Guild Wars 2

So.. yeah. Whatever lol. People are gonna get mad at what I have to say. But clearly there is a balance issue when thieves and almost mesmers can invis whenever they dont want to die. They also have some of the best dodge traits in the game as well.

So.. Whats the counter to perma stealth? How do u fight that? Even, or even especially, in WvW they are just too safe. How is the “squishiest” class in the game THE safest class to play. Like.. I dont know. There’s no sense of risk while there are no counters that i can see. Aoe? Nah. They just shadowstep out of that crap. Or dodge. Hurt too much? Go invis and heal and go right back.

I was in a WvW and this dude was vs like 6 of us. Whenever he went invis we just stood there like “durr.. welp. Good for him.” I don’t know of any hard counters since im relatively new. Maybe somebody can enlighten me since im such a noob scrub.

Stealth wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the targeting system wasn’t so awful in this game. I do feel your frustration; I don’t think stealth should have been included to the degree that it is, or even at all for that matter.

Without reliable CC in your build, you’re not going to do much against stealth spam. I don’t WvW a lot, but from what I understand those characters do not do quite as much damage and pretty much stealth all the time to annoy i.e. griefing 6 people.

@OP.

First you can’t really compare PvP and WvW. Since this is a PvP forum, I’ll comment on that. Stealth isn’t really a problem in PvP. Sure it can be used to run away, but who cares? That means if you are holding into a node or trying to capture a node, you will win. That’s a good thing.

If you want to complain about thieves, complain about S/D. That’s the total OP spec at the moment. There is very little stealth there.

> That’s the total OP spec at the moment.
Typical l2p issue.

6 of you and you cant kill a thief ? there are many ways to deal with shadow reff
1 memser gw can push him or focuse can pull him
2 war can fear him or sinly dem in the shadow reff
3 rangars wolf can fear
and so on and so on if 6 of you cant deal with a thief then its realy a l2p issue

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Area_of_effect

It doesn’t matter if they hide, if you are hitting everywhere.

aleks.5473:

6 of you and you cant kill a thief ? there are many ways to deal with shadow reff
1 memser gw can push him or focuse can pull him
2 war can fear him or sinly dem in the shadow reff
3 rangars wolf can fear
and so on and so on if 6 of you cant deal with a thief then its realy a l2p issue

That’s not what he asked. He asked if stealth had a counter, the answer is no it doesn’t.

In WvW you can get an anti stealth trap or something but in purely class terms, there is no counter.

doesnt matter if you hit everywhere if they can dodge 9 times in a row

you know the person who came up with the idea of current stealth is an immature when it comes to inventing a new mechanic. You don’t build something that has no counters and no, spamming aoe isn’t one…

wen the thief is stelted there is no counter tho wen he use shadow reff you can move him away from it .Any thin othjer then shadow reff is for 2-3 sec top so i realy dont see the problem you cant count 1,2 and the dodge
wen thif uses black powder then simply expekt a stealt you can push him fear so on l2p problem

Ill start by simply posting the link to a video that completely changed my playstyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq8BJrmrUaU —--how to counter theives tutorial:)

Your interrupts and daze will stop a theif or any class from being able to use their skills for a second or two, since there were 6 of you that was the first mistake you all failed to do a theif cant stealth when they are dazed. Furthermore if they are stunned while dazed they are squishy enough that it would be enough to kill them right there. In a 1 vs 1 you will find perma stealth not very difficult just more or less time consuming.

