Guild Wars 2

I’m seeing more and more of these thieves are able to basically stay perma stealthed while taking out siege, stopping supply camps, killing players. visible long enough to do a little damage then back to stealth.

What is the counter? I’m sure you thieves that do this have been countered. Instead of keeping that a secret causing a nerf, broadcast your counter so then people can say “you’re bad learn to counter” instead of “nerf thieves”.

AOE in front of them, channeled skills like a root still go though so aoe that spot after the root finish and hope you get them. Chills help as well but even in stleath most thieves move faster then us so it doesn’t help to much so again the answer is AOE. Sometimes minions, illusions, etc will still track them shortly as well so it kinda points you the right direction.

For the most part you cant since its hard to always see which stealth they used to know if they are on the move or in the refuge, they move faster then other class’s and they hit like trucks. Ive gotten a few kills with my wells and staff aoes on my necro but that was because i was doing my best to kill that 1 thief while our group held off the others. Best result is my aoes to help hit them. Auto attack with daggers and such always miss so I need the aoe to help me out.

report them for hacking?

perma stealth, especially with latest patch, shouldnt be possible

It doesn’t feel like my Focus wall is pulling them any where. Does any stealth come with some sort of stability? Lots of times on ledges I’ve seen thief to stealth on a ledge, I focus pull them, and they are still on the ledge…

Wolfe.3097:

report them for hacking?

perma stealth, especially with latest patch, shouldnt be possible

approx perma stealth, they appear for .5 sec then are gonna again

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Wolfe.3097:

report them for hacking?

perma stealth, especially with latest patch, shouldnt be possible

approx perma stealth, they appear for .5 sec then are gonna again

perhaps its hte rendering issue? revealed debuff is supposed to get applied 100% of the time now after landing any attack, which means he should be visible for 3 seconds minimum (probably a fraction of a second longer due to human reaction time/speed).

so the only things i can think of are lag, rendering issue, or hacking.

There is a stealth rendering issue even after the latest patch. That is not a problem with the Thief profession, but with a system in the game that needs a fix. Don’t blame the Thieves themselves for that. Still thief is overpowered and if they fix the issue it might help level the playing field for many of the class’s against thief. My necro might not be able to do much but with near 30k health and tons of toughness a burst thief cant kill me easily so i can still fight back against thieves at least unlike a lot of class’s/

Stack on one spot AoE right there.
Randomly hit the air and pay attention to your combat log. Although you can’t see if you are hitting or not, you can just read it. Once you get an idea of the thief’s position knock him down and squash him like a bug.

The only real solution until they get the rendering bug fixed is to break the staple of the thief profession by adding a 5 second cool down to CnD.

Another temporal solution could be to up the initiative cost of CnD but negate the cost if it doesn’t land.

If they’re using Cloak and dagger, they have to go within melee range. Smash them with a CC after being hit, or stand in AoEs. Both will force the thief to either back off, or eat a lot of damage.

It’s the rendering issue. Once that gets fixed, Thieves will not be able to do permastealth unless they time C+D hits EXACTLY right, and then they won’t be of use to anyone, so it doesn’t matter.

Perma Stealth Thieves are thieves who never exit stealth (ie: never attacks), therefore, aside from stealth revives, are useless.

Semi-Perma Stealth Thieves are the ones who only stealth with Cloak and Dagger when their stealth wears off (so they’re revealed for about 0.5 seconds every 4 seconds). If a single weak attack every 4 seconds is giving you a problem then you should really look at what you’re doing wrong because they’re also being useless (Nobody’s going to die to a CnD every 4 seconds)

Jjiinx.8795:

Perma Stealth Thieves are thieves who never exit stealth (ie: never attacks), therefore, aside from stealth revives, are useless.

Semi-Perma Stealth Thieves are the ones who only stealth with Cloak and Dagger when their stealth wears off (so they’re revealed for about 0.5 seconds every 4 seconds). If a single weak attack every 4 seconds is giving you a problem then you should really look at what you’re doing wrong because they’re also being useless (Nobody’s going to die to a CnD every 4 seconds)

Siege does. Eventually.

Then just throw AoEs on the siege, use a melee weapon near the siege.

If you know what they are going to attack what is the problem?

