Guild Wars 2

Benji.9203:

I have to disagree with the suggestions involving anti stealth mechanics. Implementing such a mechanic would either be so situational its pretty much useless (unless your paranoid and believe thief demons are around every corner of LA trying to backstab you) or it would just render the thief’s main defensive ability useless.

Don’t get me wrong d/p stealth can get annoying not OP just annoying.

I don’t think it would be useless. Imagine having a fight vs a thief, when thief decides to hide to use hide in stealth or some similar skill. Now instead of waiting to see if he gets to make the first strike or if he ran off, you got an alternative option. Utility Goggles! BAM! Now you got a counter and can continue the fight instead of just letting one side control the whole fight!~

Tuluum.9638:

…Fighting them just isnt fun, whereas I enjoy the fights against every other class…

I agree with many of your points, Tuluum, but I particularly agree with the above comment. This kind of sums up what I feel is the big issue with stealth. Every other profession is fun to fight against, even the other big hitters like the Warrior, but the thief just isn’t.

I hope Anet can fix/balance it right eventually, as I do enjoy the Thief in every other respect.

to the OP – I agree with almost all your points, except for one – that Smite is balanced. Loki can a) move at a far higher speed when stealthed, that makes sure that if he is losing he can just retreat, b) he can gank without the enemy even being able to see him incoming. The only ability allowing to gank as easily as Loki can in my opinion is Thor being able to teleport to his hammer – you don’t see it coming. At all.

Actually, with the lack of the trinity I find it odd they kept the gimmicky stealth of “rogue” classes. Would be more appropriate to move away from the core mechanic that stealth is when they remove the trinity.

I mean, former healer and tank players have adapted, why shouldnt the stealther community be able to adapt?

Atleast most other MMOs have some form of stealth detection. I far prefer the “old school” stealth system that included perma stealth, but if you got hit you got knocked out of stealth. It was a good system for letting the stealther get the opening, but if they failed they had to suffer the consequences.

Current GW2 stealth is far better than other MMO stealth, since no one can really stop a thief that fails and wants to run off.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Actually, with the lack of the trinity I find it odd they kept the gimmicky stealth of “rogue” classes. Would be more appropriate to move away from the core mechanic that stealth is when they remove the trinity.

I mean, former healer and tank players have adapted, why shouldnt the stealther community be able to adapt?

Atleast most other MMOs have some form of stealth detection. I far prefer the “old school” stealth system that included perma stealth, but if you got hit you got knocked out of stealth. It was a good system for letting the stealther get the opening, but if they failed they had to suffer the consequences.

Current GW2 stealth is far better than other MMO stealth, since no one can really stop a thief that fails and wants to run off.

First, who says they have “adapted”? As a tank player the lack of a trinity is why I don’t even bother with PvE content. A good portion of my guild (WvW only) feels similarly. Second, what leads you to believe the two things are even remotely similar, or related? I know there are a lot of people that are happy that the trinity doesn’t exist in GW2, but believe me there are also a lot of people who are unhappy about it.

Phaedryn.3698:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Actually, with the lack of the trinity I find it odd they kept the gimmicky stealth of “rogue” classes. Would be more appropriate to move away from the core mechanic that stealth is when they remove the trinity.

I mean, former healer and tank players have adapted, why shouldnt the stealther community be able to adapt?

Atleast most other MMOs have some form of stealth detection. I far prefer the “old school” stealth system that included perma stealth, but if you got hit you got knocked out of stealth. It was a good system for letting the stealther get the opening, but if they failed they had to suffer the consequences.

Current GW2 stealth is far better than other MMO stealth, since no one can really stop a thief that fails and wants to run off.

First, who says they have “adapted”? As a tank player the lack of a trinity is why I don’t even bother with PvE content. A good portion of my guild (WvW only) feels similarly. Second, what leads you to believe the two things are even remotely similar, or related? I know there are a lot of people that are happy that the trinity doesn’t exist in GW2, but believe me there are also a lot of people who are unhappy about it.

