Guild Wars 2

So now that quickness is a boon and we have slow and resistance, what about stealth and revealed?

With mesmer now having access to the huge stealth uptime from the new pu and with thieves being able to tap into shadow arts more, how about allowing for some counterplay? Necros can certainly use the help. Would also make more sense than giving access to revealed to engis, who already do very well against thieves.

It also would not be a one-way street and potentially allow for very interesting gameplay: guardians would actually be able to apply stealth in some situations by transforming revealed (to some extent also engis with transmute-rng or anyone using lyssa). This would be limited enough though, since you have to be revealed in the first place.

Yeah but with 100% boon duration CnD would stealth for 8 seconds and Decoy 12 (assuming proper traits). Do you really want that? I sure don’t.

It’d also give certain classes a massive advantage over stealth, while other people who can’t boon strip as easily will have a much harder time.

I like the idea but it’s really hard to balance (although stealth isn’t balanced anyway) since you can do things like stack boon duration, boon share to get massive amounts of stealth, and lots of other abusable tricks (8 second veil in WvW?)

Hmm, if Stealth we a boon, and Reveal were a condition, that would mean that thieves could have stacks of Stealth, but remain visible because of Reveal. That means that an invisible thief could steal a visible thief’s Stealth, remaining invisible indefinitely! :-D

Of course, with the new Flanking Strike trait, a simple attack from behind may be able to remove Revealed, giving a thief an instant Backstab opportunity! :-D

Sunflowers.1729:

Yeah but with 100% boon duration CnD would stealth for 8 seconds and Decoy 12 (assuming proper traits). Do you really want that? I sure don’t.

Make stealth stack intensity and make the mechanic take off a stack every second. This would make it unaffected by boon duration, and have a nice side effect of making the stack count a timer so you can see exactly how many seconds of stealth you have.

Stealth increased by boon duration? Lol… Yeah, I’ll just lie down and stab myself repeatedly so I can respawn and run somewhere else, its faster for everyone.

I would approve of stealth being removed by boonstripping though.

Mind Stab dem Refuges mwahahaahaahaaa. Still not a good idea.

I like this idea. It opens up more counter play to stealth AND reveal.

Coulter.2315:

Mind Stab dem Refuges mwahahaahaahaaa. Still not a good idea.

Would still not be a hard counter: removing stealth would not apply revealed per se, so the thief would go to stealth agaib with the next pulse from the refuge.

I still think this idea might be very nice for the game play. Boon duration increases are now actually very limited in spvp, so I don’t think this alone would lead to broken stealth durations here. More than anything, it would be a buff to necros: axe 3 would now have an additional purpose as a counter-stealth weapon, for condition builds there is the traited sinet of the locust.

Don’t know much about wvw, but I believe all kinds of halfway broken builds are possible here anyway.

Drennon.7190:

I like this idea. It opens up more counter play to stealth AND reveal.

Would it? When you could just simply cleanse it?

Kageseigi.2150:

Hmm, if Stealth we a boon, and Reveal were a condition, that would mean that thieves could have stacks of Stealth, but remain visible because of Reveal. That means that an invisible thief could steal a visible thief’s Stealth, remaining invisible indefinitely! :-D

Of course, with the new Flanking Strike trait, a simple attack from behind may be able to remove Revealed, giving a thief an instant Backstab opportunity! :-D

No, reveal debuff make u immune to stealth, so u wouldn’t get stealth boon when under reveal, but u would get “immune” on ur head.

Edit: And with reveal becoming a condition, it could be cleansed (or even converted back to stealth) and u woulnd’t have to wait to get stealth again, which would make thief builds who heavily rely on stealth more broken.

Let this thread die.

Sure, Shadowstep > Backstab > Shadow Return & Clear Condi > Stealth > Backstab.

Or… trait with Trickster for Backstab > Caltrops & Clear Condi > Stealth > Backstab.

Revealed being a condi seems like a great idea.

Better yet, use shadow arts spec, stealth for 4 seconds, backstab, wait 3 seconds, shadow’s embrace removes revealed, backstab again.

Seems legit.

I think I’d be worried about countering Reveal with Resistance and continuous returning into Stealth while attacking.

And how would you actually rip or corrupt that stealth, hm? Throwing random null field or Well of Suffering and hope for the best? And then watch Thief hit you, remove a single condition and get stealth again?

Not happening, son.

Rym.1469:

And how would you actually rip or corrupt that stealth, hm? Throwing random null field or Well of Suffering and hope for the best? And then watch Thief hit you, remove a single condition and get stealth again?

Not happening, son.

Signet of the locust now corrupts two boons in an aoe when traited. Axe three now corrupts one boon in an aoe by default and you can have this trigger every time you enter Shroud. If you hit the thief in stealth while you have condis, you can proc plague sending, which will also corrupt two boons on them. Also of course if you trigger chill of death on them when they are in stealth, you could remove the boon.

So it would actually be doable in several simple ways with the new traits necros have.

Edit: I forgot the trait in blood magic which triggers a Signet with bleeds. This would also corrupt boons in stealth together with signers of suffering.

For mesmer it would obviously be possible to pull it off (though harder to do) just by sword autoattack, greatsword 3 or traited shatter skills.

And other professions?

Besides, who runs Axe or Locust Signet in PvP?

Rym.1469:

And other professions?

Besides, who runs Axe or Locust Signet in PvP?

Actually, with signet of the locust now on a 24 second cooldown traited and being able to corrupt 2 boons in an aoe in addition to the lifesteal, I think it will be one of the most popular necro utilities both for condi and for power builds. And the axe trait as mentioned you can now trigger even without using axe, every time you go to Shroud.

As far as other professions go: you will probably agree they don’t need as much help as necros do.

Please just no.

This would be so broken beyond words I cannot even.

Actually maybe I can… imagine 5 thieves tailing the ends of zergs infinitely stealthing.. stealing other player’s stealth.

People arguing skipping dungeon content is wrong just got a big middle finger if stealth was a boon.. making it stack you could practically just skip entire Arah paths sheesh.

Not to mention… how would Revealed even be cleansed? If thieves even can cleanse it they’d JUST GO BACK INTO STEALTH IMMEDIATELY AFTER.