Guild Wars 2

I love how they added stealth without even having a counter skill but everything else have something that can counterbalance. Anet, you are so good at implementing new mechanic within your boundary…

Please share your inputs about stealth abilities in WvW and how it affects a lot of complexities when the skill becomes a huge disadvantage or upper hand between small zergs ang larger zergs.

I think they really need to add either a class that can reveal stealth units or add skills to some select existing characters.

WATCH OUT!! Incoming flame by A army of thieves ….

Stealth is strong. A lot will claim it is OP due to it’s offensive and defensive strengths being tied up in one neat package. Having a WoW-like flare mechanic would be a fine thing, but any changes to stealth need to be carefully made kitten much of the thief class depends on the current stealth mechanics. Without careful adjustments the thief class could be really borked.

Stealth in zergs (thief stealth anyway) is relatively useless. I am not counting zerg surfing which IMO is more solo play around a zerg.

Stealth in skirmish… useful for a thief to drop target, finish targets and to setup backstabs. I generally let our AoE/Condition players burn off target’s defenses then go in for the kill. Thieves are ridiculously good at finishing a target from about 50% health and can run down just about every class. They are the best burst class in this scenario because frequently the target doesn’t see the damage coming unlike a warrior.

Stealth solo… perma stealth builds annoy enemies, tie up large groups of players, allow thieves to cull the weaker part of a herd and make sweeps incredibly tedious. Stealth outside of perma makes roaming relatively easy and fights can always be reset with it. Basically in solo a thief only dies by mistake or when they are caught on complete cool down (usually considered a mistake as well). They may not be able to win every fight but they should be able to come to draw on almost every fight. No other class has this option and that really irritates a lot of players.

I use stealth about 10-20 percent of the time and rely on it mostly as a condition remover, fight reset, dropping target, improving fight position or as an escape mechanism. Steal is almost as potent on my as stealth alone.

Asudementio.8526:

Stealth is strong. A lot will claim it is OP due to it’s offensive and defensive strengths being tied up in one neat package. Having a WoW-like flare mechanic would be a fine thing, but any changes to stealth need to be carefully made kitten much of the thief class depends on the current stealth mechanics. Without careful adjustments the thief class could be really borked.

several games have successfully implemented this mechanic to be working both the negative/positive effect.

Like in Shadowbane, only scout class that can failsafe stealth without being revealed by any inferior rogue classes and that work the same with the thief in gw2. But thief and mesmer being able to mass invis is completely imbalance as there are no classes that can reveal them. This mechanic have been exploited in many ways and abused to raid towers/keep in wvw against small zergs just to gain upperhand not to mention they already have 2x the number or even more.

Stealth is a get-out-jail-free card 99% of times for thieves, and like you said, has no actual counterplay. So many times I have outplayed thieves so hard just see them say “peace” and reappear far away at full health.

One option I have seen suggested that I like is to make light fields apply revealed to a stealthed thief. Only engies and guards have reliable light fields, but at least it allows some kind of counterplay. If you want it to be more do-able, you could make it fire fields, which would make large fights even more dangerous for thieves.

An alternative is to cap stealth for all abilities except shadow refuge at 4s of stealth (to prevent stacking up to ridiculous degrees), so that dropping black powder isn’t auto freedom, only 90% effective.

Stealth should last 3 sec, -50% movement speed in stealth and 1 min cool down.

Damage should be reduced when invisible….-50% or more

BlackBeard.2873:

Stealth is a get-out-jail-free card 99% of times for thieves, and like you said, has no actual counterplay. So many times I have outplayed thieves so hard just see them say “peace” and reappear far away at full health.

One option I have seen suggested that I like is to make light fields apply revealed to a stealthed thief. Only engies and guards have reliable light fields, but at least it allows some kind of counterplay. If you want it to be more do-able, you could make it fire fields, which would make large fights even more dangerous for thieves.

An alternative is to cap stealth for all abilities except shadow refuge at 4s of stealth (to prevent stacking up to ridiculous degrees), so that dropping black powder isn’t auto freedom, only 90% effective.

I understand playing the thief(rogue classes) in many different aspects. I’m trying to point out how many meta players have abused the stealth skills in a much larger pvp environment (like wvw) and its really becoming an upperhand againts smaller fields. Your suggestion of giving this and that is not a definite solution as it can be exploited.

mysticque.6182:

everything else have something that can counterbalance.

Oh well, tell me what can counterbalance Invulnerability?
Tell me what can counterbalance Death Shroud?
Tell me what can counterbalance Myst Form?