I doubt anyone bought this game not willing to adapt. Scrapping the “Holy Trinity” was the basis of this game from the beginning. Anyone unhappy about the lack of the holy trinity probably bought this game without reading anything about it.

Just to clarify…why would a “WvW only” guild be concerned with PvE?

SneakyErvin.3056:

Actually, with the lack of the trinity I find it odd they kept the gimmicky stealth of “rogue” classes. Would be more appropriate to move away from the core mechanic that stealth is when they remove the trinity.

I mean, former healer and tank players have adapted, why shouldnt the stealther community be able to adapt?

Atleast most other MMOs have some form of stealth detection. I far prefer the “old school” stealth system that included perma stealth, but if you got hit you got knocked out of stealth. It was a good system for letting the stealther get the opening, but if they failed they had to suffer the consequences.

Current GW2 stealth is far better than other MMO stealth, since no one can really stop a thief that fails and wants to run off.

This is a very good point. Why keep stealth and scrap the “Holy Trinity”?

World of Roguecraft does an excellent job of ripping stealth and stealth based classes a new one. Although many of the complaints were leveled at the specific Rogue class of WoW, most of its concepts and arguments could easily apply to a WvW thief.

I have yet to play a single multiplayer game where the “stealth” class, powerup, or item goes unmodified after initial negative feedback. Just recently the invisibility in Natural Selection 2 got completely nerfed – and the Operative/Smuggler class in SWTOR was butchered.

This happens time and time again, but game devs never learn. Giving one player invisibility over others is nothing more than a troll mechanic, it gives complete control to the invisible player and removes control from the visible one. It’s as annoying to new players as excessive CC is and the class based on it stands as an outlier – he alone is master troll, taking few to no risks while reaping all the rewards. It’s much harder for newer players to adapt to.

Same old story.

Balancing mobility and evasion is much easier than invisibility and less frustrating to fight against since at least you can tell what’s coming or what happened. This makes newer players less ragey.

Also, stealth classes are kings of open world PVP. It’s why I always preemptively roll one. The ability to choose your engagements, avoiding bad ones and only selecting good ones is MASSIVE. It’s like having Mutalisks in SC2… except that in these games the Mutalisks can straight up kill the opponent head on as well.

Edit: Making stealth less binary would probably be better received and might even be easier to balance. Something like stealth making you lose target, becoming unable to be targeted and gaining transparency with distortion. This state could come with a buff like “Hard to hit” or something, that passively reduces the damage you take simulating decreased accuracy. The idea would be much the same – stealth increased the thief’s survivability and can be used offensively but the opposing player can now respond to more of the thief’s actions.

This means that stealth would be a pattern of interaction between players, not just a one-way “i troll u lol” type of deal.

Tl;dr summary: I don’t like Thieves, please ban them from the game, thanks.

Sounds like a lot of people just want the Thief to be visible so they can wail away on them without having to anticipate what the Thief is doing.

Thieves were designed as a squishy, all or nothing profession. They were designed to rely on being able to pick and choose their fights and to not perform well in a protracted slugfest the way many other professions ARE. If you replace stealth with some other damage mitigating mechanic, you still end up with an opponent you can’t touch for short periods of time, only you’ll be able to see them. I guess that’s more comforting to some — like children afraid of the dark.

Robsbot.4105:

Stealth is a relatively new addition to gaming.

Lol’d and stopped reading here.

I main a thief and hate stealth, it’s a lame mechanic that should have stayed in WoW and other MMO’s. What made the assassin so awesome in GW1 was it didn’t use stealth but shadow steps with combo attacks.

ANet can’t even balance it correctly, mobs still hit you mid-attack when you vanish and the blinding powder trait has caused many of us thieves to drop that entire trait line because 90% of the time it will be completely useless and give you a nice sexy 4s revealed timer.

I knew from the start it was a horrible idea for stealth to be in the game, and I’ll never like it. Maybe some day they’ll get over the terrible skill system and add more options.

