Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone
in this Thread I would like to discuss the effect “Revealed”, specifically granted by the skills I will mention in just a second.
I will post this in the Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Ranger and Guardian Forum as these are the professions that either (usually) use stealth or have the ability to apply Revealed through their skills (or, in the case of Dragonhunter, will have the ability).

Before replying please read the whole post, I know it’s a lot but there are also important suggestions + notes in the last few sentences. Thank you

Skills/Traits applying Reveal:

• Analyze (Engineer Toolbelt Utility Skill of Utility Goggles: 6s 1200 Range Reveal + 10×8s Vulnerability, 25s CD)
• Lock On (Engineer Tools Major Master Trait: Striking foes in Stealth analyzes them – see above)
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper Toolbelt Elite Skill of Sneak Gyro: 6s 900 Range AoE Reveal, 20s CD)
• “Sic ’Em!” (Ranger Utility Skill: 6s 2000 Range Reveal, 40s CD)
• Light’s Judgement (Dragonhunger Utility Skill: 10 240 AoE Pulses with 1100 Dmg, 8x 1s Reveal and 25×2s Vulnerability, kitten CD)

Why Do We Complain?
In the Thief Forum there have been a lot of suggestions/complaints about these Skills/Traits in particular. While we do know that they are rarely taken, Analyze, Lock On or Sic ‘Em are seen fairly often on Burst Builds.
Especially Thieves are targeted by the Reveal, as Stealth is currently our best defensive mechanic as Acrobatics (the Thief’s dodge trait line) sucks.
Given that we have an entire trait line based on stealth, lots of utilities and weapon combos balanced around it (while Stealth is not a Thief mechanic, Sneak Attacks are).

These skills/this trait pretty much deny us a whole trait line in a fight and with that most of our surviability, while Revealed we don’t have access to as much dmg as usual (which we usually build for) and the only defensive mechanics we then got are:

• Dodges (which every profession got, so these basically don’t count)
• Blind (very Initiative heavy)
• Interrupts (very Initiative heavy)
  Basically the only other two viable options are kiting (= no dmg) and shadow stepping out to wait until Revealed is over (50s CD).

Suggestions
Because of these reasons there have been some suggestions to change the Revealed effect of these skills/this trait:

• Make the skills not apply “Revealed”, but rather an effect called “Spotted”: everyone can see the target(s) while they still gain the benefits from being in stealth (easy to avoid Backstabs or Mirror Blades for example, but Thieves and Mesmers are not totally locked out of stealth traits they may have chosen for survivability).
• Make the skills be AoE and not apply Revealed to the target(s), but simply drop the stealth that’s currently on them. In this case the skills could even get a casting time and an animation in order to make them counterable.

With these changes, Revealed (and therefore possible “locked” chosen traits) could only be achieved by dealing damage from stealth, which at least a lot of Thieves deem fairer.

Many Thieves think that Revealed on Skills is a bad mechanic that wasn’t thought through, just thrown in to give people a counter to the former counterless stealth. Funnily enough, Anet thereby designed a counterless counter.

Another Idea
Also, I personally think that Analyze (and thereby Lock On), Detection Pulse, “Sic ’Em!” and Light’s Judgement should get benefits when hitting targets without Stealth.
For example, if you’d hit a Thief and a Warrior with Detection Pulse while the Thief was revealed, the Thief would get “Spotted” or dropped out of stealth. As the Warrior wasn’t stealthed, a possibility could be for the Scrapper to gain 1s of Stealth (could be 1s of Stealth for every non-stealthed target hit, while prioritizing stealthed targets. Detection Pulse should have a maximum amount of targets then).
With changes like this, I think these skills and traits would see more use (outside of rekking Thieves ) and would also have a more tactical approach.

Before Answering, Please
Please, before answering, consider the following: With this thread or these suggestions I don’t mean to balance any professions or builds, but rather only the skills I talked about and “Revealed”.
Therefore simply saying “No, it should stay, Mesmer and Thief OP” doesn’t contribute at all, as Mesmer’s or Thief’s OPness or not should be balanced by itself (Traits, Weapon Skills,…) and not through Skills of other professions.
I know it can be hard to differentiate (especially as a lot of players hate Thieves and think that Mesmers are OP at the moment).

