Guild Wars 2

This BWE in particular was very important for most of us, because of how things are escalating in the “reveal” department for COUGH stealth counterplay COUGH

Well, after dueling scrappers exclusively as a meta DA/SA/Tr Thief I can safely say, stealth lives on — in the hands of well-experienced players, that is.

Few things to note for fellow thieves on coming to such conclusion:

-Scrapper Sneak Gyro toolbelt reveal IS dodgeable. Its almost exactly like the Moa toolbelt skill, except it doesn’t require ground targeting. Once you see the scrapper cast when you’re in stealth, you have to dodge it.

-The range is not 900. I’ve tested this over and over, it looks like the radius is much lower than 900 — although definitely higher than 450. So somehow the range is miscalculated or malfunctions atm — which is in our favor.

Don’t get me wrong, the range is still large enough to get caught in it, so unless you dodge that reveal, you’re going to get caught.

-The sneak gyro is still bound to the limitations of AI, which makes most good engineers resort to powerful elites such as Mortar or Elixir X, even as a scrapper. Which means not every scrapper will be equipped with a 20 second reveal.

While we’re speaking of cooldowns…. Irenio, this is especially for you (wish you could tag people on forums, like reddit):

Sneak gyro is waaaay too low on cooldown OR the duration is very high. One of those have to change. The reveal cooldown being 20!! seconds is just… ridiculous. Its almost every 2 stealth disengages thief has, the reveal is up. That’s not right at all.

Considering how Shadow Refuge is on a 60 second cooldown, having reveal constantly up to 100% counter the whole support thief brings on the table for PvP scenario — its just hard to swallow. I’m glad its counterable on 1v1 scenario given that its susceptible to dodges, but the "spammability " of the reveal is too high. No risk — very high reward.

I know right now, being this powerful, it makes a good alternative to the powerful elite skills engineers already have. However, when AI is worked around, these numbers will make the elite skill borderline broken. The only thing that makes this elite in question at the moment is the AI mechanic.

Anyway — I know we’re not in the best shape or form and our Elite spec doesn’t look impressive, lets just tone down on being a drama queen like there’s no tomorrow. Just adapt, be constructive and move on.

1vs1 ’nuff said.

Don’t get me wrong but i will not be happy getting revealed because someone else will trigger it instead of dodge it.

Daendur.2357:

1vs1 ’nuff said.

Don’t get me wrong but i will not be happy getting revealed because someone else will trigger it instead of dodge it.

Unless you’ve done extended experimentation on it don’t try to shut down an opinion and try to look good with lame phrases as “nuff said”.

The fact that you don’t know how it works, says enough. It does NOT trigger on a group basis. If you’re stealthed and you dodge, you don’t get revealed. Only the people who don’t dodge in stealth will be revealed.

One other thing, it doesn’t put revealed on people without stealth to begin with. So if you’re not stealthed when skill goes off, you can immediately get into stealth.

You are saying it’s fine because you can dodge it. I’m saying it’s not because the game is no 1vs1.
Moreover there will be tons of reveals since every revenant will have it.
Reveal applied by other professions is just a wrong mechanic.
Stealth will be even less effettive; it will still be there, but it will be less reliable. And thieves are the ones who suffer the most from that.

The OP lists several conclusions I came to awhile ago.

Most Scrappers won’t take sneak gyro because it is bad. The pulse can be dodged, is easily baited, and is only a drawback if stealth is being used defensively. The gyro itself is cumbersome, easily killed, and extremely limited in application. Even given all that, the sneak gyro isn’t even the best counter to thieves.

Back when I played engi, the one-button answer to thieves was the supply crate. Sneak gyro just puts reveal on you. The supply crate is pocket point control, stunning and littering the field full of everything a thief doesn’t wan to see during an engagement. Any disabling condis a thief places gets cleansed, the damage healed, the location unfavorable for combat, and on top of that the thief gets disabled and counter-burst pretty hard. The best part about supply crate is that it works against every class.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The OP lists several conclusions I came to awhile ago.

Most Scrappers won’t take sneak gyro because it is bad. The pulse can be dodged, is easily baited, and is only a drawback if stealth is being used defensively. The gyro itself is cumbersome, easily killed, and extremely limited in application. Even given all that, the sneak gyro isn’t even the best counter to thieves.