You want to counter stealth? Use your brain, interrupt, control, hit in the air, don’t stay immobile.

The only problem with the stealth mecanic, and in the case of the thief, is that when he miss its hit he can try again without loosing it that i think is illogical.
When a hit with Venom is missed or blocked, the the stack of venom dissapear. It should be the same with stealth.
Oh and perhaps also the perma stealth grant by D/P build that doesn’t need to hit to go in stealth.

Your title is a bit misleading and your first post has a tone that denotes bias that will not lead to a conducive discussion on stealth.

I, personally, do not have a problem dealing with stealth. I’m fine with it.

I do not think enough people use what thief has to offer for covert ops but I also do not see the same number of thieves that others claim. That could be since I run a zerg buster hammer. Thieves have potential with other classes in small teams. You just have to be able to take advantage and be in position but setting up can be a problem and by that time, you don’t really need the team so covert ops, which the thief would fit perfectly, isn’t really needed in WvW.

One of my 3 mains is a thief and I actually really like the idea of light fields removing stealth, to be honest if I can’t win a fight on my thief I can run away very easily if I chose to and I feel there should be a counter to stealth. Some of the suggestions listed above as nerfs to stealth are kittened though.

Thieves should be given a wet noodle and wear a homecoming queen diadema.
They also should only be able to deal damage every 30 seconds. With the wet noodle.
1,337 Crits max.

I have no porblems with othe class mini-stealth mechanics like rangers, engin, and mes..

But for thief

They are the only stealth class who’s stealth goes on forever..

Also the difference with thiefs Stealth in compared to the others stealth, is that thiefs stealth fully Restors their healths including any condtion damages..

In other word,

Thief Stealth enables the thief to cheat without any limitations or penalties, whereas mesmers, rangers and engineers that would be unheard of.

The Pros of stealth is for the other classes, the cons is for thief class whose been granted full control, power, Encouragement, Priviledge and Support by Arena.net to abuse Stealth at wil, for more than 1 year..

Their Cheating Mechanics are the Primary reason why WvW is dead and mostly blamed for faithful hardcore players leaving the gw2 alltogether; wvw is no fun, and cheating mechanics is the only thing that controls wvw.

Yes, stealth always fully restores thieves’ health and they do not have to use 30 points into a completely defensive traitline to achieve some kind of survivability that enables to beat skilled players.

Also thieves are immune to 4 second stuns on 7second cd and survive 5 eviscerates and 3 full 100b without any effort.
This is truely a noobclass and I hope they delete all thieves and make them use warriors and necros instead.
Baddies unable to deal with stealthing thieves, for more than 1 year.

Cheating meachanics FTW!

Junkpile.7439:

Stealth should last 3 sec, -50% movement speed in stealth and 1 min cool down.

Or be like in Ultima Online where they can take only a certain amount of steps before they need to re stealth.

Sreoom.3690:

Damage should be reduced when invisible….-50% or more

And for a few seconds after coming out of stealth. Stealth should also be revealed if the attack does not land.

Yes, I think thieves should also lose 20% of HP for every second they are in stealth.

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

Heizero.9183:

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

This is from a skilled thief XD.. yes I’m sure, only pro player run thief

sminkiottone.6972:

Heizero.9183:

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

This is from a skilled thief XD.. yes I’m sure, only pro player run thief

When did i say anything like that? do you even read?

Stealth isn’t that bad. But the change I suggested a while ago is a 1 second revealed on exiting stealth (without an attack).

This would add a little more urgency in thief gameplay that would force plays or be punished.

It is interesting, how this stealth mechanic has devided by the community. While there are some (thieves and non-theives), who think that is completely over the top powerfull, there are others (thieves and non-theives as well) who think it is mostly fine.

It seems to be not understood though, that stealth is a key element of thiev and mesmer survival (yes I main mesmer). Remove it and they die. This is not a sign of them being noobs, it’s a part of the design/build. The problem with stealth is that it is a all or nothing ability. There is no kind of medigation to have just a little bit of stealth. You are either stealthed or not.

The issue many players have with thief is not the stealth itself. Though they don’t see it, it is with the very strong healing and condition removel they can have during stealth. This is what makes thief so strong and very hard to pin down.

Heizero.9183:

sminkiottone.6972:

Heizero.9183:

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

This is from a skilled thief XD.. yes I’m sure, only pro player run thief

When did i say anything like that? do you even read?

