Guild Wars 2

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stop to slag my profession please!

In my opinion stealth is supposed to be designed to allow the thief to get close enough to attack and breathing space to disengage if things go wrong.

problem is the thief has been granted far to much control over stealth and less has been offered to counter it. We have no feedback on hits to stealthe’d characters this needs to be addressed and also the use of defensive skills such as healing should be removed from stealthe’d characters, that way if you can’t win your stealth is really a get the hell out option and not a brush off and try again over and over indefinitely and in quick succession whilst your opponent cannot.

Stealth is a very powerful tool and for it not to have a sufficient trade off makes it broken and in dire need of attention, however saying that i believe stealth will be addressed soon but Anet will not implement anything until culling has been removed as it in itself effects the data needed, without culling they will have a clearer picture of what they have to do.

The only thing that MIGHT need a nerf is area stealth (refuge stacks up far too high for a single person).. other than that the thief needs to be fairly close to its target in order to stealth.

Some people would like to see stealth completely gone, you don’t realise how squishy a thief is though, a thief can do NOTHING if you spam around a little AoE.

Playing a CnD thief takes more skill than you’d think, you need to firstly land your CnD, if you are being knocked back or interrupted at that point, you’re pretty much screwed (of course you got Refuge..), in order to do a decent amount of damage you need to be able to backstab..

It’s just the full glass cannon thiefs that go stealth for 13 seconds with refuge and burst you down (and then run off for 60 seconds until their signet & refuge & possibly haste is off cooldown) is giving thiefs a bad name and causing so much whine on these forums, but those sort of thiefs are easy to deal with tbh, since they’re google builds and mainly played by bad players.

Ps. How often are you able to stomp someone 1vs4 (if good players?), that is if you manage to take one down.. downed in WvW is a pain and makes it really hard to win 1vX, especially if your opponents know what they’re doing, this game isn’t made for skill to be victorious lol, fought 1v5 with my Guardian the other day, downed 3 of them (but they were being picked up instantly) and I ended up dying without a single kill basically, because you are unable to finish people off.. what I do when I down someone is fight on the corpse with aoe and hope you finish them off that way, because stomping just doesn’t work, its FAR too slow.

Piedplat.3597:

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.

Well, I killed 3 thieves (1v3) with my necro about 2 hours ago. It is completely possible. Once i killed the first one the second two tried to balance between getting their teammate up and relied on stealth and I dropped the last two with chain abilities. I always kept Fear for when they dropped Shadow Refuge so its a waste for them.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying a Necro is a “hard counter”to a thief, but Necros should not have any problems with them. Id say Warriors and Guardians are probably the best. I actually try to steer right away from Wars and Guards when I am rolling thief. A good warrior would completely own me 1v1 as would a guardian, but there aren’t alot of good warriors and guardians right now.

TainoFuerte.8136:

There is no sensible discussion because Thieves are clearly all just better players than the rest.

I agree with this statement. Anyone who is smart/good at games and is having problems fighting one class in a PVP environment will naturally roll that class to learn how it works and how to counter it. I’m not saying they will all stick with it, but this is the solution good players will come to. Bad players on the other hand, will simply make threads on some forums and cry about how they can’t beat them and they need to be nerfed.

Thief is a very weak class, I have never lost a 1v1 to a THF on my WAR or GRD since leveling THF and learning how it works. Suck less and you will understand that stealth is fine, because THF is weak.

sostronk.8167:

I wouldn’t go as far as saying a Necro is a “hard counter”to a thief

I would. A good Necro is by far the hardest thing to fight on THF.

Even thieves admit that stealth needs a nerf to prevent easy perma stealth. Only a few thieves disagree with this. It’s time to make the change and move on.

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

That’s fine for D/x but no good for S/D and P/D.
If there is a nerf, I recommend making Revealed happen no matter what or a 25-30% nerf to stealth duration. It’ll throw the complainers a bone and perserve the stealther’s ability to stay in the fight.

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stealth duration isn’t short. Permastealthing is easy. Go Look at the videos.

Debuf on attack is fine, but we need a debuf on attackED.
So stealth is like a mix of being invisible and mist form, but still able to take damage? In other words, why does my toon have no clue that his weapon just made contact with somebody in stealth? I know that I can damage them while they are in stealth but give me some indication I am doing so… I did after all just make contact out of thin air, so I’m pretty sure that I would be able to know I’m hitting somebody in stealth.

