Guild Wars 2

saalle.4623:

Tongku.5326:

Firelysm.4967:

For example “Guard” ranger skill, should reveal 5 targets that are in stealth and prevent them to re-stealth for 10 seconds in range of 1200.

There is no counter to stealth, and even if people use full stealth builds they still have full burst potential, this should be countered on some way and punished! And now is the time to get new skills where expansion is on the doors to create some balance in the game.

I agree, and I play mesmer and thief. This game simply lacks stealth counterplay, especially when compared to otehr games in the genre.

Stealth needs to break on damage.
Stealth should not be spammable, it needs a CD debuff.
Any “offensive” action should break stealth, which is currently not the case with mesmers
ALL professions should have some trait and/or utility access to some sort of stealth detection.
Alternately, some builds / professions without detection, should be outright immune to bonus damage gained from stealth via trait lines.

If these things were implimented, then an extra form of stealth could be implimented, camouflage, stationary only and semi-visible in close proximity, but not from far distances.

Things of this nature would make this game much more tactical, and players skill via decisions as to when to use or not use stealth and respective countermeasures would give the game as a whole far more depth then it has now.

So your point is….make thief hard to play wile other classes stay 1 shot kill?Why dont they start from warrior then since hes OP or elementalist.Why does always assassin class need to be “skill based” wile rest of the classes are spam buttons??

Bro, this isnt the only game that has thieves and stealthers in general. Everything I have pointed out is literally straight from other games even the little comment I made about camouflage skill, and they still have a ton of advantages using stealth and it actually works. It will not make you extinct, it will give additional tactical layers to gameplay, again I play mesmer and thief as well as other toons here. The only way you get 1 shot on a thief is if you dont use your abilities and just stand there, and that must be on a pure zerker build vs other pure zerker build that can generate that sort of burst, so please do not exaggerate, at least not so greatly.

DeWolfe.2174:

All the thieves thinking we’re talking about them. Sorry, most of us are talking about Mesmer’s abusing stealth now.

Unfortunately the mesmer doesn’t have a large portion of its class mechanic require stealth access → stealth attacks as a direct means of performing necessary damage or utility and losing auto-target due to limited defensive options and the lowest HP.

If this is about mesmers, then it should be about PU being overpowered, considering the mesmer now has better stealth than the thief (yes, mesmers have better stealth access than thieves now despite the attempt to nerf perma-stealth thieves because it was “unfun”).

A thief without backstab, sneak attack, or Tactical Strike is in many instances completely useless and potentially even less helpful than an uplevel in regards to damage dealt, utility, and possibly even durability.

So yea, if stealth as a whole needs to get nerfed, I’d expect a minimum of allowing thieves to be able to use their class mechanic attacks without the need for stealth, and given either more defensive options as a whole, or a hp increase to 15k baseline like rangers/mesmers/engis which coincidentally also have access to stealth.

Are we done with thiefs and mesmers throwing the L2P and other snarky comments? Yes? Good.

Now, it is true that stealth lacks counterplay in that you can’t target something that you can’t see. And therefore all the reveals will be useless against good thiefs if they are not AoE. In fact we should just trash the current reveal system.

My suggestion is to give stealth a periodic “Here I am. Now I’m gone” mechanic. That can be done through particles (dust from footsteps and whatnot), sound cues and the stealth giving you visibility from time to time (think of leaving a translucend snapshot of your char every few seconds (like 10 i.e.) that poofs shortly after (1/2 sec or lower). This would give you the possibility to say “He went there” but also gives you a juking potential plus that stuff goes 11/10 with the getting stalked feeling.)
Plus… we could allow chaining stealth without the “cd duration” then… That would be awsome.

If that’s not enough to counter stealth we can think of including reveal again. I would go with a buff that gives you a small AoE of revealing though. That’s more in line with highened senses and less binary (wait it out or jump stab from the range you’re still invisible).

I think this is also a L2P issue. Most people move in very predictable ways, and you can seek em out by predicting where they will be. Also, aoe damage IS a good counter to stealth, because if you surround yourself with aoe’s the thief is less likely to go in for a back stab once they see that red circle.
I know and understand how the average thief plays because I main thief. I doubt stealth really needs a nerf and we shouldn’t focus on nerfing thief either because rangers and mesmers have quite easy access to this too.
Stealth should not operate so that the second you use an attack or skill you get revealed. This is a terrible idea that would stop stealth stacking and reviving dead in it’s tracks.
I think a good counter would be to show a faint silhouette of a player every 5 or 4 seconds, and for their to be a faint outline when you are being hit by something (Not counting conditions).

It’d be nice if they made stealth behave the same as Archeage. If your stealthed and standing in front of an enemy player you become visible. If you take damage after x amount of seconds from popping your stealth, you become revealed. As much as i dislike that game i have to admit they really did stealth play well.

If you want to balance stealth and have it remain fair, then introduce the following limit(s):

- When leaving stealth by doing damage (e.g. backstab), that stealther gets revealed for the same amount of time they were in stealth up until that attack. Example: Thief uses Shadow Refuge and moves in and backstabs after being in stealth for 7 seconds. Upon back stabbing the enemy, they now have 7 seconds of revealed.

If they did no damage on leaving stealth, then it remains as it is now, no revealed.

As for it affecting Mesmers, they should get revealed (in the same manner) if they summon a clone or whatnot from stealth that does damage (existing clones etc. do not cause the revealed).