As others and myself have said previously, I think if stealth was restricted to long cooldown utilities or a new profession mechanic it would be fine. Providing the Thief’s other defenses are balanced to compensate. It doesn’t have to be removed all together, as the Mesmer does perfectly fine with stealth, and the Thief can still have stealth attacks. It just needs to be fixed so that a Thief cannot spam it so frequently, then it would not be an issue IMO.

Mungrul.9358:

I’d like to add something else to the discussion.
What we have in GW2 and other similar games, be they MMO or single player, is not real stealth gameplay.
It’s invisibility.

Real stealth games?
The Thief games.
The Deus Ex series.
The Splinter Cell games.
The Metal Gear Solid franchise.
Dishonored.
The Hitman games.

These games all share a common idea: that stealth is based around actual player skill and the observation of the enemy and environment.

GW2’s “Stealth” dumbs that down to a single button press, taking it to the extreme where it’s possible to disappear from sight on a well-lit day with no cover in the middle of an empty field.

Where the hell is the skill in that?

I spit on MMO “Stealth”. It’s lazy design.
You know what would make a good start to a proper Stealth implementation?
Making it so you can’t see enemy nameplates.

u cant have that kind of stelath in a reactiion pvp kind of computer game. its not setup to be like mgs etc. its made to be like gw2 …..with inspiration from gw1 and to change/adapt. its not supposed to be like “hide behidn a dark rock/cave/crevasse/tree” its supposed to be intricate…annoying….and have drawbacks…like defense. and lack of invulnerability….and low hp…..and decent dmg…not even gr8 anymore.

Navzar.2938:

Kubb.9764:

stealth is fine. play a thief for more than a couple minutes in ‘PvE’ and you would understand it.

PvE=/= PvP. Very different in terms of strength between these two. And if stealth were given a counter mechanism, you’d probably get some nice buffs in other places, so you’d probably end up better. But yeah, I do understand, thieves need some love in pve.

Was attempting a hint to play a stealth based thief in pvp. Understand how it actually takes a lot of work to be able to survive as long as good thieves do.
:)

It does? I know when I play I don’t find it much work. If I have D/P I just press 5, then 2, use utilities and dodges while I don’t have initiative. If I have /D in WvW, all you have to do is chain CnD fluffy bunnies and random Moas. In SPvP I might actually have to land CnD on moving targets, but all melee classes need to be up close to hit.

If anything I find playing a stealth based Thief too easy compared to relying on evasion to survive. When I’m visible, everyone follows me to finish me off. When I’m invisible – not everyone is gonna make the correct guess as to which direction I went off to. This makes it easy to juke large numbers of enemies, even large zergs.

Evading is taking no damage, stealth is still VERY viable to damage. If a thief is bombarded by as little as two people using AoE’s, they will die or run away. Simple as that. Me being an ele, I have little to no problems with thieves in group WvW play.

This is untrue, as I’ve experienced myself. People might attack where they think you are, but you can still dodge while in stealth, as well as use abilities like Shadowstep or Infiltrator’s Arrow while stealthed.

TainoFuerte.8136:

This is untrue, as I’ve experienced myself. People might attack where they think you are, but you can still dodge while in stealth, as well as use abilities like Shadowstep or Infiltrator’s Arrow while stealthed.

nothing I’ve said is true or untrue, my opinion vs yours is anything BUT factual.

Someone compared mesmer phantasms to stealth earlier in this thread – very different things!

With a clone mesmer, I can actually follow the original mesmer’s path, with my eyes, and know which one is the original and target them specifically. Even if I run into a mesmer with a bunch of clones up already, I can still spot the original by the way they move.

With a stealth-oriented thief, I cannot follow the stealthed thief’s path, because I cannot even see where they are. There is no way for me to know which spot on the map I should target. Not to mention, some skills require me to have a target in order for them to work, so not only do I not see my enemy, I cannot effectively fight them because a bunch of my skills are essentially disabled.

