Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been reading alot of the threads posted on here about how stealth is overpowered. I can understand both sides of the issue; on one hand, the thief is completely invisible. Free to come and go and strike as he or she pleases. Possessing the ability to do this, and so frequently, I can see how this can be frustrating or a bit imba. On the other hand, stealth is a major part of thief gameplay. So I’ve come up with a compromise that I think may appease both sides.

My suggestion is a simple change to Stealth animation and appearance. I suggest altering stealth to something similar to Mass Effect 3’s Tactical Cloak. For those who don’t know what this looks like, I have some footage of it here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=S9CVyRLnxNg#t=153s

This would make stealth more balanced, as the thief would be very difficult to spot, but not impossible. It would also require a thief to use stealth more intelligently, instead of reapplying it willy nilly. For PvE, stealthing would still drop enemy aggro. For PvP, stealth would also still drop targeting, but now opposing players have a chance to spot the thief and respond accordingly.

Please try and keep this civil. Remain polite, and intelligent in your responses. Thank you.

The fix is simple, give a class like the Ranger or his pets a way to detect stealth.

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

stof.9341:

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

+1.

If they want to alter a class defining skill, then I want other classes suffer the same fate. You nerf one, you nerf them all. And thief as a class already been nerfed numerous times.

stof.9341:

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

Such a well thought out, in-depth response. Your argument is clearly solid.

But for the sake of argument, please elaborate. If you can.

stof.9341:

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

Well then, how do we go about fixing the insane damage, or insane stealth mechanics? We’d like to hear it, and for the record I do have a Thief, the class is wildly OP.

I would only increase the destealth time to something like 4 or 5 seconds.

PearlGore.7419:

Well then, how do we go about fixing the insane damage, or insane stealth mechanics? We’d like to hear it, and for the record I do have a Thief, the class is wildly OP.

We don’t because neither are actually insane. Neither are OP.

You’re just inexperienced and fell prey to high burst damage and lack the know-how to respond to stealth-users. (Or your computer sucks and lags too much for you to respond properly)

This is a standard problem in any game.
If anything can kill a newbie really fast, some newbies are bound to complain.

Your statement that you play a Thief too doesn’t change the fact that you’re exaggerating to a highly subjective level. Stomping pubs doesn’t make something OP.

PearlGore.7419:

Well then, how do we go about fixing the insane damage, or insane stealth mechanics? We’d like to hear it, and for the record I do have a Thief, the class is wildly OP.

Funny, the only current thief build that can be considered “insane damage” is the C&D, Mug, BS combo build. Which doesn’t use stealth at all for stealthing really since the time between the C&D procs and the BS hits is around 0.25s. Ie, the thief in that build remains stealthed only 0.25s in total. Not counting the broken culling that happens.

But nooo, to “counter” this build you need a blanket nerf to stealth that will make it definitively notstealthy and useless in PvP against good players.

I just copy/paste my idea here

Stealth spamming is an issue here.Just like many class that can chain invulnerability move

Maybe Stealth need some more depth.Add another Stealth debuff that stick longer.Under this debuff moving in character sight (about half of pistol range) will cause that character to see a shadow trail of thief. This debuff will stack if thief keep revealing himself too often causing the shadow trail to be seen more easily. It just the guy who got attacked by a thief got suspicious and try to look harder.

So this will only effect in pvp situation.It would’nt nerf the PvE aspect of thief

LONGA.1652:

Maybe Stealth need some more depth.Add another Stealth debuff that stick longer.Under this debuff moving in character sight (about half of pistol range) will cause that character to see a shadow trail of thief.

I’ve seen the same suggestion in the League Of Legends forums many times.
Guess what? It’s no good.

It would encourage hacking to turn the shadow trail image into a giant blob/fog that’s easier to spot

The only realistic nerf would be to increase the reveal debuff so they can’t go into stealth as often.

DreamOfACure.4382:

PearlGore.7419:

Well then, how do we go about fixing the insane damage, or insane stealth mechanics? We’d like to hear it, and for the record I do have a Thief, the class is wildly OP.

We don’t because neither are actually insane. Neither are OP.

You’re just inexperienced and fell prey to high burst damage and lack the know-how to respond to stealth-users. (Or your computer sucks and lags too much for you to respond properly)

This is a standard problem in any game.
If anything can kill a newbie really fast, some newbies are bound to complain.