So if a thief cloak and daggers you and backstabs you within 1 second, he isn’t going far if he tries again in another second. Pretty easy to find him and damage him in stealth.

A 3 second minimum revealed timer (which is what it is currently in WvW) may have to be put in place to prevent backstab spamming.

In this manner, a stealther can utilize stealth to escape for longer durations, but cannot abuse it like Mesmers are currently.

Hate to embarrass myself by mentioning WoWarcraft, but in that game when you took dmg you got unstealthed. Rogues (thieves) there were still very strong and you just played around it. IMO this actually made stealth much more workable. Also any attack, even if you missed, brought you out of stealth. So if you saw a thief stealth you could hit the area with aoe and bring them out, and if you anticipated the attack with a defensive ability and the thief’s attack missed he came out of stealth.

I think stealth in this game is lame because you can just eat dmg in stealth and attack into invuln or aegis without cost. Everyone saying it’s awesome knows it’s crap and doesn’t want to lose their abusive and admittedly fun mechanic.

The lack of stealth canceling abilities is kittening kittened.

As said above, every class should have two abilities that if they hit a stealthed target immediately bring that target out of stealth.

It’s just that there are people who like abusing the kittened stealth mechanics in this game and those who don’t. Anet has made the calculation that they can get more players by including the stealth player base.

Edit: And for everyone saying omfg how could thieves exist with any changes to stealth?! In GW1 stealth was nothing like how it is in GW2 and thieves existed just fine.

""Now, it is true that stealth lacks counterplay in that you can’t target something that you can’t see. And therefore all the reveals will be useless against good thiefs if they are not AoE. In fact we should just trash the current reveal system.

My suggestion is to give stealth a periodic “Here I am. Now I’m gone” mechanic. That can be done through particles (dust from footsteps and whatnot), sound cues and the stealth giving you visibility from time to time (think of leaving a translucend snapshot of your char every few seconds (like 10 i.e.) that poofs shortly after (1/2 sec or lower). This would give you the possibility to say “He went there” but also gives you a juking potential plus that stuff goes 11/10 with the getting stalked feeling.)
Plus… we could allow chaining stealth without the “cd duration” then… That would be awsome.

If that’s not enough to counter stealth we can think of including reveal again. I would go with a buff that gives you a small AoE of revealing though. That’s more in line with highened senses and less binary (wait it out or jump stab from the range you’re still invisible).""
———-
""I agree, and I play mesmer and thief. This game simply lacks stealth counterplay, especially when compared to otehr games in the genre.

Stealth needs to break on damage.
Stealth should not be spammable, it needs a CD debuff.
Any “offensive” action should break stealth, which is currently not the case with mesmers
ALL professions should have some trait and/or utility access to some sort of stealth detection.
Alternately, some builds / professions without detection, should be outright immune to bonus damage gained from stealth via trait lines.

If these things were implimented, then an extra form of stealth could be implimented, camouflage, stationary only and semi-visible in close proximity, but not from far distances.

Things of this nature would make this game much more tactical, and players skill via decisions as to when to use or not use stealth and respective countermeasures would give the game as a whole far more depth then it has now. ""
—-

these sound like good possible stealth counters.

To the OP, please try and play thief currently, and don’t say you do it would be obvious you’re lying. Mesmers with ranged builds for bursting out of stealth is a little bs, but that doesn’t mean the issue is due to stealth.

I will say though, stealth as a whole seems to need an overhaul.

Akuni.8604:

Are we done with thiefs and mesmers throwing the L2P and other snarky comments? Yes? Good.

Now, it is true that stealth lacks counterplay in that you can’t target something that you can’t see. And therefore all the reveals will be useless against good thiefs if they are not AoE. In fact we should just trash the current reveal system.

My suggestion is to give stealth a periodic “Here I am. Now I’m gone” mechanic. That can be done through particles (dust from footsteps and whatnot), sound cues and the stealth giving you visibility from time to time (think of leaving a translucend snapshot of your char every few seconds (like 10 i.e.) that poofs shortly after (1/2 sec or lower). This would give you the possibility to say “He went there” but also gives you a juking potential plus that stuff goes 11/10 with the getting stalked feeling.)
Plus… we could allow chaining stealth without the “cd duration” then… That would be awsome.

If that’s not enough to counter stealth we can think of including reveal again. I would go with a buff that gives you a small AoE of revealing though. That’s more in line with highened senses and less binary (wait it out or jump stab from the range you’re still invisible).

A thief isn’t doing damage if it’s stealthed or doesn’t have a period where it’s revealed, unless it’s playing build that doesn’t deal damage or gain essential utility from stealth attacks, though, such as P/P or S/D. Otherwise, the thief at one point or another is going to be revealed and that is when the ranger/engineer/revealed-effect-caster should be using his reveal effects, or it’s going to just run out of initiative and be unable to stealth for longer, also providing a window. Keep in mind these reveal effects also have incredibly long casting ranges to the point where most thieves, even D/P stealth builds, will not yet be trying to use stealth.

Beyond that, tracking a stealthed thief is pretty easy once you learn how to do it. This pretty much comes down to learning how to first play as a thief and its nuances, and then applying that knowledge from the other perspective as counter-play. The players that can beat stealth best are often ones which play stealth classes. There don’t need to be indicators; I regularly kill stealthed thieves with non-AoE skills out of learning how to beat them and knowing realistically where they will be and what they’ll be trying to do in a fight. D/P is hard to kill only because of the blind pressure more than anything.

