Guild Wars 2

Yes, it is also AoE when centred around the caster, sometimes referred to as PBAoE. AoE does not break stealth (from the terget), it does damage them and you can see the damage in the Combat log.

frans.8092:

Yes, it is also AoE when centred around the caster, sometimes referred to as PBAoE. AoE does not break stealth (from the terget), it does damage them and you can see the damage in the Combat log.

I think WakkaJabba was referring to the people proposing stealth breaks on Direct Damage but not AoE, which won’t work in this game as most direct damage with no AoE components will have to be from melee weapons (ranged attacks tend to fizzle when you have no target), and even then most melee weapons have AoE components. I think this would limit the weapon selection to daggers and some swords, as GS/Hammer/Axe all have AoE auto attacks.

Give stealth users some form of protection when revealed, or a few seconds of immunity, otherwise breaking on damage will kill those classes (thief most of all).

Stealth breaking on damage is an interesting idea. I think it only needs to be WvWvW however, as this is where stealth+culling is a “game-breaking” combination.

I agree that defining aoe vs direct is moot, since all my melee attacks hit multiple and thus I dont have any strict direct damage attacks, except with cast times which cant be cast on an area with no target.

Why should stealth break on damage if it’s as impossible to damage the thief in stealth as you make it out to be?

Just because you don’t see numbers (or something), and I propose you should, doesn’t mean it’s not happening, and this is what everyone fails to see.

So no, it’s not an “interesting idea” it’s a class destroying idea, and if you played a thief you could get your bearings straight and perhaps have a clue, rather than blindly calling for nerfs.

It seem that people are coming up with all these ideas when culling and rendering seem to be the real problem.
What’s going to end up happening is they’ll get fixed with the addition of some nerf to stealth which will break the stealth feature from overcompensation.
Fix Culling/Rendering issues first and see where it stands from there.

Daemonne.5018:

It seem that people are coming up with all these ideas when culling and rendering seem to be the real problem.
What’s going to end up happening is they’ll get fixed with the addition of some nerf to stealth which will break the stealth feature from overcompensation.
Fix Culling/Rendering issues first and see where it stands from there.

They may never fix culling/rendering or for a very long time. Fixes are needed now.

Laika.8795:

Why should stealth break on damage if it’s as impossible to damage the thief in stealth as you make it out to be?

Just because you don’t see numbers (or something), and I propose you should, doesn’t mean it’s not happening, and this is what everyone fails to see.

So no, it’s not an “interesting idea” it’s a class destroying idea, and if you played a thief you could get your bearings straight and perhaps have a clue, rather than blindly calling for nerfs.

You’re exaggerating, its challenging but you can get the odd hit in. Just not enough to make a difference at present. You’re advocating having the game broken for everyone, not just thieves.

Kilger.5490:

You’re exaggerating, its challenging but you can get the odd hit in. Just not enough to make a difference at present. You’re advocating having the game broken for everyone, not just thieves.

No. You’re exaggerating, because you assume you’re not hitting the thief because no big flashy numbers are popping up. We get hit a lot in stealth, AoE and otherwise, especially since a lot of us require to be…get this…in melee range to benefit. Not to mention, we still get locked on by channeling skills, which would absolutely negate stealth altogether. If they did flash numbers on damage, you could make a mental trajectory of where they’re going (presumably your rear) and compensate. That’s all that needs to happen.

Dropping the thief out of stealth negates everything thief has going for him. We have low HP, medium armor, no protective boons, nothing. Try playing one, it’s not as easy as you make it out to be.

Wicked.5479:

stealth is not working fine… at all…
i am annoyed when my whole team gets killed by the same few thiefs abusing the kitten out of rendering issues and keep wiping us.
this D/P build is getting out of hand and you all know it.
90% invisible, over 15 stacks of bleeding, stealth finish, the list goes on and on.
and l2p wont work on me either, that just means you are out of usefull comments.
im at the point where i dont even care if they remove the ffing class entirely.
but then we will have sad panda’s who cant spam the same 3 attacks over and over again.

I am so sick of this “rendering” issue complaint.

There is a culling problem but it is associated with large zergs. If you have a ton of people around you and you are in a zerg fight, then yes this is a problem.

Otherwise it’s not.

I have never experienced the culling problem with another thief, only massive zergs.

