Guild Wars 2

I don’t need to go into great detail about why stealth is overpowered….

but what does need some detail is how we could work in a balance to stealthed foes, without rendering classes like thief completely useless.

This isn’t even a counter…. so it is not balance…. but it is going in the right direction.

Two Suggestions:
Show dmg numbers (other than condi dmg) when you strike a stealthed foe.

IRL if you hit something with your eyes closed…. you would be able to know it was there once you struck it… and if it moved you wouldn’t know where it went…. but you would still know you hit something.

Make bleeding, display as it ticks on a stealthed opponent.
If your foe is invisible…. his blood becomes visible as it leaves his body… you can follow the ticking bleed damage to assist in locating a stealthed foe.

Neither of these would reveal a stealthed opponent…. but would assist players in combating an overpowered mechanic.

If you feel that these are inadequate, please feel free to suggest your own stealth balance ideas in this thread.

Stealth isn’t overpowered to those that have learned how to deal with it. It is only overpowered to those still learning or those that refuse to learn. Once you have that ah ha moment, it will no longer be viewed as over powered. It isn’t hard to deal with, I learned how to in relation to my build, so can every one else that wished to apply themselves.

+1

Sounds good to me. come to think of it – i think there was another MMO that did something very similar but wasn’t a PvP type of change but more so a PvE so when mobs went into stealth you could see the blood dripping on the floor as they moved.. can’t recall what it was – think it might of been one of those Korean ones…

u can kind of tell now when u hit because the animation of ur char changes – but thats only for melee type wild swinging into the air..

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Stealth isn’t overpowered to those that have learned how to deal with it. It is only overpowered to those still learning or those that refuse to learn. Once you have that ah ha moment, it will no longer be viewed as over powered. It isn’t hard to deal with, I learned how to in relation to my build, so can every one else that wished to apply themselves.

Thank you for your feedback, but I’m sorry. I completely disagree with you.

I’ve explained how to fight against stealth on countless different occasions, voiced my opinions on stealth as to why it’s not overpowered. I’ve given explanations on how to fight against stealth. It’s very much a learn to play issue.

Still no reasoning given. Still a flamebait anti-stealth troll thread.

Aberrant.6749:

I’ve explained how to fight against stealth on countless different occasions, voiced my opinions on stealth as to why it’s not overpowered. I’ve given explanations on how to fight against stealth. It’s very much a learn to play issue.

Still no reasoning given. Still a flamebait anti-stealth troll thread.

Speaking of bait…. I suppose I will bite.

We will do this one reason at a time.

I will give a couple reasons each post, and you can tell me why they are not overpowered.

A stealthed opponent can flee with no chance of a pursuer of catching him unless he is a psychic and manages to guess which one of 360 different directions in which his opponent has fled. How do you anticipate which direction he has gone, other than guessing?

The skill Black Powder essentially prevents a revealed opponent from taking damage from many traditional sources in the short amount of time he is unstealthed. The combo field blinds melee foes and destroys incoming projectiles. Since black powder is an initiative based skill, it can be maintained until a player is no longer revealed. How do you effectively deal damage to a stealthed foe, other than guessing, if he spams his smoke field on your location every time he is revealed?

OH! OH! I can answer!!! /flailingarms

TheBlackLeech.9360:

A stealthed opponent can flee with no chance of a pursuer of catching him unless he is a psychic and manages to guess which one of 360 different directions in which his opponent has fled. How do you anticipate which direction he has gone, other than guessing?

If he is running away while stealthed, you can stay in the general area and sweep your surroundings with the camera while moving to avoid the possibility of a backstab. He will unstealth eventually and will then have to wait for cooldowns to end before reengaging. You will be able to spot the guy in the distance once he unstealths and then track or chase him.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The skill Black Powder essentially prevents a revealed opponent from taking damage from many traditional sources in the short amount of time he is unstealthed. The combo field blinds melee foes and destroys incoming projectiles. Since black powder is an initiative based skill, it can be maintained until a player is no longer revealed. How do you effectively deal damage to a stealthed foe, other than guessing, if he spams his smoke field on your location every time he is revealed?

Black Powder cannot destroy projectiles. Smoke Screen does. Also Black Powder can only be chained maybe twice before you have to wait for initiative to regen.

As for blind, it takes 1 attack to clear it. And seeing as how a BP field can be easily avoided it isn’t that much trouble.