Anyway, thanks for reading and what do you guys think about my suggestions?

I play Berserker S/D Rifle engineer in PvP and I do take Utility Googles/Analyze for the 10% extra damage + lightning proc. I’ve found out that after the first encounter, Thieves have ways to counter my Analyze, be it Shadowstepping away for the revealed duration, frontloading their burst so Revealed doesn’t matter anymore since I should die soon or act as +1’s in fights and come from behind when my attention is focused somewhere else.

I really see it more as a, as much as I hate using the expression, learn to play issue. Toolbelt Analyze requires the enemy to be visible so you have to guess when it will be useful; Detection Pulse, albeit AoE with wide radius, will have to be saved for when you know someone’s in Stealth nearby and it locks out AoE Moa, Orbital Strike and AoE Healpacks, which I’d say is a big trade-off for any engineer. I won’t talk about Lock On since, as it is now, won’t even properly pull targets out of Stealth.

You have to consider that the builds that might run Utility Googles and Lock On are burst builds, so chances are they’ll have at most Self-Regulating Defenses and perhaps Vampirism Mistform as means of ‘reactive’ defense; if caught, they die.

EDIT: I guess I didn’t really answer your question directly; I’d say the Engineer skills are fair enough in what you have to give up to get the Revealed option: lose out one Utility Skill, on dual kit builds that means dropping Elixir S for instance; taking Lock On (which doesn’t ‘properly’ work as it does apply Revealed but doesn’t pull people off Stealth) over Power Wrench or Static Discharge; or losing out on powerful Elite skills (not counting we don’t even know how useful Sneak Gyro is yet).

IgnisVulpesXI.3015:

I play Berserker S/D Rifle engineer in PvP and I do take Utility Googles/Analyze for the 10% extra damage + lightning proc. I’ve found out that after the first encounter, Thieves have ways to counter my Analyze, be it Shadowstepping away for the revealed duration, frontloading their burst so Revealed doesn’t matter anymore since I should die soon or act as +1’s in fights and come from behind when my attention is focused somewhere else.

That’s why it’s been a long time since any Berserker Build (apart from Mesmer because of Stealth + Portal and apart from Medi Guard because it counters Thief) was in the Meta.
Thief pretty much counters most Berserker Builds as you can engage in stealth and with Initiative have a really high burst.

I really see it more as a, as much as I hate using the expression, learn to play issue. Toolbelt Analyze requires the enemy to be visible so you have to guess when it will be useful; Detection Pulse, albeit AoE with wide radius, will have to be saved for when you know someone’s in Stealth nearby and it locks out AoE Moa, Orbital Strike and AoE Healpacks, which I’d say is a big trade-off for any engineer. I won’t talk about Lock On since, as it is now, won’t even properly pull targets out of Stealth.

True that but as a Thief I can tell you after the first Analyze, where we can Shadowstep out, on the second Analyze we can do nothing but dodge/“spam” #3 on D/P in order to hope that we don’t get hit by Overcharged Shot until reveal runs off.
It’s like a who survives game, if you are able to survive the Thief’s first burst he will likely be able to survive your first Analyze, but then have trouble survive with Lock On.
And until you got Analyze up again it’s the Thief’s time to burst.

You have to consider that the builds that might run Utility Googles and Lock On are burst builds, so chances are they’ll have at most Self-Regulating Defenses and perhaps Vampirism Mistform as means of ‘reactive’ defense; if caught, they die.

I think as a Thief thats a good trade off (in a 1v1 situation) as an Analyze after a used Shadowstep can mean free burst (you can also make yourself invulnerable to Blind, at which point the Thief can theoretically only dodge hoping not to die.
Elixir S is not too good in 1v1s against Thieves in my experience apart from the stealth for burst setup, as the Thief has time to get his reveal off himself and regenerate 4 Initiative. It’s basically his chance to stealth in order to reburst.
However if you react offensively your chances are high to burst the Thief down right after his burst, the easiest fights imo are the ones where the other player plays passively after you got your burst off.

