Guild Wars 2

Damage Mitigation is the ultimate form of survivability. What Stability and Stealth both provide are forms of inherent damage mitigation. Stability, with it’s use of completely ignoring any form of stun or Stealth, which cloaks the players allowing them to avoid damage all together by taking advantage of other player’s inability to virtually see them. Both of these mechanics are very powerful when used by competent players.

The problem that I see is that while some classes have access to these buffs/boon more than others, the same applies to counters. It is unfair to give classes more access to these tools more than others. Sure we could all roll classes to counter this problem, but that is just a means to and end, and is not addressing the issue. I believe that there should be more boon removal across all classes, and also Stability/Stealth as well. While I understand that Stealth is exclusive to the Thief and Mesmer, it is just too powerful for just them to use. Either give all classes the ability to steath, provide a legitimate way to counter it, or rework the mechanic, blind AoE is just a quasi form of dealing with it and frankly, I’m fed up with culling playing to it’s advantage.

Tell me what you guys think: whether you agree and if not, why.

I think as soon as culling is fixed (if it is fixed), it’ll be more easier to deal with stealth.

I agree OP they do.

And i also agree Culling and lag is at an all time worst ever, these need to be addressed, It’s not my PC Guildwars 2 was fine when i first joined 6 months ago its the game..

Culling is going to be fixed and should drastically reduce the amount of time you don’t see a thief/mesmer

Unfortunately, I’m forced to agree with the OP.

Stealth is just a little too overpowered.

Scenario:
You know there is a thief approaching…. he thinks you did not see him enter stealth and begin advancing toward your location… but you saw it all right.

You begin to prepare for the duel…

You can’t hit him with projectiles while he is approaching…. but you might be able to tag him with some melee once he is in range…

…but how do you know when he is close enough?

You begin channeling your block skill…. but nothing strikes you before it is over.

You swing your weapon, and it seems as if you’ve hit nothing.

You swing it again, and still… your adversary remains cloaked.

Did you hit him? Is he even here yet?

You dodge roll just to be safe…. he has got to be here somewhere by now.

BAM

You are immobilized. You finally see the thief, but you are completely helpless as he takes large chunk out of your health bar.

Knowing that the assault will not stop, and your death will be quick otherwise, you use your stun-break skill to break free and actually move from defensive to offensive for a split second.

Your opponent is fragile. Just a hit or two has already taken a significant portion of his health away.

You use your heal skill.

You’ve got what appears to be the upper hand for a moment, but your offensive doesn’t last for very long because the thief has once again stealthed himself.

You look at your health bar… and it is pretty low. One or two more hits from the thief will surely be the end of you.

This time, you flail around like mad mashing your attack skills that will actually function against a stealthed opponent You dodge roll. You dodge roll again. You continue to attack the air.

The thief comes unstealthed…. in downed-state. You did it!

But it was just a stroke of luck.

You were just swinging around your weapon and dodge rolling around blindly.

There will be other times when you will not be so lucky.

I really want a way to counter it. I don’t see how one game mechanism can have no hard counters for it, its just asking to be exploited. Plus imo fighting someone with stealth just isn’t fun at all if the battle is always one sided where you always have to wait till he makes his move.
Plus I really can’t see this game becoming an esport without the back and forth chess mechanism a hardcounter would bring, cause at the moment its a little one sided. Imagine if LoL didn’t have wards. Thats just how this game is right now.

Both are counterable, you just need to learn how.

Stability: on the large majority of professions it lasts very little so it’s easily kited.
You must look at your opponent’s buffs and if stability is there you don’t use CC until it’s over.
It also can be removed with boon removal abilities, but it’s never really necessary.
Plus a build should never really rely on stuns to win, that would be a poor build.

Stealth: this is somewhat harder to counter for a rookie, but very counterable.
First, Thieves die in 2-3 hits so hitting them thrice will kill them even while they are stealthed.
Second, all classes have some tools to counter stealth skills; Eles have mist/shield, Warriors have sblock/EP, etc.
The main mistake against Thieves is running away or panicking; the hard counter to stealth is popping your anti-burst CDs and well, 3shot them (or 2shot if you’re a warrior).

You may now give up and force yourself to believe it’s a design flaw or learn to do what I told you above.
Nothing will change the fact that those mechanics are easy to counter by experienced players though.

