Engineer Utility "Sneak Gyro" is outrageous
You’re on my server, I don’t mind if you kill them =P
Well thanks, I will remember that the next time I’m hit with tons of aoe, taunted out of my SR and outrun (for whatever reason, I don’t get why everybody is faster than me). =P
Edit: I have the license to kill earnest nod
(edited by Jana.6831)
As an engineer main and mostly in PvP I do actually aggree on you when it comes to the toolbelt skill. I think 4s reveal + at least 40s cd would be good.
When it comes to the gyro…well other have said it, but it does have fair counter;)
One of the Firstborn Channel of Fvux
So many things wrong here.
Are there really? Let’s see what you’ve got.
1) Mesmers stealth too.
Never said they didn’t. Nice strawman. Next!
2) it wont be taken and you are freaking out over nothing
Never said that it won’t. Nice strawman! Next!
3) you can kill it with autos
Holy speculation batman. Now you’re just making things up. Next!
4) Stealth needs counterplay
Stealth already has counterplay as I previously specified IN DETAIL. Next!
5) You put 14 in all caps because… an engineer elite skill is better than a thief utility skill, as it kitten well should be?
This is a response to all the people saying “hurrr kill the drone”. Please try to consider context before you blatantly miss the point again.
So 5 swings, zero hits. You almost struck out twice. Nice work!
A strawman is when someone makes an argument out of things another party didn’t say, and then refutes those things instead. You literally went back and edited out all the context of my post just to claim that individual statements were refuting things that you did not assert so that you could call strawman, which is in itself strawman.
Nice work yourself.
You said “stop bringing mesmers into this”. But mesmers are a huge part of the reveal discussion because they stealth even better than thieves, regardless of whether or not they rely on it as much as thieves, and they are therefore very relevant to reveal discussions.
“it wont be taken and you are freaking out over nothing” is not a strawman. I didn’t claim that you said “stealth gyro will be used a lot.” Rather, you made a post complaining about the functionality of the engi elite but lamented in your post that thieves are so weak that engineers felt they even didn’t need to slot the elite reveal. Thus, a supposition that “if engies are taking better options because they dont need stealth gyro, then who cares about the reveal on a skill no one slots” is a relevant observation.
on “killing stealth gyro with autos”: the lack of durability of stealth drone was demonstrated on video.
on what is sufficient counterplay: thats a matter of opinion on several levels, no use arguing.
and finally, you specifically said … “I put fourteen seconds in all caps because that is actually 1 second short of the duration of a full 5 pulse shadow refuge, for which we give up an entire utility slot and a 60 second cooldown”, which is what I was referring too. That sentence is clearly upset that stealth gyro is only 1 sec shorter in stealth duration despite being 30seconds shorter on cooldown. But Elites are supposed to be better than utilities, thats why they are elites.
SBI | Oceans | Ranger – Thief – Ele – Eng – Nec – Guard – Rev
Celestial Avatar is like an old man: Takes forever to get up and is spent in 4 seconds
Celestial Avatar is like an old man: Takes forever to get up and is spent in 4 seconds
This has much larger fundamental issues than the simple utility of the ability. The problem is not how practical the ability is or if this elite will even be commonly used; the problem is that with a click of a button this elite can shut down an entire trait line.
This trait line being Shadow Arts, is currently the only viable defensive measure Thieves have available to them. This is an indirect Nerf to Shadow Arts; and not counter play. One ability does not define counter-play.
This type of thought process has led an ugly spiral downward for the Thief and is a large contributor to why the Thief is currently in the position it’s in now.
[VLK] – No one ever complains about bad Thieves, they die.
Oh and our ranged weapon(s) has a maximum range of 900 as far as I’m aware.
(Well 900+240 – so 1340 – if done perfectly on a cluster bomb, just hope they don’t move…)
Pistol has 1050 with Ankle Shots.
Pistol has 1050 with Ankle Shots.
As it is not even written on the Ankle Shot trait tooltip that there is a range increase, one could say it is not supposed to be 1050 (or 1200 for shadow shot), but 900 indeed.
