Guild Wars 2

Is it intended that a Thief can cap objectives invisible? Or worse yet, prevent people from capping things while invisible.

It’s seriously frustrating when a Thief can troll an entire group of 20+ people just by staying nearly perma-stealth while in the big ring.

I know already, I know: they have to hit someone to keep that stealth up. Which is to say, it’s not to hard to hit someone in a group of 20+ that doesn’t stay grouped up AOEing, but instead runs around trying to find a Thief (giving him mokittengets to stealth off of).

I can understand spiking someone while invisible, that’s okay. I say it’s okay because other classes can use Stability, Elementals use Mist Form, Engineers with Elixir S, and so on. That’s fine, though still very annoying.

But, did Arena.Net intend for Thieves to troll objectives as they’ve been doing lately?

What’s that? A stealth class that’s actually using its stealth abilities to productively help his/her team in a pvp setting?

Anet has to change this, thief or any class under stealth should not be able to cap or prevent capping, period.

Fourth.5603:

What’s that? A stealth class that’s actually using its stealth abilities to productively help his/her team in a pvp setting?

Because a person should totally be able to be invisible permanently.

I just saw a thief go in solo against like 10 people guarding siege. The siege went down completely and the thief just waltzed out.

Between culling, lag on reveal, asset loading, etc. the revealed debuff that’s supposed to limit thief shenanigans is basically worthless. It needs to be lengthened to account for how long it takes thieves to actually become visible in WvW.

Cloak and dagger requires you to hit someone to re-invis. I’ll let you try and figure out how to counter that.

So this guy popped out once every few seconds…in the same spot…hit your siege…and you all just sat there and watched it die slowly? I don’t understand. Cloak and dagger doesn’t even do that much damage. It would’ve taken him at least 15-20 hits (over a minute) of un invising and c&d’ing the siege to take it out. If you just autoattacked near it you would’ve killed him in five seconds. I don’t understand

With my thief, against a bad team, I can also do get behind an enemy squad and take down the siege.

However, it’s very noticeable when a team that knows what they are doing is around their siege. Whirling knockdowns keep me flat on my back, AoEs are everywhere and some kitten warrior is standing near the siege, ready to flatten me out- yes, even when I’m stealthed.

after careful observation of both posts and in game, there are certain mechanics that I believe were intentional by Anet – I am also assuming that considering the rock paper scissors philosophy that Anet practices – that there are counters to everything that people simply have not discovered yet…. I believe I discovered one – but will honor the hint I caught from the forum and wont share my find …I’m sure there are more though. -laughs-

my suggestion is to continue to experiment and use combo’s and spells / strategies you have not tried yet.

In th north borderlands camp they can stay permanently invisible by cloak and daggering “wildlife”, rabbits and “citizens” and such that don’t fight back.

There’s an easy fix to this though. Stop having stealth interrupt targeted abilities. If I can target a theif and start casting moa mprh, it shouldn’t interrrupt when the thief goes stealth.

and here’s a hint – “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

RaCast.6510:

So this guy popped out once every few seconds…in the same spot…hit your siege…and you all just sat there and watched it die slowly? I don’t understand. Cloak and dagger doesn’t even do that much damage. It would’ve taken him at least 15-20 hits (over a minute) of un invising and c&d’ing the siege to take it out. If you just autoattacked near it you would’ve killed him in five seconds. I don’t understand

The moment the guy popped, we had everyone go at him, but he just restealthed before that. Remember, he doesn’t show visible until well after actually unstealthing.

Polaritie.4851:

….
Between culling, lag on reveal, asset loading, etc. the revealed debuff that’s supposed to limit thief shenanigans is basically worthless. It needs to be lengthened to account for how long it takes thieves to actually become visible in WvW.

This is actually the biggest issue around thief mainly.

Stealth should end the second thief attacks but it doesn’t, they stay invisible while still attacking and it looks like they “chain” stealth back to back.

It’s not intended. The fact that the debuff preventing stealth again for 3 seconds exists is proof of that. The problem is that currently rendering is not functioning as intended. Thieves merely benefit from this about 10 times as much as any other class.

That being said I think the problem is big enough that they need a stop gap to be in place until things are fixed. I believe that, if possible, thieves should receive the highest rendering priority and get an extra half second of stealth debuff added until rendering can be sorted out. That would help them render faster as well as give an extra moment to see them.