Red Falcon.8257:

snip

While I do agree that skill is the answer to countering, I do not agree that it is a viable solution for this community. Not everyone can have high enough skill, there is always someone better. What I was proposing in my original post was that having Stability & Stealth more predominately on specific classes gives them unfair advantages to players who otherwise do not have a hard-counter to balance the fight. No player should have to arrive to the scenario where they are the one who brought a knife to a gun fight. (Even if they are a knife-combat expert ^^)

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Unfortunately, I’m forced to agree with the OP.

Stealth is just a little too overpowered.

Scenario:
You know there is a thief approaching…. he thinks you did not see him enter stealth and begin advancing toward your location… but you saw it all right.

You begin to prepare for the duel…

You can’t hit him with projectiles while he is approaching…. but you might be able to tag him with some melee once he is in range…

…but how do you know when he is close enough?

You begin channeling your block skill…. but nothing strikes you before it is over.

You swing your weapon, and it seems as if you’ve hit nothing.

You swing it again, and still… your adversary remains cloaked.

Did you hit him? Is he even here yet?

You dodge roll just to be safe…. he has got to be here somewhere by now.

BAM

You are immobilized. You finally see the thief, but you are completely helpless as he takes large chunk out of your health bar.

Knowing that the assault will not stop, and your death will be quick otherwise, you use your stun-break skill to break free and actually move from defensive to offensive for a split second.

Your opponent is fragile. Just a hit or two has already taken a significant portion of his health away.

You use your heal skill.

You’ve got what appears to be the upper hand for a moment, but your offensive doesn’t last for very long because the thief has once again stealthed himself.

You look at your health bar… and it is pretty low. One or two more hits from the thief will surely be the end of you.

This time, you flail around like mad mashing your attack skills that will actually function against a stealthed opponent You dodge roll. You dodge roll again. You continue to attack the air.

The thief comes unstealthed…. in downed-state. You did it!

But it was just a stroke of luck.

You were just swinging around your weapon and dodge rolling around blindly.

There will be other times when you will not be so lucky.

You can actually predict accurately where he is during first contact as the limit on time per stealth(3s for most), they would be running towards you before the stealth disappears. If he enters stealth before he comes into combat with you, he is doing a few things

1) Using hide in shadows(bad move)
2) Using shadow refuge (Also, bad move, he won’t be able to use it later in the fight where it is most critical or if he decides to run)
3) Blinding powder

It’s highly unlikely that a thief would enable contact with a person in stealth due to the fact that is ruins the chain(they will get revealed on steal and will not be able to backstab).

You can also tell if you hit a thief by your auto attack chain. If it advances to the next skill, you hit him, pretty good tool. Although I wouldn’t recommend auto attack unless you are a high DPS auto attack profession. If you have AoEs, do not throw them randomly around. Throw them under you. If he wants to attack, he’s going to get hit.

If you see a thief, there’s a 90% chance he’s using a dagger offhand to stealth. Dodging that will deny him 90% of his stealth skills and waste his initiative. It’s very predictable and it has more than long enough cast time to dodge.

You can remove stability Mesmer are an amazing counter to ults that give stability but there is no way to remove stealth.

Red Falcon.8257:

First, Thieves die in 2-3 hits so hitting them thrice will kill them even while they are stealthed.

What a completely ridiculous statement. Have you only ever fought nudist thieves?

Jski.6180:

You can remove stability Mesmer are an amazing counter to ults that give stability but there is no way to remove stealth.

Engineer, Rangers, and Warriors all have very poor boon removal options.

Aristio.2784:

Jski.6180:

You can remove stability Mesmer are an amazing counter to ults that give stability but there is no way to remove stealth.

Engineer, Rangers, and Warriors all have very poor boon removal options.

Effect on crit? Or use roots and slow you cant stability your way out of them stealth i do not know.

I agree about stealth and stability:

I like to play warrior with at least one mace, and noticed that a lot of times my stuns are doing nothing cause of stability. So one day I decided “I’m going to counter it and take boon removal!!” . Then I looked through all warrior skills and… there was none. Traits maybe? Nope, also none.

While in GW1 I could grab a 2nd proffession and take removal from another class, in GW2 my only option really is rerolling. Yes there is a sigil , but the effect of it is random. I want to remove boon when the enemy has stability, not at random moments.

About stealth: dunno how we could counter this at all, there is a reason that other games only allow out of combat stealth…

Doomdesire.9365:

You can actually predict accurately where he is during first contact as the limit on time per stealth(3s for most), they would be running towards you before the stealth disappears. If he enters stealth before he comes into combat with you, he is doing a few things

1) Using hide in shadows(bad move)
2) Using shadow refuge (Also, bad move, he won’t be able to use it later in the fight where it is most critical or if he decides to run)
3) Blinding powder

It’s highly unlikely that a thief would enable contact with a person in stealth due to the fact that is ruins the chain(they will get revealed on steal and will not be able to backstab).