Columba.9730:

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stealth duration isn’t short. Permastealthing is easy. Go Look at the videos.

Columba: a single stealth is 3-4 seconds. Chained stealth can prolong it, but on it’s own it’s 3-4 seconds. Even Shadow Refuge only achieves it’s longer stealth by stacking together smaller stealths. He made a nerf suggestion, why are you trying to argue about it?

The problem with having any real discussion on the topic is that half the posts in this thread are filled with uninformed drivel and the comments of people that really do need to learn to play. The discussion is also largely about nerfing, not how do you maintain balance after the nerf.

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stealth duration isn’t short. Permastealthing is easy. Go Look at the videos.

Columba: a single stealth is 3-4 seconds. Chained stealth can prolong it, but on it’s own it’s 3-4 seconds. Even Shadow Refuge only achieves it’s longer stealth by stacking together smaller stealths. He made a nerf suggestion, why are you trying to argue about it?

To be fair, he was probably being sarcastic suggesting the reveal debuff to have protection, regen, and 25 might stacks in exchange for a… longer (de)buff?…

3-4 seconds of stealth gives you plenty of time to set up an attack or escape.

Only problem i have with stealth is that when you block/evade attack from stealth or theif miss attack it do not end stealth. Because of this thieves do not pay for their mistakes and they are class without risk. It seems unfair and promote skilless gameplay.

If 4 people lose to 1 thief, its nothing but a l2 kitten ue. If 2 people lose to 1 thief, its either a l2 kitten ue, or they were both glass cannons and the thief caught them by suprise. Only thief build that needs a nerf is the p/d condition build.

95% of wvwrs are clueless zergers. If all you do is run in a blob, why do you expect to win against a skilled roamer thief?

Because of this thieves do not pay for their mistakes and they are class without risk. It seems unfair and promote skilless gameplay.

Who even cares that thieves don’t pay for their mistakes? Neither does anyone running in a blob, and thats 95% of wvw population.

To me thieves in WvW are globally useless, they just hide and wait to try to kill isolated players. 90% of the time I got killed by a thieft he got killed 10s after by some other players. Thieves are just annoying.

and if 1 player lose to a thief because he cannot react until its too late?
Also you seems to justify the thieves making GC unviable as fair….that puzzles me because thieves Always says they eed stealth to withdraw otherwise they would die (GC).

Double standards….

@xispeo its not so….theycan go for camps alone and slow opponents because they can AS someone in thief forum says “jumps in and out of battle at will”.

I can accept them jumping in OR out of battle.
Not jumping in, out and dealing damage at the same time….they just have too much pros and almost any cons.

Master of Timespace.2548:

If 4 people lose to 1 thief, its nothing but a l2 kitten ue. If 2 people lose to 1 thief, its either a l2 kitten ue, or they were both glass cannons and the thief caught them by suprise. Only thief build that needs a nerf is the p/d condition build.

Wrong topic mate. We do not discuss nerf to specific theif builds we talk about stealth here.

Also: I care that theif do not pay for mistakes. For me its unfair but it just my opinion.

Opynn.2936:

Master of Timespace.2548:

If 4 people lose to 1 thief, its nothing but a l2 kitten ue. If 2 people lose to 1 thief, its either a l2 kitten ue, or they were both glass cannons and the thief caught them by suprise. Only thief build that needs a nerf is the p/d condition build.

Wrong topic mate. We do not discuss nerf to specific theif builds we talk about stealth here.

Stealth is a class mechanic of thief so balance related to thief builds is relevant when discussing stealth balance.

Master of Timespace.2548:

If 4 people lose to 1 thief, its nothing but a l2 kitten ue. If 2 people lose to 1 thief, its either a l2 kitten ue, or they were both glass cannons and the thief caught them by suprise. Only thief build that needs a nerf is the p/d condition build.

95% of wvwrs are clueless zergers. If all you do is run in a blob, why do you expect to win against a skilled roamer thief?

Because of this thieves do not pay for their mistakes and they are class without risk. It seems unfair and promote skilless gameplay.

Who even cares that thieves don’t pay for their mistakes? Neither does anyone running in a blob, and thats 95% of wvw population.