C&D spam is a minor distraction and a cute gimmick at best.

It doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

Pirate.4631:

Then just throw AoEs on the siege, use a melee weapon near the siege.

If you know what they are going to attack what is the problem?

C&D spam is a minor distraction and a cute gimmick at best.

It doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

It’s sad that people are so caught up in thieves and stealth that they actually see CnD only thieves as a threat :\

+20 sec more to the revealed debuff should solve the problem !

I see some thiefs who actually get visible after Iam dead…they attack and are still stealthed. All you see sometimes are damage numbers if they are hurt, but the character stays in stealth.

There is no permastealth as a thief. The issue still is the game not rendering enemies for a few seconds when they come out of stealth.

If you fight a thief watch them closely after the go into stealth. A few seconds later you should see a grey cloud of smoke appearing somewhere, thats the thief coming out of stealth. The player himself will not be visible until a few seconds later but as soon as that puff of smoke appears you can target him.

Also stealth itself does not protect from anything. AoE, cripple, damage etc. everything will still hit if the thief is in range.

As for other “solutions”: CnD is already quite initiative expensive at 6 points. To chain it for longer times you really have to trait for it. For example I tried to stop an enemy from capping a supply point in WvW this weekend. I don’t have the extra Initiative points from trickery as I run an 20/30/0/20/0 build but I have the 2 extra ini regen from acrobatics slotted. With this I could keep up being stealthed for a limited time, including one use of Shadow Refuge, but after the refuge ran out I quickly was out of initiative and quite dead shortly afterwards. All in all I perhaps delayed the capture by 30 seconds or so.
A thief engaging in active combat who uses other skills which cost initiative will have to time its attacks carefully to be able to CnD. That means either less Heartseeker/Dancing Dagger/Deathblossom or no restealth unless he burns a CD.

AOE, and that goes for any culled enemy sight people by the damage numbers.

as for thieves in general stealth there are animation and sound markers when they are about to unload on you look out for them and either dodge or mitigate at this point, you’ll soon find that backstab thieves aren’t so difficult after all.

They should nerf the ability of trolls to post on this forum

Fun aside, I think there was a stealth change to the revealed debuf that should make it impossible to restealth when the current stealth expires.
There do seem to be rendering issue though, they need to be addressed, not the steath or initiative mechanic.

Use a dust or a gem!

yes rendering is a problem, I got killed by a thief I never saw once and I’m a thief. This is a problem not only for thieves that can take advantage but for the simple playability of other players I know when the zerg comes.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Siege does. Eventually.

So AoE the Thief who’s obviously standing next to it. It’s not complex. You can see the siege losing HP (VERY slowly), you can hear the swipes of the dagger when near it, you can see the black swirls as the Thief “leaves” stealth (where he should appear without rendering issues). Nail him.

The key to beating those thieves is planting a gigantic fan and standing in front of it. A

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

It doesn’t feel like my Focus wall is pulling them any where. Does any stealth come with some sort of stability? Lots of times on ledges I’ve seen thief to stealth on a ledge, I focus pull them, and they are still on the ledge…

No, stealth does not grant immunity to pulls. I’ve been pulled out of my own shadow refuge on occasion.

Today I’ve seen dual pistol thief, who used stealth ~5 times in a row. He even attacked me without revealing from stealth. For rendering bug there was not many ppl, only 3 (include him). So he easily killed me and my ally when we saw him revealed sometimes for ~2 seconds. I’ve used AoE with no results. So:
1) It was a hacker
2) Perma stealth problem still exists

Kreit.4709:

Today I’ve seen dual pistol thief, who used stealth ~5 times in a row. He even attacked me without revealing from stealth. For rendering bug there was not many ppl, only 3 (include him). So he easily killed me and my ally when we saw him revealed sometimes for ~2 seconds. I’ve used AoE with no results. So:
1) It was a hacker
2) Perma stealth problem still exists

Are you sure he wasn’t P/D? Even if he was P/P, he can still have 3 stealth utilities, and the heal stealth and/or a weapon swap to dagger offhand or stealth on stealing. All of that, plus rendering could have made it seem so, when in fact it was not. If you want to counter a stealth thief, use aoe, attack the air around you, chill/slow them so they can’t land CnD, or any aoe CC abilities for that matter in the general area. They still take hits when stealthed and any type of CC/snare/root will make it especially hard for them to keep doing it.