You can also tell if you hit a thief by your auto attack chain. If it advances to the next skill, you hit him, pretty good tool. Although I wouldn’t recommend auto attack unless you are a high DPS auto attack profession. If you have AoEs, do not throw them randomly around. Throw them under you. If he wants to attack, he’s going to get hit.

If you see a thief, there’s a 90% chance he’s using a dagger offhand to stealth. Dodging that will deny him 90% of his stealth skills and waste his initiative. It’s very predictable and it has more than long enough cast time to dodge.

I have an “okay” strategy for fighting against thieves, and this was just a story.

The problem is, that very few skills do anything without a target (or act completely undesirably without a target)

Take a look at what rangers have at their disposal for example.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=List_of_ranger_skills

Bows and axe mainhand are just out of the question completely, being projectile based attacks.

I find the most useful skill of them all to be the greatsword. particularly counterattack

Whirling Defense is also very nice, but it does nothing to stop melee damage (backstab spam)

and a trap of your choice.

but even then…. what are you going to be wielding in your main hand for axe offhand?

Sword ?

Skill 3 in the autoattack chain (Pounce ) will send you flying across the map forever without a target. You can essentially hit the 1 key 2 times and be 10 miles away from where you started fighting. You want to be able kill the thief not forfeit the capture point and run away.

Here’s what I do on my ranger.
drop flame trap, equip greatsword, and swap to a pet that has condition removal skill.
Use counterattack, and when the thief triggers it, he will also set off the flame trap.
This will knock the thief back, so you then use Swoop (gap closer, and combo finisher:leap) and get flame aura.

I use hilt bash before he gets up, for an additional stun….

I then swap to sword axe and use whirling d.
When that is over, I place another flame trap.

the thief usually is stealthed and has used steal at this point.

I repeat the above gs move (counter)

As soon as I see the thief (he is unstealthed for a bit), I pet swap (which gives me quickness) and just autoattack him to death. The pet I swap to is polar bear and he has ice snare.
Sword skill 2 and 3 are also dodges.
I usually don’t even take any damage, but if I do… I still have my dodge rolls, traits for gaining protection on dodge roll, my heal, and my elite skill.

repeat as needed

Bottom line is…. while the thief is stealthed…. I can’t hit him with anything at my disposal on a ranger.
True, i can survive or scare him away from attacking me (or if he is dumb enough to stand in front of me while i am attacking the air blindly on greatsword, i can down him)

But I can only say that I down a thief when he is in stealth by pure luck…. or is a bad thief.
Downing him while he is visible however, I have down to a science.

Stealth is overpowered… or everything else is underpowered where there is no successful counter to it… but at the same time… thieves would be almost completely useless without it.

Stealth should have never made its way into GW, assassin was fine in GW1 with shadowsteps.

ANet just wants to be like every other typical MMO with a stealth class, personally combo attacks on my sin were 10x funner. I don’t even enjoy stealth as a mechanic myself, even though I main a thief.

I’d much prefer it just be removed from the game, avoiding all QQ and balance issues that comes with it… but we all know stealth wouldn’t just be removed, it should have never happened to begin with.

You might think culling will fix stealth but it won’t, you’ll still be dealing with thief being invisible 50% of the time or more. It’s bad design, but it isn’t going anywhere.

IMO, mesmers are even more screwed up with clones… I don’t even get bothered facing stealth. With the absolutely horrible targeting system in this game it’s sometimes impossible to target nearest player when spamming tab does nothing for me half the time, or clicking on a name targets the wrong target, or simply does nothing. Pvp shouldn’t be random confusion.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Stealth, which cloaks the players allowing them to avoid damage all together by taking advantage of other player’s inability to virtually see them.

Stealth =/= Invincible, AoE can still hurt them & players with experience pretty much know where people will try to retreat so you are still able to use attacks where you think they’ll be. Despite that though, I agree that all classes should be able to counter stealth without just luck.

Doomdesire.9365:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Unfortunately, I’m forced to agree with the OP.

Stealth is just a little too overpowered.

Scenario:
You know there is a thief approaching…. he thinks you did not see him enter stealth and begin advancing toward your location… but you saw it all right.