Only the mesmer can deal damage while using stealth. Again, this is more of a PU issue and the thread should have been made as a complaint about it more than stealth as a whole.

Why is thief getting mentioned in almost all of these posts? Thief is at the bottom of the barrel post patch in pvp and wvw. They are underwhelming in all aspects of the game.

Mesmers are the problem, and their ability to stealth more than thief and attack without being revealed is just silly.

But asking to nerf stealth or give more classes ways to deal with it is not the answer either. What’s next? Should all classes get 2 ways to instantly remove a ranger pet from combat? Or prevent aegis from being applied? Do you listen to yourselves before you just blurt out posts?

If you have a problem with mesmers, go post about mesmers. Don’t try to break a mechanic that would ruin a whole other class altogether. Might as well just rename topic to “please remove thief from game” .

Its not hard to guess where a thief is gonna be, make ways to stop them getting their first burst in (Block, dodge, fear, movement skills etc.). My first char was a thief, but then I switched to a ranger. Most thieves see me as an easy target in WvW, but I soon prove them wrong … most of the time.

The thing I am having trouble with is mesmer stealth. I have no clue what they want to do from stealth or what they gain (other than throwing off their position) from stealth. Also do they even get revealed? But playing a mesmer for a while should help with understanding that.

Understanding is the best counter play you can have, and it works really well d(^_^d)

Honestly I feel it’s not even stealth that’s the problem, but the fact that this game let’s people have so much mobility, without any real way to lock down outside of Heavy CC’s. Specially now that cripple and chill have been nerfed into into near uselessness. I say that they should revert the movement changes and let chill and cripple affect teleports.

Sparrow.5936:

Why is thief getting mentioned in almost all of these posts? Thief is at the bottom of the barrel post patch in pvp and wvw. They are underwhelming in all aspects of the game.

But asking to nerf stealth or give more classes ways to deal with it is not the answer either. What’s next? Should all classes get 2 ways to instantly remove a ranger pet from combat? Or prevent aegis from being applied? Do you listen to yourselves before you just blurt out posts?

If you have a problem with mesmers, go post about mesmers. Don’t try to break a mechanic that would ruin a whole other class altogether. Might as well just rename topic to “please remove thief from game” .

I think you answered your own question, here. Thief players are mentioning that asking for nerfs to stealth as a whole is completely unreasonable since part of their class mechanic requires it (stealth attacks). The thief doesn’t need more nerfs when the problem lies with PU mesmer.

Stealth is a cheap defensive tool promoting passive gameplay with low risk and no counterplay.
I think this should be fixed and it’s simple to do:

Hitting someone in stealth after the first second they entered it (with aoe fields, cleaving attacks or projectiles ) should reveal them for a short duration
That way the thieves / mesmers would not be allowed to sit comfortably in stealth waiting for cooldowns in the middle of a fight, instead he/she would have to carefully watch for oppenings, what his opponent is doing, when to step in, rewarding good positionning and smart moves.

The stealth in Guild Wars 2 is probably the most broken stealth mechanic in any MMO I must say.

Even if it only lasts some seconds, it can be re-applied as easily.

It’s also why thief and mesmer are the most boring profession to ever fight against in any situation. If their attack doesn’t work, they just have to re-stealth and run away, and then approach whenever they feel like it.

The only thing you can do is to wait and attack randomly or where you think they went.

Actually the only “fix” to stealth in this case should be that Mesmers should have less access to it and not the same amount if not more than thieves in the game since their “gimmick” is really the clones and illusions and how they use or shatter them. Sure a small stealth akin to the one that rangers can get, but not too much more.

Them having as much access to stealth is just overkill.

Well, naturally you wouldn’t know to use the reveal skill unless you’ve already been attacked/bursted by the Thief and then he disappears to potentially escape and I guess the Reveal skill would prevent him from disappearing again and potentially attacking you.

OP, you do know that Thieves still take damage when invisible, right? Start throwing down AoE skills or swinging around a GS or something. I can’t count how many times I’ve killed a stealthed thief.

If they stealth and run away, that accomplishes essentially the same thing as killing them. You are no longer being attacked.

I see no reason to change stealth.

saalle.4623:

So your point is….make thief hard to play wile other classes stay 1 shot kill?Why dont they start from warrior then since hes OP or elementalist.Why does always assassin class need to be “skill based” wile rest of the classes are spam buttons??

Pretty much sums it up for me.

Lowest HP….now nerf the classes main source of damage mitigation….more….

Since this seems to be mostly focusing on thieves, I’ll address thief stealth.

You can prevent a thief from stealthing with any skill they use other than blinding powder.

If you mess that up, you can still mitigate or punish the thief when they go for their burst.

You can’t capture when in stealth, so if you stealth and your opponent does not, they will begin to capture.

That’s plenty of counterplay.

What people seem to be asking for isn’t more counterplay, but more hard counters because they don’t want to deal with stealth at all. I understand some players don’t enjoy that type of gameplay, but more hard counters are just not necessary.

There was a idea that necro in Ds. Can see stealth people…..but doubt they will put a trait or somethin like that.