I don’t even bother fighting thieves anymore. I run around doing whatever it is I was on my way to do, because I know that they can’t down me anyway (I run support guard), and I cannot have enough burst set up to kill a thief in the 3 seconds that they are “revealed”. It’s annoying and unproductive for both of us, but the majority of these guys don’t care because they’re being “LOL SO FUNNAY TROLL”.
Not everyone is so lucky to have access to as many blocks and buffs as I do, however, so a lot of people don’t have the option of ignoring the thief until they go away. There needs to be a way to for classes to force thieves out of stealth, even if it’s throwing down cripples and chills randomly on the ground (pretending, in this case, that hitting a stealthed thief with CC removes stealth), so that they actually have a chance to fight them instead of futilely poking at the air or trying to run away while the thief queues up their ganking combo.

I am in no way saying that the thief should not be buffed in other ways. They should not be this heavily dependent on stealth because they are forced to be. Right now, stealth has barely any consequences – add some to stealth, and buff thieves’ other areas.

Still no reason posted here as to why Stealth is wrong for GW2. Were waiting…

PearlGore.7419:

Still no reason posted here as to why Stealth is wrong for GW2. Were waiting…

Because not many people are trying to prove that stealth is wrong for this game. It just isn’t done correctly at this point.

PearlGore.7419:

Still no reason posted here as to why Stealth is wrong for GW2. Were waiting…

Stealth should not be part of skill rotations but rather a mechanic that lets you set up a ambush or escape a fight with a long CD. Not a rinse and repeat set up or a spam mechanic.

Not wrong for GW2…just POORLY implemented in GW2.

The problem isn’t just them being able to stealth. It’s the fact that they can pop in and out of stealth constantly throughout the engagement, refresh themselves by going stealth, and when they do come out of stealth to fight, they hit like a truck.

Now I don’t mind them being burst, if they spec for it just as I don’t mind them being able to shadow dance, if they spec for it. I don’t think they should be able to do both. The way I see it, most (if not all) other classes have to choose. Spec for damage but lack in survivability or spec for survivability and lack in damage. They get to spec for both.

I’d have no problem with a thief that specs stealth if it means that his dps is only harassing instead of lethal by doing so.

Thieves squishy? Ha! You wanna know where thieves would be without stealth? Where rangers are now.

Look at their trait line. Shadow arts is also their +toughness and +healing on just one line!

First they need to separate the +toughness and +healing and put these on separate trait lines.

Shadow arts should have the +condition damage and steal recharge rate.

Acrobatics should be the one to have +toughness and +boon duration

Trickery should be the one to have +vitality and +healing.

About this “new” stealth thing…

Way back on a text-based MUD, as in before Meridian 59 or anything else like it, thieves had stealth.

Normally, when someone entered the room you were in, the game would send you a message “So-and-so entered from the north” and if they left, it would send “So-and-so exited to the south”. However, thieves using their stealth ability would suppress those messages. So a thief could enter and leave a room, or more likely, enter the room, use pickpocket and/or backstab, then leave the room when the dust settles.

So ya, not a new mechanic at all. And just because you personally don’t want to be bothered with figuring out how to deal with it (in the MUD, you could just type “look”) doesn’t make it a bad mechanic. In fact, it’s one of the few mechanics that’s been around since the beginning that actually makes combat more than just a bunch of dice rolls against your opponents armor and hit point stats.

Amun Ra.6435:

PearlGore.7419:

Still no reason posted here as to why Stealth is wrong for GW2. Were waiting…

Stealth should not be part of skill rotations but rather a mechanic that lets you set up a ambush or escape a fight with a long CD. Not a rinse and repeat set up or a spam mechanic.

Not wrong for GW2…just POORLY implemented in GW2.

That would require an entire rework of the class, except for Shortbow and P/P… Furthermore, even if it was changed to suit you, you would complain about it and you know it.

PearlGore.7419:

Amun Ra.6435:

PearlGore.7419:

Still no reason posted here as to why Stealth is wrong for GW2. Were waiting…

Stealth should not be part of skill rotations but rather a mechanic that lets you set up a ambush or escape a fight with a long CD. Not a rinse and repeat set up or a spam mechanic.

