Guild Wars 2

I know this is probably a sore subject, but lately i’ve been very bothered by the use of stealth by rangers, thieves, and sometimes engineers/mesmers, the latter not being very bad, but the prior being a thorn in my eye.
Rangers with shadowscales, and thieves will look for a lone roamer in wvw or pvp, and engage. Now, normally this sounds like a soumd tactic.
But especially in the case of thieves, he spams stealth. I cant land a single hit on him, because they strike, re-hide, strike, re-hide, endlessly. Its a slow and dreadfull way to surely kill someone. You just outlast their healing skills while constantly stealthing, and if you somehow underestimated your enemy, you just stealth again and run away.

Now, my point is not to complain about the stealth mechanic itself, but rather, the fact they dont sacrifice anything for it. Thieves flash and dash around without a vare, still dealing extremely high damage. “Back in my day” in games, you had to choose between prowess and survivability, or conditions, or utility, cant have everything. And once your downed its game over, because they can execute you from stealth.

And before you shout git gud and use CC, i have plenty of CC, but the great majority requires a target, which is a pretty hard thing to do since thieves can only be targeted for a split second. What im requesting is more basic;
More sacrifice of damage when you run a lot of stealth, and a longer channeling time when executing from stealth.
Your opinion?

Take a lesson from history. Bows/crossbows etc were so often derided as cowardly weapons throughout their historic use by melee fighters. Mainly because they didn’t want to admit how powerful said weapons were.
The same can be said for stealth in gw2. It’s a legitimate and powerful tactic that so many deride as cowardly.

Amaimon.7823:

I know this is probably a sore subject, but lately i’ve been very bothered by the use of stealth by rangers, thieves, and sometimes engineers/mesmers, the latter not being very bad, but the prior being a thorn in my eye.
Rangers with shadowscales, and thieves will look for a lone roamer in wvw or pvp, and engage. Now, normally this sounds like a soumd tactic.
But especially in the case of thieves, he spams stealth. I cant land a single hit on him, because they strike, re-hide, strike, re-hide, endlessly. Its a slow and dreadfull way to surely kill someone. You just outlast their healing skills while constantly stealthing, and if you somehow underestimated your enemy, you just stealth again and run away.

Now, my point is not to complain about the stealth mechanic itself, but rather, the fact they dont sacrifice anything for it. Thieves flash and dash around without a vare, still dealing extremely high damage. “Back in my day” in games, you had to choose between prowess and survivability, or conditions, or utility, cant have everything. And once your downed its game over, because they can execute you from stealth.

And before you shout git gud and use CC, i have plenty of CC, but the great majority requires a target, which is a pretty hard thing to do since thieves can only be targeted for a split second. What im requesting is more basic;
More sacrifice of damage when you run a lot of stealth, and a longer channeling time when executing from stealth.
Your opinion?

The only thing I really agree with is that stealth is not fun to fight when it’s being used constantly. Whether this be PU+pledge mesmers, bound/SA/stealth camping thieves, druids and the constant stealth or any upcoming combos.

While I also in some ways agree about not giving up anything for stealth I think it’s more that stealth is so strong that it essentially becomes a defacto choice over many other options. This causes the illusion (ha mesmer joke) of very little investment when it’s more accurate to say they invest a fair amount but it allows them to prevent being hit thus requiring less investment in cleanses and other defences.

The original concept of stealth was that it was limited in duration and longer duration came with drawbacks like long channels like Mass Invis, requiring lots of blasts in smoke fields which also required specific less optimal combat skills with engineers or sitting in a circle like shadow refuge.

Sadly the game is nowhere near what it was at launch and frankly stealth as a mechanic has in my opinion been allowed to become far stronger now that durations and applications have increased.

I may not agree with your ideas but I do agree with the spirit of the thread, stealth does need addressing.

SA isn’t the problem, /P offhand is (either coupled with D mainhand or with Bound).
I wish after 4 years you guys would finally get it.