@Lunacy.
Regarding PvE. You skip because it’s faster than killing. Messing around with the function gyro for “stacking stealth” will take at least 3s if not longer to get decent duration. Where as blasting a smoke field provided by the thief by the whole party that is not brain dead will take 2s and give about 15s of stealth. Thief only has competition from Mesmer because they can run ahead and then WP and portal the rest of the party while playing little to no other role than a glorified troop transport.
Additionally I can tell you either didn’t pay attention to or watch the live stream. They explicitly stated the gyro will not be hidden and it certainly looked to draw mob aggro when jebro used it. It may change but we’re not talking about what if, we’re talking about as is.
As for WvW, praying on zerglings, the same type that empower in PvE and proceed to press 1 on guard staff at bosses all fight, isn’t exactly helping your argument. Fighting roamers and people who have some form of individual thought and intelligence you quickly realise what was said on the live stream is true. Stealth puts the terms of the engagement squarely in the hands of whoever has stealth or the longest. They always get to choose to fight or run and it’s always on their terms.
The enemy can’t run as you’re faster and setting themselves up for a backstab. Can’t fight as they’ll just be blowing cool downs. Well that’s what I do when I’m a thief in stealth, I sit and wait to see what people do. I let them waste cool downs, keep extending stealth, then when they try to run, hit them. They weren’t outplayed, they weren’t some noob, they were just destroyed by a mechanic they had no way to really counter other than hit thin air an hope.
Yes I know that people skip rather than kill pointless things, was this up for question? People do the same thing with SR, though. This is no different (well it is, because it’s 4s per pulse instead of 3 for SR’s base). Yes blasting a smoke field stacks stealth, I think this should be a duh? In a ‘perfect party’ where you will need to skip certain spots, a thief can provide more usable stealth, like in CM. How often do people get those perfect parties? Or perhaps it’s even a guild that the one normally running thief is sick of it and wants a change, and no one wants to play thief but hey there’s an engi that can do it. People are saying it will never be used. My point is that, it is viable and it will be used.
Yes I know the gyro will not be hidden. Maybe I did miss it apparently aggroing? Please show me the link you want from the poi on youtube, and the time in it, where it appears to be drawing aggro, because I do want to see where these assumptions are coming from.
Would it not be a thief’s job to prey on zerglings getting back to their zerg? Or those in the back of a zerg? And, do you always know a person is running to their zerg? Didn’t know they had a big sign on them and couldn’t be touched. Does that mean they are supposed to be given free reign to take over an entire borderland too? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Then why doesn’t this: “oh hey there is an enemy over there” “Wait that’s a zergling, you can’t attack him til he gets to his zerg”?
Are they boring to fight? Yes, if they won’t fight back, where is the fun? Downing people instantly would get boring. When I mentioned uplevels, and them giving better fights, I wasn’t talking about sitting in hiding by a spawn, ignoring 80’s, waiting on an uplevel so I could strike from the shadows. I have stood there, ignoring uplevels, only to watch them run up and start attacking 3, 4, even 5 people. Are you expected to stand there and do nothing? Even if they don’t hurt, after you finish laughing for 5 minutes, it’s going to get annoying, and much like a fly, you are going to smack them with something. Oh, also let me add not every uplevel encounter was limited to ‘only when on thief’. Sorry, didn’t know I had to write in detail the exact scenarios. Figured my replies were long enough already. But it’s WvW, not don’t touch the zergling or don’t touch the uplevel. Saying that, I have allowed many to live because they weren’t worth the effort. But if they are trying to take something? Why should I let them get there? If they are trying to defend, why should I let them get inside? To allow those is a bit counter-intuitive to say the least. “Sorry tag, you can’t take that keep until you let the entire enemy group inside. Yes, I know you only have 20 people. Yes, I know, they won’t fight you open field even when they have 40 people. No, I can’t prevent people from getting to the zerg, I’m not allowed.” Sounds fun…
If someone is blowing cooldowns wildly, they are being dumb, and they are getting outplayed alright. By themselves, and by proxy, the thief. Just like this example, sadly it happens: If you are a necro, and you drop your wells in the middle of a gate, only to have the zerg pour out the portal, you outplayed yourself. Good job.
