Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,

This is tailored towards Thief stealth, but it works the same with Mesmer invis too if you know the duration’s.

Apologies for the clickbait title – There’s a character limit on the topic title so I couldn’t write what I wanted to.

A little backstory before I get to my point,

So today I was put into a situation whilst roaming as my Thief where I had to stealth up against a Warrior and he would run away until my stealth ended. He would turn around and come at me until i stealthed and he would run away again. This went on and off for a few minutes. Long story short, he decided to commit to the fight and I defeated him in the 1v1.

He invited me to a group and called me a Noob for Stealthing so much. He was joking as it was one of my stream viewers, but it raised several questions in my chat about stealth and why people very much dislike it. It shows that the uninformed really struggle against it because they have very little experience in using it.

I see it all over the forums and subreddit: Stealth is OP, anet pls nerf. And because of this, a lot of the new elite specs have build in, very potent and extremely strong AOE Reveals. This kind of sucks for Thieves as there is such a very simple counter:

Heartseeker -> Blackpowder = 3s of Stealth. This can be stacked 4 times (5 with quickness sometimes). Stacking Stealth also takes time so the first stack is generally ticking down as you’re applying more. So usually you’re ending the stack with 9-10 seconds of stealth.

Question: Did you pressure his Blackpowder?
- Yes -> Probably only stacked it a max of 3 times.
- No -> Has free reign to stack 4 times
- BUT – Has he used initiative on other skills?
- Yes -> Can realistically only stack it 2 or 3 times.
- No -> Could have stacked it 4 times
- BUT – Are you within 1200 Range?
- Yes -> Probably stacked it once or twice so he can use Shadow Shot/Backstab combo. Get ready to fight
- No -> Stacked stealth 3 or 4 times so he can get in range.

Which ever situation is your outcome, start counting down. When the duration of their stealth runs lower, the more pressured the Thief is to make the first move. Don’t spam spells other than your #1 skill. Prepare your instant response and be on the lookout for the Shadow Shot bullet. You can 100% nullify backstab if you’re prepared for it. If the count down gets so low that they only have 1 or 2 seconds left then you can assume either:

1. They plan to engage RIGHT NOW. Dodge roll at the ready. They will come out of stealth shorty after evading their backstabs.
2. They plan to restealth through 2/5 stacking. Be aware that a Thief CANNOT stack stealth 4 times after previously stacking 4 times. Their initiative regeneration will only give the Thief enough for a 3 stack. Then a 2 stack the next time, then finally once. They can burn things like Blinding Powder or Steal (Stealth) to delay for regeneration for another 4 stack.

The last things to remember are:

Their Target – Which is you.
Their angle of attack – Your back for Backstab.

You now know how to count down their stealth timer, their target and what angle they want to come at you from. You have all the base line tools to counter a Thieves backstab. With this, those uninformed players who struggle vs Stealth might stand more a chance if they take their time to learn the above.

I use these methods all the time vs other Thieves with good results every time.

Now, this post is relatively specific to D/P stacking but D/P is the most used weapon set for Thief roaming. If you’re upset with perma steath Ghost Thieves, just stand in their blackpowder and they’ll accidentally hit you with Heartseeker or they stop the stack and run of out stealth shortly after or they burn traps in the open on no target to keep stealth uptime.

This method isn’t foolproof as nothing really goes 100% as planned but its a solid point to start at.

Apologies for the long post but I thought I’d share this with everyone. Hopefully it helps deviate a bit of the stealth hate.

I’ll happily answer any questions you may have,
Thanks for reading.

You’re too nice Seriously good writeup you did. Though if someone who complains about stealth hasn’t rolled Thief/Mes by now to learn it….they’re hard to take serious tbh. I’m not meaning it in a jerkish way at all.

Another easy tip if you have a weapon that cleaves on AA and have an OK crit chance, use a fire sigil so you don’t have to look to see if your AA is chaining when you hit them while they’re stealthed. Especially helpful when you’re in WvW and are sweeping for Mesmers in a keep for example.

This doesn’t solve the problem, but at least your post is constructive.

