Guild Wars 2

There is no need for culling apparently, just a clever use of mechanics

I tried to watch that video in HD. But the game play stayed in 240p whilst only the guy’s face went HD.

look, even more quality game mechanics and testing right here folks!

And people say thieves can’t go perma stealth…the perfect build just to mess with people. My hat’s off to you TC, because now I know how they do it.

Awesome, almost 5 minutes and at the end of it… wow. He rezzed a guy.

I thought everyone pretty much knew how to do this on a thief, simplest thing for Anet to do is just take away that combo field. Replace it with retaliation instead or something useful.

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

Art.9820:

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

They can keep themselves inside a tower or castle even after you think you’ve cleared it, then they can take over the tower or start bringing in people along with a Mesmer the second the people inside leave it. Not that hard to understand…especially since certain castles have pretty good hiding spots to abuse.

I dont get it, this guy did some super annoying thing and took 5 minutes to raise a guy and couldnt even fight people. Why does it matter that he was invisible? If those people werent so terrible he would of died when they were chasing him and he was visible.

wish, you’re forgetting about culling. Odds are that played a role in them not killing him.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Art.9820:

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

They can keep themselves inside a tower or castle even after you think you’ve cleared it, then they can take over the tower or start bringing in people along with a Mesmer the second the people inside leave it. Not that hard to understand…especially since certain castles have pretty good hiding spots to abuse.

if you leave a dead body which happens to be inside your keep or tower then… I wouldn’t blame it on stealth lol….

So this permastealth has been around for at least 3 months that I have known of. His technique could use a little improvement. Staying inside towers is easy with cloak and dagger and initiative regen on stealth. just keep hitting workers or other players or siege and always be on the move. Then you save your CD’s on shadow refuge and smoke bomb to rez the mesmer.

Art.9820:

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

In next video, they will show you how to use dead mesmer + perma-stealth thief to steal keeps.

YPC.6349:

Art.9820:

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

In next video, they will show you how to use dead mesmer + perma-stealth thief to steal keeps.

And after watching it, I hope everyone realizes why you should camp dead bodies in your newly taken keep/tower if you care at all about keeping it.

wish.3102:

YPC.6349:

Art.9820:

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

In next video, they will show you how to use dead mesmer + perma-stealth thief to steal keeps.

And after watching it, I hope everyone realizes why you should camp dead bodies in your newly taken keep/tower if you care at all about keeping it.

Even if you camp, so what?
Can you remove the dead mesmer? No.
Can you break the perma-stealth? No.
Can you stop the rezzing? No.
Can you kill the mesmer before she/he put down the portal and jump down the wall? No.

How long and how many campers you need for 2 people that may or may not be even here?

This isn’t new and it’s not effective. Smoke fields give it away. The most simple fix? Stand in the smoke field, and you’ll get in the way of his heartseeker that is required to do this and end up giving him revealed. It’s 90% foolproof. Honestly CnD spam is better. You will know if he is there during a sweep. Random explosion and smoke AoE(they come with a red circle to help you out) give it away. Then it’s as simple as standing in the smoke field(which will give him revealed or decrease his stealth time significantly to the point where he can get maybe a shadow refuge’s worth of stealth before running out of initiative, which is when you apply CCs.)

this thread should be titled welcome to yesterday for anyone with a pulse. d/p perma stealth is so old like 4 months old.

YPC.6349:

wish.3102:

YPC.6349:

Art.9820:

I don’t get it, how is this useful haha?

In next video, they will show you how to use dead mesmer + perma-stealth thief to steal keeps.

And after watching it, I hope everyone realizes why you should camp dead bodies in your newly taken keep/tower if you care at all about keeping it.

Even if you camp, so what?
Can you remove the dead mesmer? No.

They get kicked due to inactivity after 20 minutes of being dead.

YPC.6349:

Can you break the perma-stealth? No.

You don’t need to

YPC.6349:

Can you stop the rezzing? No.

You can kill people even when theyre stealthed. Drop AOEs on the dead body and auto attack it if its health goes up. Thieves are kittenedly squishy, you can kill them in 3 seconds.

