Guild Wars 2

I do not play thief first off. However, I have noticed that my “Volley” skills follows thieves if they go stealth. Damaging them while they are invisible.

There are several other skills that do this as well. It almost seems as if it’s intentional.

What is the point of stealth then?

Any channel based skill that starts hitting a thief before they stealth will keep hitting them since stealth doesn’t break the skills’ target. If it did a thief would be able to put any given channel skill on cool down on a whim due to them canceling with change/loss of target. The main point of stealth is to break off from your enemy re-position and strike when it’s more optimal.

Plus if traited thieves get a number of bonuses for being in stealth from dot removal and healing to initiative regen, their main cd for their weapon skills. It also opens up new affects for their auto attack, stun of sword, or immobile on short bow.

Hope that helps.

Sounds kind of unfair that there actually is some way to hit thief.

I doubt this was ever an intentional design-decision.

But it’s how abilities work. Once the target is acquired even stealth wont stop it from firing and hitting.

It’s most noticeable on Volley since it’s the longest channeling ability I know. But too be honest, I think it’s kind of kittenty. I think ANet would change it if it was easy to fix because it’s completely counter-intuitive.

Counter-intuitive like when I nuke the area a burglar is hiding in for half their life they don’t so much as yelp?

Consider it a trivial price to pay for stealth that isn’t broken by damage.

if you have thief targeted. and they stealth. you will lose target. UNLESS you are already channeling.

If you drop a ranger barrage say, or Necromancer mark. on thief. stealth or not they WILL get hit.

Stealth is a mechanic for the thief to be able to move around and yes they have many skills that are based off of “while in stealth” namely “cloak and dagger” with backstab.

The problem came around in WvW and PvP when there was “perma stealth” builds. basically trolling everyone, nevermind they hit like wet noodles. A properly traited and geared thief will do insane damage. but they will not be able to stealth “permenantly” which for most thieves. is perfectly fine. its an added mechanic and step is all. However, a Damage build thief is insanely squishy. Stealth is more of a “ohh kitten” button to bail from fight. and reset.

I get what you guys are saying about “you gotta hit a thief somehow” yadda yadda, but hitting someone while they’re invisible just doesn’t sound right.

Perhaps, it’s just because I’m a warrior and have no trouble with thieves 95% of the time. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

It’s not that people are saying you have to hit the thief some how, it’s that stealth doesn’t actually protect the character. All it does is break the players’ LoS making it harder to connect skills. In pve it used to break aggro but they nerfed that because it was used to skip too much content. But it has never been something that acts like aegis for a thief.

Junkpile.7439:

Sounds kind of unfair that there actually is some way to hit thief.

Haha, that was good. And a fair point.

It’s a problem with channeled skills. I notice on my ele that if I’m channeling my 1 air skill and the target dies I keep attacking until the cycle is over. Someone just need to add code saying if you loose your target your channel is interrupted. I don’t know all the ways to loose a target but death and stealth should definitely be on the list.

All channel skills use Asuran heat-seeking technology…did you not know this? It’s common knowledge to the denizens of Tyria.

I can understand aoes hitting a stealthed target or even random swinging hitting a stealthed target but channeled skills that would require a visual connect to continue hitting something that you can’t see just doesn’t make sense at all. I’m not saying buff thieves…but it’s undeniable that this mechanic is unnatural.

Thief can’t use dodge while they are in stealth?

I noticed in sPvP that people who “knew” they could still target you, and by target I mean even use ranged attacks to hit you, if these people continued to attack you, even multiple attacks over the entire duration of your stealth, that you’d continue to take damage.

Is it a bug? Exploit? Hack? Who knows, but it does happen.