Stealth in this game – it’s very annoying to deal with. Has nothing to do with thief, it’s just as bad on mesmer, engie, ranger, or anything stealthed by somebody else: it’s potentially a large damage incoming from nowhere, which can mitigated or evaded in the best case. It’s far worse when this is about a group of 4-5 “gankers” that can hit you all at once from nowhere.

Now one maybe know how to react: don’t stand in a place, be ready to react, have proper build to be able to respond, use surroundings, and so on. All that doesn’t matter: you may win a fight against a stealthed class, or let it run away (because chasing it’s not really entertaining), but in the end — was not a fun fight. Very rarely it is. It’s really all about fun.

It’s true that most of the times, what is fun for one, may not be fun for the other. This has to be solved at design, then tested; to keep it fun for both sides. Both using stealth and playing against stealth. And this is true to all other things: CC, burst, DoT, teleport, evade, …

I don’t cry about stealth, just trying to make clear why it’s “hated”.
I started on thief, and played mesmer for 1+ years as main. In the beginning I used stealth offensively on thief. Every kill felt cheap, like cheating. Wasn’t fun for those killed, I’m sure of that. Most people simply run away, and I let them because a game that is not fun for both sides, will be soon a dead game. Why would one spend time in a game that is not fun for them? On mesmer I avoided stealth, except to escape. But even that felt cheap.

If your enemy can’t hit back a few times (even if you evaded or blocked those hits), if either sides doesn’t have a chance of winning (at least a semblance of hope), and the “fight” means just a few sparks that one can’t even see because server lag and worse ping than the rival, in a fight system that allows a stun opener, followed by a huge burst… and add stealth on top of this… ends in a bitter experience.

Winning or losing doesn’t matter in PvP, but enjoying the fight does. Has to be fun, for both sides. That’s what leads to people coming back and wanting more fights like this. This way everyone gets better, and a fight between good players is incredible fun.

Tl;dr – Playing against stealth in current implementation, is not a fun experience.

Delta.2093:

Stealth in this game – it’s very annoying to deal with. Has nothing to do with thief, it’s just as bad on mesmer, engie, ranger, or anything stealthed by somebody else: it’s potentially a large damage incoming from nowhere, which can mitigated or evaded in the best case. It’s far worse when this is about a group of 4-5 “gankers” that can hit you all at once from nowhere.

All I can say to this is in general being outnumbered is not fun. Stealth just enables them to get close to you before you run into the nearest tower. Simple counter to this problem is running with a group of people. That is kinda the core of WvW though is ganking and open world pvp.

I agree it is frustrating to be running then just die to 3 stealth theifs or whatever but to me it’s part of the game. It’s not fun for them when it comes to larger fights because they just get rolled over. People keep thinking WvW is supposed to be ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ when it’s not. There are many ways to get ‘unfair’ advantages in WvW pick one and you will find you can compete with others (numbers, stealth, food/stacks/gaurd buffs, seige, npc’s).

OP, you said this topic applies to mesmers as well but why do I only see advice for a single thief weapon set?

Clownmug.8357:

OP, you said this topic applies to mesmers as well but why do I only see advice for a single thief weapon set?

His counter was about timing and knowing their method of attack. If you learn about the mesmer stealth timers and how they deal their spikes of damage, you can counter in a similar fashion. Learn the classes you struggle against to learn how to play against them better.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

Clownmug.8357:

OP, you said this topic applies to mesmers as well but why do I only see advice for a single thief weapon set?

His counter was about timing and knowing their method of attack. If you learn about the mesmer stealth timers and how they deal their spikes of damage, you can counter in a similar fashion. Learn the classes you struggle against to learn how to play against them better.

Yes, it’s good advice to learn to play different classes but tips for just dealing with stealth in general would’ve been nice. It’s like telling someone afraid of flying to go become a pilot when teaching them relaxation exercises would’ve been simpler.

Clownmug.8357:

OP, you said this topic applies to mesmers as well but why do I only see advice for a single thief weapon set?

