Guild Wars 2

I don’t think giving other classes the Revealed status is an acceptable way to provide counter-play to invisibility.

Revealed, as a self-regulation mechanic on Thieves for Stealth attacks, is perfectly fine. However, when given to other classes to apply on Thieves, Revealed becomes a hard-counter to the Stealth mechanic, completely disabling the mechanic and all it’s related effects and abilities and traits that depend on it. Revealed disables an entire traitline of utility effects for the Thief and disables the Thief’s best burst/control/condi abilities (Stealth attacks), severely crippling any Thief built around any of the above aspects.

Hard counters should not exist in a balanced game, because they result in rock-paper-scissors interaction between classes and builds that are simply not fun for the player on the wrong side of the equation.

The fact that hard-counters do not exist currently in GW2 for any other major mechanic for any class is what I consider to be one of the most impressive accomplishments in the design and balance of the PvP aspect of the game. This will no longer be the case once Revealed becomes available to other classes.

I would like to suggest an alternative to Revealed in the form of another effect that specifically counters invisibility, rather than the entire Stealth mechanic. Let’s call it “Detected” for now.

The Detected effect will make the Thief fully visible and targetable for its duration, but will not prevent the Thief from entering the Stealth state itself like Revealed does. This effect will provide counter-play to the invisibility aspect of the Stealth mechanic, but will still allow Thieves to go into the Stealth state to gain the effect of any traits he built for and to access stealth attacks that are a key component of a majority of Thief builds.

In other words, Detected would be a soft-counter to the invisibility aspect of Stealth, but will not hard-counter the entirety of the Stealth mechanic like enemy-induced Revealed would. Detected should be implemented in place of Revealed in the upcoming Sic Em change, and in the previously implemented Stealth Traps in WvW, and in any similar anti-stealth skills going forward.

I feel this would be provide counter-play to invisibility while being much fairer to Thief builds that rely on the Stealth mechanic.

TL;DR courtesy of Zacchary: Offer a counter without completely negating a traitline.

Thoughts?

Kaon.7192:

I don’t think giving other classes the Revealed status is an acceptable way to provide counter-play to invisibility.

Revealed, as a self-regulation mechanic on Thieves for Stealth attacks, is perfectly fine. However, when given to other classes to apply on Thieves, Revealed becomes a hard-counter to the Stealth mechanic, completely disabling the mechanic and all it’s related effects and abilities and traits that depend on it. Revealed disables an entire traitline of utility effects for the Thief and disables the Thief’s best burst/control/condi abilities (Stealth attacks), severely crippling any Thief built around any of the above aspects.

Hard counters should not exist in a balanced game, because they result in rock-paper-scissors interaction between classes and builds that are simply not fun for the player on the wrong side of the equation.

The fact that hard-counters do not exist currently in GW2 for any other major mechanic for any class is what I consider to be one of the most impressive accomplishments in the design and balance of the PvP aspect of the game. This will no longer be the case once Revealed becomes available to other classes.

---

I would like to suggest an alternative to Revealed in the form of another effect that specifically counters invisibility, rather than the entire Stealth mechanic. Let’s call it “Detected” for now.

The Detected effect will make the Thief fully visible and targetable for its duration, but will not prevent the Thief from entering the Stealth state itself like Revealed does. This effect will provide counter-play to the invisibility aspect of the Stealth mechanic, but will still allow Thieves to go into the Stealth state to gain the effect of any traits he built for and to access stealth attacks that are a key component of a majority of Thief builds.

In other words, Detected would be a soft-counter to the invisibility aspect of Stealth, but will not hard-counter the entirety of the Stealth mechanic like enemy-induced Revealed would. Detected should be implemented in place of Revealed in the upcoming Sic Em change, and in the previously implemented Stealth Traps in WvW, and in any similar anti-stealth skills going forward.

I feel this would be provide counter-play to invisibility while being much fairer to Thief builds that rely on the Stealth mechanic.

Thoughts?

