Guild Wars 2

This is a Constructive thread, meant to help the game designers to get stealth back on track in WvW.

Anyone who plays the game WvW knows that stealth is overpowerd. Ppl playing stealth classes will try and shoot this thread down. So let me refer to the post “Stealth in WvW needs a nerf” where the OP is a stealth user and feels its very overpowered. Some will try to claim he is lying but at the end of the day. ANYONE playing WvW knows that there are way too many advantages when using stealth as Mesmer, Thief.

1.You can take out a group of 4 ppl, no other classes can do anything similar.
2. If you are close to loosing a fight you can cloak and run to safty and start all over again. No other classes can do anything similar or even close.

So pls give some constructive feedback on how stealth can be fixed in WvW.

This is NOT a yes it is NO it isnet thread. So when ppl start try to shoot the thread down pls try to be the wiser and stay on topic. I hope to get a lot of great ideas with this post, so we can help the gamedesigners with some great input.

An idea could be one of the following
- To prolong the cooldown on stealth.
- reduce time in stealthmode
- Let more skills interrupt stealth.
- reduce backstab damage
- not being able to cloak while using “finish him”

Thankyou for your constructive feedback on the thread.

for start i want you to post your 150k wvwvw kills, cause i know a lot of warriors /guardians with that ammount.
I would also want to know how your stealth break zergs

Best regards,

nothing else to say

Stealth is fine.

I disagree with your assumption that no other class can take out 4 players.

Encore.7053:

This is a Constructive thread, meant to help the game designers to get stealth back on track in WvW.

Anyone who plays the game WvW knows that stealth is overpowerd. Ppl playing stealth classes will try and shoot this thread down. So let me refer to the post “Stealth in WvW needs a nerf” where the OP is a stealth user and feels its very overpowered. Some will try to claim he is lying but at the end of the day. ANYONE playing WvW knows that there are way too many advantages when using stealth as Mesmer, Thief.

1.You can take out a group of 4 ppl, no other classes can do anything similar.
2. If you are close to loosing a fight you can cloak and run to safty and start all over again. No other classes can do anything similar or even close.

So pls give some constructive feedback on how stealth can be fixed in WvW.

This is NOT a yes it is NO it isnet thread. So when ppl start try to shoot the thread down pls try to be the wiser and stay on topic. I hope to get a lot of great ideas with this post, so we can help the gamedesigners with some great input.

An idea could be one of the following
- To prolong the cooldown on stealth.
- reduce time in stealthmode
- Let more skills interrupt stealth.
- reduce backstab damage
- not being able to cloak while using “finish him”

Thankyou for your constructive feedback on the thread.

i never saw a thief or mesmer taking down more than 2 average players, and if both are skilled forget it even if they are a engineer or a necro, , altough you talk about 1 Vs 4 and we still take them all down , uhmm i would like to see that, as long as you learn how to play against backstab thiefs they kill 1 but usually they are unable to finish it if some allies are around, just aor around downed allie or use fear kncok back or heavy located dmg usually they will be down after that .
I agreed they need to lower the amount of time in stealth and give less burst to thiefs (1vs 1 they are op), but please 1 thief against any 2 other skilled players they are screw, how many times i kill them with my mesmer (ok i use the 4 stealth mesmer available skills all the time), and any of my dodges adds 1 more clone.

Make a “revealed” debuff occur on someone as they leave stealth through an attack. While revealed said player will be unable to stealth

Oh wait…

In all seriousness culling is the problem, not stealth. If you have ever been in sPVP where there is no culling you’d know what I mean.

Also for a class that is built to escape/hit and run thieves naturally have an advantage in the open field. I see no problem with this.

Stealth is fine as it is in WvW. If a thief or mes is constantly in stealth than they can’t do much do help the team cap objectives etc.

I dont know why everyone is whining about it so much. If you’re getting ganked by one trick ponies thieves, it’s your fault. Stop blaming the game.

In the meanwhile, Anet could temporarily nerf stealth time by a second on each skill in order to cancel out the culling effect until they fix it.

So how is stealth okay if it can counter every, I mean every single spell that I have?
Immobilize ? Oh hey, i have stealth LolzhahaXDXDXDXD
You have a circle that wont let me out ? Oh hey, i have stelath Lolzhaha…
You outnumber me and could kill me in 2 seconds because I’m just another non-skilled glasscannon thief ? Oh hey let me show you this 1:30 min stealth that I just got, cya tomorrow

What ? In what way is that okay ? I dont have anything against stealth in general, but its just poorly balanced in this game as far as thieves go….