Your statement that you play a Thief too doesn’t change the fact that you’re exaggerating to a highly subjective level. Stomping pubs doesn’t make something OP.

I died to my own Thief? Thats funny. Try reading before you reply please.

PearlGore.7419:

I died to my own Thief? Thats funny. Try reading before you reply please.

You’re connecting dots that aren’t there, try reading it again without making assumptions. Reading comprehension, where?!

I’m saying you’re just mirroring newbie-logic.
Because you kill newbies really easily, you think your class is too strong. That’s the flip side to newbies thinking a class shouldn’t be able to burst them down so fast.

Two-sides of the same coin.

Fact: Anyone worth a damn in sPvP or WvW will say Thieves are simple* to handle.* (Not easy, but simple)

Sadly, only about 10~25% of PvPers are “worth a damn”. A large portion of the remaining 75%+ seem content with complaining instead of improving.

Keep playing PearlGore.
You will encounter players who will whoop your kitten and hand it to you on a silver platter; because there IS a way deal with stealth+burst thieves, players just have take the time to learn it.

Keitaro Dragonheart.9047:

stof.9341:

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

Such a well thought out, in-depth response. Your argument is clearly solid.

But for the sake of argument, please elaborate. If you can.

1. Affects lower levels of play in that low-level players remain incompetent vs stealth. In higher levels of play, makes stealth weaker as a result of observant players who….generally have less of an issue with stealth already. So essentially the largest demographic of stealth complainers, will see no difference and continue to do so.
Yelling their discomfort both on the forums and in-game they’ll continue to perpetuate a train of thought against stealth regardless.
At worst it’s so obvious, that the defense need not exist to begin with.

2. Technically does nothing about the damage, that many people complain about. Again much of these complaints are from a certain demographic of players but again, does not aid then. In the context of a Backstab or other stealth attacks they leave the thief visible anyways so….

3. This is not an fps, though inspired, the design doesn’t make it as significant. I’d say partially from a map prospective, when obstructions on certain maps can just be destroyed, part of the benefit a cloak has in an fps, is reduced.

4. At the end of the day, stealth is not Invulnerability, aegis, protection, defy pain, or stability. Making it’s defensive quality shutdown by just being observant seems ridiculous for a class in the lowest health tier.

A solution for the newest/worst of players that arguably won’t do anything for them…because they are what they are won’t stop their complaints. It just makes better players take down thieves easier when they already compete.

To be the majority of thief complaints I see are either “I got one shot” or “I got finished in stealth”. Anyone observant has no issues with the first and if they’re observant enough for the first, than the partial-visibility won’t be much of a bother either. Vulnerable to both damage and CC stealth finishing is nothing to stress over either.

I wholeheartedly agree with DreamOfACure. I play PvP with a Thief and I have no problem catching enemy Thieves seven to eight times out of ten. Sure, some get away, but it’s not impossible.

Stealth is not going away. The whole point of Stealth is not being able to see the Thief and it works just fine. I mean, I hate it too when a Mesmer makes a fool out of me with an illusion but I’m not crying “Make Mesmer illusions more illusion-looking-like so I know which one to hit!”

rchu.8945:

stof.9341:

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

+1.

If they want to alter a class defining skill, then I want other classes suffer the same fate. You nerf one, you nerf them all. And thief as a class already been nerfed numerous times.

I don’t agree with OPs idea, however I disagree stronger with you. Thief and warrior probably have the ONLY class-defining mechanic working properly right now. Actually, it’s only warrior, as thief’s class-defining mechanic (stealth) is more OP than intended with the culling situation, while all other professions seemed to be bugged in some way. Ranger’s pets are horrible (don’t even get me started), mesmers’ phantasms and clones seem to be buggy and still getting nerfed, engineers have kit bugs, eles (can be argued both ways) have certain issues with attuenment slotting, necro pets have horrible AI as well.

So until ALL professions class-defining mechanics are fixed, don’t wish that other professions have “the same fate”

Ethics.4519:

rchu.8945:

stof.9341:

Short anwser : No.

Long answer :

Hell no.

+1.