I got some thoughts on this hard counter? it can be evaded no? in a balanced game? you consider thieves balanced? vanish from a zerg and escape is balanced? get real kid time of face roll keyboarding to win is over it’s time to develop skill and if u rely on stealth to do dmg you need a lot of practice also in the dagger since of stealth attack relies on being invisible ie it does more damage from flank or in the back not the face argument invalid and you keep failing to realize how you refer to stealth yea u get unique attacks for bein in it but also relies on you not being seen for it to be any use if u can be seen we can still hit you making ur stealth STILL WORTHLESS big whoop u might get initiative regen and hp regen but its not going to counter 2-4k dmg every swing on you nor are u going to be able to kite the person because ur used to actually being invisible

TheJokester.4672:

Kaon.7192:

I don’t think giving other classes the Revealed status is an acceptable way to provide counter-play to invisibility.

Revealed, as a self-regulation mechanic on Thieves for Stealth attacks, is perfectly fine. However, when given to other classes to apply on Thieves, Revealed becomes a hard-counter to the Stealth mechanic, completely disabling the mechanic and all it’s related effects and abilities and traits that depend on it. Revealed disables an entire traitline of utility effects for the Thief and disables the Thief’s best burst/control/condi abilities (Stealth attacks), severely crippling any Thief built around any of the above aspects.

Hard counters should not exist in a balanced game, because they result in rock-paper-scissors interaction between classes and builds that are simply not fun for the player on the wrong side of the equation.

The fact that hard-counters do not exist currently in GW2 for any other major mechanic for any class is what I consider to be one of the most impressive accomplishments in the design and balance of the PvP aspect of the game. This will no longer be the case once Revealed becomes available to other classes.

---

I would like to suggest an alternative to Revealed in the form of another effect that specifically counters invisibility, rather than the entire Stealth mechanic. Let’s call it “Detected” for now.

The Detected effect will make the Thief fully visible and targetable for its duration, but will not prevent the Thief from entering the Stealth state itself like Revealed does. This effect will provide counter-play to the invisibility aspect of the Stealth mechanic, but will still allow Thieves to go into the Stealth state to gain the effect of any traits he built for and to access stealth attacks that are a key component of a majority of Thief builds.

In other words, Detected would be a soft-counter to the invisibility aspect of Stealth, but will not hard-counter the entirety of the Stealth mechanic like enemy-induced Revealed would. Detected should be implemented in place of Revealed in the upcoming Sic Em change, and in the previously implemented Stealth Traps in WvW, and in any similar anti-stealth skills going forward.

I feel this would be provide counter-play to invisibility while being much fairer to Thief builds that rely on the Stealth mechanic.

Thoughts?

I got some thoughts on this hard counter? it can be evaded no? in a balanced game? you consider thieves balanced? vanish from a zerg and escape is balanced? get real kid time of face roll keyboarding to win is over it’s time to develop skill and if u rely on stealth to do dmg you need a lot of practice also in the dagger since of stealth attack relies on being invisible ie it does more damage from flank or in the back not the face argument invalid and you keep failing to realize how you refer to stealth yea u get unique attacks for bein in it but also relies on you not being seen for it to be any use if u can be seen we can still hit you making ur stealth STILL WORTHLESS big whoop u might get initiative regen and hp regen but its not going to counter 2-4k dmg every swing on you nor are u going to be able to kite the person because ur used to actually being invisible

I cant really understand most of your post, however as to being evaded. Sic Em is presently an instant cast shout, how exactly do you evade that? as to the rest, it doesnt make sense, maybe english isnt your first language, if so I apologize

ok he is crying stealth is revoked by revealed. ok use detected stealth still doesnt offer any help dps burst with stealth comes from backstab ie not being seen and able to get behind ur enemy even if u can use backstab ur still able to be seen ur not getting behind that guy most classes will still hit u for 2-4k on crits maybe more I’ve seen 5k with my gs and axe on thieves ie half their life detected ok u heal ur not invis I still beat the kitten out of u and u can’t apply pressure because u can’t make proper use of stealth skills for the simple fact I can see your movements

Edit: In the end get skill maybe you will learn what it’s like to be seen by everything. as for sic’em needs a target to use pet has to hit you so dodge pet attack and maintain stealth like u always do because u suck at the game I’ll admit I haven’t played mine in a while and I can’t seem to kill anything but I can survive zergs easy with stealth just being able to escape with no effort is what is getting changed ie make ur fight initiation extreme or ur dead

Dat lack of punctuation.