@Teamkiller.4315 Yes there is that debuff, but as far as I know, most of the utility (longer duration) stealth is used for defensive purposes, and why would u leave stealth with an attack if youre trying to be defensive again ? Oh wait…..

Encore.7053:

This is a Constructive thread, meant to help the game designers to get stealth back on track in WvW.

Anyone who plays the game WvW knows that stealth is overpowerd. Ppl playing stealth classes will try and shoot this thread down. So let me refer to the post “Stealth in WvW needs a nerf” where the OP is a stealth user and feels its very overpowered. Some will try to claim he is lying but at the end of the day. ANYONE playing WvW knows that there are way too many advantages when using stealth as Mesmer, Thief.

1.You can take out a group of 4 ppl, no other classes can do anything similar.
2. If you are close to loosing a fight you can cloak and run to safty and start all over again. No other classes can do anything similar or even close.

So pls give some constructive feedback on how stealth can be fixed in WvW.

This is NOT a yes it is NO it isnet thread. So when ppl start try to shoot the thread down pls try to be the wiser and stay on topic. I hope to get a lot of great ideas with this post, so we can help the gamedesigners with some great input.

An idea could be one of the following
- To prolong the cooldown on stealth.
- reduce time in stealthmode
- Let more skills interrupt stealth.
- reduce backstab damage
- not being able to cloak while using “finish him”

Thankyou for your constructive feedback on the thread.

Say what you want about not creating another “yes it is, no it isn’t” thread, but you’ve already assumed that stealth is broken so you’ve already trashed your own guidelines.

Stealth is annoying, stealth is exaggerated by culling, and glass canyon thieves can be highly disruptive. But a thief who spends a lot of time in stealth is not spending a lot of time killing you or anyone else, and a thief out of stealth is dead meat for almost any competent player.

spammable stealth is the problem. revealed debuff could stand to be 1 sec longer. i’d willingly trade some lolstealth for more shadowsteps and/or group support options.

If you haven’t figured out how to deal with stealth by now, you’re probably never going to be happy about it. I can understand griping about stealth and culling.

This thread will not be constructive.

I’m pretty certain you’re just trolling anyway.

A thieves mobility in stealth could be altered or what abilities they are able to use. Mesmers stealth is not really an issue great sword phantom could use a nerf though.

Mesmer 80 Mesmer 65

OP, i can agree with you on many things but in my opinion, I refuse to agree where you mentioned a mesmer decoy (3 sec) stealth is OP in comparison to a theif stealth? I’m sure you are aware, No mesmer can attack while in Decoy, nor kill while in Decoy, nor can single hit with very high damage and vanish untouchable while in decoy. Mesmers clones, phant, are quite easy to counter. Any class can confirm that.

Here’s a thought, what if CC broke stealth?

I think CD’s are fine, but I would reduce speed to walking speed when stealthed. Kind of hard to sneak up on someone at a full sprint.

Osu.6307:

I think CD’s are fine, but I would reduce speed to walking speed when stealthed. Kind of hard to sneak up on someone at a full sprint.

This would completely destroy the point of Cloak and Dagger. I dont need to say more.

How exactly is this a constructive thread?

You assume there is a problem with stealth, which many people don’t think there is. Why nerf something that doesn’t need nerfing?

Silly thread should be closed, it offers nothing constructive.

Stealth is not the problem the problem is Culling.
Silly Thread

i think the best way to fix stealth in WvW would be if any player could see a person in stealth so long as they are within a 300 unit range to them.

also extend the revealed debuff to 5 seconds and make it go off at the start of an attack, not just when it lands. so that way when a thief goes to back stab you and misses there is an actual penalty, not just an oops better try again.

after all, i don’t think the dev’s meant for you to be fighting in stealth, or for players to spend all of their time when fighting thieves swinging wildly at the air

Stealth revealed buff needs to be 10 seconds long.

Stealth should be an opener, not a get out of jail free card.

the only thing that needs to be fixed is the enemy’s nameplate needs to appear at the same time as the model.

that would pretty much solve all my issues with stealth.

No, the only thing that needs to be fixed is the Revealed being buffed to 10 seconds in Duration.

This would allow them to do their DPS, but also make it a consequence for actually playing bad or screwing up.

Not shout “REDO!” after they screw up.

Revealed right now is far to forgiving, It allows terrible players to make unforgivable mistakes that no other class would be able to live though.

Thesilentflute.8761:

A thieves mobility in stealth could be altered or what abilities they are able to use. Mesmers stealth is not really an issue great sword phantom could use a nerf though.

