Guild Wars 2

Duration increase of stealth by 20% per ally affected by your Stealth Skills.

So if your Veil stealths 5 people (including yourself), you still get 100% duration increase.

And it should ALSO give ALLIES random boons while in Stealth as well.

What this does is that it keeps the potential power of PU without nerfing it, but prevents solo-mesmers from abusing it constantly. This encourages play with allies and adds cool combat functionality and skill with your teammates.

Edit: Random thought, this functionality could possibly include Clones and Illusions active as well, determining the Stealth Duration.

Or they could fix The Pledge first, and see if the problem goes away on its own.

How would Veil give you increased duration after the fact…?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Or they could fix The Pledge first, and see if the problem goes away on its own.

^^^^^^^

“How to fix PU” says the person who has stated that they main warrior in a previous post. What a surprise. It seems like warriors are the class that complains the most about mesmers. Maybe warrior is just a class that gets hard countered by mesmers just like thieves hard countered mesmers. I can already see where this is going. You can read about my views on PU here.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Why-do-mesmers-have-so-much-stealth/first

If it gets reduced, it shouldn’t be by much. What do you think many mesmers are going to say when you want the skill nerfed by 80% in most situations? I think i’m gona go to the warrior forum and post of thread on how to fix rampage since their changes were not enough. Good day!

Seriously though, in the thread I posted most of the players that complained about PU the most were warriors. Maybe you should just figure out how warrior can counter mesmer better and ask for changes. Either that or warriors must have some major self centered issues were they think they feel they should always be entitled to meta positions and dominate over all other classes.

Oh I love when I find these little “fix it threads” A good laugh added to my day and yes please on that Pledge fix.

To fix PU just reduce the duration to +50% and make the Aegis proc only on entering stealth.

roamzero.9486:

To fix PU just reduce the duration to +50% and make the Aegis proc only on entering stealth.

True, there are still Mesmers taking it over the other two actually useful traits. Got to fix that!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Vid-The-SwordMaster-WvW-Roaming
Fix your own Nike warrior before coming here. Only difference is you actually see the warrior run away and re-engage with Mesmer its pu.

Carighan.6758:

roamzero.9486:

To fix PU just reduce the duration to +50% and make the Aegis proc only on entering stealth.

True, there are still Mesmers taking it over the other two actually useful traits. Got to fix that!

Seriously? I only see PU being remotely viable in PvE stealth runs (derp?) and WvW.

Because there’s supposed to be balance in ZvZ and 1vZ?

Fix the torch trait, then see.

Most people are adapting to mesmer with usually 6s of stealth with PU and the extended duration of MI. The funny part is that TW will swing a fight a lot more than using MI twice.

The only time I can honestly say PU is in any way imbalanced is when paired with the torch trait in WvW, again though, that is the torch trait which is at fault not PU.

apharma.3741:

Fix the torch trait, then see.

Most people are adapting to mesmer with usually 6s of stealth with PU and the extended duration of MI. The funny part is that TW will swing a fight a lot more than using MI twice.

The only time I can honestly say PU is in any way imbalanced is when paired with the torch trait in WvW, again though, that is the torch trait which is at fault not PU.

People don’t seem to get just how much The Pledge is adding to the numbers. Would it be worth me doing some more math to make it clear?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

apharma.3741:

Fix the torch trait, then see.

Most people are adapting to mesmer with usually 6s of stealth with PU and the extended duration of MI. The funny part is that TW will swing a fight a lot more than using MI twice.

The only time I can honestly say PU is in any way imbalanced is when paired with the torch trait in WvW, again though, that is the torch trait which is at fault not PU.

People don’t seem to get just how much The Pledge is adding to the numbers. Would it be worth me doing some more math to make it clear?

If only for an easily quotable post for every “nerf PU” thread.

Torch trait doesn’t do a lot unless you (literally) want to stand in stealth for 50 seconds (50s stated here because you can attain 54s of solo stealth with PU Pledge MoM Prestige Decoy Veil Mimic MI).