You begin to prepare for the duel…

You can’t hit him with projectiles while he is approaching…. but you might be able to tag him with some melee once he is in range…

…but how do you know when he is close enough?

You begin channeling your block skill…. but nothing strikes you before it is over.

You swing your weapon, and it seems as if you’ve hit nothing.

You swing it again, and still… your adversary remains cloaked.

Did you hit him? Is he even here yet?

You dodge roll just to be safe…. he has got to be here somewhere by now.

BAM

You are immobilized. You finally see the thief, but you are completely helpless as he takes large chunk out of your health bar.

Knowing that the assault will not stop, and your death will be quick otherwise, you use your stun-break skill to break free and actually move from defensive to offensive for a split second.

Your opponent is fragile. Just a hit or two has already taken a significant portion of his health away.

You use your heal skill.

You’ve got what appears to be the upper hand for a moment, but your offensive doesn’t last for very long because the thief has once again stealthed himself.

You look at your health bar… and it is pretty low. One or two more hits from the thief will surely be the end of you.

This time, you flail around like mad mashing your attack skills that will actually function against a stealthed opponent You dodge roll. You dodge roll again. You continue to attack the air.

The thief comes unstealthed…. in downed-state. You did it!

But it was just a stroke of luck.

You were just swinging around your weapon and dodge rolling around blindly.

There will be other times when you will not be so lucky.

You can actually predict accurately where he is during first contact as the limit on time per stealth(3s for most), they would be running towards you before the stealth disappears. If he enters stealth before he comes into combat with you, he is doing a few things

1) Using hide in shadows(bad move)
2) Using shadow refuge (Also, bad move, he won’t be able to use it later in the fight where it is most critical or if he decides to run)
3) Blinding powder

It’s highly unlikely that a thief would enable contact with a person in stealth due to the fact that is ruins the chain(they will get revealed on steal and will not be able to backstab).

You can also tell if you hit a thief by your auto attack chain. If it advances to the next skill, you hit him, pretty good tool. Although I wouldn’t recommend auto attack unless you are a high DPS auto attack profession. If you have AoEs, do not throw them randomly around. Throw them under you. If he wants to attack, he’s going to get hit.

If you see a thief, there’s a 90% chance he’s using a dagger offhand to stealth. Dodging that will deny him 90% of his stealth skills and waste his initiative. It’s very predictable and it has more than long enough cast time to dodge.

You forgot thieves can steal items that give them buffs and a few of the items they can steal that gives them buffs gives them stealth and makes you blind.

edit- I accept the challenge in your signature.

Grizledorf.5290:

Doomdesire.9365:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Unfortunately, I’m forced to agree with the OP.

Stealth is just a little too overpowered.

Scenario:
You know there is a thief approaching…. he thinks you did not see him enter stealth and begin advancing toward your location… but you saw it all right.

You begin to prepare for the duel…

You can’t hit him with projectiles while he is approaching…. but you might be able to tag him with some melee once he is in range…

…but how do you know when he is close enough?

You begin channeling your block skill…. but nothing strikes you before it is over.

You swing your weapon, and it seems as if you’ve hit nothing.

You swing it again, and still… your adversary remains cloaked.

Did you hit him? Is he even here yet?

You dodge roll just to be safe…. he has got to be here somewhere by now.

BAM

You are immobilized. You finally see the thief, but you are completely helpless as he takes large chunk out of your health bar.

Knowing that the assault will not stop, and your death will be quick otherwise, you use your stun-break skill to break free and actually move from defensive to offensive for a split second.

Your opponent is fragile. Just a hit or two has already taken a significant portion of his health away.

You use your heal skill.

You’ve got what appears to be the upper hand for a moment, but your offensive doesn’t last for very long because the thief has once again stealthed himself.

You look at your health bar… and it is pretty low. One or two more hits from the thief will surely be the end of you.

This time, you flail around like mad mashing your attack skills that will actually function against a stealthed opponent You dodge roll. You dodge roll again. You continue to attack the air.

The thief comes unstealthed…. in downed-state. You did it!

But it was just a stroke of luck.

You were just swinging around your weapon and dodge rolling around blindly.

There will be other times when you will not be so lucky.

You can actually predict accurately where he is during first contact as the limit on time per stealth(3s for most), they would be running towards you before the stealth disappears. If he enters stealth before he comes into combat with you, he is doing a few things

1) Using hide in shadows(bad move)
2) Using shadow refuge (Also, bad move, he won’t be able to use it later in the fight where it is most critical or if he decides to run)
3) Blinding powder

It’s highly unlikely that a thief would enable contact with a person in stealth due to the fact that is ruins the chain(they will get revealed on steal and will not be able to backstab).