If they want to alter a class defining skill, then I want other classes suffer the same fate. You nerf one, you nerf them all. And thief as a class already been nerfed numerous times.

I don’t agree with OPs idea, however I disagree stronger with you. Thief and warrior probably have the ONLY class-defining mechanic working properly right now. Actually, it’s only warrior, as thief’s class-defining mechanic (stealth) is more OP than intended with the culling situation, while all other professions seemed to be bugged in some way. Ranger’s pets are horrible (don’t even get me started), mesmers’ phantasms and clones seem to be buggy and still getting nerfed, engineers have kit bugs, eles (can be argued both ways) have certain issues with attuenment slotting, necro pets have horrible AI as well.

So until ALL professions class-defining mechanics are fixed, don’t wish that other professions have “the same fate”

Mesmer clones and phantasms seem to be working so well that Anet decided to nerf them a bit, so I don’t know if I’d count that as “Not working correctly”. Necro’s class mechanic isn’t minion summoning (its a facet of the class, not the defining mechanic). I can’t speak for warriors, but I’m getting “Obstructed” on steals against non-dodging targets in range, on open terrain, so there are bugs with steal. They’re not extremely common or gamebreaking, but from what I understand (and I could be wrong) most other classes don’t have gamebreaking, extremely common issues with their class-defining mechanic.

Personally, I think the best compromise might be to remove stealth from Cloak and Dagger so you just can’t spam the crap out of stealth whenever you feel like it, but up the Thief’s health to middle range like the Ranger and Engineer. Maybe even trade places with the Mesmer in that regard since they’re WAY harder to catch and hit than a Thief even now.

Grimwolf.7163:

Personally, I think the best compromise might be to remove stealth from Cloak and Dagger so you just can’t spam the crap out of stealth whenever you feel like it, but up the Thief’s health to middle range like the Ranger and Engineer. Maybe even trade places with the Mesmer in that regard since they’re WAY harder to catch and hit than a Thief even now.

And make useless 3/4 of the thief traits in the process. Nice one.

Stealth is always going to be a part of thieves/rogues/assassins in any mmo. The issue is how many times can that class do it. I think dodge should have been a more utilized trait rather than stealth though. I hate to make a wow comparison, but rogues in wow relied more on dodging attacks. Stealth should only be used to gain a preemptive attack or to run from a battle. I would rather hit a thief and miss than to have them bounce around with me seeing them only half the time.

PearlGore.7419:

The fix is simple, give a class like the Ranger or his pets a way to detect stealth.

I’ve been saying this for a while now. Call it something like, “Sniff them Out” (idk just a thought)

Before ppl think i am bias against thieves, My main characters are 80 Ranger and 80 Thief. With about 1000 hours of playtime.

If stealth was on all the time I could understand a reason to detect it, but when it only lasts a couple seconds I just can’t see it. It’s hard to sit on a lower peg than “a couple seconds at a time” before you just hit “doesn’t exist.”

Drago.1634:

Before ppl think i am bias against thieves, My main characters are 80 Ranger and 80 Thief. With about 1000 hours of playtime.

Play-time is not a legitimate measure of skill.

Try getting into and winning some Paid-Tournaments in sPvP, then maybe you’ll have a case.
But, I can guarantee that if you make any progress you’ll slowly realize, like many players, that Thieves aren’t a big deal once you know how to handle them.

Thieves are just good pubstompers. And unlike League of Legends, ANet doesn’t have to worry about newbies having difficulty getting into the game because of pubstompers.
GW2 has a PvE mode that acts as a natural gateway into PvP mode through exploration/achievements.

Grimwolf.7163:

Personally, I think the best compromise might be to remove stealth from Cloak and Dagger so you just can’t spam the crap out of stealth whenever you feel like it, but up the Thief’s health to middle range like the Ranger and Engineer. Maybe even trade places with the Mesmer in that regard since they’re WAY harder to catch and hit than a Thief even now.

You’d have to rework every Dagger OH weaponset, the CD of every utility/heal which offered stealth, and every single stealth trait. Those were all designed with “CnD grants stealth” in mind, and they’d be severely gimped without it.

With your suggestion, you’d be better off removing stealth from the game, and giving thief access to protection, stability, regen, and immunity skills. They’d also have to rename the class “Swashbuckler”, or something, because we’d become dodgier, squishier warriors.

