Guild Wars 2

As Backstab seems to be, yet again, the subject of thief hate of the week, I had one random idea. What if they gave stealth skills a visible particle effect, while letting the Thief remain stealthed? No like a full reveal, just say their knife glows for the strike. Maybe do that for all attack skills from stealth.

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If I’ve mitigated your backstab 3 times, I want some indicator as to how to fight back, and no, dropping aoe does not work.

That’s an interesting idea, and one I don’t think most thieves would have a problem with. Good players will be more fun to fight I suppose, bad ones will still just let thieves beat the crap out of them, so not much will change really, but the negative perception of thieves might get toned down a little.

Valneer.3854:

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If I’ve mitigated your backstab 3 times, I want some indicator as to how to fight back, and no, dropping aoe does not work.

Swimming in your AoEs does work. Ask any engineer or necro who knows how to fight thieves.

I’d support this idea, but how do you think, this should work?
The Effect can only appear as soon, as the thief hit the #1 skill. But as Backstab only has a 0,25s casttime, it might not be possible to react fast enough, even if you are a good player.

EverythingEnds.4261:

I’d support this idea, but how do you think, this should work?
The Effect can only appear as soon, as the thief hit the #1 skill. But as Backstab only has a 0,25s casttime, it might not be possible to react fast enough, even if you are a good player.

I have no issue with taking a backstab I left myself open for, the problem I have is that there is no penalty for sloppy backstab spamming and an effect like this would show me where that stealthed thief is “11111111111111111111111 backstab”ing.

I wouldn’t mind this change…
But as godz said, it will just help people that are already able to fight relatively well against thieves… Those that stand around doing nothing while the thief stealths… well this really wont help them…

Valneer.3854:

EverythingEnds.4261:

I’d support this idea, but how do you think, this should work?
The Effect can only appear as soon, as the thief hit the #1 skill. But as Backstab only has a 0,25s casttime, it might not be possible to react fast enough, even if you are a good player.

I have no issue with taking a backstab I left myself open for, the problem I have is that there is no penalty for sloppy backstab spamming and an effect like this would show me where that stealthed thief is “11111111111111111111111 backstab”ing.

I think an after (and on, though this one doesnt matter) effect would probably be better… Like after using the skill, the weapon glows for ~1-2 seconds.

Though wow… there’s literally been 4 posts today that are not the normal kind of “let’s rework/nerf thieves” posts… but actually about balance and possibly small fixes (like OP’s suggestion…)

O.o The blue moon must really be up today or will be up… to see 4 decent posts in one day… wow…

Has anyone suggested what Blizzard did for Dark Templar’s in StarCraft? They could have that effect when in stealth but I’d say probably toned down or it’d be too easy to spot a stealthed player. Maybe even make the cloak effect more obvious if they are moving quickly like HS’ing in it or dodging.

ReesesPBC.4603:

Has anyone suggested what Blizzard did for Dark Templar’s in StarCraft? They could have that effect when in stealth but I’d say probably toned down or it’d be too easy to spot a stealthed player. Maybe even make the cloak effect more obvious if they are moving quickly like HS’ing in it or dodging.

If they do this expect buffs given to thieves that allow them easy access to defensive boons. If you can see a thief in stealth with the current balance of the class than they will be too weak to perform against a player of equal skill level. Also this would make landing a backstabbing impossible against any player other than the dumbest of the dumb.

godz raiden.2631:

ReesesPBC.4603:

Has anyone suggested what Blizzard did for Dark Templar’s in StarCraft? They could have that effect when in stealth but I’d say probably toned down or it’d be too easy to spot a stealthed player. Maybe even make the cloak effect more obvious if they are moving quickly like HS’ing in it or dodging.

If they do this expect buffs given to thieves that allow them easy access to defensive boons. If you can see a thief in stealth with the current balance of the class than they will be too weak to perform against a player of equal skill level. Also this would make landing a backstabbing impossible against any player other than the dumbest of the dumb.