You can also tell if you hit a thief by your auto attack chain. If it advances to the next skill, you hit him, pretty good tool. Although I wouldn’t recommend auto attack unless you are a high DPS auto attack profession. If you have AoEs, do not throw them randomly around. Throw them under you. If he wants to attack, he’s going to get hit.

If you see a thief, there’s a 90% chance he’s using a dagger offhand to stealth. Dodging that will deny him 90% of his stealth skills and waste his initiative. It’s very predictable and it has more than long enough cast time to dodge.

You forgot thieves can steal items that give them buffs and a few of the items they can steal that gives them buffs gives them stealth and makes you blind.

edit- I accept the challenge in your signature.

There is a trait that can make thieves stealth whilst stealing. Although I don’t use it because of the other options available are more useful. They don’t always get buffs thouogh. Some of the steals I find quite useless, like getting poison when your not building any condition damage or condition duration. The randomness with stealing, I don’t like it so much.

EDIT: Although this is getting off topic. The OP is pointing out thieves ability to use stability whilst in stealth.

Culling is what makes stealth OP right now, but remember that stealthed characters can still be hit with AOE – for example, the crippling arrow rain of the longbow. They’ll have a hard time escaping that.

While stability has counter (boon removal/necro’s boon corruption), stealth has no counter at all.
It is correct we have counter against stealth user, but the stealth itself has no counter. We can’t force remove stealth or destealth the user.
So I agree with OP.

Rukia.4802:

Stealth should have never made its way into GW, assassin was fine in GW1 with shadowsteps.

ANet just wants to be like every other typical MMO with a stealth class, personally combo attacks on my sin were 10x funner. I don’t even enjoy stealth as a mechanic myself, even though I main a thief.

I’d much prefer it just be removed from the game, avoiding all QQ and balance issues that comes with it… but we all know stealth wouldn’t just be removed, it should have never happened to begin with.

You might think culling will fix stealth but it won’t, you’ll still be dealing with thief being invisible 50% of the time or more. It’s bad design, but it isn’t going anywhere.

IMO, mesmers are even more screwed up with clones… I don’t even get bothered facing stealth. With the absolutely horrible targeting system in this game it’s sometimes impossible to target nearest player when spamming tab does nothing for me half the time, or clicking on a name targets the wrong target, or simply does nothing. Pvp shouldn’t be random confusion.

Agree completely. Stealth shouldn’t have been included in the first place, let alone spammable stealth, and I too play a thief. I think the whole Steal mechanic is pretty boring too, I’d rather have Stealth as the class mechanic, and make it last much longer (~10sec) but have a 10sec CD on reuse, then add shadowsteps/disables for damage mitigation. Stealth is totally skill-less.

Red Falcon.8257:

First, Thieves die in 2-3 hits so hitting them thrice will kill them even while they are stealthed.

Not everyone plays a glass cannon thief.

Avigrus.2871:

Red Falcon.8257:

First, Thieves die in 2-3 hits so hitting them thrice will kill them even while they are stealthed.

Not everyone plays a glass cannon thief.

It’s really the only decent option. You won’t see condition thieves other than WvW.

It’s all ANets fault for killing off balanced (C&D nerf) I believe had a 33% damage reduction when plenty of thieves, including me, were running tanky BS builds that required a constant steady medium damage.

ANet WANTS us to run glass cannon, that or they just don’t have any freakin’ clue how to balance the real problem (burst), BS could have much utility to it, like an added cripple effect and a little reduced damage to compensate since they nerfed dancing dagger into oblivion, no thief will ever bother using 4 on D/D. Especially since crippled is such a joke condition with all the removals and dodge not being affected by it.

Add to the fact you can literally walk out of dancing daggers line of sight at ANY sort of range other than melee, it’s just a joke. Thief is all about burst, it’s how the current meta and design works. Pvp is extremely sloppy right now… we haven’t even had a change of meta in 6+ months, hell in GW1 meta changed constantly because the devs actually considered pvp one of the games selling points, but that’s all but been abandoned unfortunately.

DPS wars2

penatbater.4710:

I think as soon as culling is fixed (if it is fixed), it’ll be more easier to deal with stealth.