Stealth is fine how it is. If you want to see what a thief is like without the ability to stealth but just become transparent, go into sPvP with a friend in your party and fight him. It’s a bug where he’ll see you transparently and can follow you wherever. That there is a great example of how weak a thief is if they can’t stealth properly. Even with stealth, fights are challenging if you face off proper players. Without stealth, it’s just plainly terrible for a thief that uses it for their fight rotation.

PearlGore.7419:

The fix is simple, give a class like the Ranger or his pets a way to detect stealth.

A standard MMO fix to the situation but I’d rather see stealth fixed in general.

It bugs us in combat and it does not break inductions. Like wise thieves sometimes. or purposefully, find themselves perma stealthed and can use it quite a few times.

Just fix it and stop crying nerf.

I disagree. Every other mmo stealth can be permanent, and cast anytime out of combat. Here it is short, timed, and relies on other abilities. No one complained in other mmo’s that it was to powerful. But here all of a sudden it is?

People just don’t like getting their tush handed to them by another class, so cry nerf. It happens in all class threads, and a standard forum topic in mmos lol.

If you all are trying to thwart my suggestion by saying that off-hand dagger is 100% necessary to do anything and that the entire class is balanced around the assumption that you’ll be using it, then I think we all have larger issues here.

stealth as it is would be fine if theives had their damage lowered or could only be stationary when attacking (no distance closing heart seeker or crowd control death blossom) .

i think not being able to move and attack would fix the stealth problem that way if they missed their attack they would do no damage and it would take more skill for them to hit a moving target from stealth as well as having a counter for all classes just move around. it would also make them annoying to use but its the only fair way i can see.

and for those whining about how all classes need to be nerfed because one class is getting nerfed need to open their eyes if warriors did a theifs damage at launch would anyone really complain if it was nerfed down to what it is right now?

and if any class needs a buff its the engineers i think the battles would almost always be won by theives in an engineer vs theif battle. even in large numbers. theyre squishy have low damage and only a few weapon choices with even fewer effective skills

Basically, no.

The Thief is very squishy and has a lack of access to a great many boons, stability being one of them (daggerstorm sure, but that’s nigh on useless in small fights, its effectiveness is from large fights and people shooting projectiles at you and killing themselves). To compensate we have stealth, much like how Elementalists have a huge arsenal of boon access.

If people can see a Thief in stealth, then stealth is no longer compensating the poor survival. It would become merely a tool to access the stealth special attack, and get any in-stealth only trait effect (heal in stealth or whatever). The thing people forget is, the Thief has no knock downs, the Thief has no stability or access to most boons and the Thief is squishy. Stealth is supposed to compensate lack of hard CC and lack of boon access whilst also compensating lack of HP/Armour.

As far as increasing revealed debuff, again no. If you do that you force people into the backstab builds. Sword/dagger daze builds already have been nerfed but some still use them, if you increase the debuff duration they’ll be gone totally. Pistol/dagger condition builds are quite largely used at the moment but they don’t get that many bleed stacks to be able to survive a revealed debuff hit, as the method of stacking bleeds is mainly from sneak attack (the stealth special ability of pistol).

People moaning about the Thief seem to think we have lots of stealth, massive damage, huge mobility and utility all at once. When the truth is, we only have one or two of those on each build.

Backstab builds do NOT have much stealth at all, CnD and the heal only generally. They lack the initiative regen to keep it up. They do however have big damage, but totally lack utility.

Condition builds do NOT have big damage. They do have lots of stealth and mobility thanks to the initiative regen on these builds, but lack big damage and lack utility.

Daze builds do NOT have much mobility nor stealth. They do have decent damage and utility.

We cannot and do not have it all at once.

All I honestly see are people complaining about a completely fair mechanic/play style of thiefs. If people spent more time on trying to figure out how to play their class correctly rather then complain about a pure glass cannon thief blowing them away then there wouldnt be any of these threads, actually it’d probably be the opposite. Every class has a counter to a glass cannon C&D thief, EVERY class.

