Guild Wars 2

TGSlasher.1458:

My problem with stealth is that not all attacks can be used against stealthed foes.

For example, warrior can swing widely or d/d ele can use his auto attacks. But a S/F ele (what I play) has very few skills that can hit a stealthed thief, or pressure him out of refuge. The s/d auto attacks don’t work without a target and the aoes are on high c/d or are lamesauce.

I’m sure there are other classes / setups in the same boat.

The problem I have with what you’re saying here is that you’re taking a fundamental element of PvP’s gameplay and calling it a flaw. The fact that your specific build has a glaring weakness to another specific build is largely how PvP operates and it was the same way in Guild Wars 1, it’s not a flaw or an imbalance, in fact it’s a perfect example of good balance. Every build has distinct flaws, and if there’s one particular build you really hate always owning you before you can get a single hit in, then you’re free to rebuild your character to counter that build.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Oh there are quite a few. Rangers in general have a really hard time with this, due to the fact that pretty much all of our weapons (with the exception of the GS) require a target to be used properly.

I don’t see how that’s the case at all; Barrage for example tears through thieves with a level of effectiveness that’s paralleled by little else. Not only does it give you a huge AoE you can sit in for, what is it, 8 seconds? It also does very good damage and cripples with every hit. It’s rarely worthwhile for a stealthed thief to try and bear the Barrage just to hit you once or twice, especially considering that the weakness of high-DPS thieves is that they are ultra-squishy, and rapid pulses of Crippled negate the ability to use stealth for escape, the very fulcrum of the hit-and-run mechanic.

As with the post above, you might say, “but I don’t use a longbow” — fine, but then your build is going to be weaker against stealthed enemies. If they are a problem to you then modify your build to be more effective against them, that’s really one of the most fundamental aspects of PvP gameplay.

Jzaku.9765:

bhagwad.4281:

I’d just like to point out that we shouldn’t speak of thieves and mesmers in the same breath when it comes to stealth. The latter has one skill that stealths for three seconds and there’s no danger of an attack unlike with a thief. Then there’s mass invis on a 90 second CD.

Thieves on the other hand are what you really have to watch out for. Their attack from stealth is their bread and butter.

How about no? Mesmers are the most disgusting abusers of stealth, at least while a thief is stealthed he is incapable of attacking you as doing so will reveal him, mesmers are perfectly capable of attacking and applying an equal amount of pressure on you as when they’re not in stealth through phantasms. Have fun dealing with 3 iduelists scattered around the area while the mesmer laughs at you vainly trying to find him. It’s misconceptions like this that let the class slide by with it’s op mechanics while other classes get nerfed.

I’m sorry but if you can’t kill one iDuelist or out heal the damage before another one is summoned (base CD is 20s) then you are JUST BAD. That is 60s for three iduelists to come out. If you have not locked the mesmer down by then or dealt with the first one or two phantasms. You have no reason to call anything OP.

jportell.2197:

I’m sorry but if you can’t kill one iDuelist or out heal the damage before another one is summoned (base CD is 20s) then you are JUST BAD. That is 60s for three iduelists to come out. If you have not locked the mesmer down by then or dealt with the first one or two phantasms. You have no reason to call anything OP.

I’m sorry but did you just try saying that exactly what makes phantasm mesmer one of the most op 1v1 spec to exist made even worse by his ability to enter stealth is perfectly balanced? If killing the phantasms isn’t a problem for who is not “JUST BAD” then phantasm mesmer shouldn’t even exist as a spec, no?

Also I wasn’t being particularly precise there, You obviously aren’t JUST dealing with iduelist, there’s also izerker to worry about. Let’s not forget that signet that doubles clone hp, eh? Please don’t try refuting arguments with “you’re a bad player”, thanks.

Jzaku.9765:

jportell.2197:

I’m sorry but if you can’t kill one iDuelist or out heal the damage before another one is summoned (base CD is 20s) then you are JUST BAD. That is 60s for three iduelists to come out. If you have not locked the mesmer down by then or dealt with the first one or two phantasms. You have no reason to call anything OP.

I’m sorry but did you just try saying that exactly what makes phantasm mesmer one of the most op 1v1 spec to exist made even worse by his ability to enter stealth is perfectly balanced? If killing the phantasms isn’t a problem for who is not “JUST BAD” then phantasm mesmer shouldn’t even exist as a spec, no?

Also I wasn’t being particularly precise there, You obviously aren’t JUST dealing with iduelist, there’s also izerker to worry about. Let’s not forget that signet that doubles clone hp, eh? Please don’t try refuting arguments with “you’re a bad player”, thanks.