Not wrong for GW2…just POORLY implemented in GW2.

That would require an entire rework of the class, except for Shortbow and P/P… Furthermore, even if it was changed to suit you, you would complain about it and you know it.

Clearly you know me better than I know myself. Wow, some people.

So we do agree…there is to much stealth…

The biggest problem with stealth right now in Guild Wars 2 is that there is no direct counter to it. Sure, you can swing your sword around like a maniac trying to connect with the thief but that isn’t really countering the stealth itself. I’d love to see ArenaNet add utility skills directly aimed at disabling stealth to promote more skillful play.

Fungalfoot.7213:

The biggest problem with stealth right now in Guild Wars 2 is that there is no direct counter to it. Sure, you can swing your sword around like a maniac trying to connect with the thief but that isn’t really countering the stealth itself.

So there’s nobody riding shotgun on your team who can drop a Meteor Strike or two in your vicinity or some other form of AoE? Thieves aren’t exactly the sturdiest of classes, and GC thieves even less so.

Uruz Six.6594:

Fungalfoot.7213:

The biggest problem with stealth right now in Guild Wars 2 is that there is no direct counter to it. Sure, you can swing your sword around like a maniac trying to connect with the thief but that isn’t really countering the stealth itself.

So there’s nobody riding shotgun on your team who can drop a Meteor Strike or two in your vicinity or some other form of AoE? Thieves aren’t exactly the sturdiest of classes, and GC thieves even less so.

Sooooo… you suggesting you NEED more than one person to take down a thief? If this doesn’t sound broken to you I don’t know what will.

Amun Ra.6435:

Sooooo… you suggesting you NEED more than one person to take down a thief? If this doesn’t sound broken to you I don’t know what will.

I’m saying what’s broken is complaining about 1 vs 1 and neglecting that WvW and PvP is about team play.

Stealth has, is and probably will always be an idiotic concept. Even putting aside the gameplay aspects of it, the way it is nearly always implemented is that a man standing in a field can suddenly become an invisible ghost until he moves his arms in a certain manner i.e. stabbing you directly in the face.

From a gameplay point of view it is idiotic for a very similar reason interestingly. Generally a stealth character can stand in the middle of a field and go invisible until he performs some sort of action i.e. stabbing you directly in the face.

I hope it dies its swift and massively over due death in soon to be developed games and is thrust down to the depths of the Mariana Trench never to see the light of day again.

Have to agree, especially since every thief encounter has devolved into fighting either a d/p black powder/heartseeker spammer, or a p/d bleed/cloak & dagger spammer. However there’s now a new evolution of the thief: the larcenous strike spammer.

But let’s not forget Mesmers. Heck, they can even attack while maintaining stealth, as phantasms do not count as an attack apparently.

Whenever stealth comes into play, it just becomes a ridiculous guessing game. Or waiting game if you have no dodge juice & aoes left.

TL ; DR – I got owned by a thief and now Im mad

Deal with it OP, why not play a thief then?

Lylandrissabelle.5463:

But let’s not forget Mesmers. Heck, they can even attack while maintaining stealth, as phantasms do not count as an attack apparently.

Just wanted to comment on this as Mesmers only have a very limited amount of stealth; all of them on long cooldowns and most of them only available throuh utility slots/elite. They can’t zip in and out of stealth like a Thief, chain-stealth or have innate smoke+finisher combos.

The Prestige (3s) – 30s CD
Decoy (3s) – 40s CD
Veil (4s) – 90s CD
Mass Invis (5s) 90s CD

So you actually help to prove a point on how the concept of stealth actually works better with Mesmers as their stealth options are very limited; forcing a more tactical approach in its usage. Because how does the Mesmer use Stealth? Either for setting up an ambush to open a fight, or use it in an attempt to escape.

That’s why thieves are such cheesy noobs. Stealth here hit you a couple of times, stealth and appear somewhere else, hit you a couple of times. Rinse and repeat.

gek.6041:

TL ; DR – I got owned by a thief and now Im mad

Deal with it OP, why not play a thief then?