Here’s what timespace said about killing ppl in zergs:
“As a thief player I sort of like zergs. The general zerger is so clueless when it comes to game mechanics, that it isn’t difficult to pick them off one by one from middle of their zerg. xD
Sure, sometimes they revieve faster than I can stomp with haste, but that doesn’t matter. By revieving they can at best delay their ultimate fate: I just down them again and again until they die to downed penalty. :P”

ShaunZ.1098:

Master of Timespace.2548:

If 4 people lose to 1 thief, its nothing but a l2 kitten ue. If 2 people lose to 1 thief, its either a l2 kitten ue, or they were both glass cannons and the thief caught them by suprise. Only thief build that needs a nerf is the p/d condition build.

95% of wvwrs are clueless zergers. If all you do is run in a blob, why do you expect to win against a skilled roamer thief?

Because of this thieves do not pay for their mistakes and they are class without risk. It seems unfair and promote skilless gameplay.

Who even cares that thieves don’t pay for their mistakes? Neither does anyone running in a blob, and thats 95% of wvw population.

Here’s what timespace said about killing ppl in zergs:
“As a thief player I sort of like zergs. The general zerger is so clueless when it comes to game mechanics, that it isn’t difficult to pick them off one by one from middle of their zerg. xD
Sure, sometimes they revieve faster than I can stomp with haste, but that doesn’t matter. By revieving they can at best delay their ultimate fate: I just down them again and again until they die to downed penalty. :P”

Ya, but there is no contradiction. The point is that stealth is strong against clueless people. I can’t for example surf an organised guild group.

Lol at thieves thinking only they know how to play! Even thieves who have multiple classes know that stealth is broken. Lets see what they do about culling then determine what further actions are needed. I don’t believe that they will fix culling. Either the lag will be unbearable or they won’t remove it.

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stealth duration isn’t short. Permastealthing is easy. Go Look at the videos.

Columba: a single stealth is 3-4 seconds. Chained stealth can prolong it, but on it’s own it’s 3-4 seconds. Even Shadow Refuge only achieves it’s longer stealth by stacking together smaller stealths. He made a nerf suggestion, why are you trying to argue about it?

So stealth is longer than 3-4 seconds, lol. You said so yourself – chain stealth. Why are you arguing the point?

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.

Culling is the issue. Let them fix this and then we can talk about stealth.
Also, you mention no other class can escape like a mesmer or thief due to stealth. You must not have fought against an elementalist then, one of the strongest, if not strongest class in wvw.

just my suggestions:
1. have revealed buff added on after leaving stealth, regardless dmg dealt or not. will stop chain cnd into a zerg.
2. From-stealth attack triggers reveal, regardless dmg dealt or not.
3. add 0.25 cast time to steal.

shadow refuge is fine as it is, chain cnd and pre-cast are broken. for those thief who always got knocked out of SR: dont cast in front of enemy’s eyes, or dodge end-to-end if u do.

I’m a thief. Stealth is broken. A solution? Maybe not let me regen all of my HP, remove conditions, and get stacks of buffs every time stealth occurs, which is 6 out of every 10 seconds. I can reset the fight when i want, run away if i want, or torment you if i want. I can kill that pack dolyak you are guarding with 10 ppl and there is nothing you can do about it. I play p/d +d/p and you lose every time. I started playing thief to learn how to beat one. My conclusion is you cant if the thief is patient and has an iota of talent for the class. If you are a great player and i cant kill you, i just run off and laugh.

Master of Timespace.2548:

ShaunZ.1098:

Master of Timespace.2548:

If 4 people lose to 1 thief, its nothing but a l2 kitten ue. If 2 people lose to 1 thief, its either a l2 kitten ue, or they were both glass cannons and the thief caught them by suprise. Only thief build that needs a nerf is the p/d condition build.

95% of wvwrs are clueless zergers. If all you do is run in a blob, why do you expect to win against a skilled roamer thief?

Because of this thieves do not pay for their mistakes and they are class without risk. It seems unfair and promote skilless gameplay.

Who even cares that thieves don’t pay for their mistakes? Neither does anyone running in a blob, and thats 95% of wvw population.

Here’s what timespace said about killing ppl in zergs:
“As a thief player I sort of like zergs. The general zerger is so clueless when it comes to game mechanics, that it isn’t difficult to pick them off one by one from middle of their zerg. xD
Sure, sometimes they revieve faster than I can stomp with haste, but that doesn’t matter. By revieving they can at best delay their ultimate fate: I just down them again and again until they die to downed penalty. :P”

Ya, but there is no contradiction. The point is that stealth is strong against clueless people. I can’t for example surf an organised guild group.