My advice on stealth especially theives and mesmers (as other classes can stealth) starts by having invulnerable skills,interruptions, daze, stun as well as the use of maximizing healing and leaps in your build, utilities and traits. Ill explain in more detail. All class builds exception of mesmer and theif should have these equipped into their build,traits,utilities otherwise goodluck to you. to Your leaps are to create seperation ex: ranger-swoop,engineer-rocketboots,elementalist(ridethelightning if d/d). What occurs as a result is that the theif now has to use initiative to catch up to you and thus cannot immediately utilize their dps rotation, giving you enough time to heal up this works essentially well on my shout ranger. In fact, you might be called a runner for doing this, but if you do not utilize your leaps to create distance you pretty much become a punching bag besides if a thief can teleport, stealth and a mesmer can create 3 clones includin hard hitting phantasms then do not feel guilty using your leaps as temporary escape skills to avoid damage and get your heals in. Keep in mind that all theives and mesmers no matter their weapon set has a predictable pattern to them for example a dagger/pistol theif would use blackpowder, heartseeker before going for a backstab. A blackpowder is a smoke field and heartseeker is a leap finisher this grants them stealth. The tradeoff is their initiative will pretty much run out at this point, your leap works as the perfect counter due to the space it creates not allowing the theif to land the hit right of the stealth. Same thing applies to a mesmer, I believe every 7seconds you should seek to create space to avoid being hit by phantasms especially the notoriously annoying phantasmal berserker. A theif with maximum dps should be able to kitten a full cleric bunker to death, they would often start with steal while dazing as soon as you can select a skill again your leaps work as a counter or any invulnerable skill ex:ranger-protect me,engineer-magnetic sheild(if using sheild). Some general tips: 1. first of all everytime a theif goes into stealth create space and get ready to dodge roll to avoid backstab because everytime a theif is in stealth they have access to that skill. 2. Secondly do not let the theif land 3 auto attacks on you otherwise again you will be backstabbed. 3. until you get use to fighting theives and mesmers i highly suggest power toughness vitality or clerics power toughness healing power, the toughness will allow you to take enough hits that you can spare to make mistakes. Healing power I find especially useful for anyone who hates to die I can usually leap and recover full health utilizing waterfields/blastfinishers or regen abilities before the theif even gets another hit. 4. When it comes to mesmer any shatter spec will destroy you no matter how much toughness you have so leaps and popping invulnerable skills as soon as you see the shatters coming or right after you are hit with blurred frenzy. 5. As I mentioned before create space every 7seconds if you do not have the dps to kill a phantasms quickly. Im pretty sure I even went off topic from your original question but I hope this was informative, if not just watch the video lol

How to counter the most overpowered gimmicks in this game?

With mindless spam. In this specific case, aoe spam.

But attention: if your opponent is good at playing a thief, they’ll dodge away to somewhere safe and then burst you down once your skills are under cooldown. You can always do nothing, if you want, and wait until they take over half of your HP again before you can even see them again.

Well I definitely disagree, your method is exactly what your not suppose to do-.- In fact you will probably be dead by then if not comes the heartseekers then you die…

Stealth in this game is like perma shadow form as assassin in gw1 before nerf and that took them YEARS to nerf. So expect stealth cheese until at least 2015

MithranArkanere.8957:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Area_of_effect

It doesn’t matter if they hide, if you are hitting everywhere.

Movement speed. Roll for initiative.

Really, it’s as if these counters are being proposed by either people that don’t play thief, or by people that do play thief and don’t want to get nerfed.

no, there is no counter. anyone who says otherwise is deluded.

Yeah there is no counter with stealth. If they want to keep it, I would suggest make it more apparent that you are hitting someone in stealth AKA show the dmg you do if you actually hit them like the damage pop ups you get normally. Also, revealed should work for all skills—I’m looking at you shortbow 4 and caltrops.

milo.6942:

no, there is no counter. anyone who says otherwise is deluded.

or knows how to play. Either one.

style.6173:

milo.6942:

no, there is no counter. anyone who says otherwise is deluded.

or knows how to play. Either one.

objectively, there is no downside to stealth. none.
there is no real counterplay. none.

there are only ways to cope.

This is sPvP we are talking about. The counter is just to stand in the capture zone and cap it since invisible players do not count.

stof.9341:

This is sPvP we are talking about. The counter is just to stand in the capture zone and cap it since invisible players do not count.

The OP is posting about WvW and is asking the sPvP forums if we have a way of dealing with it. There is no way to deal with it fighting-wise, that is the response. We aren’t talking about the game mode.

Stealth is one of the two primary thief survival mechanisms, the other being evasion (either direct or via shadowstepping). Aside from these, they have very little survivability, so it is the moments between these that must be capitalized upon. Watch for the shadowsteps, and immobilize when it seems they can’t get away. Save your stuns for when they are about to stealth away (typically at around 50% health), and burst them down when you KNOW they’re gonna be locked down.

There isn’t a hard counter to stealth, but as I said, it’s a thief survival mechanism. Guardians have regen/aegis/protection, mesmers have clones and teleports, rangers have high health regen and evasion, and thieves get stealth. The only thing you can do is either interrupt, or cope, just like anything else.

For starters it appears that invisibility has no counters. But just to reply to some of the other comments…

style.6173:

@OP.

