Guild Wars 2

Simple problem with simple fix. Thieves are tying up camps by running around while stealth. Combined with the rendering problem, it’s incredibly hard to kill a single thief stealthing around, since he literally appears while in the animation of doing his next stealth (backstab). The simple solution would be to make stealthed characters not block capturing, like in sPvP.

3 problems:

-Thief stealth lasts way too long and the cooldown is way too short.

-The usual culling problem.

-You can block camp capture while stealth.

For example, in borderlands today, a single thief from Tarnished Coast prevented a group of ~10 guys from capturing Danelon. We finally killed him by randomly AoEing everywhere. (I think somebody got a lucky snare on him too)

Anyways, this thief’s username was Hellspawn.5104, which I found by selecting report in the second that he appeared.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get a screenshot, because how am I supposed to get a screenshot of something invisible? I also didn’t have Fraps on, sry about that.

Forget 10 people…. on JQ it has stopped a zerg of 30+ who are anxious to get on to the next objective already.

Stack on top of each other and AOE. The thief has to come to you to stay stealthed and when they do they get hit by your AOE. When they pop out of stealth kill them.

Tried it, didn’t work

My Apologies, the thief was from Tarnished Coast, not Crystal Desert.

You think only one doing it is bad….how bout a whole party of them doing it. Stacking on top of one another isn’t enough when you’ve got 5 thieves hampering camp capture with that huge ring out there. Lower the ring size, lower the opportunity that they can “hide”.

2 simple optional fixes:

#1 Being stealthed does not affect the capture of any objective. The individual who is stealthed must come OUT OF IT in order to prevent capture. Otherwise the capture of the objective continues.

#2 The number of people standing in the capture ring of an objective affects the time in which the capture proceeds. The more standing in the ring, the faster it goes. This happens on a One for One basis. For example if 10 people are attempting to capture an objective and 5 people are opposing them, the capture progresses as if only 5 people are standing in the ring. 5 people on each team cancel out each other and the team with more members gets the advantage. This would negate the effect of 1 stealthed individual, or even 5 of them if a large zerg of 30+ stormed a location with the intent to capture.

Honestly…I bet suggestion #1 would be easier to implement. That’s my vote.

@Siliconhobbit I agree with option 1, it is the same in many games.
We experienced the same recently and it is very frustrating and time consuming to track the stealthed guy.

L2P! Shouting out to nerf Thief stealth isn’t helping anyone. I do AGREE that the rendering problem has to be fixed. Again, L2P and the learning is that even in stealth, a thief is open for attack even auto attack. So AOE away instead of whining on the forums. Sick and tiered of this kitten.

I would disagree that this is an attempt to nerf the stealth ability. I do not feel that the stealth ability needs any change at all. Rather, I feel the mechanic involved regarding the capture of objectives in WvW needs a tweak to disallow stealthed individuals the ability to prevent their capture.

It’s amusing seeing thief players actually stand up for a broken mechanic. You can literally stealth longer then you are not in stealth with the mechanics right now AND the rendering issue. Is this not broken? okay moving on. Name a good MMO that has a class that can perma stealth. It’s okay, I’ll be here for a while.

Red post earlier announced that rendering issue was fixed and would be implemented on the 15th.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-fix-this-sooner-rather-than-later-Vid-attached/622762

@Wolfgang Michael It has nothing to do with the class itself and has everything to do with WvW mechanics.

Maybe the stealth chain is broken, I don’t know I’m not here to argue that. But this discussion is about the cap blocking, and that is definitely not how it was intended.

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

L2P! Shouting out to nerf Thief stealth isn’t helping anyone. I do AGREE that the rendering problem has to be fixed. Again, L2P and the learning is that even in stealth, a thief is open for attack even auto attack. So AOE away instead of whining on the forums. Sick and tiered of this kitten.