So by virtue of running in a group (zerg) everyone becomes a clueless player?

Most annoy thing happened toady in multiple keeps wher this 1 permastealth thief trolled us for 30 minutes at the inner keep.would go hit 1 gate then run around and hit another…u could see him for 1 second and the u cant target him, u dont see hit points, no nothing.
I think if you are hitting him u should see numbers and also u should be able to knock him out of stealth easier.
Cooldowns have to be looked at and also dmg

As I said before, the only thing that could use a nerf is Shadow Refuge, the stacking duration is far too high, take away Shadow Refuge and you take away 50% of the thiefs survivability.

I play a thief (since recently) and the class is amazing to play with if you don’t go by google glasscannon builds or spamming heartseeker. Builds such as d/d backstab actually require you to be somewhat skilled.. especially if you refuse to use Shadow Refuge as I do, waste of a utility slot imo.. I got Haste instead (easier to stomp people), not the burst down people kinda Haste. :P

But in the end, WvW is large scale battles.. and all I see here is whining about small scale battles and people getting “dominated” by thiefs and their stealth, if you don’t wander off by yourself and play WvW the way it’s supposed to be played, you will never encounter problems with a thief.

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stealth duration isn’t short. Permastealthing is easy. Go Look at the videos.

Columba: a single stealth is 3-4 seconds. Chained stealth can prolong it, but on it’s own it’s 3-4 seconds. Even Shadow Refuge only achieves it’s longer stealth by stacking together smaller stealths. He made a nerf suggestion, why are you trying to argue about it?

So stealth is longer than 3-4 seconds, lol. You said so yourself – chain stealth. Why are you arguing the point?

Stacked stealth is only achievable in Shadow Refuge. And Chained stealth isn’t one long stealth, but rather the stealther restealthing as often as possible. X number of individual 3-4 second stealths placed end to end.
I’m arguing it because I’m a compulsive corrector, if I see wrong, I correct it.

You know how you can tell there’s nothing wrong with stealth? The fact that there are 345 threads complaining about it for the last few months and there hasn’t been one nerf to it. Stealth is where it’s supposed to be. Culling is the issue, the devs know this and this is why stealth has not been nerfed.

Thieves are supposed to be able to decide when to engage and disengage a fight. It’s the whole purpose of the class, if you can’t handle that don’t fight them.

You know why 99% of those who play thieves think there’s nothing wrong with stealth and defend it? Because there isn’t. It’s not OP, it’s not imbalanced. Go play some spvp and you’ll see that. Culling is the issue and hopefully this coming march patch will do more to fix it.

Tripp.9862:

Thieves are supposed to be able to decide when to engage and disengage a fight. It’s the whole purpose of the class, if you can’t handle that don’t fight them.

That statement is a bit contradictory. Not every class has the luxury of choosing battles, and if a thief chooses to fight you, you’re likely in for the whole ride until he chooses to disengage or you’re built for mobility.

You won’t see complains about thieves in competitive spvp because of conquest mode, where bunkers dominate. If a deathmatch was implemented, I’m sure the complaints will spill over to their section of the forums.

I love how people assume since one thief can do it we all can. Make a thief an try to zerg surf okittenerg that has even a slight clue of what they are doing and watch how fast you’ll go down. As a D/D backstab thief(THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM GLASSCANNON), it’s surprisingly hard to remain in stealth for an entire fight, even with culling, because I need to approach you, use cloak and dagger, then when I backstab you those next 3 seconds of my life are the most dangerous. D/P thieves on the other have something us D/D backstab don’t: the ability to stealth without using a target. Just smokescreen and heartseeker, which can be stacked. Some also use blackpowder on top of Hide in Shadows and Shadow Refuge. It’s these guys and the P/D variant that are known for not being seen for a whole fight. I’m not saying they aren’t skilled, D/P especially takes considerable time to get used to. Also I’m not saying that D/D thieves can’t zerg surf, there are videos of them doing just that. My point is not all of us can just freely stay invisible and laugh at the morons running around looking for us, some of us actually need to use, uh, discretion to stay alive. If you ever try a D/D backstab, you’ll quickly learn that it’s going to take a lot more than just stealth to stay alive. No screw that. Any thief and you will learn. Yeah maybe some of us were born with daggers, but for the most part, most of us have died plenty of times to get to even a fraction of what we could do now.