Also why is it people cant comprehend you get a debuff after you stealth, you cannot stealth again for another 4 seconds. A good portion of thiefs that are glass cannon C&D will use steal to get close, its either 1200 range(traited) or 900. More times then not if you see a thief coming and he has daggers out you can expect this, this is where KNOWING your class comes into effect. It really isnt that hard to dodge when you see the animations keying up. Or you can stand there like a champ eat the C&D, dodge from the backstab and toss aoe’s around yourself. The whole thing about doing a glass cannon C&D build is that you need your openers to land or (depending on the skill of the other player) its going to go straight down hill from there.

To add, my first 80 was a engi, and it used to kitten me off beyond belief when a thief could hit a 15k backstab(back when the signet did +150% damage, thank god that got nerf’d). Things like that gave me two options, QQ and cry/rage about it every time it happened or LEARN to play my class to counter it. I sucked it up and learned how to counter it. I demolish GC thiefs on my engi/warrior all day long because I know how to counter them, more people should spend more time trying to counter it rather than cry for the nerf bat.

As for the culling, well that isnt the thiefs fault, quite frankly its none of the players fault. You should be complaining at Anet to fix it rather then say stealth needs to be nerf’d because they still cant get it together and find a better solution.

If I offended you with my post, well sorry. I’m sure many others will agree with what I have said though.

I disapprove of builds that rely heavily on stealthing in combat. Yes, you can counter them, but the fights just feel lame.

The stealth style relies too much on massively uneven information between the players. I think fights should be a contest of quick reflexes/decision making/planning between equals, not an asymmetrical guessing game.

To me, fighting a stealth player feels like you’re fighting a cowardly opportunist who uses invisibility as a crutch, it’s a disappointing experience even when you win.

My main character is a thief with about 500h played. Recently I have made a glass cannon warrior with rifle and bow for some WvW and SPvP actions and I have to say that when it comes to a 1v1 with thief, I win 80% of these fights. It’s all about the right skills in right time and the knowledge of other classes.

Digital Dragon.2697:

I disagree. Every other mmo stealth can be permanent, and cast anytime out of combat. Here it is short, timed, and relies on other abilities. No one complained in other mmo’s that it was to powerful. But here all of a sudden it is?

Since when has no one complained about stealth in other mmo’s?

Why not make stealth disappear if the player is being hit with melee/ranged. What I mean if someone goes into stealth and for example warrior starts running around swinging sword and hits the stealth player, he will become visible. It won’t apply on AoE/condition skills such as if somebody gets hit with mark/triggers a trap/will be hit with fear etc stealth will still be on.

Abigor.4952:

Why not make stealth disappear if the player is being hit with melee/ranged. What I mean if someone goes into stealth and for example warrior starts running around swinging sword and hits the stealth player, he will become visible. It won’t apply on AoE/condition skills such as if somebody gets hit with mark/triggers a trap/will be hit with fear etc stealth will still be on.

Actually I think it would make the most sense for marks and traps to break their stealth on impact.
Area denial is kind of what they’re supposed to be for anyway, not putting them straight on top of your target as is generally the case.

Abigor.4952:

Why not make stealth disappear if the player is being hit with melee/ranged.

It would make the C&D skill 100% useless. That’s why.

Actually I think it would make the most sense for marks and traps to break their stealth on impact.
Area denial is kind of what they’re supposed to be for anyway, not putting them straight on top of your target as is generally the case.

I think that randomly hitting stealth player with AoE will should not break the stealth, while maybe marks and traps are a bit a bad example(and I agree it makes sense that traps point out that somebody triggered it), another example is water trident or arrow barrage(ranger longbow #5?) – you basically hit an area but nothing indicates that you’ve hit a stealth player.

It would make the C&D skill 100% useless. That’s why.

I’m sorry I forgot that this is the only way for you to get stealth and it implies that you stay and continue bashing your foe.

Abigor.4952:

I’m sorry I forgot that this is the only way for you to get stealth and it implies that you stay and continue bashing your foe.

What?

I said, melee => break stealth => C&D becomes an expensive unreliable mess best not used. Now pray tell me, how does the fact thieves have other skills they can use to stealth not make my statement the truth?

And what the hell you you mean by “it implies that you stay and continue bashing your foe”? If you attack your foe in stealth it already breaks it anyway.

We really don’t understand each other, why C&D becomes useless? You hit, you become invisible you run around in stealth unless you decide to attach/you were hit with a melee/projectile/stealth wears off. Maybe it wouldn’t be that much use against warriors and guardians because if they constantly swing their weapon they`ll hit you, but with casters it will be the same.