Well, you imply that people who loses vs thief need to l2p, am I right ? if not im sorry, I some times have trubles reading english, but again, if I’am right you are just over confident in you skill, I wanna see a video of you stomping a good thief with another class ! maybe a ranger ? i will be your padawan if you do it

You can’t compare mesmer stealth to thieves,tho i have seen a few perma stealth mesmers and can’t for the life of me work out how to do it.

I would be happy with them at the very least remove the ability to stomp while you’re stealthed. That kittening bullkitten is getting very very irritating.
God I really really hate the stealth mechanics (mainly thieves, cause memsers don’t have as many stealthing skills).

Well I can tell you that stealthing me is essential for my mesmer play. I love it, when they attack nothing or my illusions, while I stay untouched. Also mesmer also can stealthstomp. If you’re really complaining about perma stealth, then I can’t help you.

Zumy.6318:

Yes, stealth always fully restores thieves’ health and they do not have to use 30 points into a completely defensive traitline to achieve some kind of survivability that enables to beat skilled players.

Also thieves are immune to 4 second stuns on 7second cd and survive 5 eviscerates and 3 full 100b without any effort.
This is truely a noobclass and I hope they delete all thieves and make them use warriors and necros instead.
Baddies unable to deal with stealthing thieves, for more than 1 year.

Cheating meachanics FTW!

Beyond irony, it is a fact that the thief in spvp has been nerfed, while in WvWvW there were no interventions. So we have two choices:

1) the thief spvp is useless (LOL);
2) the thief WvWvW is unbalanced.

Obviously the thief in the zerg is useless, but the majority of the thieves does not play with the zerg. And yes, you can say whatever you want, but if in spvp (with an hard cap on the stat) they have nerfed c&d and increased the reveled debuff, it is quite absurd to say that the thief in WvWvW is balanced.

Players that are new to stealth’er class definitely have objective to this topic. They have their reasons mainly because they don’t see how stealth plays a major rule in metagames. Necros dont have perma DS, Eles dont have perma mistform? And why would mesmer and thieves can provide perma mass invis(chain skills per meta)??? And if there’s no counter to that mechanic then whoever implemented this idea is either a complete tool or is just complete innocent programmer who has never played mmo in more than 10yrs. I myself love playing assassin back in SB and its inferior to a scout when it comes to stealthing but i don’t see why stealth in this game should should be a major key to get an upperhand esp in a major pvp. I think they should add a 30sec debuff to regain stealth.. its not fair for everyone that don’t have as many thieves/mesmers to provide mass invis against a team with little or none at all.

THERE IS A DIRECT COUNTER IN WVW. STEALTH TRAPS. That is all folks.

sminkiottone.6972:

Heizero.9183:

sminkiottone.6972:

Heizero.9183:

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

This is from a skilled thief XD.. yes I’m sure, only pro player run thief

When did i say anything like that? do you even read?

Well, you imply that people who loses vs thief need to l2p, am I right ? if not im sorry, I some times have trubles reading english, but again, if I’am right you are just over confident in you skill, I wanna see a video of you stomping a good thief with another class ! maybe a ranger ? i will be your padawan if you do it

I’m not even going to bother with you. That was not what my post was about at all, and this is not the thread nor topic area for that type of discussion regardless, stop derailing the thread you troll.

Heizero.9183:

THERE IS A DIRECT COUNTER IN WVW. STEALTH TRAPS. That is all folks.

I encourage you to post a video of that ever working?

My guildes at times would set up multiple stealth traps especially for thieves, and guess what?

Same way thieves can fully restore their health and condition damages; same way they can fully restore stealth within stealth traps.

Seriously,

any thief will confirm this, so what what’s the point of having stealth traps to begin with?

Well I believe, for revenue $$$$ income

and nothing else more to it.

Period!!

-how many of you use stealth traps-?

There’s your evidence,

Heizero.9183:

THERE IS A DIRECT COUNTER IN WVW. STEALTH TRAPS. That is all folks.

They’re stationary, they have a decay/timer, not really large (if I remember how they described them when they came out, haven’t used the one I got out of a rank chest yet), they only get revealed status (which iirc its not that long, so they can just go back to stealth), and they take seige and quite a bit of time to setup/deploy. And they aren’t much useful in open areas. doorways and stairs (and possibly tunnels) are about the only useful places I can think of. So not really useful, especially out in the open.

The single biggest issue w/ Stealth is the Lack of Risk vs Reward.

In fact, there is very little Risk at all when attacking from Stealth.

Receiving a Missed/Blocked/Invuln on an Attack from Stealth should Reveal.

End of Discussion.