Stealth does NOT need to break on damage. If this were true then you might as well just remove stealth from the game completely and give us something else.

swinsk.6410:

I have never experienced the culling problem with another thief, only massive zergs.

It is there, a particularly quick thief (especially a desperate P/D thief) can tick away C&Ds as fast as to only be visible for about a second. But should this be fixed, there is nothing wrong other than the complete lack of visual cues to where your enemy is.

I propose they add that in, and do away with the nonsensical channeling through stealth that is currently in place, which conceptually makes no sense.

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

Stiv.1820:

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

I agree, but the QQ won’t stop there. People don’t understand the mechanics of the thief as well as they claim, and that’s the real problem.

Stiv.1820:

Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

They do, and it is exceptionally useful when hunting stealthed targets. A large portion of the population is either ignorant of this or unwilling to use this, and it serves to increase the already large gap in stealth effectiveness vs. people who know what they’re doing and people who don’t.

Laika.8795:

Stiv.1820:

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

I agree, but the QQ won’t stop there. People don’t understand the mechanics of the thief as well as they claim, and that’s the real problem.

I think most of us understand how stealth work, and nobody can find a reliable skill based counter to it. Just spam AoE and pray…

The problem is thieves seeing things from their own point of view and comparing players who manage to land a heavy AoE or a stun AoE on them on stealth and think “aha! there’s a player who countered me!”..when the player on the other side was just spraying and praying he’ll hit something.

Numbers on stealth are something, not a hard counter, but it is something. The main problems with it is 1. It’s a soft counter, not a hard one. 2. Doesn’t help single target based characters at all.

Ekove.4586:

Stiv.1820:

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

I agree, but the QQ won’t stop there. People don’t understand the mechanics of the thief as well as they claim, and that’s the real problem.

I think most of us understand how stealth work, and nobody can find a reliable skill based counter to it. Just spam AoE and pray…

The problem is thieves seeing things from their own point of view and comparing players who manage to land a heavy AoE or a stun AoE on them on stealth and think “aha! there’s a player who countered me!”..when the player on the other side was just spraying and praying he’ll hit something.

Numbers on stealth are something, not a hard counter, but it is something. The main problems with it is 1. It’s a soft counter, not a hard one. 2. Doesn’t help single target based characters at all.

Well, that could be true, but there’s also a lot of players here who speak from their own experience on countering thief stealth. If it’s a glass thief, which most thieves seem to be in wvw, I tend to hit them right at the moment they’re bursting on someone. If they’re bursting on me, then I usually react at the first damage spike with a dodge. There’s a 3s window of damaging them before they attempt to restealth, and after that 3s is up, you can get ready for the next CnD and dodge.

Ekove.4586:

I think most of us understand how stealth work, and nobody can find a reliable skill based counter to it.

You are in the wrong game. It’s not about the skills on your skill bar.

Ekove.4586:

Stiv.1820:

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

I agree, but the QQ won’t stop there. People don’t understand the mechanics of the thief as well as they claim, and that’s the real problem.

I think most of us understand how stealth work, and nobody can find a reliable skill based counter to it. Just spam AoE and pray…

The problem is thieves seeing things from their own point of view and comparing players who manage to land a heavy AoE or a stun AoE on them on stealth and think “aha! there’s a player who countered me!”..when the player on the other side was just spraying and praying he’ll hit something.

Numbers on stealth are something, not a hard counter, but it is something. The main problems with it is 1. It’s a soft counter, not a hard one. 2. Doesn’t help single target based characters at all.

1) I don’t think everything needs a hard counter, if players can improvise to work around something without a need for a button to do the job for them, that should be fine. Especially in the case of stealth, since Thieves’ defenses are so binary in nature. It’s either you hit them or you don’t, no boons to lighten the blow.
2)Being single target and ranged setups are at the mercy of a lot of factors, it’s the trade-off of spacing. CQ attacks ideally don’t hit them while they are able to CQ characters. Single target melees can still hit without a target.

Ekove.4586:

Stiv.1820:

Maybe people would just be happy if they saw damage numbers when they hit. I don’t think it would hurt that much and add some fun in for people. Currently I don’t even think hits on stealth people show up in the combat log on the attacker’s side.