Jana.6831:

SA isn’t the problem, /P offhand is (either coupled with D mainhand or with Bound).
I wish after 4 years you guys would finally get it.

All the text, the replies and carefully articulated writing and this is what you take away because SA was mentioned offhandedly because it helps contribute to stealth stacking in DP?

After 4 years I would hope you could make more effort, I might not agree with whatever you will end up saying but there’s more to be said than SA isn’t the problem.

Then don’t mention it if it isn’t the problem and you know.
I only stress that because anet aren’t the smartest when it comes to their own game and believe the stuff others write – also SA THIEVES ARE STEALTH CAMPING – which you implied.

apharma.3741:

Amaimon.7823:

I know this is probably a sore subject, but lately i’ve been very bothered by the use of stealth by rangers, thieves, and sometimes engineers/mesmers, the latter not being very bad, but the prior being a thorn in my eye.
Rangers with shadowscales, and thieves will look for a lone roamer in wvw or pvp, and engage. Now, normally this sounds like a soumd tactic.
But especially in the case of thieves, he spams stealth. I cant land a single hit on him, because they strike, re-hide, strike, re-hide, endlessly. Its a slow and dreadfull way to surely kill someone. You just outlast their healing skills while constantly stealthing, and if you somehow underestimated your enemy, you just stealth again and run away.

Now, my point is not to complain about the stealth mechanic itself, but rather, the fact they dont sacrifice anything for it. Thieves flash and dash around without a vare, still dealing extremely high damage. “Back in my day” in games, you had to choose between prowess and survivability, or conditions, or utility, cant have everything. And once your downed its game over, because they can execute you from stealth.

And before you shout git gud and use CC, i have plenty of CC, but the great majority requires a target, which is a pretty hard thing to do since thieves can only be targeted for a split second. What im requesting is more basic;
More sacrifice of damage when you run a lot of stealth, and a longer channeling time when executing from stealth.
Your opinion?

The only thing I really agree with is that stealth is not fun to fight when it’s being used constantly. Whether this be PU+pledge mesmers, bound/SA/stealth camping thieves, druids and the constant stealth or any upcoming combos.

While I also in some ways agree about not giving up anything for stealth I think it’s more that stealth is so strong that it essentially becomes a defacto choice over many other options. This causes the illusion (ha mesmer joke) of very little investment when it’s more accurate to say they invest a fair amount but it allows them to prevent being hit thus requiring less investment in cleanses and other defences.

The original concept of stealth was that it was limited in duration and longer duration came with drawbacks like long channels like Mass Invis, requiring lots of blasts in smoke fields which also required specific less optimal combat skills with engineers or sitting in a circle like shadow refuge.

Sadly the game is nowhere near what it was at launch and frankly stealth as a mechanic has in my opinion been allowed to become far stronger now that durations and applications have increased.

I may not agree with your ideas but I do agree with the spirit of the thread, stealth does need addressing.

Another option I just thought off would be either half a second of channeling time, just enough for skilled players to throw an interupt if they see it coming, or to have a cooldown, like 3-4 seconds between stealths.. or would ruin stealth completely again?
I mean, im not looking to ruin stealth, but I feel its a little too resistant to counters.. atm the warriors stomp is the only surefire interupt I can think of at the moment, and the guardians shockwave when theyre downed

Jana.6831:

Then don’t mention it if it isn’t the problem and you know.
I only stress that because anet aren’t the smartest when it comes to their own game and believe the stuff others write – also SA THIEVES ARE STEALTH CAMPING – which you implied.

But SA does exacerbate the issue and certainly encourages camping stealth. Remember post trait rework, there’s a reason every thief took SA and it wasn’t just for the cleanse in stealth you know. 1s more stealth baseline with extra ini gain for staying in stealth were very strong.

@Amaimon

Guards and wars can be blinded for safe stomps, also stealth stomps are more useful to prevent others noticing you’re stomping or when the downed skill needs a target like the rangers interrupt.

