Guild Wars 2

“Nothing escapes me! All will meet me!” – Death

I find it strange that the master of death, The necromancer, has no way of pulling foe’s out of stealth. Arena net goes on and on about how they think that the necromancer is the profession that you shouldn’t be able to get away from, yet stealth is a real easy way to do just that. So why can’t the necromancer reveal foes or prevent foes from going into stealth? So I’m going to suggest that the ability to break stealth should be given to the necromancer. Because you shouldn’t be able to hide from death.

To start, I think that Reaper’s Mark should reveal foes if they trigger it. Its already a long cool down skill and and really fits the feel. The second skill I think should get this change is tainted shackles. Although i don’t think the shackles should reveal stealth but rather prevent them from entering it.

What are you guys thoughts on this? I’m not much for PvP, however I would like to see more foes in PvE that use stealth which could help increase the need for someone who can break it.

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

The only change I want with regards to thieves is for chilled to affect initiative. It is kind if unbelievable to me that a class inherently gains partial immunity to a condition.

I posted about this in the PvP forum a while ago and was basically told (red post ) that they were not planning to do it

Stx.4857:

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

Thieves don’t need to be one of our counters. And I personally don’t mind if we have a counter. Its sort of a rock, paper, scissors thing. The classic example was Warrior beats ranger, ranger beats mage, mage beats warrior.

I think a minion would be the ideal “anti-stealth” mechanic for a necro. Having a single minion that would continue to attack through stealth would be nice. It wouldn’t remove or deny stealth, so all traits and abilities would still be fully functional and the stealthed person still couldn’t be targetted, but it would let you keep track of position.

LOL. Yeah, I know. I get back-stabbed by a cloaked Thief, drop marks and wells, go into DS. Thief disappears and waits for me to come back out of DS. It’s sad but that is why we form groups. You would think stealth did not equal immune or untouchable or invincible to marks triggered by an enemy presence or wells that proc regardless of whether there is a person there, or not, but that is how it is.

Lily.1935:

Stx.4857:

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

Thieves don’t need to be one of our counters. And I personally don’t mind if we have a counter. Its sort of a rock, paper, scissors thing. The classic example was Warrior beats ranger, ranger beats mage, mage beats warrior.

That was actually the premise we weren’t supposed to get. There was never supposed to be class counters because that ruins the balance they said they were trying to achieve(and failed).

borrok.9267:

Lily.1935:

Stx.4857:

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

Thieves don’t need to be one of our counters. And I personally don’t mind if we have a counter. Its sort of a rock, paper, scissors thing. The classic example was Warrior beats ranger, ranger beats mage, mage beats warrior.

That was actually the premise we weren’t supposed to get. There was never supposed to be class counters because that ruins the balance they said they were trying to achieve(and failed).

fair point, and I’ll submit to that. I didn’t know that, so I’ll concede to that.

Thieves aren’t exactly in need of nerfs right now… They had their perma-stealth trait fixed, and any more nerfs to stealth would really cripple them. Just because stealth is annoying doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed.

As for Mesmers, I think PU specs are OP currently, but I don’t think nerfing stealth is the way to bring them into balance.

While one Necro ability to keep a player out of stealth for 3 or 4 seconds wouldn’t be gamebreaking for Stealthers, it just isn’t needed.

Thieves are generally easy to kill if they stick around. My problem is that they stealth and run away then come back and I can’t really chase them down. They come back later to try to gank me when I’m out of life force.

I do wish there was a better way to counter stealth other than stealth traps. :P

Stx.4857:

Thieves aren’t exactly in need of nerfs right now… They had their perma-stealth trait fixed, and any more nerfs to stealth would really cripple them. Just because stealth is annoying doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed.

As for Mesmers, I think PU specs are OP currently, but I don’t think nerfing stealth is the way to bring them into balance.

While one Necro ability to keep a player out of stealth for 3 or 4 seconds wouldn’t be gamebreaking for Stealthers, it just isn’t needed.

I make a tone of suggestions and throw out quite a few ideas. Not all my suggestions can be good. :P This was more considering the flavor of death and seeing what you guys thought. so. yeah.

Thematically, I agree 100%. Especially from a Death Shroud perspective. If we’ve entered Death Shroud/the spirit realm/the space between worlds, then we should be able to peer into the shadows, seeing everything that’s hiding there.

Realistically, I know such a thing will never be implemented in this game (despite being one of the worst implementations of a stealth mechanic of any game, ever, with zero counters or opportunity costs).

The compromise I would propose is the following:

Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles will hit a Thief, even one who is stealthed. I didn’t say “revealed”; I said “hit”. This gives the Necro a means of tracking a stealthed Thief, befitting the theme that no one can hide from the Masters of Death.