I agree, but the QQ won’t stop there. People don’t understand the mechanics of the thief as well as they claim, and that’s the real problem.

I think most of us understand how stealth work, and nobody can find a reliable skill based counter to it. Just spam AoE and pray…

The problem is thieves seeing things from their own point of view and comparing players who manage to land a heavy AoE or a stun AoE on them on stealth and think “aha! there’s a player who countered me!”..when the player on the other side was just spraying and praying he’ll hit something.

Numbers on stealth are something, not a hard counter, but it is something. The main problems with it is 1. It’s a soft counter, not a hard one. 2. Doesn’t help single target based characters at all.

Reliable skill based Counter → Dodge. If you haven’t changed the keybing/options is on doubletap or V. I would recommend rebinding it to something more accessible (mouse button, tab, alt, ctlr…whatever fits you). I would also suggest players practice dodging. I don’t know the number of players I see dodge when no one is hitting them. This isn’t meant as an attack against you, but many MANY players underestimate how powerful good dodges are. And every class has access to it!

Spamming AoE on a thief who stealthed is a horribly bad idea, and waste of your abilities like 75% (or more) of the time. The exception to this is Shadow Refuge. AoE the crap out of that thing if you see him go inside. Just because you see him cast SR, if he doesn’t go in it, he probably isn’t in it. Once in, he is trapped for 3 seconds (or he’ll get the revealed debuff for leaving).

This is coming from a player that use to play Thief A LOT, but now plays an Ele. Thieves rarely cause me problems now unless I simply get outplayed by a better player (or am AFK…).

lets cut to the chase here. the only reason people play thieves is because of the stealth. stealth class thief has most likely sold another 100k boxes due to the stealth trait, which is why anet will never nerf it. the same has gone for every mmo with pvp in it in the past. there is never any justification for having stealth, its simply a class to play for a feel good factor that you can do so much damage without any real repercussions. anybody who disagrees with that last statement should think about the fact that if stealth had a cooldown of 20-30 secs, would they still then play that class? i reckon there would be around 1% of the current thief population still playing a form of pvp.

biggboppa.2197:

lets cut to the chase here. the only reason people play thieves is because of the stealth. stealth class thief has most likely sold another 100k boxes due to the stealth trait, which is why anet will never nerf it. the same has gone for every mmo with pvp in it in the past. there is never any justification for having stealth, its simply a class to play for a feel good factor that you can do so much damage without any real repercussions. anybody who disagrees with that last statement should think about the fact that if stealth had a cooldown of 20-30 secs, would they still then play that class? i reckon there would be around 1% of the current thief population still playing a form of pvp.

It would have other things to make up for that cool-down. You are right though. I have played the stealth class since DAOC. It’s always the most fun for me. They are always the best for soloing in open world PvP beucase you can avoid zergs. If TES Online has a stealth class, that’s what I’ll be.

Stiv.1820:

biggboppa.2197:

lets cut to the chase here. the only reason people play thieves is because of the stealth. stealth class thief has most likely sold another 100k boxes due to the stealth trait, which is why anet will never nerf it. the same has gone for every mmo with pvp in it in the past. there is never any justification for having stealth, its simply a class to play for a feel good factor that you can do so much damage without any real repercussions. anybody who disagrees with that last statement should think about the fact that if stealth had a cooldown of 20-30 secs, would they still then play that class? i reckon there would be around 1% of the current thief population still playing a form of pvp.

It would have other things to make up for that cool-down. You are right though. I have played the stealth class since DAOC. It’s always the most fun for me. They are always the best for soloing in open world PvP beucase you can avoid zergs. If TES Online has a stealth class, that’s what I’ll be.

your welcome, sweetheart

biggboppa.2197:

lets cut to the chase here. the only reason people play thieves is because of the stealth. stealth class thief has most likely sold another 100k boxes due to the stealth trait, which is why anet will never nerf it.

Oh come on, that’s some pretty massive exaggeration.

For example, one of the reasons I like my thief so much is because I can turn him into a total Pirate by giving him the Pirate armor set and Sword/Pistol, which is something you cannot do on any other class.

You’re seriously acting like no one plays a Thief in PvE. And that’s just bullkitten. And let me tell you, Stealth isn’t that big of a thing in PvE.

anybody who disagrees with that last statement should think about the fact that if stealth had a cooldown of 20-30 secs, would they still then play that class?

