Guild Wars 2

This topic is not about culling. This topic is about Stealth.

I just saw a thief troll 8 enemy players up and down a small cliff near the left tower of borderlands, by going invisible each time, for a whole hour. The thief could not be killed, targeted, or hit. Given the width of the cliff, it is impossible to predict where that thief was exactly, and even if you did, you would probably land 1 hit(which he would overheal while being invisible). There was no culling, there were only 9 players at that spot(not large group).

Does anyone here actually like to fight Invisible players?
They can just run away when you are close to winning, then come back once they heal up and keep harassing you. How many counters do you have against invisibility? You cant even tell if you are hitting them or not, you cant tell where they are unless you immobilized them right before they turn invisible(or downed them).

Should Stealth mechanic get changed?
Maybe instead of making them completely invisible, make them visible but just untargetable. Inability to target someone is already a HUGE advantage, you are immune to leaps(you cannot leap at target) and projectiles do no fly “directly” to you(you cannot shoot the target).
Or introduce 2 mechanics, one being untargetable, one being stealth, and stealth being reserved for Elite skills only.

Let’s let them finish up fixing the issues causing the alleged perma-stealth first. It’s a rendering issue when they come out of stealth, and it’s being worked on.

Volkon’s pretty much got it. Stealth isn’t the problem here.

Another thief thread…

I just hate the whole play as undisciplined as you want because you can always get away mechanic. It’s just stupid. Stealth is one thing. I don’t have a problem with somebody being able to stealth and take a chance at striking at somebody before they see it coming. However, as it is there is no risk whatsoever. A thief can dive, see if he can win, and if not, get the hell out of there. Even if the guy being attacked has 10 allies show up after the theif hits, it doesn’t matter. Then, they can also just do it again and again until the person being attacked gets mentally fatigued. And this is just one thief. If there are two or more, it gets way worse.

I don’t see how anybody can think that this is the way it should be.

Megido.5061:

Volkon’s pretty much got it. Stealth isn’t the problem here.

If there is indeed a rendering issue, shouldnt they simply adjust stealth mechanic for now?

Example:
Given that a thief gets 5 seconds stealth and then will take 3 seconds to render(he gets 8 seconds total where we do not see him), they should just move the stealth skill to give 2 seconds stealth and the thief will be invisible for a total of 5 seconds.

I know it is not “that” simple, but i think reducing some stealth durations for now until the problem is fixed(if it is ever fixed) is a good temporary solution.

Easier solution

• ‘Revealed’ now lasts until you break line of sight
• Thieves now have a master-trait which makes it so blind effects break line of sight

Taking away thieves ability to open with a lot of damage is pretty much killing the entire flavor of the class. However there is nothing ‘thiefy’ about being able to run away like a little girl or eternally harass with no counter. Nor is it fair that thieves (and mesmers) can completely ignore defensive positioning (something every other class is severely punished for doing) without any trade-off in defensive stats or abilities.

This change preserves the stealthy assassin flavor of the class, while eliminating the trollish guerilla warfare, cowardly tactics, and ability to completely defy positioning.

Nerfing stealth wouldn’t solve it. You’re still having to continually load and reload your model which will take time. Depending on how active wvw is, the change could go completely unnoticed to a crippling nerf to the point of unplayability. Culling is the priority and short term changes would only squander development time.

I actually like fighting stealthed players. It makes it interesting and exciting.

You want to know how to kill an invisi-thief? I’ll give you the grand tactic.

Use a guardian with a great sword.

When the thief goes invis, utilize binding blades. It will track them invisibly. Have your 9 person group stack on the guardian.

Then the guardian pulls the invisible thief to them and EVERYONE unloads on that spot.

Dead thief.

You are welcome.

Kumu Honua.2751:

You want to know how to kill an invisi-thief? I’ll give you the grand tactic.

Use a guardian with a great sword.

When the thief goes invis, utilize binding blades. It will track them invisibly. Have your 9 person group stack on the guardian.

Then the guardian pulls the invisible thief to them and EVERYONE unloads on that spot.