There is ZERO Risk attacking from Stealth.

skullmount.1758:

Heizero.9183:

THERE IS A DIRECT COUNTER IN WVW. STEALTH TRAPS. That is all folks.

They’re stationary, they have a decay/timer, not really large (if I remember how they described them when they came out, haven’t used the one I got out of a rank chest yet), they only get revealed status (which iirc its not that long, so they can just go back to stealth), and they take seige and quite a bit of time to setup/deploy. And they aren’t much useful in open areas. doorways and stairs (and possibly tunnels) are about the only useful places I can think of. So not really useful, especially out in the open.

they take 4 seconds and 10 supply to deploy, and the revealed debuff lasts for 30 seconds. the decay timer is an hour. all you need to do is just kite a thief over it, and the thief ends up completely helpless. or, you could deploy it, then just stand on top of it. when the thief gets to you, it will go off, and reveal him. it works even in the open field. i know, because that’s how i’ve used it, and have been hit with it. and the result was always the same, a dead thief.

Phantom.8130:

skullmount.1758:

Heizero.9183:

THERE IS A DIRECT COUNTER IN WVW. STEALTH TRAPS. That is all folks.

They’re stationary, they have a decay/timer, not really large (if I remember how they described them when they came out, haven’t used the one I got out of a rank chest yet), they only get revealed status (which iirc its not that long, so they can just go back to stealth), and they take seige and quite a bit of time to setup/deploy. And they aren’t much useful in open areas. doorways and stairs (and possibly tunnels) are about the only useful places I can think of. So not really useful, especially out in the open.

they take 4 seconds and 10 supply to deploy, and the revealed debuff lasts for 30 seconds. the decay timer is an hour. all you need to do is just kite a thief over it, and the thief ends up completely helpless. or, you could deploy it, then just stand on top of it. when the thief gets to you, it will go off, and reveal him. it works even in the open field. i know, because that’s how i’ve used it, and have been hit with it. and the result was always the same, a dead thief.

Well that means staying around you’re stealth trap AND hoping some other class doesn’t come into it, either by themselves or first. You also have to be able to kite the thief that far (however far you are from the trap).

Here is the problem with stealth….

Edeor.9720:

Zumy.6318:

Yes, stealth always fully restores thieves’ health and they do not have to use 30 points into a completely defensive traitline to achieve some kind of survivability that enables to beat skilled players.

Also thieves are immune to 4 second stuns on 7second cd and survive 5 eviscerates and 3 full 100b without any effort.
This is truely a noobclass and I hope they delete all thieves and make them use warriors and necros instead.
Baddies unable to deal with stealthing thieves, for more than 1 year.

Cheating meachanics FTW!

Beyond irony, it is a fact that the thief in spvp has been nerfed, while in WvWvW there were no interventions. So we have two choices:

1) the thief spvp is useless (LOL);
2) the thief WvWvW is unbalanced.

Obviously the thief in the zerg is useless, but the majority of the thieves does not play with the zerg. And yes, you can say whatever you want, but if in spvp (with an hard cap on the stat) they have nerfed c&d and increased the reveled debuff, it is quite absurd to say that the thief in WvWvW is balanced.

Thief is broken for a year now, some players are ashamed of how easy the class can be played while others really seem to think it’s hard. – But for sure Anet doesn’t seem to fix it, so what?

Never seen a stealth trap be effective- it’s a complete waste of supply and badges.

Oh look a thief is coming, deploy the stealth trap! Wait, it takes 4 seconds, he killed me while it was deploying..or I only have 10 supply at it takes 15, someone run over here and use up supply on this thing the thief can leap over…

Besides which, thiefs are not the problem around siege, never been an issue for us.

The stealth mechanic gets really stupid when some pistol waving disappearing act can pick off players one by one always stealthing to finish and resetting all the time and healing by crazy amounts every time they go into stealth as well as dropping conditions.

I don’t have a problem with mesmers and clones it’s really easy to spot the real one.

The main reason I sometimes play a D/P zerker thief in WvW….because it irks people off, as evident by this (and other) threads. I also played a Blood DK in WoW-Cata for the very same reason. But in playing D/P thief I also learned a few things about them and can better counter them. And speaking of stealth, the 2nd funniest thing is seeing a thief stealth, only to reappear a couple of seconds later in a downed state.

The only borderline OP thing about thieves in WvW is the S/D set, in small/medium group battles they can push in and out very easily to pick off targets.

1v1 it’s just a l2p issue, either your build is too weak to handle thieves or you can’t properly use the tools available to you to deal with them.