A lot of stealth stacking can be interrupted every now and then if they are not already in stealth. One of the biggest issues is when in stealth you can keep stacking and there’s no counterplay a lot of the time. There’s also a fair number of instant stealth skills, generally they aren’t too bad when used alone but with cool down reductions and duration increases they are much stronger now.

Personally preventing stealth stacking and forced reveal for 5s on leaving stealth whether attacking or not might be worth looking at. Obviously adjusting the amount of stealth given per combo would be needed before some thief player cries about that.

To be honest though I think stealth needs every single combo and skill tuning or some drawback adding to stealth as atm the amount of stealth in roaming is over the top.

Amaimon.7823:

Now, my point is not to complain about the stealth mechanic itself, but rather, the fact they dont sacrifice anything for it. Thieves flash and dash around without a vare (sic), still dealing extremely high damage. “Back in my day” in games, you had to choose between prowess and survivability, or conditions, or utility, cant have everything.

I tend to think of players who play thieves in WvW as opportunistic more than cowardly. They’re riding a questionable mechanic because they can. That makes it a tactic.

While the sheer amount of stealth available to thieves seems over the top, I’d have to say that stealth is not the only build, nor thieves the only class, for which there is way too little in the way of opportunity costs. Some of the power creep that came with HoT is due to the Elite Specs, but a lot of it is due to the HoT gear with powerful stat combinations.

Come across a thief in open world usually looks like this:
Vault, vault, vault, vault…respawn.
Sometimes, it’s the permastealth steal/backstabbers, but I see those less often.

Thieves can field near permastealth and permaevade.
Unless they make it like revenent where you can not choose your utility skills, rifle on thief is going to make the forums explode. They will most like have the same ability to down you in under 2 seconds, but now from 1500 range.

The WvW thief population is going to go up…count on it.

apharma.3741:

Personally preventing stealth stacking and forced reveal for 5s on leaving stealth whether attacking or not might be worth looking at. Obviously adjusting the amount of stealth given per combo would be needed before some thief player cries about that.

To be honest though I think stealth needs every single combo and skill tuning or some drawback adding to stealth as atm the amount of stealth in roaming is over the top.

^I would agree with that.

Ubi.4136:

Come across a thief in open world usually looks like this:
Vault, vault, vault, vault…respawn.
Sometimes, it’s the permastealth steal/backstabbers, but I see those less often.

Thieves can field near permastealth and permaevade.
Unless they make it like revenent where you can not choose your utility skills, rifle on thief is going to make the forums explode. They will most like have the same ability to down you in under 2 seconds, but now from 1500 range.

The WvW thief population is going to go up…count on it.

apharma.3741:

Personally preventing stealth stacking and forced reveal for 5s on leaving stealth whether attacking or not might be worth looking at. Obviously adjusting the amount of stealth given per combo would be needed before some thief player cries about that.

To be honest though I think stealth needs every single combo and skill tuning or some drawback adding to stealth as atm the amount of stealth in roaming is over the top.

^I would agree with that.

If you are roaming, chances are you will encounter zergs/blobs. If said zerg/blob has at least 1 teef, then its a matter of mobility vs mobility…will #1 be able to run or will #2 catch him. Stealth is a mechanic that can help one of the squishiest classes not get steamrolled every time they come across a zerg, and help them bail.

Being on both sides of the fence (Played a lot of DD and burn guard and tempest) there are a lot of sources of stealth, however I still wouldn’t say its as bad as a lot of people are making it out to sound.

Thieves can burn initiative like it’s water to get away from you and still pack enough of a punch to destroy you in seconds. Enough said…

If you turn off when thief goes into stealth that’s on you. It’s stealth, they didn’t disappear, they’r still trying to not get hit.