Conncept.7638:

Timiok.1048:

I agree to what you mean, we need at least 2 skills that have reveal on each class.
However your example seems a bit overpowered.

Reveal is a binary mechanic that adds nothing whatsoever to combat and the very last thing we need is more of it.

We need a redesign of stealth that has some actual play to it between opponents.

starlinvf.1358:

Stealth counter…. every AOE damage ever

And this is possibly the dumbest statement on this subject, ever.

This works in other games, because they have costs for their abilities, usually mana, meaning they can have spammable AoEs metered. We have no such thing in Gw2, the biggest ‘spammable’ AoEs are piddly little 300 diameter autos like Lightning Whip, Greatsword Swing, and Fireball.

Meanwhile, the thief has the second highest movement speed in the game so long as they can maintain stealth, and dashes available on every single mainhand weapon which are just as wide as every AoE save Combustive Shot and Meteor Shower.

Yet, are they overpowered? No, in fact if anything thieves are a little weak as anything but worthless WvW roamers. But that is what happens when you get a year and a half long string of nerfs due to how poorly designed one single mechanic is.

And before anyone pulls more BS “U dnt play thief yer jus a hater”, I do play the thief, I have an 80 of every class in fact. And anyone who legitimately explores the thief class instead of just exploiting cheese builds can easily come to the conclusion that this class is never going to be as fulfilling to play, fun to play against, or balanced as it would be were stealth to be redesigned in to a mechanic with more give and take between opponents.

You HAVE a thief. You just don’t PLAY it. Big difference.

I play thief. At level 10 i went straight to wvw. I have 2 reliable stealth skills. Shadow refuge on 60 second cooldown. Blinding powder on 45 second cooldown. That isn’t a small amount of cooldown.

The comment of any aoe skill is kitten rights applicable. Shadow refuge shows everyone where you are. I’ve been hit with tons of aoe damage. The worst is when i get feared (necro fear. Ranger pet fear warrior fear) or knocked out (like the mesmer great sword knock back ) and into reveal with a 60 second skill on cooldown. A lot of melee weapons cleave or just hit multiple people.

I’ve also been revealed by engineers, and stealth ttraps. Wow. So many ways to hit me or reveal me from stealth.

Dashes on every main hand weapon? Hahahhahahaha.
Second highest movement speed? Hahahahahahaha
Like I said. You have a thief. You don’t play one.

All you did was read every trait line and pretended a thief had access to all traits at the same time. I have zero movement speed.

You need to l2p and l2read before posting such garbage.

Watch this. It is a link to a fight where my group was outnumbered. Near the end when i shadow refuge you will see how much aoe hits us and how big an aoe radius can be. Ps. The voice isn’t mine. My buddy who was on ts.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-e6ixUMCc

Watch this video. A zerg stops my taking of stone mist. When i shadow refuge you can see how much damage i take. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_poGo6mWygc

Shadow refuge is just a big target sign saying hit here. But it can still be useful.
Cool thing huh? I can refute your false statements with video.

However, the black powder heart seeker combo should give 4 seconds of stealth then 4 seconds of reveal even if no attack was made. That is the one thing that should be implemented for that one skill. If done right, i can remove all conditions and be full health every time i decide to de stealth and attack.

Pps. Stealth on steal is broken and has been broken for a long time. So like I said. Only 2 reliable stealth skills.

Stealth is a joke in this game not sure they can fix it it that broken…

I, personally, have not played much WvW or PvP with my Thief, but I have a little experience, and weakening the stealth mechanic will only make Thief unviable. Changing it could break the class (and Mesmer), or it could revitalise it, but weakening it would be disastrous. The reason you always see Thieves using stealth? The entire class is built around it. Every weapon gets special attacks from stealth, their traits are built around stealth. A Thief who can’t stealth is a dead Thief.
Additionally, stealth can’t be constantly spammed due to a mechanic called Revealed. I’m honestly not sure if it’s every stealth skill or only some (it seems to be only some), but coming out of stealth applies this debuff, which prevents the target from returning to stealth until it wears off. I think it lasts somewhere in the 4-5 seconds vicinity, and if you have the skill, that is more than enough time to lockdown and kill a Thief who doesn’t know what they’re doing and is simply abusing a stealth build.

Timiok.1048:

I agree to what you mean, we need at least 2 skills that have reveal on each class.
However your example seems a bit overpowered.

That seems a bit excessive.

Wouldn’t a better solution to stealth be to do one of the following:

• Remove stealth (my favorite option, globally, across all MMOs).
• Reduce stealth duration so it cannot be used for anything but momentary defense and reposition.

Carighan.6758:

Timiok.1048:

I agree to what you mean, we need at least 2 skills that have reveal on each class.
However your example seems a bit overpowered.

That seems a bit excessive.

Wouldn’t a better solution to stealth be to do one of the following:

• Remove stealth (my favorite option, globally, across all MMOs).
• Reduce stealth duration so it cannot be used for anything but momentary defense and reposition.

typical heavy class player mentality
Might as well delete renewed focus and endure pain while their at it.

Extreme.8350:

Carighan.6758:

Timiok.1048:

I agree to what you mean, we need at least 2 skills that have reveal on each class.
However your example seems a bit overpowered.

That seems a bit excessive.