I’ll admit some things can get out of hand, one scenario:
In WvW two D/P-S/D thieves (deadly weapon combo) were harassing one of our groups. I knew I could make a huge difference in the fight since as a thief myself, I know the best way to take us down is to slow or stop us, that being said, I prepared a basilisk venom steal combo. Problem is, I couldn’t. Reveal lasts for 3 seconds, when I saw the thief it was to the point where I only saw their avatar. No name or targeting could be done. Before the name and targeting could actually appear, they re stealthed on one of the numerous people at their disposal. So culling gave them an extra two seconds of stealth after attacking out of it and before I could even target them to keep them still, they restealthed. What got me angry was the lack of doing anything. When they went into shadow refuge, my teammates just stared at it. When the thieves made a mistake and missed a stealth, no one used any sort of cc.
Here’s a tip guys, unless it a P/D, when a thief uses shadow refuge, that most likely means you hurt them enough to where they need to use it. It’s a defensive skill we try not to use it unless we really need to. That being said, if they do use it, run in there swinging. The last thing a thief will do in shadow refuge is attack you and waste 15 seconds of stealth and health regen.

I find this thread quite interesting, i encourage everyone to read.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/links/Thieves-rule-W3

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. They reversed all 3 of these in this game and made stealth laughably overpowered.

that’s the point and numbers on WxWxW outside from large zergs tell you this 65% thieves, 15% mesmers 15%eles and 5% all other 5 classes, ANET reaaly gives us incentive to play as necro or engineer out from large zergs, thanx anet.
Right now im playing my mesmer and tooked off both engineer or necro (necro its by far the worst class 1×1 (i was playing long months with him and able to kill some noobs L80, but against skilled players necro its a joke), i can tell you this with my mesmer im doing stuff i could not even dream sith my eng or necro (still necro build wells are fine for zergs)

Sceinna.3561:

As I said before, the only thing that could use a nerf is Shadow Refuge, the stacking duration is far too high, take away Shadow Refuge and you take away 50% of the thiefs survivability.

I play a thief (since recently) and the class is amazing to play with if you don’t go by google glasscannon builds or spamming heartseeker. Builds such as d/d backstab actually require you to be somewhat skilled.. especially if you refuse to use Shadow Refuge as I do, waste of a utility slot imo.. I got Haste instead (easier to stomp people), not the burst down people kinda Haste. :P

But in the end, WvW is large scale battles.. and all I see here is whining about small scale battles and people getting “dominated” by thiefs and their stealth, if you don’t wander off by yourself and play WvW the way it’s supposed to be played, you will never encounter problems with a thief.

So only thieves are allowed to play outside of the Zerg? Where is that stated?

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Daendur.2357:

in a game where stealth duration is so short, having a movement speed reduction will make it useless.

They can nerf stealth by doubling “revealed” debuff duration and, when a player is affected by “revealed”, gains protection, regeneration and 25stacks of might.

Stealth duration isn’t short. Permastealthing is easy. Go Look at the videos.

Columba: a single stealth is 3-4 seconds. Chained stealth can prolong it, but on it’s own it’s 3-4 seconds. Even Shadow Refuge only achieves it’s longer stealth by stacking together smaller stealths. He made a nerf suggestion, why are you trying to argue about it?

So stealth is longer than 3-4 seconds, lol. You said so yourself – chain stealth. Why are you arguing the point?

Stacked stealth is only achievable in Shadow Refuge. And Chained stealth isn’t one long stealth, but rather the stealther restealthing as often as possible. X number of individual 3-4 second stealths placed end to end.
I’m arguing it because I’m a compulsive corrector, if I see wrong, I correct it.

It’s semantics arguing that stealth is only 3-4 seconds. More accurate to state that a single stealth skill lasts 3-4 seconds with no culling. We all know that to the victims, it can be perma stealth.

Mayhem.1935:

I’m a thief. Stealth is broken. A solution? Maybe not let me regen all of my HP, remove conditions, and get stacks of buffs every time stealth occurs, which is 6 out of every 10 seconds. I can reset the fight when i want, run away if i want, or torment you if i want. I can kill that pack dolyak you are guarding with 10 ppl and there is nothing you can do about it. I play p/d +d/p and you lose every time. I started playing thief to learn how to beat one. My conclusion is you cant if the thief is patient and has an iota of talent for the class. If you are a great player and i cant kill you, i just run off and laugh.