On topic: TL;DR Offer a counter without completely negating a traitline.

Zacchary.6183:

Dat lack of punctuation.

On topic: TL;DR Offer a counter without completely negating a traitline.

Okay Mr. do it right. Traitline is not negated just the trait that everyone of you noob thieves use to be overpowered is now harder to use meaning you have a form of cooldown now. Isn’t it nice to be balanced now? Also be it 6 seconds or 8 that is the average CD on many other classes skills also giving you a 40 second window before you have to worry about it again. Can’t kill them in 32 seconds as a thief play a different class and get good.

Zacchary.6183:

Dat lack of punctuation.

On topic: TL;DR Offer a counter without completely negating a traitline.

Thank you for the TL;DR. I’ll append it to my post. =)

I will refrain from feeding obvious trolls and encourage everyone else to do the same.

If Anet is ever to bring into the game any type of hard counter skills/traits to the other classes , then anet should balanced this absolutely out by massively improving the durations of every single stealth skill or decreasing massively their recharge times/initiative costs ect.

Otherwise will destroy any hard counter to stealth totally the whole thief class and then I absolutely DEMAND Anet for completely redesigning the thief class.

However, what ever they do, I strongly already bthink anyway Anet should finally redign the thief class’s gameplay mechanics around Steal ,Venom and Shadow Steps to add alot more of versatility and group play to Thiefs, which can be only achievement with venoms, that should have a great influence on all of the weapon skills/changing the weapon skills to increase a thiefs skill versatility greatly.

Change Steal to an automatism and increase the amount of steals a thief can do to 3 to increase the tactical influence of steal in the gameplay of a thief in overall and make stealing more important and to change completely the Shadow Steap Mechanic from a warp mechanic into a movement mechanic that lets thiefs avoid damage without being forced to use a dodge extra for that and lets the thief temporarely move around alot faster (jump also higher/alot wider) anmd give it an alot cooler looking animation thats more awesome than a lame instant warp with just a little black smoke appearing.

There could be also alot more interesting traitable hard counters for classes, that would be also more balanced, if those other classes wold have to trait for the hard counter, because that would lead to the point, that they have to give up on something else for the ability to spot invisible enemies.

example: ranger’s pet’s sniffing around and detect that way invisible targets.
Put that into a for example Grand Master Trait and everythign would be fine with that hard counter.

Condition builds that use condition traits are effectively nullified by warriors condition immunity for 8 seconds.

Mesmer’s PU trait is useless if they get revealed and can’t stealth.

There you go.

You can survive 4 seconds of revealed every 40 seconds, (which has to be preemptively used). Thieves also have plenty of evades/mobility/teleports besides just stealth to survive, you can use these to stall for 4 seconds…

Also, it’s more likely the case that the pet will reveal you, since that’s what the ability is about. And would serve as a better soft counter (requiring the pet to hit the thief to reveal), but then it would last 15 seconds, pick your poison.

Also I agree with you there should be no rock paper scissors balancing, give more classes some stealth soft counters instead of just one class.

@ The Jokester

Revealed removes stealth and prevents stealth from being applied for the duration of the debuff. Nine out of fifteen traits requires the thief to stealth or be in stealth for these traits to work.

As for the other unaffected traits, Last Refuge kills more than saves and its mandatory to have for SA traits. The rest are weak or situational.

Knowing that I think its safe enough for me to say that giving classes enough access to Revealed will pretty much kill an entire traitline.

Knote.2904:

Condition builds that use condition traits are effectively nullified by warriors condition immunity for 8 seconds.

Mesmer’s PU trait is useless if they get revealed and can’t stealth.

There you go.

You can survive 4 seconds of revealed every 40 seconds, (which has to be preemptively used). Thieves also have plenty of evades/mobility/teleports besides just stealth to survive, you can use these to stall for 4 seconds…

Also, it’s more likely the case that the pet will reveal you, since that’s what the ability is about. And would serve as a better soft counter (requiring the pet to hit the thief to reveal), but then it would last 15 seconds, pick your poison.