YPC.6349:

Can you kill the mesmer before she/he put down the portal and jump down the wall? No.

Camp the body and it will waypoint out or DC from the game.

YPC.6349:

How long and how many campers you need for 2 people that may or may not be even here?

Depends on how good the players camping the body are. If theyre bad, then you probably need 4-5. But 1 good Necro can easily hold off a thief from doing anything to a dead mesmer forever.

But then theres always the possibility of actually doing a sweep and looking for people hiding inside. You do know that little pistol 5 circle is visible on the ground to your enemies right? It even has a big red circle around it when its on the ground. It’s easy to notice, It’s not like the thief is completely hidden from view at all times with 0 indication it’s there. The video you linked it just bad players who don’t know how to fight a thief trying to fight a thief. The best solution to anything you don’t understand is to learn how it does what it does, then you can find the weaknesses and counter them. I know personally, I have never lost 1 on 1 to a thief since leveling a thief on my warrior or guardian. My guardian sometimes cant kill them because theyre very good at running away, but they never kill me, and I could easily prevent them from ressing a mesmer.

No, they don’t get kicked after 20 minutes of inactivity. There is an easy way around it that allows you to stay dead for hours.

wish.3102:

YPC.6349:

Can you stop the rezzing? No.

You can kill people even when theyre stealthed. Drop AOEs on the dead body and auto attack it if its health goes up. Thieves are kittenedly squishy, you can kill them in 3 seconds.

30 shadow arts thieves regenerate health on stealth. On top of their toughness and healing Add acrobatics to that and they can dodge your attacks forever… while in stealth. Oh and not to mention some move faster also while in stealth.

this is a joke, not a perma stealth video….

Why do people feel it is necessary to have a video feed of their face along with their gameplay. It makes these videos almost unwatchable.

As for the subject at hand: who cares?

Hmm…interesting. My take away from the above vidoe is thieves can perma stealth but if they use a big killing move/combo they come out of stealth and only can go back to stealth after some high number of seconds. But then there is another stealthy/invisible trick they can use – idk like smoke and then they go back to invisible again.

!!! This only works with a non-dmg-build !!!

Do I need to fraps me keeping a dolyak invisible the whole time it is walking from a camp to a keep? Get me some sweet karma.

Oh wait, wrong site.

From what i understand this is just one of multiple ways to stay permanently stealthed, Even the guy in the video says it at one point.

The problem with stealth is stealth itself. People make all the excuses, claim others need to learn to play, or that those who play thieves are just so much better then every one else. The reality is that stealth itself is the most over powering mechanic you could possibly have. The ability to pick and choose your fights, how and when is what has toppled world powers all threw out history. It’s no different in PvP type games. The ability to not be seen in and of itself is an Iwin skill. Add in the fact that developers seem to think the stealth classes need the highest DPS as well just makes thing’s worse.

Stealth in any PvP game is just a bad idea because it can not be balanced. It’s either to powerful or totally useless. Hopefully someday the game developers will realize this and realize that those who need these over powered classes will still play their games. They will just pick another over powered class.

Any profession with a “blink teleport” should quite easily break that way of staying in stealth, so there are counters to it. Just be aware of your surroundings and use your teleportation straight into that Smoke field to break them out of stealth. Or just ask another decent Thief to kill them. Thief players are generally pretty good at connecting their blows with the other thieves, even if they are in stealth.

If you know where the Mesmer body is, you know you don’t need to look far for that perma-stealth Thief trying to resurrect them, if there is any. If you’re uncertain, move out of the Mesmer’s view so they can’t see you observing, they’ll call on their friend if there is one, then you know they are close.

Never experienced someone using this as a tactic to get a Mesmer up though.

Stealth should be renamed to reflect what it really is.

Unfun.

seemed to me the problem was dead mesmers waiting for rez, not the rezzer staying stealthed. Being able to stay dead and see everything in enemy controlled zone is just an exploit, stealth is not.

If stealth needs to be taken away from thieves to balance classes, how about take away fury from war, aegis from guard, clones from mesmer, and traps from rangers? How about take away 2 of the attunements from ele, and the 2nd health bar from necro?

And this is new and exciting exactly how?