Oh and btw izerker IS BUGGED… If you look at videos that mesmers have posted there are times when it misses on a stationary (that’s right not moving) target. So that is not really something to worry about. And phantasm mesmer will have a whopping one stealth…. And low armor (most people can burn straight through their 916 toughness)… So once again if you can’t deal with phantasms (just ignore the mesmer in this build the shatter sucks and they won’t do direct damage) then yes you are a bad player. My no damage bunker build an do pretty good against a phantasm mesmer… I dont see why other builds with a little bit of toughness and way more power couldn’t.

kaplis.7195:

Phantaram.1265:

So the complaint about stealth is that you can attack from it?

God have mercy on their souls. Attacking from stealth, treason!

Nice! When, few months ago, That’s So Pish used to instagib one of your teammates from stealth at the beginning of each match it sounded like you guys had a big problem with it.

I still do have a problem with that. Just not the attacking from stealth part. You can stack stealth to about 14 seconds and this makes it unpredictable where and who they will attack even if you see them stealth. So literally the only solid and reliable counter is to do a stealth opening of your own, which we now do. This is really lame having to make nearly every team use a stealth opener. The easy solution is to just reduce the maximum amount of time you can stealth, so if you see them stealth you can either A. know where they are going or B. pull them out of the stealth in a number of ways since they will likely try to stealth closer to their objectives (or have to if they want to remain in stealth till they get there)

Surviving a stealth opener gank from 3 or even 4 people happens all the time now as people have gotten used to it, but it’s still a big advantage to be the stealthing team and not that fun to play around. Moa, and Moa from stealth, is a whole different subject.

Stealth to me is alright, but the attacker should be unstealthed regardless of whether the attack lands IMO. If I time my dodge right, or block and he’s dumb enough to attack, I should be afforded the opportunity to capitalize on it (I still kindof can, but it limits me to targetless skills, and some guesswork).

stealth is fine.
u think not? L2P

shimmerless.4560:

So what’s the problem with Mes stealth then?

I already told you. It’s 2 stealths, on a 30 and 90+ sec cd’s. You can’t just spam it to reset however many times you want, plus be immune to condi specs that are not engineer because every 6 seconds that you are entering stealth and shutting someone’s offensive capabilities down while landing 4-7k crits on them is pretty dumb.

Thief burst is about the only burst attempt where you have to guesstimate and run a gamble to counter. Every other class’s burst in the game is visible, I can interrupt it, and the hard hitter is telegraphed.

Stealth isn’t a problem

Developers moving away from Stealth Classes being slow and methodical like they were in DAOC to the WoW version of a Stealth Class being a High DPS High Mobility Stealther with lots of escapes is the problem.

GW2 just takes it to the next level.

a high dps class with heals with tons of escapes with high mobility and the ability to stealth in combat over and over again. I mean….It should of been obvious what the problem is going to be.

Oh and I know what some people will say “GW2 Thieves can’t sit somewhere along the road stealthed and gank people” Yea they can..

I can easily do it with D/P…..while maintaining 12 stacks of might since i’m perma stealthed, and when someone gets close..I can pop 2 signets and have 22 stacks of might before back stabbing them for almost their entire bar of health.

You’re complaining about stealth in the sPvP forum? Stealth is useless in PvP because we can’t cap a point while in stealth. Therefore we are a liability to our team the second we stealth.

On the other hand, stealth need some fix. My ideas are simple:

• Make any physical attack reveal the thief.
• Apply revealed debuff even if the thief doesn’t attack from stealth.
• Make it impossible for stealth to stack
• Break channeled attacks if the thief stealth and move away from where his enemy where aiming.

There. Pretty much solve most of the problem people whine about regarding stealth. Btw; stealth is so ridiculously easy to counter that it isn’t even funny. Learn the mechanic and enjoy all the free kills you’ll get from hot-joins and WvW.

I love how it’s always thieves who say stealth is so easy to counter. Tell you what, let’s trade. I’ll give you death shroud and 7k more hp and you can give me stealth and teleports and a 4-7k stealth opener and see how well that works for you.

jportell.2197:

Jzaku.9765:

jportell.2197:

I’m sorry but if you can’t kill one iDuelist or out heal the damage before another one is summoned (base CD is 20s) then you are JUST BAD. That is 60s for three iduelists to come out. If you have not locked the mesmer down by then or dealt with the first one or two phantasms. You have no reason to call anything OP.

