Guild Wars 2

If TLDR just read the bold parts that are the most important info.

So I was thinking about stealth, it’s necesity for some builds, how some skills are in most builds (specially CnD and SR) and the way it can be exploited, and I had this idea:

This would be a bit of an overhaul for how stealth generally works, that makes each stealth aplication more useful and greatly increase its availability, but will also reduce the frequency of uses during combat. I will sum the changes and then I will go into details of why (I divided the message in multiple parts because of post size limit):

- First step: Every stealth in the game (including the few ones on other professions) now last 8 to 10 seconds.

- Second step: The following skills grant Stealth: Black Powder, Infiltrator’s Arrow (no longer applies Blind), Nine Tailed Strike when not attacked (no longer returns initiative), Smoke Trail.

- Revealed now lasts much longer (around 8 seconds).

This way we get the following:

- Stealth is available on every weapon set. For a profession with stealth skills as a mechanic (one of the multiple mini-mechanics), it makes sense that every weapon gives access to its use, the same way every Mesmer weapon set has access to Clones to trigger the profession mechanic. Stealth Skills are a profession main mechanic and you can’t use them with every build.

- Any form of stealth is a true scape tool. By making it last 8-10 seconds, Stealth becomes a good way to escape from danger or recharge your skills before jumping again into combat. Right now Shadow Refuge, even if it maintains you in an area for some seconds, is featured in most builds because of how long its stealth (Aoe stealth) is. This way SR is no longer a necessity, just a great skill if you’re going for support, but for personal stealths you get multiple sources. Of course given its new availability and the longer Revealed state, Utility Skills granting Stealth (and CnD as it would be one of the harder Stealths) might have their cooldown downed a bit. This way you get a justification for our low HP, that is based on our access to Stealth, but not every build gets it, so they get the Negative part, but not the Positive side of it,

- It promotes skill use. Right now, because of Initiative, most stealth become “step1-step2-step3 never think about creativity because this works” and do this: 5 -> Stealth Skill -> Autoattack and/or dodge until Revealed is gone. I’ve been testing the "experience " (by mentally calculating how long I would be without Stealth in this case, and imagining the benefits from it lasting longer) with P/D, and I have to say that the dual skill is great if used right, but the problem is that you would prefer to wait for more 5s as the game is right now, so you just never use it. Not having the Stealth available all the time promotes more use of your other skills, and there are some good combos out there that don’t get use because of CnD.

- It makes us dodge the nerf bat, or at least most of its consequenes. The whining river is boiling up with more and more P/D WvW dominance, and don’t fool yourselves, a nerf is coming. It always comes for sneak professions and everyone knows that, so don’t think it won’t happen because it will and it will shatter your dreams. This change would make P/D style of play change, and culling wouldn’t be a problem because now revealed lasts much longer than the culling bug, making those cries stop. On the positive side, you get a very long Stealth on every set, which means you can save your life with every weapon set, and access to Stealth Skills with Shortbow, P/P, S/P and the underwater sets that rarely get access to it (as most stealth sources can’t be used underwater).

Of course, because of how it affects some weapon sets, the following changes are a must:

- Vital Shot needs a speed boost (to match its tooltip). Many users claim for this, that Pistol real need is for Vital Shot to be faster so it can properly stack bleeds. If Vital Shot gets Ranger Shortbow speed, then bleeds are a good source of damage without needing to spam Sneak Attack chains. As Sneak Attack wouldn’t be usable as often with this change, Vital Shot NEEDS this boost now to properly maintain bleeds. Body Shot could use something too to get an opportunity now that 2-3-4 would be “available more often”.

P/D may be hurt a bit (specially on 1 vs X fights), but with this change the bleed should be as maintainable as before (even more), and 3 is a very good skill to avoid melee opponents (a great skill for that indeed), and we all now a nerf is coming sooner of later anyway.

P/P gets access to some scaping and the possibility to go conditions thanks to increased speed on Vital Shot, and access to Snesk Attack on the set, which might be very good to open a fight with blinds and bleeds. This way not ALL the fight is 333333333333333333333333333.

- Tactical Strike (PvP version) should return to its previous 2 second daze. More seconds even if now you can’t spam it would be too much given how most dazes in the game are 1 second, with the 2 second ones having long recharges.