This guy knows what he’s talking about. Its not even stealth itself that is the problem half the time, its that within stealth, the thief is very mobile and can heal/cleanse way too much. Compare it to deathshroud necro as they are both damage reduction/avoidance tools. In DS the necro can’t cleanse, can’t heal normal hp pool, is fairly immobile and deals poor damage. Stealth is strong to OP as a mechanic just on its face, but its the healing, cleanses, , buffs, mobility and high damage that really puts it over the top.

I’ll add my 2c. I’ve fought quite a few thieves. I’ve killed a few of them, sent a few running, and died to even more. Can’t really say they need to nerf stealth until they fix culling. There should be maybe a 3-4 second cool down on going back into stealth after breaking. I also think they need to change it so that you can only stealth when attacking something that would grant xp for killing it and not stacking the duration on inanimate objects.

someone mentioned CC removing stealth and I think that’s actually a great idea.

not all forms of CC, but push/pulls/kd removing stealth makes a lot of sense mechanically and balance-wise.

Cirax.9231

Tripp.9862:

Thieves are supposed to be able to decide when to engage and disengage a fight. It’s the whole purpose of the class, if you can’t handle that don’t fight them.

That statement is a bit contradictory. Not every class has the luxury of choosing battles, and if a thief chooses to fight you, you’re likely in for the whole ride until he chooses to disengage or you’re built for mobility.

You won’t see complains about thieves in competitive spvp because of conquest mode, where bunkers dominate. If a deathmatch was implemented, I’m sure the complaints will spill over to their section of the forums.

It’s not contradictory at all. Thieves are masters of one v one, choosing when to engage and when they need to run. that’s basically the class description right there.

as for spvp, no they wouldn’t. There is no culling in spvp. I use the same setup for spvp as I do WvW. You can tell the difference if you do it yourself. People actually see me for the full duration of revealed in spvp. I like it better that way honestly. It’s more challenging.

WvW culling will be fixed eventually. This coming patch probably wont entirely fix it, but it’s going to help, and soon enough it will be fixed. Revealed’s mechanic will finally work properly and people will see that stealth is not god mode and is properly balanced. In the mean time i wouldn’t object to revealed being extended in WvW to 6 seconds to combat the culling 2 second lag.

Also, lets be honest, WvW is not the ultimate arena of skill. There are just as many new upleveled players as their are 80s. Thief is an easy class to be passible at, but to master it is difficult. This is true for a few classes( i.e. d/d ele). Culling compounds this right now so it seems like anyone can be awesome with a thief. when it’s fixed you’ll see many thieves suddenly disappear.

Tripp Durran, my thief, was my first character in the game. I’ve been playing him since the game came out, the majority of the time in wvw. I’m still not as good as some thieves I’ve gone up against. However, it isn’t hard to down people who have limited situational awareness and don’t know what to do when facing a thief. I also have a secondary main Necro Tripp that is obviously my necromancer, the two classes play entirely differently. Many thieves can and have owned me in a few seconds, but so have d/d eles and mesmers with that stupid glamor crap. I hate knockdowns cause they last so long and you can’t do anything before they burst you down. This is the nature of rock paper scissors classes.

Sorry for the long reply, but this thread is basically advocating the entire rewrite of a class and I feel a paragraph basically saying “nerf this class into the ground i hate getting killed!” does no one any good in the long run.

Chanting L2P doesn’t do any good either. I get killed by lots of classes very often. Unlike thieves I can point to my mistakes or their better play. With thieves , I most often die without ever seeing them. How on earth is that remotely balanced? Even if culling is fixed, stealth as its designed is broken.

The ability to reset a fight when you’re losing is always going to be overpowered..

I can outplay a thief all day long, and if he wants, he can reset the fight till he’s full HP and go again till eventually I get unlucky and he wins…

I do it on my thief all the time..I get in over my head, and then I just reset the fight…

zero skill required..

Xsorus.2507:

The ability to reset a fight when you’re losing is always going to be overpowered..

I can outplay a thief all day long, and if he wants, he can reset the fight till he’s full HP and go again till eventually I get unlucky and he wins…

I do it on my thief all the time..I get in over my head, and then I just reset the fight…

zero skill required..

Yeah. And the whole time you’re being more an annoyance then a threat. If the zerg wastes thier time on you, they probably weren’t doing anything important. If they had an objective, they’d give you as little of time of day as possible.

"

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."