If ANet would even implement this it would be at their discretion as to how much visibility they would give for the effect which could be too little or too much. And if anything it’d could be affected by being more visible while closer to players and less visible away from them like maybe a 300 radius around a character or whatever would make it more visible. Of course that would be subject to change if it were to detrimental on the thieve’s behalf.

I promise you it would be detrimental for the thief. With the ferocity changes last patch burst backstabbing builds were already hit pretty hard. Adding vision to stealthier enemies within any radius would allow for too easy of counter play without having to adjust your own play style. It’s already pretty easy to kill a thief if you know what weapon set he’s using and you’re paying careful attention. A change like this to thief without property compensation will lead to the death of the thief class.

godz raiden.2631:

I promise you it would be detrimental for the thief. With the ferocity changes last patch burst backstabbing builds were already hit pretty hard. Adding vision to stealthier enemies within any radius would allow for too easy of counter play without having to adjust your own play style. It’s already pretty easy to kill a thief if you know what weapon set he’s using and you’re paying careful attention. A change like this to thief without property compensation will lead to the death of the thief class.

It’s just a suggestion since people are complaining about BS being a guessing game and randomly throwing down AOE’s is supposed to be the counter + being a fortune teller. It’s a suggestion so as mentioned above, with the glimmer effect, instead people could see it coming at the very last second and act on reflex so maybe even a smaller radius like 180 instead of some windup glimmer animation. Plus it wouldn’t even matter with the CnD/steal combo. Like I mentioned its just small effect like the DT’s in StarCraft which are hard to see too with everything going on. I could see how it’d be bad in zerg or group settings since there’d be a lot of people to make it more visible but at the same time I think that could possibly counter all those D/P troll builds. As I mentioned we’d really never know unless it was implemented this way.

Anything better is during the current system.

If this current system continues well either see a nerf to thieves in high damage specs like d/d or well see a nerf to zerker/physical damage type builds. Its just too punishing on the game’s current build variety to have classes that can take out almost half your hp in nearly a second.

ReesesPBC.4603:

godz raiden.2631:

I promise you it would be detrimental for the thief. With the ferocity changes last patch burst backstabbing builds were already hit pretty hard. Adding vision to stealthier enemies within any radius would allow for too easy of counter play without having to adjust your own play style. It’s already pretty easy to kill a thief if you know what weapon set he’s using and you’re paying careful attention. A change like this to thief without property compensation will lead to the death of the thief class.

It’s just a suggestion since people are complaining about BS being a guessing game and randomly throwing down AOE’s is supposed to be the counter + being a fortune teller. It’s a suggestion so as mentioned above, with the glimmer effect, instead people could see it coming at the very last second and act on reflex so maybe even a smaller radius like 180 instead of some windup glimmer animation. Plus it wouldn’t even matter with the CnD/steal combo. Like I mentioned its just small effect like the DT’s in StarCraft which are hard to see too with everything going on. I could see how it’d be bad in zerg or group settings since there’d be a lot of people to make it more visible but at the same time I think that could possibly counter all those D/P troll builds. As I mentioned we’d really never know unless it was implemented this way.

Not sure if you play Titanfall… but they have the kind of stealth you’re talking about.
Given that it’s a fast paced fps… it sort of works. Though it’s best used to stealth your self when running across open areas so that enemies from afar can’t see you, maybe sneaking up from behind…
Though it becomes pretty much useless if you’re running towards the person from the front, as they can see a vivid image of you and instantly shoot you (since hey, 99.5% of the time it IS a player…).

Though a different example, is Evelynn from League of Legends. Based on proximity to the enemy she becomes largely revealed (still has a see through look but… you can plainly see her). Now… the only reason it works in that game is that with that you can attempt to sneak up behind them while your teammate goes from the front… There are other tactical differences but this one is pretty much the most glaring one.

WoW’s rogue… when they’re literally on their target/touching shoulders, the target sees them… but then it’s too late… unless the rogue is troll sapping you… Sure they can be revealed if hit and there are hunter traps… but we’re not talking about that so much as being revealed/visible before anything happens….