I’m most familiar with Thief, so it was easy to tell it from a Thief perspective. I’m not fully aware of the times with Mesmers, it’s something I’m not well voiced with. But I see a lot of people yelling, specifically towards Thieves as they use it the most, that Stealth is a problem because its a mechanic with no “counter” or however you’d like to word it.

So I offered a counter to the side I’m most familiar with to help ease some of the stealth agro.

If you want Mesmer counters, then do what I’m doing and visit a website which tells you the timers they get with Stealth and memorise them. Don’t forget that a lot of mesmers spec for PU!

Mesmer is my main profession actually. I’m just being nitpicky because it seems like thief players only know their own profession and give advice that requires non-thieves to work ten times harder to beat them.

Clownmug.8357:

Mesmer is my main profession actually. I’m just being nitpicky because it seems like thief players only know their own profession and give advice that requires non-thieves to work ten times harder to beat them.

Uhh, okay… So are you suggesting I’m giving bad advice to sabotage fighting vs Thieves or am I reading that incorrectly? If I’m not, that’s rather paranoid of you o_o.

Whichever way you read my OP I assure you it’s decent advice. I’m only here to try and help people :/

It’s good advice if you’re a thief fighting another thief, have nearly identical builds, and think/play the same way.

I don’t have a problem with stealth now. But I’ll be happy to share my http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Detection_Pulse with the OP out in the field. Then we will see how the discussion continues.

This is pretty good advice. I’ll definitely think about this when I see a thief next.

This guide perfectly illustrates the core problems with stealth in this game in general and thief in particular which i would like to illustrate here.
Note: I dont think that stealth is overpowered but badly designed.

Mandatory to counter, way harder to counter than to use.
First of all, what you described and what works vs one thief build might be considered difficult or at least not “easy”. It needs memorization, practice and routine. Not an issue as such, but the effort on the thief side is basically non existent compared to the non stealth class in order to have a balanced fight. As you have written yourself, this way of countering stealth wont net you a win just by itself; even if everything goes by plan. On the other hand, playing with stealth vs. someone who can not really counter stealth provides hardly a challenge.

Stealth misplays are not really punished while anti-stealth misplays are.
Secondly, stealth is forgiving while countering stealth is not. Miscounted or slightly mistimed your dodge? Too bad, you eat the full burst, have to blow a stun break or another important cooldown. Stealthed thief backstabbing someone with aegis up or block/invulnerability/evade skill? Np bro, try again since the backstab is blocked/dmg prevented, it does not count as a damaging attack and you can remain stealthed.

Stealth leaves the initiative up to the stealth class, non-stealthers have to react.
If not greatly outnumbered, stealth users basically can decide whether they want to fight or not and to some extend, whether they want to continue the fight or not. Granted, in spvp i do not care for a thief running away as i get to cap the point, but in roaming/wvw this simply leaves the non-stealthers frustrated as they are more or less at the whim of the stealther. Proactive tactics vs stealth barely exist and are not easy to pull off sucessfully, which is also reflected in your guide which almost exclusively tells how to answer, not to threaten.

Thief is too dependant on stealth.
The way anet has designed this class, they basically can not hit or change stealth without fundamentally changing or damaging thief. Thiefs have to rely on stealth for resources, regen/healing and skill enable. This results in further terrible design; providing classes with easy and strong stealth counters such as spammable mass reveal they automatically provide them with no-brainer thief counters. The solution would require a fundamental change in the current thief design: Making stealth an optional utility asset (as it is for the mesmer) and focusing on something else, for example the thief class mechanic steal (e.g. providing different steals such as the mesmer has different shatters).

Amenaza.8346:

Making stealth an optional utility asset (as it is for the mesmer) and focusing on something else, for example the thief class mechanic steal (e.g. providing different steals such as the mesmer has different shatters).

That’s actually quite an interesting idea, different steals. It could be a lot of work creating new skill steal skills from professions & PvE mobs, plus the rebalance to steal traits & stealth but would turn steal into a large profession mechanic for thieves. How about:

1. Damaging steal – skills all about damaging your foes.
2. Defensive steal – skills providing defensive options.
3. Supportive steal – group utility.
4. Control steal – skill for controlling your foes.