Also I agree with you there should be no rock paper scissors balancing, give more classes some stealth soft counters instead of just one class.

knote u got that wrong engi’s are the one with the condition immunity at 25% health not wars we have endure pain condition dmg still hurts us but direct dmg does not hurt because u can still hit us we just take no physical dmg just keep applying conditions we will prob get downed b4 it ends

Knote.2904:

Condition builds that use condition traits are effectively nullified by warriors condition immunity for 8 seconds.

There you go.

You can survive 4 seconds of revealed every 40 seconds, (which has to be preemptively used).

Also, it’s more likely the case that the pet will reveal you, since that’s what the ability is about. And would serve as a better soft counter (requiring the pet to hit the thief to reveal), but then it would last 15 seconds, pick your poison.

You’re right. Berserker Stance and Engy’s condi immunity at 25% health are both rather uncomfortably close to hard counters, and I would agree in that they’re not shining examples of balance and probably shouldn’t exist in a well-balanced game. However, something had to be done about the condi-dominated meta in sPvP, and this is their temporary solution until they rework condi’s more thoroughly (or at least I hope that’s their plan).

However, Berserker Stance certainly does go quite as far as Revealed does to Stealth.

Firstly, Berserker Stance is not immunity, but a duration reduction of 100%, which can be overcome by condi duration increase. Secondly, any condi’s that were applied beforehand continue to tick at their full duration. Whereas Revealed ignores any and all factors that can affect stealth duration and removes any additional stealth duration remaining on the Thief.

Again, I’m not arguing that Berserker Stance or Engy’s condi immunity is balanced, just that it isn’t as much of a hard-counter to condi’s as Revealed is to Stealth. None of these should exist as far as I’m concerned.

Zacchary.6183:

@ The Jokester

Revealed removes stealth and prevents stealth from being applied for the duration of the debuff. Nine out of fifteen traits requires the thief to stealth or be in stealth for these traits to work.

As for the other unaffected traits, Last Refuge kills more than saves and its mandatory to have for SA traits. The rest are weak or situational.

Knowing that I think its safe enough for me to say that giving classes enough access to Revealed will pretty much kill an entire traitline.

Okay so use your evades so what you cant 2 hit someone for 6 seconds omg it hurts u still have evade and as you claim to be so skillful I’m sure you can dodge and kite long enough to use ur stealths this implies instead of skill spamming u have a cd and I’m not talking about initiative u have traits that regen that and u get one like every 2 seconds a lot faster if ur still hitting who ur fighting

@ The Jokester

You try too hard.

Kaon.7192:

Knote.2904:

Condition builds that use condition traits are effectively nullified by warriors condition immunity for 8 seconds.

There you go.

You can survive 4 seconds of revealed every 40 seconds, (which has to be preemptively used).

Also, it’s more likely the case that the pet will reveal you, since that’s what the ability is about. And would serve as a better soft counter (requiring the pet to hit the thief to reveal), but then it would last 15 seconds, pick your poison.

You’re right. Berserker Stance and Engy’s condi immunity at 25% health are both rather uncomfortably close to hard counters, and I would agree in that they’re not shining examples of balance and probably shouldn’t exist in a well-balanced game. However, something had to be done about the condi-dominated meta in sPvP, and this is their temporary solution until they rework condi’s more thoroughly (or at least I hope that’s their plan).

However, these certainly does not go quite as far as Revealed does to Stealth.

Firstly, Berserker Stance is not immunity, but a duration reduction of 100%, which can be overcome by condi duration increase. Secondly, any condi’s that were applied beforehand continue to tick at their full duration. Whereas Revealed ignores any and all factors that can affect stealth duration and removes any additional stealth duration remaining on the Thief.

Again, I’m not arguing that Berserker Stance or Engy’s condi immunity is balanced, just that it isn’t as much of a hard-counter to condi’s as Revealed is to Stealth.

berserkers is far more balanced than you are saying far more than stealth ok u get revealed as i said 6 to 8 seconds same as berserkers u said conditions before hand still go full duration conditions a warrior can kill you through if that’s what they are doing conditions hurt a warrior trying to run which is when they get overwelmed because nothing really wants to 1v1 a war unless they have perma blind stealth now a guardian can kill a war because they can outheal a warriors dmg with healway because of buffs shouts remove conditions dodge roll heals weaponswap adds a dodgeroll blocks and invul elite plus almost constant burning

This is worth repeating:

Kaon.7192:

I will refrain from feeding obvious trolls and encourage everyone else to do the same.