Valneer.3854:

EverythingEnds.4261:

I’d support this idea, but how do you think, this should work?
The Effect can only appear as soon, as the thief hit the #1 skill. But as Backstab only has a 0,25s casttime, it might not be possible to react fast enough, even if you are a good player.

I have no issue with taking a backstab I left myself open for, the problem I have is that there is no penalty for sloppy backstab spamming and an effect like this would show me where that stealthed thief is “11111111111111111111111 backstab”ing.

What actually annoys me most, is still that thieves don’t get revealed or sth. when you block their attacks.
It is so often, where I see a thief going into stealth, I doge or use e.g. blurred frenzy, see this “evaded / blocked” message, but still don’t see the thief.
…and than, I take the backstab, or whatever.

Maybe dodging etc, should get the thief out of stealth, but without applying revealed?

@ OP this is a good idea. Even as a thief I think a good solution would be to pop out of stealth for like .5seconds if you attempt an attack while in stealth. Not revealed unless you hit them, but like you can see them trying to backstab you. This could make for some cool visual effects too.

I like this idea :P

Dual.8953:

As Backstab seems to be, yet again, the subject of thief hate of the week, I had one random idea. What if they gave stealth skills a visible particle effect, while letting the Thief remain stealthed? No like a full reveal, just say their knife glows for the strike. Maybe do that for all attack skills from stealth.

If they were going to implement something to give some kind of warning about beind backstabbed, I would probably be the most ok with this idea over some of the others that have been proposed. If they could see the same blue glow animation that the theif sees (like a knife gleaming as it goes in for the strike) that would at least mitigate the QQ if nothing else.

Something like:

Non- thief: “Backstab is unavoidable”
Thief : “dodge the blue glow”

Good players already know when and how to avoid it, so you wouldn’t be at too much more of a disadvantage than you already were.

To those who like the idea of a translucent thief like what the thief sees from their perspective: There used to be a bug in the game that if you were in a party with a person on the opposite team, they saw that translucent version of you and it was impossible to get a backstab or use stealth defensively.

They could also make it so that Blocks, Invul, dodges and such bring the Thief out of stealth. What else they could do is add an Initiative cost as well. Having a skill that has 1 requirement of being in stealth with no cost of the skill and no downside makes it VERY hated. Sure, you can dodge it, but that doesn’t really do anything seeing as they can just keep trying.

Something else they could do, make it so if within a certain range you can kind of see an outline and if you stay in that range longer and longer then you can see them more and more or something?

Wows solution would work for me as a thief. A frontal cone, that if you get too close in stealth you can vaguely see the thief. Possibly the same glassy effect you get when you yourself enter stealth.

But if you approach from behind, it’s business as usual.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

They could also make it so that Blocks, Invul, dodges and such bring the Thief out of stealth. What else they could do is add an Initiative cost as well. Having a skill that has 1 requirement of being in stealth with no cost of the skill and no downside makes it VERY hated. Sure, you can dodge it, but that doesn’t really do anything seeing as they can just keep trying.

Something else they could do, make it so if within a certain range you can kind of see an outline and if you stay in that range longer and longer then you can see them more and more or something?

I feel the visible strike effect would be enough. It’d be there to punish sloppy stealth play, and is could be used to add a other level of misdirection at it’s skill cap. My thought is, a thief who misses and starts spamming 1 will be easy to track.
Also, note I said all attack skills, meaning this stipulation would extend to all classes.

Having blocks and ect. break stealth is too heavy handed imo. It’d reward sloppy use of defense, and on top of that, it’d mean guardian’s would be impossible to ambush under regular circumstances.
The outline idea is even more heavy handed, in my experience the only times I’ve seen the outline work is when the game is very fast paced, with a locked over the shoulder 3rd person or a 1st person view.
The initiative idea could work, but it seems rather petty imo. I’d rather have stealth nerfed in someway that opens up new avenues of play if it’s nerfed at all.

I think a cone about 300-450 units ahead would be a good idea. I think a good idea is that they can partially see you but they still can’t target you.

However, not sure how this would work with shadow refuge. True, they already have an idea of where you are because of the glowy circle. But they might be able to burst you down if they can see you.