Guild Wars 2

So here I am playing Spvp. Using the Stealth Backstab build. Everythings going well, at a level playing field.

“UNTIL” going stealth I start to notice a necro’s siphon ability still channeling after I went stealth.

I feel this is unintended. When you go INVISIBLE, channels on you; “all channels” need to cancel. Otherwise going stealth is worthless in a battle, and means next to nothing for escaping.

I’ve also noticed it happens when I was on my Guardian in my downed state. My #1 when channeled “Before” the thief went stealth; Still continues to face me in his/her direction, and the particle effect remains constant throughout.

This feels good for a Guardian, but ultimately is a seemingly broken mechanic for the Thieves, and a game breaker for them at times.

I would love to see this fixed, for as the thieves are finally on a level playing field with most classes now except for this.

Thanks ANET! Keep up with the TLC! <3

It’s been this way the entire time so I have a feeling it’s intended. It’s a counter to stealth. If a group is fighting a single thief, they can wind up channeled abilities to keep the pressure on or track where they are going.

This is how it’s always been, since the betas. There’s been complaints about it before and yet it is still here, so in my personal opinion it’s very safe to say it’s either intended or at least won’t be changed in the near future.

Yeah, I guess I’ve not noticed it this hard until I started PvP’ing on my thief as much as lately.

My point is single attacks are fine to hit invisible units. So are AOE’s. But targeting CHANNELING attacks are not. You cannot target what you cannot see. If they just fixed the Channels everything would be peachy.

very annoying if its intended, its a very poor mechanic imo.

if i had to compromise on this issue, i would say

reduce .5-1 second stealth duration off all stealth skills, and let it break targeting.

or

all utility stealth skills, trap, blinding powder, stealth refuge break channeled ability targeting

A thief can be tracked through stealth for ~5 seconds by a ranger using rapid fire, and continues to track even if the thief is dodging the arrows in stealth.

There’s no way this is intended. In the game world, what kind of explanation has this making sense?

i havnt seen them confirming whether its intended or not.

they must be dodging it… lazy

or maybe someone could direct me to a post where they have commented.

Same here, I’ve never seen a post from a DEV being as it’s intended or not. This is a serious issue to me in PvP as a Thief. (I don’t use her much because of this reason; it’s really frustrating.)

I don’t remember seeing an official post on it during the betas, but there’s really only two situations for you.
1. It’s intended, so you will have to learn to live with it.
2. It’s not intended, so you will have to learn to live with it for now, but they will fix it.

every other profession will be happy about this though…

You complain that one type of skill (channeled) can track you while you are in stealth. But every other type of skill loses track of you. Not many of them have a huge range ether. Also most do not hit hard at all unless you are geared for damage only.

Yes its annoying but its not game breaking in anyway as you make it out to be. Heck if you want a reason for this, just blame it on magic for working this way.

gamefreak.5673:

You complain that one type of skill (channeled) can track you while you are in stealth. But every other type of skill loses track of you. Not many of them have a huge range ether. Also most do not hit hard at all unless you are geared for damage only.

Yes its annoying but its not game breaking in anyway as you make it out to be. Heck if you want a reason for this, just blame it on magic for working this way.

Actually it is a mortal problem, especially against GS mesmers and their illusions (plus iDuelist). So yes, it’s kind of game breaking in this specific situation.

Asomal.6453:

gamefreak.5673:

You complain that one type of skill (channeled) can track you while you are in stealth. But every other type of skill loses track of you. Not many of them have a huge range ether. Also most do not hit hard at all unless you are geared for damage only.

Yes its annoying but its not game breaking in anyway as you make it out to be. Heck if you want a reason for this, just blame it on magic for working this way.

Actually it is a mortal problem, especially against GS mesmers and their illusions (plus iDuelist). So yes, it’s kind of game breaking in this specific situation.

Actually, yeah those could hurt alot more other channeled builds. I was only thinking of my necro and guardian channeled skills. Even putting them back to back in full bersker gear i never did alot of damage to a thief before. It did keep them on the defensive though, but a mesmer will do alot more then that. So you are correct in that case it could be very unbalanced.

gamefreak.5673:

You complain that one type of skill (channeled) can track you while you are in stealth.