I love it when a group of players try to chase me around half of the map. Even if I die I can still laugh at them, because they wasted a lot of time, chasing a single player. It’s even more funny if you lure them into your zerg. Keep on chasing <3

Columba.9730:

Sceinna.3561:

As I said before, the only thing that could use a nerf is Shadow Refuge, the stacking duration is far too high, take away Shadow Refuge and you take away 50% of the thiefs survivability.

I play a thief (since recently) and the class is amazing to play with if you don’t go by google glasscannon builds or spamming heartseeker. Builds such as d/d backstab actually require you to be somewhat skilled.. especially if you refuse to use Shadow Refuge as I do, waste of a utility slot imo.. I got Haste instead (easier to stomp people), not the burst down people kinda Haste. :P

But in the end, WvW is large scale battles.. and all I see here is whining about small scale battles and people getting “dominated” by thiefs and their stealth, if you don’t wander off by yourself and play WvW the way it’s supposed to be played, you will never encounter problems with a thief.

So only thieves are allowed to play outside of the Zerg? Where is that stated?

I love your skill to twist around my words, if you were as skilled ingame you probably wouldn’t be whining on the forums or even make a signature about it.

I was able to kill and stay alive a lot easier on my Guardian than on my thief. As one guy said a few posts above, playing a D/D build requires skill, if you miss CnD once you are screwed. If a thief gets revealed for even 2 seconds it can be deadly.. because it’s one of the squishiest classes.

As I said before, if Anet nerfs Shadow Refuge.. it would already add a whole new dimension to playing a thief, because D/D requires skill to stay invisible, you need a target to hit (if the target has for example Aegis on.. you are already screwed lol).. and D/P doesn’t need a target but it’s quite hard to play, one mistake makes you run out of iniative and you simply die after that.

The way I play my thief is, I scan for weak targets withikittenerg/group, protect supply camps against larger groups until reinforcements come. It takes skill to stay alive and not be wiped and surely not every class can do this.. but that’s the specific role of a thief, that’s its nature.. every class stands out in something.

Honestly they need to increase the stealth times to 4-5 seconds. Once culling is fixed you’ll see a lot of dead thieves just laying around.

Lots of haterade up in this thread though w/ the same people complaining

Tripp.9862:

Cirax.9231

Tripp.9862:

Thieves are supposed to be able to decide when to engage and disengage a fight. It’s the whole purpose of the class, if you can’t handle that don’t fight them.

That statement is a bit contradictory. Not every class has the luxury of choosing battles, and if a thief chooses to fight you, you’re likely in for the whole ride until he chooses to disengage or you’re built for mobility.

You won’t see complains about thieves in competitive spvp because of conquest mode, where bunkers dominate. If a deathmatch was implemented, I’m sure the complaints will spill over to their section of the forums.

It’s not contradictory at all. Thieves are masters of one v one, choosing when to engage and when they need to run. that’s basically the class description right there.

as for spvp, no they wouldn’t. There is no culling in spvp. I use the same setup for spvp as I do WvW. You can tell the difference if you do it yourself. People actually see me for the full duration of revealed in spvp. I like it better that way honestly. It’s more challenging…

I was referring to where you said “if you can’t handle them, don’t fight them.”, but if a thief chooses to fight you, more often than not, you cannot choose to avoid him.

That being said, I agree thieves are fine on the whole. I’ve played one both in wvw and spvp, and they feel balanced in pvp. In wvw however, they can go buck wild without consequence, compounded by culling. I can’t suggest reasonable changes to stealth until culling is fixed, but at the moment I can hop in wvw with my thief and come out with fat loot bags, daily completed, yaks & seige destroyed, all without a scratch. Stealth is extremely powerdul in a open setting, and although thieves specialize at roaming and disruption, they shouldn’t be able to do so with zero consequence.

The only reason stealth is OP is because, for some reason, the devs haven’t included a mechanism for de-stealthing. Anything from debuffs which prevent stealthing to game mechanics which do not allow stealth to continue while performing offensive actions would do.

Right now, stealth really can be an answer to every single problem you encounter in WvW. Which then raises the question of why bother with anything else.

My only issue on stealth is the fact that when they are hit is AoE or marks they are still stealthed. I personally think, and I’ve constantly preached this, that if you get hit, especially with cripple or bleed, you should immediately come out of stealth and be unable to get into stealth ‘till the conditions go away. That’s it. Otherwise, stealthing is fine.