EDIT: I guess I didn’t really answer your question directly; I’d say the Engineer skills are fair enough in what you have to give up to get the Revealed option: lose out one Utility Skill, on dual kit builds that means dropping Elixir S for instance; taking Lock On (which doesn’t ‘properly’ work as it does apply Revealed but doesn’t pull people off Stealth) over Power Wrench or Static Discharge; or losing out on powerful Elite skills (not counting we don’t even know how useful Sneak Gyro is yet).

However I understand your point coming from such a “niche” spec, personally still don’t like 3 possible reveals on Engi alone, denying us a whole trait line.
Anyway, thanks for the reply!

I have been running “lock on” in wvw ever since a trapper condi thief troll decided to spawn camp our eb waypoint. I have noticed that reveal (lock on) counters thiefs WAY! harder than it counters mesmers. Instead of changing/nerfing reveal anet should give thiefs the tools with which they don’t have to rely on stealth so much.

If reveal is replaced by your “spotted” suggestion then utility goggles with the reveal toolbelt skill will become even more useless then it already is. Only sd engies take that gadget and since static discharge only works with toolbelt skills that fly straight to the targeted enemy static discharge engies will not be able to make much use of the fact that the enemy was spotted since he doesn’t have many aoe skill with which he can hurt the thief.

Replacing a few “reveal” skills (hardcounter to stealth) with "spotted " (softcounter to stealth) can be acceptable but we have to define what spotted does and make sure it’s worth investing in.

Fighting you stealth abusers is a real chore for alot of builds/classes and i would like to see more reasonable counters to stealth.

santenal.1054:

Fighting you stealth abusers is a real chore for alot of builds/classes and i would like to see more reasonable counters to stealth.

Thieves abuse stealth is because they have a lot of benefits from it. Stealth removes conditions, stealth heals, charge inti. Etc. Worst of all there is absolutely nothing you can do about it pre-reveal.

I think there should be even more reveals as stealth isn’t thieves only strong point. Evasion skills and endurance regeneration is one also but thieves refuse to trait that direction as it easier to just stealth. Just like how the new specialization gave engineers a way to fight outside of reflect, thieves new specialization gave thieves a way to fight outside of stealth. Would thieves use it? I doubt it. Anet is literally screaming at thieves to stop depending on stealth so much and evade once in a while but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

I never had trouble seeing a thief. If I revealed a thief it “is” to lock them out of their stealth benefits and punishing them for traiting so heavily in that direction.

Lite.3819:

santenal.1054:

Fighting you stealth abusers is a real chore for alot of builds/classes and i would like to see more reasonable counters to stealth.

Thieves abuse stealth is because they have a lot of benefits from it. Stealth removes conditions, stealth heals, charge inti. Etc. Worst of all there is absolutely nothing you can do about it pre-reveal.

I think there should be even more reveals as stealth isn’t thieves only strong point. Evasion skills and endurance regeneration is one also but thieves refuse to trait that direction as it easier to just stealth. Just like how the new specialization gave engineers a way to fight outside of reflect, thieves new specialization gave thieves a way to fight outside of stealth. Would thieves use it? I doubt it. Anet is literally screaming at thieves to stop depending on stealth so much and evade once in a while but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

I never had trouble seeing a thief. If I revealed a thief it “is” to lock them out of their stealth benefits and punishing them for traiting so heavily in that direction.

Actually, pre June 23rd 2/0/0/6/6 S/D Thief was pretty popular.
It was outshined by D/P 6/0/2/0/6 (PvP Stealth Build), but the Acrobatics Evade Build was what I used to run and also a lot of other Thieves who didn’t like Stealth much.
The problem is that currently taking Acrobatics is way less effective than just taking Shadow Arts or our 2nd offensive trait line Critical Strikes… just because Acrobatics was nerfed that much.
I for my part will run Daredevil with S/D + Staff as a stealthless build, but I think that should be possible before Eite Specs as well…
A lot of Thieves would chose a more or less viable non Stealth Build over the current Meta imo.