In other words, you’re a thief that likes how easy it is to play/get kills, and you’re scared that questioning broken mechanics may make things less easy for you, so all you can do is answer with a snarky, antagonizing comment.

I say why not remove stealth and then the THIEVES can deal with it.

Never really gets old does it? Peoples tireless hate against stealth.

Its a playstyle like any other. Many people, including myself enjoy it. (and I main guardian) But I dont suppose the feelings of anyone who disagreed never mattered that much did it?

I dont find it ‘unfun’ nor do I have any less than respect for the great stealth players of the classes over the years, be it gw2 or not. Coming from Aion; Feels, Keplop, Rheeza, Moony, Slic and so on. Some of the most gifted pvp’ers I ever knew and almost guaranteed to share the sentiment that we play it because ‘we love it’. Not for some daft assumed reason. It makes us smile, Just as hopefully you do when you play your class.

Perhaps I sound angry. I’m not against freedom of point of view. But whats really the purpose of such broadcast? to eliminate our enjoyment from games because its not your own? yeah. Great. What happened to ‘room for everyone’?

I like gw2 but tbh the stealth here is woefully easy to combat. I hope some of you have experiences beyond ‘its a new idea’ because it isnt. Its old and alot of us old mmo’ers love games for it.

Its not just about advantage, or about implementation. Its about feel, about style, about escaping from the clutches of defeat, moments from death to smile and laugh. How close was that!?

Too few care enough to see the windows of anothers life. But remember it well. Persecution of style will kill this industry. In a larger sense, it already has.

When diversity goes, so too will all the friends and the memories. Sad days indeed.

ErraticFaith.9142:

Its not just about advantage, or about implementation. Its about feel, about style, about escaping from the clutches of defeat, moments from death to smile and laugh. How close was that!?

sweet I wish my non-stealth champs could choose when to die.

The only stealth I have a problem with is the d/p stealth. Every other stealth has a long cooldown (HiS, SR), sucks, or is CnD, which can be used constantly but also be prevented from working. The combat system in GW2 is supposed to be about seeing your enemy and responding to his actions. You also have high risk involved in combat because any skill can be made to fail by an attentive foe and you still pay the opportunity cost for it. With d/p stealth you kinda don’t have either of those aspects. BP+HS is 100% reliable initiative based stealth and once in stealth you have 4 seconds and as many attempts as you can fit with which to land backstab. If you don’t hit at all you can just stealth again immediately (you remembered to bring enough init regen for a 9 init combo right?) and you’re no worse for wear.

When I used a carrion p/d thief what I found is that generally I would ruin the day of anyone that couldn’t dodge CnD, but it turned real intense, real fast when up against someone that could. The other thing was, regardless of how good my opponent was, if I got into stealth, they took a sneak attack to the face but the only guarantee of getting stealth was HiS or SR, both of which need a specific situation to justify their use.

Uruz Six.6594:

Amun Ra.6435:

Sooooo… you suggesting you NEED more than one person to take down a thief? If this doesn’t sound broken to you I don’t know what will.

I’m saying what’s broken is complaining about 1 vs 1 and neglecting that WvW and PvP is about team play.

1 =/= 2. Thus it should never require a minimum of two people to counter the class mechanic of just one. Balancing it based on 1 vs 1 is EXACTLY how it should be done.

Once A = B, B = C, and C=D, then A+B=C+D, A+C=B+D, and A+D=B+C.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I forgot to add: I’m a Glass Cannon Thief. I die almost as fast as I kill. So that’s pretty balanced IMO.