As a WvWvW thief I welcome the reveal on ranger pets. They deserve loving, and this will rid us of thieves who need to l2p without perma stealth. Good riddance.

Sanduskel.1850:

As a WvWvW thief I welcome the reveal on ranger pets. They deserve loving, and this will rid us of thieves who need to l2p without perma stealth. Good riddance.

Finally a logical thief I enjoy fights against thieves that don’t have to stealth every 2 seconds even if they are short for me or them I praise you and look forward to possibly facing you in WvW.

TL;DR: Thieves will finally require skill. No more lame permastealthing. OP mad.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

TL;DR: Thieves will finally require skill. No more lame permastealthing. OP mad.

I am begining to love the people joining in thread Balthazar bless you!

Is there any other game that still doesn’t have a hard counter to their invisibility? It took long enough for anet to figure out how powerful the stealth mechanic is, and its about time they tried to balance it out.

Considering the hard counter to ranger’s Beastmastery trait line is “use AOEs” I just cannot feel bad for Thieves.

I loved stealth in dark age. There I had to really consider whether I should attack. The only escape in stealth was available at high cost and was on a 15 min timer.

You do realize that stealth hard counters every skill that requires a selected target to hit reliably (that’s most skills btw), right? Stealth also hard counters all the trait points people put into eyesight and “being-able-to-see-attacks-coming-so-you-can-time-a-dodge-on-more-than-guess-manship.” Unlike sick’em and shadow arts, every profession makes use of those traitlines.

I do feel sorry for thieves though. You don’t have the best mobility in the game or tons of evades. You certainly can’t kill people before they kill you. To make things worse your stealth will be on a 30 second cooldown and unavailable the instant you lose revealed. How are you gonna survive being visible momentarily? This one utility on one profession will seriously…kitten….THIEVES….UP (in about a month).

Play a thief for a while and they don’t seem overpowered. So many newbies in this thread.

What if instead of worrying so much about stealth we worry about backstab? What if backstab applied a buff of some sort that makes you immune to another backstab for 7-8 seconds? In other words, the thief CAN CnD and try to backstab again, but if you have the buff then the stab only does normal damage (like it does if they hit your front-side). Backstab seems like a very “sneaky” type of skill and simply being able to re-stealth after a few seconds and do it again (sometimes 2-3 times a fight) is ridiculous. Have thieve’s rely less on the backstab and more on their endurance—which would hopefully lessen the amount of thieves counting on “burst and escape” type builds.

Of course if this was done they would need a little something in return (or perhaps not if it turns out to be balanced). Just tired of getting backstabbed multiple times in the middle of fight. And yes, the buff would apply to multiple thieves as well and maybe even 7-8 seconds isn’t long enough given that currently most fights with a good thief last about 10 seconds or less anyways.

I would do both, saden.

I like the Idea of “Detect,” as opposed to reveal. Especially if the thief did not know that he/she was detected. That might make for some interesting play/counter play.

I understand what the OP is saying….. I just don’t believe him.
Yes other classes also benefit from stealth, and even apply it.

But Mesmer for instance, has so many other team support tools on top of that.
I want the OP and others like him to be honest here: Admit that this is still all about thieves, even if it’s about their primary Team-support options that are unfairly limited.

I’m gonna say this not b/c I actually mean it….. (b/c really, I sympathize for Thieves, I said all along years ago that Thieves would be the worst balanced class and the most picked on b/c we all knew they’d just be an Assassin re-tread without any real Team-Support buffs besides stealth & Backstab/Stomp gimmicks)

…no ….I’m saying this exact phrase b/c it’s the same response that’s Copy-Pasted by every single Stealth abuser who ever responded to any of us in WvW threads on it:

.

“cry more … Learn to play … stop going Glass”

.

…there… now hopefully those people get the point on what happens when you do nothing but dump garbage meme’y trash talk on a community when its trying to have a serious discussion about inclusive game mechanics. That’s right… Because sooner or later, the shoe will end up on the other foot.

.