Cyricus.2981:

Kreit.4709:

Today I’ve seen dual pistol thief, who used stealth ~5 times in a row. He even attacked me without revealing from stealth. For rendering bug there was not many ppl, only 3 (include him). So he easily killed me and my ally when we saw him revealed sometimes for ~2 seconds. I’ve used AoE with no results. So:
1) It was a hacker
2) Perma stealth problem still exists

Are you sure he wasn’t P/D? Even if he was P/P, he can still have 3 stealth utilities, and the heal stealth and/or a weapon swap to dagger offhand or stealth on stealing. All of that, plus rendering could have made it seem so, when in fact it was not. If you want to counter a stealth thief, use aoe, attack the air around you, chill/slow them so they can’t land CnD, or any aoe CC abilities for that matter in the general area. They still take hits when stealthed and any type of CC/snare/root will make it especially hard for them to keep doing it.

I’m sure, he spammed 3 skill most time. I know about stealth skills, I have low level thief myself. But they don’t allow to use stealth 5 or more times in a row without swap to dagger off-hand (he didn’t swap as I remember). I was staff elementalist, so I’ve used AoE without any result, as I said before. Even D/D thieves I met didn’t allow to use almost permanent stealth, but this guy used it with P/P. So…

and another QQ thieves are op thread. i guess the weekly nerf is just not enough…

Fix post-stealth rendering, and make stealth end on attempted targeted skill, not landed. After that I could care less what they do to stealth in its current form. There’s no punishment for a bad thief that completely misses his backstab because I timed my dodge well; he’s still in stealth and can try again

It’s not perma stealth, it’s stealthing with CnD then waiting for stealth to drop and re-stealthing with CnD. It could also be stealthing, hitting, shadow stepping, re-stealthing, repeat. The real problem is rendering which is what makes them appear to be insta stealthing.

Jjiinx.8795:

Perma Stealth Thieves are thieves who never exit stealth (ie: never attacks), therefore, aside from stealth revives, are useless.

Semi-Perma Stealth Thieves are the ones who only stealth with Cloak and Dagger when their stealth wears off (so they’re revealed for about 0.5 seconds every 4 seconds). If a single weak attack every 4 seconds is giving you a problem then you should really look at what you’re doing wrong because they’re also being useless (Nobody’s going to die to a CnD every 4 seconds)

No they’re definitely not useless. They can prevent nodes from being capped in WvW just by standing in the circle stealthed, popping out for a second and then going back in stealth. They can keep groups of people from capping just because they can’t find the guy long enough to kill him. Or I’ve also seen these semi perma stealth thieves harass people and follow them around in WvW. Ignoring them doesn’t really work if they keep attacking people. I could go on but the point is in WvW there’s a lot they can do and it’s difficult to deal with since you can’t see them long enough to fight them.

DanH.5879:

and another QQ thieves are op thread. i guess the weekly nerf is just not enough…

dude it’s bug abusing, name me any Rogue class in history of MMO who is able to kill you while stealth-ed…come on…name it..
Oh wait you cant.

It’s not about nerfing it’s about fixing a mechanic which is being abused by lame players, there is no space for opinions regarding this issue, it is a must fix, sooner than later.

Shilian.5873:

dude it’s bug abusing, name me any Rogue class in history of MMO who is able to kill you while stealth-ed…come on…name it..

Not sure if this counts but when DAOC was released all the assassin style classes would not exit stealth as long as they 1 shot people which they could do pretty easily back then. Good times.

Leuca.5732:

Fix post-stealth rendering, and make stealth end on attempted targeted skill, not landed. After that I could care less what they do to stealth in its current form. There’s no punishment for a bad thief that completely misses his backstab because I timed my dodge well; he’s still in stealth and can try again

Yeah, other than this ^^ I don’t see any issues with the current state of the thief.

I see this a lot in wvw i don’t think they hack its probably intended but it usually end up with me having to run away because every time i nearly kill them they vanish or i get killed.

