“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”
If there’s going to be more ways to throw random reveals on me and make me waste ini/utility the least they could do is remove Last Refuge to balance it. Why does it still exist?
| Fort Aspenwood (NA): Sylvari Daredevil Thief Main: All Classes 80. | Please Remove/Fix Thief Trait: “Last Refuge.” “Hard to Catch” is a Horrible and Useless Trait. Fixed 6/23/15. Praise Dwayna.
I actually think that this could add some interesting gameplay, but at the same time, I think thieves are in a good place right now (not too overpowered and not too underpowered).
If the condi meta doesn’t stay as over-the-top as it is now, I think I can see this working.
combined with sword nerf i think its a considerable (edit) problem with theif in 1v1 encounters. On top of that i think ranger is one of the most tough class to beat as a theif. Also stealth is thieves tool to run away from being outnumbered along with ss. If you get revelead by an enemy ranger cxombined with cc from that group… you dead.
Edit:
My personal thoughts on the total preview is this : We get 2 nerfs. One direct and one as a buff that specifically targets our class to another class. We get a mediocre buff to venomous aura (at best) which 1) is laughable compared to support skill buffs other classes are getting, 2) is more heavily based on other peoples skills in contrast with other support skills (shouts, mantras), 3) is offseted by the general nerf in duration stacking more than other buffs.( largerly due to the fact that the buffs are applied instantly to all allies). I wont comment on the pistol change since i have no info.
Would it be bold to say thats next patch the nerfbat hits the thief again?
It’s an interesting change but I’ll repeat a thought I had.
If Stealth-denial is coming and may be added to more skills going forward there should ideally be an addition of traits or a replacement of traits in the Shadow arts line for some more non-stealth traits.
Kind of shoddy to have a line built on Stealth and alienating the stat benefits if in the long run stealth is shut down more often.
The problem is people fail to realize that the counterplay to stealth is not allowing the thief to stealth in the first place. I can tell you as a guardian you can negate alot of stealth through the use of timed blocks and blinds. Although I can see why they gave it to rangers, considering they don’t have as many blocks nor blinds, I do not support the idea of continuing to add anti stealth play. At the moment thief is regarded as already useless in WvW. Zerg support is lacking, low armor and low AoE damage does not promote balanced gameplay in the blobbing meta. The only strongpoint thieves can rely on is the ability to roam and take camps/dolyacks, which Anet is slowly taking away.
As for the ranger idea. Of course I’m against it, as I’ve played many rangers who know how to deal with thieves. Whether it’s game breaking or not depends on how it’s implemented. If it’s an instant 10 second revealed(the duration of “Sic Em”) thieves won’t stand a chance against glass LB/SB rangers. If it’s a 3s revealed when the pet hits you then I won’t have as big of a problem with it, so long as it doesn’t stack.
Wtf is the point of giving Ranger and only Ranger the ability to reveal us? It’s not like stealth Thieves are even remotely viable in tPvP, so all this does is help in WvW which is unnecessary anyway.
Totally agree with you doomdesire and i believe stealth should be coutnered when used offensively like using cloack and dagger. But way i see it this is intended to take us out when using an utility to try to heal conditions and hp or run away with black powder/refuge etc. If i were a ranger i would use it when id think the thief would try to break contact. Also i dont play wvw much but i do play spvp and the revelead buff is 4 secs there, plenty of time to get stomped (see last refuge posts). I dont see why anyone should try to strive for balance based on wvw. Its spvp thats supposed to be a balanced.
I suspect more classes will be given counters to stealth and that this is just the first taste. Second if we want to count WvWvW traps.
And it’s a very good thing too. As stealth becomes more counterable it will allow thieves ( and mesmers to a lesser extent ) to receive buffs in other areas. Counterplay is a necessity for fun gameplay and should be embraced.
I suspect more classes will be given counters to stealth and that this is just the first taste. Second if we want to count WvWvW traps.
And it’s a very good thing too. As stealth becomes more counterable it will allow thieves ( and mesmers to a lesser extent ) to receive buffs in other areas. Counterplay is a necessity for fun gameplay and should be embraced.
I hope you’re right. I don’t expect any buffs to be this year though… nerf us down then eventually when warriors have been made OP enough we might get some attention. I don’t think Anet realizes how much a lot of our builds rely on stealth. I’m frustrated, we’ll need something like protection procs if this trend continues.
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
idk so far i dont see anything to make up for that. Stealth is like a secondairy mechanic to thieves. Id say it be like giving a class the ability to instantly banish all summoned pets.
Wow, I just got infracted because I dared to say that I can’t wait until stealth gets more counterplay. Nice bias there.