First you can’t really compare PvP and WvW. Since this is a PvP forum, I’ll comment on that. Stealth isn’t really a problem in PvP. Sure it can be used to run away, but who cares? That means if you are holding into a node or trying to capture a node, you will win. That’s a good thing.

If you want to complain about thieves, complain about S/D. That’s the total OP spec at the moment. There is very little stealth there.

comparing to

FirstInfantry.2795:

Ill start by simply posting the link to a video that completely changed my playstyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq8BJrmrUaU —--how to counter theives tutorial:)

Your interrupts and daze will stop a theif or any class from being able to use their skills for a second or two, since there were 6 of you that was the first mistake you all failed to do a theif cant stealth when they are dazed. Furthermore if they are stunned while dazed they are squishy enough that it would be enough to kill them right there. In a 1 vs 1 you will find perma stealth not very difficult just more or less time consuming.

My advice on stealth especially theives and mesmers (as other classes can stealth) starts by having invulnerable skills,interruptions, daze, stun as well as the use of maximizing healing and leaps in your build, utilities and traits. Ill explain in more detail. All class builds exception of mesmer and theif should have these equipped into their build,traits,utilities otherwise goodluck to you. to Your leaps are to create seperation…

So.. Are you running away from thieves or are you standing your ground? If you are standing your ground.. in some peoples view is an easier target like a “punching bag” as somebody put it. But Style is saying that standing your ground will cause them to run away. Even if in tpvp this almost makes sense to a degree since they cant capture while stealth (but somehow may stomp while stealth durr) just saying it and looking at what you are saying doesn’t. Thieves are essentially the opportunist class, biding time to strike at the best time and deal loads of burst to a single enemy. So what you are saying is that thieves cant kill people and instead run away or stealth.

My point is that this is just not true. Stealth is not just useful for running away as i explained in my OP. They may heal, regain initiative, re-position themselves which happens to matter to thieves, OR run away. They usually stay and fight in my experience unless completely outnumbered and even then they don’t have to. Why run when nobody can see you?

I will agree, as would anyone, that spvp thieves are not as compromising as wvw. But that doesn’t mean that invisibility at the rate is is given to thieves is unfair and unchallenged. If you have to Daze and kill them within a window of 3 seconds then good luck. If daze and stun where handed out to professions just as generously as invisibility is to thieves then yeah np. But it’s not.

So overall, in the comparison I agree to a fundamental degree and disagree to the sorta big-picture.

Stealth is one of the two primary thief survival mechanisms, the other being evasion (either direct or via shadowstepping). Aside from these, they have very little survivability, so it is the moments between these that must be capitalized upon. Watch for the shadowsteps, and immobilize when it seems they can’t get away. Save your stuns for when they are about to stealth away (typically at around 50% health), and burst them down when you KNOW they’re gonna be locked down.

The thing I am aggravated with is that thieves should not have this sorta epic volume of survival tools to the point where there is almost no real threat to their playstyle. They can easily go in and out (if you cant kill them in within a window of 3 seconds meaning you also should be stunning / dazing them as they are right next to you else your wasting 1-2 seconds closing the gap) and be unafraid of being killed.

Warriors have high threat to their gameplay. Probably THE central example of high risk high reward (only there is no high reward since warriors are not very good). They go in at a critical moment and either win big or die. So.. essentially.. Thieves are just 1000000x better than warriors because they don’t even have to take damage.

And I’m really disliking the whole “well if it isnt for this classes permanent state of invulnerability that can never be removed… they have very little survivability.” Duh. And even while other classes may have high regen or high armor or may block in incoming attack… you can still see them. You can still target them and continue to do things to them. Invisibility is almost better than invulnerability imo. Just sayin.

Invisibility is not invulnerability. Just… no. I’ve fought, and downed, enough stealthed thieves in sPvP to know that. If you pack AoE, stuns, and immobilizes, or any combination of those, you can learn how to fight them. It takes time, and patience, but it can be done, and eventually with relative ease, at least with thieves that have stealth up constantly. I’ll admit, really aggressive D/P thieves get me, but that’s mostly because I’m a warrior, and that blind spam just wrecks me, not because I don’t see them coming.

I’ve played a significant amount of both structured PvP and WvW and I will agree with most people here that thieves are relatively balanced on the conquest format mostly because their kits dont do much to assist the team outside of instagibbing squishies. They cannot hold their own 1v1 in most cases and is nearly impossible for them to keep a point under their control/neutral under pressure.