Zacchary.6183:

OH! OH! I can answer!!! /flailingarms

If he is running away while stealthed, you can stay in the general area and sweep your surroundings with the camera while moving to avoid the possibility of a backstab. He will unstealth eventually and will then have to wait for cooldowns to end before reengaging. You will be able to spot the guy in the distance once he unstealths and then track or chase him.

I’m afraid that seeing your opponent off on the horizon is not really fair or balanced in any shape or form… If he stealths and you 1, can’t tell if he is going to flee or fight, and 2 cant tell where he went, you will never catch a roaming thief in WvW, even if you are a better player.

Zacchary.6183:

Black Powder cannot destroy projectiles. Smoke Screen does. Also Black Powder can only be chained maybe twice before you have to wait for initiative to regen.

As for blind, it takes 1 attack to clear it. And seeing as how a BP field can be easily avoided it isn’t that much trouble.

I’ll take your word for it, but I was assuming that it was Black Powder destroying my projectiles and not Smoke Screen. Thank you for clearing that up. I feel that there are quite a few things that players can do to prevent being manhandled while revealed, blinds, stuns, basilisk venom, etc… and BP or SS is just the tip of the iceberg.

I suppose I will rephrase that question, since I used a poor/incorrect example.

Regardless of what a player uses when he is revealed to remain defensive, is there anything you can do besides get lucky when attempting to effectively damage a foe while he is in stealth?

Also…
When an opponent is stealthed (even if you know exactly where he is) and you are using a ranged weapon, how are you expected to hit your opponent if your attacks completely miss without a target?

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m afraid that seeing your opponent off on the horizon is not really fair or balanced in any shape or form… If he stealths and you 1, can’t tell if he is going to flee or fight, and 2 cant tell where he went, you will never catch a roaming thief in WvW, even if you are a better player.

Then you take that as a win. If the thief were to stay and fight you would have won anyways.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Regardless of what a player uses when he is revealed to remain defensive, is there anything you can do besides get lucky when attempting to effectively damage a foe while he is in stealth?

Also…
When an opponent is stealthed (even if you know exactly where he is) and you are using a ranged weapon, how are you expected to hit your opponent if your attacks completely miss without a target?

If you have trouble with any profession, the best thing anyone can ever do is step in that profession’s shoes. When I started out playing thief in WvW I couldn’t kill a mesmer for the life of me. Then I made one and eventually found out why I was getting my kitten handed to me so much. They began to be less of a problem and I managed to kill one soon after I got back in afterwards.

As for the second question, you do not need a target to use the auto attack. In fact most attacks don’t require a target. Another thing I have learned about ranged attacks is that they fire from your character’s chest. If you use the mouse to control movement and camera (via holding right click), you can use your toon’s chest as a targeting reticle and use it to aim your shots.

I like to practice that on ambients for targets.

Zacchary.6183:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m afraid that seeing your opponent off on the horizon is not really fair or balanced in any shape or form… If he stealths and you 1, can’t tell if he is going to flee or fight, and 2 cant tell where he went, you will never catch a roaming thief in WvW, even if you are a better player.

Then you take that as a win. If the thief were to stay and fight you would have won anyways.

You can also load conditions onto them at the right time and watch them appear downed a few seconds later a little ways away.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Regardless of what a player uses when he is revealed to remain defensive, is there anything you can do besides get lucky when attempting to effectively damage a foe while he is in stealth?

Also…
When an opponent is stealthed (even if you know exactly where he is) and you are using a ranged weapon, how are you expected to hit your opponent if your attacks completely miss without a target?

If you play a thief for a while you’ll be able to predict them pretty well. Your mele chain will also continue to go through the normal chain (letting you know you hit him).

Depends on the ranged weapon, some have cone attacks, some have aoe, some have channeled attacks that’ll continue after they have stealthed, etc. You can technically make your screen level and pew pew at that spot, but that’s a huge shot in the dark in reality. If you only bring ranged weapons that don’t have aoe/cone attacks…. that’s on you at that point.

Just seeing the comment about BP further leads me to believe this is just needing to understand the classes a bit better… as well as the how do you shoot some one that’s stealthed question and bring better weapon options with you… vs. an actual need for stealth to be nerfed.

Zacchary.6183:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I’m afraid that seeing your opponent off on the horizon is not really fair or balanced in any shape or form… If he stealths and you 1, can’t tell if he is going to flee or fight, and 2 cant tell where he went, you will never catch a roaming thief in WvW, even if you are a better player.