I’m sorry but did you just try saying that exactly what makes phantasm mesmer one of the most op 1v1 spec to exist made even worse by his ability to enter stealth is perfectly balanced? If killing the phantasms isn’t a problem for who is not “JUST BAD” then phantasm mesmer shouldn’t even exist as a spec, no?

Also I wasn’t being particularly precise there, You obviously aren’t JUST dealing with iduelist, there’s also izerker to worry about. Let’s not forget that signet that doubles clone hp, eh? Please don’t try refuting arguments with “you’re a bad player”, thanks.

Oh and btw izerker IS BUGGED… If you look at videos that mesmers have posted there are times when it misses on a stationary (that’s right not moving) target. So that is not really something to worry about. And phantasm mesmer will have a whopping one stealth…. And low armor (most people can burn straight through their 916 toughness)… So once again if you can’t deal with phantasms (just ignore the mesmer in this build the shatter sucks and they won’t do direct damage) then yes you are a bad player. My no damage bunker build an do pretty good against a phantasm mesmer… I dont see why other builds with a little bit of toughness and way more power couldn’t.

Except it was never broken.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Did-phantasmal-zerker-get-fixed-this-patch/page/10#post2215438

shimmerless.4560:

Zenith.7301:

shimmerless.4560:

So what’s the problem with Mes stealth then?

I already told you. It’s 2 stealths, on a 30 and 90+ sec cd’s. You can’t just spam it to reset however many times you want, plus be immune to condi specs that are not engineer because every 6 seconds that you are entering stealth and shutting someone’s offensive capabilities down while landing 4-7k crits on them is pretty dumb.

Thief burst is about the only burst attempt where you have to guesstimate and run a gamble to counter. Every other class’s burst in the game is visible, I can interrupt it, and the hard hitter is telegraphed.

So am I to get this straight, Mes stealth is terrible except when it’s worth double-slotting on a phant spec for flawless WvW roaming and invincible getaways, even when it’s untraited?

God, some people are obtuse. Some guy was crying about mesmer stealth, then someone responded mesmer stealth was in a couple of long cd utilities and not long/spammable, and then you chimed in with your Chaos traitline objections.

In a team fight it is worthless. Outside 1v1, it is worthless. In any situation, it doesn’t even approach the utility of thief stealth.

Not going to continue playing this gotcha game with you.

Zenith.7301:

In a team fight it is worthless. Outside 1v1, it is worthless. In any situation, it doesn’t even approach the utility of thief stealth.

explain me how is the Thief Stealth better than the Mesmer Stealth in a Team Fight?
I would say that they are both strong in a 1v1 situation, but regarding team fight the Mesmer’s Stealth is much better than Thief ones..

or Are you saying that Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are better than Veil and Mass Invisibility when it comes to Team Fight?
Cos I couldn’t agree less

Phantaram.1265:

kaplis.7195:

Phantaram.1265:

So the complaint about stealth is that you can attack from it?

God have mercy on their souls. Attacking from stealth, treason!

Nice! When, few months ago, That’s So Pish used to instagib one of your teammates from stealth at the beginning of each match it sounded like you guys had a big problem with it.

I still do have a problem with that. Just not the attacking from stealth part. You can stack stealth to about 14 seconds and this makes it unpredictable where and who they will attack even if you see them stealth. So literally the only solid and reliable counter is to do a stealth opening of your own, which we now do. This is really lame having to make nearly every team use a stealth opener. The easy solution is to just reduce the maximum amount of time you can stealth, so if you see them stealth you can either A. know where they are going or B. pull them out of the stealth in a number of ways since they will likely try to stealth closer to their objectives (or have to if they want to remain in stealth till they get there)

Surviving a stealth opener gank from 3 or even 4 people happens all the time now as people have gotten used to it, but it’s still a big advantage to be the stealthing team and not that fun to play around. Moa, and Moa from stealth, is a whole different subject.

That’s the solution we can work from!

shimmerless.4560:

I didn’t “chime in” with Chaos in fact you were the one who originally brought it up on a rant about how it was so awful, all I said was that you could trait for good uptime and suddenly I was put on trial to defend half the Mesmer’s trait options.

To point out that you’re using utils and claiming they’re deadly efficient in one post only to call them useless in the next is not a ‘gotcha’, it’s just pure inconsistency. Either Mes stealth is strong or it’s weak, make your mind up.

shimmerless.4560:

bhagwad.4281:

I’d just like to point out that we shouldn’t speak of thieves and mesmers in the same breath when it comes to stealth. The latter has one skill that stealths for three seconds and there’s no danger of an attack unlike with a thief. Then there’s mass invis on a 90 second CD.