Wouldn’t a better solution to stealth be to do one of the following:

• Remove stealth (my favorite option, globally, across all MMOs).
• Reduce stealth duration so it cannot be used for anything but momentary defense and reposition.

typical heavy class player mentality
Might as well delete renewed focus and endure pain while their at it.

Couldn’t agree more.

Stealth is a popular mechanic in the majority of MMO’s for a reason. People love the play style just as much as those who can’t stand it. The irony is people don’t like the fact they have to suddenly be tactically aware of such classes and respond on the fly as opposed to the normal charge in and spam attacks until everything dies because of equally impressive DPS but a massive difference in regards to HP and armor.

The response is accurate in that as much as I find Warriors and Guardians annoying and they often slaughter me I wouldn’t suddenly cry for their HP and armor to be nerfed (DPS tweak maybe).

That’s their damage mitigation, stealth is of equal import to mesmers and more so thieves. I’d rather see the class deleted entirely then see it neutered in such a fashion.

Extreme.8350:

typical heavy class player mentality

Mesmer, actually.

With 2650 of my 3000 hours, I’m terrible with alts and cannot enjoy them.

Your point was?

(edit)
I understand the love for stealth as a concept. In games where a gamemaster is actively adapting the world to you, or in single-player games with strong scripting, it can be used to amazing effect.
But in MMOs it’s a serious balance issue at a very basic level unless you sort of externalize it (DAoC’s RvR approach to stealth, effectively letting stealth groups play their own, separate form of stealth vs stealth RvR).

One of the interesting things going into GW2 was how Stealth was billed as a short-term ,defensive effect.

This exists in concept but due to the overall setup of thieves respectively trait effects of mesmers just isn’t true in practice. For most practical purposes the classes can spend 75% or so of their time stealthed. Being one of them who does it I don’t mind it on a balance level, but on a conceptual one.

Either have short-term, lock-break-only stealth.
Or have permanent but out-of-combat-only stealth which gives you initiative but you cannot get back into it without also letting the enemy regenerate their health due to dropping combat.

Channeling skills that you casts before they go in stealth aren’t rupted, so watching where charracter faces / projectiles goes is hint to where they are – it is indirect counter like dagger earth 3 before stealth then leap after stealth.

I would suggest one reveal apply skill to at least one of the light armor’ proffesion.

Carighan.6758:

Your point was?

My point is that i love mesmer and i would hate to see it turn into a warrior
So if there is going be a nerf to their defense mechanics they need to buff them somewhere else. I dont even use pu in my build you can see on pic my pvp build.

fireflyry.7023:

Lowest HP….now nerf the classes main source of damage mitigation….more….

Well just to point out the facts: thiefs, eles and guards have the same amount of HP, without using gear. Of course guard has around 150 toughness more then thief and around 300 more then ele.

One other tought – when you talk about stealth being a defensive mechanic it is only half true, since it is also an offensive power to be able to choose where and more important when to engage in a fight (CD!). Im not saying it should be nerfed or not, because i’m only playing PvE at the moment and my main is a guardian.

Right now i avoid WvWvW most of the time, because everytime i went there to unlock some traits, heropoints, vistas, … some roamers came around and engage in a fight.

I just feel it should be mentioned in the hope to get a more objective discussion.

Extreme.8350:

My point is that i love mesmer and i would hate to see it turn into a warrior

Full ack on that one. But I also don’t like us essentially being thieves but in more pretty. Which is a step in the right direction, at least we got pink butterflies, but it’s… meh.

What I want is a Mesmer who actually has clones which act believably enough and take enough hits to kill so that figuring out the real one is the key to attacking Mesmers. Our defense should be that we’re ~impossible to nail down as a result of our clone mechanic, not that we can play wannabe-thief. Or warrior. :P

starlinvf.1358:

Stealth counter…. every AOE damage ever

counter to aoe damage.. take a step back and wait 3-5 seconds oooo so hard

Jitters

You HAVE a thief. You just don’t PLAY it. Big difference.

I play thief. At level 10 i went straight to wvw. I have 2 reliable stealth skills. Shadow refuge on 60 second cooldown. Blinding powder on 45 second cooldown. That isn’t a small amount of cooldown.

The comment of any aoe skill is kitten rights applicable. Shadow refuge shows everyone where you are. I’ve been hit with tons of aoe damage. The worst is when i get feared (necro fear. Ranger pet fear warrior fear) or knocked out (like the mesmer great sword knock back ) and into reveal with a 60 second skill on cooldown. A lot of melee weapons cleave or just hit multiple people.

I’ve also been revealed by engineers, and stealth ttraps. Wow. So many ways to hit me or reveal me from stealth.

Dashes on every main hand weapon? Hahahhahahaha.
Second highest movement speed? Hahahahahahaha
Like I said. You have a thief. You don’t play one.

All you did was read every trait line and pretended a thief had access to all traits at the same time. I have zero movement speed.

You need to l2p and l2read before posting such garbage.

Watch this. It is a link to a fight where my group was outnumbered. Near the end when i shadow refuge you will see how much aoe hits us and how big an aoe radius can be. Ps. The voice isn’t mine. My buddy who was on ts.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-e6ixUMCc

Watch this video. A zerg stops my taking of stone mist. When i shadow refuge you can see how much damage i take. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_poGo6mWygc

Shadow refuge is just a big target sign saying hit here. But it can still be useful.
Cool thing huh? I can refute your false statements with video.

