Guild Wars 2

If any of you have been pinned against Tarnished Coast this week, you may have noticed a couple times that you were prevented from capturing a supply camp or tower by one or more of our players. Are they exploiting? No, they are not. I’m sure many people will rage and scream exploit. Some of the people on our server did too when we were matched against Blackgate and a thief was using the same method of preventing the zerg from capturing a supply camp. A friend of mine came in, saw what the thief was doing, and promptly managed to kill him. He explained to the people in the battlegrounds what the thief was doing and how he countered it, but they flamed him for whatever reason, so I suspect the same rage will be brought to the forums and I intend to stop it right here with this post.

It was actually incredibly genius. The thief would bounce between multiple people, attacking them with Cloak and Dagger (off-hand dagger skill slot 5) to stealth himself the moment that his stealth fell off of him to avoid acquiring the Revealed debuff.

I’m sure some of you are probably realizing the two immediate problems with this. For one thing, you can simply AoE the capture circle and hope to kill him. Another problem is that he is forced to attack players in order to stealth himself, giving himself away even if he is not seen, on top of the people being unable to capture the point, which should be a dead giveaway.

It’s not hard to counter, but when you don’t know how to counter it or are terrible at attempting to do so, you can have a thief, or even better, up to three thieves, sit in a capture circle at a supply camp and prevent the capture for 10 minutes straight, which I actually witnessed.

Should this be nerfed? Is this an exploit or an oversight? No, it’s not. There are very obvious counters to this and Cloak and Dagger has nothing inherently wrong with it. Just as people would plant mesmers inside towers or keeps to reclaim it after it’s captured by the enemy, you simply have to learn to counter this. It’s a viable strategy and requires no exploiting; only a basic understanding of in-game mechanics. So, before you start screaming for changes or claiming exploits by players and unjustly reporting them, consider that.

Here is someone doing this.

Look’s legit? This isn’t griefing?

The ego on some of you young men blows my mind. The pure arrogance to think that Anet want’s this junk in the game is beyond self centered to a incredible level.

You blow my mind. Btw the youtuber unlisted this video because they don’t want people seeing it now that it’s out.

If this tactic took even the least amount of skill to pull off I’d agree with you, OP. As demonstrated in that video it’s as simple as hitting one button and running around. That’s it.

Just remove the ability to stop a cap if in stealth and this issue is fixed.

Are you trying to accredit TC for something that has been happening for quite awhile now?

Actually, this tactic wouldn’t work if rendering worked the way it was intended to. If rendering did work as planned, we would be able to see the thief for a fraction of a second between stealths, as attacking a player instantly breaks a thief out of stealth (or is supposed to). However, because of Anet’s “culling”, we are unable to see this “unstealthed” thief and kill him. Even being able to see him for a fraction of a second would be enough to promptly figure out where to put your aoes.

@Nevron No. You didn’t read the part I said about how it was witnessed by someone from Blackgate doing it first, which is where the idea came from.

@Scyntrus Cloak and Dagger requires you to attack a person, meaning if somebody takes damage, they can call it out. Simple counter.

@Lande Capture Circles are typically small except in the case of supply camps, but if all your people group up at the same location, a thief is then required to be near you to Cloak and Dagger to stealth him/herself, so then you simply AoE ontop of yourselves. Simple Counter.

@Godmoney It’s just as easy to counter as it is to do. The people that were being attacked obviously were not paying any attention. Their inability to realize what was happening is not the fault of the thief or ArenaNet. It’s a very easy thing to counter and requires no changes to be made on the side of the game. It’s a strategy. Learn to counter it or fail. Your choice.

It will become just as common of a practice as sweeping a tower or keep for mesmers. “What’s that? The Capture Bar isn’t increasing? Okay. Pile up and throw down all your AoE.” You might as well say that it shouldn’t be allowed for thieves to stack stealth in shadow refuge behind the building at Golanta to prevent a cap. If you don’t check there, you fail. You have to adapt in WvW. That’s the point.

What else can counter this? Necromancers with their marks. You can tell where the thief is because they will trigger the marks when they step in them. Just be smart. If you can’t do that, why are you participating in WvW, honestly? I’m not trying to be rude, but it seems silly.

