Guild Wars 2

The interview with GW2Guru makes it sound like a stealth nerf is coming, and maybe it might possibly be needed. However, I’d argue that right now nobody, including the devs, has any idea if stealth is actually useful when working as intended, let alone overpowered.

Right now, we have horribad culling. That culling turns an effect that breaks targeting and sets up a couple moves into near permanent invisibility. I agree this is bad. I haven’t played my WvW thief (who is also my main) in a while because it’s boring to have that much of an advantage over practically every opponent. (I play my faberge cannon ranger in WvW instead)

But if you go pure theorycrafting on what stealth does, it’s not particularly powerful. In PvE, it no longer has an effect on mob aggro which means when you come back out of stealth, the mob you were fighting will instantly pick you right back up. Heck, when you add up the delaybetween when the mob “loses” you, finishes whatever it was doing before you stealthed, and you coming back, there are times when it appears stealth had no effect at all outside of whatever move (flame burst, backstab, etc) that it sets up.

In WvW, at least you know other players lose targeting, and lose sight of you for a couple seconds. The normal reaction from good players is just AoE wherever you were. That means that to use stealth for anything but it’s setup, you need some kind of mobility move immediately after stealthing. Mesmers and thieves can have such a move, but they are on fairly long cooldowns so it limits how often you can do anything but the setup part of stealth in a good fight.

All that said, maybe stealth really will have some synergy with something else that makes it overpowered even after the culling fix eliminates the biggest problem with stealth: effective permainvisibility. But we don’t know that yet because nobody has gone looking for it. Players who use stealth in WvW only care about the EZ-mode perma. Maybe taking that away is really all stealth needs to get back in balance.

(p.s. I have a really similiar argument when it comes to buffing necro minions. I’d really hold off on buffing until after the AI for them is working properly. It might be that if they actually fight all the time, they’re already good. Or maybe they do need some kind of buff, but until they work right, there is no way to tell.)

This is a fix not a nerf.
A nerf is something like Ranger GS/Crossfire, Warrior Brawn, Thief’s Dancing Dagger etc.
A fix is like in this case, where players found an unintended way around a design and it needs to be prevented.
Infact the Anet guy explains they never intended for a Thief to be able to restealth immediately through CnD etc.

Only CnD needs to be fixed/balanced, the rest of stealth mechanics is fine.

Somewhat off-topic question. I missed the interview and can’t find a place to watch it, anybody that can help with that?

EDIT: And don’t say ‘google’, I’ve already googled it and all I can find are old interviews.

Conncept.7638:

Somewhat off-topic question. I missed the interview and can’t find a place to watch it, anybody that can help with that?

Also somewhat off-topic: anybody know where to get patch notes for the small patches in between the major game updates each month? Seems there was one today but I don’t see anything on the news page: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news

Venirto.4208:

Only CnD needs to be fixed/balanced, the rest of stealth mechanics is fine.

From what I understand, CnD is not the only thing to be affected with this.

In any case, since stealth cannot be used to drop aggro anymore, I barely even use it. Never understood the need for that change since, I had to work to get stealth to drop aggro. It never happened automatically. Seems others had a different experience. But for me, I started using stealth after I learned to get it to drop aggro.

Now it is like a taunt when exiting stealth. Regardless of distance or position, the mobs know right where you are when you exit stealth. I just stopped using it basically. Good for a sneak shot or back stab but aside from that I have no real use for it anymore.

So thief got duller for me. Maybe if we could have more mobility a lack of stealth would be not noticed. I love all the evades and dodges I do on my thief, but it is still limited. If I could do more of that, I probably would not think much about stealth even.

As it is, thief got duller for me though.

Also, when culling is fixed and this new change in stealth occurs, I seriously doubt the hysteria over stealth will die down. I expect the complaints to continue unabated.

I dont do wvw/pvp, and really kinda wish that pve shared no rule set with wvw. Just end the nerf cycle for pve at least, and actually sort of know what/where a profession is. At least my necro feels sort of “right”, even with some odd trait/traitline things, and does not seem to be changed like weather.

Thief? I think it is a duelist more than a sneaky thief. I have fun on my thief but less and less with time. Used to have much more fun on my thief than any other toon, but that has been changing.

wait? WAIT? we’ve been waiting for MONTHS. i know that feels like a short time for the thieves wtfpwning everything in sight but for the classes that keep getting shafted every patch it’s a kitten long time.

Apparently, the AoE adjustment is also coming. Since AoE is a potential counter to stealth, the nature of those adjustments will also matter.

Its not only needed but i have no idea how could they even release a game with such OPness. Thief idea sucks in gw2 i much MUCH preferred assassins in gw1 and no BS stealth was in that game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Apparently, the AoE adjustment is also coming. Since AoE is a potential counter to stealth, the nature of those adjustments will also matter.