Dead thief.

You are welcome.

9 people to kill 1 thief.

Actually you can do it with 2.

A thief eating a full blown whirling wrath in the face (What the guardian will do right after the pull) puts him to about 50% life. 2 guardians will eat his lunch and beat his dog afterwards.

Could none of them AOE? Whenever I even THINK a thief is headed my way, if I have any AOE at all I drop it right on myself.

Though damage really should break stealth… I’ve had a few times were I got direct hits on a thief and it didn’t break his stealth at all.

Tolmos.8395:

Could none of them AOE? Whenever I even THINK a thief is headed my way, if I have any AOE at all I drop it right on myself.

Though damage really should break stealth… I’ve had a few times were I got direct hits on a thief and it didn’t break his stealth at all.

AoE doesn’t deal enough damage unless you’re specced glass cannon, in which case the thief’s opening shot will kill you instantly anyway. Not to mention thieves can easily shadowstep to you through your AoE fields without taking any damage.

The only AoE I’ve found that have been of any use are the staff marks, because they can’t be evaded, and you can just set the fear mark at your feat, completely negating at least one back-stab.

The problem is 2 fold. The biggest problem is culling. When a thief comes out of stealth he essentially gets 2-3 seconds of “free” stealth while his model is rendered. Since most stealths only last 2-3 seconds to begin with it is essentially a 100% bonus.

The second problem is the skill cloak and dagger, it is an initiative based skill that provides 2 seconds of stealth. When properly traited it lasts 3 seconds and you regenerate most of the initiative used while in stealth allowing you to pop in and out. Every other stealth skill available in the game provides 3-5 seconds of stealth with a 30+ second CD.

Of course the biggest problem with stealth is Ash Legion Spy Kits. Infinite stealth for every class in the game…

It sounds like he did his job a trolled 8 of you for an hour LOL. As soon as they stealth you just run away and forget about them. They are cowards and do not deserve my time.

Tolmos.8395:

Could none of them AOE? Whenever I even THINK a thief is headed my way, if I have any AOE at all I drop it right on myself.

Though damage really should break stealth… I’ve had a few times were I got direct hits on a thief and it didn’t break his stealth at all.

He was going up and down the cliff, had shadowsteps too(so stuff like line of warding or other aoe wouldnt work), because he goes up and down it would be difficult to get him with binding blade too(has 600 range including verticals).

He was not hitting/killing anyone much, just going invisible and trolling the whole group.

At the very least, stealthed opponents ought to be able to see each other…or at least an outline of each other.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Of course the biggest problem with stealth is Ash Legion Spy Kits. Infinite stealth for every class in the game…

They don’t work in sPvP or WvWvW.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

He was going up and down the cliff, had shadowsteps too(so stuff like line of warding or other aoe wouldnt work), because he goes up and down it would be difficult to get him with binding blade too(has 600 range including verticals).

He was not hitting/killing anyone much, just going invisible and trolling the whole group.

Then you move away from the cliff. I dunno, seems obvious to me.

If he wasn’t doing much, just going invisible and trolling…………..why did you even give him a second thought?

Tolmos.8395:

Could none of them AOE? Whenever I even THINK a thief is headed my way, if I have any AOE at all I drop it right on myself.

Though damage really should break stealth… I’ve had a few times were I got direct hits on a thief and it didn’t break his stealth at all.

There are multiple ways to deal with thieves as mentioned by yourself and others above.
Question is not whether there is a way to deal with it, question is “does anyone actually LIKE fighting stealthed opponents?”.

If something is in the game, and it causes more grief than fun, it should be reconsidered. That’s Arenanet’s speciality to ask “Is it fun? Do you like it?”.

I think it’s fun. There is nothing more satisfying than spiking an invisi-thief.

Actually, spiking a D/D ele is more satisfying to me, but that’s a whole other ball of wax.

Kumu Honua.2751:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

He was going up and down the cliff, had shadowsteps too(so stuff like line of warding or other aoe wouldnt work), because he goes up and down it would be difficult to get him with binding blade too(has 600 range including verticals).

