Guild Wars 2

For a long time now there is a lot of rage for stealth/blind spamming thieves.

I am very annoyed too, especially since yesterday that I lost in WvW from a perma spamming stealth/blind upscaled thief.
Months now I am struggling to find a solution that will not ruin the stealth ability but will give it a counter outside of AoE, one of my past suggestions was a combo that would reveal thieves(smoke field + blast/leap) but I think I have a better suggestion now.

There is a current state that if you take action such akittenting while in stealth, you get a “boon” named Revealed which prevents you from stealthing again, but it is just 3 seconds.

The suggestion is simple:
Increase the “Revealed” boon to anything between 5 to 8 seconds, this will make thieves use it in a more strategic way and think twice before spamming it.

Please provide constructive feedback.

Increasing the Revealed duration further would be a god-awful “fix”, and do nothing to fix “perma-stealth” anyway.
They should go with their old plan to have Revealed always occur after leaving Stealth, regardless of attacking, and make combo field Stealth unable to stack with existing Stealth just like the Mesmer wall skill.

They’re not going to balance the game around WvW; that wouldn’t really make much sense, since it’s not really a controlled environment.

Think about it, how could that Thief possibly be the reason why you lost in WvW. You’re tilting out of aggravation. One person doesn’t do anything in WvW.

@natsos

It’s crazy what you understand about a “fix”.

This could help against the 5% of permastealth thiefs, but will harm all other thiefs also they wo dont use this “tactic”. And this is more a nerf than a suggestion.

I think you forget that stealth is no deff- or offskill, only a support skill and beside blind and dodges the only thing that can prevent damage.

A longer revealed debuff, would dont help, they would be as long in stealth until their healskills are recharget.

My suggestion, for your suggestion is:
Add an intern CD of 3 sec into “Infusion of Shadow”* and permastealths are much harder and more expensive.*

*and maybe also into “Patience”

Stealth is a utility skill blamed for killing folks because they can see the target. Give permastealth to thieves, reduce damage from sneak attack, 10 second revealed. The only reason stealth is blamed is because you cant see your target, the reason you die is because of the damage. Also, during 15 second reveal, stealth skills could work like mesmer blur.

Just make it so blocking an attack activated while in stealth immediately gives a 4 second reveal, while a normal unblocked attack from stealth gives the normal 3 second reveal.

folly dragon.4126:

Stealth is a utility skill blamed for killing folks because they can see the target. Give permastealth to thieves, reduce damage from sneak attack, 10 second revealed. The only reason stealth is blamed is because you cant see your target, the reason you die is because of the damage. Also, during 15 second reveal, stealth skills could work like mesmer blur.

High damage (out of the stealth) is only possible with ONESINGLE Weapons. Against 2 or more enemies are these weapons very weak, and every ae weapons are stronger, so weaker against one target. Maybe it were good if stealth would have an longer revealted, but thiefs arent build for this, see the low base hp, the low base dmg(not backstab) + the missing deffskills and weak conditionremove outside of stealth.

And btw the dmg of the thief is terrible low and slowly, go on YT and see what other classes can do to bring about damage, many are much stronger.

The only advantage that a backstab thief have is that his low dmg concentrate in one attack on one target and that from stealth, which is necessary otherwise a thief would never come close and live long enough to bring this out .

I don’t only play WvW so I can’t say I suggested this to balance the game around WvW as the second poster said one person doesn’t do anything to WvW.

I am an PvPer myself(SPvP) and still I find perma stealth thieves awfuly annoying and unbalanced there, not because they can kill you, but because if they know how to do it, they won’t die.

I don’t really see how a longer Revealed would harm the other thieves, I suggested a 5-8 cooldown on stealth, while you can’t stealth you can still dodge/blind/cc, but right now ontop of that you can also stealth w/e you want.

Thief damage looks balanced right now(after lots of nerfs) and unless they build for a full zerk they won’t make crazy damage, but if they do they are just too squishy. I believe damage is not the problem.
The combination of all the tricks a thief has and how they synergize ,this is what is crossing the balance line, and I can give you examples for both WvW and SPvP on that.

