Guild Wars 2

A thief is rendered useless for 30 seconds; not being able to do anything. And considering our high defense, and mobility; it makes us very strong in WvW or larger fights. Thanks Arena net; please continue buffing Arrow carts.

The trebs are actually fairly weak, requires stand still for a 4 sec channel to place one…costs 15 badges as well as the 500 karma, requires 10 supply to place.
And the trigger area is only 600 range.

They will be useful to block choke points and prevent mesmers stealthing in to portal, but will have very little effect against roaming wvw thieves.

You’re right of course, a thief encountering an anti stealth trap should just have their character instantly deleted. It would be a lot quicker and potentially less painful than the “death by 1,000 cuts” approach Anet is taking to the class.

Can you move while you channel? It will be useful. If not, I can just pop my endure pain.

Ntranced.7415:

You’re right of course, a thief encountering an anti stealth trap should just have their character instantly deleted. It would be a lot quicker and potentiallt less painful than the “death by 1,000 cuts” approach Anet is taking to the class.

Lol +1 ! , My whole point if no one understood it is that for 30 seconds thieves are rendered useless. Not every thief is a roamer btw; and even then they can still activate the traps placed by players.

Trap doesn’t prevent you from attacking / dodging / healing, just no stealth. So for 30 sec thieves have to l2p like the rest of us non-stealthers.

If you died because you triggered an anti-stealth trap, you actually did your team a great service. Your one death now prevented your team’s veiled zerg from getting exposed later!

So thank you, whiny thief, you are credit to team!

You mean you actually have to gear for defense and make a bunker thief like everyone else? Oh no….

Boag.8645:

Trap doesn’t prevent you from attacking / dodging / healing, just no stealth. So for 30 sec thieves have to l2p like the rest of us non-stealthers.

It prevents the thief from using some of his skills for 30s. It makes all stealth skills/utilities useless for that duration and make it impossible to land a Backstab, Tactical Strike and the like.

Atherakhia.4086:

90% of that avoidance comes in the form of stealth.

Disabling Shot, Flanking Strike, Death Blossom, Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Hidden Pistol (Charr only) are all skills that Evade without having stealth involved.

Bountiful Theft and Vigorous Recovery are traits that grant you Vigor without having to go into Stealth.

There are a few Regen sources, but that’s not really ‘avoidance’.

Smoke Screen still blocks Projectiles even if you can’t combo Stealth through it.

Black Powder, Infiltrator’s Arrow, Shadow Shot, etcetera, they do blinds too.

Thieves have more than enough ability to stay alive without stealth in 30 seconds. You’re just going to have to adjust to a slightly different metagame.

I got the impression the anti-stealth trap was ultimately to help with tower/keep sweeps.

They should make it where the people affected are unable to log in for 30 seconds.

Now, I’m pretty annoyed by this. Mostly because of two things:

Firstly, these things are dirt cheap. 15 badges and 525 karma is not a lot, really, while the traps last for up to one hour, which is ridiculous – that’s twice as long as siege lasts (unless tapped, which doesn’t work for traps I suppose, but an hour still feels way too long).

And secondly, the fact that they do not only rip you out of stealth, but also apply revealed for 30 seconds. If a thief triggers one of those, if they don’t outright die because of being unable to avoid being seen (duh), they do not have access to:

1. Stealth skills, which are mandatory for burst damage in D/X specs, control in S/X specs, quickly stacking bleeds in P/X condition specs
2. Ability to throw enemies off about your positioning (which is currently one of the thiefs primary strenghs and an important tool to reduce damage taken)
3. Any and all benefits from the following traits:
Hidden Killer, Last Refuge, Meld with Shadows, Hidden Assassin, Shadow Protector, Shadow’s Embrace, Infusion of Shadow, Cloaked in Shadow, Hidden Thief, Patience, Shadow’s Rejuvenation, Descent of Shadows, Fleet of Shadow, Instinctual Response.

(Some of these have AoE-effects or secondary effects that work without being stealthed, but these are generally rather weak)

Most of these are from the “Shadow Arts” line.
Leaving us with 5 (yes, five) major traits in that tree that do not drastically lose effect by having revealed applied. Two of these are related to venoms, and are therefor only of any interest in a venom-based build. Two of the remaining ones are highly situational (Slowed pulse and Power Shot), leaving us with Master of Deception. However, since two of our four deception wkills are mostly used to apply stealth to ourselves and allies, this trait is severely weakened as well.