From what I’ve been reading here I’d suggest the following changes:

- No stealth should be applied by attacking statics, like siege weapons

- While being invisible the thief should not be able to capture or prevent capturing of any nodes (just like sPvP/tPvP)

=> Problem solved

Trying to fight thiefs in WvW right now is like wearing a blind fold. You can’t see them 95% of the time and I have 3200 armor on my Guardian and they rip through me like butter.

Immobilizes, stuns, knockdowns and dazes

Any immobilization/stun/knockdown. They’ll prob go invis if you immobilize, but they still cant move. Just keep whacking away. Also if you’re a thief yourself use dagger storm. Signet of malice also tells you if you’re getting hits on them provided you aren’t 100% hp.

The only real hard counter to a perma stealth thief is AoE.

The first thing you want to do is have your combat window open, because you can see damage logs while hitting the enemy while invisible. Also condition damage lets you see the enemy 1 second before he unstealths.

The next thing you want to do is immobilize the thief right before he’s able to stealth, followed by slowing him down with cripple + chill and AoE. AoEing forces him to retreat from battle or gets him killed usually. I’ve killed so many thieves on accident due to AoE, while trying to kill another nearby enemy, as thieves like to stay around the combat zone and attack when your offguard.

For instance, on my latest video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wettu6MqNI&feature=plcp

at 14:14 i killed the thief without even realizing it. 1200 damage pops up while he’s invisible (thats the last hit that killed him). At 14:20 I notice he’s dead.
at 10:46 I immobilize the mesmer while he’s invisbile, thereby letting me getting free shots after. At 10:51 theres a 568 damage value in the distance, and I can see the invisible mesmer 1 second before he pops out of invisbility, and I tried to counter but missed my churning earth (my strongest spell) by a small distance margin on the mesmer.

Smart thieves don’t fight battles they can’t win (I’m a d/d ele, and I roast any thief I see regardless of skill and build. Perma invisbility doesn’t bother me, it actually forces thiefs to go on the defensive while i go hunt them down)

Also don’t forget to utilize your auto-movement skills. For elementalists, I use ride the lightning. I can just constantly pan my screen in all directions once the thief invisibles, and click nearest target > use ride the lightning (I dunno what other profession’s auto targeting movement abilities are, but eles do have one). Ride the lightning will automatically bring me to the now unstealthed thief within a second, without actually needing visual sight of said thief (as long as I target him he’s a goner) Basically I give perma stealth thieves who use P/D maybe a second or two after he uncloaks before I’m already in front of him casting more CC’s, burn, bleed, dmg, etc. If he uses some form of movement displacement, I’m already back in his face with lightning flash (teleport). If he uses another one, I use burning speed. Another one (if he’s still alive at this point..) magnetic grasp. If he invisible right after magnetic grasp hits, thats fine cause I know he’s immobilizes for 2 seconds which gives me enough time to shoot a 6k dmg DoT at him with some chills and CCs for more fun.

Here is how most situations play out for me vs a perma stealth thief:

-He sees me, and attempts a instagib if he is using one and fails as I counter it with dodges, blocks, and heals. It takes him at least 1.5seconds to do a 18k dmg spike, which is enough time to counter.

-He fights and realizes that I will outlast him in terms of survivability
-He tries to attack at close range since he needs to use cloak and dagger at some point, so he eats lots of CCs and conditions / dmg.
-At this point he is going to run, or fight at a distance. If he runs and uses shadow refuge, then he’s pretty much halfway across the map with that op 12-13seconds of invisbility followed by movement displacers such as shortbow skill 5 and I can no longer find him/chase him.
-If he counter attacks with something like P/D, he is going to eat an instant auto targeted ride the lightning within 1-2seconds out of popping out of cloak and take more CC, burning, bleed, dmg ,etc.

I hope this gives you an idea of how to counter a perma thief. D/D eles are one of the strongest counters to perma stealth thieves, due to their high CC counts, mobility to chase running thieves, ability to remove mass numbers of conditions, survivability to survive the initial spike, PbAoE / AoE skills. I think necro/engineer would be the next best thing.

Shilian.5873:

DanH.5879:

and another QQ thieves are op thread. i guess the weekly nerf is just not enough…

dude it’s bug abusing, name me any Rogue class in history of MMO who is able to kill you while stealth-ed…come on…name it..
Oh wait you cant.