Most thieves are very predictable. I have literally stood still, counted to 3, dodged, and see “evade”. Yes, many are really that predictable. Sure, they can just backstab again, but you’ve also thrown the thief a bit offguard, likely frustrated them a bit. Also I’ve let thieves backstab on me intentionally, just so they would reveal themselves, you know, kinda like what some people do with mosquitoes.
The ‘terms of engagement’ do not have to be in the hands of the person with stealth. Use it against them. They stealth, giving the player a little time on cooldowns. The other players aren’t helpless, unless they made their build helpless. If they did, they probably shouldn’t be running alone. I’m sorry but that is the risk you take. If I know I’m weak to thieves on a build, I’m not going to keep running right by where they are sitting! Why put your hand in the fire repeatedly, and cry about it? Why is it, that so many players refuse to learn even a tiny bit on dealing with situations? I know Anet wants this to be casual friendly, but I didn’t know the game was supposed to basically play itself.
The different ways to deal with a backstab thief depends on each persons build and skill. Some are just going to be weak to them, because their build is that glassy. But how far should we really be taking this game of rock-paper-scissors? Maybe it’s just me, but I find rock-paper-scissors boring. Only 3 options to pick from, and only 1 wins. I mean, it was only fun against mad king in gw1. I don’t think the game should explicitly be built around it. It’s an aspect I dislike of pvp. Oh the other team has a thief, i’m getting my engi brb." Think it won’t happen? Because similar things already do. It’s apparently encouraged. Kinda like this: Players all bring knives, one person realizes this and goes to grab a gun right before the fight starts, declaring to the enemy team: “Oh you brought a knife to a gun fight, how quaint.”
I would seriously rather them practically scrap stealth altogether and redesign it, rather than have them put more of these forced reveals in the game. Why? Both accomplish the same thing but one would have the potential to improve things in the long run.
Besides, where is the counterplay to reveal?
This has much larger fundamental issues than the simple utility of the ability. The problem is not how practical the ability is or if this elite will even be commonly used; the problem is that with a click of a button this elite can shut down an entire trait line.
This trait line being Shadow Arts, is currently the only viable defensive measure Thieves have available to them. This is an indirect Nerf to Shadow Arts; and not counter play. One ability does not define counter-play.
This type of thought process has led an ugly spiral downward for the Thief and is a large contributor to why the Thief is currently in the position it’s in now.
^ While my posts weren’t really touching on that, it is a very serious issue. With or without the SA trait line, it’s not ‘counterplay’ to have an aoe reveal with no real effort. How would an Ele feel if a class could shut down the Arcana line? If guardian completely lost use of Honors or Virtues trait lines? Kinda similar. Might as well have a skill that can disable an ele’s attunements as well since we are at it.
Herald at least has shorter range, but it is still a problem. I’d personally be a little more comfortable with herald if it was, say, 240 or something, although it’s a bit difficult to use as it is I think. It’s also a slightly shorter reveal. Should be even less as well, though. But this, 900 range. Even if they reduce the range to 450, it will still be far too strong.
(edited by Lunacy Solacio.6514)
Pistol has 1050 with Ankle Shots.
I’m not sure even ArenaNet realizes this, as it’s not listed on the tooltip and no other profession in the game still has a trait that increases weapon range (the rest were made baseline). This is a very indicative example of why people complain about Thief not getting attention. If Thieves are left out of game-wide shifts in trait design that every other profession is included in, what are the chances of some of Thief’s bigger problems getting a look? Not very high from where I’m standing.
This has much larger fundamental issues than the simple utility of the ability. The problem is not how practical the ability is or if this elite will even be commonly used; the problem is that with a click of a button this elite can shut down an entire trait line.
This trait line being Shadow Arts, is currently the only viable defensive measure Thieves have available to them. This is an indirect Nerf to Shadow Arts; and not counter play. One ability does not define counter-play.