This means that if a thief triggers an anti-stealth trap, this entire trait line is essentially useless outside of stat points gained. A high amount of traits from other trees is affected from this as well. No other class can get into a situation where more than 10 traits become useless and a highly important class mechanic (stealth skills) becomes inaccessible for such a huge amount of time. This quite literally is the equivalent of preventing a mesmer from creating clones or disabling a ranger’s ability to command his pet for 30 seconds.

Losing a tool that is extremely important for both offense and defense and that many side-effects are tied to for such a long time by triggering a trap that is most likely invisible to the thief is not acceptable if the traps are as easily accessible as they are, whether the AoE is just 600 units wide or not.

Yep, they are not useless, dare say most of their skills still work.

So while (l2p) is a dig at thieves, it is a very true statement, adjust your play styles.

Dirt cheap!? Are you kidding me?! 1 badge is worth 1 silver in Siege. As demonstrated by, 6 badges = 1 arrowcart and 6 silver = 1 arrowcart.

Do you honestly believe that anyone thinks you are worth that much? Could you think even more highly of yourself? I’d rather take the repaircost, its cheaper.
Some people will use it on Thieves but merely for the sake of trolling them, perhaps after having been trolled one to many times by a Thief themselves.

Also, YOU ARENT USELESS. As someone pointed out, you have plenty of abilities that do not use or require stealth. And still deal a lot of damage, or offer plenty of mitigation.
I’ve played HGH Engineer. And after 2 cycles of cooldowns, when i finally got my 25 stacks of Might so i can actually deal damage. Do you think it honestly doesnt hurt me when some Thief comes along and just takes this stack for himself? You’ll be back in Stealth long before i got my Might up again. And stripping Boons is far more common, far more plentifull, and costs just a small cooldown or a few bits of initiative.

No, this is not a Thief counter. No one in their right mind will use it just for you. But if you are the unfortunate collatoral damage from a zerg going into a supply camp? Well, suck it up. Other professions have to deal with equal, or worst, counters on a far more regular basis.

And lets also not ignore the fact that these traps can be placed while in stealth. If only there was a profession that could chain long durations of Stealth together. He would be able to run into an enemy zerg, say from a tower or keep, and place a Supply Trap in the middle of this zerg unnoticed. Wasting the zerg upwards to 40 supply. Ow snap!

Thieves are the reason why these new traps are going to cost attackers even more Supply when they attack a tower or keep. Either they waste supply constantly building Stealth traps and hoping the Thief steps on them. Or a Thief will stealth out of the tower/keep and place a trap right under their feet unnoticed.

If anything these Traps are a big buff for Thieves because no one gets to use them to such an effective extend as they do. To off-set for this, everyone now and then you accidentally step on a trap. If its with a zerg, suck it up.
If you’re alone, good for you, that trap was meant to catch far bigger fish then just you. And they wasted 10 supply and a whole bunch of badges on it.

and all it takes is a simple mechanic to show thiefs need to L2P well done anet

They are rather cheap if you use them as a group, As a single player, yes, they are relatively costly. However, when you’re working as a group of 10 people or more, the cost is fairly low.
This isn’t about making a single thief useless either. The debuff is applied in an AoE according to the patch notes, meaning it can effect multiple targets (keep in mind, Mesmers use stealth as well, although they don’t rely on it as much as thieves).

Considering how much damage control and utility thieves lose by not being able to stealth, I consider the 30 second duration to strong.

The ability to place traps while stealthed is definetly not a good idea. I entirely agree with you that this should not be possible.

However, the fact that you can use an item you bought to severely hinder a class (unless they are using a stealthless or low-stealth build) is not the right way to go, in my eyes. That’s like being able to buy health potions, and having them being usable in WvW. Is it worth it to drop a trap just to kill a single thief? Propably not. Although you have to keep in mind that some people have played this game enough to amass a large amount of karma and badges, meaning they will be able to afford a lot of these traps. I don’t think it’s right to be able to counter a build reliant on stealth because you’re wealthy.

Think about it, if somebody were able to purchase any item they could use on you to prevent might stacking for 30 seconds. If somebody used that on you, you would propably lose to them in a fight, even if you’re more skilled than them, because your build is reliant on might. Even if it weren’t “cost-efficient” for them, I guess you wouldn’t be too happy about that regardless. Losing because your opponent spent gold/badges/karma (maybe even gems in the long run, who knows?) on a consumable item that makes it trivial for them to counter your build doesn’t seem fair to me.

Besides, like I said, I don’t see the reason for the revealed duration to be this long. This is propably supposed to stop mesmers from stealthing their zerg for a surprise attack – the thing is, a much lower duration revealed debuff would serve this purpose perfectly fine, simply seeing the enemy zerg approach you for, say, 5 seconds would be enough to react in my opinion.