Have you been to WvW? The capture area on camps are HUGE. There’s no way you could possibly kill a thief with AoE unless you have like 100 people. Unreasonable solution.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

#2 The number of people standing in the capture ring of an objective affects the time in which the capture proceeds. The more standing in the ring, the faster it goes. This happens on a One for One basis. For example if 10 people are attempting to capture an objective and 5 people are opposing them, the capture progresses as if only 5 people are standing in the ring. 5 people on each team cancel out each other and the team with more members gets the advantage. This would negate the effect of 1 stealthed individual, or even 5 of them if a large zerg of 30+ stormed a location with the intent to capture.

If you have ever played WoW and does anything that requires you to capture a node then honestly their way is the best.

If there are 2 people there then they cancel each other out. A buddy comes and joins you then your team starts to capture. Another stealth buddy joins the other guy and your capture progress stalls out.

So unless WvW turns into Thieves vs. Thieves, you should get enough people to capture a node.

Not holding my breath for this fix, but we’ll see. Bottom line, it doesn’t really matter if there are counter tactics that are somewhat effective. One player should not be able to tie up 30, while they idiotically stand on top of each other casting AOE around at nothing.

When the thief is invisible he should not count toward the capping progress bar, it should just keep on ticking.

being one of those thiefs that holds points for my team to reinforce my record is 2 hours lawl i do think this should be changed so stealth not holding points but also they need to make the smaller objectives like supply camps have some other means to discourage zerging supply camps and encourage smaller scirmish pvp like maby have the supply available decrease the more players take the camp also glad they are fixing the rendering thing it is not necessary for thiefs and just comes as bait for people to call for nerfs

and perhaps if stealth no longer holds objectives make all the objective circles bigger and things to hide behind so the enemy actually has to clear out the whole objective and not just a tiny circle

but having said this some servers or guilds are 100s times better at stopping stealth build thiefs than others the counters are there just l2p

You can’t perma stealth AND do damage. And even if you only do Cnd you are still visible for a short time in which you can easily get tagged. This isn’t an issue anymore on servers where people know what they are doing and what they are dealing with.

Same.4687:

You can’t perma stealth AND do damage. And even if you only do Cnd you are still visible for a short time in which you can easily get tagged. This isn’t an issue anymore on servers where people know what they are doing and what they are dealing with.

Problem is, the time it takes for other players to see you (fade in time) you can restealth. The further you are away from them only makes this even easier for you. So just being in the general area, say a range of 1000-1500, makes the change that someone spots you even less.

the problem is the graphic rendering issue that causing stealth longer than it suppose to. why blame thief? and capturing camps, towers, or keeps are not like in sPVP at all. Its bigger, and has NPCs spawned to defend the points right after its been captured.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

2 simple optional fixes:

#1 Being stealthed does not affect the capture of any objective. The individual who is stealthed must come OUT OF IT in order to prevent capture. Otherwise the capture of the objective continues.

#2 The number of people standing in the capture ring of an objective affects the time in which the capture proceeds. The more standing in the ring, the faster it goes. This happens on a One for One basis. For example if 10 people are attempting to capture an objective and 5 people are opposing them, the capture progresses as if only 5 people are standing in the ring. 5 people on each team cancel out each other and the team with more members gets the advantage. This would negate the effect of 1 stealthed individual, or even 5 of them if a large zerg of 30+ stormed a location with the intent to capture.

---

Honestly…I bet suggestion #1 would be easier to implement. That’s my vote.

This is badly needed, I hope the dev acknowledge this issue and don’t just toss it under the rug.

Same.4687:

You can’t perma stealth AND do damage. And even if you only do Cnd you are still visible for a short time in which you can easily get tagged. This isn’t an issue anymore on servers where people know what they are doing and what they are dealing with.

Umm nope. Perma stealth and damage still happening. Sorry, you are incorrect.

Stealth and invulnerability should make you unable to capture or block objectives or cast finishers.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

I would disagree that this is an attempt to nerf the stealth ability. I do not feel that the stealth ability needs any change at all. Rather, I feel the mechanic involved regarding the capture of objectives in WvW needs a tweak to disallow stealthed individuals the ability to prevent their capture.

agree

Cloud.7613:

You can literally stealth longer then you are not in stealth with the mechanics right now AND the rendering issue. Is this not broken? okay moving on. .

stealth isnt broken, you just clearly stated that its only broken WITH the rendering issues, which ANET said theyre gonna fix soon.