Then you take that as a win. If the thief were to stay and fight you would have won anyways.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Regardless of what a player uses when he is revealed to remain defensive, is there anything you can do besides get lucky when attempting to effectively damage a foe while he is in stealth?

Also…
When an opponent is stealthed (even if you know exactly where he is) and you are using a ranged weapon, how are you expected to hit your opponent if your attacks completely miss without a target?

If you have trouble with any profession, the best thing anyone can ever do is step in that profession’s shoes. When I started out playing thief in WvW I couldn’t kill a mesmer for the life of me. Then I made one and eventually found out why I was getting my kitten handed to me so much. They began to be less of a problem and I managed to kill one soon after I got back in afterwards.

As for the second question, you do not need a target to use the auto attack. In fact most attacks don’t require a target. Another thing I have learned about ranged attacks is that they fire from your character’s chest. If you use the mouse to control movement and camera (via holding right click), you can use your toon’s chest as a targeting reticle and use it to aim your shots.

I like to practice that on ambients for targets.

What you said works both ways.

Play as the stealth classes to know how to beat them?

Valid argument… only if you….

Play the other classes against stealthed opponents to know how unfair it is!

Example:

Necro with Axe/Focus Equipped.

No matter how much practice/years of perfecting your technique…

You will never ever hit anything untargeted with your axe 1, autoattack.

You will never ever hit anything untargeted with your Rending Claws, axe 2

You WILL hit all nearby foes with your axe skill 3 Unholy Feast.

You will never ever hit anything untargeted with your focus 4 Reaper’s Touch.

You will never ever hit anything untargeted with your focus 5 Spinal Shivers.

Also, after an opponent stealths, you lose your target.

…and must retarget your opponent once he is revealed.

Sometimes there can be a battle going on, and you need to tab through that/click on the foe again?

It can be up to 4 tab presses in a 1v1 fight alone.(Mesmer clones, thieves guild, rock dogs, etc.)

Do you think that the lose target, then tab/click to regain target is something we should have to do, and does it take away from a player’s ability to fight at all?

Actually I have beaten cnd/bs thieves with a d/d condition thief. The constant AoE bleeding melts them pretty fast and there is little they can do about it since d/d is the best chase set thieves have.

As for necros, the counter to thieves is staff because of the coverage of marks and the conditions they inflict. Secondly, the marks allow you to see their general location so you can aim your auto in that direction.

Although I should have specified what kind of ranged attack I was talking about. Its the projectile type of ranged attacks.

Aberrant.6749:

If you play a thief for a while you’ll be able to predict them pretty well.

So you admit fighting a thief relies on prediction?

Aberrant.6749:

Depends on the ranged weapon, some have cone attacks, some have aoe, some have channeled attacks that’ll continue after they have stealthed, etc. You can technically make your screen level and pew pew at that spot, but that’s a huge shot in the dark in reality. If you only bring ranged weapons that don’t have aoe/cone attacks…. that’s on you at that point.

Just seeing the comment about BP further leads me to believe this is just needing to understand the classes a bit better… as well as the how do you shoot some one that’s stealthed question and bring better weapon options with you… vs. an actual need for stealth to be nerfed.

At least you are honest about the projectile attacks/invisible crosshair thing… but I don’t think you are giving me enough credit with my experience with thieves (and lets not forget mesmers).

I did admit i got the two skills mixed up… but that does not necessarily mean that makes my argument about it wrong.

When a thief becomes revealed, the first thing he is going to do is start using all that initiative he recovered while invisible, and burn through the cooldowns that were on recharge.

Since hitting a stealthed opponent is as you said “a shot in the dark” I figured I’d point out that…. since you were doing nothing to the thief while he was stealthed…. he is ready for a full up front offensive as soon as he is revealed…. It means you have a very small window to be on the offensive… and are on defensive while the thief is in stealth, and have about 4 seconds…. some of which you will be blinded immobilized, and/or stunned for, to actually deal damage to your opponent before his is stealthed again.

Also, I never have only ranged weapons, in sPvP… but that does not mean that i do not find myself with my ranged weapon out versus a stealthed opponent from time to time.

A lot of combat in gw2 relies on prediction. Using the clues you have been given by your opponents actions are key to winning regardless of the classes/builds involved. They let you know what options your opponent has left and what will probably come next. Learn what they are telling you and use that to your advantage.