If a roaming thief finds himself defeated because of one of these traps, he should consider himself honoured that someone thought he was worth two arrow cart’s worth of badges. Or a catapult. …and a few badges left over at that too.

I guess 30s is a little too much considering thieves can only render all of my targeted skills and attacks useless for up to 14 – 15 seconds instantly. hmm….i guess i won’t have to tidy up my play b/c thieves lose one ability. Not to mention that most of the defensive abilities/skills that counter stealth have a cooldown around 15s to 20s…hmm…we really should continue to buff thieves and stop nerfing them every patch. Poor poor thieves.

I honestly don’t care about thieves (easy mode play) b/c they normally only kill me when they are running as a group or surprise me in the middle of a skirmish…I stack a lot of toughness, however, I have no simpathy for hearing a nerf to stealth renders some skills useless due to the fact that an enemy in stealth renders all targeted attacks useless. This actually seems fair since a thief renders most of the enemies skills useless when in stealth that a thief should be penalized when not in stealth.

Look at it this way…everytime you set a trap off you cost someone money. Run away for 30 seconds and come back. If they set another trap you cost them more money. Wash rinse and repeat…it will take you a minute to kill someone now instead of 5 seconds.

stof.9341:

Boag.8645:

Trap doesn’t prevent you from attacking / dodging / healing, just no stealth. So for 30 sec thieves have to l2p like the rest of us non-stealthers.

It prevents the thief from using some of his skills for 30s. It makes all stealth skills/utilities useless for that duration and make it impossible to land a Backstab, Tactical Strike and the like.

And stealth prevents all 8 classes from using a lot more of their skills.

You can just avoid the traps in open field fights anyway. They will only really be a problem if you are trying to permastealth to stay in a tower or sneak into a defended breach/lord room.

Well if you say that removing stealth from a thief will help thief players l2p, you have no clue on how MMOs work, thieves are just a high damage class and their only defensive mechanism is stealth, we cant get a warrior’s armor, a guardian’s protecting boons, an elementalist’s immunities-boons-heals etc. If you are unable to fight against the ONLY class in MMOs that doesnt have a “Perma” stealth skill or a backstab skill that is always there and not on stealth attack you shouldn’t even bother roaming.

RedThinLine.9468:

Well if you say that removing stealth from a thief will help thief players l2p, you have no clue on how MMOs work, thieves are just a high damage class and their only defensive mechanism is stealth…

Stealth, and shadowstep! Two defensive mechanisms. Their two defensive mechanisms is stealth, shadowstep, and evasions. Three! Three defensive mechanisms!

Boag.8645:

Trap doesn’t prevent you from attacking / dodging / healing, just no stealth. So for 30 sec thieves have to l2p like the rest of us non-stealthers.

with no removal, blocking, regen, immunity or pet support, and with about half the hp stats. Ya man, srsly l2 kitten ue here…

Lol at the ignorant noobs saying this is balanced. A thief is the squishiest class in game, even bunkered up. If we don’t have stealth we’re dead in seconds. See what happens when u chain CC a thief, he can’t do kitten cause he isn’t stealthed. The whole class relies on it. But it’s okay, other classes, just give us your 10k base hp u got more, or your 10k boons. Some people really need to think before they type.

if it costs the trapper 4 sec stabillity, invulnerabillity,15 badges, 500 karma, 10 supplys
its pretty much a win for the attackin thief o0
you SEE where the traps is beeing placed

pixieish.9627:

RedThinLine.9468:

Well if you say that removing stealth from a thief will help thief players l2p, you have no clue on how MMOs work, thieves are just a high damage class and their only defensive mechanism is stealth…

Stealth, and shadowstep! Two defensive mechanisms. Their two defensive mechanisms is stealth, shadowstep, and evasions. Three! Three defensive mechanisms!

what class doesn’t dodge?
how many classes can’t trait into benefits from dodge?
how does regen and removal on dodge compare to 1 more dodge every 3?

why would dodge be counted as a thief specific defensive mechanism?
and shadowstep lol, you meant teleport?

how about the fact we have 1 garbage elite cc? No stun no fear and 1 immob on a useless kitten weapon.

It was probably meant for veiling zergs. It works extremely well against that, BTW

This reveal trap. No. Just no. Rediculous.

Anyone who thinks this is ok, has not played a thief. And doesn’t know enough about a thief, to counter the stealth.

Bllade.1029:

This reveal trap. No. Just no. Rediculous.

Shush! You’re an annoying Thief and nobody likes you!