Abilities that counter stealth is a great idea, get over it.
The ability for thieves to do well without stealth is a great idea. Where’s that patch note? Wait I think I found it: LS removes only 1 boon now… oh wait… that’s not it.
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
I have a feeling that if more anti-stealth things are coming, so are other thief changes along with it. They’d kind of have to. One skill placing revealed on an enemy doesn’t do a lot though.
Abilities that counter stealth is a great idea, get over it.
Well it’s sort of 2 fold though. Rangers, with ample access to regen, vigor, and protection, will have the ability to counter an entire trait line of the thief while the thief will simultaneously have their ability to remove the ranger’s forms of defense reduced. It’s not so much adding counterplay as it is putting your finger on the opposite scale. As someone else mentioned, it may be nothing more than another stealth trap, but it certainly is disheartening to change both an evade build and a stealth build at the same time.
I have a feeling that if more anti-stealth things are coming, so are other thief changes along with it. They’d kind of have to. One skill placing revealed on an enemy doesn’t do a lot.
Really? because any group I see running in WvW has at least one ranger, zergs have many rangers always. However I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?
As to other thief changes along with it, you mean a further nerf to s/d, or the ‘buff’ to venom share (while at the same time making the spec even worse than before, since you cant stack any of the condi’s above 5 anyway)
Really? because any group I see running in WvW has at least one ranger, zergs have many rangers always. However I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?
I’d actually like to see something like a de-summon or an ability along those lines. That might be interesting, if niche. The thing with stealth is that you could literally kite around and harass a group as a thief with next to nothing stopping you. Having something threaten that guaranteed escape actually gives thieves a lose condition they needed to stop some of that silly stealth trolling. Maybe.
As to other thief changes along with it, you mean a further nerf to s/d, or the ‘buff’ to venom share (while at the same time making the spec even worse than before, since you cant stack any of the condi’s above 5 anyway)
I was thinking something for the future, actually. If other classes get abilities that can do this, thieves will probably be compensated in some way.
The problem is people fail to realize that the counterplay to stealth is not allowing the thief to stealth in the first place. I can tell you as a guardian you can negate alot of stealth through the use of timed blocks and blinds. Although I can see why they gave it to rangers, considering they don’t have as many blocks nor blinds, I do not support the idea of continuing to add anti stealth play. At the moment thief is regarded as already useless in WvW. Zerg support is lacking, low armor and low AoE damage does not promote balanced gameplay in the blobbing meta. The only strongpoint thieves can rely on is the ability to roam and take camps/dolyacks, which Anet is slowly taking away.
As for the ranger idea. Of course I’m against it, as I’ve played many rangers who know how to deal with thieves. Whether it’s game breaking or not depends on how it’s implemented. If it’s an instant 10 second revealed(the duration of “Sic Em”) thieves won’t stand a chance against glass LB/SB rangers. If it’s a 3s revealed when the pet hits you then I won’t have as big of a problem with it, so long as it doesn’t stack.
IHowever I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?
I do not think adding buffs to selected classes that target specific mechanics of other classes is the way to go. Might as well end up to a rock paper scissor type of balance.
It’s an interesting change but I’ll repeat a thought I had.
If Stealth-denial is coming and may be added to more skills going forward there should ideally be an addition of traits or a replacement of traits in the Shadow arts line for some more non-stealth traits.
Kind of shoddy to have a line built on Stealth and alienating the stat benefits if in the long run stealth is shut down more often.
I won’t jump onto the “sky is falling” train just yet, but one thing I think could balance this some would be to make revealed a condition that can be cleansed.
Really? because any group I see running in WvW has at least one ranger, zergs have many rangers always. However I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?
I’d actually like to see something like a de-summon or an ability along those lines. That might be interesting, if niche. The thing with stealth is that you could literally kite around and harass a group as a thief with next to nothing stopping you. Having something threaten that guaranteed escape actually gives thieves a lose condition they needed to stop some of that silly stealth trolling. Maybe.
As to other thief changes along with it, you mean a further nerf to s/d, or the ‘buff’ to venom share (while at the same time making the spec even worse than before, since you cant stack any of the condi’s above 5 anyway)
I was thinking something for the future, actually. If other classes get abilities that can do this, thieves will probably be compensated in some way.
Yeah, i’m very skeptical of them fixing things in ‘the future’. Devs said in a SOTG months ago that they were going to improve thief mobility, they followed that by nerfing the stunbreaker on sword, nerfing the range on shadow return, destroying the pathing on shadowsteps. They also said they wanted to improve thief condi specs, which they followed by nerfing caltrops, nerfing lotus poison, removing weakness from skale venom.