However, the black powder heart seeker combo should give 4 seconds of stealth then 4 seconds of reveal even if no attack was made. That is the one thing that should be implemented for that one skill. If done right, i can remove all conditions and be full health every time i decide to de stealth and attack.

Pps. Stealth on steal is broken and has been broken for a long time. So like I said. Only 2 reliable stealth skills.

Err what? Cloak and Dagger allows you to have near unlimited stealth, there’s hardly only 2 stealth skills with huge cd. Never mind also the minor trait a stealth thief has that stealths if cc’d.
Also every thief weapon has a form of movement if you want to use them this way. Dagger has Heartseeker, Pistol with Dagger has a Shadowstep you can hop through various enemies with, shortbow has it’s #5 and sword has a sideward evade which still gives a short movement forward. Sword really is the only weapon falling flat there… I don’t think you play thief enough…

Oh and if you fight against a Mesmer and not dodge towards them in Shadowrefugee when they run/blink at you with a greatsword… A good thief knows how to proxy at the rim of SR to avoid AoEs which are usually only set on the center. There’s rarely a AoE bigger than SR.

Back on topic, I wanted to throw in another idea: A stealth delay while under fire. They would have to rewrite the whole system though to start counting after the delay even if the source of stealth would probably be gone by then. That would make stealth a more tactical decision and less of a hit and run thing.
I mean… there are a bunch of fair changes to make stealth fun AND give it counterplay. Just start thinking.

Stealth counter? Common sense and AoE. This coming from a Necro main. You wouldn’t believe how many times i’ve had a thief open up only to take shroud fear, staff 5, 2 1. Weapon swap to dagger 3 root, golem charge, bone minion pop and bone fiend root. That my friends is a very dead thief. If he happens to make it into stealth after that then it’s a simple shroud 5+4 for the channeled torment then root and the transfusion channel.

Firelysm.4967:

For example “Guard” ranger skill, should reveal 5 targets that are in stealth and prevent them to re-stealth for 10 seconds in range of 1200.

There is no counter to stealth, and even if people use full stealth builds they still have full burst potential, this should be countered on some way and punished! And now is the time to get new skills where expansion is on the doors to create some balance in the game.

If youre skilled enough you can predict where the thief /mes moves and what they will do. Like for example is an sr is thrown, they’re most likely inside that sr. Whip out your hammer and knock em out. Making a skill that puts a whole class out of commission for 10 seconds is way too broken. Learn to predict and execute rather than demanding more nerfs.

Shadowwarrior.7159:

fireflyry.7023:

Lowest HP….now nerf the classes main source of damage mitigation….more….

Well just to point out the facts: thiefs, eles and guards have the same amount of HP, without using gear.

That’s kind of a no-brainer but I apologise for not including the word “pool”.

WereDragon.6083:

Stealth counter? Common sense and AoE.

^this.

Akuni.8604:

Err what? Cloak and Dagger allows you to have near unlimited stealth, there’s hardly only 2 stealth skills with huge cd. Never mind also the minor trait a stealth thief has that stealths if cc’d.

Minor trait which doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.

C&D is rather situational in it’s unlimited stealth too. Cause it requires you to land a melee attack with a rather long cast time to apply stealth. Block, Blind, Evade, Invulnerability or plain Miss will cause a huge loss of initiative without giving you stealth.

Akuni.8604:

Never mind also the minor trait a stealth thief has that stealths if cc’d.

The closest minor trait that exist to that is this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Merciful_Ambush and well… that is not exactly very close at all…

And the only trait that thieves have if they get CC’ed (which is a major and is in acrobatics) is this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hard_to_Catch Not to mention a trait that just stealth you when CC’ed would be pretty bad if it stand alone, since well you are CC’ed so the enemy would know EXACTLY where you are, so they could jsut put down some more dmg right on top

there are plenty of counters to stealth as well as counters to spells that grant stealth

name me a spell or situation and i will give you counters~

Firelysm.4967:

For example “Guard” ranger skill, should reveal 5 targets that are in stealth and prevent them to re-stealth for 10 seconds in range of 1200.

There is no counter to stealth, and even if people use full stealth builds they still have full burst potential, this should be countered on some way and punished! And now is the time to get new skills where expansion is on the doors to create some balance in the game.

Actually the Ranger skill “Sic’um” is suppose to reveal but me and a friend tested it out with his mesmer and it did nothing. I wrote up a bug report on it shrugs

Kamara.4187:

Firelysm.4967:

For example “Guard” ranger skill, should reveal 5 targets that are in stealth and prevent them to re-stealth for 10 seconds in range of 1200.

There is no counter to stealth, and even if people use full stealth builds they still have full burst potential, this should be countered on some way and punished! And now is the time to get new skills where expansion is on the doors to create some balance in the game.

Actually the Ranger skill “Sic’um” is suppose to reveal but me and a friend tested it out with his mesmer and it did nothing. I wrote up a bug report on it shrugs

You’re using it wrong, then. Sic ‘em is a targeted shout, so you can’t use it on a target already in stealth. However, when you successfully use it, it applies the revealed effect for 6 seconds, preventing the target from entering stealth.

U do know both ranger and engi can force people out of stealth

Jitters.9401:

You HAVE a thief. You just don’t PLAY it. Big difference.