:>

Anti-stealth trap is ridiculous. it SPECIFICALLY targets thieves. all other classes who get hit with this are unencumbered. but thieves get a death warrant signed.

imagine a trap where mesmers cant create illusions and clones for 30 seconds.

or a trap where guardians cant use stability and blind for 30 seconds.

This trap messes with the entire mechanics of a single class while providing no serious debuff to any other class. how is that fair? You’ve unbalanced the thief class with a single addition congratulations.

Thieves, relax!

I didn’t witness a single use of that anti-stealth trap nor that other trap. And nobody on our side even talking to that Trap vendor merchant.

So far it really seems to be an epic fail. Way too small area, 4 second building time + all those components worthy of 15 s (1 badge = 1 silver when buying siege). Nobody bothers to use or buy them.

Greetings from EU tier #1!

Honestly there isn’t much of a problem. The traps were probably designed against veil zergs like many others in this thread has stated.

If YOU a single lone thief takes an anti stealth trap then EXCELLENT. It saves your team later on from being hit by one of these things and may help out in the grand scheme of things. This may even make a new role for thieves in zergs as minesweepers (teamplay gogo). Furthermore the trade off for dying is a better deal for the thief anyway. You pay maybe 1 silver for repairs. They need to pay 15 badges which is essentially 15 silver and a bit of karma too.

If you are in the open field and maybe 1v1ning a person and they SIT STILL for FOUR seconds to put down an anti stealth trap then it really does become an L2 kitten ue for the thief as you can clearly see where they have put the trap and just avoid it.

When something is designed that directly counters a play style it’s wrong.

I don’t like that Guardians can tank 5+ people, I think it’s bull. Why can’t I have a trap that renders all of their virtues and buffs useless for 30 seconds? But people like to say “oh but guardians are meant to be able to tank”…well I hate to say it but thieves are meant to be able to weave through stealth.

“Thieves are expert in the shadow arts. They utilize STEALTH and shadow-steps to surprise and to get close to their target.”

Hell we have an entire trait line dedicated to stealth…idiots.

I used to hate thieves too, trust me I was there. But now I love fighting them, because downing a thief when he’s stealthed and seeing his downed body reveal in front of me is so satisfying. You know why? Because I got better as a player. Try is sometime.

The saving grace of the trap is it’s cost, and the small area it effects. And the channel-time. The idea behind the trap is terrible, giving everyone an ability to counter a specific play style is just such a bad idea, but right now the execution is decent. The only thing I think is wrong is the obscene reveal time. 10 seconds would have been okay in my opinion, makes it able to counter portal mesmers (like myself), but doesn’t leave people totally screwed out of their build for 30 seconds.

As a gamer who WvWvWs on chars of all 8 professions I have always enjoyed reading the anti stealth threads. In each thread there are always a percentage of people with valid points and also a percentage of people who seriously need to re evaluate their own playstyles. So many chuckles!

IMHO, Traps are just something new. Gamers will adapt. I think this will not be the last trap introduced and look forward to the forum comedy as each adjustment is made.

One reoccuring theme that complainers still haven’t addresed or responded to is the fact that these traps are meant for veiled zergs, and not for individual thieves. The aoe is really small, and the fact that wvw maps are so vast, chances of them being all over the place is pretty slim. Plus, given that people have been fightning stealthed thieves for a long time, chances are people wouldn’t waste those traps on 1 thief (unless he’s, you know, badge-rich and wants to troll you).

I understand if you’re offended by the patch. However, does the current situation accurately describe your situation? Are you completely no longer able to stealth in wvw for your entire gameplay? Have you even triggered one of these traps?

Lastly, you act as if these traps are targetted skills that can be used on-the-fly. They’re not. They said they will add more traps in the future, so I guess we just might see those boon-removal traps, immobilize/cripple traps or some other form of traps.

You mean boon hate/stripping isn’t available and wasn’t made more accessible? Man, they should really do something about that even if it counters a play style. Oh wait…

Then you mention you are mesmer yourself and I have to wonder, do you not use null field at all? Well, I guess as a primary portal mesmer, it might be hard to fit on your bar but…

When in a larger group and you have several veils and mass invisibilities available, 30 seconds is probably necessary. It might need a reduction in time, but that’s something we’ll come to see if anyone actually starts using it on a normal basis. I remain skeptical that this will be a huge game changer for thieves and mesmer stealth resulting in their overnight disappearance. Instead, I believe no one will bother with this trap later on when people get up there with world ranks and AC mastery though I’m horrible with predictions.