[b]The tl;dr on the torch trait is:

If you have stealth up 100% of the time, you get 30% CDR on Prestige (dropping CD to 21s).[/b]

The not long; did read is:

However, since most people don’t maintain stealth for a full 21 seconds, you’re looking at…

Duration | Lowered CD | Remaining CD | % CDR
     1s                  0.45                  28.55            1.5%
     2s                  0.9                    27.1               3%
     3s                  1.35                  25.65             4.5%
     4s                  1.8                    24.2               6%
     5s                  2.25                  22.75            7.5%
     6s                  2.7                    21.3               9%
     7s                  3.15                  19.85            10.5%
     8s                  3.6                    18.4              12%
     9s                  4.05                  16.95            13.5%
    10s                 4.5                   15.5               15%
    11s                 4.95                 14.05             16.5%
    12s                 5.4                   12.6               18%
    13s                 5.85                 11.15             19.5%
    14s                 6.3                    9.7                 21%
    15s                 6.75                  8.25               22.5%
    16s                 7.2                    6.8                  24%
    17s                 7.65                  5.35                25.5%
    18s                 8.1                    3.9                  27%
    19s                 8.55                  2.45               28.5%
    20s                 9                       1                    30%  
    21s                 9*                      0                   30%

Note: All numbers are in seconds except the % CDR (removed the s on CD due to swear filter picking up 45 and s making an item nomenclature that was unintended).

*Note: Only 9s CDR is attained on 21s due to the cooldown being completed at this point, and the interval finishing once the cooldown is complete (unless you have 0 or lower latency, you won't be able to cast Prestige again at this point).

Also note, all of these numbers assume you start with Prestige and proceed to… sit in stealth for up to 21s.

So, as you can see, to attain a “standard” weapon skill trait, you need to maintain ~13-14s of stealth for it to payoff. The same numbers are used for Phantasmal Mage since they share cooldown (numbers, not actually on the same CD).

Do note (yes, there are a lot of notes), Staff has different numbers for the “payoff” since the cooldown % per interval is 2 instead of 1.5.

Tl;dr v2:
PU + Pledge + Prestige -> MI = 24% CDR on Prestige. GG ANET, HIGHER THAN MY OTHER WEAPON SKEELZZZ GG NERF.

Edited for slight formating.

Um, I’m sorry to tell you Esplen, but your numbers are wrong.

Not because you did the math wrong, but because The Pledge is bugged.

It’s currently adding closer to Four-point-five – 5% reduction per second of stealth, not 1.5% like it’s supposed to.

That’s what apharma and I mean by fixing The Pledge.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s dumb by design anyway, because encouraging players to camp in stealth to get reduced cooldown on stealth is just bad design.
But the bug is the most likely culprit for the extreme stealth people are getting.

Edit: for clarity, the bugged duration means 100% stealth puts the cooldown of The Prestige at 12s, not the 20.5 you should be getting (that your math predicts).

You can test it easily: take PU, the Pledge, a torch, and Decoy.
Activate The Prestige and Decoy. You will have 12s of stealth.
When that ends, you will find The Prestige is back off cooldown.

Testing this now.

EDIT, yeah, it’s a little more than doubled. 10s of stealth brings you down to 9-10s CD.

6s of stealth brings you down to 16s CD. You tend to only get 5 intervals here, so there’s 8 seconds of CD dropped due to Pledge. It’s possible to get the 6th interval, but it’s not guaranteed. The 6th interval drops the cooldown to roughly 15s.

Napkin math suggests we’re looking at roughly 5% CDR during Stealth.

Yeah it is hilariously buggy not to mention a bad trait which gains almost nothing without PU but with PU a ridiculously huge reduction.

I hate the idea that PU should fall in duration. Or rather, why not actually have 10s base duration on MI, and then +5 from the trait?
That comparatively nerfs the trait, while keeping MI at a duration where it matters outside of sPvP / 1v1.

And that’s my sticking point: It’s nice that everyone here is crying one way or another, but can we please keep in mind there’s this majority game mode called PvE? Where having “cool” abilities which “change things” is the design goal? Where being able to stealth a group for a significant amount of time is something worthy of an actual elite skill slot?

So to sum it up:

• MI to 10s duration.
• PU down to 50% increase (this indirectly nerfs Veil, Decoy and Prestige, I’d buff Veil to compensate because hell can it need the help outside of zerg vs zerg in WvW).
• To compensate for the increase, do the following rework to MI:

Mass Invisibility – elite skill
Cooldown: 90s
Cast time: 1s
Duration: 10s
Effect: Project a bubble of invisibility around you, affected up to 10 allies. The effect area moves with you. As long as each ally stays close enough to you, they will stay invisibility. They cannot attack or break the invisibility any other way, and cannot be revealed by any other means. Upon exiting the bubble, an ally is immediately visible again and can attack and be attacked. However if they attack shortly after leaving, they will be Revealed.