It’s an interesting idea but I believe this is such a massive overall change it be like redesigning the whole thief to incorporate that the likely hood is low.

With regard to stealth the thing I don’t like about it is it’s a all or nothing, You can’t see them you can’t heard them & you can’t see or heard environment effects caused by them (eg. grass/plant/water movement) that could give away their position / intent. Their gone of your screen with all you can do is wait or fire off ability for almost no feedback. For the stealth builds if denied stealth they loss to much survivability & some also their main source of damage.

Stealth Gameplay Feedbacks
Now I like stealth it’s just can very frustrating to fight against because of no feedback. Part of the problem is skill or traits that relies on stealth to function. So an idea I had to provide a bit more feedback is:

• Blood Strains – If damaged the thief/stealth build leaves a small hard to see blood stain behind after a small delay (Allows for repositioning so not directly giving professions position away) while still staying in stealth. Blood strains could stack if damaged multiply times increasing their visibility.
• Leap/teleport impacts – leave a small hard to see ground damage effect after leaping or teleporting, again with a small delay to allow reposition.

These changes would provide some visual feedback while I believe not overly impacting overall stealth gameplay. Making it funner to fight against stealth foes with out needing hard stealth counters which can be unfun for stealth builds.

I know how to counter it but that does not mean i enjoy fighting classes that barely show up during fights. Its annoying and remains annoying.

I main thief, but love playing warrior. The advice about timings is great advice if people aren’t aware – but don’t get disheartened if you still lose. This isn’t going to provide you with a win, just improves your knowledge to try turn the tables a little bit in a fight.

But against a more skilled opponent, you’re likely still going to lose. And as with every game, there are always plenty of players who are better out there.

You can also save your CC to immobilize/interrupt the thief before they leap through Black Powder’s smoke field. Immobilize also works against Shadow Refuge if you don’t have a knock back because the Shadow’s Embrace trait only removes damaging conditions. Just CC then use your auto attack to find them. If you are a ranger, please note that Entangle doesn’t work against stealthed targets.

If a thief enters stealth the worst thing you can do is just stand there and wait. Be aggressive and use you auto attack to find them. If your class has a lot of AOEs just place them at your feet.

Another thread regarding stealth! @OP: this was actually a good writeup. Seriously! If some guys are still dying to thieves, you have to think about to stop facerolling your keyboard. The stealth is fine on this class. Yeah they can perma stealth but as soon as they mess it up/get revealed, they are screwed. It uses all your initiative/cds. There are so many ways to counter them. The OP has brought up a good advice about how to fight a thief and there is one more. Pressure them! As soon as a thief has to go defensive, you have almost won the fight.

There are two annoying builds who are abusing stealth right now: trapper thief and pu mesmer (although pu mesmer is almost fine after the nerf). Stop complaining about the average d/p thieves. It’s almost the last viable power build for thieves in WvW.

meepeY.2867:

I’ll happily answer any questions you may have,

So then, answer this for me.

1) My team takes SM. A single PU mesmer runs around perma stealth until righteous indignation times out then ports in a zerg and retakes SM. I want to know what you think is a reasonable counter to that which doesn’t involve wasting 10+ mins of 5+ players time searching for a player we only periodically see for half a second.

2) Thief comes in for a 1v1 fight. Loses. Gets revenge by coming back and harassing me – stealth, hits me, arrow shadowstep, stealth and goes out of range. Repeats again and again until I can’t take it anymore and port back home. I roam fine for a while until he/she eventually finds me again and repeats the harassment. Show me how that can be countered – until then, stealth is broken, full stop.

Ryu.5801:

1) My team takes SM. A single PU mesmer runs around perma stealth until righteous indignation times out then ports in a zerg and retakes SM. I want to know what you think is a reasonable counter to that which doesn’t involve wasting 10+ mins of 5+ players time searching for a player we only periodically see for half a second.