Ini is still a limited resource as are their utilities. It’s not as if they c&d/bp&hs/whatever and boom all their ini is back. You can also prevent them from even entering stealth save for blinding powder/last refuge.

I never said that I do nothing while they are stealthed. The shot in the dark was only in the case of a small projectile attack. There are tons of things you could possibly do but it’s very case by case.

You don’t need to be totally defensive against a thief once he exits stealth. CC the sucker and smack him around. Make his squishy kitten go defensive. What ranged weapon on what class in what situation are all important as far as what you can/should do in that situation. I can’t help when things are so vague.

Whatever class, I encourage you to ask in that class’s subforum. I’m 100% sure they can help you with suggestions. Depending on what class it is you may be in for an uphill fight anyways, but that’s fine and doesn’t mean that stealth is inherantly OP. That would be like my eng complaining about how well a necro can manipulate conditions. Some times you just meet your counter (although I’m against HARD counters to where you just don’t have a chance).

Aberrant.6749:

A lot of combat in gw2 relies on prediction. Using the clues you have been given by your opponents actions are key to winning regardless of the classes/builds involved. They let you know what options your opponent has left and what will probably come next.

Ini is still a limited resource as are their utilities. It’s not as if they c&d/bp&hs/whatever and boom all their ini is back. You can also prevent them from even entering stealth save for blinding powder/last refuge.

I never said that I do nothing while they are stealthed. The shot in the dark was only in the case of a small projectile attack. There are tons of things you could possibly do but it’s very case by case.

You don’t need to be totally defensive against a thief once he exits stealth. CC the sucker and smack him around. Make his squishy kitten go defensive. What ranged weapon on what class in what situation are all important as far as what you can/should do in that situation. I can’t help when things are so vague.

Are you afraid to admit you attack the air, anticipating where your opponent may or may not be?

Do you not see how this is not the way a pvp match (a place where players are supposed to be comparing skill) should be?

What happens when they are not where you anticipate they are?

I admit, I defeat thieves just as often as I am beaten by them…. but I feel like the deciding factor is the luck/prediction element involved…. and that is not how it should be.

Sure you need to predict what your opponent is going to do….

If you see a stealth field go down on top of a downed opponent…. its a no brainer what is happening….. but when you are fighting someone one on one… its another story…

Did he run away?
Is he still here?
Is he behind me?
Is he right next to me?
Do i channel my block now?
Do i wait?
Should I keep moving?

Predicting how your opponent is going to act is not the same as predicting where the hell he went and how he is going to act.

Aberrant.6749:

Whatever class, I encourage you to ask in that class’s subforum. I’m 100% sure they can help you with suggestions. Depending on what class it is you may be in for an uphill fight anyways, but that’s fine and doesn’t mean that stealth is inherantly OP. That would be like my eng complaining about how well a necro can manipulate conditions. Some times you just meet your counter.

…of course you are going to encounter players with counter builds to your own…

but stealth itself has no counter.

There is nothing you can do to remove it.

People can counter the rest of your build…. have stun breaks, stability, condition removal, etc….. but the stealth part remains overpowered.

Also, I have no problem asking questions when I do not understand something…. or need advice. It’s part of the learning experience.

With stealth it is just overpowered. No if’s and’s or but’s….

I feel that the balances i have suggested would not be entirely detrimental to stealth…. and at the same time remove some of that “random guesssing” element to the entire thing.

If stealth is overpowered, like you keep saying, then why are you not playing a thief?

Zacchary.6183:

If stealth is overpowered, like you keep saying, then why are you not playing a thief?

1) I want balance.
2) I’m getting 200 wins on each profession before moving to the next.
(I have played a bit on each profession in pve and in heart of the mists before committing to the 200… some classes like necro or mesmer will get some action to break up the grind to 200 wins)

…and don’t let mesmers off the hook here either.

As I was posting this thread… i continued to try out thief in spvp for the first time…. and I was amazed how broken it was.

I have never really played on my thief in spvp before today…. and look at this screen.

Top score on the winning team.

I rarely use my thief even in pve… (i know what the skills do… and how to use shortbow with smoke screen and all that…. and just copied what i saw others doing to me) …had no idea what i was doing and still kicked kitten .

That is what warranted the posting of this thread to begin with!

I was beating people I knew had a higher skill level than me.

Bann Ditt (my thief in the screen)

and another of my profession breakdown to prove i am inexp on thief.

Its broken…. stealth is training wheels.