He was not hitting/killing anyone much, just going invisible and trolling the whole group.

Then you move away from the cliff. I dunno, seems obvious to me.

If he wasn’t doing much, just going invisible and trolling…………..why did you even give him a second thought?

Because he will stay there and attempt to kill anyone that is “alone and passing by”?. He wasn’t doing much against a group of players other than trolling them, but if you were alone, that’s a completely different matter. It was very clear that the thief won this fight, he wanted to stay at that spot(to prey on solo players) and got what he wanted.

“Alone and passing by”.

If someone is alone and passing by and can’t simply ignore a thief and go on their merry way, they shouldn’t be “Alone and passing by.” Especially since you were so good as to put the word out about the thief causing trouble. Right? Right?!?

WvWvW is about communication, teamwork, and awareness.

I dislike how stealth is handled in general, and I routinely play a mesmer. My issue lies more in rewarding cowardice and “cheap” tactics. Popping up out of seemingly no where, spamming a single button [heartseeker], and then stealth finisher. Alternately, Popping up out of seemingly no where, failing to accomplish a down and vanishing back into nothingness. Either way, the [amount of?] stealth involved cheapens the entire process. I would advocate for a reworking of many stealth-based skills to other equally-survivable alternatives: Such as [For mesmer] change Mass Invisibility and Decoy from Stealth to Distortion . The Mesmer still possesses two skills that may assist in his/her survival [by dodging attacks for a bit], but can still be seen and chased by opponents – just like every other non-stealth profession.
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Alternately, I would be open to the idea of damage breaking stealth. I would be open to the idea of having ‘revealed’ last longer but giving thieves and mesmers some other benefit to offset. I would be open to characters being outlined [targetable?] but camouflaged wherein keen eyes can still track movement, but the chaos of battle will still prove to be confusing enough. I would be open to stealthed characters incurring a significant movement speed penalty to move ‘stealthy’ [silently]. I would be open to forbidding stealth finishers outright.
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I am open for discussion, I am open for mechanical trials [preferrably with more trial and less error], but I do wish for the quantity or quality of stealth to be altered in such a way to allow us to confront our attackers and defend ourselves properly, without having to resort to being spiked or watching them run away -and- in a way that allows the professions to continue to be viable in play.

No.
Getting slaughtered by someone I can’t target is not fun. Having zero chance to counter that is also not fun. And then if I do manage to survive and put up a fight, being unable to stop them from simply running away is also not fun.
As things stand, there are a number of reasons why many consider Stealth to be broken.
But really, it’s the very simple fact that it’s stupidly easy for a Thief to jump into Stealth, and all but impossible to stop them from doing it.
For example…
Why can a Thief go invisible to everyone around them because they hit something with Cloak and Dagger? I suppose the argument could be made if it was just the person he hit, but no… It’s everybody. They don’t even have to target a actual enemy. They can gain the benefit from an inanimate object.

As for Mesmers… I don’t comment on them yet, because I am still leveling one up to learn for myself how they work.

I… Hate… Stealth.
I could’ve killed any of those thieves a million times, if they hadn’t had stealth.
Some will say ’that’s why they have stealth’. Well I strongly disagree. If a thief decides ’I’m not going to win this’, he can stealth and run off in any possible direction. There is no other profession that can do that, not one. It’s extremely overpowered to just stack some stealthing and be free of all potential threats.

Monk Gerwin.7039:

I… Hate… Stealth.
I could’ve killed any of those thieves a million times, if they hadn’t had stealth.
Some will say ’that’s why they have stealth’. Well I strongly disagree. If a thief decides ’I’m not going to win this’, he can stealth and run off in any possible direction. There is no other profession that can do that, not one. It’s extremely overpowered to just stack some stealthing and be free of all potential threats.

I could have killed warriors a million times, if they didn’t have Endure Pain. When a warrior decides ’I’m not going to win this’, he can go invulnerable and run off in any possible direction. There is no other profession that can do that, not one. It’s extremely overpowered to just pop one utility skill and be free of all potential threats.