So understand when i see nerfs to both stealth gameplay and evasion gameplay, with absolutely no mention of any improvement, i’m not pleased
IHowever I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?
I do not think adding buffs to selected classes that target specific mechanics of other classes is the way to go. Might as well end up to a rock paper scissor type of balance.
I was actually being sarcastic, I know we wont get anything like that. Is there a trap in wvw that nullifies class mechanics for any class but thieves? nope. They will stick to anti stealth skills, and apply them to more classes in future updates dont worry
Totally agree with Shemsu and i also believe that in the end this will have very little impact by itself in wvw unless its followed by many more anti stealth more buffs just like anti stealth trap did. Thieves killing randoms and ninja-in points in wvw will persist due to the nature of wvw. On the other hand its spvp that is suffering with each change.
I know it was sarcasm semsu i was trying to build on that
Ranger
Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.
Some much needed anti-stealth is coming and it starts with the Ranger class.
Maybe I’ll use the gems I got from the 5000 chest and add a few more so I can get another character slot and learn this animation. I’m sure hoping sic ’em is a really obvious animation. After all, a counter to stealth should be counter-able right?
I’m starting to feel like our stealth attacks should be accessible outside of stealth… an enemy induced revealed shouldn’t stop a thief from being able to backstab or tactical strike imo… It is too much to nerf our survivability and damage at the same time.
Tualek & F I Monk / Thief —-- Tk E / Engineer
Highest Solo Queue Rank Achieved: 40
Highest solo-join Team Queue Rank Achieved: 198
I dislike stealth, but this is the wrong way to go.
I can’t think of any skill that explicitly destroys one of a class’s main mechanics.
Kind of the same issue I had with the gauntlet, and several bosses preventing me from using stealth for the entire match.
If stealth needs to be explicitly disabled from time to time, It’s probably time to take a look at why, not patching it up with a bandaid that will frustrate every thief in existence when they fight rangers.
I think its an instance shout type skill i dont think it has an animation from the vids i seen. Another problem is the buffs in speed and dmage the pet gets kinda forces you to deal witht he pet someway by wasting inititiave or utility.
I think putting it in tpvp should be avoided and implemented in wvw only. Another thing that bugs me is that if a class could counter stealth shouldnt that be thieves? I mean you need a thief to catch a thief. Besides i think thieves not having a role/ place in wvw zergs is also a major part of the troll thieves problem.
If there’s going to be more ways to throw random reveals on me and make me waste ini/utility the least they could do is remove Last Refuge to balance it. Why does it still exist?
If it stays as it is and needs a target to proc then once its used you need to avoid stealth for 10 seconds to avoid being revealed. It also shows up as a buff on pet. To be fair stealth is 100 times better than the problematic pet mechanic rangers use.
If there’s going to be more ways to throw random reveals on me and make me waste ini/utility the least they could do is remove Last Refuge to balance it. Why does it still exist?
because of pve… -_-"
It’s garbage in both PvP and PvE. I don’t want it, period. Why is it forced on me?
| Fort Aspenwood (NA): Sylvari Daredevil Thief Main: All Classes 80. | Please Remove/Fix Thief Trait: “Last Refuge.” “Hard to Catch” is a Horrible and Useless Trait. Fixed 6/23/15. Praise Dwayna.
I dislike stealth, but this is the wrong way to go.
I can’t think of any skill that explicitly destroys one of a class’s main mechanics.
Kind of the same issue I had with the gauntlet, and several bosses preventing me from using stealth for the entire match.
If stealth needs to be explicitly disabled from time to time, It’s probably time to take a look at why, not patching it up with a bandaid that will frustrate every thief in existence when they fight rangers.
A. Stealth is not a Thiefs Main Mechanic, Your mechanic is actually Steal….You saying Stealth is your main mechanic is like a Mesmer saying its his main mechanic, You can Stealth, and you’re better then everyone else, But that’s not your mechanic.
B. The Bolded part just cracked me up…Because god knows..We’d all hate to make Thieves feel frustrated when they fight someone grin
I dislike stealth, but this is the wrong way to go.
I can’t think of any skill that explicitly destroys one of a class’s main mechanics.
Kind of the same issue I had with the gauntlet, and several bosses preventing me from using stealth for the entire match.
If stealth needs to be explicitly disabled from time to time, It’s probably time to take a look at why, not patching it up with a bandaid that will frustrate every thief in existence when they fight rangers.
A. Stealth is not a Thiefs Main Mechanic, Your mechanic is actually Steal….You saying Stealth is your main mechanic is like a Mesmer saying its his main mechanic, You can Stealth, and you’re better then everyone else, But that’s not your mechanic.