At the same time, it still allows the Thief a degree of defense and mitigation via stealth; they aren’t being revealed and they’re still immune to targeting by the necros allies. And by-the-way, I’m not referring to popping Life Transfer or Tainted Shackles before the Thief stealths (which currently will continue to hit them after they’ve stealthed); I mean these two skills will still hit a Thief (or Mesmer), even one who’s stealthed.

As it currently stands, Thieves can simply reset any fight with a Necro by stealthing and running away. How exactly does this fit the purported design philosophy of the Necro being the class with which you must exercise caution when getting within range of their kill zone? If a Thief can reset any fight with a Necro with impunity, where’s the “Masters of Lock Down” fitting into this equation?

And this is not without opportunity cost on the part of the Necro or counters on the part of the Thief. In the former case, the Necro must have enough Life Force to enter Death Shroud and have Life Transfer and/or Tainted Shackles off cool down to exercise this ability.

In the latter case, even if the Necro enters Death Shroud and has Life Transfer and/or Tainted Shackles available to them, the Thief still has the opportunity to either interrupt either of those two skills or dodge them (especially with the huge tell of the Necro popping into Death Shroud) ; thus negating the Necro’s ability to track the Thief while stealthed.

This promotes a greater degree of play and counter-play rather than “Thief can stealth, break targeting, run away, and reset fight at will and at any time when facing a Necro”.

I completely agree that stealth in this game is absolutely terrible mechanically, and I also agree it can be really frustrating that good thieves can escape pretty much whenever they want.

All I am saying is that more counters to stealth to me are not a good idea because thieves are already hurting in PvP after recent nerfs.

I don’t think there should be a hard counter to stealth at all. Like some stealth removing or prohibiting skill only usable against stealth. I think there should be a way necros can indirectly counter it though.

I’ve always felt that invisibility should be a boon and not a miscellaneous effect. This would allow skills like axe 3, lich form 5, or other non-target boon stripping to potentially remove it. It’s quite possible that originally it was made to be a boon but was changed later.

Stx.4857:

I completely agree that stealth in this game is absolutely terrible mechanically, and I also agree it can be really frustrating that good thieves can escape pretty much whenever they want.

All I am saying is that more counters to stealth to me are not a good idea because thieves are already hurting in PvP after recent nerfs.

I think it’s less the case that we’re asking for a counter to stealth and more so that we’re asking that the vision and the reality align better than they have to date where Necros are concerned.

We’re supposedly the anti-mobility class, yet just about anyone can run away from us and reset the fight at will. The words and the actions of the devs are not matching up. I think that, in itself, is the biggest problem where Necros are concerned.

We’ve been advertised as the attrition class, the sustain class, the anti-mobility/lock-down class. Instead, we’re funneled more-and-more into being a glassy condi-burst class from whom it is easy to escape. Heck, even our trait line most closely associated with attrition and sustain (Blood Magic) is used most effectively as burst (locust/mark/well bombing)!

Disappointing patch after disappointing patch, they just can’t seem to grasp what Necro is all about. Would it really kill them to go back to GW1, play a Necro for a bit, and see how their predecessor got so much right where this profession is concerned? Now THAT was what a Necro should be! To have screwed up the implementation of Necro in GW2 so badly is just…sad.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Disappointing patch after disappointing patch, they just can’t seem to grasp what Necro is all about. Would it really kill them to go back to GW1, play a Necro for a bit, and see how their predecessor got so much right where this profession is concerned? Now THAT was what a Necro should be! To have screwed up the implementation of Necro in GW2 so badly is just…sad.

Oh god, I’ve been saying this for almost a year now. But everyone keeps telling me “Guild Wars 2 isn’t Guild Wars 1! Stop trying to make it that” without actually understanding what I’m saying.

Honestly I don’t think they need to nerf thief anymore. There is one change, however, that I would want to go through, and that deals with tainted shackles. For soem reason if they stealth when I cast it, they effectively ended that skill, whether they were still in range or not. It should still run it’s full course if you landed it on them before the stealth, including the immobilize. They already have a counter to that by running the trait to remove conditions in stealth, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Next time this happens to you, watch it more closely and you’ll see what I mean. Aside from that there’s tons of other ways to deal with stealthed thieves. Now the new unfocus-able teleport spammers, that’s a build that needs more looking at. I know they added a cd on the sword tele, but there’s plenty of other ways for them to abuse it still with a pretty low skill requirement.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I think a minion would be the ideal “anti-stealth” mechanic for a necro. Having a single minion that would continue to attack through stealth would be nice. It wouldn’t remove or deny stealth, so all traits and abilities would still be fully functional and the stealthed person still couldn’t be targetted, but it would let you keep track of position.