The idea would be to focus the skill more on support, as the Mesmer herself is entirely unable to break the stealth, since the bubble moves with her. Very long stealth with PU, but have to let it run out. Use it at a bad time and you’re watching while your team gets killed. :P

This sounds pretty awful, to be honest…

They should just revert The Pledge to -20% and PU to +1s (buff Massinvis and maybe Veil base duration if you want). Increase the duration of buffs provided by PU to make up for the lost 30% on chaos and you’re set.

Long stealth is a thief thing and should only serve as utility for mesmer. Also, as long as we have portal, people will always complain about it (and, to be honest, you can’t plaster the whole SM with stealth traps).

Iavra.8510:

Long stealth is a thief thing and should only serve as utility for mesmer.

You say that, but we have the stealth elite ability. If anything, “best stealth” would hence be a mesmer thing.

That’s exactly what i mean. It’s our elite, a fairly long cd skill with utility character and not to be spammed in combat.

CnD and BP + HS give thieves constant access to stealth in combat and our stealth used to be a utility with Decoy, Massinvis and maybe Torch depending on build, all on kinda long cds compared to the stealth they provide. But with the new PU + (bugged) Pledge those skills no longer have utility character but are getting spammed between bursts.

Iavra.8510:

That’s exactly what i mean. It’s our elite, a fairly long cd skill with utility character and not to be spammed in combat.

CnD and BP + HS give thieves constant access to stealth in combat and our stealth used to be a utility with Decoy, Massinvis and maybe Torch depending on build, all on kinda long cds compared to the stealth they provide. But with the new PU + (bugged) Pledge those skills no longer have utility character but are getting spammed between bursts.

Or (and this is a crazy idea that requires a bit of out of the box logical thinking) they could change the pledge and leave PU and re-evaluate it from there after a few weeks.

But then WvW is classed as PvE and…

Iavra.8510:

Because PvP is the only competitive mode there is. PvE doesn’t need to be balanced, since you are not competing against each other, so it should be ignored.

So I guess we can ignore it’s effects on WvW which is where the problem with both traits lies.

Since The Pledge is bugged, this doesn’t fall under balance.

PU isn’t bugged though.

Fixing the Pledge does not fall under balance. Tinkering with PU (which is the subject of this thread) does.

On the other hand WTS has shown that mesmers are kinda outclassed in the current PvP meta and while buffs in some areas might help you risk creating a better thief if you leave the amount of stealth the same.

Though we can argue all day long, it’s not like it will change anything.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with either PU or the Torch trait.
The problem lies with Power Block and being able to one shot a full PVT character with one interrupt.

Lets not go nerfing perfectly fine traits because another one is the real problem.

Tzozef.9841:

Duration increase of stealth by 20% per ally affected by your Stealth Skills.

So if your Veil stealths 5 people (including yourself), you still get 100% duration increase.

And it should ALSO give ALLIES random boons while in Stealth as well.

What this does is that it keeps the potential power of PU without nerfing it, but prevents solo-mesmers from abusing it constantly. This encourages play with allies and adds cool combat functionality and skill with your teammates.

Edit: Random thought, this functionality could possibly include Clones and Illusions active as well, determining the Stealth Duration.

You can start fixing PU by cutting duration on warrior stances in half so that PU, which is the hard counter to it, still works.

It’s frustrating for people to want to nerf other balanced builds because there is a build where you can stealth and one shot you with an interrupt…

News flash, even if you take away PU and Torch trait 100%, you’ll still get stealth one shot from Power Block builds.

Kusa.6438:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with either PU or the Torch trait.

Torch trait is literally broken. It’s giving something like three times as much recharge reduction as the trait says it does.

Kusa.6438:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with…
the Torch trait.

The Pledge (the torch trait) is bugged so that it is adding about 3 times as much cooldown reduction as it’s supposed to. With 13s of stealth, The Pledge reduces the cooldown of The Prestige and iMage by 60%, which is dramatically more potent than any other cooldown reduction in the game.
That alone means there is “something wrong with” it: it’s bugged and performing wayy above its intended power level.

In practice, with PU, The Pledge enables near-permanent stealth alone, permanent stealth with another mesmer. If the bug were fixed, you wouldn’t even get close to that.

Without PU, or with a dramatically nerfed PU (as some have suggested), The Pledge is next to worthless, as you can’t sustain enough continuous stealth to get worthwhile levels of cooldown reduction.

So now The Pledge is a trait that is bugged, and is dramatically overperforming with PU, dramatically underperforming without PU.