Problem is most thiefs use the same playstyle,hit once/stealth..rinse repeat,makig them invisible 95% of the time,totally unrelated to culling mind you.It happens when not near a zerg aswell,imo its an exploit,the culling just make it seems they Never get out of stealth at all.Stealth needs alot of work imo,the ability to hit/stealth,and thus being in constant stealth is what needs to go.The culling issue just makes everything worse,but that doesnt mean that culling Alone is the issue,because it certainly isn’t.

Stealthy thieves who steal? Whatever next?

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Unfortunately, I’m forced to agree with the OP.

Stealth is just a little too overpowered.

Scenario:
You know there is a thief approaching…. he thinks you did not see him enter stealth and begin advancing toward your location… but you saw it all right.

You begin to prepare for the duel…

You can’t hit him with projectiles while he is approaching…. but you might be able to tag him with some melee once he is in range…

…but how do you know when he is close enough?

You begin channeling your block skill…. but nothing strikes you before it is over.

You swing your weapon, and it seems as if you’ve hit nothing.

You swing it again, and still… your adversary remains cloaked.

Did you hit him? Is he even here yet?

You dodge roll just to be safe…. he has got to be here somewhere by now.

BAM

You are immobilized. You finally see the thief, but you are completely helpless as he takes large chunk out of your health bar.

Knowing that the assault will not stop, and your death will be quick otherwise, you use your stun-break skill to break free and actually move from defensive to offensive for a split second.

Your opponent is fragile. Just a hit or two has already taken a significant portion of his health away.

You use your heal skill.

You’ve got what appears to be the upper hand for a moment, but your offensive doesn’t last for very long because the thief has once again stealthed himself.

You look at your health bar… and it is pretty low. One or two more hits from the thief will surely be the end of you.

This time, you flail around like mad mashing your attack skills that will actually function against a stealthed opponent You dodge roll. You dodge roll again. You continue to attack the air.

The thief comes unstealthed…. in downed-state. You did it!

But it was just a stroke of luck.

You were just swinging around your weapon and dodge rolling around blindly.

There will be other times when you will not be so lucky.

Actualy you can counter it with melle weapons , channeling skills
When your attack with melle weapons is succeseful ,your auto attack chain skill will change. Watch this video , full hp stealthed thief dead in few sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDI31E1-wSM&feature=player_embedded

Veldan.4637:

I agree about stealth and stability:

I like to play warrior with at least one mace, and noticed that a lot of times my stuns are doing nothing cause of stability. So one day I decided “I’m going to counter it and take boon removal!!” . Then I looked through all warrior skills and… there was none. Traits maybe? Nope, also none.

While in GW1 I could grab a 2nd proffession and take removal from another class, in GW2 my only option really is rerolling. Yes there is a sigil , but the effect of it is random. I want to remove boon when the enemy has stability, not at random moments.

About stealth: dunno how we could counter this at all, there is a reason that other games only allow out of combat stealth…

So you want to have an build without an couter :
I found that thief " i pres 1 -2-3 and he is stunned at half hp
i found that greatsword warrior, he saw my mace, he use 1 utility slot for stability but i pres 3 4 5 and i want him stunned and half hp.

P.S. Bola works on stability (is an condition)

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Damage Mitigation is the ultimate form of survivability. What Stability and Stealth both provide are forms of inherent damage mitigation. Stability, with it’s use of completely ignoring any form of stun or Stealth, which cloaks the players allowing them to avoid damage all together by taking advantage of other player’s inability to virtually see them. Both of these mechanics are very powerful when used by competent players.

The problem that I see is that while some classes have access to these buffs/boon more than others, the same applies to counters. It is unfair to give classes more access to these tools more than others. Sure we could all roll classes to counter this problem, but that is just a means to and end, and is not addressing the issue. I believe that there should be more boon removal across all classes, and also Stability/Stealth as well. While I understand that Stealth is exclusive to the Thief and Mesmer, it is just too powerful for just them to use. Either give all classes the ability to steath, provide a legitimate way to counter it, or rework the mechanic, blind AoE is just a quasi form of dealing with it and frankly, I’m fed up with culling playing to it’s advantage.

Tell me what you guys think: whether you agree and if not, why.

I think you should LEARN thing or two about thiefs before you post stupid solution to obvious problem.

Red Falcon.8257:

Stealth: this is somewhat harder to counter for a rookie, but very counterable.
First, Thieves die in 2-3 hits so hitting them thrice will kill them even while they are stealthed.
Second, all classes have some tools to counter stealth skills; Eles have mist/shield, Warriors have sblock/EP, etc.
The main mistake against Thieves is running away or panicking; the hard counter to stealth is popping your anti-burst CDs and well, 3shot them (or 2shot if you’re a warrior).