Unless they have fixed it, FLesh Wurm already does this. At the very least, I know for sure that he used to ignore stealth. It was actually really funny, because he hits most thieves hard as a truck (over 1k per hit). It was pretty common when I would duel that if I caught a thief with Axe 2 while they went into stealth, then DS 4, and Flesh Wurm all combined would very often down him, and a few seconds later I’d find a downed thief unstealthed.

As for the main point of the thread though, I actually think this is really dangerous. We already have a number of abilities that effectively ignore stealth (our channeled abilities, one minion, all our AoE), being able to fully pull a thief out of stealth would feel cheap. Just like being able to pull a Necro out of DS (not by doing the damage, just pulling us out and putting it on CD).

A reveal skill won’t help you catch thieves, it’ll just make them more fragile in group play.

The reason why thieves can escape necros is because they have mobility skills which allow them to move out of range regardless of stealth.
Let’s assume you had a new special Skill X and you use it to reveal a stealthed thief. Then what? Either you’re made aware that he’s standing close to you, in which case you’ll use the same untergeted/aoe skills you would have used anyway. Or he is far away already, even if you manage to chill and cripple a thief at 1200 range, that’s not enough to catch him.

If you’re struggling to beat thieves then you should maybe consider playing one yourself some time, you’ll have better intuition regarding their attack patterns and positioning in stealth, so you’ll be able to adept your skill timing accordingly.

flow.6043:

A reveal skill won’t help you catch thieves, it’ll just make them more fragile in group play.

The reason why thieves can escape necros is because they have mobility skills which allow them to move out of range regardless of stealth.
Let’s assume you had a new special Skill X and you use it to reveal a stealthed thief. Then what? Either you’re made aware that he’s standing close to you, in which case you’ll use the same untergeted/aoe skills you would have used anyway. Or he is far away already, even if you manage to chill and cripple a thief at 1200 range, that’s not enough to catch him.

If you’re struggling to beat thieves then you should maybe consider playing one yourself some time, you’ll have better intuition regarding their attack patterns and positioning in stealth, so you’ll be able to adept your skill timing accordingly.

I don’t think anyones really complaining that thieves are incredibly tough to beat. The OP was saying that one of the necros main theme is to not allow their target to escape easily. As it stands with stealth, there is no method to reveal thieves and if anyone should have one it should be necros.

Your point is somewhat valid but it’s not just about what happens when they are visible it’s about what they can do while in stealth, like heal.

Making stealth a boon would add counter-play. Thieves would have to be more careful and not just pop stealth whenever they feel like it. Necros would have more of a purpose in team fights as an offensive support.

This would apply to mesmers as well btw. lol Right now both classes are just too safe if played by anyone with half a brain. Usually it’s the thief/mesmer who decides their own fate, risking visibility for dps.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

The compromise I would propose is the following:

Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles will hit a Thief, even one who is stealthed. I didn’t say “revealed”; I said “hit”. This gives the Necro a means of tracking a stealthed Thief, befitting the theme that no one can hide from the Masters of Death.

Actually, they already do hit stealthed foes in range, even those that stealth before you attempt to cast it.

I’ll try and answer this – I played a thief for a long time but now play a necromancer for reset days to be more helpful in a zerg. If I’m being asked to scout I’ll play the thief.

Anyway, when you say “why can’t reaper’s mark pull foes out of stealth” what you are really saying is “why can’t xxxx make useless a player’s class defining skill for a set period of time on a cooldown”

The thief class is forced with the recent patch to rely on stealth (they nerfed non stealth sword/dagger builds to the point of uselessness) .

They also nerfed a build i didn’t use (d/p permastealth) that was annoying but nothing to worry about for competent players.

If a thief said on the thief boards “why can’t I nerf the Necro’s ability to make wells and mark’s for a period on a cooldown” I think this board would be outraged.

Preventing a thief from stealthing means that you get a free kill since high stealth thieves have low mobility, armor, HPs and no blocks.

Maybe this is what you want, but it doesn’t sound interesting.

Mesmer’s have higher access to effective stealth than thieves in any case. They are better stealthers.

To be fair, I have issues with thieves on my necro (power wellmancer) but very few issues with much else. Perhaps that is balanced. I know on my guardian I get absolutely wrecked by necros (I’m not a good guardian player though).

animalmom.1062:

If a thief said on the thief boards “why can’t I nerf the Necro’s ability to make wells and mark’s for a period on a cooldown” I think this board would be outraged.

Preventing a thief from stealthing means that you get a free kill since high stealth thieves have low mobility, armor, HPs and no blocks.

Maybe this is what you want, but it doesn’t sound interesting.

Not at all. If thieves said “why cant we have way to decrease the healing on wells” or if a warrior said “why can’t we have a way to knock the necros out of their wells or have a way to escape their wells” Then that would be more comparable. But there already are ways to do those things. There is counter-play.