It seems a bit much, there ought to be at least some time between stealth. Far as I understood stealth in this game as stated by the team (Long ago when I was searching for any info while waiting; not necessarily completely accurate) there was not meant to be permanent stealth, there was meant to be moments of well timed stealth requiring skill to manage and confuse your enemy rather then being able to hide in it constantly. You know to not do what WoW does basically. This is nothing like that idea and I have to disagree with it being ‘correct’.

On the other side of the coin though this is something the zerg should be able to counter, to discover and take care of one way or another, stuns, AOE and so on. While it should not happen its only that much more powerful when the opposing force doesn’t deal with it properly either.

This trick only works because it relies on glitching the culling issue. It’s funny how some who defend this thief point out how dumb the zerg is – people standing around etc. You do realize that many have 1-2 fps, lag, culling, and other issues, so noticing a thief appearing briefly for 0.5sec or (not at all in some cases) is close to impossible. The thief can see all AoE circles thrown at him, but the zerg can’t see where the thief is, so most of the AoE misses or is evaded. I hope no one here actually believes it’s possible to make a random pug zerg coordinate a complete AoE coverage of the circle.. lol. Sure in an ideal situation, smooth fps, no culling, etc, simple AoE may work on this, but that’s not the case in GW2 currently. In GW2, right now, such stealth is OP.

Stealthed users denying a capture point is a bug, and doing this is exploiting. Of course, there won’t be any punishment for exploiting so we just sit and wait for ArenaNet to fix it.

No. It’s not an exploit. It’s an in-game mechanic. Also, you shouldn’t use the term bug if you have no idea what it means.

This is something that is extremely easy to counter, you simply have to use your brain.

I’ve already explains how it’s easy to spot somebody because they’re forced to give themselves away when they attack with Cloak and Dagger.

As for the performance thing, I don’t get a lot of lag in WvW because I’m on a good system and I maintain my framerate. If somebody can’t, they wouldn’t be in WvW. My friend gets 4-6 FPS in WvW so she doesn’t participate except in small groups sometimes. Because it’s impossible to play in a zerg. I know I’m not the only person with a good system and players can’t differentiate who does and does not have a good system, so it’s not an exploit no matter how you look at it.

Stealth is not permanent. There’s a moment between the stealths. Also, you give yourself away very obviously. Players from Fort Aspenwood are getting better and better at countering it now after experiencing the trick enough times. You simply have to adapt, and you can.

If you don’t have a good enough computer to compete in WvW, that’s your problem. If you’re not intelligent enough to counter it, that’s your problem. No matter how you look at it, it’s not an exploit.

Godmoney.2408

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54bkD-3Nr0

Here is someone doing this.

Look’s legit? This isn’t griefing?

The ego on some of you young men blows my mind. The pure arrogance to think that Anet want’s this junk in the game is beyond self centered to a incredible level.

You blow my mind. Btw the youtuber unlisted this video because they don’t want people seeing it now that it’s out.

The same can be said about your ego. stop for a minute and observe the people in the video. These people are oblivious. They do not move their cameras around with right click, therefore they are completely unaware of what ishappening around them. They have no map awareness. Therefore, they are bad players. Why do you defend this bad play? Why is your ego so large that you believe that a mass of clearly low-skill, unaware players, should be rewarded against a single player who is smart, and doing something that is fairly easy to counter? This is player versus player. A competition of players against each other. For you to say that the players in those videos are not deserving of exactly what they get is beyond the definition of being self-centered and entitled.

Explain that to me sir, because I just don’t see how you can.

Lande.5782

If this tactic took even the least amount of skill to pull off I’d agree with you, OP. As demonstrated in that video it’s as simple as hitting one button and running around. That’s it.

Just remove the ability to stop a cap if in stealth and this issue is fixed.

That’s what’s so funny about it, though. You don’t see any skill in those players in the video, otherwise they’d be able to stop this in around a minute or two. Instead, they’re oblivious. I feel that a cheesy, low-skill gimmick that is easily countered is fine remaining in the game. Because it’s a gimmick, and it’s easily countered. Unfortunately, most players can’t even recall their weapon abilities and have no idea what they could be used for.