This is the key. All classes must be balanced against each other and the environment. For classes to be meaningful there must be something unique that they bring to the table that other classes don’t. In WoW a hunter is able to track other players and beasts, elementals, et al. That is a huge advantage; but, other classes also have their advantages and they are balanced to provide interesting counter play.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t see an inherent problem with stealth. In WoW stealth was much more pronounced than in GW2 and rogue’s were always annoying, but not invincible. They didn’t have the burst that thieves have in GW2, but thieves in GW2 don’t have the stealth that rogues have in WoW. It’s all about counter play. Are there ways to counter stealth that make the game more interesting for all players? Yes, all classes in WoW had abilities to counter stealth. A hunter in battlegrounds could lay a trap at his feet. A rogue should never fall for this but they do. There are abilities like flare that will bring a rogue out of stealth. Rogues were annoying (their signature ability), but they made for more interesting gameplay.

In GW2 the problem people perceive is not stealth per se, it’s the burst that d/d thieves had. You have to realize that a glass cannon thief is a walking opener. They are nothing without their cooldowns. The key is not to participate in their opener, do a little damage and then watch them run away. Most players in GW2 don’t understand this. They are annoyed by the stealth (as well they should be) but they don’t understand how to counter it.

I generally hate L2P posts, but this is an area that warrants it. The thief is an extremely fragile profession. You have to be on the top of your game all the time just to survive. Stealth is an essential mechanic to their survival. Stealthy classes are actually not new to MMO’s as the OP suggests; they have been around a long time. They provide an interesting style of play for all involved…except those who haven’t learned to counter them.

Even though the Thief is not my main and I never play mine in PvP/WvW, I vote for retaining the mechanic as an interesting albeit annoying mechanic.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Manuhell.2759:

Or some skill could give a buff that makes you see stealthed players for a while.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa there. That’s a pretty overpowered idea mate. Be careful where you swing that mind of yours.

Why?

I played at least one MMO (RoM) with that in and it just added more tactic to it — one profession had a skill which can be used to detect stealthed characters, rouges had stealth (much less useful that thief’s tho) and scouts had skill to detect them, so in situations when dealing with stealthed characters players (teams) at least had option how to deal with them. Also, if stealthed character received any damage (including DOTs) it will be kicked out of it.

Right now (to recap tons of other posters) there is no counter when character get’s into stealth except blindly swinging or throwing AoE in hope to kill them as they can receive damage and keep stealth. Or run away … yeah tactic …

Thats fine, but give us 5K more base HP at the least.

PearlGore.7419:

Thats fine, but give us 5K more base HP at the least.

That would be no more than reasonable I guess, as then you’d have about the same base health as the Ranger.

I wonder how the Thief population would react if ArenaNet stepped out and said ‘’We have removed stealth and added more shadowstepping and more toughness to this profession.’’

To be honest, I would love this.

I don’t have a Thief myself though, but I would totally roll one.

Farzo.8410:

I wonder how the Thief population would react if ArenaNet stepped out and said ‘’We have removed stealth and added more shadowstepping and more toughness to this profession.’’

Fortunately, Anet doesn’t want to put a .45 bullet into their own game, so this will never happen.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Stealth was already nerfed. This was due to an unbalanced “perma-stealth” Thief troll build. Now with that said, let’s breakdown your complaints one by one:

• Time to analyze your enemy
This is done before a Thief or Mes goes into stealth. If the target is squishy, you attack. If it’s a Guardian, you run away. Simple.

• Cooldown reduction
This was the nerf. No more perma-stealth trolling.

• Movement closing
Part of the purpose of being stealthed. You can run away or move in for a hit. Nothing wrong here.

• First strike advantage
Part of the purpose of being stealthed. You can run away or move in for a hit. Nothing wrong here.

• Untargetability
Part of the purpose of being stealthed. You can run away or move in for a hit. Nothing wrong here.

• Scouting undetected
Part of the purpose of being stealthed. You can run away or move in for a hit. Nothing wrong here.

Summary – Stealth is a part of the game. If you’re unable to come up with effective strategies to counter it, it doesn’t mean it’s unbalanced or broken. It means you need to get better. There are many ways to counter a Thief or Mes, but being that I play both, I won’t discuss them (for fear of people learning how to kill me).