My ranger is thrilled by the Counter stealth addition. For a very long time we have been the least wanted class in WvW. My guild is frequently telling us “Bring guardians, we already have 1 Waterfield” … so my Ranger was just languishing. One single skill change probably won’t change that entirely, but atleast I might get my foot in the door now.

I dont care about thieves too much, personally, after playing them for a month I felt so cheap that I had to quit it. It isnt that they are overpowered, it is that they have 2 overpowered mechanics; stealth an backstab.

I have seen well played thieves that dont rely on neither of these mecahnics to be effective or annoying. They use teleports, poison, calculated skills, skillful use of teleports, tactical stealths.

The problem arises when the thief has D/D and can burst you for 8-10k hp without absolutely no counter. Aegis wont block the damage nor reveal them, blocks wont work either. Basically backstab is a guaranteed 10k burst that if you are an ele (12k hp) or a guardian (12k hp too) you will most likely die to it if you arrent at full health, or the HS following the BS will kill you for sure. There is absolutely no counterplay to that, not even dodges can save you because you cant dodge what you cant see.

Thats what needs to go away, no class should have a 10k nuke without any counterplay. The other issue is permastealth and how newbs rely too much on it to survive. Every now and then you see these “new players with low skill” threads popping up everytime their “sacred” completely balanced and full of fun counterplay mechanics et touched. We had them first when revealed was applied. Was the class uesless? no. Then when the duratio was increase? were thieves useless? No, once again. Now the rangers pet apply them. Will it be useless? I bet no, because unlike most of the population, not everyone plays ranger, in fact I dont play ranger, and if I were to play ranger I wouldnt go for beastmaster.

Point is, for most people the problem of lowly skilled thieves who rely too much on the annoying stealth mechanic and OP uncounterable backstab the QQ will never stop, so all I can say is ignored these threads.

Once we rework backstab to do a fixed and capped % hp of enemy and have a long internal CD, and stealth to be a skill of tactical use rather than just spam it for everything, then we will never have a balanced class. The class should be about timed dodges, timed teleports, timed blinds, not spam 1222161228112, heck most people dont even get past the first set of 2s.

SteepledHat.1345:

Play a thief for a while and they don’t seem overpowered. So many newbies in this thread.

Sorry but you would regret saying that as people find out how simple and forgiving it is to play Thief and just reinforce their QQ of the class lol.

Knote.2904:

SteepledHat.1345:

Play a thief for a while and they don’t seem overpowered. So many newbies in this thread.

Sorry but you would regret saying that as people find out how simple and forgiving it is to play Thief and just reinforce their QQ of the class lol.

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. However when i play my warrior or guardian its an entirely different story, I usually watch tv while playing those two toons, because I dont need to pay attention, just hit 1-10 keys randomly and pick up loot bags, nothing is more forgiving than having access to ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

Shemsu.8721:

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. Guardian; ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

Im sorry but you are wrong, if you are dying in WvW more often as a thief than as a guardian you are doing Oh so very wrong!.

Guardians have no disengages and the only invulnerability they have at command cannot be used while CC’d and has a veeeeery long CD, longer than any stealth skill of thieves. No amount of aegis or protection will save you from a focused fire of a zergs, once you commit to a fight as a guardian, thats it, you either win or die. But as a thief you have the short bow and several stun breakers on top of perma stealth to keep you alive, unless you are going head first into the fight in which case thats just unskilled playing of the class.

My guess? Lets hope you were lying because otherwise you will appear as not only a liar, but a very unskilled player.

Fortus.6175:

Shemsu.8721:

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. Guardian; ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

Im sorry but you are wrong, if you are dying in WvW more often as a thief than as a guardian you are doing Oh so very wrong!.

Guardians have no disengages and the only invulnerability they have at command cannot be used while CC’d and has a veeeeery long CD, longer than any stealth skill of thieves. No amount of aegis or protection will save you from a focused fire of a zergs, once you commit to a fight as a guardian, thats it, you either win or die. But as a thief you have the short bow and several stun breakers on top of perma stealth to keep you alive, unless you are going head first into the fight in which case thats just unskilled playing of the class.

My guess? Lets hope you were lying because otherwise you will appear as not only a liar, but a very unskilled player.