If a mesmer uses all of its stealth spells to avoid you, it times out after 56 seconds, leaving the mesmer vulnerable for another 8-10 seconds because of cooldowns, some much longer than that (which is a long time if you’re being chased).

Most mesmers successfully flip objectives because people aren’t patient enough to count to 60.

Jayne.9251:

Ryu.5801:

1) My team takes SM. A single PU mesmer runs around perma stealth until righteous indignation times out then ports in a zerg and retakes SM. I want to know what you think is a reasonable counter to that which doesn’t involve wasting 10+ mins of 5+ players time searching for a player we only periodically see for half a second.

If a mesmer uses all of its stealth spells to avoid you, it times out after 56 seconds, leaving the mesmer vulnerable for another 8-10 seconds because of cooldowns, some much longer than that (which is a long time if you’re being chased).

Are you serious because I can’t tell? You think 8-10 seconds is enough to cover searching SM? The funniest part is that you think you can locate a mesmer just when they come out of stealth to chase them when they have 56 secs of invisible time which is enough to hide in just about any corner of SM.

Jayne.9251:

Most mesmers successfully flip objectives because people aren’t patient enough to count to 60.

What rubbish. The simple fact is that on an ongoing and consistent basis teams of 5-10 players are wasting 5-10+ mins purging 1 single PU mesmer in SM every time there is one hiding around.

Ryu.5801:

Jayne.9251:

Ryu.5801:

1) My team takes SM. A single PU mesmer runs around perma stealth until righteous indignation times out then ports in a zerg and retakes SM. I want to know what you think is a reasonable counter to that which doesn’t involve wasting 10+ mins of 5+ players time searching for a player we only periodically see for half a second.

If a mesmer uses all of its stealth spells to avoid you, it times out after 56 seconds, leaving the mesmer vulnerable for another 8-10 seconds because of cooldowns, some much longer than that (which is a long time if you’re being chased).

Are you serious because I can’t tell? You think 8-10 seconds is enough to cover searching SM? The funniest part is that you think you can locate a mesmer just when they come out of stealth to chase them when they have 56 secs of invisible time which is enough to hide in just about any corner of SM.

Jayne.9251:

Most mesmers successfully flip objectives because people aren’t patient enough to count to 60.

What rubbish. The simple fact is that on an ongoing and consistent basis teams of 5-10 players are wasting 5-10+ mins purging 1 single PU mesmer in SM every time there is one hiding around.

Eh I’ve done this debate to death.

Bottom line, if you hate sweeping, don’t do it.

We sweep with two and usually find them in two minutes. Maybe it may be useful to make a mesmer and play it a while to see its weaknesses so you can be more efficient. There are actually set/limited places where a mesmer can hide in SM. Learn those and it’s not endless hide and seek.

The problem with stealth classes is that, by design, they must use their stealth abilities to survive.

The tuning on this is very close to binary; Either the stealth class is practically invincible, or they become a free kill.

This leads to a very undesirable situation where the stealth classes use a method of play that allows for very little, to no, counterplay. This is not fun for the receiving end of the damage.

But if you then nerf their ability to employ the zero counterplay strategy, THEY no longer work, which is not fun either.

Basically, the present design for mesmer/thief is terrible for both them and the other classes, and no amount of “tweaking” will fix it. A core redesign of the class mechanics is required.

Most boring part IMO with stealth is when you fight a thief and hes about to lose the fight he stealth away to either regen in stealth or run away in stealth.

Most boring and annoying fights in GW2 I rather take on a mesmers clone army than than a theif like that.

My Counter is Scrapper´s 900 Range AE Reveal.

Ryu.5801:

meepeY.2867:

I’ll happily answer any questions you may have,

So then, answer this for me.

1) My team takes SM. A single PU mesmer runs around perma stealth until righteous indignation times out then ports in a zerg and retakes SM. I want to know what you think is a reasonable counter to that which doesn’t involve wasting 10+ mins of 5+ players time searching for a player we only periodically see for half a second.