RedThinLine.9468:

Well if you say that removing stealth from a thief will help thief players l2p, you have no clue on how MMOs work, thieves are just a high damage class and their only defensive mechanism is stealth, we cant get a warrior’s armor, a guardian’s protecting boons, an elementalist’s immunities-boons-heals etc. If you are unable to fight against the ONLY class in MMOs that doesnt have a “Perma” stealth skill or a backstab skill that is always there and not on stealth attack you shouldn’t even bother roaming.

except engineers and rangers are medium armored too and they dont have stealth and dish out big damage too , Diference? they rely on actual Skill .

truth is thiefs keep saying stealth is their only means of survivability because they exploit stealth they all go 100% glass cannon since they can avoid harm at any time by stealthing that doesnt mean thief isnt capable of fighting other classes without stealth it means thief players have to l2p instead of relying on overpowered mechanics.

penatbater.4710:

One reoccuring theme that complainers still haven’t addresed or responded to is the fact that these traps are meant for veiled zergs,

Why do they need a counter? Veil doesn’t last long and can be countered with decent awareness and tactics so why does it need a hard counter? I haven’t actually heard many if any complaints about veil lately.

Why couldn’t it be added to ranger traps?

As it is given the cost and supply requirement and build time its not going to be all that effective anyway.

morrolan.9608:

penatbater.4710:

One reoccuring theme that complainers still haven’t addresed or responded to is the fact that these traps are meant for veiled zergs,

Why do they need a counter? Veil doesn’t last long and can be countered with decent awareness and tactics so why does it need a hard counter? I haven’t actually heard many if any complaints about veil lately.

Why couldn’t it be added to ranger traps?

As it is given the cost and supply requirement and build time its not going to be all that effective anyway.

precisely whats being overlooked whats gonna be spammed is the supply traps at gates and walls

Cool something to do with stealth that annoys thieves for a change, my day just got a little brighter :p

Rezzet.3614:

precisely whats being overlooked whats gonna be spammed is the supply traps at gates and walls

Whats the range on those? You can still send in a sacrificial lamb to trigger them.

As long as the next trap prevents all healing for 30 seconds I’m all for it. If we are going to start negating things classes are good at, we got Mesmers and Thieves this time, lets aim at Eles and Guardians next.

We could even make a trap that prevents people from dying for 30 seconds. Say like thier Hp stops at 1. Then we will have taken away what necros are good at! =P

Best thing Anet has done since their AC bump mistake

Wait wait wait. Thieves were often crying about mesmers and their confusion which ended up getting the damage cut in half permanently. Now they are crying that if they fall into a trap they don’t get to stay perma-stealthed?

And those saying that thieves are the squishiest class couldn’t be more wrong. Mesmers by in large are the squishiest class when we get locked down. We have to use trickery, kiting, some stealth, decoys to prevent us from being smashed to bits. Welcome to the world of actually having to add some toughness to your gear and learning how to actually play outside of stealth.

I don’t see the problem here. Thieves have two tactics they utilize in WvW. The first is to jump into stealth and attempt to gank their opponent, jump back into stealth, rinse and repeat. When and if that fails, they utilize tactic two, turn and run away with their ultra high mobility.

So if you step on a trap, fall back to tactic two for thirty seconds. You do this countless times a day already. So nothing’s changed really.

With this trap. Defending bay in the borderlands is impossible for a low pop server against a high pop server. Go figure

They have anti stealth traps to counter thiefs sneaking in your zerg and using anti supply trap on your zerg.

Just watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv4P-kTBzE0 and you will know why they added them.

Marquiz.7625:

With this trap. Defending bay in the borderlands is impossible for a low pop server against a high pop server. Go figure

You don’t use anti stealth for defense on a keep, you use anti supply so they cant build siege to knockdown your doors. Anti stealth is really good for after you take a keep and doing a run around to make sure no mesmers are inside.

I’m actually enjoying seeing Thieves whine. How many rage threads against thieves has there been since launch? Answer, too many to count! Yet, thieves still complain, complain, and complain it’s not enough for them.

Honestly, these traps are way too expensive. I may buy one or two if a thief starts harassing an area. Otherwise, I have no desire to waste resources on them. If the large Guilds start spamming the supply one like in the video, people are just going to quit playing. I’d bet the total number of user hours in WvW has been declining the past month already.

Say what you want. Thief class is now dead. 30 seconds is ridiculous, kitten the 3 seconds of stealth feels practically a lifetime in combat. As if I didn’t already eat enough dirt from every OP warrior with four different holds and 100-blades. You guys complained about Backstab? 100-blades is death to anyone under 14k-15k health, and unlike backstab is only a single keystroke.

Hangin’ up the daggers. The whiners and haters won.