I’ll have to 100% agree with stealth being overpowered in the WvW scene. As a roaming engineer, I have a hell of a time catching the kitten kittens once they realize they can’t actually kill me and decide to run off. The lack of diminishing returns on stealth duration gives them so much distance between you and them before they’re revealed.

I guess you could call it a “win” if you make them run away, but where’s the loot? Where’s the WXP? Where’s the ability to shut them down and force them back to their waypoint, thus preventing them from ganking some other poor sob from your server? The suggestions made in this thread, at least the damage indicator when you HIT them, would in no way remove the effectiveness of stealth. It would instead give you counterplay to those cowards that run.

Prediction is not just luck. Depending on what’s going on in the fight, you should be able to tell if they are going to attack, retreat, or stall. You need to use the information you are being given. You don’t need to be able to see them all of the time to do this. The better you get at it, the more of an exception it is that they do something you’re not expecting… and even then that’s usually an early retreat aka you won.

So without being able to predict them well at all, you’re able to beat them half the time… and it’s OP? Huh?

You can prevent a thief from ever entering stealth save blinding powder/last refuge. That’s how you counter their stealth. You’re asking for the ability to prevent them from entering stealth AND the ability to track/stop them while they are already stealthed. That’s silly.

Hotjoin is never a decent way to tell if a class is good or not. Pistol Pistol is the worst weapon sets and is very easy to counter. They couldn’t even manage to do that? Really?

You obviously are just going to stick to your opinion and don’t want to learn “No if’s and’s or but’s….” And I was right and this is just a troll/flaming thread “Are you afraid”, making large blanket statements, not giving any specific instances where you’re having problems so people could actually help you, not stating the class you’re having problems as, etc. I’ll just leave it to your ignorance then.

@ cat as eng it’s just knowing when to cond burst them. They’ll try to run but wind up dead on the floor… or they have run away when they hit 50% hp (and were never any threat at all). You could also use something like toolkit/bombs/rocket boots for being able to dash out/pull them back in. If the thief wants to bail at 50%, then whatever, they give up a lot compared to other classes for that ability to disengage (just like wars that can dash away give up a lot). It’s not cowardly, it’s playing the class smart. Thief is hardly the best 1v1 class… hardly the best large group class. They are a slippery opportunistic class.

You already have the ability to tell if you’re hitting some one in stealth with mele btw…

Aberrant.6749:

@ cat as eng it’s just knowing when to cond burst them. They’ll try to run but wind up dead on the floor… or they have run away when they hit 50% hp (and were never any threat at all). You could also use something like toolkit/bombs/rocket boots for being able to dash out/pull them back in. If the thief wants to bail at 50%, then whatever, they give up a lot compared to other classes for that ability to disengage (just like wars that can dash away give up a lot). You already have the ability to tell if you’re hitting some one in stealth with mele btw…

Warriors and thieves (and mesmers, to an extent) have it far too easy when it comes to disengaging and escaping. There is literally no counterplay to it. You aren’t rewarded for fighting them. It’s just irritating. Warriors already have so much going for them, they don’t need that much mobility. Thieves should not be able to get more than twice the range of grenadier grenades between you and them before their stealth runs out. I have no idea what to do with mesmers.

The problem with them being able to run away is that then they can stalk you and return at a later time and catch you off guard and potentially kill you. The fact that they can attempt this countless times with no risk is a little broken if you ask me.

If you build for it you can escape on almost any class (sorry necros). Warrior gives up a lot in the gs/1h sw+wh mobility. They aren’t killing anything worth their salt with that kinda stuff.

Eng has SO many counters to thieves it’s not even funny. It’s not the norm that a thief is able to get away from me after committing to a fight and actually put some pressure on me (and if they didn’t, they aren’t a threat).

Don’t let any class catch you off guard. All classes have the capability to burst very hard and fast and you need to be constantly on guard or you’re going to get ganked at some point.

You’re not there to babysit others (but help them if they are in need obviously). Let the other players worry about themselves and learn how to fight thieves on their own class. They’ll be better off for it in the long run. It’s not no risk to the thief if they try to attack some one… I’ve seen many thieves get surprised by an unusual build and get dropped extremely quickly because of that miscalculation. Thieves also lack cond removal and that’s often the death of them.

What sort of mes are you having problems with? Is it just them using a portal to bail?

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Show dmg numbers (other than condi dmg) when you strike a stealthed foe.