With that said WvW is a whole nother story. With the only route to gain points for your realm coming from towers/keeps/SM which are all but impossible for people to solo, small skirmishes break out all the time between people who are simply walking to their commander or getting supply.

Normally, these skirmishes are the things I look for because of the variety of builds I encounter, and it gives me a heap of nostalgia going back to the WoW days and playing on pvp servers and having fights in STV. BUT, these thieves really really ruin it for me.

I dont care so much about losing to a thief, but I do mind the fact that every fight I nearly win the thief simply disengages heartseakers through some smokefield/pops shadow refuge to barely survive. Then comes back 3minutes later after stalking me only to bother me again.

To say it’s irritating is putting it lightly. And I wholeheartedly feel what the OP is feeling. I dont have any balance suggestions to stop that from happening, mostly because the players that use stealth builds also sacrifice their damage which is fair. But that doesnt make it less frustrating to deal with in WvW.

thieves need buffs in tPvP not nerf.
They can be annoying in the right hands of course, but they cannot hold or defend a point, and since the game is won by holding points they need buffs.
they don’t provide much support to the team, if not for some blind stomping and some daze to prevent stomp, and even in this case against every good team running almost perma stability they are useless.
They can harrass sure, but they usually don’t have the dps needed for Killing many of the fotm builds in a 1v1 situation. Heck even on my warrior I can easily kill Spirit Rangers, Necro and HgH engi, I have serious issues on my thief
their main source of survivability comes from evasion not stealth, and even in that case they are terribly weak to condition dmg.
If they hide for survive, they are not providing any support to their team, they don’t dps, they don’t contest points.
if they stay outside of stealth, or they evade or they are dead.
They lack stability skills, protection, invulnerability like every other class has instead
Their only stun comes from an elite skill, while every other class can use stability, protection and stuns with weapon skills.
Seriously, stealth is so underpowered right now in tPvP and since this is the pvp forum and not WvW I think it should be buffed in someway and not nerfed
Realy I main a thief and a Warrior and I feel more usefull to my team on my warrior.

EDIT:
and about WvW
if you realy cannot kill a thieves 6v1, well it’s a l2p issue.
every daze, stun, interrupt can easily kill a thief. If you are 6 men, do not try to dps all together or the thief will troll you forever. Try instead to interrupt him with 3 of you while the other 3 keep on dpssing him.
Come on I have never lost on a thief in a 2v1 situation even, in a 6v1 situation I usually don’t fight at all cos it’s too easy

I like the stealth in this game. If you noticed a lot of thing in GW2 does NOT have a hard counter and that’s a GOOD thing.

In GW1 everything is overpowered, and you have to have a hard counter in order to balance them out. This makes the game very rock paper scissor-ish. It doesn’t matter if you’re good, if you don’t have counter you’re screwed.

Eg. Bond Monk vs. Mesmer, you already lost. Which was why people rage quitted as there is no point in even fighting a decided battle.

A lot of things in this game has soft counter. Stealth, time your dodges, keep running, keep swinging around, use AoE, use CC <— These are all valid counters that will get the thieves. And you do NOT need a special build for this!

Similarly Warrior has insane regeneration. In GW1 this would be the equivalent to mending/healing breeze warrior, which sucked because there’re hard counters everywhere. In this game you have soft counter, eg. blind etc. It doesn’t destroy their healing signet, but it does counter the overall build.

Back to the current meta however, condition stinks, because there’re few soft counters. You either trait/build against them, or you’re dead. Conditions would be so much more acceptable if they were toned down and given multiple options to remove them that merely requires you to play smartly as opposed to specifically building against them. Eg. if you’re immobilized, you can free yourself with dodges etc. (which means you have to save your dodges, but it won’t kill you if you don’t bring condi removal) I’d also like it better if condition requires some play/skill to remove and apply instead of the current, press button to spread and trait to remove which requires very little skill or user involvement.

Traits/builds should give you a small Advantage and NOT outright win the battle. That should be saved for your skill as a gamer, strategy and speed of execution. Can you imagine a SFIV game where if you’re Akuma, you’d be squarely one shotted by Gouken, and if you’re Gouken, you’d be one shotted by Bison – that’s what rock paper scissor is and it’s just madness! Bring back some sanity and skill to this game.