You jsut said it yourself

Maybe it wouldn’t be that much use against warriors and guardians because if they constantly swing their weapon they`ll hit you, but with casters it will be the same.

And casters have melee weapons too they can swing like that, except the elementalist. And projectile attacks already started will still hit the thief after he goes into stealth as if nothing happened.

stof.9341:

You jsut said it yourself

Maybe it wouldn’t be that much use against warriors and guardians because if they constantly swing their weapon they`ll hit you, but with casters it will be the same.

And casters have melee weapons too they can swing like that, except the elementalist. And projectile attacks already started will still hit the thief after he goes into stealth as if nothing happened.

1 You can’t prepare for everything
2 We can always exclude projectiles
3 Like I said before C&D isn’t the only way to get stealth + evade attacks with rolling and you’ll remain in stealth.

If melee/ranged/aoe broke stealth, or even just 1 of the 3, the Thief would be kitten. End of.

CnD is the main method of obtaining stealth for most builds.

P/D condition builds use it to use sneak attack, which is the main source of damage as that’s what gets the bleed stacks up. If a melee hit broke it, then you get no sneak attack. As CnD is a kissing range move, it’s extremely unreliable and hugely expensive taking up half your base initiative bar.

Backstab builds do not run alternate stealthing skills on the utility bar generally, on the heal. As above, with a useless CnD the whole thing breaks.

To put this in perspective for other clueless players, imagine if being hit broke your class specific ability. A melee hit drains all adrenaline. Damage instantly breaks death shroud. Being hit stops attunement swapping. And so on…

Stealth is integral to the thief class.

Melee should already continue to attack a thief in stealth. It’s the right thing to do and the damage still hurts. There’s no reason to reward them even more with a noob orented stealth breaking effect. Learn to read when your attack chain goes in combo and when it doesn’t.

Ranged casters shouldn’t come in the melee range required to make C&D work in the first place.

Katsumoto.9452:

To put this in perspective for other clueless players, imagine if being hit broke your class specific ability. A melee hit drains all adrenaline. Damage instantly breaks death shroud. Being hit stops attunement swapping. And so on…

Stealth is not thief specific ability – steal is. Stealth is also is part of mesmer playstyle and availible to some other classes.

Abigor.4952:

Katsumoto.9452:

To put this in perspective for other clueless players, imagine if being hit broke your class specific ability. A melee hit drains all adrenaline. Damage instantly breaks death shroud. Being hit stops attunement swapping. And so on…

Stealth is not thief specific ability – steal is. Stealth is also is part of mesmer playstyle and availible to some other classes.

It is however, the equivalent mechanic. Please use at least 2 brain cells before posting. Stealth is essential to the thief, without we haven’t got key damage abilities such as backstab or sneak attack. Try play a condi thief without sneak attack. Try play a burst thief without backstab. Try play a daze thief without swords stealth ability (forget its name). You will soon find that the thief without those skills is a heap of trash. Not only that but a huge amount of traits are built around stealth, heal in stealth, 2 ini when using stealth ability, regen ini faster in stealth, move faster in stealth, stealth abilities last 1 sec longer and so on.

Play the class before coming up with ideas on how to balance it.

Katsumoto.9452:

It is however, the equivalent mechanic. Please use at least 2 brain cells before posting. Stealth is essential to the thief, without we haven’t got key damage abilities such as backstab or sneak attack. Try play a condi thief without sneak attack. Try play a burst thief without backstab. Try play a daze thief without swords stealth ability (forget its name). You will soon find that the thief without those skills is a heap of trash. Not only that but a huge amount of traits are built around stealth, heal in stealth, 2 ini when using stealth ability, regen ini faster in stealth, move faster in stealth, stealth abilities last 1 sec longer and so on.

Play the class before coming up with ideas on how to balance it.

God look who’s so angry, I never mentioned thieves in the first place, the talk is about stealth itself, and yet when people try to find a compromise(I hope you understand that word), thieves are getting full rage yelling that stealth shouldn’t be touched, worrying that they won’t be able to be invincible or kill with 1-2 hits, I don’t see mesmers complaining that they’ll be useless without it and for them stealth is also a big part or their strategy. That’s one.
Second – nobody said anything about removing stealth, listen to yourself, you’re complaining like there wouldn’t be stealth at all.

