The counter play to condition builds is high physical damage. Conditions have a wind up, physical damage does not. Don’t let a condition build stack conditions on you.
Example: I run a full Berserker Warrior in WvW. Condition builds rarely, with the exception of Mesmer and Necromancer, manage to overwhelm me because I burst them down before they can stack conditions on me. Condition Thief as soon as they get near me I land one hard CC on them and the damage that follows puts them to rest. Physical damage is instant, condition damage is not.
You’re right there is no counterplay to “Sic ’em!” or Analyze. There’s also no counter to instant stealth = Blinding Powder. Stealth is a poorly designed mechanic in this game because when you stealth you are GONE. There is no way to know where that player has moved to once they stealth. You can make educated guesses and that is it. So I fail to see how it’s a problem that the only two skills in the whole game that apply revealed are instant.
Yes, Rapid Fire, and any other channeled skill, connects through stealth if it starts it’s channel before you enter stealth. You know how to stop it? Enter stealth before the channel, dodge, interrupt the channel, LOS, get out of range, blind, if you’re a Mesmer go invulnerable, there are multiple ways to stop this. If you’re a Thief and you have Slight Of Hand (daze target when you Steal from them), just Steal to the Ranger and bam, you interrupted their Rapid Fire. Problem solved.
Also, L2P.