I play thief. At level 10 i went straight to wvw. I have 2 reliable stealth skills. Shadow refuge on 60 second cooldown. Blinding powder on 45 second cooldown. That isn’t a small amount of cooldown.

And you know how much I play my thief how? TADAH! You don’t.

Jitters.9401:

The comment of any aoe skill is kitten rights applicable. Shadow refuge shows everyone where you are. I’ve been hit with tons of aoe damage. The worst is when i get feared (necro fear. Ranger pet fear warrior fear) or knocked out (like the mesmer great sword knock back ) and into reveal with a 60 second skill on cooldown. A lot of melee weapons cleave or just hit multiple people.

That’s one skill of a half dozen available to the thief. So lets make all stealth skills drop a field, THEN you’ll have a point about AoE, it would be a legitamite and logical mechanical response to the stealth mechanic, but currently, that works on one single skill, and you have made no point whatsoever. In fact if anything you prove the point of how stealth needs counterplay as a mechanic, not forced in some slapdash form or another onto each and every individual stealth skill.

Jitters.9401:

I’ve also been revealed by engineers, and stealth ttraps. Wow. So many ways to hit me or reveal me from stealth.

And an even better argument than that which I provided, in favor of my stance. You just blatantly stated that either (A) People bring a specific skill to a fight useful for countering stealth and ONLY stealth or (B) They have no counter. That is the DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF BINARY, either one or zero, how much people choose to use that 1 and 0 is entirely beside the point.

Jitters.9401:

Dashes on every main hand weapon? Hahahhahahaha.

Inflitrators Arrow
Infiltrators Strike
Heartseeker
MH pistol is the only exception, and it still has one given the correct offhand.

Jitters.9401:

Second highest movement speed? Hahahahahahaha

Highest MS: Superspeed
Second Highest MS: Fleet Shadow
Third Highest MS: Swiftness Boon

Jitters.9401:

Like I said. You have a thief. You don’t play one.

Oh really now? Because I would assume such an expert as yourself would actually know the thiefs traits and abilities, as you have proven not to. How many things have you claimed thieves do not have in your post, that a few seconds of searching the wiki proves they do?

Jitters.9401:

All you did was read every trait line and pretended a thief had access to all traits at the same time. I have zero movement speed.

Yes I have read every trait line, maybe you should try it sometime and you might actually have something worth contributing instead of proving yourself a fool by denying blatantly obvious fact concerning a subject you “claim” to be an expert on.

Jitters.9401:

You need to l2p and l2read before posting such garbage

You need to learn to spell. And make your own intelligible arguments while you’re at it, as evidenced by your following statements.

Jitters.9401:

Watch this. It is a link to a fight where my group was outnumbered. Near the end when i shadow refuge you will see how much aoe hits us and how big an aoe radius can be. Ps. The voice isn’t mine. My buddy who was on ts.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-e6ixUMCc.

Watch this video. A zerg stops my taking of stone mist. When i shadow refuge you can see how much damage i take. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_poGo6mWygc

Shadow refuge is just a big target sign saying hit here. But it can still be useful.
Cool thing huh? I can refute your false statements with video.

Seriously? So you should be able to fight or escape five times your numbers because of one stealth skill? That is your standard for balanced? Your opinion on balance is null and void after such a statement. And once again, one single skill out of a half dozen that give stealth. No other example of stealth has any such counter, as such you still have failed to provide one single thing that directly counters stealth as a game mechanic.

Jitters.9401:

However, the black powder heart seeker combo should give 4 seconds of stealth then 4 seconds of reveal even if no attack was made. That is the one thing that should be implemented for that one skill. If done right, i can remove all conditions and be full health every time i decide to de stealth and attack.

Once again, poor, misinformed, short sighted game design. Mechanics need clearly designed responses, not individual skills. The game will blow up in to a convoluted mess where victory or defeat is decided by build instead of play if they design counterplay on a skill by skill rather than mechanic by mechanic basis.

Jitters.9401:

Pps. Stealth on steal is broken and has been broken for a long time. So like I said. Only 2 reliable stealth skills.

The mechanic is broken, anyone with a modicum of design sense, heck anyone with a modicum of common sense, can see that.

Conncept.7638:

Jitters.9401:

All you did was read every trait line and pretended a thief had access to all traits at the same time. I have zero movement speed.

Yes I have read every trait line, maybe you should try it sometime and you might actually have something worth contributing instead of proving yourself a fool by denying blatantly obvious fact concerning a subject you “claim” to be an expert on.

Jitters.9401:

You need to l2p and l2read before posting such garbage

You need to learn to spell. And make your own intelligible arguments while you’re at it, as evidenced by your following statements.

Jitters.9401:

Watch this. It is a link to a fight where my group was outnumbered. Near the end when i shadow refuge you will see how much aoe hits us and how big an aoe radius can be. Ps. The voice isn’t mine. My buddy who was on ts.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-e6ixUMCc.

Watch this video. A zerg stops my taking of stone mist. When i shadow refuge you can see how much damage i take. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_poGo6mWygc

Shadow refuge is just a big target sign saying hit here. But it can still be useful.
Cool thing huh? I can refute your false statements with video.

Seriously? So you should be able to fight or escape five times your numbers because of one stealth skill? That is your standard for balanced? Your opinion on balance is null and void after such a statement. And once again, one single skill out of a half dozen that give stealth. No other example of stealth has any such counter, as such you still have failed to provide one single thing that directly counters stealth as a game mechanic.