Any thieves that would really complain about such a change atm are obviously intending to abuse the system. The class is completely capable of standing on it’s own with or without stealth and could stand on it’s own even in a stealth build with half of the stealth it has currently.

Currently the Thief has top notch spike damage, can run from nearly any fight (no matter the odds), can chase down almost anyone, and have the ability to stay invisible a rather large amount of the time. They are far from a hurting class and in fact are likely in danger of nerfs, don’t worsen your chances by trying to fight even small reasonable changes to help fix exploitative game-play.

Thieves still take damage in stealth, when a thief goes stealth, you just drop aoes.

Especially in a group of 20 or so people with “one thief trolling” just put down some aoes and it’d be dead in a few seconds with that many players.

Why people bother trolling with the response that you should have to counter this nonsense is beyond me. There’s a reason thieves can’t do this in spvp, and that’s because it’s broken. Nerf it already so we can move on.

Mesmer counters it well with into the void and gs kb, but that isn’t the point. It shouldn’t be in the game to begin with.

Note: reveal does not trigger on stealth end or if you attack during the last 1/2 second of stealth. This is the primary issue.

Also, AoE does not work. I’ve seen this attempted at least a dozen times without one success.

i just thought of a second counter for it lol

what i’m getting from this discussion, and guessing what anet is thinking , is they don’t want cookie cutter builds… so far everything I’ve read is complaining that you can’t catch the thief with “your build” – the 2 solutions I have in mind have not at all been mentioned and are skills that are rarely used in wvw – I would tell you but I think anet wants me to keep it to myself.

if your build isn’t working, then it’s not an accident you can’t catch a thief with the skills you want to use..

To catch a thief you must _____________

Ricky, are you talking about Null Field, or another skill that strips buffs? None of those remove stealth last time I checked.

greyblue.4962:

Note: reveal does not trigger on stealth end or if you attack during the last 1/2 second of stealth. This is the primary issue.

This is incorrect. Anet fixed this in a patch not too long ago.

greyblue.4962:

Also, AoE does not work. I’ve seen this attempted at least a dozen times without one success.

I’ve had lots of success. Perhaps because I know how to counter my own class. I also don’t stealth by the way.

@greyblue no, what i’m thinking of doesn’t matter if the thief is stealth or not. I’m not trying to be cryptic, but last time I posted one way to approach it…the post got deleted almost instantly lol so am trying to give hints without flat out saying it.

But i think I can say this much, aside from GW2 the game, how does one catch a thief ? think about it… so many people are thinking about how to catch a stealth character in gw2, they seem to be missing the obvious. I can only think of 2 character types that can do this ..but now I’m curious and going to review all the skills from other characters to see if Anet has a counter on each one ..or just specific ones.

The 2 biggest problem with stealth is rendering issues and how the revealed buff works.

Rendering issues are pretty self explanatory. The way revealed buff works is that it doesn’t trigger if the stealth ends naturally. (only if you break it early) If the thief traits into 4 initiative CnD, and has decent defensive stats, its possible to keep a point contested almost indefinitely.

The only current solution is to have EVERYONE grouped into 1 spot, and spam AoE’s non stop on top of yourself. The problem with this solution is it doesn’t work everywhere. Alot of supply camps have random buildings/walls that can be used to hide behind as a thief. So if everyone’s clustered on one spot, the thief can just hide far away behind a building unstealthed. It takes alot of coordination to take down a thief that is really experienced at abusing CnD spam.

Possible solutions:

1.) Revealed buff triggers when stealth end through ANY method, not just by breaking it on an attack.

2.) All friendly teammates can see damage applied to a stealth character, not just the player who triggered it, or else some sort of very obvious indication when someone hits the stealth character randomly.

3.) Give every class a method/skill that can be used as a stealth breaker.

Of the 3 solutions here, 2 is the least damaging to the thief class (and should have been in by default imo)

I’m also a thief I can take out a zerg of ten hold any point I want , all with one button , we really do need a nerf

highest dps and perma stealth is balanced. lol

Columba.9730:

highest dps and perma stealth is balanced. lol

You forgot highest mobility. Also the fact that the class possesses both single target DPS and AOE DPS is notable as well. Further the class possesses a multi-target downed autoattack.

+1 on this.