Mesmer 80 Mesmer 65

Seriously? The greatsword was bugged out this last patch and now the phantasm hits once maybe twice instead of the 4 times the tooltip states… Everytime they touch mesmers they break us worse than we were before… So no the greatsword phantasm needs fixed!

The only problem I have with stealth is how easy it is for thieves to get away. But that isn’t exclusive to thieves. I see just as many Mesmers and Eles running and getting way with 3-5 people chasing.

Hell I see a couple rangers doing it. Kinda funny.

Once again I’ll recite this.
If stealth gets a nerf, I think the best would be to make it so revealed triggers no matter what, effectively eliminating all chances of achieving permastealth. It’d nerf stealth as means to escape or sneak around zergs unnoticed, while perserving thief’s ability to maintain combat uptime.
I’d also settle for a 25% nerf to stealth duration.

No other game allows players to remain in stealth while damaged or to remain in stealth while attacking. All othe games REDUCE movement speed dramatically while stealthed. They reversed all 3 of these in this game and made stealth laughably overpowered.

Columba.9730:

No other game allows players to remain in stealth while damaged or to remain in stealth while attacking. All othe games REDUCE movement speed dramatically while stealthed.

BOTH INCORRECT. Please try again.

Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, daoc, Eq2. Sorry, I am correct. I guess I should say decent games. More denial though, no surprise.

Attacking from stealth should give a 30 second reveal buff. If and when culling is fixed.

Personally, I would like to be cloaked longer then the cool down but meh. I do want to thank all of you “nerf the stealth” people. It has changed my approach to wvw. I very rarely run with a zerg now. Instead I go to where people are lvling their alts, farming and map completionist. Yea, that’s right. I troll the hell out of the badge baits. It’s hilarious.

I start off with the ever boring but highly entertaining steal, back stab, heart seeker, c&d, stomp, shadow refugee. Then let the trolling begin. Switch to sword/dagger and shadow step the hell out of the guy ressing. Wahahahaha way too funny. And you see, no more of stealth. I hope my efforts are helping your cause.

Diashame.6328:

Attacking from stealth should give a 30 second reveal buff. If and when culling is fixed.

Of course it should. That’s how it is in decently balanced games.

Columba.9730:

Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, daoc, Eq2. Sorry, I am correct. I guess I should say decent games. More denial though, no surprise.

What were the decent games you were talking about, because they are all bad ones.

Stealth and culling are both part of the same problem: they hamper the ability of people to find enemies when they’re right in front of their faces. The way things are right now, Thieves deliberately abuse the culling weakness in order to spam stealth moves and get easy back attack damage, or to make a getaway at the slightest hint of danger. It’s pretty much impossible to take them on in a 1v1 situation unless there is a really major gear/skill difference.

Culling is a part of the problem, yes, but to say stealth as it is right now is not also a problem is just admitting one’s own ignorance. Until culling gets figured out, I vote for either longer cooldowns on stealth skills, or a longer debuff period where players cannot re-stealth.

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, daoc, Eq2. Sorry, I am correct. I guess I should say decent games. More denial though, no surprise.

What were the decent games you were talking about, because they are all bad ones.

Lol dark age was much better to many of us, but you are entitled to your opinion.

PolishSausage.1279:

Stealth and culling are both part of the same problem: they hamper the ability of people to find enemies when they’re right in front of their faces. The way things are right now, Thieves deliberately abuse the culling weakness in order to spam stealth moves and get easy back attack damage, or to make a getaway at the slightest hint of danger. It’s pretty much impossible to take them on in a 1v1 situation unless there is a really major gear/skill difference.

Culling is a part of the problem, yes, but to say stealth as it is right now is not also a problem is just admitting one’s own ignorance. Until culling gets figured out, I vote for either longer cooldowns on stealth skills, or a longer debuff period where players cannot re-stealth.

Yes, as it stands, stealth + culling makes for god mode.

Columba.9730:

PolishSausage.1279:

Stealth and culling are both part of the same problem: they hamper the ability of people to find enemies when they’re right in front of their faces. The way things are right now, Thieves deliberately abuse the culling weakness in order to spam stealth moves and get easy back attack damage, or to make a getaway at the slightest hint of danger. It’s pretty much impossible to take them on in a 1v1 situation unless there is a really major gear/skill difference.

Culling is a part of the problem, yes, but to say stealth as it is right now is not also a problem is just admitting one’s own ignorance. Until culling gets figured out, I vote for either longer cooldowns on stealth skills, or a longer debuff period where players cannot re-stealth.

Yes, as it stands, stealth + culling makes for god mode.

If your sure of that, feel free to load up your thief and Ill meet you on the field with a char other than thief.

