Guild Wars 2

Is it intended for thieves to be able to attack/stomp while invisible? I’ve read that it’s a bug, but have never seen any official acknowledgement as such, and the game has been out for months… so I am lead to believe it is intended.

It’s not lag related, as the packets are arriving just fine to inform me my health is dropping by an invisible source, haha. And I dont think it is an issue with my computer’s performance, as it runs constant 40-60 fps and 8GB of RAM…, so again I feel that it’s an intended mechanic.

So, how do you deal with it? If I 1v1 against a thief, I can only target them for about 10 seconds out of a 45 second fight, even the finishing stomp just happens from the magical land of invisibility.

even auto attacks track stealth, its really not that hard… stealth stomp is legit, you should , we would trade it for stability stomp anyday

What do you mean by “track”? I know that melee hits can still hit stealthed targets, but you wouldn’t know (unless you landed an immobilize before the stealth). Channeled abilities “track” stealthed targets… for the 2 seconds or so the channel lasts.

Generally though, once a thief stealths, there’s about 4-5 seconds of nothing happening (just me swinging at the air), then another 3-4 seconds of me losing health from a nontargetable source. I might see their targetable model for a second or two before they teleport or use another stealth.

I don’t entirely understand what’s a bug with stealth and what’s intended myself, I don’t play a thief in pvp so my understanding of it pretty much ends with how I deal with it…

pretty much you need a good amount of CC and a good burst (enough to take them down in however long you can stun/knockdown them for). If not you need a way to mitigate the damage until they’ve used up their stealth and their initiative is low. Either that or a mixture of the two (which is probably what you’re going to need to do since stun→burst is only going to work if they suck). Expect to do much swinging at the air and such as well.

Only build I’ve had success against them with is my sword+shield/hammer (I play a warrior btw), everything else has pretty much failed miserably.

but yeah, thieves are overpowered, maybe someday it’ll get fixed but I’m not exactly holding my breath. It’s pretty much gone thief→mesmer→wars/guards→everybody else 1vs1 wise as long as I’ve been playing.

First of all, are you guys talking about s/tPvP or WvW? Because the issue of culling doesn’t exist in s/tPvP, it only exists in WvW. Anet have already said that they are working hard to fix cullling but it’s a vast underlying problem with the mechanics of bandwidth usage in WvW.

As for Thieves being OP, Jonwar, that’s not even slightly correct.

Watch your own animations if your 1 attack on that weapon has a chain, it’ll go through the chain normally if you’re landing hits. Squirm and move around a lot and make your back a hard target to backstab.

so being able to basically permanently stealth (for far longer than it takes for a thief to take down an opponent) isn’t overpowered? My main annoyance with it really is the fact that in the end they’ll simply stealth and run away if losing, otherwise it’s not as bad as people make it out to be… if I have to fight a thief once I usually win, if I have to fight them ten times one of those times I’m going to make a mistake.

now I don’t think thieves are indestructible like some, but one must admit that the stealth mechanic is a little ridiculous… the basic problem is simply it’s far to easy to play a thief, where as the counters all rely heavily on luck, and the thief being of low skill level. Honestly, you’re invisible and have one of the best bursts in the game, if you can’t win there’s something wrong with you… I don’t think thieves need a heavy nerf, but more a slight adjustment to the stealth mechanic… perhaps a cooldown equal to 1.5-2x the length of stealth? Or a reveal on hit perhaps?

Stealth already has a 3 second cooldown called revealed which makes them immune to stealth for 3 seconds when they end stealth early.

Incurafy: I’m mainly talking about sPvP.

It seems that all the posts about stealth (mainly in regards to thieves) are polarized between, “wow I can’t ever see what’s hitting me” and “learn to play, you’re terrible, there’s no problem, working as intended, deal with it”. This makes me think that there’s a disconnect between the two viewpoints, like the percentage of people saying there isn’t a problem, perhaps their game renders the targetable enemy once they exit stealth.

Dual.8953:

Stealth already has a 3 second cooldown called revealed which makes them immune to stealth for 3 seconds when they end stealth early.

I’m aware of this bit, but to me at least it’s a bit off since if they don’t end it early they can just restealth, and restealth until they’ve got an opportunity no? And 3 seconds is kindof weak considering all the skills I can use to 1) close the gap to where ever they’re at and 2) prevent them from stealthing again have much longer cooldowns. So effectively I’ve got 2 shots maximum to end the fight (more likely 1) while the thief has many.

Not to mention all the ways to stop the thief from stealthing again have hard counters. Maybe dagger 5 is the issue here? I might have less of a problem if all the skills had a cooldown, but one that’s initiative based seems off.

vorpal.1497:

Incurafy: I’m mainly talking about sPvP.

It seems that all the posts about stealth (mainly in regards to thieves) are polarized between, “wow I can’t ever see what’s hitting me” and “learn to play, you’re terrible, there’s no problem, working as intended, deal with it”. This makes me think that there’s a disconnect between the two viewpoints, like the percentage of people saying there isn’t a problem, perhaps their game renders the targetable enemy once they exit stealth.

There IS a problem, even in sPvP. I’m not sure whats wrong, but when a Thief hits a target while in stealth, and the attack connects and deals damage, the Thief is removed from stealth. The Thief is seen on the Thief’s screen, but not yours, at least for another 1-2 seconds. By that time, the revealed debuff is almost over (it lasts 3 seconds) and the Thief can stealth again. Its a major problem in WvW, and will ocasionally happen in sPvP.

However, Stealth stomp is perfectly legit. Its the same thing (except not as good) as blindness stomping or stability stomping.

my suggestion is to use a grund AoE or some kind of CC. Knockdowns absolutly destroy these kinds of thieves. and if you get some kind of dot on them you can see it ticking while they are in stealth