I love how you formed most of your come backs on….thats what it was meant for lol. Guns are meant to shoot things but it doesnt mean it was a good thing it was invented. I play theif in spvp because its so easy and want to lvl fast and get easy kills. It took me about 10 mins to watch youtube vid on perma stealth and use the natural zerker dmg to take down mesmers, rangers, necros and even wars b4 they even knew i was there. Even though it is nerfed i can drop ppl in pvp and use finisher b4 the enemy around me can target me…and then stealth to get away.

Unfortunately it gets boring which is why its still lvl 4.i love my ranger in pve and wvw because there is so much variety and its so easy to drop thieves in a zerg who cant dodge aoes with their 13k hp. I do feel bad for the players who play thieves as their mains because they suck so bad in dungeons and are the least wanted for runs. One hit by a boss and…gotta revive the 13k thief lol.

Uruz Six.6594:

Farzo.8410:

I wonder how the Thief population would react if ArenaNet stepped out and said ‘’We have removed stealth and added more shadowstepping and more toughness to this profession.’’

Fortunately, Anet doesn’t want to put a .45 bullet into their own game, so this will never happen.

I don’t think the Thief population are the ones dominating the games population. It would be more like ArenaNet taking a wrong step, crushing their toe on the drawers corner.

1) 2/3 thief traits in each tree are garbage, some are obviously far to strong (infusion of shadow needs an internal cd and shadow embrace should only remove a condition when entering stealth or gaining a new stack). Basically 30 points in shadow art are far to good, especially when almost everything else the thief has is craptastic, deadly art being the best example, you go in that tree for the power, the minor traits and mug, the other chosen trait? Backfighter, dagger training or sundering strike unless you go venom share, if you don’t know what those are i invite you to look at the wiki and realize how all of them are BAD. Building a thief is the most brainless experience you’ll ever meet in this game, you’ll mostly take the same things over and over.

2) S/P is ruined by pistol whip (otherwise it’s ok, btw pistol whips becomes basically a “kill yourself” skill when your target spam retaliation aka a boon that involves no depths nor skill), dagger off hand is garbage in general and everything involving pistol main hand should be either deleted or reworked massively (p/d is basically the art of pressing 1 and 5, that’s 3 key i will probably never press, i think it speaks for itself, p/p sucks because of the lack of evasion, teleport or stealth, auto attack also does poor damage and fires slowly, actually this sets makes no sense, i honestly can’t figure what anet was trying to do with it). S/P and P/P are stealthless weapon set btw, but they aren’t worth using, that’s fine i guess?
Basically you’ll go s/d, d/p,shortbow. S/D is a bit less stealthy than d/p infusion abuse since it’s basically a 3s stealth if you hit.

3) Utility skills are DOMINATED by deceptions aka the stealthy tree, it’s simple almost every single video or thief you’ll ever see will have shadow step and shadow refuge, the third skill is generally another deception or a signet, talk about diversity. Now you’re probably thinking “well nerf them” but trust me, no. The problem is that everything else (but some signet, and even those i’d say only agility doesn’t need a buff) is GARBAGE, traps are laughably bad, tricks are terrible outside of caltrops and roll for ini but those are still inferior (roll could be instantly fixed if you could choose where you roll, kinda like the warrior gs spinning attack), venoms are crap and even when massively traited for (60 trait points) aren’t even that good and signet well… agility is good, shadow signet active is terrible, assassin signet makes no sense now that the passive is 180 power and infiltrator is just meh.
As for deceptions, i’d say shadow refuge needs to reveal the targets going outside of it even after the effects ends, it’s honestly currently far to strong.

4) Weak condition removal outside of stealth, you can deal with it of course but i think being almost immune to those is a bit more interesting don’t you agree?

The problem with that class is not only that it’s stealth heavy and stealth is annoying and reduce depth and skill, the problem is that anet has done NOTHING to promote stealthless or low stealth builds.

One problem i see with this. You are calling it stealth. Its invisibilty. If i see someone running towards me and ‘stealths’ and suddenly he disappears from view, he didnt sudden jump into shadows or moved quietly, he went invisible.
Thieves can have stealth. They cant have invisibilty.