No, I just dont play a stealth build on my thief. However if we are talking about strong survivable classes. Who was the first to attain 250k kills, dominator title. It wasnt a thief, it was ohhh my goodness a guardian, who would have thought. and the guardian doesnt need more than one invuln, with such high access to protection, aegis, healing, high base armor what else do you want, thats literally every defense in the game

Shemsu.8721:

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. However when i play my warrior or guardian its an entirely different story, I usually watch tv while playing those two toons, because I dont need to pay attention, just hit 1-10 keys randomly and pick up loot bags, nothing is more forgiving than having access to ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

What? Guardians can go Healway build that has nice retaliation, but this is negated by backstabbing thieves and generally guards in this build have to run. AH build is the same. Most if not all guard builds are absolutely no threat to a thief because a thief can quite easily run if they are in trouble given that guards have no reliable source of cripple, pulls, etc.

Warriors are not guardians so please don’t clump them together.

Tell that to all the guards that shrug off a group of four and keep running….

Soldier runes shout guard in WvW traited for cleanse. Try it.

Don’t mess with the stealth, please leave it alone. How can 1 thief really make a dent on a zerg? A thief was meant to be sneaky and go just about anywhere. It’s part of the game. Don’t screw it up.

SteepledHat.1345:

Tell that to all the guards that shrug off a group of four and keep running….

Soldier runes shout guard in WvW traited for cleanse. Try it.

and hit for…..wait for it; 10 damage! can follow up on people…..wait for it…..nope, oneone.

basically a meatshield that you can….wait for it….Ignore! yay!

Fortus.6175:

SteepledHat.1345:

Tell that to all the guards that shrug off a group of four and keep running….

Soldier runes shout guard in WvW traited for cleanse. Try it.

and hit for…..wait for it; 10 damage! can follow up on people…..wait for it…..nope, oneone.

basically a meatshield that you can….wait for it….Ignore! yay!

This. I thought I said something similar in my post, but I guess not. Guards can spec to become very good meatshields, but these builds are viable for killing nothing. My guard is hybrid specced (group/zerg support) and in WvW I can’t chase or kill anything unless they stand there like a tree or I join the zerg on a single-target.

Going back to the original purpose of the thread: thieves can build too well to be “burst and escape” without having to worry about zergs. They have this build and they have very little in the way of diminishing returns with the build. Sure they can’t last in a long-term fight, but most of the time they make the fight short-term and it isn’t as though their CD’s are 1 minute+ [like that of guards or other classes]. I’m sure the short CD’s have something to do with initiative costs, but to be quite honest I don’t think initiative is as much a barrier as Anet wanted it to be given the huge damage capabilities of a thief.

saden.6942:

What if instead of worrying so much about stealth we worry about backstab? What if backstab applied a buff of some sort that makes you immune to another backstab for 7-8 seconds? In other words, the thief CAN CnD and try to backstab again, but if you have the buff then the stab only does normal damage (like it does if they hit your front-side). Backstab seems like a very “sneaky” type of skill and simply being able to re-stealth after a few seconds and do it again (sometimes 2-3 times a fight) is ridiculous. Have thieve’s rely less on the backstab and more on their endurance—which would hopefully lessen the amount of thieves counting on “burst and escape” type builds.

This is something I could get behind, as to stealth changes. This way defenses for all classes remain untouched (most are low duration, fair cooldown), and it doesn’t allow for “cheap” use of mechanics for repeated high damage attacks. Granted it could open a new can of worms, but i like this idea better.

Xovian.8572:

saden.6942:

What if instead of worrying so much about stealth we worry about backstab? What if backstab applied a buff of some sort that makes you immune to another backstab for 7-8 seconds? In other words, the thief CAN CnD and try to backstab again, but if you have the buff then the stab only does normal damage (like it does if they hit your front-side). Backstab seems like a very “sneaky” type of skill and simply being able to re-stealth after a few seconds and do it again (sometimes 2-3 times a fight) is ridiculous. Have thieve’s rely less on the backstab and more on their endurance—which would hopefully lessen the amount of thieves counting on “burst and escape” type builds.

This is something I could get behind, as to stealth changes. This way defenses for all classes remain untouched (most are low duration, fair cooldown), and it doesn’t allow for “cheap” use of mechanics for repeated high damage attacks. Granted it could open a new can of worms, but i like this idea better.