Excuse me, but which fact are you referring to? You did not state this “fact” anywhere in your sentence, so I am very, very confused.

You have to realize that Stealth is one of the things that ANet chose as a defining factor element for Thieves. It’s not something you can take away, nor can you make hypotheticals where it’s either not there or simply useless, because then we’re talking about something that is not a Thief, but a whole different class altogether.

This would be crippling, more than you know. I can already see someone who doesnt have the blind on stealth trait CnDing someone the same time that someone attacks them. So they not only lost half their initiative, but now they are not in stealth…….wonderful

My non theif would love this.

RedSpectrum.1975:

This would be crippling, more than you know. I can already see someone who doesnt have the blind on stealth trait CnDing someone the same time that someone attacks them. So they not only lost half their initiative, but now they are not in stealth…….wonderful

not crippling. it happens in every other game.

Columba.9730:

RedSpectrum.1975:

This would be crippling, more than you know. I can already see someone who doesnt have the blind on stealth trait CnDing someone the same time that someone attacks them. So they not only lost half their initiative, but now they are not in stealth…….wonderful

not crippling. it happens in every other game.

Yes crippling. This is not every other game, this is GW2.

Columba.9730:

RedSpectrum.1975:

This would be crippling, more than you know. I can already see someone who doesnt have the blind on stealth trait CnDing someone the same time that someone attacks them. So they not only lost half their initiative, but now they are not in stealth…….wonderful

not crippling. it happens in every other game.

In every other game you miss every other attack you send at a stealth class because whether you hit or miss is dictated by random number generators. In GW2 if you hit you hit.

Gw2 is close enough to other games. scenery is different though.

Columba.9730:

Gw2 is close enough to other games. scenery is different though.

So are you actually suggesting ANet should redesign all their professions to mimic other MMOs?

You’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel dude.

Columba.9730:

Gw2 is close enough to other games. scenery is different though.

Then if the game is so broken like you suggest, why do you play it if it’s “close enough” to other games? Go play those other games where you don’t have to worry about GW2 stealth mechanics and culling.

graphics and population are better. thieves can afford a stealth nerf. they already have the highest dps and the best mobility.

Columba.9730:

graphics and population are better. thieves can afford a stealth nerf. they already have the highest dps and the best mobility.

I think the best mobility is arguable.. i would actually say DD eles have the best mobility

50% run speed was advertised a few months back…lol

Columba.9730:

50% run speed was advertised a few months back…lol

And all sets save maybe D/P can’t access it out of combat out of combat for more then 4 or 10 seconds (all on cooldowns), and D/P would need to pause to drop a new smoke field to leap through every few seconds. That’s a far cry from perma-swiftness. Also Feline Grace can’t compete with all the vigor and endurance recovery Eles have access to.

There is already a revealed debuff…. dropping stealth on damage would break the class. Most of their abilities revolve around stealth.

It’s enough that they can be HIT in stealth. Even by AOE. They are typically pretty squishy so just keep blasting and you might kill them.

Other minor adjustments maybe, such as an increased 1s revealed debuff, or swap death blossom/heartseeker initiative requirements, but breaking stealth on damage would break the thief. (even these minor adjustments should warrant compensation elsewhere, such as an increase in low health damage of heartseeker or 1s longer revealed debuff = stronger sneak attack.)

If you however got rid of the revealed debuff maybe breaking stealth on damage could be viable.

Columba.9730:

50% run speed was advertised a few months back…lol

There is a hard cap of 33% of out of combat speed in this game. The only thing that breaks that speed are abilities like Ride the lighting and stuff like that. The 50% speed only gets it’s full benefit while in combat and under stealth. It’s still basically equal to normal runs speed out of combat with no buffs.

D/P thieves also don’t get any real distance mobility out of this since they have to stop briefly to cast the blind field and they are only getting 33% of it out of combat. Anyoen with perma swiftness is faster.

If they want to stay perma stealthed they need to leap over that same feild a bunch of times making them go nowhere. The trait is basically for skirmish/combat mobility in one place.

Maybe have perma stealth as an option with a 30 or 60 second cool down? Although from the class stand point I don’t know and would hate to see any class ruined.

