Guild Wars 2

I just had a vexing battle with a thief the other day, one which was constantly in stealth, and would go back into stealth almost instantly after leaving it, which I thought Revealed was supposed to have fixed.

This is how it went down, I followed a thief in WvW in our borderlands as he went to attack our dolyak’s, 2 of them. After he initiated combat, I started attacking him.
It’s didn’t help I was using the Mesmer GS, as while he is in stealth I can’t target/attack him in any way since most of the skills don’t function without a target.

He was concentrating on the yak, but the instant he came out of stealth he popped back in less then a second later. Idk whether it was Revealed not working, or the server just not updating me as to when he comes out of stealth until a second or two after the fact.
But he wasn’t never out of stealth for 3 seconds per stealth, it was barely even 1.

He killed the first yak and moved onto the 2nd, until I guess I annoyed him enough to BS me for 15k and killed me before I could blink.
If I could have targeted at any point in the bloody battle, I might have stood a chance as he was made of paper, and the battle drew out for several minutes, but Revealed clearly wasn’t working as intended.

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So I have a suggestion, naturally.
Make Revealed a stacking debuff.
Every time you stealth in combat, it adds a stack up to 5 stacks, each stacks adds 2 seconds of being unable to go back into stealth for the duration of Revealed.
Revealed stacks wear off after leaving combat for 10-15 seconds.

So this way, skilled thieves would want to finish a battle in the fewest number of stealth used.
Where as opponents would want to drag the battle out and force the thief to use stealth unnecessarily.

As is, there is no reason not to be in stealth 24/7 if you can get away with it, and it’s all to easy to abuse. This at least would make it’s usage a little more skill based.
Get in and get out, not get in and stay in stealth 95% of the time.

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I’m also curious if anyone else is having this problem with Revealed seemingly not lasting as long as it should be in your WvW experience.

Nothing is broken. He was using cloak and dagger to stealth after stealth wore off naturally. He didn’t attack the yak from stealth so he wasn’t revealed. That’s why the battle took so long. If he had backstabbed the yak he would have finished it much quicker. What you could have done is found a way to make cnd miss or fail and he would have run out of initiative. Also don’t Mesmer have weapon swaps?

K. So the revealed debug only comes Ito effect if you attack while in stealth. It can be any attack including stolen skills or using mug(deal damage when stealing trait). So. A thiefs normal attack would be to use auto attack web in stealth to get backstab if you attack from behind(x2 damage).

What this thief probably did was just used cloak and dagger non stop. All he has to do is use cloak and dagger( skill 5) which had a decent damage output but initiative heavy which will cloak him. Now all he has to do is wait for cloak to finish in 3 seconds( 4 if he’s rewired in shadow arts) and then he can cloak again. There’s no debuff since he came out of stealth without attacking. And if he’s use to this, you can just perfect the timing and make it look like he’s perms invisible since you can start casting Cnd before yiu come out. In your situation. You’d need aoe to take care of him. Only way to do it. In a 1v1. This tactic usually ends up being more annoying then a good strategy.

ok a few poitns here. he was either hacking or just using CND everytime it ended then just “Cloack and Dagger” again ….. its a way to deal with yaks without really showing up too much. just stay near the yak and swing wildly. also if u got hit for 15k you prolloy need to work on gear/build. or he is an idiot for running a full zerk build with 0 defense. yes its possible i hit for round 15-25k backstabs on my build even tho i have no chance of surviving a 2 v 1 fight. :P so try add some better gear in and try guess where he will be. also if he backstabs then instantly goes back invis then u know its hacking.

So let me get this straight, if you come out of stealth normally without attacking anything, even while in combat, you can just immediately go back into stealth via CnD, thus circumventing Revealed altogether? Kinda make Revealed a little redundant doesn’t it? What’s the point when you have just an easy work around.

Maybe then Revealed should just apply so long as you stealth while in combat, regardless if you attack anything.
Thou to be fair, I did a poor job fighting but Memser skills are largely target based.
It’s difficult to get any clones up when the target isn’t visible.

@yoh its not circumventing revealed. the problem is you misunderstand what “revealed” is. Revealed is when you leave stealth before it ends via direct dmg to any enemy. if you let stealth and without breaking it you can re-enter it without waiting because there is no penalty for letting it run out. you have an AOE that stuns and you also have clones that stay targeted on enemy even if .5 secs after coming out of stealth. stame with phantasms.

you should really play a thief before comp[laining only bc you would realize how bad their bad parts are :P they have good poitns too dont get me wrong but the reason they have stealth really does match their downfalls if not they come short. thieves die fast despite having a full toughness build.

Yeah, like everyone else has said, he was probably simply chaining well timed cloak and daggers. While this may seem OP, he is effectively cutting his damage by at least 75% to gain this ‘permanent’ stealth, which I believe is fairly balanced.