2) Thief comes in for a 1v1 fight. Loses. Gets revenge by coming back and harassing me – stealth, hits me, arrow shadowstep, stealth and goes out of range. Repeats again and again until I can’t take it anymore and port back home. I roam fine for a while until he/she eventually finds me again and repeats the harassment. Show me how that can be countered – until then, stealth is broken, full stop.

1) Learn to think like a mesmer, use destealth traps at the right time and start to treat your engis right. They are the most awesome mesmer hunters out there. It’s hilarious how fast PU mesmer die to them.
Also necros do a great job if they are able to use their staff, track them down and burst them down with dagger/focus. Finding mesmers in SM has gotten even easier with the latest PU nerf.

2) Burst the thief down, throw a ballista on his corpse and start spamming /laugh. 95% of them will rage quit the game after insutling you in whisper and the other 5% are easy kills in their full rage mode…but honestly this thread was about how to fight them and not about how to catch the ones who are running away all day. There are worse classes/builds like gs warrior and sw/x + gs medi guards.

illenos.5134:

1) Learn to think like a mesmer, use destealth traps at the right time and start to treat your engis right. They are the most awesome mesmer hunters out there. It’s hilarious how fast PU mesmer die to them.

What engineer build are you suggesting is particularly strong at killing a PU mesmer build?

dancingmonkey.4902:

illenos.5134:

1) Learn to think like a mesmer, use destealth traps at the right time and start to treat your engis right. They are the most awesome mesmer hunters out there. It’s hilarious how fast PU mesmer die to them.

What engineer build are you suggesting is particularly strong at killing a PU mesmer build?

I’m using a Static Discharge build with the trait Lock On and sometimes with the utility skill Utility Googles (which gives the toolbelt skill Analyze) whenever I have to find PU mesmer. This build is even awesome for general roaming and focus party play while zerging.

It’s worth adding that since the PU nerf a Mesmer can’t even come close to perma stealth. They can get about 29s of stealth by running mimic, decoy, torch, PU, torch trait, mass invis and manipulation cool down reduction. They can then restealth after 3s for maybe another 9s then they’re just flat outta stealth and waiting on cool downs.

Additionally they most likely have no condi clear due to picking up mimic and decoy and so are very weak to conditions or have no teleport.

I don’t find PU mesmers a problem, the ghost thieves that can actually perma stealth, have 2-3 hiding in a keep and then flip it in 30s are way more of a concern for me now.

Dancingmonkey, I’d say anything that’s power with lock on and grenades preferably with grenadier trait will be able to hunt stealthed targets easily. Even a condi build with flamethrower and lock on would find mesmers and kill them easily.

Stealth basically forces your opponent to play a mind game that they will statistically lose.

Some profession has better counter to stealth by cleaving, ground target skills etc. Some struggle more against it.

The hardest part to fight against thief is always after they shadow refuged. Because by that time you already used some of your cool downs and thief can come out of the stealth at any time. It is very very hard to counter it.

My biggest issue with Stealth is that the person fighting against Stealth is hardly ever mechanically rewarded. You get a hit or two in, you maybe land an AoE, you do a bit of damage, but nothing significant happens. You don’t break an enemy from stealth by hitting them with a direct damaging ability. There’s no shimmer when you are very close to a stealthed opponent, nor is there any other indication of where the stealthed opponent is when anything lands. You make inferences and then guess, hoping you’re right.

On the other hand, a stealthed player has much in the way of forgiveness. Miss an attack? Have an attack blocked? Were you blinded? Were they evading? No big deal, go ahead and try again. I once tried to use Well of Darkness as a Stealth counter, and while standing in the middle of it, I saw “Miss”, then a Backstab crit me for 10k. Since the swing time of Backstab was less than the pulse time of Blind, I was hit in my own Blind-pulsing Well. More times than I can count, I’ve anticipated a Backstab, only to be Backstabbed at the end of my dodge.