Yes…I’m worried about the can o’ worms, but maybe if they were to implement something like it then others would be able to chime in on what the possible can o’ worms would be. At the moment, it seems viable and would cut down on thieves relying on CnD → BS → HS → wait a moment → repeat Spam. I know plenty of thieves don’t do this, but it would only hurt those that DO.

As far as I understand, thieves have the ability to reset a fight or easily run away. Most players have asked for something to prevent stealth. I know I’ve been seemingly trolled by thieves a lot so I think it’s fair. It’s only a 4s reveal. Also, what makes you guys think other professions will get to cast reveal? Ranger’s have pets that hunt scent, right? So it won’t be a widespread thing and won’t be on every ranger’s bar.

Chopps.5047:

As far as I understand, thieves have the ability to reset a fight or easily run away. Most players have asked for something to prevent stealth. I know I’ve been seemingly trolled by thieves a lot so I think it’s fair. It’s only a 4s reveal. Also, what makes you guys think other professions will get to cast reveal? Ranger’s have pets that hunt scent, right? So it won’t be a widespread thing and won’t be on every ranger’s bar.

This is true. They said it was for their pets on top of making other pets more viable (like bears, moas, etc.). I assume not all pets will have the ability (I suppose we’ll see). This was to help Rangers out in general even though I didn’t realize they needed help in WvW or PvP.

Ya ranger is widely considered weak in wvw. I just think that’s a result of roaming / defense being largely ineffective versus a zerg combined with the perception that ranger contributes little to open field combat. I still play it though. Wvw bloodlust and point capturing / defense might make rangers more useful. We’ll see soon

It does my heart good to see a stealth class get a major nerf to that mechanic. For those of you complaining about a useless trait line… you do realize every class tends to have a PvE and a PvP build right? There are traits on classes that are useful for PvP or PvE, but usually not both as they don’t offer what you’d need in such a situation depending on your build or what your’e going for. Surely the other 4 trait lines of a Thief could be used for PvP and the stealth line could be used in a PvE build?

jajajaja?

I’m excited that GW2 is focusing more on hard counters. That’s one of the reasons GW1 builds were so interesting and thought out. Now if they start to add more skills to the game and allow changing traits on the fly I will really be happy.

Shemsu.8721:

Knote.2904:

SteepledHat.1345:

Play a thief for a while and they don’t seem overpowered. So many newbies in this thread.

Sorry but you would regret saying that as people find out how simple and forgiving it is to play Thief and just reinforce their QQ of the class lol.

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. However when i play my warrior or guardian its an entirely different story, I usually watch tv while playing those two toons, because I dont need to pay attention, just hit 1-10 keys randomly and pick up loot bags, nothing is more forgiving than having access to ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

That’s true as long as you don’t spec to get perma stealth.

Zanryu.3417:

It does my heart good to see a stealth class get a major nerf to that mechanic. For those of you complaining about a useless trait line… you do realize every class tends to have a PvE and a PvP build right? There are traits on classes that are useful for PvP or PvE, but usually not both as they don’t offer what you’d need in such a situation depending on your build or what your’e going for. Surely the other 4 trait lines of a Thief could be used for PvP and the stealth line could be used in a PvE build?

jajajaja?

I am a thief, and I consider the upcoming patch to be a buff. My fellow thieves shouldn’t rely so much on stealth.

I used to roam with a venomshare thief in wvw. It was fun, cool playstyle.

Zanryu.3417:

It does my heart good to see a stealth class get a major nerf to that mechanic. For those of you complaining about a useless trait line… you do realize every class tends to have a PvE and a PvP build right? There are traits on classes that are useful for PvP or PvE, but usually not both as they don’t offer what you’d need in such a situation depending on your build or what your’e going for. Surely the other 4 trait lines of a Thief could be used for PvP and the stealth line could be used in a PvE build?

jajajaja?

You should learn more about classes before posting. at most a thief will run 10 SA in pve, only for reduced init on stealth to maintain long term backstab rotations. otherwise no thief with half a brain would run SA in PVE, its a complete DPS waste and all it serves is to draw more agro to your thief. So SA is already useless in PvE, so lets make it useless in pvp also? good idea right jajajaja?