Guild Wars 2

Creslin, I appreciate the civil way you responded and what you had to say. But I disagree on 2 points.

Stealth grants immunity to every skill that requires a target. It’s immunity to every AoE placed on the ground not near the thief, as everyone is just guessing in which direction the thief/mesmer went.

Thieves aren’t more fragile than elementalists, who are visible, targettable and are only in light armor with the same base HP. Any defenses an ele has are visible, short-lived and have long cooldowns.

I have killed stealth thieves in PvP. It’s not as hard when there’s 1 target (you) so you know they will be somewhat near. When there are multiple targets, there’s no telling who is getting targetted.

tigirius.9014:

From my perspective they have only two classes that can burst damage 1 shot enemies and that’s not balanced at all.

If they want balance they need to make that type of attack available to everyone or not at all.

Agree. It takes me like 8 button presses + auto-attack to do enough damage to kill someone. I don’t understand how heavy armor gets paired with 1-button to downed. How did that pass beta even?

Tulisin.6945:

Wiredgunslinger.5480:

Put a cool down of 10-12 seconds on C&D and bam…no more perma stealthers.

Thereby neutering S/D control and P/D condition-based damage even more, making sweeping changes to thief skills without considering the consequences continually causes more conservative defense/control based thief setups to get weaker, pushing more and more thieves into glass cannon assassin-style gameplay. This change would easily double the amount of backstab thieves by obliterating even more viable weapon choices.

And there’s the overreaction I was expecting. Let me guess your one of the ones that abuse C&D to stay invisible all the time. I use a P/P build and get along just fine without the abusive C&D.

No thief should be able to hit 5 guys and stay alive cause your constantly c&d’ing guys. There are plenty of other stealth utilities that aren’t abusive that you can use. Plus you still got infiltrators strike.

As for the other comment about Black Powder/Heartseeker. That’s a 9 init combo and a lot harder to pull off so not really as abusive.

Hi, it’s the original poster again.

Krathalos.3461:

a) My warrior can solo camps by itself. Thieves require far more to be able to do it.

It’s one thing to be able to take supply camps solo, and another to be able to take them and not be killed by a zerg of 6-8 people who are hunting you down while you lead them through packs of monsters then disappear, run away and begin taking another camp across the map, causing us to endlessly chase you. I could waste my entire evening hunting you, but since it’s futile and not fun, why would I want to? Furthermore, if thief is the only class that is capable of doing this, there is a balance issue. I’ve never heard of a warrior being able to fight and outwit a group of 6-8 dedicated players for an extended period of time (over 20 minutes, or longer) without dying.

Krathalos.3461:

b) They weren’t competent, then… A group of three people could easily be communicating and targetting, whereas the other group may have not been as coordinated.

They were competent. We were in party, we were communicating, we were calling targets. We were wiped more than once. The thief had one teammate helping him only one of those times.

Krathalos.3461:

I don’t even think you play this game that often. This is, once again, one of the biggest complaints about stealth by thieves. If you’re using a channeling ability, stealth does not interrupt it. Hopefully the bold will help you understand.

I play this game daily. And it’s good to know that some channeled skills – from some classes – do not get interrupted, but the fact remains that some of the skills I use with necro do. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made my original post to begin with. Here is what happens, and maybe the bold will help you understand: My skill stops casting abruptly, and then the icon on my skillbar goes black and needs to recharge for a few seconds the same way it does when I’ve been dazed. There.

If this is not intentional from the developers, then perhaps I’ve turned up a bug? If it IS intentional, I’d suggest that Anet determine whether all classes – or none at all – will have their skills interrupted when a thief enters stealth. The playing field would be level, at least.

Krathalos.3461:

Stealth also doesn’t interrupt skills in progress. This is the complaint by thieves. For example, if you stealth while a Longbow Ranger is using Rapid Fire, every single arrow will hit you while in stealth. I don’t think you even know what you’re talking about with this part.

See bolded section above.

Clark Skinner.4902:

OP, keep in mind you are posting this to a bunch of thieves. They’re not going to be happy with you asking to take away their invulnerability.

LOL no kidding. I had thought to post this elsewhere (as stealth is not exclusive to thieves), but thief seems to be the only class that is able to abuse it right now, so I figured this was the place to post.

oZii.2864:

What the OP should have done is roll and or play a thief. Then posted about a single fix or something.

I have played a thief, but I did not enjoy the playing the class. As far as I’m concerned, enjoying the game is what we’re here for, and facing off against permastealth thieves is not fun. I really don’t care if I lose a battle as long as I know that I have a chance to win. I have enjoyed every other aspect of WvW so far.

Anyway, despite all the resistance from the thieves on this forum who are currently enjoying their permastealth abilities, more and more people are rolling permastealth builds and abusing them and people are beginning to notice. Every day this week in WvW, I have heard multiple complaints from people about how annoying these unkillable thief builds are. It is a problem.

I honestly thought my original post did a good job of addressing this problem with a reasonable compromise that would not neuter the thief class, but since attempting to do so has evoked hostility from people, I will bow out of this conversation for now.

I wish you all good luck, and I’ll see you on the battlefield.

stealth is balanced(besides the culling bug)

/thread and move along

PeterThomas.7243:

Every day this week in WvW, I have heard multiple complaints from people about how annoying these unkillable thief builds are. It is a problem.

you must be new to MMOs. people ALWAYS complain about stealth classes. no matter if they’re top tier DPS or at the bottom of the barrel

learn to separate the legitimate complains from the crying QQ

FourTwenty.4268:

you must be new to MMOs. people ALWAYS complain about stealth classes. no matter if they’re top tier DPS or at the bottom of the barrel

learn to separate the legitimate complains from the crying QQ

If people always complain about stealth classes, then stealth classes are never fun.