Long time Stealth thieves, has almost 0 damage and defense. Thieves that have some dmg, have to sacrifice stealth, which rarely goes beyond 2 seconds and is not spammable.

a pure stealth thiev, is killed by warrior greatsword #3 lmao. or a necro condi spam is almost insta kill for thiev.

kash.9213:

If you turn off when thief goes into stealth that’s on you. It’s stealth, they didn’t disappear, they’r still trying to not get hit.

+1 this.

what about: while in stealth thieves consume 1 initiative \ second, and less initiative less damage dealt in power and condition damage. Thief without initiative may still be in stealth and deal attacks which don’t require initiative but the damage should be like a wet noodle even in dire\marauder when it reach 0 initiative.

Right now dagger autoattack being doing 8k \sec (2k crits in spamming no cd AA able to 4 attacks per sec) it’s simply ridiculous having in mind it can attack with backstab for 15k + dagger AA for +8k and go back into stealth.

So each AA consume 1 initiative and the less initiative less damage dealt thus the thief will actually have to manage the risk versus reward when fighting other classes.

Additionally the thief could gain new sources of initiative when some specific circumstances are met like interrupting an enemy.

anduriell.6280:

what about: while in stealth thieves consume 1 initiative \ second, and less initiative less damage dealt in power and condition damage. Thief without initiative may still be in stealth and deal attacks which don’t require initiative but the damage should be like a wet noodle even in dire\marauder when it reach 0 initiative.

Right now dagger autoattack being doing 8k \sec (2k crits in spamming no cd AA able to 4 attacks per sec) it’s simply ridiculous having in mind it can attack with backstab for 15k + dagger AA for +8k and go back into stealth.

So each AA consume 1 initiative and the less initiative less damage dealt thus the thief will actually have to manage the risk versus reward when fighting other classes.

Additionally the thief could gain new sources of initiative when some specific circumstances are met like interrupting an enemy.

Instead of directly nerfing stealth, rework initiative? I cannot say I hate this idea.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

If you are roaming, chances are you will encounter zergs/blobs. If said zerg/blob has at least 1 teef, then its a matter of mobility vs mobility…will #1 be able to run or will #2 catch him. Stealth is a mechanic that can help one of the squishiest classes not get steamrolled every time they come across a zerg, and help them bail.

Whereas every other profession just gets steamrolled regardless of whether the zerg has a thief?

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

anduriell.6280:

what about: while in stealth thieves consume 1 initiative \ second, and less initiative less damage dealt in power and condition damage. Thief without initiative may still be in stealth and deal attacks which don’t require initiative but the damage should be like a wet noodle even in dire\marauder when it reach 0 initiative.

Right now dagger autoattack being doing 8k \sec (2k crits in spamming no cd AA able to 4 attacks per sec) it’s simply ridiculous having in mind it can attack with backstab for 15k + dagger AA for +8k and go back into stealth.

So each AA consume 1 initiative and the less initiative less damage dealt thus the thief will actually have to manage the risk versus reward when fighting other classes.

Additionally the thief could gain new sources of initiative when some specific circumstances are met like interrupting an enemy.

Instead of directly nerfing stealth, rework initiative? I cannot say I hate this idea.

its already nerfed.

to spam iniciatiative, they have to choose “trickery” trait line, and drop the trait lines that giver power or condi damage.

“shadow arts” is the traitline that giver stealth bonusses.

A “trickery” + “shadow art” thief, will have only 1 free trait line, they have to choose damage or survivability, if they choose damage, they become squish, if they chose survivability they dont do damage.

a Thiev to have relavante damage and survival, have to drop Shadow Arts+Trickery, and become a some sort of “brawler” like most of daredevils.

About stealth, the skills that give it, have huge cooldowns. the cheaper one, pistol+dagger have 2s only, and low skill proc.

ugrakarma.9416:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

anduriell.6280:

what about: while in stealth thieves consume 1 initiative \ second, and less initiative less damage dealt in power and condition damage. Thief without initiative may still be in stealth and deal attacks which don’t require initiative but the damage should be like a wet noodle even in dire\marauder when it reach 0 initiative.