Bailey.6892:

Maybe have perma stealth as an option with a 30 or 60 second cool down? Although from the class stand point I don’t know and would hate to see any class ruined.

I would be completely fine if they redid the entire thief class into a classic toggle stealth profession like every other game has. That is what I wanted when I first started. All the better for trolling.

The point here is, this stealth class and game isn’t like every other MMO and therefore does not use those same mechanics. Balance suggestions along those lines are asinine without an entire class re-write.

Also to this point, making changes like this is only to pacify a large group of lazy gamers who don’t want to bother learning every profession and ability. I have zero problems killing thieves on other profs. It’s such a huge L2P issue. All the lazy zerglings love to laugh at that statement because no one can believe they themselves are just ignorant and lazy yet it shines through with every “balance” suggestion they make (like this OP).

Columba.9730:

50% run speed was advertised a few months back…lol

I lol’d so hard.

Laika.8795:

swinsk.6410:

I have never experienced the culling problem with another thief, only massive zergs.

It is there, a particularly quick thief (especially a desperate P/D thief) can tick away C&Ds as fast as to only be visible for about a second. But should this be fixed, there is nothing wrong other than the complete lack of visual cues to where your enemy is.

I propose they add that in, and do away with the nonsensical channeling through stealth that is currently in place, which conceptually makes no sense.

This isn’t culling. A thief that hits CnD just after stealth drops isn’t a problem. I do this a lot even as D/D + S/D. If I get low on health all I do is run around hitting CnD off targets until my health regenerates.

I don’t really play a theif, got mine to the 70s and then stopped for months, came back just hit 80 and as such I do not really want to make comments or ideas on how to fix them. How ever from my other character the issue does not seem to be stealth so much as poor coding from anet resulting in the culling issue and I do not feel that the class should be punished for anets mistake. Sadly I also do not believe anet has the talent to resolve the culling issue.

swinsk.6410:

This isn’t culling. A thief that hits CnD just after stealth drops isn’t a problem. I do this a lot even as D/D + S/D. If I get low on health all I do is run around hitting CnD off targets until my health regenerates.

It is culling, because theoretically they should see you (even if just a few frames) before the strike lands. Culling also allows about an extra second of leeway to connect that C&D before they become visible to their opponent, so even if you aren’t Johnny on the spot you can still stay stealthed (at least, as far as the other player is concerned.)

I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem, per se, because yes, a thief who times his stuff well will still be very hard to avoid if he does continue C&Ding in a good rhythm. He also poses a significant risk of hitting it a little too early and going into revealed accidentally, which is risk vs. reward.

The problem is that extra second that lazy/bad thieves may be allotted by their enemy due to culling. One second can make a difference to a decent player.

Anyone would be out of his mind to believe that the current stealth mechanic doesn’t give too much forgiveness.

I didn’t read all 6 pages of this so apologies if someone said this already. I believe the perfect solution to this problem is that if you hit a thief while he is in stealth, you should still see the damage numbers. This way you would at least know that you are hitting the thief and get a better idea of where he is but he wouldn’t be fully revealed and good thieves would still be able to use the stealth to escape and re-position during fights.

Sincerely,
A Thief, Warrior, and Necromancer.

I wish all of you would level a Thief to 80 and play it in WvW before you decide what to do with my class. You know nothing as to how this class works, and that;s why you die to Thieves. Learn the class and you’ll have no problem killing us. We are easily controlled and can die fast. This is why we rely on evasion/movement/stealth to survive. If you actually played Thief you’d realize we are the weakest melee class, even beat by rangers, in the game.

If you think taking away a class’ main mechanic is the way to effectively balance the game. You are an ignorant kitten that knows nothing about MMOs. I could easily suggest to take away and Elementalist’s ability to swap Attunements, or ask to take away Deathshroud or make it so that Deathshroud is NOT a second health bar.

Tl;dr : Please play my class before you decide what to do with it.

The only excuse you could use is Culling which only happens in areas where the are too many players for your computer to render. Culling is being fixed in the March patch, supposedly, so we’ll have to wait on that.

Columba.9730:

graphics and population are better. thieves can afford a stealth nerf. they already have the highest dps and the best mobility.

Highest Damage? Do you play a Warrior?

Highest Mobility? Ever play an Elementalist?

I can avoid their high dps attacks. So yes’m thieves have the highest dps.