Thieves on the other hand are what you really have to watch out for. Their attack from stealth is their bread and butter.

You can get pretty substantial stealth uptime on a Mes if you trait for it.

Build a grenade engineer. Stealth problem solved.

Ohhh… I see that the stealth class is Overpowered hmmm… maybe i should make a stealth character.. so i can make ppl rage in PvP… oh sorry im new to guild wars… yes im a noob so is Thief the best class for PvP.

Pyriall.5027:

It’s the most absurd mechanic ever introduced into MMO’s and companies continue to make the same mistakes.

Well, how about we talk RPGs?
Do you not feel that Thief/Rogue is a staple RPG class which most fantasy RPGs should offer in one form or another? What would they be without the ability to sneak around (effectively not being noticed, and stealth is just a simplification of the concept)?

Kolly.9872:

or Are you saying that Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are better than Veil and Mass Invisibility when it comes to Team Fight?
Cos I couldn’t agree less

That 2s stealth on Veil is game-breaking for sPvP, I know.
(I know it’s strong in WvW, but let’s be honest here: A lot of things need change in WvW, while being ~useless in the rest of the game. Veil is one of them.)

Carighan.6758:

Pyriall.5027:

It’s the most absurd mechanic ever introduced into MMO’s and companies continue to make the same mistakes.

Well, how about we talk RPGs?
Do you not feel that Thief/Rogue is a staple RPG class which most fantasy RPGs should offer in one form or another? What would they be without the ability to sneak around (effectively not being noticed, and stealth is just a simplification of the concept)?

Kolly.9872:

or Are you saying that Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are better than Veil and Mass Invisibility when it comes to Team Fight?
Cos I couldn’t agree less

That 2s stealth on Veil is game-breaking for sPvP, I know.
(I know it’s strong in WvW, but let’s be honest here: A lot of things need change in WvW, while being ~useless in the rest of the game. Veil is one of them.)

There are ways to maintain the feel of a thief without making it so blatantly broken. I mean even WoW had a better version until they made it fool proof. At least give people a way to see players in stealth or break people out of stealth. You shouldn’t be able to just pop stealth and stand right in front of someone. If you want to be sneaky, add an element of skill to that style of game play.

Guaranteeing stealth and openers is absurd. Misses from dodges, evades, or blocks should reveal the thief. What are you rewarded for by timing a dodge on their opener? That’s right…nothing but eating the opener anyways. There are so many things wrong with the thief profession in general with this game. Are they all OP? No, but they are sure frustrating to play against.

Pyriall.5027:

Carighan.6758:

Pyriall.5027:

It’s the most absurd mechanic ever introduced into MMO’s and companies continue to make the same mistakes.

Well, how about we talk RPGs?
Do you not feel that Thief/Rogue is a staple RPG class which most fantasy RPGs should offer in one form or another? What would they be without the ability to sneak around (effectively not being noticed, and stealth is just a simplification of the concept)?

Kolly.9872:

or Are you saying that Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are better than Veil and Mass Invisibility when it comes to Team Fight?
Cos I couldn’t agree less

That 2s stealth on Veil is game-breaking for sPvP, I know.
(I know it’s strong in WvW, but let’s be honest here: A lot of things need change in WvW, while being ~useless in the rest of the game. Veil is one of them.)

There are ways to maintain the feel of a thief without making it so blatantly broken. I mean even WoW had a better version until they made it fool proof. At least give people a way to see players in stealth or break people out of stealth. You shouldn’t be able to just pop stealth and stand right in front of someone. If you want to be sneaky, add an element of skill to that style of game play.

Guaranteeing stealth and openers is absurd. Misses from dodges, evades, or blocks should reveal the thief. What are you rewarded for by timing a dodge on their opener? That’s right…nothing but eating the opener anyways. There are so many things wrong with the thief profession in general with this game. Are they all OP? No, but they are sure frustrating to play against.

So you’re telling me that if my health is low, i can disappear like a magician troll noob and strike from the behind

Skaterologist.2041:

Pyriall.5027:

Carighan.6758:

Pyriall.5027:

It’s the most absurd mechanic ever introduced into MMO’s and companies continue to make the same mistakes.

Well, how about we talk RPGs?
Do you not feel that Thief/Rogue is a staple RPG class which most fantasy RPGs should offer in one form or another? What would they be without the ability to sneak around (effectively not being noticed, and stealth is just a simplification of the concept)?