Do you think that if i start to Unload against a warrior and he pops Shield Stance the channeling should continue trough it,because it’s already started?
Or trough Guardians Bubble?
Or trough Engineers Shrink?
Or trough Mist Form?

Why this classes have such abilities and suddenly Thief doesn’t?
…..Well because he is given Stealth to help him prevent damage(not to help him change clothes w/o being seen).And thats why we all think it isn’t intended.
And BTW it isn’t one type of skill.Leaps like HS and Eviscerate also hit you if the guy have autotarget Option enabled.

This happens because players lose targets but skills do not. If the thief stealths, the player becomes untargetable and any players that had him targets will lose the target. However, once a skill has been activated it will never lose it’s target no matter what happens. The skill isn’t checking for a target at every step, it only checks for a target at the beginning of the activation. Thus a channeled skill will retain the thief as the target even though other players cannot target him. An even better example of this are mesmer clones that disappear when they lose target. When a thief stealths the clones do not disappear because the skill itself still has a target and will keep track of that target until the skill ends of the thief dies. Now personally I would love it if all mesmer clones attacking me disappeared when I stealthed, but I guess mesmers would disagree with that statement.

Well its kind a stupid that you cant break channeling with stealth imo. You have a skill that requires target in line of sight and you still hit it even if you don’t actually see it. Doesn’t have a sense to me. Player in stealth should be damaged only with AOE skills because they requires ground targeting not character. In other hand you have games like Aion where any condition stacked on target prevents it from being in stealth but this is not Aion so I think ANET should consider changing stealth a bit.

Vv W.7821:

I don’t remember seeing an official post on it during the betas, but there’s really only two situations for you.
1. It’s intended, so you will have to learn to live with it.
2. It’s not intended, so you will have to learn to live with it for now, but they will fix it.

and this everyone, is the difference between a good player and a bad player. the bad player rages about it and demands fixes, the good player adapts to the situation even if they think it is broken. really wish people were more like this guy.

I dont think people realise that its not just channeled abilitys that track people, its any ability that has been cast.

for example, heartseeker still tracks stealth

ZLE.8293:

gamefreak.5673:

You complain that one type of skill (channeled) can track you while you are in stealth.

Do you think that if i start to Unload against a warrior and he pops Shield Stance the channeling should continue trough it,because it’s already started?
Or trough Guardians Bubble?
Or trough Engineers Shrink?
Or trough Mist Form?

Why this classes have such abilities and suddenly Thief doesn’t?
…..Well because he is given Stealth to help him prevent damage(not to help him change clothes w/o being seen).And thats why we all think it isn’t intended.
And BTW it isn’t one type of skill.Leaps like HS and Eviscerate also hit you if the guy have autotarget Option enabled.

The Thief’s stealth isn’t invulnerability and I don’t think it should be treated as such. All the profession abilities you listed are still affected by bleeding, poison, and burning conditions, so even those have weaknesses.

Typhoon Blue.3698:

ZLE.8293:

gamefreak.5673:

You complain that one type of skill (channeled) can track you while you are in stealth.

Do you think that if i start to Unload against a warrior and he pops Shield Stance the channeling should continue trough it,because it’s already started?
Or trough Guardians Bubble?
Or trough Engineers Shrink?
Or trough Mist Form?

Why this classes have such abilities and suddenly Thief doesn’t?
…..Well because he is given Stealth to help him prevent damage(not to help him change clothes w/o being seen).And thats why we all think it isn’t intended.
And BTW it isn’t one type of skill.Leaps like HS and Eviscerate also hit you if the guy have autotarget Option enabled.

The Thief’s stealth isn’t invulnerability and I don’t think it should be treated as such. All the profession abilities you listed are still affected by bleeding, poison, and burning conditions, so even those have weaknesses.

You really aren’t understanding it. The problem isn’t “we take damage while under stealth”. The problem is “attacks that start channeling before we stealth home in on us.”

There are no complaints here about taking condition damage while stealthed, and none about being hit in general.

Mesmer’s phantasms following you forever and everykittenwhere?

Been like this forever, been complained about since the beginning and no doubt will never be fixed.

My advice, suck it up and get used to it. That’s what I did.

If it does eventually get fixed, it will be a very welcome surprise.