Columba.9730:

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, daoc, Eq2. Sorry, I am correct. I guess I should say decent games. More denial though, no surprise.

What were the decent games you were talking about, because they are all bad ones.

Lol dark age was much better to many of us, but you are entitled to your opinion.

Better than what? GW2? I think this game is pretty terrible from a PvP perspective.

Pero.4362:

So how is stealth okay if it can counter every, I mean every single spell that I have?
Immobilize ? Oh hey, i have stealth LolzhahaXDXDXDXD
You have a circle that wont let me out ? Oh hey, i have stelath Lolzhaha…
You outnumber me and could kill me in 2 seconds because I’m just another non-skilled glasscannon thief ? Oh hey let me show you this 1:30 min stealth that I just got, cya tomorrow

I don’t think you quite understand how stealth works if you’re posing these questions. If you immobilize someone, they will stay immobilized even if they stealth. You are free to attack right where they were when you immobilized them and they will still take damage. Now, there is the thief ability to remove conditions and stealth, but that is one specific skill, not the entirety of the stealth mechanic. The same applies for your second point: being invisible isn’t going to help anyone escape the guardian’s trapping circle (I assume that’s what you’re referring to). It is possible to shadowstep/blink through the edge while invisible, but again, that is not stealth that is causing a problem.

Finally, I know very little about thieves because I don’t play one, but as far as I know, there is no skill that allows for a full 90 seconds of stealth. Chaining together stealth skills like that probably takes a fair amount of coordination. Yeah, thieves can escape, but I don’t see that as a huge issue. They are so frail that they need to be able to run away sometimes. With the less-skilled thieves, you can often anticipate when they will attack and give them a big smack to pretty much insta-down them.

I had this very scenario happen today. My friend (who plays a thief) wasn’t really paying attention and got insta-downed by a thief and an upleveled guardian. I was a little ways behind gathering ore, so I ran over as soon as I could. Said thief went down quickly to a confusion burst (I play a weird condition mesmer) and I finished off the guardian and we went on our merry way. My point here is that the same thief who was able to pick off my friend had very little defense. Thieves have to do lots of damage because they don’t have the staying power of other classes; a quick burst will down them almost instantly (well, the glass cannon ones that are doing all this damage to begin with).

I would recommend that you learn to anticipate thieves and learn how to manage your own defensive abilities so that when you do get jumped you aren’t at a disadvantage. Culling with stealth is deadly, but as long as there is no culling, there’s little excuse for complaining about stealth.

You are wrong if you don’t think permastealth is possible with thieves. It’s easily doable. I guess we need mind reading skills to know where to aoe, lol. They aren’t frail either. They wear medium armor and have the same HP as guardians and caster classes.

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, daoc, Eq2. Sorry, I am correct. I guess I should say decent games. More denial though, no surprise.

What were the decent games you were talking about, because they are all bad ones.

Lol dark age was much better to many of us, but you are entitled to your opinion.

Better than what? GW2? I think this game is pretty terrible from a PvP perspective.

We agree. I think the WvWvW is terribly imbalanced here due to thieves.

Columba.9730:

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, daoc, Eq2. Sorry, I am correct. I guess I should say decent games. More denial though, no surprise.

What were the decent games you were talking about, because they are all bad ones.

Lol dark age was much better to many of us, but you are entitled to your opinion.

Better than what? GW2? I think this game is pretty terrible from a PvP perspective.

We agree. I think the WvWvW is terribly imbalanced here due to thieves.

You talk alot. Load up your thief. Ill chuck on a guardian. Lets see what happens.

Okay. Come find me. Oh wait!

Palu, you said it yourself, “Finally, I know very little about thieves because I don’t play one”
Everyone here who post their concerns and suggestions in this thread regarding theif mechanic are quite knowledgable of theif mechanics and has played one. I encourage you to not make assumptions without knowledge or experience.
I would like to comment of what you said, “there is no skill that allows for a full 90 seconds of stealth”.
I encourage you to look under Perma-Stealth theif under youtube, there you will see for yourself. And yes, there are many posted video’s there, also you will find them under theif forum of users posting perma-theif builds as well.

In a game with no healing class, mobility and stealth will naturally be OP, as the best defense in this game is to not take damage at all.

Burnfall.9573:

Palu, you said it yourself, “Finally, I know very little about thieves because I don’t play one”
Everyone here who post in this forum regarding theif mechanic are quite knowledgable of theif mechanics and has played one. I encourage you to not make assumptions without knowledge or experience.
I would like to comment of what you said, “there is no skill that allows for a full 90 seconds of stealth”.
Please look under Perma-Stealth theif under youtube, there you will see for yourself. And yes, there are many video’s there, also you will find under theif forum of users posting perma-theif builds, of course in youtube gameplay format.