You may now give up and force yourself to believe it’s a design flaw or learn to do what I told you above.
Nothing will change the fact that those mechanics are easy to counter by experienced players though.

Apparently you need to play other classes and other builds, when I’m on my thief yes a typical gs or axe warrior, or BS thief, etc can 3 (sometimes 2) shot me, however a lot of classes / builds can not, for instance most engy builds other than 100nade will not be anywhere near 3 shotting me, nor are “ranged” classes as effective at hitting a thief when stealthed (channeled skills excepted).

Nor for that matter are all thief builds that fragile, many of the “permastealth” builds people find so irritating in WvW have a good level of toughness and then have good condi removal.

The stealth in this game is not well designed, particularly in regard to WvW, it puts the skill emphasis on the target rather than the thief.

It also allows better escape than any other game I’ve played, because multiple in-combat stealths + chain stealthing + mobility + no stealth break on damage > 1 in-combat stealth on 2 or 3 min cooldown + permastealth, which results it breaking a fairly fundemental principle of open world type PvP, that of risk vs reward, far too little risk compared to other classes (Ele builds with godlike mobility/stun breakers/sustain excepted).

Stability is fine and is needed bcs without it,pvp in this game would not only be aoe fest ,but both chain CC and aoe fest which would be even more terrible than it is already.

Stealth,on the other hand,is totally ridiculous.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You swing your weapon, and it seems as if you’ve hit nothing.

You swing it again, and still… your adversary remains cloaked.

Did you hit him? Is he even here yet?

Yes if your weapon skill chain advanced. No if not.

Sylosi.6503:

…
It also allows better escape than any other game I’ve played, because multiple in-combat stealths + chain stealthing + mobility + no stealth break on damage > 1 in-combat stealth on 2 or 3 min cooldown + permastealth, which results it breaking a fairly fundemental principle of open world type PvP, that of risk vs reward, far too little risk compared to other classes (Ele builds with godlike mobility/stun breakers/sustain excepted).

A lot of suggestions here are good, especially since as a GS guardian, I usually never had a clue with how to handle a stealth thief, and usually died to them in WvW.

I would assume breaking stealth upon damage should be a very logical fix for the stealth issue. Its surprising that is not how it works right now.

Stealth is one thing, but Stability in its current form is perfectly fine.
- Stability has low upkeep time even with immense boon duration boosts
- Stability only prevents CC, doesn’t mitigate or hide damage at all
- Stability does not prevent Immobilize

I think Stability is fine, both having used it and having it used against me.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Not everyone can have high enough skill

They die until they improve.
I don’t want for high-skill mechanics to be made badproof, bads improve or die to more skilled people.
It’s natural selection.

Removing any harder-than-braindead mechanic just because some people want easy counters greatly undermines the depth of PvP.

Avigrus.2871:

Not everyone plays a glass cannon thief.

If a Thief can take a 20k burst and not die it means his damage is not really an issue as a Thief must kitten his damage a lot to get that kind of health pool.

It irritates me to read things like these:

I usually never had a clue with how to handle a stealth thief

I would assume breaking stealth upon damage should be a very logical fix

“I don’t have a clue how to counter X so let’s nerf X!”, it really goes to show some people don’t want to learn to counter things they just want to be able to kill X without effort/experience.

Sorry but any of the suggested “fixes” to stealth would make Thieves even more of a joke to kill in WvW.
I already have Rangers as unchallenging opponents that make me feel guilty for killing them, if I could as easily facemelt Thieves it would be really sad.

The only real fix I’d like to see for Thieves is to Mug doing damage only if flanked as it’s a bit off that a Thief can unload such burst while charging frontally – I believe a Thief should only be able to get the best out of himself by doing flanking attacks, Warriors are for frontal warfare.

If there is going to be a stability nerf let it be PvP exclusive.

Stealth in general and thiefs are horribly broken, everyone knows that since months but hey, BALANCING!
It’s what Anet is known best for. Not caring about the kitten classes and buffing already overpowered classes every single kittening patch.

Stealth doesn’t last that long. I find that AOE pulls and knockbacks are fairly effective. Blocks can also work, because the thief can’t attack until stealth ends.

And here we go again with “nerf the thief”. Thieves are the one melee/warrior class with the lowest hp, tough/def in the game. Stealth DOES NOT mitigate damage. You want a GW1 thief, I’m all for it. You think the thief is op now? Should have been in GW1 when it was introduced.