Additionally, this tactic is easily countered, especially with mesmer greatsword. Sit on top of the yak and when you see the thief disappear, start counting. At about 3.5 seconds use your illusionary wave skill. This should push him away from the yack just before/as he comes out of stealth. His cloak and dagger will miss and you will have an opportunity to pop your phantasms/illusions and cc the kitten out of him preferably.
I don’t play mesmer but I have a friend who uses this tactic regularly so i’ve seen it work.

Also, given the 15k backstab, he was likely a full glass thief and only one window of opportunity would have been necessary to kill him.

Good luck out there!

Lol that was clever of the thief.

EDIT: We will be sure to hear about this in the forums. /prep4QQ

Yoh.8469:

Maybe then Revealed should just apply so long as you stealth while in combat, regardless if you attack anything.

One C&D every 4 seconds is not a very high damage output, low enough to be easily compensated with regular healing. Off course, Dolyaks don’t heal a lot, unlike in GW1 :s …

Thou to be fair, I did a poor job fighting but Memser skills are largely target based.
It’s difficult to get any clones up when the target isn’t visible.

Basically you know he’s using C&D, you know when he’s going to use it and you know his target, so it should be possible to do something against it. Standard thief initiative pool has only two C&D’s available, if you can make him fail C&D twice in a row he’s only got auto-attacks left – and utilities.

omg, i can’t target the thief while he stealthed next to me !
pls nerf thief more, 10x

DanH.5879:

omg, i can’t target the thief while he stealthed next to me !
pls nerf thief more, 10x

Well, the mesmer greatsword is one of the weapons that gets screwed in this context. It won’t hit anything if it doesn’t have a target, so even if you know exactly where the thief is, the auto-attack won’t work. Neither will iZerker. It’s the same thing with necro scepter.

I was never a fan of the whole chain stealing, but I think it’s hear to stay.

One thing you could do if you really really really wanted is lay an anti-stealth trap on the dolyak’s path. That way, the thief would not be able to stealth when it hit it, and you could attack him all out.

Yamsandjams.3267:

DanH.5879:

omg, i can’t target the thief while he stealthed next to me !
pls nerf thief more, 10x

Well, the mesmer greatsword is one of the weapons that gets screwed in this context. It won’t hit anything if it doesn’t have a target, so even if yoIII iu know exactly where the thief is, the auto-attack won’t work. Neither will iZerker. It’s the same thing with necro scepter.

I was never a fan of the whole chain stealing, but I think it’s hear to stay.

One thing you could do if you really really really wanted is lay an anti-stealth trap on the dolyak’s path. That way, the thief would not be able to stealth when it hit it, and you could attack him all out.

I could swear Mesmer had at least one weapon other than greatsword. I’m fairly certain they can even weapon swap. Imagine if OP had made use of basic mechanics

Shemsu.8721:

Yamsandjams.3267:

DanH.5879:

omg, i can’t target the thief while he stealthed next to me !
pls nerf thief more, 10x

Well, the mesmer greatsword is one of the weapons that gets screwed in this context. It won’t hit anything if it doesn’t have a target, so even if yoIII iu know exactly where the thief is, the auto-attack won’t work. Neither will iZerker. It’s the same thing with necro scepter.

I was never a fan of the whole chain stealing, but I think it’s hear to stay.

One thing you could do if you really really really wanted is lay an anti-stealth trap on the dolyak’s path. That way, the thief would not be able to stealth when it hit it, and you could attack him all out.

I could swear Mesmer had at least one weapon other than greatsword. I’m fairly certain they can even weapon swap. Imagine if OP had made use of basic mechanics

Yes, because expecting people to wave their weapons randomly in the air hoping to hit something with part of an auto-attack is a very solid counter to chain stealthing off a passive NPC.

For future reference though, OP, staff would probably be the most helpful in that situation since you can pop down chaos storm around the yak, possibly dazing the thief and ruining the CnD chaining for a little bit. Although if you somehow forced him to shadow refuge, then that’s when you want greatsword.

My guess is he would stealth, wait for stealth timer to end naturally on its own, do a little attacking, restealth, repeat.

Reveal only applies to you if you attack leaving stealth, if stealth ends on its own you may chain stealth.

As other have said, he was probably just chain stealthing and killing the Dolyak with CnD only. But here’s an idea for how to counter: count how many seconds the thief are in stealth and learn his rhythm (probably 3 seconds if he was a glass). Then use knockback just before you anticipate his CnD. This would have him waste initiative and leave him vulnerable. Then burst him down (which mesmers are masters at doing).

But my idea has always been to add 3 seconds of revealed even if the thief doesn’t attack from stealth.