It’s not about nerfing it’s about fixing a mechanic which is being abused by lame players, there is no space for opinions regarding this issue, it is a must fix, sooner than later.

I’d like to know their secret (unless it’s an exploit) because they didn’t help me much in pve with the three second delay between stealths. sigh smh. I thought PVP and PVE abilities would be separate in this game title so we wouldn’t have to deal with these issues in the first place. I feel I’m reliving the “it’s OP in PVP so let’s nerf PVE” nightmare all over again.

Pretty much agrees with daphoenix, but he forgot one thing:

Drop your AoE’s right on top of yourself. A thief will then take damage if he tries to come close to you, and they probably hurts too. I know this since my main is a thief. If I see AoE’s around my target I’m having a hard time killing it. This especially applies to backstab thiefs

One year later, and still perma stealth.

They can use the walls of structures to stay stealthed the entire time, with no negative tradeoff.

They need to leave stealth to do damage to players now, but if they are taking any damage, their huge range of mobility and freebie perma stealth allows them to leave combat. Their damage, not ours, is the ONLY thing that knocks themselves out of stealth, so they are allowed a free heal while in stealth. They are allowed a free stomp while in stealth. They are situationally allowed faster movement in stealth.

There is no negative tradeoff and only imbalances.

Other games balance stealth by having you be able to “see” a stealth character if they are too close, or if you hit them, or they have reduced mobility.

GW2 allows them to move around like an Ele in Air, stay invis as long as they like, heal, and stand on top of you until they feel like attacking with burst. Exactly how is this balanced with the tools of other characters? Wildly attacking random spots? No play can force an un-stealth.

How this has any balance or counter besides randomly AOEing your own body, I have no clue. A bunker Engineer or Necro will have no issues, but the Thief has no risks either. They simply leave if they can’t get their kill.

Open environments allow you the possibility to burst the thief, but in WvW you are almost always near an objective. PvP isn’t so bad, as they need to use a player to stay perma stealthed, and that allows the player to AoE them in return.

When playing a thief, all you do is attack and run away and repeat, forcing their Cooldowns and bursting them when safe. You yo-yo on the target, and Youtube videos demonstrate this. Cheap kills are fun, especially since you can mess up your own rotation, but this is not a counter to anything. It is just an “I win or will run away” button.

Jjiinx.8795:

Perma Stealth Thieves are thieves who never exit stealth (ie: never attacks), therefore, aside from stealth revives, are useless.

Semi-Perma Stealth Thieves are the ones who only stealth with Cloak and Dagger when their stealth wears off (so they’re revealed for about 0.5 seconds every 4 seconds). If a single weak attack every 4 seconds is giving you a problem then you should really look at what you’re doing wrong because they’re also being useless (Nobody’s going to die to a CnD every 4 seconds)

To be fair, cloak and dagger is actually a pretty powerful skill, many just associate it with it’s utility though and ignore that aspect

Wow, who brought a Necro to this thread?

Thread been revuved by a keyboartturningskillclicker who has trouble undertsanding stealth mechanics, not again…

I 110% agree that the class is broke and needs the hard, fast nerfbat.

To add:

Warriors..far to much health and damage….broke….and not fair.Fix please.

Necros…to much condition spam and those minion things they summon are op…nerf that crap.

Engis….just run around dropping bombs and turrents…no skill in that rubbish.

Guardians…way to tough to kill and just run around spamming that annoying spiny sword instawin skill. Faceroll to win.

Mesmers…can clone themselves..how cheap is that?Nuff said.Should only have 2 powers…a wandy one and a punch.

Rangers…just stand around shooting their bow….AND get a pet…..ridiculousness.Whats next…they get to use swords too?

Elementalists…..like ten thousand skills to use..just mash buttons to win really…delete whole class from game please.

kk thx anet.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

It doesn’t feel like my Focus wall is pulling them any where. Does any stealth come with some sort of stability? Lots of times on ledges I’ve seen thief to stealth on a ledge, I focus pull them, and they are still on the ledge…

Stealthing doesn’t give stability. Where exactly on the ledge are you trying to pull them? If it’s at a keep or tower, there is a little wall that keeps players from being entirely pulled off. You need to pull them in certain corners of the building, in order to get them.

Edit: Snap, I just realized this thread was necro’d…