IRL if you hit something with your eyes closed…. you would be able to know it was there once you struck it… and if it moved you wouldn’t know where it went…. but you would still know you hit something.

this is already in the game, when you wield a melee weapon and you press 1 alot when their in stealth it will repeat the 1st attack over and over, when you hit something it will go to the 2nd and 3rd attack of the attack chain. aditionally there are some profession specific ways to tell if your hitting your opponent while he’s in stealth. for example if a thief has signet of malice equiped he will see himself getting healed everytime he hits a stealthed player.

If you have a crappy spec, with stealth or without, you’ll loose any ways. Stealth is no where near being OP. I do sPvP all the time, never had problem with a thief because i tune the specs to my liking and get few counters. Another thing is: learn how to dodge, thieves only have 1 actual stun which most do not use and it’s on high as hell of a CD. Except s/p thieves which are also easy to counter.

Also, keep in mind that you can’t just roll one class, pick a uber spec and own every one, this would be very unbalanced. With that you know you would be loosing to some classes/specs, pick those that you want to loose to, instead of focusing on nerfing perfectly working mechanics of other classes.

In my opinion Stealth upkeep in general should be tuned down so going into stealth actually becomes more tactical and meaningful. But this stealth-stab-stealth-pewpew-stealth is complete kitten and Revealed is a joke.

For Thief their stealth mechanic should have been on their F-keys in my opinion. And I also wouldn’t mind if my Mesmer had it on one of her F-keys instead as well.

EDIT: just found my old post from another thread

The main issue (as I see it) is not the concept of stealth; but the way ANet has implemented it.

Just look at all the benefits a Thief can get through traits that apply to stealth.

• Cloaked in Shadow (Blinds nearby foes)
  * Fleet Shadow (Move 50% faster while in stealth)
  * Hidden Assassin (Gain might)
  * Hidden Killer (100% crit chance while stealthed)
  * Shadow Protector (Grant targets of your stealth skills Regeneration)
  * Infusion of Shadow (Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths)
  * Patience (Regain initiative faster)
  * Shadow’s Embrace (Remove one condition every three seconds)
  * Shadow’s Rejuvenation (Regenerate health)

From my perspective Stealth should have been a mechanic that would allow for setting up an ‘ambush’ or ‘escape’. But ANet went overboard by attaching so many additional bits of junk through traits. It’s like they couldn’t come up with a more interesting mechanic, so they just went with: “When in doubt, add more (stuff to) stealth”

To me, Stealth could have been a great tactical class-mechanic (for the F# keys) with a limited number of traits to enhance it. Instead they made it a shallow gimmick that’s almost mandatory to use with traits giving out measly little bonuses everywhere.

So personally I think they should have used Stealth for a class-mechanic and used it for F2/F3 with additional effects depending on the type of weapon you had equipped. So using F2 or F3 with a D/D would have a different ‘type’ of Stealth ability compared to using S/D or SB. That would have made Stealth an interesting, dynamic and tactical mechanic.

And in return the Thief could get more base health (same as Ranger) and more mobility. I personally wouldn’t want to see the Stealth mechanic vanish entirely, just reworked into the F2-F3 and merging some of the traits so its function becomes more tactical.

Applying Stealth whenever a Thief breaks wind doesn’t strike me as interesting and makes the Thief look more like an annoying clown that’s trying too hard to be funny.

Not sure why people think adding some trail to stealthed players would help at all. It would make stealth completely meaningless because anyone with eyes would be able to tell where they are.
The only way to balance it imo would be to add a longer cooldown before restealthing. Thinking 10-15 seconds. That way more thieves would actually have to time stealthing, blinding, and cc instead of spam rofl stomping people.

I think that numbers popping up when you hit the thief would work well. However, I don’t think seeing bleed ticks would be fair.

Right now, stealthed thieves are over powered.

One single thief can stay perma stealthed at a WP and continually hit the gate, so it stays contested. It’s got to be incredibly boring, but in borderland maps (or even SMC) that is a HUGE advantage.

It would also take roughly 10 people (unorganized PUGs) or more to track him down and kill him. Just so he can immediately WP and come back before the WP even becomes uncontested.

Unless a thief is largely outnumbered, or bad, they can easily stealth and reset the fight.

I was about to stop reading when you said “IRL” but I kept anyway…

The visible dripping blood would instantly give away the thief location (don’t think otherwise), anything other than 100% invisible would be enough to render the mechanic pretty much useless, as proof look at every other game that tried that.