Hope it’s fixed soon. I’m done with WvW til I see it in the patch notes. Ridiculous to allow something like this to go on this long.

Biggest thing to stopping a thief always add a mesmer to your camp snatching group, if the mesmer is good he/she will get a beserker on the thief, to stay in stealth the thief will most likely not take the time to kill the beserker. Also if the thief doesnt kill the zerker you can watch the illusion because it can follow the thief in stealth. So grab a mesmer buddy, protect him/her till she gets the thief locked on with multi zerkers dude will be crippled due to it, and the mes can also push/pull the thief out of the ring multiple times its really not hard to predict a thiefs movement in a capture ring odds are they are running around the outer edges as fast as they can. If they’re bold theyll try to come into the center to kill one of you just dodge that and hit him with an immobilize. if i have a good group around me the longest 1 thief kept a camp from flipping that ive faced is 1-2 min after the claimer goes down.

Cloud.7613:

Name a good MMO that has a class that can perma stealth. It’s okay, I’ll be here for a while.

Have you ever heard the game named WoW?Coz rogues there can perma-stealth unless they got too close to enemies/mobs.

Stealth is a rogue ability, that prevents others from detecting the stealthed player unless particularly close.

Also the skill here for you ,

Stealth
Instant 6 sec cooldown
Requires Rogue
Requires level 5
Conceals you in the shadows, allowing you to stalk enemies without being seen. Lasts until canceled.

I agree that mechanic is broken, on multiple occasions I have stopped groups of 20+ players from capping a given objective from 20 seconds to 60+. While in stealth the thief/mesmer any class should not affect the capping, outside of stealth yes.

Scyntrus.2458:

since he literally appears while in the animation of doing his next stealth (backstab)

Lolwhat? So now backstab gives you stealth? Interesting, noone informed me about that…always thought that BS was a stealth BREAKER because it’s an attack skill triggered from being in stealth and breaking it dealing double damage if hits on back or side…you discover new things everyday

Many people in this thread do not seem to have a complete understanding of the game and its mechanics.

C&D is not the only way to keep stealth up, and it is not the best way to do it.

There is a very simple way to keep stealth up (yes, it takes a specific weapon set and traits). You will not leave stealth because it will last longer than the CD is to put it up again. You also will not have to be anywhere near the enemy in the very large camps.

My brother plays this spec and has kept a camp from flipping in excess of five minutes while we came in with a force large enough to take it ourselves.

Aurika:
One more word and I will have to assassinate you..!

Poke Menot
thief

This isn’t a matter of L2P, that’s a generalized “noob” response, that offers no help whatsoever. I know the frustrations of trying to cap with stealth players. I had a group capping the garrison once, and it had stopped because of a single thief. This thief had some more thief friends come in, and they rezzed the keeper over and over. Quite frustrating, but honestly, it’s a “legit” strategy. I do think that they need to change the parameters of capping, though. Being stealthed shouldn’t allow you to rez, disrupt captures, and finish off players. I remember ANet said they weren’t going to allow stealth to be a mechanic that could be permanently on, yet, when traited, you can easily stay stealthed for 20+ seconds. There’s a debuff from returning to stealth, but that’s only if you attack I believe, ANet should consider changing it a bit. It’s fine if you have multiple ways to stealth, but being able to stay that way is pretty stupid. I wish being stealthed just didn’t delay capturing, it’d be so muh better.

Bind closest target, spam it and when you get a target CC it, blind is best as it will prevent him from CnDing letting your mob kill him.

You can pick him up as a target right when his stealth ends, your target will go over him even though he hasnt yet rendered.

Unless you are a victim of culling you can still hit him while he is invisible this way.

Menion.1254:

Stack on top of each other and AOE. The thief has to come to you to stay stealthed and when they do they get hit by your AOE. When they pop out of stealth kill them.