Is just stupid that one man can block any amount of person from capping. If you fail to understand that, just buy a brain

A simple fix for some parts of this make it so dodging brake stealth. By doing this you cant avoid aoe at all beyond just moving in the right sport.

Make Dots break Stealth fixed

You dont even need aes.

Single target abilities will still hit someone.

That will even make them flicker if they get hit. The projectile also disappears.

So even a large group spamming auto attack in all directions should let you know where the thief is hiding.

How is this even an issue anymore? I stopped being able to do this weeks ago.

Stack up, lay down SOME AoE and just wait for the thief to die or come out of stealth and burst him down.
If by some weird event you are unable to kill a single thief going in and out of stealth with 20 or more people you should probably rethink your strategy…

EDIT: Anyone crying for stealth nerfs should just stop playing this game.

Independently of the many ways of dealing with cloaked thieves (though I think the real issue isn’t even the stealth, it’s the rendering bugs that give players – not only thieves – “free” invisibility), stealthed or invulnerable players should not be able to cap objectives or prevent them from being capped.

Stealth (and damage immunity) should be combat mechanics, not ways to score points while essentially being “out” of the game.

Yes, I agree that rendering/culling is a factor of the issue; but it’s not the only thing that’s wrong here.

And for those that say “group up and AOE”, it’s very hard to control PUG people than run into the camps and circle around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Another issue is that when say everyone is in the group, the Thief in question just removes stealth behind a building (which all camps have) and now has no issue preventing the cap: nobody is hunting him because everyone is grouped up.

Rendering/culling issue according to red post will be fixed next patch.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-fix-this-sooner-rather-than-later-Vid-attached/622762

How are people defending this? ha ha

It’s basically the definition of trolling. The single thief has no chance of stopping the point being taken, but hangs around to draw it out as long as possible.

Its not that its overpowered or anything, its just annoying and unnecessary. Two things Arena Net have said they want to avoid.

A valid point that needs raising here; I think everyone who plays a thief understands how to counter this behaviour, which means it is more to do with the understanding (or lack of) of the mechanics being used, or in the vernacular: l2p

That said, the culling sure is an issue and point capture/defence should work the same as in spvp.

To answer the original question…
No I don’t believe this is an intended mechanic. In spvp a thief those not contribute to a point capture while in stealth, so it was probably not supposed to be able to contribute to stealthed point capping in wvw either.

spvp you rare capped on players wvwvw you are not tell me that wasnt factored into arena nets decision

with 2 theives you can get perma stealth without cloak and dagger with more than 2 they can stay alive forever especially with this rendering issue where it takes like 2 seconds for them to appear after coming out of stealth. Its becoming more popular to have teams of theives perma stealthing to prevent the enemy from capturing supplies like I anet is really slow on fixing things especially the render issue might be a year till its fixed

wrong plenty of guilds and even servers are employing tactics to put a stop to thiefs doing this even if there are multiple and the thiefs just end up being food for the zerg

rendering issue rumored to be fixed nov 15 as i read in other posts i think we will see that thief will still be effective in holding objectives against poorly organized/played groups of players as is all we are seeing here it only realy even takes 1 or 2 good players that equip the right weapons/utilites to quickly counter it

As a thief, I dislike the idea of doing damage while stealthed. The class should be balanced about combat outside of stealth and maybe have a stealth get-away/reset mechanic that automatically breaks on doing damage.

But what do I know, I still call theifs rogues half the time ><

RaCast.6510:

So this guy popped out once every few seconds…in the same spot…hit your siege…and you all just sat there and watched it die slowly? I don’t understand. Cloak and dagger doesn’t even do that much damage. It would’ve taken him at least 15-20 hits (over a minute) of un invising and c&d’ing the siege to take it out. If you just autoattacked near it you would’ve killed him in five seconds. I don’t understand

Well, you certainly do not understand, it is not just CnD damage, the thief stays invisible for a few seconds after getting out of stealth, and sometimes stays not targetable for the initial few seconds. For the high burst damage he has and his dagger throw elite in which he is very hard to kill, he can take siege in seconds.

Considering they can’t cap objectives in sPvP, but they can in WvW i’m assuming it’s intended.

Doesn’t mean it’s not dumb.

Stacking and AoEing on yourself does not work, as I saw a thief was able to use smoke bomb to stealth himself indefinitely, no backstab required.