Back when I played engi, the one-button answer to thieves was the supply crate. Sneak gyro just puts reveal on you. The supply crate is pocket point control, stunning and littering the field full of everything a thief doesn’t wan to see during an engagement. Any disabling condis a thief places gets cleansed, the damage healed, the location unfavorable for combat, and on top of that the thief gets disabled and counter-burst pretty hard. The best part about supply crate is that it works against every class.

Supply crate is one reason I like P/P so much. Yes you can work on it with sb but PP just takes those turrets down so much faster. I also found unhindered combat a great counter to those turrets being dropped. Immob break on dodge is so very good.

As to stealth I look at it very much like the old expression “The best way to get low prices on wheat is to have high prices on wheat”

IF they fix Acro and tuneup those other weaponsets , the more players that use reveal the less players will rely on stealth or learn ways to counter it as the OP suggests. The less that rely on stealth or learn ways to counter it , the fewer that will trait reveal.

The larger issue is the AOE reveals over the individual ones and whether there a valid way to deal with them and that will be a learning process. If stealth becomes unusable then they will certainly have to revisit all of these “reveals”.

Now by rights it my belief any reveal skill must be exclusive to other effects. By this I mean someone should not get a reveal that also does oodles of damage or stuns. There has to be a cost to traiting that skill and reveal should not be a bonus to some skill that already very usable.

Stealth based thief is playable if enemy actually doesn’t bring revealed, 1 engi with any reveal is enough to make your entire match experience to absolute horror.

If there is 2 of classes with reveal on enemy team you might as well not engage ANY fight at all or afk at spawn.

I honestly fail to understand which part of brainless aoe reveal is supposed to be skillful or fair…. there is either no tell or barely any as well. Bad design is bad.

Something has to work until staff dominate. It’s not the upcoming reveal that we should worry about it’s the mentality that more will keep coming as other classes gets more access to stealth and we get nerfed.

This post misses the point pretty hard.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Most Scrappers won’t take sneak gyro because it is bad

Irrelevant. The fact is that it exists and can be taken makes it a problem.

The pulse can be dodged

Shouldn’t have to waste dodge every time you want to stealth.

is easily baited

This is silly. There’s no ease at all to “baiting”. That depends entirely on the skill level of the engineer. Yes, obviously bad engineers will use detection pulse poorly. It is absurd to rely on that as a “counter” to the skill itself.

The gyro itself is

The gyro itself is irrelevant. The toolbelt skill is the main problem as I pointed out back on the day scrapper was announced. The group stealth is just kicking us when we’re down.

The kitten are you saying?

First off: Revenant will be a very popular class and it has AoE insta cast reveal afaik. Counterplay? Close to every revenant will have it.

Second: Gyro will of course be used. WTF are you saying, srsly?! Run WvW, see thief using stealth weapon set, put gyro in and kitten him. I mean there are many rangers who run Sic Em and engis who run Spot on already.

Sagat.3285:

It’s not the upcoming reveal that we should worry about it’s the mentality that more will keep coming as other classes gets more access to stealth and we get nerfed.

This is my biggest concern. So far, my post was made to reassure thieves who’re throwing a tantrum on reveal mechanics being introduced over and over and yes — it makes it an absolute horror for thieves to carry on under those circumstances. No other class can be directly countered this hard from one of their main mechanics.

However, there are counters that are in existence. We must be aware of those counters and adapt as much as we can to be viable at this point.

assassin.7895:

The kitten are you saying?

First off: Revenant will be a very popular class and it has AoE insta cast reveal afaik. Counterplay? Close to every revenant will have it.

Also, revenant reveal is no where near as strong as sneak gyro reveal, because one has 900 range and the other 360. Please don’t compare apples and oranges.

I didn’t get a chance to face a scrapper, but not many revenants revealed me. Regardless, I still had a lot of fun as a stealth thief, and feel it’s pretty hard to say it fails when you still have plenty of mobility. It will just take some more adjusting and anticipation, but i’m fine with bringing more challenge to my favorite play style after years of destroying faces.

Oh yes the Rev reveal is no where near as strong! it only reveals everyone in an SR and can be cast mid sword 3.

You yourself are claiming the one had 900 range but not really it seemed to be iffy….because you tested it in 1v1 duels…. that don’t matter, won’t matter are in every-way shape and form irrelevant to the game’s core pvp.

Let’s ignore that several of these “Reveal mechanics” are either passive procs, traps, large radius aoes, or 1200 range shouts/analyzes.

There is 0 diminishing returns on Reveal it just over-writes itself constantly with the only cleanse being time.