No. They are still CAREFULLY watching and examining AoE’s before the implement any kind of change/nerf because they know it’ll change the way the game is played for many people.

I play many different chars – the Thief is one of them.
Imo just nerfing stealth is not that easy, because it changes alot. The playstyle is totally “destoyed”. You have no chance to reposition and barley no CC to compensate missing stealth.

I understand, that many ppl want a change. But just put “autoreveal” on every player that used stealth, even without attacking goes too far.
To solve this problem, they could remove the “blind after stealth”-Trait and put a small reveal, like 1 sec on players after stealth fades away without any attack. So permanent stealth/blind will be impossible, but stealth would be still usefull.

Where is this information coming from…

And finally thieves are getting much needed FIXES, great news.

I personally like this change in terms of stealth. It should never have been an ability that could be reapplied 1 sec after it ended. But I also feel thieves will need some overall buffs as well.

edit: Why is auto reveal after stealth going too far? It just means you can’t use it consecutively for long periods of not being able to be targeted. And it only lasts 3 seconds anyway…
P.P.S. I wonder if stealth stacking would get around this?

Apfelschorle.6472:

I play many different chars – the Thief is one of them.
Imo just nerfing stealth is not that easy, because it changes alot. The playstyle is totally “destoyed”. You have no chance to reposition and barley no CC to compensate missing stealth.

I understand, that many ppl want a change. But just put “autoreveal” on every player that used stealth, even without attacking goes too far.
To solve this problem, they could remove the “blind after stealth”-Trait and put a small reveal, like 1 sec on players after stealth fades away without any attack. So permanent stealth/blind will be impossible, but stealth would be still usefull.

The only playstyles it destroys are the ones that constantly spammed C&D to stay in stealth. So if you liked just C&D→C&D→C&D then yeah, your going to have to actually learn to play the class. Most thieves though won’t have issues because they would actually use other skills besides C&D. The rest of the playstyles are pretty much untouched since they either already deal with reveal or don’t stealth enough for the reveal to be an issue.

This change is pretty much near perfect. It removes the thieves ability to permastealth, which they obviously didn’t want happening, but doesn’t impact any of the legit playstyles in any meaningful way. All the skill-less permastealth thieves will have to either learn the class as well as get some survival stats, or they will reroll to whatever class is next on the bandwagon list.

Apfelschorle.6472:

oh no thieves will need to run builds other than glasscanonbackstabmash2instawin!

there i fixed your post for you. thieves are bar none the most poorly balanced class i have ever seen a mmo. i don’t even understand how 1 class could end up so OP.

vespers.1759:

Apfelschorle.6472:

oh no thieves will need to run builds other than glasscanonbackstabmash2instawin!

there i fixed your post for you. thieves are bar none the most poorly balanced class i have ever seen a mmo. i don’t even understand how 1 class could end up so OP.

Sure… cuz gc-backstab is soo op…
Imo the main issue is that ppl can’t play their class, and and don’t know how to handle a thief right. As i said, i play different classes. Btw. a glass thief is one of the easy kills, cuz most of them ar poorly played and they die too fast.

Distaste.4801:

The only playstyles it destroys are the ones that constantly spammed C&D to stay in stealth. So if you liked just C&D->C&D->C&D then yeah, your going to have to actually learn to play the class. Most thieves though won’t have issues because they would actually use other skills besides C&D. The rest of the playstyles are pretty much untouched since they either already deal with reveal or don’t stealth enough for the reveal to be an issue.

This change is pretty much near perfect. It removes the thieves ability to permastealth, which they obviously didn’t want happening, but doesn’t impact any of the legit playstyles in any meaningful way. All the skill-less permastealth thieves will have to either learn the class as well as get some survival stats, or they will reroll to whatever class is next on the bandwagon list.

So, i have to say, that i dont have a sPvP background. I mostly play WvW.
A gc thief is anyway the dumbest thing you can do, there are fare better ways to play a backstab thief. Imo there are not that much legit playstyles as a thief, who are not based on stealth.

The problem is see, is the lack of possibilitys to avoid damage & CC. Sure, reveal is “just” 3 seconds, but what else do you have as a thief, than just stealth, blind(which is automatically nerfed too) and movementskills? Support is still close to zero and singetarget-damage without backstab far from beeing great, compared to other classes. Without stealth, you loose the biggest part of your defence.

I also disagree in the “less-skilled permastealth”- thief part. Imo the differece between great and poorly played bs-thieves, has always been the positionplay. To know the right time and target to open with a backstab, do some damage and reposition after.
Sounds easy, but i have seen a lot of poorly played thieves.

I know, even the backstab thief is not dead with those changes, but just don’t like “pure” nerfes without bringing up new possibilitys.