If you make revealed last forever then thieves will just sit in stealth all day until the perfect opening comes along. Then you’ll still cry nerf. If the thief goes S/D you’ll cry nerf on that too.

natsos.3692:

I don’t only play WvW so I can’t say I suggested this to balance the game around WvW as the second poster said one person doesn’t do anything to WvW.

I am an PvPer myself(SPvP) and still I find perma stealth thieves awfuly annoying and unbalanced there, not because they can kill you, but because if they know how to do it, they won’t die.

I don’t really see how a longer Revealed would harm the other thieves, I suggested a 5-8 cooldown on stealth, while you can’t stealth you can still dodge/blind/cc, but right now ontop of that you can also stealth w/e you want.

A longer Revealed , would destroy the rotation of thiefs and how I wrote have thiefs only a few possibilities to avoid dmg. Also would this only work if they hit something out of stealth and as long as this doesnt happen they can stay in stealth as long they will.
And a thief hasnt so many dogdes how you think, also not with Feline Grace.
Except they skill itself for that, but then they cant permastealth.

Your suggestion would have a influence on all modes, also PvE and there give it to many situations were a longer revealted could be your death sentence, or should you be the targets of a champion.

Thief damage looks balanced right now(after lots of nerfs) and unless they build for a full zerk they won’t make crazy damage, but if they do they are just too squishy. I believe damage is not the problem.
The combination of all the tricks a thief has and how they synergize ,this is what is crossing the balance line, and I can give you examples for both WvW and SPvP on that.

I agree, the general dmg is good balance in pvp, but in PvE….

natsos.3692:

I don’t only play WvW so I can’t say I suggested this to balance the game around WvW as the second poster said one person doesn’t do anything to WvW.

I am an PvPer myself(SPvP) and still I find perma stealth thieves awfuly annoying and unbalanced there, not because they can kill you, but because if they know how to do it, they won’t die.

I don’t really see how a longer Revealed would harm the other thieves, I suggested a 5-8 cooldown on stealth, while you can’t stealth you can still dodge/blind/cc, but right now ontop of that you can also stealth w/e you want.

Thief damage looks balanced right now(after lots of nerfs) and unless they build for a full zerk they won’t make crazy damage, but if they do they are just too squishy. I believe damage is not the problem.
The combination of all the tricks a thief has and how they synergize ,this is what is crossing the balance line, and I can give you examples for both WvW and SPvP on that.

The problem is only half the stealth builds work the way you understand. D/D and D/P benefit from long stealths, they’re all about landing that one big hit. On the other hand S/D and P/D use stealth in completely the opposite way. Neither has a burst, but their stealth attack is thier strongest skill. Tactical Strike, is a control skill with which S/D attempts to stunlock (technically impossible) the opponent. Sneak Attack stacks bleeds and allows P/D to maintain passable condi pressure. Both these sets thrive off of using their stealth attacks as often as possible, so increasing revealed really hurts them. In otherwords, nerfing revealed, crippled S/D and P/D, and is little more then a slap on the wrist to D/D and D/P.
(On a side note: true S/D has Larcenous Strike now, but it’s still losing its control role.)

Dual.8953:

natsos.3692:

I don’t only play WvW so I can’t say I suggested this to balance the game around WvW as the second poster said one person doesn’t do anything to WvW.

I am an PvPer myself(SPvP) and still I find perma stealth thieves awfuly annoying and unbalanced there, not because they can kill you, but because if they know how to do it, they won’t die.

I don’t really see how a longer Revealed would harm the other thieves, I suggested a 5-8 cooldown on stealth, while you can’t stealth you can still dodge/blind/cc, but right now ontop of that you can also stealth w/e you want.

Thief damage looks balanced right now(after lots of nerfs) and unless they build for a full zerk they won’t make crazy damage, but if they do they are just too squishy. I believe damage is not the problem.
The combination of all the tricks a thief has and how they synergize ,this is what is crossing the balance line, and I can give you examples for both WvW and SPvP on that.