That doesn’t work anymore mate, there are other ways to permastealth other than a proc from backstab or whatever.

permastealth is real not a mythical vampire hunt.

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/lock-key-permastealth-lives/

In Rift if you did anything, a skill, pick something up, literally anything, you dropped stealth. Why wouldn’t it be the same here? The only thing that didn’t drop you out of stealth was “incapacitating” somebody, and it was a short stun on a decent CD, so it wasn’t overpowering. The most Rogues could do was stay stealthed and incapacitate random people running by but the stun is so short it was easily just kinda something you rolled your eyes at.

Other more developed games such as WoW you can not cap while stealth nor prevent capping. If you are stealth you don’t exist for objective purposes. I don’t know why it has escaped Arena Net.

Definitely shouldn’t be able to capture/prevent capture when stealthed. Obvious oversight and should be changed. Pretty much every RPG and FPS on the planet lives by this rule, Anet should follow suit.

I have an idea!

1. Let players of Side A line up to the north.
2. Let players of Side B line up to the south.
3. At the count of three open fire once.
4. Once both sides have fired, both sides advance a step forward.
5. Repeat until everyone in is each others HB range.

Spiders:
Good one, I love that idea!
I would even stand in the middle as a referee – oh wait..

Keep in mind, as the OP said, the rendering issues are making a lot of issues with thieves and stealth far more complicated and frustrating.

It’s hard for me to be sure how much needs to be done, what I know is that right now there are a few things that are pretty big issues. Stealth camp blocking and stealth stomping are two of them.

Thieves are not supposed to have perma stealth, but they can stay invisible for an eternity. Anet needs to address this. Atm they are a broken class.

There was a thief from Fort Aaspenwood doing the same thing last night. We had 20 people AOEing and could not target him nor turn the camp to ours. Each time he would hold till his server showed up to wipe us.

Is A-net srsly not trying to change this? This is more annoying/broken than mesmer killing siege out of LOS

this is bs. u cant cap a point in stealth mode. sorted.

Scyntrus.2458:

3 problems:

-Thief stealth lasts way too long and the cooldown is way too short.

-The usual culling problem.

-You can block camp capture while stealth.

One of those things isn’t a problem. As you said the issue could be resolved by making stealthed characters not count towards capture or capture blocking.

First off, revealing names like that is against the rules, I believe, however I do agree with you.

Make it so that a thief cannot cap after a certain amount of time in stealth.

One player holding a camp for hours on end solo really was not the designers intention and I think we can all agree that in some shape or form, this will be fixed. It would be nice if thieves and guilds with thieves would uphold the spirit of friendly competition and not do it until then, but perhaps that is too much to ask.

One thing that is for certain is it requires zero skill and is purely an exploitation of game mechanics combined with the current issues with rendering. If I happened to hear of or see a thief from my guild or even server, I’d make a point to see it stopped.

In the end though, it won’t stop until its fixed and worse, it will force every guild to do it just to keep up. So expect this to get alot worse before it gets better, as more thieves begin rationalizing it “everyone does it, l2p.”

Delusion.9543:

In Rift if you did anything, a skill, pick something up, literally anything, you dropped stealth. Why wouldn’t it be the same here? The only thing that didn’t drop you out of stealth was “incapacitating” somebody, and it was a short stun on a decent CD, so it wasn’t overpowering. The most Rogues could do was stay stealthed and incapacitate random people running by but the stun is so short it was easily just kinda something you rolled your eyes at.

In Rift an Assassin can remain in stealth until he attacks. Would you prefer that?
Would make scouting and sentry duties much easier.

Xorn.6079:

the problem is the graphic rendering issue that causing stealth longer than it suppose to. why blame thief? and capturing camps, towers, or keeps are not like in sPVP at all. Its bigger, and has NPCs spawned to defend the points right after its been captured.

Because you should never ever be able to capture an objective while stealthed. There’s a reason most games don’t let you. Because it’s kitten kitten /p>