Right now dagger autoattack being doing 8k \sec (2k crits in spamming no cd AA able to 4 attacks per sec) it’s simply ridiculous having in mind it can attack with backstab for 15k + dagger AA for +8k and go back into stealth.

So each AA consume 1 initiative and the less initiative less damage dealt thus the thief will actually have to manage the risk versus reward when fighting other classes.

Additionally the thief could gain new sources of initiative when some specific circumstances are met like interrupting an enemy.

Instead of directly nerfing stealth, rework initiative? I cannot say I hate this idea.

its already nerfed.

to spam iniciatiative, they have to choose “trickery” trait line, and drop the trait lines that giver power or condi damage.

“shadow arts” is the traitline that giver stealth bonusses.

A “trickery” + “shadow art” thief, will have only 1 free trait line, they have to choose damage or survivability, if they choose damage, they become squish, if they chose survivability they dont do damage.

a Thiev to have relavante damage and survival, have to drop Shadow Arts+Trickery, and become a some sort of “brawler” like most of daredevils.

About stealth, the skills that give it, have huge cooldowns. the cheaper one, pistol+dagger have 2s only, and low skill proc.

What the kitten you talking about? I don’t even know how to play thief, but i still can stealth whenever i want if i don’t just spam skills like some moron.

I dont know about you guys but i foresee more stealth incoming when next expansion is there.

Just delete all stealth , problem solved !!!

It’s a valid tactic, and a necessary one in a lot of cases. That said, ranger, engi/scrapper, herald and DH all have very solid reveal skills with minimal cast time etc, two of those are class counters to thief in particular.

The way I’d change things is this:

*limit the number of stealth stacks to 2 or 3 stacks, slightly increase stealth duration to compensate.

*give a mobility penalty when in stealth, countered by specific traits that restore normal movement in stealth specific trait lines.

*remove trapper runes, and anything else that gives stealth based on utility type or any criteria that isn’t part of the class in question. As each class gets more elite specs and utility types, runes like this either end up problematic balance wise or nerfed to the floor for preservation of same.

Mesmer and thief are meant to have high stealth uptime to compensate for the lack of other defenses (on chrono it’s questionable, as it is for daredevil). You will have to deal with that to an extent. Classes that have other defenses, invuln, stab plus high mobility etc shouldn’t have it.

But that all said, there are counters to stealth as I mentioned earlier. If you want to demolish a shed and you bring a spoon instead of a hammer, the problem is that you brought the wrong tools, not that the shed is too tough.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

It’s a valid tactic, and a necessary one in a lot of cases. That said, ranger, engi/scrapper, herald and DH all have very solid reveal skills with minimal cast time etc, two of those are class counters to thief in particular.

The way I’d change things is this:

*limit the number of stealth stacks to 2 or 3 stacks, slightly increase stealth duration to compensate.

*give a mobility penalty when in stealth, countered by specific traits that restore normal movement in stealth specific trait lines.

*remove trapper runes, and anything else that gives stealth based on utility type or any criteria that isn’t part of the class in question. As each class gets more elite specs and utility types, runes like this either end up problematic balance wise or nerfed to the floor for preservation of same.

Mesmer and thief are meant to have high stealth uptime to compensate for the lack of other defenses (on chrono it’s questionable, as it is for daredevil). You will have to deal with that to an extent. Classes that have other defenses, invuln, stab plus high mobility etc shouldn’t have it.

But that all said, there are counters to stealth as I mentioned earlier. If you want to demolish a shed and you bring a spoon instead of a hammer, the problem is that you brought the wrong tools, not that the shed is too tough.

The first two ideas seem ok but the third I don’t agree with and here’s my reasoning. If a mechanic is considered balanced then bringing it to other classes shouldn’t be an issue, however if said mechanic is way too strong then bringing it to other classes causes, well, the many complaints we’ve had about stealth since HoT. The hilarious thing is many thieves have been complaining about engineers and druids popping in and out of stealth despite it working the same mechanically where they get revealed for attacking.