Jitters.9401:

However, the black powder heart seeker combo should give 4 seconds of stealth then 4 seconds of reveal even if no attack was made. That is the one thing that should be implemented for that one skill. If done right, i can remove all conditions and be full health every time i decide to de stealth and attack.

Once again, poor, misinformed, short sighted game design. Mechanics need clearly designed responses, not individual skills. The game will blow up in to a convoluted mess where victory or defeat is decided by build instead of play if they design counterplay on a skill by skill rather than mechanic by mechanic basis.

Jitters.9401:

Pps. Stealth on steal is broken and has been broken for a long time. So like I said. Only 2 reliable stealth skills.

The mechanic is broken, anyone with a modicum of design sense, heck anyone with a modicum of common sense, can see that.

You pointed out I made a spelling error. You are so funny. I like to be amused by you.
Dhe moment someone points out a pspelling eror it meens that dhey know dhey are wrong and ar trying to reech for ways to discredit someone who is corekt. You must be a politician. Not a good one… but must be.

Sooooo… you said I failed to provide any single thing that counters stealth.
1) AOE. I had an ele firestorm my shadow refuge spot. The crits came close to smooshing me.
2) Fear Necros and the ranger wolf has this.
3) Push/knock back abilities (there are quite a few)
4) Pull abilities (guardians have a real good one that pulls me out of shadow refuge a fair amount of the time.
5) Rangers can spec to reveal
6) Engis can spec to reveal.
Are you sure you play gw2 and are on the correct game forum? Or do I need to spell it out for you… Wait.. I just did.

Now you said
“poor, misinformed, short sighted game design. Mechanics need clearly designed responses, not individual skills”

If you were as smurt as yu tink yu ar, you would realize that sometimes a large issue can be cause by one simple thing. I made a post a moment ago about stealth and how to get rid of many complaints. We have all seen (except you since you don’t actually play gw2) people complain about “that thief” who seems to always be stealthed. It is because of 1 small skill. Not a whole game design failure.

Tell you what. When you decide to actually play the game, I can teach you a few things. Or are you still kitten?

DeceiverX.8361:

DeWolfe.2174:

All the thieves thinking we’re talking about them. Sorry, most of us are talking about Mesmer’s abusing stealth now.

A thief without backstab in many instances completely useless and potentially even less helpful than an uplevel in regards to damage dealt, utility, and possibly even durability.

Totally wrong when it comes to no backstab. They don’t need backstab. Try this (what happens on medium armor)….
Never attack when under the affects of stealth. When it drops, your first 2 auto attacks can give around 4k damage, then a cloak and dagger for up to 5k damage for stealth. Defensive moves till stealth drops. Rinse and repeat. I’ve seen thieves avoid a full havoc while downing people at will.

Woops. I forgot. concept gave these examples for dashes.
“Inflitrators Arrow
Infiltrators Strike
Heartseeker”

Those are not dashes.
Infiltrators arrow… never seen anyone use it as a closer. Not worth wasting a weapon swap, and most thieves I see nowadays do not run shortbow.

Infiltrators strike. It is a teleport of 600 range. So it is situational and not an ability to close long distances like you were implying when yo usaid “dash”.

Heartseeker? hahahahahahahahahahahah 450 range. It barely allows you to pass people running at 33% speed increase. Truth be told. Any actually good thief who sees someone heartseeker spamming and wasting initiative points laughs or says “what an idiot”
I guess I can believe you included heartseeker as a dash. You don’t play gw2 so how would you understand its basic limitations. Only 1 of your examples has half a merit. not a full merit point.

stof.9341:

Minor trait which doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.

C&D is rather situational in it’s unlimited stealth too. Cause it requires you to land a melee attack with a rather long cast time to apply stealth. Block, Blind, Evade, Invulnerability or plain Miss will cause a huge loss of initiative without giving you stealth.

Sorry, my bad I was actually refering to the master in acrobatics as GummiBear pointed out. And that’s still a rather potent trait even if you can guess where the cc hits. Remember you can stunbreak while stealthed to avoid the AoE and even if you eat the dmg as a stealth thief I always take -% dmg while stealthed. That trait is pretty much the most potent directly defensive thing thief has.

Also, are you aware that you can start C&D then either stealth, signet or if you aim good shadowstep to the target to basically instahit them? Most of the time that’s pretty reliable even against guards with all the blocks as they have a hard time timing them.

Also @Jitters: Movement skills are movement skills. Stop being stuck up on dashes now to try and make your argument belivable. I dodged AoEs with heartseeker a few times – 450 range is more than enough. And shortbow is still the #1 subhand in PvP for movement and dodges/ranged pressure.
You seem to be really self-entitled. If you don’t want to join the discussion in a normal manner, showing the respect you want to recieve towards others aswell, please step away and stop posting here. Thank you.

It almost sounds like people are complaining about fighting against stealth off point in PvP or away from things they are capping in WvW. Those points and cap areas severely limit what the thief can do because of the stealth =‘s no capping. Why are people fighting in totally random areas? o.O The point of these modes isn’t to 1v1 or 2v2 or whatever in remote areas.

WvW is also by far the least balanced part of this game and has far more serious balance issues than stealth. I enjoy WvW but I don’t go there for nice even fights. If you want something better balanced, then go to PvP.