If stealth classes are never fun, then they are bad game design.

Essentially, you’re arguing stealth should be removed from the game, full stop. I agree.

Contrary to the claims of stealth exploiters, there are viable Thief builds which don’t use stealth, so there’s no need to even rework the class—just a few skills and traits, which they do all the time anyway.

And no, stealth is not the “core mechanic” of the class. Initiative is the core mechanic. Stealth is a tacked on ability which has turned out to be a bad idea.

This would also instantaneously fix the OP burst builds, because thieves would actually have to worry about durability without the practical immortality granted by stealth. They would no longer have the option of going full glass with no consequences.

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

If people always complain about stealth classes, then stealth classes are never fun.

If stealth classes are never fun, then they are bad game design.

Essentially, you’re arguing stealth should be removed from the game, full stop. I agree.

Contrary to the claims of stealth exploiters, there are viable Thief builds which don’t use stealth, so there’s no need to even rework the class—just a few skills and traits, which they do all the time anyway.

And no, stealth is not the “core mechanic” of the class. Initiative is the core mechanic. Stealth is a tacked on ability which has turned out to be a bad idea.

This would also instantaneously fix the OP burst builds, because thieves would actually have to worry about durability without the practical immortality granted by stealth. They would no longer have the option of going full glass with no consequences.

False assumption.

What people doesn’t really understand is that thieves don’t have even higher burst precisely because they have stealth.

If you remove stealth, sure, you’ll have your consecuence (which is punishing thieves for equipping berserker gear with extreme vulnerability), but the option to equip berseker gear will exist nonetheless… Otherwise Anet would have to put a ‘This gear is not usable by your profession’ tag on berserker gear.

Thus, since thieves would be now severely punished by equipping berserker gear, their burst damage will substantially go up to compensate.

In other words… The more you ask, whine and argue to make thieves more vulnerable… the higher their overall damage will have to go up to compensate.

Be careful what you wish for.

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

If people always complain about stealth classes, then stealth classes are never fun.

Oh noes, they’re no fun?. Why do people play thieves (or mesmers, for that matter) then, if they’re no fun?

If stealth classes are never fun, then they are bad game design.

Given that false premise, this is what is called a non sequitur.

Essentially, you’re arguing stealth should be removed from the game, full stop. I agree.

No, the person you’re replying to was being sarcastic.

Contrary to the claims of stealth exploiters, there are viable Thief builds which don’t use stealth, so there’s no need to even rework the class—just a few skills and traits, which they do all the time anyway.

Viable non stealth builds? No, not really. Unless you think P/P is viable.

And no, stealth is not the “core mechanic” of the class. Initiative is the core mechanic. Stealth is a tacked on ability which has turned out to be a bad idea.

In your personal opinion.

This would also instantaneously fix the OP burst builds, because thieves would actually have to worry about durability without the practical immortality granted by stealth. They would no longer have the option of going full glass with no consequences.

So what you’re saying is that you think removing stealth would “fix” the thief glass cannon build? And you call that balance?

magicthighs.5372:

Contrary to the claims of stealth exploiters, there are viable Thief builds which don’t use stealth, so there’s no need to even rework the class—just a few skills and traits, which they do all the time anyway.

Viable non stealth builds? No, not really. Unless you think P/P is viable.

And no, stealth is not the “core mechanic” of the class. Initiative is the core mechanic. Stealth is a tacked on ability which has turned out to be a bad idea.

In your personal opinion.

Calling it “tacked on” is a little harsh, but SB and S/P also lack organic stealth. Stealth is not an innate attribute of the thief profession any more than traps or venoms are, it is a specialization option. As popular as builds that use stealth are, it isn’t a primary profession mechanic.

Asking for less frequent stealth potential, or mechanical changes to stealth itself is tantamount to asking for mesmer clones to be labeled “clone” and limiting the rate at which they are produced.

The two mechanics have the same end effect of using target obfuscation as defense while utilizing that obfuscation as a fulcrum for additional damage/effects.

The reason people complain about stealth is that mesmer clones don’t work nearly as well as they should because mesmers, by and large, don’t make a big enough effort to disguise their own actions while using them, or simply don’t attempt to use them as obfuscation at all.

Stealth isn’t unique to the thief, but the ability to actually use it as a primary method of engagement is. Without the potential for frequent stealths, which give the leverage to utilize stealth traits, thieves lose a very large part of their class, which is unrivalled mastry of stealth.

If you don’t play a stealth build? Good for you. However, if you’re a thief chances are you use at least one stealth ability no matter your build, and that you know exactly how the stealth attack for your chosen weapon works. In addition, you’ve probably granted more than your share of stealth to allies, and used stealth to escape, set up, or otherwise alter an encounter. The same can not be said of mesmers, or the hilarity that is Snow Leopard/insert class. For non-thieves stealth is an infrequent, inorganic, and heavily limited special ability avaliable only at the expense of something else. For thieves it’s a normal part of the playstyle for every conceivable build unless you’re deliberately trying to avoid it on principal.

By Arenanet’s own description, Thieves are “Masters of Stealth” not “Occasional users of Short Duration Stealth” and the special utility of stealth to thieves as a result of traits and the initiative system with weapon skills is not an oversight or accident. It is an intended part of the thief package.