Generally I’m alright with trapper runes as the stealth duration and superspeed is very low and you can force reveal by triggering the trap a lot of the time.

apharma.3741:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

snip

The first two ideas seem ok but the third I don’t agree with and here’s my reasoning. If a mechanic is considered balanced then bringing it to other classes shouldn’t be an issue, however if said mechanic is way too strong then bringing it to other classes causes, well, the many complaints we’ve had about stealth since HoT. The hilarious thing is many thieves have been complaining about engineers and druids popping in and out of stealth despite it working the same mechanically where they get revealed for attacking.

Generally I’m alright with trapper runes as the stealth duration and superspeed is very low and you can force reveal by triggering the trap a lot of the time.

The issue with stealth on other classes is that thief is balanced around it by not having invuln, stab, or passive defenses on the most part. I’m fine with having steal on other classes, but druid is a fine example of a class that plainly doesn’t need it. My argument is more that if a mechanic is something that’s balanced around, you shouldn’t be able to add it in later with runes (same logic for why vampirism runes got changed).

Personally I don’t have a problem with stealth. On my power thief, I play to either outstealth them after a burst, stand in the smoke field to prevent stacking or interrupting the cast outright, and if I can’t I probably misplayed somewhere. On my condi thief, I sit on a needle trap and wait for him to engage, and condi bomb when he does. There’s only so many times a thief can reset, and if you bait out shadowstep in particular there are many builds that can then outpace that thief.

I can’t speak for other classes as I pretty much only play thief, so take it all with salt.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

apharma.3741:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

snip

The first two ideas seem ok but the third I don’t agree with and here’s my reasoning. If a mechanic is considered balanced then bringing it to other classes shouldn’t be an issue, however if said mechanic is way too strong then bringing it to other classes causes, well, the many complaints we’ve had about stealth since HoT. The hilarious thing is many thieves have been complaining about engineers and druids popping in and out of stealth despite it working the same mechanically where they get revealed for attacking.

Generally I’m alright with trapper runes as the stealth duration and superspeed is very low and you can force reveal by triggering the trap a lot of the time.

The issue with stealth on other classes is that thief is balanced around it by not having invuln, stab, or passive defenses on the most part. I’m fine with having steal on other classes, but druid is a fine example of a class that plainly doesn’t need it. My argument is more that if a mechanic is something that’s balanced around, you shouldn’t be able to add it in later with runes (same logic for why vampirism runes got changed).

Personally I don’t have a problem with stealth. On my power thief, I play to either outstealth them after a burst, stand in the smoke field to prevent stacking or interrupting the cast outright, and if I can’t I probably misplayed somewhere. On my condi thief, I sit on a needle trap and wait for him to engage, and condi bomb when he does. There’s only so many times a thief can reset, and if you bait out shadowstep in particular there are many builds that can then outpace that thief.

I can’t speak for other classes as I pretty much only play thief, so take it all with salt.

By that logic you would never see mechanics added to any other class a lot of the time as most classes have been balanced around their respective mechanics. Guards are balanced around boons and blocks, warriors around high sustain and a few damage mitigation skills, ele around reducing damage taken and healing it all back up with moderate sustain.

There’s no problem expanding classes with elite specs with mechanics, look at bandits defence, no-one has issue with the mechanic being given to thief, they take issue with it being such a low cool down that it’s a mockery of balance. Just like headbutt on berserker and lots of other skills that have a big effect on short cool downs. No-one would have had an issue with true shot doing the 8k+ people were seeing at HoT launch had it been an 8s CD but ANet nerfed the damage instead of upping the CDs on many skills leading to the spamfiesta we have now.

Well that went tangentially but I hope I explained at least my view point on why I’m ok with mechanics going to other classes. Also I doubt class mechanics will go to others like burst skills, virtues, attunement swaps, steal, shatters, (lol would anyone even want clone mechanic??) permenant pet, death shroud, legend swap and tool belt skills.