Stealth needed a hard counter and i hope more classes get revealed skills. Sorry for the hate, but the most cowards playing thief or mesmer (my opinion).

Haralin.1473:

Stealth needed a hard counter and i hope more classes get revealed skills. Sorry for the hate, but the most cowards playing thief or mesmer (my opinion).

:(

truth is though that i think a lot of lowskill cowards play thief and mesmer for stealth + mobility.

Lite.3819:

Thieves abuse stealth is because they have a lot of benefits from it. Stealth removes conditions, stealth heals, charge inti. Etc. Worst of all there is absolutely nothing you can do about it pre-reveal.

If these things are the issue, then those traits need to be toned down or reworked.

Lite.3819:

I never had trouble seeing a thief. If I revealed a thief it “is” to lock them out of their stealth benefits and punishing them for traiting so heavily in that direction.

That’s like saying Thieves should have an option to “punish” Engineers for traiting so heavily in Inventions for example, nullifying any traits that effect turrets. That’s probably not even as bad as it is for Thieves currently though. I don’t see a need for that. If the traits are inherently too strong then they just need to be reworked or toned down.

Haralin.1473:

Stealth needed a hard counter and i hope more classes get revealed skills. Sorry for the hate, but the most cowards playing thief or mesmer (my opinion).

So, let’s make these skills that currently apply revealed to enemies apply the suggested “Spotted” debuff instead then, so that they do just counter stealth since that is the issue. Currently, having them apply revealed doesn’t only counter stealth, it also counters stealth related traits and the Stealth Attack mechanic for Thieves, whether they take the Shadow Arts trait line or not.

Perhaps redo Revealed Training to instead of increase power by 200, cause you to be “Spotted” instead of revealed? With your definition and idea for Spotted.

Invictorum.7643:

Perhaps redo Revealed Training to instead of increase power by 200, cause you to be “Spotted” instead of revealed? With your definition and idea for Spotted.

If that includes self applied Revealed from landing an attack from stealth, I think that would be too strong and not really needed. If it only applies to the Revealed that enemy skills apply to you like Analyze, that should just be baseline for what those skills apply. You shouldn’t have to take yet another trait to have that effect and to be able to use Stealth Attacks.

Haralin.1473:

Stealth needed a hard counter and i hope more classes get revealed skills. Sorry for the hate, but the most cowards playing thief or mesmer (my opinion).

Actually cowards play burn builds since those are super easy at the moment.

From a WvW perpective, revealed works exactly as intended.
If there is no engi around, mesmers / thiefs can keep a whole zerg busy by consistently teleporting away & re-stealthing.
It is one task to fend off the enemy zerg, but a complete other to ensure that they don’t port back in the blink of an eye.

Now that I can reveal them, at least one part of the cancer is gone, but especially in thiefs’ case we speak about the class with the single highest mobility in the game.

I don’t see a reason why we should nerf revealed. it’s meant to be punishing towards stealth-abusers & it definitively eased the field in WvW. I still don’t consider it leveled, since it’s still the thief who has full control over how the fight ends. If he decides to be a idiot & attack me, even tho he’s revealed, I kill him. If he’s smart enough to SB#5 into safe distance to disengage, I’m the one who has to run after him while may or may not already goes for the next objectives.

As long as thiefs are able to consistently deny me full control over how the fight ends, I’m totally fine with denying them access to stealth.

If it weren’t for the fact that thiefs have access to frequent teleports & already more evades than all other classes, I could understand the complaint about reveal being too punishing, but as it is, it looks totally fine, if not even underpowered. I’d like more classes to gain access to reveal.

Also, about these skills being useless on warri or other stealth-less classes:
Lock on casts analyze on the target & analyze itself applies 10 stacks of vulnerability. Playing a s/d burst build, 10% more dmg on the target is nice to have, also it’s an insta-cast, procing s/d-projectiles.
And the aoe-reveal will mostly be useful for zerging, to rip stealth from the enmy after they veiled. I don’t see me roaming with this gyro. Welp, I will try it out, but I do suspect it to be more a toy than a proper tool outside of zerging.