You want to get rid of stealth? Fine. Increase the hp, tough/def of the thief and then make it across the board so NOBODY can disappear from sight. Means no more prestige, ride lightning, lightning reflexes, mist form, etc, etc, etc.

While we’re at it, I think hundred blades, earth shaker, ring of warding, wave of wrath are op’d and should be removed from the game. No wait, I’ve adapted a strategy to overcome those. Meh, still, please remove these from the game. I think they’re op’d.

In order to succeed, you must learn to adapt.

It’s true that there are some balancing issues, however, most of which are about improving lesser builds so people arn’t forced to play meta to win. Aside from that, stealth and stability are not really a problem.

I would’ve complained a month ago about the duration of a thief’s stealth. After working hard at spvp, I can honestly admir that I’ve learned how to combat it.

My new threat is the bunker builds. I just need more practice.

Red Falcon.8257:

It irritates me to read things like these:

I usually never had a clue with how to handle a stealth thief

I would assume breaking stealth upon damage should be a very logical fix

“I don’t have a clue how to counter X so let’s nerf X!”, it really goes to show some people don’t want to learn to counter things they just want to be able to kill X without effort/experience.

I’m sorry if my post sounded like that, but that is not what I meant ( I cant counter X so let’s nerf X). What was being discussed was stealth having NO hard counter, unlike all other mechanics in the game, and I already acknowledged the good suggestions given by a few people how to deal with it in my first post, because I was not aware of them. I do not have a problem with bosses spawning overlapped AOE circles, as long as I can dodge them, or WvW dumping a thousand conditions on me, as I can get rid of them. The point here is – how do you counter “X”, if you can show me a good way, I’m all for trying it. I play to enjoy this game as much as you do, but like it or not, some things can be unbalanced in a game, and we’re discussing our opinions about it.

stability isn’t a problem, as conditions that reduce player freedom still work. stealth on the other hand… (has been discussed plenty.)

Just to clarify, the main point of the post is that Stability and Stealth should NOT be limited to just to a couple of classes, as well as boon removal and other counter. These tools are powerful and everyone should be able to benefit from them.

Just having the damage numbers appear when you hit them with direct damage while they’re in stealth would be sufficient enough imo.

Not bleed damage ticking on their head tracking their movement, just the initial hit so you can know “Yay I hit them”.

Red Falcon.8257:

Avigrus.2871:

Not everyone plays a glass cannon thief.

If a Thief can take a 20k burst and not die it means his damage is not really an issue as a Thief must kitten his damage a lot to get that kind of health pool.

Not everyone plays a burst warrior either.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Tell me what you guys think: whether you agree and if not, why.

Well, in general I don’t agree. I think stealth and stability are nice goodies making the fight more interesting. I’m ok with the stealth mesmers have. It allows to expand solo and group strategy. I’m totally not ok with the stealth thieves have. The thieves mechanics is game breaking for me and caused that I’m not interested in wvwvw nor spvp.

You can tweak your chat to show combat messages. That way you’ll see if you are hitting someone invisible and dangerous or not. I am surprised no one mentioned that yet.

tom.7468:

If there is going to be a stability nerf let it be PvP exclusive.

Heck, I want a PVE stability buff. Or something. How about some Boots of Never Get Knocked Back/Down Ever Again? I hate knock back/down. Not just in this game, in any game. I reeeally miss my Tankers from CoH.

Having stealth removed wouldn’t solve the problem. Thieves are already squishy, and stealth is normally just a way to try and not get killed in a few hits. Without it, they’d have little to nothing against warriors, which really would just reverse the balance. In many MMOs, thief-ish classes rely on evasion stats. Here they kind of just have stealth and dodge. And they can only dodge so much.

As for other classes having stealth… I dunno. It could be useful, but it wouldn’t fit the theme of most classes. I feel like if they did that, it would still have to be less effective than a thief’s stealth because that’s basically the whole point of being a thief. To stay hidden and attack.

I’d put a vote in for a stealth counter, though. For each of the other classes. They should at least make it so backstab builds are easier to defend against.

i dont understand y ppl want their class to have every boon in the game available to them. if other classes want stability then on my warrior i should have more condition removal skills and more boon removals skills…. eles want stability? then i want mist form if mesmers want stability i want blink, if a necro wants stability i want fear. this can go on all day, each class has their advantages its up to u to counter them properly and all classes have the ability to counter any type of skill stability, stealth, fear, etc, their all easily countered.