Next thing you’re going to tell us Thieves can Cloak and Dagger off animals and critters.

Thx aaron, I was wondering how another thief was out stealthing me and this is going to be great for my recon missions. Much appreciated.

As for the rest of you, holy kitten!! (Did I use that correctly?) All this coming from ppl with skills such as confusion, blink, portal, out of control ballerina twirl, wall of reflection, etc etc etc. Oh yea, and one of the first ones involved in the game, chose your profession.

Maybe, just maybe, Anet should rework all the skills to be used with foam bats or an “ooops, my bad” combo skill finisher that will resurrect your target. Of course, if this really annoys you, why not play a thief.

To those who don’t know, this is all the ways a Thief can go into stealth (with duration and recharge times):

Weapons
Cloak and Dagger (3 seconds – 6 initiative) (can easily be triggered twice or more)
Black Powder+Cluster Bomb (~6 seconds – 6 initiative/3 initiative) (does AoE stealth)
Black Powder+Heartseeker (~6 seconds – 6 initiative/3 initiative)

Healing
Hide in Shadows (3 seconds – 30 seconds)

Utility
Blinding Powder (3 seconds – 40 seconds) (can be used on top of another skill)
Shadow Trap (5 seconds – 30 seconds)
Shadow Refuge (10 seconds – 60 seconds) (does AoE stealth)
Smoke Screen+Cluster Bomb (~12 seconds – 30 seconds/3 initiative) (does AoE stealth)
Smoke Screen+Heartseeker (~10 seconds – 30 seconds/3 initiative)

Steal
Blinding Tuft (3 seconds – 0.5 seconds) (stolen from Thieves)
Blinding Feathers (3 seconds – 0.5 seconds) (stolen from Moas)

Downed
Smoke Bomb (2 seconds – 20 seconds)

Traits
Hidden Thief (2 seconds – on stealing) (really lasts 3 seconds because of Meld with Shadows)
Instinctual Response (3 seconds – when losing 10% health in one hit)

And all of this stealth can be improved by 1 second (or more in the case of combos), by picking the trait Meld with Shadows. You can also stack up more stealth with the smoke combos, by using the trait Infusion of Shadow (gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths).

Not really sure the point of the video. Maybe our definitions of permastealth are different. Now cloak and dagger is a whole different story. That is permastealth.

As thief, there’s a better way to permastealth (maxed up shadow arts trait, with some clever major trait choice)

CnD, wait 4 seconds, CnD, wait 4 seconds, CnD, wait 4 seconds, Shadow Refuge, wait 12 seconds → repeat.

This way you are more annoying, since you actually deal damage, but you have to rely on the enemy’s presence in order to hit with CnD. This is imho fairer than blindg powder + leap finisher, since this can’t stealth you in every situation.

style.6173:

Not really sure the point of the video. Maybe our definitions of permastealth are different. Now cloak and dagger is a whole different story. That is permastealth.

You have to come out of stealth to use CnD, using it while stealthed doesn’t work. You also lose 1 inititive every time you use it using this method, provided you set your build up for it, and you need stuff to hit. So saying it’s permastealth is actually wrong. You can be seen for 1 second every 4, cant attack anything, and can only do it for like a minute, if you have something to hit, and stay in stealth the entire duration for the skill. The 1 minute life cycle can be expanded upon with blinding powder and hide in shadows, but seriously, once you miss CnD once because someone moved at the last second, you’re basically screwed.

If anyone could tell me what the counter for this is as a ranger? As far as I’m aware there is none except LB aoe and random auto-attack in the hopes of landing a blow. This is absolutely not fun to play against and is why I hope ESO gets it right; because if they do I will be leaving this game for good.

To be honest,the only fix thieves need is to make any kind of damage to break stealth.
As it is now,it almost funny how terrible stealth mechanic ( if any mechanic actually even exists) is.

Cheers

It’s perma stealth but not like you don’t know where they are. They have to blind field constantly. All you have to do is walk/blink/shadow-step/teleport into the blind field after about 1-2 second and they will smack you with a heart-seeker screwing it all up. Also taking the two perma stealth traits in Shadow Arts (2 init per stealth and faster regen in stelath) means you aren’t taking two of the best traits a thief has (blind on stealth and con remove in stealth). The actual viable d/p builds are more burst based and don’t have true perma stealth, though they can stay in for a while with utilities + fields.