I could have killed mesmers a million times, if they didn’t have illusions and teleport skills. When a mesmer decides ’I’m not going to win this’, he can fire off a bunch of illusions and teleport away in any possible direction. There is no other profession that can do that, not one. It’s extremely overpowered to just stack some illusions and be free of all potential threats.

Wait a minute…

It sounds like… every class has some kind of escape mechanic! Who knew?!

Bad example Blueshield.
Endure Pain has a 90 second cooldown.
Cloak & Dagger has no cooldown except for the 3 second “Revealed” debuff. Which if you’re using S/D is positively laughable anyway, as for a good part of those 3 seconds, the enemy won’t be able to hit you because you’ve stunned them.

Always find these threads comical. Guarantee whatever class the OP plays also has some ridiculous escape/survivability abilities. The real complaint here is “I’m mad because I cannot kill someone easily.” In other words, nothing to see here folks, move along.

Mungrul.9358:

Bad example Blueshield.
Endure Pain has a 90 second cooldown.
Cloak & Dagger has no cooldown except for the 3 second “Revealed” debuff. Which if you’re using S/D is positively laughable anyway, as for a good part of those 3 seconds, the enemy won’t be able to hit you because you’ve stunned them.

^This.

Perma-stealth doesn’t have an cost that matches the benefit.

Not sure if it’s the actual skill or if it has more to do with rendering.

However, I would be ok with perma-stealth if you were revealed when you took damage.

Mungrul.9358:

Bad example Blueshield.
Endure Pain has a 90 second cooldown.
Cloak & Dagger has no cooldown except for the 3 second “Revealed” debuff. Which if you’re using S/D is positively laughable anyway, as for a good part of those 3 seconds, the enemy won’t be able to hit you because you’ve stunned them.

It’s a perfectly good example. Stealthed enemies can still be attacked, just not targeted. As others have pointed out, roots/immobilizes and pull-to skills such as the guardian’s Blinding Blade are ways to effectively guarantee that you can kill a stealthed opponent.

Additionally, C&D has no cooldown because no thief skills do – they use initiative. That’s a class mechanic which has been balanced against other classes. It’s not possible to “perma-stealth” with C&D alone, meaning that the thief has to dump utility/heal slot skills into obtaining stealth to get anywhere near “perma.”

So in short – the comparison is using multiple skills to become un-targetable but still very killable versus using a single skill to become completely invulnerable and immune to everything in the game – damage, CC, etc. The initiative cost + cooldowns of the thief compared to the cooldown on the warrior seem pretty well tweaked, considering the effects.

Vorch.2985:

Perma-stealth doesn’t have an cost that matches the benefit.

Not sure if it’s the actual skill or if it has more to do with rendering.

However, I would be ok with perma-stealth if you were revealed when you took damage.

See above, initiative cost equates to a cooldown and alleged “perma-stealth” requires skills that are on cooldowns.

More importantly, the failure of thieves to re-render from stealth has addressed as a malfunction by devs, so the kind of perma-stealth the OP refers to is a bug, not a true function of stealth mechanics.

You neglect to mention all the traits for thieves that are easily specced into that regenerate health and initiative faster when stealthed, allow you to move faster when stealthed and clear conditions when stealthed.
That and shadow stepping doesn’t break stealth, making your getaway even more assured. Oh yeah, and then there’s the trait that extends all stealth skills’ durations.
Initiative is trivial to make back, and just using C&D and Tactical Strike will result in a net gain of initiative rather than a loss. You can spam this combination to your heart’s content and never run out of initiative.

Initiative would be fine if it couldn’t be used cheaply for stealth. Unfortunately, it can.

Mungrul.9358:

You neglect to mention all the traits for thieves that are easily specced into that regenerate health and initiative faster when stealthed, allow you to move faster when stealthed and clear conditions when stealthed.

You neglect to consider that in spite of all of those traits, thieves remain vulnerable to damage while stealthed. As stated above, simple use of immobilizes and/or pull-to skills make thieves incredibly easy pickings. Melee attacks and ground-cast skills prove quite effective.