The problem is only half the stealth builds work the way you understand. D/D and D/P benefit from long stealths, they’re all about landing that one big hit. On the other hand S/D and P/D use stealth in completely the opposite way. Neither has a burst, but their stealth attack is thier strongest skill. Tactical Strike, is a control skill with which S/D attempts to stunlock (technically impossible) the opponent. Sneak Attack stacks bleeds and allows P/D to maintain passable condi pressure. Both these sets thrive off of using their stealth attacks as often as possible, so increasing revealed really hurts them. In otherwords, nerfing revealed, crippled S/D and P/D, and is little more then a slap on the wrist to D/D and D/P.
(On a side note: true S/D has Larcenous Strike now, but it’s still losing its control role.)

What I mean
An intern CD of 3 sec into “Infusion of Shadow” would help alot, without destroy any weaponset or the stealthmechanic.

Well, the problem with increasing the revealed duration as the onew which actually play thief, well outside of stealth thief has no damage attacks for example d/d there is our only option heartseeker, and the awful condtion death blossom and a interupt, how do you think thief shall behave?! autoattack? XD No, not before you increase our viablity outside of stealth as our ONLY viable build outside stealth is s/d 3 spam..

Right? oh gawd i remember how awful d/d thieves was with 4 secs revealed kittenmit…

This is a terrible idea. They did increase revealed to 4 seconds for a while, and it broke Thieves in PvE. It screwed up everyone’s timing on when to use Cloak and Dagger, so people were screwing that up, and making revealed 4 seconds decreased our PvE dps by 20-30%.

You want to make it 5-8 seconds? Congratulations, you just ruined Thief. You probably just lowered Thief’s dps by about 50%, making D/D no longer viable in PvE. That is our highest dps set, so that means that Thief can no longer out-dps a Warrior against a single target, and we still have half the EHP. No one will take Thieves into dungeons anymore because their dps is awful and they are too squishy. Thieves in WvW and sPvP are also screwed now. Little did you know, but we are extremely vulnerable in those 3 seconds. Making revealed 5-8 seconds would guarantee that a Thief would lose almost every fight. Other classes have things like protection or blocks, or just naturally high health and armor to survive. We have none of that. Stealth and well timed evades are our only way to survive. Thief is by far the squishiest class in the game, since the only class with a lower EHP than us, Elementalist, has access to a variety of boons and skills that greatly improve their survival.

So yeah, your suggestion is bad because it would completely break the Thief class. Stealth is a powerful escape mechanic (which it’s meant to be, btw), and very nice in small skirmishes. It doesn’t make Thieves invincible, however. If you can’t figure out how to beat a Thief that stealths a lot, then go make a Thief and play it in WvW. You’ll see how other people are killing you, and then you’ll know how to deal with Thieves when you play your other classes.

Wraith please don’t tell me that a thief without perma stealth would die..they have multiple ways of escaping fights such us super high mobility, medium CC and lots, lots of blinds.

Thief indeed needs more adjusting(same problem on thief like with mesmer Illusion dmg VS Mesmer dmg,thief has Stealth dmg vs No stealth dmg), but you can’t say that all a thief has is stealth..
You can teleport in and out of fights with multiple skills, you can perma blind even 2 people at the same time and you can stun/daze/immobilize in multiple ways..

Yes thief has all these tricks and they are all needed, but all these tricks become problematic when they can make a thief practically invincible. Low health pool and medium armor means you can’t facetank, but when you can keep one or two opponents from making you any serious damage while you take them down piece by piece, something more complex than just stealth is wrong.

Btw as a SPvPer I have devoted at least 60 hours to any proffesion in order to get some of the flow and of course my points are not about zergs, in a zerg fight thief is way too squishy, but on smaller fights(5-10 people) thief is pretty unbalanced.

New Engineer Skill:
Spray Paint Turret – Outlines all character even stealth ones.

Super Glue Turret – Sticky field to prevent Shadow Return.

XD

As for blind, ah well, it doesnt work when the enemy attacks you rapidly because target is only blinded once a second.

ps: Seriously though, whatever ANet do, DO NOT TOUCH Stealth/Shadow Step/Blind in PVE!