Stealth is fine. Get good. Win games.

This again? I thought moderator clearly wrote on other thread to “refrain from nerf class x” threads.

In any way, as hard for me to say but I finally have to say it (using different words) – you must learn more about particular issue that gives you problem. Most importantly, enemy player will surely try to do something you don’t expect, so have that in mind. I would advise you to take my example.

I was very happy ele with staff in PvE. It really made me learn to kite to the best of the class and it was really fun for me. When I entered SPvP, I wasn’t so good with the staff. I was changing tactics and had limited success. I even nailed scepter dagger eles like piece of cake. I thought thieves are overpowered with their stealth etc. I still think they are much easier class to learn than ele. Easier to learn I wrote not OP or to be nerfed, but not to be boosted either.

Problem was, I never took even into consideration double dagger weaponset. Then I saw so many posts “nerf D/D ele”. Then I decided to do what I supposed to do in the first place – Google forums and dig YouTube. It was very difficult for me to change to double dagger. OK, I started badly then I started to track enemies. I tried to get into logic behind thieves. Understood how they work and instead of CDs, they have initiative as limitation. What else – they get kitten if they waste their initiative in nothing – BINGO! So I use that into my advantage, make faceroll thieves to waste initiative into nothing and then they are mine. But not all thieves are mine. There are good thieves and I can’t get them – not because of stealth, but because they played smart.

I got a friend who play thief and he was so mush into “ele is too OP need nerf” and I started explaining how everything you need is on the other element or on CD. I persuaded him to roll new toon – ele. Meanwhile, I am playing thief – I planned tbh as I think it is very interesting class + always take new class on different race. His words “this ele doesn’t suits me at all”. That is the point! He will realize how difficult it is to play and on the way, he will become better against eles by knowing limitations of the class! I suggest you roll thief as well. Play PvE and play SPvP. You will learn advantages and disadvantages of the class. You will loose nothing and gain totally new experience + knowledge how to be better. Also, go to YouTube and find some mechanics how other people play against thief’s stealth and look into videos how thieves play.

Then a wild engineer appears and he nail me all the time. WTF? No – he did something I wasn’t expecting. Do remember that.

Abigor.4952:

Katsumoto.9452:

It is however, the equivalent mechanic. Please use at least 2 brain cells before posting. Stealth is essential to the thief, without we haven’t got key damage abilities such as backstab or sneak attack. Try play a condi thief without sneak attack. Try play a burst thief without backstab. Try play a daze thief without swords stealth ability (forget its name). You will soon find that the thief without those skills is a heap of trash. Not only that but a huge amount of traits are built around stealth, heal in stealth, 2 ini when using stealth ability, regen ini faster in stealth, move faster in stealth, stealth abilities last 1 sec longer and so on.

Play the class before coming up with ideas on how to balance it.

God look who’s so angry, I never mentioned thieves in the first place, the talk is about stealth itself, and yet when people try to find a compromise(I hope you understand that word), thieves are getting full rage yelling that stealth shouldn’t be touched, worrying that they won’t be able to be invincible or kill with 1-2 hits, I don’t see mesmers complaining that they’ll be useless without it and for them stealth is also a big part or their strategy. That’s one.
Second – nobody said anything about removing stealth, listen to yourself, you’re complaining like there wouldn’t be stealth at all.

God look who can’t read It doesn’t matter that they are talking about stealth as a whole, i’m addressing a person suggesting that damage should remove stealth. This would break the thief entirely. If you cannot understand this then…well.

It damage broke stealth, stealth would be nigh on useless. Mesmers don’t rely on stealth, certain builds make use of it. Thieves DO rely on stealth, it is integral to the class. And where did anyone want thieves to be invincible? Or killing in 1 or 2 hits? I can hit 10k on off-hand dagger 5 on my ele. Can hit 15k-20k killshots on warrior. Burst really isn’t an issue on the thief. Nor is survival frankly, there’s better survival classes.

I never said anyone said anything about removing stealth incidentally. If you want to argue please argue, don’t use pathetic straw man arguments and ad hominem constantly. You made up half that post.