Guild Wars 2

What I’ve learned is there is seemingly something counter-intuitive happening when I use a stolen ability and Steal when I have the Hidden Thief trait. Mainly, if I time it right, I can hit someone with my Steal and a stolen ability, particularly Ice Stab and Mace Head Crack, and they’ll land without revealing me. (Despite Ice Stab not having a cast time, the length of the stabbing animation is long enough where we can pre-cast right before we use Steal and have it land).

This allows us Thief players to immediately follow-up a strong CC attack with Backstab. Against Elementalists, this puts them in a position where if I have saved an Ice Stab, they will have been dazed, chilled, and hit with a backstab in nearly the same instance. Generally against the Ele players I’m matched with, this is an immense amount of pressure in a fight I’m +1ing. It’s also made worse for them by the fact I’ve done this while still having two additional Ice Stabs left to play with (although I would ideally only use one Ice Stab to finish them and save the other to perform this trick again).

Try it. It makes Improvision a much stronger trait than it already is and gives more fighting potential to the somewhat support-oriented design of SA D/P builds. To do this with Mace Head Crack, you’ll need to wait til it’s nearly finished casting for it to land and not reveal you. I’ve never actively sought out +1ing fights against a d/d ele or burn guard as often as I have after realizing I could do this combo.

I suspect this is the same “bug” that works in reverse. Sometimes a reveal is proc’d when weapon sigil damage is delayed from a CnD. Seems sometimes steal and stealth effects are at the mercy of game lag.

I suspect it is part of their damage/effect bundling code.

“immense amount of pressure”

“+1ing”

I have to admit I laughed sadly to myself at this. Cool trick though.

I explicity created a thread on this a while ago asking whether this was unintended behavior or not.

I’ve seen other people ask about it since myself as well. We’ve had no official feedback from ANet that I’m aware of.

I spelled it out previously as to why I though this is a thing, and ultimately I determined it was due to the way they had to deal with latency issues.

Previously steal would bug with hidden thief quite often due to latency resulting in you revealing yourself for 4 seconds if you would steal, though you weren’t stealthed initially.

I think the fix they implemented for that creates a delayed application of stealth that allows for the F2 to be used in between steal and hidden thief triggering.

Given the current state of thief’s capabilities in conquest, and the numerous times this has been asked about without feedback being provided, I can only assume it’s technique they’re allowing and okay with. That might change if thief ever is buffed. It’ll probably only ever be viable on Thief. It’s unlikely you’ll ever see this be a problem with elite specializations, since Trickery and the Elite Spec would be mandatory and Deadly Arts/Critical Strikes are preferable over Shadow Arts.

Zodryn.4216:

“immense amount of pressure”

“+1ing”

I have to admit I laughed sadly to myself at this. Cool trick though.

Why?

Necros and Eles don’t even need to focus on the thief anymore to get then killed.

My necro kills thiefs by accident.

SoulSin.5682:

“+1ing”
Why?

Necros and Eles don’t even need to focus on the thief anymore to get then killed.

My necro kills thiefs by accident.

Most AoE builds these days have enough localized damage to make getting close dangerous. At least with necros ranging them is doable even if I have to chew through those health bars. D/D eles… yeah I am always one lightning flash, burning speed, updraft, etc away from a portal visit. Even if you can manage to knock down that health in comes that kitten fire sword and gone.