I think you may be taking my quote out of context. I was replying to Pero, who seemed to claim that there is a single button that thieves can press once to give them 90 seconds of uninterrupted stealth. I am fully aware that thieves can chain together skills to have considerable amounts of stealth, but this requires the active usage of smoke fields. Placing such a field gives an indication of the thief’s relative position. One can predict, based on the location of the smoke fields, whether or not a thief is sticking around to fight or decided to run away based on where the smoke fields keep appearing. As I said, this requires a bit of coordination (not a ton, but the thief has to make sure that using a leap finisher through the field doesn’t break stealth, thus giving the revealed debuff). Again, as I said, I was referring specifically to Pero’s complaint, stating that there is not a single skill that gives 90 seconds of stealth, but that long-term stealth has to be actively maintained on the part of the thief. When I put a noun in the singular I do indeed intend for it to be so.

Also, if you read the rest of my post, you will see that I clearly acknowledge that thieves can have significant stealth uptime, but specifically state that they often need that due to their frailty. They have extremely low base health and only medium armor, and many builds don’t invest in a lot of toughness or vitality. Stealth IS their form of defense.

Don’t assume that everyone in this thread knows the thief mechanics well. As I admitted in my previous post, I’m no expert on the thief class. However, just by playing WvW and observing my enemies I’ve managed to learn everything I listed above about thief skills. When I first started playing WvW I got my face smashed in repeatedly by thieves. However, I told myself that the problem wasn’t thieves, it was me. I took to studying them and figuring out what they do and how they play. Now, I rarely go down to them, and only do if I’m not paying attention or if they are far more skilled than me. Coming from someone who doesn’t play a thief, I think that many people in this thread don’t understand them. If I can teach myself how to fight thieves, so can everyone else. It’s just that people don’t want to invest the time into actually learning about their foes and would rather take the easy road out and call for nerfs. It’s a phenomenon that exists across the world of MMOs.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Stealth is fine.

I disagree with your assumption that no other class can take out 4 players.

You kidding right, I never maid a 4v1 with my ranger, I mean in same time and same lvl.

Those class is gardian thief and mesmer and 2 class in that list use stealth.

sostronk.8167:

Columba.9730:

No other game allows players to remain in stealth while damaged or to remain in stealth while attacking. All othe games REDUCE movement speed dramatically while stealthed.

BOTH INCORRECT. Please try again.

I see is your first mmo. Stealth need a curse for the user a curse a real one, one who avode using it or you dont want using it after several use(big dmg or reduce armor/health per use).

This thread derailed quite fast; props to OP wanting to have a sensible conversation about this – but you really are asking a bit much of the internet. Still, I’ll throw my idea out there.

Stealth Ability X:
- Applies 5 stacks (5 seconds) of Stealth

Stealth: Boon not status
- Grants 1 second of Stealth
- Stacks duration

Essentially you can decrease (or outright remove) stealth via boon removal. The numbers may need to be tweaked (e.g. 10 × 0.5s), but that’s the general idea.

Reasoning: if I remember correctly, stealth is the only player-applied ‘status’ that isn’t a boon in the game (I stand to be corrected): which is likely the reason why so many people complain about it. If you make it a boon, characters that use stealth will be need to be more thoughtful about when they use it (but when used correctly it would be just as devastating as it is now: as it should be).

Personally I don’t have a problem with stealth, but people are complaining – so something can clearly be improved: like it or not.

There is no sensible discussion because Thieves are clearly all just better players than the rest. It is they who need to learn to fight Thieves, Thieves shouldn’t have to learn how to do anything. It is intended and logical that stealth must have no risks associated with it, and no counter mechanic for foes to exploit.

The correct course of action is to L2P.

A stealth class, that is.

When every nonzergian in WvW decides to use the power of stealth, that’s when the real fun will begin.

Fixing the issue with culling will happen, and we will see how it turns out from there.

If it’s still risk free and EZ mode, then other methods have to be tried.

2-3 seconds of “true” invisibility, with a small distortion of sorts appearing in the general area of the stealthed character for subsequent seconds. Untargetable, but enough to have at least some idea of whether you are fighting thin air or your opponent is getting basilisk/thieves guild up and running.

actually reducing movement while stealthed would be quite good.

I mean in most game stealth reduce movements, here it enhances it O.o?

Killing on stealth would require positioning and planning…..curretnly its the opposite …you just stealth and spam skills mostly.