This type of thought process has led an ugly spiral downward for the Thief and is a large contributor to why the Thief is currently in the position it’s in now.
This is a very meaningful point. Whether people take Sneak Gyro is irrelevant to the greater issue of how the Thief profession is viewed from a design perspective. They keep adding more and more reveals to the game with nary a thought as to how that might affect an already weak profession that relies on stealth just to survive.
And make no mistake, the way the developers see Thief is flawed and drastically in need of revision (it might help if any of them actually played one). Witness this post from Karl last week during the EA discussion:
I’ve seen a lot of feedback on how Escapist’s Absolution should be baseline. It is the case that we believe this trait is powerful enough that it should be a choice in the trait line between damage, survivability and utility, rather than just a given. Driven Fortitude’s healing allows for usefulness in all modes where you take damage, where EA’s condition removal is situationally useful in a combat scenario.
That’s not just how Karl sees us, it’s how the entire development team sees us. Thief condition removal is fine, and removing a condition on evade is simultaneously powerful and “situationally useful”… need I say more?
Pistol has 1050 with Ankle Shots.
As it is not even written on the Ankle Shot trait tooltip that there is a range increase, one could say it is not supposed to be 1050 (or 1200 for shadow shot), but 900 indeed.
The Range increase was there from release, (maybe not on Ankle Shots) so technically Pistols always had 1050 if you were willing to trait for it.
Kinda silly engis are saying detection pulse is fine because they don’t need it against thief’s, however I’m quite certain it will be used to assist teammates in spvp and wvw by shutting down enemy thief’s/mesmers from stealth access.
The range and CD on the skill are indeed too big and too low. I’m happy for some stable reveal abilities. But 900 and 20 seconds? Not to mention the double use. It can be literally used to completely shut down thief’s and mesmer’s from stealth access if rotated properly.
I would somehow understand it if it had a 40 second cooldown.
Aoe reveal is fine, its needed in the game against certain builds. But this skill will over perform greatly right now.
(edited by Kyori.6091)
We have to ask ourselves why there would be a counter to a counter.
You have damage evasion mechanics like blocking or reflecting, and they can be countered by unblockable.
You have condition evasion mechanics like diamondskin or resistance, and they can be countered by damage and boon rip/conversion/steal.
You have interrupt evasion mechanics like stability and break barsbreak bars, and they are countered by sequenced ccs or boon rip/conversion/steal.
You have targeting evasion mechanics like stealth and they can be countered by reveal.
You have transformation mechanics and AI command, where the sustain comes from you becoming or using meat shields, and they can be counted by moa.
All of these counters can be hard countered with blind, or interrupt, or evade. And that is what the counters are all about, a person is forcing a sustain game, you attempt to reduce their sustain by forcing them to waste additional mitigation. They don’t get dedicated hard counters to hard counters or else the point of counters as a net reduction of enemy sustain is useless.
But as I said, blind, interrupt, and evade are all hard counters to these counters. The point of daredevil as I see it is to enhance two of these, interrupt, and evade.
Edit:
Some boosts. Make distracting dagger do no damage so that it does not reveal from stealth. Maybe you all can think if others.
“Kentigem”-chief. Born cycle of Dusk. Wyld Hunt:
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.
(edited by Daniel Handler.4816)
Hey guys, full time engineer here. Don’t forget: dealing ANY damage while stealthed gives the revealed effect. Also, we got minors in our tools trait line which gives us vigor and another one which knocks 15% off of our tool belt recharge.
As for it not keeping up with us, we have another gyro tool belt skill which gives us AoE super speed.
Also, destroying the gyro isn’t a good counter, if we’ve traited for final salvo, which gives us super speed and a lightning field when destroyed.
This could be fixed by making all of these skills that apply Revealed to enemies apply a new debuff called Exposed instead. The Exposed debuff allows everyone to see and target the stealthed player as if they weren’t in stealth while it lasts. This will make all of the current skills that apply Revealed function just about the same as they do now, but they won’t completely shut down the Stealth Attack Thief mechanic or stealth related traits in the process.