If you dodge the initial attack it wont track you will it? Just if you’re already in the channelled ability, like unload, it continutes to hit you? Allowing stealth to break a channel half way through would be too good, like another dodge, amirite?

Psikerlord.2569:

If you dodge the initial attack it wont track you will it? Just if you’re already in the channelled ability, like unload, it continutes to hit you? Allowing stealth to break a channel half way through would be too good, like another dodge, amirite?

Exactly.

Stealth is not a free dodge. Heck, as a thief you’ve got more dodge and mobility capability than any other class. Dodge it or move out of range.

This is a funny post.
Until the thief stealth bug actually gets fixed properly, you have nothing to complain about. Period.

FriQenstein.5218:

This is a funny post.
Until the thief stealth bug actually gets fixed properly, you have nothing to complain about. Period.

Then until the tracking bug gets fixed, you have nothing to complain about either.

Logic.

Logic… you have none.
Thief cannot deny they are enjoying their little stealth ‘glitch’ and continue to complain about all sorts of other things they call ‘game breaking’… ya. Great logic.

FriQenstein.5218:

Logic… you have none.
Thief cannot deny they are enjoying their little stealth ‘glitch’ and continue to complain about all sorts of other things they call ‘game breaking’… ya. Great logic.

Thieves are also enjoying being hit by attacks like rapid fire, and life drain for the entire duration of their stealth period. You know, the one that’s extended by a glitch.

Both should be fixed. Not one. Not the other. Both.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

FriQenstein.5218:

Logic… you have none.
Thief cannot deny they are enjoying their little stealth ‘glitch’ and continue to complain about all sorts of other things they call ‘game breaking’… ya. Great logic.

Thieves are also enjoying being hit by attacks like rapid fire, and life drain for the entire duration of their stealth period. You know, the one that’s extended by a glitch.

Both should be fixed. Not one. Not the other. Both.

My personal favorite is Guardian’s Binding Blade.
Anywhere in 600 range,no matter hidden or not you are pulled,which is funny because basically it works like multiple Scorpion Wires but hey who needs a target.

@ZLE Binding blade is a different case, it has an “Particle” effect when cast, but it’s really just a large ground AOE (at the casters feet) “Not a Targetable”. It’s also really slow and easy to dodge. So to say they take the Particle effect away when hitting stealth (as to not give their position away would be proper).

@FriQenstein Err I’m the OP, and I never knew about this Stealth glitch, nor do I want to. That has nothing to do with this post. This has been an issue for a while apparently (before the stealth glitch you speak of).

@Psikerlord Good luck dodging the initial attack when you want to for a Channel. Considering the Initial attack for a channel doesn’t start when the damage is dealt. It starts when they start channeling. You can roll and dodge a piece of damage from the Channel, but the channel will continue until finished or “LOS” occurs. Some, even a lot continue channeling through “LOS”.

Terribly sorry, but all of your points are a bit off. :’/

Lets keep this post a bit more civil. Opinions are fine, so are counter opinions. Just don’t call names, or rage out. Thanks everyone good stuff so far. Hopefully we can get an answer from the Dev’s.

An example from PvE is the Young Karka’s projectile attack. It is channeled long enough for a C&D and two dodges, at the end of which (with no stealth increases) you’re out of stealth and have been hit once or twice. Then they turn around because they’ve lost aggro. How do they track you with an attack, hit you after stealth breaks, and then suddenly forget you’re there?

I realize this doesn’t fully sync up with ranger pets or illusions, but I think at least something needs to change in the pet AI.

Why do you think thieves are the most complained about class in the game?

As a GS/retaliation Guardian I personally don’t have issues with letting theives kill there self when they burst me. But most other classes do, you have to think why that is.

Littlefeather.8623:

As a GS/retaliation Guardian I personally don’t have issues with letting theives kill there self when they burst me. But most other classes do, you have to think why that is.

Other classes have issues with letting thieves kill themselves?

Yes, if their not specced for retaliation I would imagine.

But other classes do have issues with theives ganking them out of hide and whatnot I guess.

Pretty sure it’s intended. So long as they’re channeling a spell before you enter stealth, it will continue to channel once you’re in stealth.

10-15k warrior volleys follow your kitten too..