Mungrul.9358:

That and shadow stepping doesn’t break stealth, making your getaway even more assured. Oh yeah, and then there’s the trait that extends all stealth skills’ durations.

Leap and teleport skills on other classes also don’t interfere with their respective escape mechanics. Oh, and there’s a trait that increases (using my specific example of Endure Pain) the duration of warrior stances. And again, stealth’s duration is irrelevant if you’re still hitting them while they’re stealthed.

Mungrul.9358:

Initiative is trivial to make back, and just using C&D and Tactical Strike will result in a net gain of initiative rather than a loss. You can spam this combination to your heart’s content and never run out of initiative.

Initiative would be fine if it couldn’t be used cheaply for stealth. Unfortunately, it can.

Since initiative is tied to all of a thief’s weapon skills except for the #1 skill, tactical strike is one of those 1-key skills, and tactical strike takes much less time to execute than the 3-second revealed debuff, if the C&D → Tactical Strike combo is all that a thief is using, he/she is deliberately reducing his/her combat effectiveness. If the thief is using additional skills, there’s a high probability that those are consuming initiative.

Oh look, another “Nerf Thief” thread. It’s been – what, a day or so since the last one? Or was it hours? As others have said – he trolled you… you weren’t killing him and evidently he wasn’t killing you. He messed with you for an HOUR, and none of you had the sense to just walk away?

And whilst stealth can make combat interesting, there are plenty of other class abilities that are pretty “OP” in my opinion. But hey, rather than complain I either learn to counter it, or attempt to avoid it. That’s it.

if anet doest have a good feel for balancing classes now, its because they think they are fine.
thieves “supposed opness” have been on the forum for a while, actually its all over the internet.
so my guess is, the players dont understand the system yet.

otherwise they would have almost balanced it, right?
after 6 months…

On the question of: Does anyone here actually like to fight Invisible players?

Actually, yes. It’s a challenge and entertaining. Also, I’m a grenadier so that should explain part of it. I never directly target them, rather, I play to perceive where they are at a given moment and place my grenades. It brings a joy when a thief is forced out of stealth because s/he is down’d. It is literally the biggest challenge and I’ll take on thief teams to see if I can take them down (which is 50/50 most the time to take out a duo). But, I understand the point of the post, and it can typically be frustrating.

if a theift couldnt go invis all the time they would be to weak. they already get owned with there stealth, if anet takes that away they would be the worst class in the game. just to let u guys know i dont play theift so im not syaing this bc i like going invis.

I have no problems with Thieves, you just need some good guessing skills and they go down in 3 hits anyways.
Stealth allows them to avoid some deaths but it’s necessary for them because they are three shot material.

Do I like fighting against invisible players? No. It’s one thing to go invulnerable but constantly losing visual on your opponent get’s old really fast. Someone attacks you, can’t kill you, then goes poof, no price for engaging, that’s a cheap experience and it’s annoying at best. I’m all for survivability, but I have no love for the stealth mechanic, they could have went with different design choices.

VOLKON.1290:

Let’s let them finish up fixing the issues causing the alleged perma-stealth first. It’s a rendering issue when they come out of stealth, and it’s being worked on.

I said the same thing around September through October. Here it is in February, and if I hold my breath for a second longer waiting for that fix, I’ll be dead.

Avatar.1923:

if anet doest have a good feel for balancing classes now, its because they think they are fine.
thieves “supposed opness” have been on the forum for a while, actually its all over the internet.
so my guess is, the players dont understand the system yet.

otherwise they would have almost balanced it, right?
after 6 months…

Yes, because all of our classes are super well balanced by now, right?
after 6 months….

We still have classes that are nearly broken. And only a few classes even have more than 1 or 2 viable builds.

Like:
Elementalist – Auramancer is only viable build and that is scheduled for nerf too
Engineer – I don’t play one but it is obvious to see
Guardian – Pretty well balanced, but could still use more than 1-2 viable end builds
Necromancer – Pretty broken
Ranger – Bad pet AI and many class deficiencies