We’re not even talking about nerfing stealth. I don’t think anyone has said we need to nerf stealth. And “we” never said we should be able to have a way to stop stealth, the necros description leans in that direction.

If your thief could not go stealth at all but the description said “sneaky guys who can go invisible” you would be like wtf.

More to the point: if weakness was not able to be cleansed I’m sure most thieves would have an issue. They would say “well wtf. Can there at least be an option for us to prevent it?” I mean there are tons of fair comparisons but saying what you said isn’t really one of them.

I have no trouble at all with the perma invis dagger/pistol troll thieves. Just mark the cloak and dagger when it comes.

But Mesmers with a lot of invisibility give me trouble. Fights with Backstab/Burst thieves are all about who guests the initiative, which the have an advantage at, but if you jump them first they die, be if they get the jump on you thy die.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

The compromise I would propose is the following:

Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles will hit a Thief, even one who is stealthed. I didn’t say “revealed”; I said “hit”. This gives the Necro a means of tracking a stealthed Thief, befitting the theme that no one can hide from the Masters of Death.

Actually, they already do hit stealthed foes in range, even those that stealth before you attempt to cast it.

I’m not disputing that what you wrote above has been your experience. I just haven’t seen it happen when I’ve faced thieves and used Life Transfer or Tainted Shackles. If I use it before they stealth, it will continue to hit them after they stealth. If I use it after they stealth, I don’t see evidence of them being hit.

The evidence of which I’m speaking is seeing either the green spheres of Life Transfer streaming from a stealthed Thief to myself or the green tether of Tainted Shackles connecting me with the stealthed Thief. Perhaps they are indeed being hit, as you say, and there’s simply no visual cue (at least not for me, anyway). Hard to tell based on their health, as well, as they’ve usually healed while stealthed.

The visual aspect, including damage numbers, doesn’t appear if the target is already in stealth, but you can watch your life force bar (for Life Transfer) and see that you are indeed hitting something. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen thieves stealth with no torment, then come out of stealth with multiple stacks when I was their only opponent. Or have a thief stealth, the re-appear downed from life transfer damage.

Drarnor is correct. Those abilities go completely through stealth.

And the comparison isn’t if people could knock you out of wells, but if someone could knock you out of DS. Even then, stealth is more important for most thief builds than DS is for most Necro builds. If you could knock a backstab thief out of stealth, not only will you easily be able to kill them in the few seconds left (I guarantee every MM build I run would have a 100% murder rate against any thief with a reveal mechanic), but you completely void their main source of damage.

This change is just like what has happened with Diamond Skin, only it wouldn’t take us 30 skill points in a subpar tree with a mechanic that is either OP or useless.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor is correct. Those abilities go completely through stealth.

And the comparison isn’t if people could knock you out of wells, but if someone could knock you out of DS. Even then, stealth is more important for most thief builds than DS is for most Necro builds. If you could knock a backstab thief out of stealth, not only will you easily be able to kill them in the few seconds left (I guarantee every MM build I run would have a 100% murder rate against any thief with a reveal mechanic), but you completely void their main source of damage.

This change is just like what has happened with Diamond Skin, only it wouldn’t take us 30 skill points in a subpar tree with a mechanic that is either OP or useless.

Well you actually can get knocked out of DS lol. It’s called a moa

Plus while in DS you are still visible for CC and focus fire. This could completely make your DS useless.

Other than that, it’s really not the same. DS is our class mechanic while initiative is theirs. If their build relies completely on stealth (which it doesnt have to) then there should be risk. The comparison would be closer to life force gain and invisibility. Gaining life force isnt always a sure-thing. So why should stealth be?

And I’m not even suggesting a mild counter to stealth be given as generously as stealth itself.

I have no issues with thieves trying to stealth away, generslly i already have about 3 to 4 conditions plus 10 stacks of bleed, from there i just swap to staff and search for them with a coupke marks, if one pops, drop fear mark and wait to be able to stomp.

I remember back when thieves could spam stealth and constantly avoid a group of 5 people in WvW chasing them, at the same time sabotaging them. And today I still think to myself, “Why are thieves still in this game?”

More Cripple/Chill/Immobilize is needed on the Necromancer side to fulfill the lock-down paradigm.

Coincidentally all 3 of these really suck to get hit with on a Mesmer or Thief, and indirectly weaken the effectiveness of stealth via mobility restriction.

Counters exist, they are just too low in duration or a touch too high in cool-down to account for the level of disengage abilities other classes can bring to a fight.

Frankly with the amount of aoe we have thieves are rarely a problem. With a bit of thinking you can guess where they’re going when they go into stealth and drop your marks in their path – you can see them triggering so you can keep following them around! If you run out of marks use DS4: they have so little health that by the time the channel finishes they’ll have unstealthed straight into downed state.