BroScientist.9875:

If anyone could tell me what the counter for this is as a ranger? As far as I’m aware there is none except LB aoe and random auto-attack in the hopes of landing a blow. This is absolutely not fun to play against and is why I hope ESO gets it right; because if they do I will be leaving this game for good.

Longbow, 4 if you see them running at you, 2 when you know you have them targeted, 2 will keep hitting them even when theyre in stealth. Other than just just stand inside 5 and move around, the more youre moving the harder it will be for them to CnD you.

Cat is out of the bag.

Dead Mesmer inside SM somewhere.

Perma stealth thief that can revive him any time.

Portal.

Easy win.

This does totally break the way the game was meant to be played.

I play a thief and I do think it’s time to redesign stealth.

You can stay as a corpse as long as you want if you swap armor while you are dead.

Every time you swap armor it counts as an action so you don’t timeout.

So bring your mesmers and annoy enemies for hours on end.

It is not that combo field that is broken.

Dead players shouldn’t be revived in WvW.

So this is how this rogue keeps destroying our empty golems in SM.

Notice how his enemies KNEW within 3 ft where he was and still could not stop him. Totally fair. I think the solution will be to nerf aoe!

1. Very old. Thought it would be well known among the thief community that D/P can grant perma stealth if you have the correct traits.

2. No uses? Watch this video. (if you dont get how good this is, well i dont know what to tell you…)

3. OP? Far from it. Why? Because theres a counter. If you stand in the Black Powder the Thiefs Heartseeker will hit you and the thief will gain the Revealed debuff. You just have to stand in his Black Powder.

Frye.4608:

So this is how this rogue keeps destroying our empty golems in SM.

Notice how his enemies KNEW within 3 ft where he was and still could not stop him. Totally fair. I think the solution will be to nerf aoe!

No one even attempted to get hit by his heartseeker. You need 3x of them over the field to maintain perma staelth. standing on one side or another of the field gives a 50/50 chance you will get hit (they land 3 times near the field on 2 of 4 sides you can get get hit from) and un-stealth them or force them to stop early and loose 4 seconds. If they land anywhere near the middle they will smack you too since heartseeker un-targeted will hit one of whatever is there is a small area. Also, every time they refuge it’s an opportunity to yank/KB them from it.

I tried going smoke field stealth but I feel that cloak and dagger uses less initiative without giving yourself away. Sometimes, when you heartseeker through the field, you might hit a player/mob which also unstealths you.

Check out my vid hope you guys like it. It isn’t much but it’s a start… :P

aaron.7850:

There is no need for culling apparently, just a clever use of mechanics

Old build is old, the combo field is a huge kill me sign vs any seasoned players.

So what youre saying is, making a class that an 8 year old could play and BEAT players that have been gaming for 10 years of mmo pvp….due to the class/abilities design is ok? Got it. That is called World of Warcraft syndrome. And this is exactly why every MMO for past 6-8 years has failed miserably at being a longhaul mmo.

Jscull.2514:

So what youre saying is, making a class that an 8 year old could play and BEAT players that have been gaming for 10 years of mmo pvp….due to the class/abilities design is ok? Got it. That is called World of Warcraft syndrome. And this is exactly why every MMO for past 6-8 years has failed miserably at being a longhaul mmo.

Just because someone has been playing games for over 10 years and suddenly they are considered good players? And if some players has skills they can’t be 8 years of age?

There is a reason why there’s a down state in this game and not straight death, when you see your ally is down and there’s a thief stealthed beside him/her for crying out loud the last thing you want to do is res. And if you are soloing and come across a thief stealthed, by all means do not stand still and keep moving around swinging that sword of yours.

Thief is op, i’m rerolling another class because thief is boring and doesn’t give challenge

This is interesting. Good find. I guess this proves that perma stealth is indeed happening. The only reason that thief didn’t kill enemies was that he was trying to rezz.