Guild Wars 2

Something i notice is there doesn’t seem to be a counter to stealth at all. Not even if you’re on top of the person.

So is there a counter that i’m missing? I hate it when a thief goes invisible and i just stand there like an idiot.

you beat stealth in a few ways:

1 pop an elixer and use your dodge forward to evade potential attacks after 10 seconds you should be able to fight them without the stealth.

2 sometimes net guns hit invisible targets, that + the daze effect should buy you enough time to survive

3 aoe knock backs like the flame thrower, jet boots, or riffle jump.

the issue i have with this mmo, is that they went the same generic rout with theives as ever other mmo and the rogue class. high burst, ability to controle the flow of battle with stealth, and best of all shadow stepping… you would think after years of people complaning about stun locking and stealth bursting, these mmo developers wouldnt follow that character design. worst idea ever in an mmo was to have a burst class based on stealth.

yeah it is quite annoying. 1v1 with a good thief generally goes like this, stealth, stun, im at half health in .5 seconds haha. I know i should be carrying a stunbreaker, but dam.

My counter – Spam grenades on yourself.

Also we can go invisible ourselves if immobilized with the right trait.

Big Ol’ Bomb roots them out well, #4 shield skill (magnetic shield) both work well for me.

Stealth doesn’t make you immune to damage, I usually roast people with my blowtorch when they stealth. If they’re using stealth as an aggressive move rather than to escape, it usually hits them. People aren’t smart enough to flank.

Paulytnz.7619:

My counter – Spam grenades on yourself.

Also we can go invisible ourselves if immobilized with the right trait.

If auto attack didn’t break your stealth a split second after gaining stealth that trait would be much more valuable.

For what little pvp experience i’ve got against theives, i found my net turret to work fantasticly against them. Turrets have auto aim, so as long as the turret doesn’t bug out and shoot at inanimate objects, the thief will usualy be caught by its immobilize as soon as he breaks stealth. The turret will also point in his direction as he breaks stealth.

Ashes.6418:

Stealth doesn’t make you immune to damage, I usually roast people with my blowtorch when they stealth. If they’re using stealth as an aggressive move rather than to escape, it usually hits them. People aren’t smart enough to flank.

They don’t get the chance. Having a thief as my main, I can easily say that 3 seconds of stealth is barely enough to run to your opponent most of the time, much less – properly flank.
Shadow refuge gives 6 seconds of stealth, but ends as soon as you leave the small stealth-bubble it makes and before you make comments about popping stealth and then shadow refuge on your enemy – you can’t. You get a condition that’s basically stealth withdrawal – you can’t re-enter stealth for a few seconds after exiting it, eliminating the ability to chain-stealth.

Spam AoE immediately at the general area where they stealthed, and then spam grenades/AoE at my feet. Stuff like jump shot, grenade barrage, bombs whatever I have on my build for AoE.

Smoke bomb and flash grenade are also good ideas.

Make em miss that backstab.

smoke bomb/flash grenade and Flamethrower 5

They don’t get the chance. Having a thief as my main, I can easily say that 3 seconds of stealth is barely enough to run to your opponent most of the time, much less – properly flank.
Shadow refuge gives 6 seconds of stealth, but ends as soon as you leave the small stealth-bubble it makes and before you make comments about popping stealth and then shadow refuge on your enemy – you can’t. You get a condition that’s basically stealth withdrawal – you can’t re-enter stealth for a few seconds after exiting it, eliminating the ability to chain-stealth.

your not specced for long duration stealth

as others have stated.
Stealth only breaks targeting. it does not make you immune to damage.

Ground aoes will hit with ease. But even if you force attack projectiles, they will hit, if you know where the person is.

Blind grenade is very effective. blunderbuss, glue shot, blow torch all good options.

AoEs and autoattacks can still hit them so spam them in their general direction if need be. Shadow Refuge in particular is easily counterable by throwing grenades/bombs inside it.

Warmage Timeraider.5861:

your not specced for long duration stealth

Long duration stealth? +1 second is all you get from “long duration stealth”.
Even to get that, you sacrifice either power, precision or initiative gain. Not worth it.

I’ll normally smoke vent with the flame thrower then swap to pistol/shield and line up the stun for their opener, if they don’t open during that window I typically switch to tool belt and get ready to use the gear shield.

fyi: stealth trap gives 5 seconds of stealth, on a mere 30 second CD (24 if traited for traps and as said 6 seconds duration if traited for that). More than enough for a decent thief to either run away or get at your back.

If they don’t run away though: bombs. I’m not a huge fan of bombs myself, but they do work a treat against melee thieves (confusion bomb + #3 pistol = a joy).
Elixir S works best for me to get out of the initial burst (you can also trait auto-elixir S at 75% as an extra safety).

Most thieves forgo any condition cleaning for maximum burst though, so lay on the conditions and they melt.

Being as the thread is on the engineer’s section, it seems a little counter productive for folks to post how other classes do it. We should probably just stick to engineer counters to it.

Although in most cases the abilities they are suggesting such as spam AoEs are compatible.

Big bomb and slick shoes. Bombs in general.

You stealth back, the key to ever winning against a thief is so predict their initiating attacks and interrupt them. Luckily, engineers have plenty of ways to do this. Big Ol Bomb, shield knockback, shield daze / stun are usually the best ones to throw off their setups.