Kolly.9872:

or Are you saying that Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder are better than Veil and Mass Invisibility when it comes to Team Fight?
Cos I couldn’t agree less

That 2s stealth on Veil is game-breaking for sPvP, I know.
(I know it’s strong in WvW, but let’s be honest here: A lot of things need change in WvW, while being ~useless in the rest of the game. Veil is one of them.)

There are ways to maintain the feel of a thief without making it so blatantly broken. I mean even WoW had a better version until they made it fool proof. At least give people a way to see players in stealth or break people out of stealth. You shouldn’t be able to just pop stealth and stand right in front of someone. If you want to be sneaky, add an element of skill to that style of game play.

Guaranteeing stealth and openers is absurd. Misses from dodges, evades, or blocks should reveal the thief. What are you rewarded for by timing a dodge on their opener? That’s right…nothing but eating the opener anyways. There are so many things wrong with the thief profession in general with this game. Are they all OP? No, but they are sure frustrating to play against.

So you’re telling me that if my health is low, i can disappear like a magician troll noob and strike from the behind

I’m telling you that thieves in this game equal spamming attacks blindly in the air hoping to hit what you cannot see or what is evading you at least 50% of the time. I really enjoy fighting against things I cannot see…it reminds me of RIFT where there was a rendering issue with characters in large scale pvp and all you could do was just spam whatever aoe you had in hopes of hitting something (sure was fun).

Zenith.7301:

I love how it’s always thieves who say stealth is so easy to counter. Tell you what, let’s trade. I’ll give you death shroud and 7k more hp and you can give me stealth and teleports and a 4-7k stealth opener and see how well that works for you.

And we say it because it’s true. Just go and make a thief and see how easy thief is…. I destroy thieves on all my other professions. It rarely happens that a stealth thief beats me, because I know what he’s going to do when he enter stealth – and I anticipate his moves and destroy him.

So go on. Make me a video where you show us how awesome you are on a thief, since it’s obviously so easy to play.

Geiir.7603:

Zenith.7301:

I love how it’s always thieves who say stealth is so easy to counter. Tell you what, let’s trade. I’ll give you death shroud and 7k more hp and you can give me stealth and teleports and a 4-7k stealth opener and see how well that works for you.

And we say it because it’s true. Just go and make a thief and see how easy thief is…. I destroy thieves on all my other professions. It rarely happens that a stealth thief beats me, because I know what he’s going to do when he enter stealth – and I anticipate his moves and destroy him.

So go on. Make me a video where you show us how awesome you are on a thief, since it’s obviously so easy to play.

Why don’t you volunteer us a video of you doing what you said as well?

Geiir.7603:

Zenith.7301:

I love how it’s always thieves who say stealth is so easy to counter. Tell you what, let’s trade. I’ll give you death shroud and 7k more hp and you can give me stealth and teleports and a 4-7k stealth opener and see how well that works for you.

And we say it because it’s true. Just go and make a thief and see how easy thief is…. I destroy thieves on all my other professions. It rarely happens that a stealth thief beats me, because I know what he’s going to do when he enter stealth – and I anticipate his moves and destroy him.

So go on. Make me a video where you show us how awesome you are on a thief, since it’s obviously so easy to play.

I have a thief, don’t try this crap on me.

Whenever I want easy, risk free kills, I go roam in WvW with mine.

Zenith.7301:

Geiir.7603:

Zenith.7301:

I love how it’s always thieves who say stealth is so easy to counter. Tell you what, let’s trade. I’ll give you death shroud and 7k more hp and you can give me stealth and teleports and a 4-7k stealth opener and see how well that works for you.

And we say it because it’s true. Just go and make a thief and see how easy thief is…. I destroy thieves on all my other professions. It rarely happens that a stealth thief beats me, because I know what he’s going to do when he enter stealth – and I anticipate his moves and destroy him.

So go on. Make me a video where you show us how awesome you are on a thief, since it’s obviously so easy to play.

I have a thief, don’t try this crap on me.

Whenever I want easy, risk free kills, I go roam in WvW with mine.

And do what? Kill up leveled and under geared players? I agree that stealth in its current state is cheesy and it’s way too easy to just run away with it. I have countless times (even in this thread) given my ideas on how to improve stealth to make it more fair and logical. Just read a bit back and you’ll find it.

Pyriall: I could do that, so I’ll do it as soon as I get my computer upgraded (which is pretty soon). I’ve considered making a YouTube series of how to counter thieves. Have been discussing it with my guild and we are probably going to do it. So no problem. I’ll show you how easy it is to anticipate a thiefs more net in stealth and how weak it is (unless you’re fighting a good thief).

Thief should be punished by missing attacks during stealth because it is way too accessible in this game.