Heizero.9183:

I’m not even going to bother with you. That was not what my post was about at all, and this is not the thread nor topic area for that type of discussion regardless, stop derailing the thread you troll.

I’m not a troll lol, calm down man.

Thiefs have too many pros in small fights, and when I hear people saying Thief is ok l2p, I just lol, it’s like they never tried any other class.

1 cool thing would be footsteps when the thief is hidden, still hard to catch but would be at least possible, thief shouldn’t be 100% invisible ( can’t actualy see him ).

Phantom.8130:

skullmount.1758:

Heizero.9183:

THERE IS A DIRECT COUNTER IN WVW. STEALTH TRAPS. That is all folks.

They’re stationary, they have a decay/timer, not really large (if I remember how they described them when they came out, haven’t used the one I got out of a rank chest yet), they only get revealed status (which iirc its not that long, so they can just go back to stealth), and they take seige and quite a bit of time to setup/deploy. And they aren’t much useful in open areas. doorways and stairs (and possibly tunnels) are about the only useful places I can think of. So not really useful, especially out in the open.

they take 4 seconds and 10 supply to deploy, and the revealed debuff lasts for 30 seconds. the decay timer is an hour. all you need to do is just kite a thief over it, and the thief ends up completely helpless. or, you could deploy it, then just stand on top of it. when the thief gets to you, it will go off, and reveal him. it works even in the open field. i know, because that’s how i’ve used it, and have been hit with it. and the result was always the same, a dead thief.

Blind + stealth trap = lulz.

If you take away stealth as it is now Thieves have nothing. We don’t have any other damage mitigation(Protection or retal) we dont have a constant regen like warriors/guardians/rangers. We dont even have stability.

So one of you geniuses crying about stealth tell me what would be the reason to play a thief if they nerfed stealth?

clint.5681:

If you take away stealth as it is now Thieves have nothing. We don’t have any other damage mitigation(Protection or retal) we dont have a constant regen like warriors/guardians/rangers. We dont even have stability.

So one of you geniuses crying about stealth tell me what would be the reason to play a thief if they nerfed stealth?

We don’t want to take away stalth, we just want it to be in line with the other skills.
No profession can restart a match at will, this is quite OP.

nerf stealth
then buff thieves damage and survivality to compensate

congratz, you now have 2 warrior profs in the game

D/P thieves suck… as a player who mains a thief… they suck. Course condi-bunkers suck every bit as much. Stun lock warriors… yep serious pain. Rarely-dead zerg bunker guardians should be added to the suck it pile as well. We should probably add hammer/banner zerg warriors to that suck pile.

OP… how many decent players with decent builds die unfairly to thieves these days? I am usually too busy trying to remove the 7 conditions stacked up, trying to find that magical 3rd stun breaker or trying to get damage through a trojan mans bunker’d kitten . Thieves… seriously… way down the list of stuff that is super dangerous.

The ability to reset any combat that I’m losing (short of being rolled by a zerg)! That’s a great idea.

Why don’t we give that to the other classes as well?

• Warrior: weapon skills grant 1s block whenever health drops below 25%
• Guardian: Aegis stacks up to 25 times
• Ranger: divert all damage to pet for up to 6s even when pet is downed
• Engineer: Teleport device that moves engineer to location 2000 away and clears 3 conditions
• Elementalist: Vapor Form triggers whenever health drops below 10%
• Mesmer: Escape Artist (Master Illusionist trait) Decoy repeats once for every active clone and phantasm
• Necro: Wraithform timer only ticks when inflicting damage on a foe

Now what would be wrong with that?

Thieves have so many mechanics/defences tied to stealth in their current form. If you wanted to lower the stealth time you would have to change a LOT of the class to compensate. I might actually start playing mine again if they did that though… as thief would be a better class overall for it.

As is… they aren’t the best 1v1 class… they aren’t the best class to have in a small/large group (to say the least). My mes/eng/guard wreck thieves… and are far better in larger groups as well.

What are they good at? Scouting, supply trapping, slapping yaks, killing poorly skilled players that turn into grazing cattle when faced with stealth, escaping, etc. Yea… I’ll take a pass on that thrilling action.

I really wish people would play the classes they are asking for balance/nerfs on before they post.

stealth doesn’t give you shields nor any really good heal outside of hide, thieves are squishy as hell too

it is way easier to kill thief in stealth by just spamming attacks and aoe than let’s say guard or war that have stupid moblity and kittened defensives

if they nerfed stealth tehy would have to buff survival from thieves and trust me, you won’t like it

I think a great way to counter it would be have a condition that impairs them from using stealth for x amount of time