B. The Bolded part just cracked me up…Because god knows..We’d all hate to make Thieves feel frustrated when they fight someone grin
steal is the thieves mechanic?!… Steal is an ability, initiative and no CD’s is a mechanic.
stealth has been constantly nerfed and is so bad everyone is playing evasive now days. Nerfing it even more sounds like a great idea!
B. The Bolded part just cracked me up…Because god knows..We’d all hate to make Thieves feel frustrated when they fight someone grin
It sounds to me like you act like classes are like politics.
This is not an “us vs them” issue, this is a balance issue, and I don’t think this is the right kind of nerf to apply.
Stealth needs a nerf, but this just does not feel right. Not unless there was an obvious visual and an avoidable casting time to let the player know what happened and why they were revealed, rather than a tiny hidden debuff icon with nothing telling them why it happened.
i agree on this ranger’s stealth reveal i think they deserve a buff ! and wow the only class that can to stealth reveal how cool is that…. im a thief user but this is just fine.
I can finally take a long break from my thief , these changes are very unpleasent and I can only see them as a beggining of what is going to happen down the road.
Revealed for rangers ok , but nerfing s/d which is prolly the last not broken tool weapon set. It’s a big hit atleast for me I roam in WvW for over year.
D/D is no longer viable in wvw since everyone is running perplexity engis and regen troll warriors. Perma stealth is changing aswell with the blinding powder being a combo finisher.
Condi damage thief is sub-par to say the least in wvw and pve aspects of the game so what are we left with ? A nerfed shortbow and an useless P/P set.
Have fun playing the most broken class in history. Im out
The pet needs to flash up like a neon sign saying, “I’m about to ruin your day” so we have a chance to dodge it.
“Sic Em” is an instant cast single target Shout done by the ranger itself.
Though it’d be nice to have some visual feedback that we got caught with some completely unexpected Revealed debuff instead of having to watch the interface.
This just means bad thiefs wont be able to escape as easily. Have you played a ranger? you want to counter their counter? kill the pet, most of them are about as tough as a wet noodle. And least you forget you got a 15 sec recharge heal/evade and can still port. This wont hurt good thiefs in the least and sic em cant be spammed. Does prove the obvious tho of how abused stealth was.
It’s getting a bit tiresome indeed, channels /cc are good counters to thieves and there’s lots of non targetted aoe cc spam already, on top thieves have no way to absorb or bunker out dps like most other classes have options for, and when we evade we don’t deal dps (sb 3, deathblossom dps rly?), on our condi spec we mainly rely on bleeds and now condi removal get’s buffed once again, on our power builds we are more squishy and will be forced back more often with a random pet revealing.
It rly does feel anet only wants people to play warrior gaurdian only at this point.
I like balance and i like the counterplay, but with the current wvw meta (gvgbunkerstyle/zergblob) and the aoe plethora i disagree with it.
Nullify stealth is not negate an annoying thing but means cancel our first defence and attack tool (just try a p/d dagger without it.. slow as hell).
It’s just like negate mesmer’s clones. You block a specific mechanic and not just a silly skill.
I would prefer to see more traps in wvw instead, so maybe with a less cost. They are more tactical and less invasive for a class mechanic.
But you know, people’s laziness is like a desease sometime..
It’s an interesting change but I’ll repeat a thought I had.
If Stealth-denial is coming and may be added to more skills going forward there should ideally be an addition of traits or a replacement of traits in the Shadow arts line for some more non-stealth traits.
Kind of shoddy to have a line built on Stealth and alienating the stat benefits if in the long run stealth is shut down more often.
I won’t jump onto the “sky is falling” train just yet, but one thing I think could balance this some would be to make revealed a condition that can be cleansed.
Major issue with making revealed a condition…. MOST OF THIEVES CONDI REMOVAL IS IN STEALTH!!!!!!
Rangers are pretty much free kills for a Thief right now, even good Rangers.
At least now they have something to make their inevitable death a bit less embarassing.
why does Anet always make thieves worse? warriors can block, stun and do heavy dmg, they have a heavy armor and even a bad warrior gives a good thief a hard time. Wth is wrong with anet.
Buffing rangers? okay, seems fair. But why buffing them by hurting thieves?
Almost each patch is nerfing thieves. d/d is almost unplayable, s/d is good in gvg but not in 1v1. Shortbow? yeah, that is a joke, we can maybe spam choking gas. But dmg? not really.
And now: s/d gets a nerf, so we get probably useless in gvg
rangers can reveal stealth? Hey, why don’t you just minimize our dmg to 1?
We don’t have stability or great buffs, but every other class has. It’s like every class gets buffed, but thieves keep getting nerfed.