We’ve got one more nail in the coffin, unfortunately:
The very design of The Pledge gives its maximum rewards to those who stay in stealth for longer periods of time. That means it rewards stealth camping, which is exactly the behavior that has so many people whining about PU in the first place.

So now we have a trait that is bugged, is dramatically overperforming with PU, dramatically underperforming without PU, and by its very design encourages anti-fun play.

Lastly, the above point about overperforming means that there’s a good chance fixing The Pledge would resolve the worst issues everyone is blaming on PU.
Without PU, the average “stealth mesmer” build would get 3+3+5=11 seconds of stealth, blowing a utility, a weapon skill and an elite to get there. A thief gets more than that from a single Shadow Refuge.
With PU but without The Pledge, the average “stealth mesmer” build gets 6+6+10=22 seconds of stealth, which again, most thieves can beat pretty handily using less resources.

With The Pledge and PU, The Prestige is already off cooldown 13s into your stealth chain, taking you to 28s. Of course, 13 seconds after that you get The Prestige again, taking you to 34 seconds, meaning decoy is off cooldown before you get revealed, adding another 6 seconds to take you to 40…which incidentally is more than 13 seconds after the last time we cast The Prestige, which gets us another 6s to take us to 46.
Notice the pattern? We keep extending our stealth by casting The Prestige again, which is possible because it’s got 60% lower cooldown than it’s supposed to.
Even with 20% cdr, The Prestige wouldn’t be off cooldown by the time you run out of stealth in your first chain.
This is all quite meaningless in sPvP, as camping in stealth just loses you the game.
But then, sPvP and PvE aren’t where the complaints about PU are valid. The issue is people whining about WvW, where extremely long stealth durations are enabling mesmers to do things that normally only thieves can do…but with slightly higher burst capacity.

Without The Pledge, mesmers would be able to get a decent, but not overwhelming, amount of continuous stealth by blowing through a bunch of resources.
With The Pledge, mesmers can maintain almost continuous stealth, leaving them at almost no risk on their approach to most players in WvW, making glass cannon builds essentially on farm status for mesmer roamers.

Balancing around WvW roaming in general is not a great idea unless:
1. The mechanic makes the game unfun for a lot of people
2. Changing the mechanic won’t negatively affect balance in more important game modes (pve, spvp)

Changing The Pledge won’t affect sPvP balance negatively at all.
Changing The Pledge won’t harm PvE appreciably, as the best mesmer stealth in dungeons is shared stealth anyway, and permastealth is what you bring thieves for anyway.
Changing The Pledge won’t affect WvW zerg play because stealth just doesn’t give a mesmer any kind of advantage in group play.
Changing The Pledge will dramatically alleviate a continued source of frustration for many players in WvW who never get a chance to counterplay the roaming mesmers whose stealth is so close to permanent that you rarely get a glimpse of them before they are suddenly in your face, dazing and taking you from 100-0.

The Pledge is a bad, bugged trait that rewards the kind of play people are whining about, and is frankly the real source of the problem everyone is blaming on PU.

Fix The Pledge, then watch the aftermath for a few weeks to see if PU is still too much stealth (hint: it’s not).

You’re wasting your breath alpha. Just look at that person has been posting in this thread…

Fay.2357:

You’re wasting your breath alpha. Just look at that person has been posting in this thread…

Like defending religion, you’ll never convince the person you’re arguing with…but it’s still the responsibility of adherents to ensure their opponents don’t get away with an uncontested doctrinal slam dunk.

tl;dr: I’m persisting not for his sake, but for the other people who will read this.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

tl;dr: I’m persisting not for his sake, but for the other people who will read this.

It’s much appreciated.

Maybe PU should be changed to read:

“Abilities that grant stealth have a further 50% reduction in cool down” instead (and the boons.etc). Obviously it doesn’t have to be 50% exactly but you get the idea.

The main complaint is that PU provides very long stealth durations in which it is hard to predict when burst will come. On the other hand PU should still maintain its defensive nature. This change would satisfy both requirements, allowing Mesmers to stealth more often but for shorter periods (like thief).

Also Anet please fix “The Pledge”, it’s broken to give way more reduction than it should. Like seriously, this trait alone just exacerbates the problem so much. In fact it snowballs on itself – if you can stealth more often with it, you can reduce your cool downs to stealth more…

Edit: It says ‘further’ because there are traits that already reduce the cool downs, so it should stack, obviously.