If anything, heartseeker is the problem, the thief has some pretty insane damage and that couple with stealth makes the problem, that’s why you can see on YouTube loads of “thief vs zerg”.
I’d say throttle back on their damage but they’d go nuts.

Mean while just get something to drop on that shadow field as soon as it appears, like Ranger LB #5, AoE dmg and applies cripple so they won’t go far if they decide to stay there for the full stack.

They’ve already nerfed HS though. It does less than auto attack dps above 50% now.

Stealth is powerful and arguably OP from just looking at its definition of
“Stealth, also known as cloaking or invisibility, is an effect which allows the stealthed character to be invisible to enemy players, and avoid being targeted by enemy attacks.”

However stealth can be balanced if restrictions are placed on stealth,tools that are used in combination with it, and or tools that grant stealth. There are restrictions and the like already in the game. However that does not mean that those restrictions are perfectly balancing stealth around the class’s and builds. And what I mean by balancing is keeping a average skill to effectiveness ratio so as to keep the game skill-based.

So the question in actuality is "is there enough perfectly balanced restrictions on stealth and or the class’s, and builds that use stealth to make stealth balanced? "

And if not then what actions should be taken to reduce the effectiveness of stealth on those specific builds or class’s by somewhat changing their skills or traits.-specific changes to balance builds that are far too powerful or week.

Or should there be made changes to reduce the effectiveness of stealth itself by changing how stealth functions in the game. Thus changing all class’s, and builds that utilize stealth overall.-base changes to balance stealth overall.

Although some would argue differently this is not a l2p issue, and most certainly should be up for debate and discussion

cat.8975:

I’ll have to 100% agree with stealth being overpowered in the WvW scene. As a roaming engineer, I have a hell of a time catching the kitten kittens once they realize they can’t actually kill me and decide to run off. The lack of diminishing returns on stealth duration gives them so much distance between you and them before they’re revealed.

I guess you could call it a “win” if you make them run away, but where’s the loot? Where’s the WXP? Where’s the ability to shut them down and force them back to their waypoint, thus preventing them from ganking some other poor sob from your server? The suggestions made in this thread, at least the damage indicator when you HIT them, would in no way remove the effectiveness of stealth. It would instead give you counterplay to those cowards that run.

I always had a hard time against engeenieers when I played thief. They have some good tools and were always bunkered.

Other classes can also be built to escape. That is what was built into my warrior. Had to have mobility and that required giving up a weapon slot for something that gets me around quickly. If they run, you won.

Stealth isn’t hard to deal with once you learn and once you’ve learned, they won’t be running away, unlike a bunkered warrior that will still be able to run away with you still being able to see them.

Stealth is all the thief has as things are, if they try to fight without using it at all they are not going to have it easy in the least… so especially compared to all other option, stealth is OP among thief assets. Dealing with the stealth-tag-stealth-w/e-stealth-kitten -stealth-halfway across the map all of a sudden thieves is beyond annoying for sure… Honestly I preferred the way the stealth/hiding mechanic from various other games worked, where it was ONLY either set up an especially hard hitting attack, or to get away…but that was the only time stealth itself was applicable, not in combat, and not the epic trolled to death thing we have now.

Unfortunately I have to agree also with the people who want stealth to say as it, because again, it’s all they got… the only way I can see to “fix” the mechanic would be to make the thief hard to catch in other ways…along the line of mesmers actually. Teleporting (shadow step…same diff), CCs, or rolling around all over the place, if not outright evading through an attack mechanic (all of these are already there, but not enough to even scratch the surface of what stealth currently offers) could be quite viable replacements… To be honest I’m floored that the thief’s 1h sword doesn’t use the very attacks the ranger’s were given, all be it, the differences are almost moot…

Just saying, I don’t care for stealth, but to replace it would likely make thieves that much more annoying to fight, and likely push them well into the realms of actually being OP beyond this one mechanic.. just my thoughts on the matter.

the only class that should complain about stealth is mesmers…. with almost no aoe and the only aoe we do have on long cooldowns on top of most of our attacks requiring a target we are kittened when it comes to stealth… the only weapon that even has a chance to hit a stealthed enemy on a mesmer is mainhand sword.. and its not strong enough to really harm a thief on its own.. and since stealth thiefs can hide in stealth so long that their hp regens to full before it ends.. well what can mesmer really do?