for S/D and how you’d keep S/D on equal ground with S/P.

Dual.8953:

Theftwind: I’m curious how this would work. Particularly how it’d work for S/D and how you’d keep S/D on equal ground with S/P.

Shadowstep is not a true stealth. What it does is increase the mobility of the thief. If you remove stealth then increasing mobility by buffing the Shadowstep line of skills and perhaps adding a couple more in place of the stealth skills you would maintain a balance. Each of the weapon skills be they S/D, S/P or D/D would have to be buffed with an increase in mobility. I have not yet worked it all out as it was a random thought. So although a thief would not be able to stealth to avoid an attack he would be able to dodge/shadowstep away from an attack easier.

Stealth makes a thief harder to hit, that is part of being a thief. What I gave was just a suggestion to keep the thief from being hit easily without the stealth mechanic.

NinjaEd.3946:

Runiir.6425:

Thieves fight tooth and nail to keep their OP status rather than willingly try and balance themselves.
EVERY single game where stealth=total invisibility also has multiple ways to force the class out of the invisibility. THAT is balance. Not just force them out but forcably prevent them from re-stealthing.

So yes, thief stealth needs something done to it, be it various abilities that strip thieves of stealth and keep them from re-using it for a long duration, or cause thieves to immediately drop from stealth the moment they take damage. Barring that…risk/reward is needed.

What? Crying because you can’t stealth stomp people if that was the case? Get over it, everyone else is targetable while jumping on people. Crying because you now have to think far more tactically and deal with the repurcusions of being outnumbered? So does everyone else. THIS is balance. Currently the thief is not balanced worth a kitten in this regard.

So mist form and mini stomping (engi) or stability or blind stomping? thats fair? Sure you did your homework..

Mist Form – Lasts 3 seconds with CD of 75 seconds, you can’t activate it before you start to stomp. All you need to do is move while downed to completely negate this, or affect the opponent before they’re stomping you.

Elixir S (This is what I assume you meant) – Lasts 3 seconds with CD of 60, you can still affect the player before (and after) the stomping attempt. Just move once while downed to negate completely.

Stability – Every class has it, can still be damaged, especially by your allies. whats the problem?

Blind – Every class, especially thief, has it. Doesn’t stop your allies from interrupting / damage

So… Lets compare to Stealth stomp?

Stealth – Permanent for thief, pretty much. Most of the time you don’t even know you’re being stomped. You activate stealth before you start stomping. Your allies? Don’t know you’re being stomped, so they don’t do anything about it.

I wouldn’t call it stealth at all. I’d flat out call thief stealth INVISIBILITY.

Stealth should work the same as it did in DAOC…you cannot stealth once you are in combat…or anyone has you targeted.

Problem solved..and that forces thieves to be far more careful and it’d separate the bads from the good ones.

Solution:
Diminishing returns on the stealth after a few times.

Like this thieves can bathe in their “you can’t kill me” crap for a while and the rest of us knows this does not last forever.
Why? Because it is extremely annoying that a thief that cannot kill you simply vanishes every time they are practically dead at some point, the fights are neither fun nor interesting – he/she will exit the fight anyways before death so I don’t even bother to engage in fights with thieves anymore. And no, it is not, because they kill me, they do not, my main is a mesmer with almost 3k armor, but it is a waste of time.

And no class should be allowed to finish people while stealthed.

Time to revive this thread.

A note to Anet devs that may read this. I imagine one of the arguments being used against doing anything with stealth is that it is such a core mechanic for a thief that it would break the profession if there were any real counters for it. But you have already provided boon conversion, boon stripping and boon hate to counter the core mechanic of any profession that relies on boons, like guardians and elementalists. So clearly there is a precedent that has been set and people still play those professions.

I agree that stealth has to be revised. Its simply annoying, not challenging.

Stealth needs to have a counter (e.g. break on damage as suggested) or to be limited as an opener (which still is a big advantage, as you can choose your fights). Most of the times i meet thiefs in wvw i simply cant kill them, even if i outplay them – its simply frustrating not being able to kill an enemy you have beaten.

I would love if anet would redo thiefs in a fasion similiar to gw1 assasins, imho the best thief class design i found in any mmo so far. Give thiefs some form of defence (critical defences, evasion or something) or sustain (lifesteal) to compensate, i would love that for my little asuran stabber.

At the moment the skill/risk/reward gap for stealth is just too huge when compared to other classes.

Making some utility skills give the revealed debuff is the best way to handle all this. As some people mentioned, the example of ranger traps would be perfect for that role. Other classes could have some utilities that can cause the revealed status as well. The current system of “swing wildly and see if your autoattack chain continues” isn’t a counter, nor is blindy throwing AoEs on the floor.

Also I feel like it should be mentioned that this isn’t only geared towards thieves, but anyone who has access to stealth (ranger trait, mesmer traits, runes of infiltration, etc).

I’m all for adding stealth counter measures because as a skill based player I wouldn’t be stepping into the traps (yes I play a thief, not being biased here) but honestly, a lot of classes can still predict and target a thief even after they stealth if they are wise. Without stealth thief is complete trash and being too harsh on it would be the same as removing a rangers pet. I think the biggest problem is how hard you can hit in WvW(PvE) so people are irritated as hell at thiefs in general and want nerfs, but really you need to play sPvP out and see the game in a balanced perspective. If you want WvW toned down, get food buffs removed and bigger vitality pools to compensate for the stat difference between sPvP and PvE. It’s already bad enough arrow carts can remove stealth but at the same time pretty dumb since revealing some thief’s in a zerg sitting outside the wall doesn’t really help a fight all that much anyways unless your team is down there fighting.