There’s practically no reward to fighting against stealth. To me, it’s a very unsatisfying experience. Whenever I find Elementalists, or Guardians, or Warriors, or Necromancers, or Engineers, or Rangers, I’m excited because it’s typically an interesting fight that I really enjoy. Whenever I find a Mesmer or a Thief out in WvW, which is more often than any other class combined (and it isn’t close), I mostly just sigh. Mesmers currently top my irritation list with the blocks out of stealth, chaining invulns, reflecting on heal, blinds, repeated stealthing, etc. I feel like they don’t even care what class they are up against, they just do the same ol’ rotation that applies pressure with tiny windows to retaliate. Meanwhile, I need to know all of the intricacies of what they are doing to have a chance at making it a good fight.

I always have a threshold, where if I encounter a certain number of stealth builds in a row, I’ll log out. I don’t even necessarily think the builds are OP, as any imbalances I more often attribute to sigils/runes/food, especially roaming in WvW. It just feels like I’m playing Texas Hold ‘Em with someone who can see my hand, while I still can’t see his. Sure, it might be fun to try to guess based on whatever information I can glean from reactions, bets, etc. as to whether or not I’ll win, but at the end of the day it’s just an annoyingly designed and generally unrewarding situation. I might as well go play Guess Who.

The problem is the amount of damage a stealthy can do versus the amount of damage they don’t take. So not only can they stealth and port around (looking mainly at thieves/mesmers) but on the occasion that you do land a hit it does nothing. They clear/cleanse or escape to heal if need be and the fight is renewed. Its absolutely silly how often this is the case and even sillier how long this draws out a fight unnecessarily. There aren’t any clean and fun fights anymore.

I would vote to remove stealth entirely from the game. Doubtful. Not even a glimmer of hope in that.

The way I see it is the balance needs to be sorted between Stealth, Mobility, Damage. If stealth and damage must remain the same then reduce the mobility on classes that have it. Stealth should impose a 75% movement penalty once activated and every time that its activated. Likewise for the other two variations.

I’d have less of a problem if thiefs couldn’t immob you venom you load you up with condis while doing 10-15k damage in less than 0.5 seconds due to a lack of skill activation time and disappear in stealth whilst waiting on their cooldowns, healing up the maybe one hit you got on them before they disappeared…

Engi might be a bit of fun with aoe reveal but the cooldown will still mean disappearing people.

Bottom line is that for most people playing against stealth that carries no penalty isn’t much fun- yes it can be countered but it takes 10 times more skill to counter than to play.

meepeY.2867:

Hello guys,…………

At least you are constructive and not using lame excuses like this guy

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

I agree it is frustrating to be running then just die to 3 stealth theifs or whatever but to me it’s part of the game.

But all your tips do not solve the problem that most of the time you don´t see somebody coming. And the amount of burst mesmers for example or full yolo thiefs can dish out is simply obscene. If i know that a stealth class is around at least i can prepare for an engage but most of the times you don´t.

There is way too much stealth in the game, it is too easy to achieve, it is too forgiving and has really low risk high reward. If a thief is engaging you he can try his luck and kitten away if you don´t drop at the first engage. It´s simply stupid and there is no skill involved at all

JDjitsu.7895:

Another easy tip if you have a weapon that cleaves on AA and have an OK crit chance

When will people start to realize that damage is not a counter to stealth and cleaving the air like a kittening kitten is not a solution for this problem.

mordran.4750:

At least you are constructive and not using lame excuses like this guy

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

I agree it is frustrating to be running then just die to 3 stealth theifs or whatever but to me it’s part of the game.

Ouch, no need to hate. It’s not an excuse it’s just part of the game mode that I was pointing out, and I mentioned some more ideas on how to counter stealth in general.

All you have to do is think ahead, if they have low hp they will move away from you so place aoe infront of where they disappear.. if they have hp then put aoe all on you within half a second

Any of you complaining about thieves tried creating one and ‘dominating’ out in wvw? Apparently its a very easy class, so… awaiting videos of your new found prowess

I have main’d thief for over a year – and admittedly have NOT changed my build in the last 2 months as I’ve been playing warrior.

I find the game far easier as warrior and a LOT more fun.

I still get beaten by some thieves – but that’s because they’re better than I am. It actually happens that some people are just plain better.

I’ve also utterly destroyed thieves and mesmers with warrior too.