It negates entire trait lines worth of choices for thief, some traits for mesmer and pretty much none for every other class except that 1 ranger trait no one uses. But somehow that garbage mechanic is “justified”.

How about real counter-play like you can still stealth but are visible when these stealth counter measures are on you, very much like you are to allies in your party?

Please continue to dismiss any feedback from other players who don’t agree with your, putting it nicely, pathetic testing attempts on random players playing a new spec in a non pvp game-mode.

There is literally no reason to put yourself through playing thief anymore in HoT unless you enjoy self abuse. Roll a Rev and enjoy being as good as thief was on launch.

Psst. Sneak gyro is less of a concern as lock on…. also I think you completely forgot about taunt…. And revs.

assassin.7895:

The kitten are you saying?

First off: Revenant will be a very popular class and it has AoE insta cast reveal afaik. Counterplay? Close to every revenant will have it.

Second: Gyro will of course be used. WTF are you saying, srsly?! Run WvW, see thief using stealth weapon set, put gyro in and kitten him. I mean there are many rangers who run Sic Em and engis who run Spot on already.

The aoe reveal from revenant has a telegraph animation ( dragon eyes appear before it flash the reveal )

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Most Scrappers won’t take sneak gyro because Thief is bad.

Fixed that for you.

There are no counterplays to reveal except “don’t get hit” which thieves have a hard time trying to do anyway.

Daendur.2357:

You are saying it’s fine because you can dodge it. I’m saying it’s not because the game is no 1vs1.
Moreover there will be tons of reveals since every revenant will have it.
Reveal applied by other professions is just a wrong mechanic.
Stealth will be even less effettive; it will still be there, but it will be less reliable. And thieves are the ones who suffer the most from that.

You’re absolutely out of your mind if you say reveal is a bad mechanic it’s an amazing mechanic and offers most ppl who qq about theives’ ability to endlessly restealth in combat something to counter play stealth. The fact that you can dodge it is great too, I always felt as a thief being aware of your surroundings is important so yes u won’t always be 1v1 but if a scrapper joins the fray I think one would have the presence of mind to look for the reveal cast animation.

That being said this is great for two reasons
1. It separates good theives from thieves who know how to act I any situation vs theives who just cycle thru 5-1 5-1-2 5-2-1-222222
2. It promotes people to look at other builds (I’m about to make a bread about ideas to help expand builds for thieves go look for it and share your opinion)

A few adjustments I do think might be necessary as stealth heavy builds are as the phrase suggest really reliant on stealth for survivability some people have suggested making theives out of stealth combat more survivable (which tbh it’s not the greatest but there are plenty of builds that don’t abuse stealth and do just fine) this alternative tho is not the best one in my opinion as it only makes a thief who is even harder to kill bc they can use stealth to break target and be offensive and survive a lot out of stealth too. I think that using the current resource like blinds and timing your dodge rolls and not spamming them for the sake of it as I see many players do will help your out of stealth survivability just fine. My suggestion is to make the stealth skills that make you so strong in stealth a bit stronger like higher health regen and removing more condos in stealth….now this sounds op but I think it makes it that much more punishing when you get revealed and also more rewarding when you do get stealth bc you can now compensate for the damage you took for those six seconds of reveal. It balances out keeps stealth builds in a good place and makes getting revealed just few that much more punishing

For example let’s say you get condi bombed and you retreat into stealth to remove the condos and get revealed. That suck because (with an improved trait) going into condi would’ve removed 2 condis, now you’re stuck for six seconds with all those condis and more to be applied.

Idk I feel this way allows for more of a seesaw fights where the fight goes back and forth and only goes to the player who makes he least mistakes and plays the most skillfully.

yolo swaggins.2570:

There are no counterplays to reveal except “don’t get hit” which thieves have a hard time trying to do anyway.

Um…blinds…well timed dodges, shadowsteping away from the opponent, evades from s/d 3, bow 3, d/d 3, staff, withdraw, roll for initiative, reflect, now a block too. There are a crapton of ways thieves survive out of stealth the reason why people suffer so much when they get revealed is because they panic and don’t take full advantage of the things thieves have.

I would suggest, and I’m trying to be constructive not trying to seem like I’m on a high horse, dueling some friends and practicing using your other utilities and attacks taking full advantage of everything you have. Thieves despite being squishy can have a lot of sustain or rather damage aversion. Idk practice makes perfect imo.

Still no official comments on reveal for 3 sec in PvP. What happened to normalization across game modes?