Bil.6354:

I agree that stealth has to be revised. Its simply annoying, not challenging.

Stealth needs to have a counter (e.g. break on damage as suggested) or to be limited as an opener (which still is a big advantage, as you can choose your fights). Most of the times i meet thiefs in wvw i simply cant kill them, even if i outplay them – its simply frustrating not being able to kill an enemy you have beaten.

I would love if anet would redo thiefs in a fasion similiar to gw1 assasins, imho the best thief class design i found in any mmo so far. Give thiefs some form of defence (critical defences, evasion or something) or sustain (lifesteal) to compensate, i would love that for my little asuran stabber.

At the moment the skill/risk/reward gap for stealth is just too huge when compared to other classes.

Where would stealth drop on damage leave S/D and P/D? Remember that there are non-burst stealth builds, and stealth is critical to thier sustainability and control/conditions.
As for Assassin, in gw1 Assassin had a clear aim and goal, which was teleporting past the tanks to burst down the squishy supports, living off a lot of passive dodges. The battles were slower so it was easy to pick out the monk and shadowstep to him. GW2 is a whole other beast, battles are faster, no dodge is passive and everyone can be tanky or squishy, so it’s impossible to approach battles in the same methodical fashion. They gave thieves stealth as a positional tool because it’s much more adaptable then shadowsteps.

Dual.8953:

Bil.6354:

I agree that stealth has to be revised. Its simply annoying, not challenging.

Stealth needs to have a counter (e.g. break on damage as suggested) or to be limited as an opener (which still is a big advantage, as you can choose your fights). Most of the times i meet thiefs in wvw i simply cant kill them, even if i outplay them – its simply frustrating not being able to kill an enemy you have beaten.

I would love if anet would redo thiefs in a fasion similiar to gw1 assasins, imho the best thief class design i found in any mmo so far. Give thiefs some form of defence (critical defences, evasion or something) or sustain (lifesteal) to compensate, i would love that for my little asuran stabber.

At the moment the skill/risk/reward gap for stealth is just too huge when compared to other classes.

Where would stealth drop on damage leave S/D and P/D? Remember that there are non-burst stealth builds, and stealth is critical to thier sustainability and control/conditions.
As for Assassin, in gw1 Assassin had a clear aim and goal, which was teleporting past the tanks to burst down the squishy supports, living off a lot of passive dodges. The battles were slower so it was easy to pick out the monk and shadowstep to him. GW2 is a whole other beast, battles are faster, no dodge is passive and everyone can be tanky or squishy, so it’s impossible to approach battles in the same methodical fashion. They gave thieves stealth as a positional tool because it’s much more adaptable then shadowsteps.

If certain utility skills on classes could just add a revealed debuff timer to them (of varying degrees of time depending on the skill and class) it give certain builds / playstyles a decent counter to stealth-reliant builds. Basically make it so that stealth-heavy builds have to actually think if engaging x, y, and/or z players is worth getting potentially screwed out of being able to stealth for 3+ seconds.

2 things which would help to balance stealth in wvw::

1. Eliminate stealth stomp

2. If someone is targeted before entering stealth, that target comes back after they leave stealth

Sepreh.5924:

2. If someone is targeted before entering stealth, that target comes back after they leave stealth

Ok and if I target a mesmer, when he makes clones and whatever, the target shall remain on the genuine mesmer.
Think a little bit before…

Fred Fargone.3127:

Mist Form – Lasts 3 seconds with CD of 75 seconds, you can’t activate it before you start to stomp. All you need to do is move while downed to completely negate this, or affect the opponent before they’re stomping you.

Elixir S (This is what I assume you meant) – Lasts 3 seconds with CD of 60, you can still affect the player before (and after) the stomping attempt. Just move once while downed to negate completely.

Stability – Every class has it, can still be damaged, especially by your allies. whats the problem?

Blind – Every class, especially thief, has it. Doesn’t stop your allies from interrupting / damage

So… Lets compare to Stealth stomp?

Stealth – Permanent for thief, pretty much. Most of the time you don’t even know you’re being stomped. You activate stealth before you start stomping. Your allies? Don’t know you’re being stomped, so they don’t do anything about it.

Stealth stomping – apparantly you can just move. (only 3 professions can move while downed, thief ele and mesmer. Thats not a solution to the other professions. Mist form lasts 3 seconds, it’d be quite hard to time a skill for that last second. If a thief is in stealth, and an ally can’t figure where they went after trying to stomp you…. theres your problem. Invisible =/= invincible. Also if you see an ally down and a thief went stealth near them, it’s wise to get them up asap and put cc on the downed ally. Thats entirely based on the team communicating.

The problem with stability finishing is if you cannot move while downed sure an ally can hit them but they cannot interupt them. Neither can you. Most classes that have access to stability are beefy and can take the 4 seconds of dmg and/or easily recover from it. Mistform and elixir s make them invincible, much worse than dealing with a stealth player who can still be knocked down, launched, knocked back, etc.