S/D style might be hurt a bit (at least you would get a compensation on the initial daze, and a way to scape if you screw things), and 3 could get some boost in compensation so the set can be solid and competitive.

S/P would get an scape tool, and a way to access its Stealth Skill.

D/D burst would work as fine as before (even better with the increased time to properly land the Backstab, so maybe its damage would be reduced a bit in compensation), except maybe for the D/D that were not that great on burst and used it the same way than P/D to keep landing backstabs over the fight.

D/P gets access to Backstab without needing to do a Leap Combo, being able to Stealth before the fight so it will get more use now, with D/D probably getting more use for venom builds.

Shortbow’s Surprise Shot doesn’t need a change, it was rarely available before, so being usable without using other set or utilities is a boost itself. Infiltrator’s Arrow no longer blinds, but it was generally used to scape and move, so the Blind was rarely used.

At the end, if all those changes are applied, we get an stealth that is used FOR THE REASONS it’s supposed to be used (open a fight and being effective at scaping it), instead of how it’s now being able to remain stealthed for half of the time, unlikIe most other games where you can’t even stealth once you’re in combat.

We get improvements to some builds with not much love, with the mentioned changes it doesn’t hurt so much existing builds (specially when the nerfbat is coming anyway for those builds, so better take benefits from it), and makes every weapon set able to use the Stealth Attacks profession mechanic (I will repeat it: it’s a profession MECHANIC, other professions don’t get extra skills when stealthed, so we should get easy access to them).

Culling is no longer such a big problem as it will be gone before we can stealth again, we get more use of our other skills and we’re able to scape whe we really screw things, justifying our VERY LOW HP that is supposed to be there because we can Stealth to survive, but right now not all weapon sets can do it. And it’s not a get out of jail free card as if you open a fight with Stealth, then you can be killed before you can use it agains, and AoEs will hit you so if you’re in the middle of something big you will die anyway.

I think it might solve some problems with some weapon sets, give us more survivality overal, less access to exploits and stop the cryes.

Would you like something like this?

Can you point out where we get more survivability from this? And what would you propose for Flanking Strike? The skill is currently “use as needed” so it’s not used for dps. (and I don’t think we need another “Heartseeker”) And Tactical Strike pretty much the best S/D can muster in combat, as the build requires you to score as many hits as possible to be effective.

It seems you put a lot of thought into it. It’s one way to look at it but it seems that a change like this would mean a complete revamp to the class in its entirety. While I can see the thought process behind this, I don’t think ANET will be willing to make such a huge change to stealth mechanics. I don’t think we will get nerfed. They will fix the culling and the thieves that once used culling to their advantage will either respect or reroll because the P/D build won’t be as easy mode to them anymore.

This will only favor the burst builds.To give them a better chance to get away if their burst fail.You put a lot of efforts for a useless purpose.

I agree totally about mesmers and clones/phantasms
STEALTH according to the wiki:
Stealth skills are the second mechanic, with a distinct stealth skill for each main hand weapon. While in stealth, the skill in slot 1 is replaced by this skill; using it will break stealth. OBVIOUSLY the wiki is referring to skill#1 while stealthed but as stealth IS a thief mechanic then i agree that each weapon/weapon set should have the ability to stealth (either directly or through the use of combos (as dagger#5 or d/p #5#2))

@Dual:

You get 1 8-10 seconds stealth on every weapon set, allowing you to go back if you screw things, no matter your weapons or your utility skills choice.

I’m not sure how would S/D be enhaced as I don’t have as much experience with that set as I do with other weapon sets, but I’m sure something could be done.

@Lofat:

Thanks for the apreciation, I like to get things in order and consider all the points when suggesting things A fix to culling will come, but for what I’ve read, it won’t be 100% solved in months. I agree that it might be a great overhaul for them to do it (not that great really, it’s just increasing duration on stealth and revealed, and making every set using it, but a decent overhaul), but who knows, Stealth has been the cause to many nerfs to other skills and it might get enough attention to tweak it.

@ZLE:

It’s right that burst builds will get benefit (not so much as many require you to use Stealth BEFORE, which will maintain you 8 seconds visible instead of 3), but other builds will too. P/P for example could choose to go Carrion instead of Berserker thanks to an oppening 5 bleeds plus increased bleeding rate with Vital Shot boost, and keeping the opponent blind, then using the Unload Spam to finish them when bleeds are at their peak (having a huge lot of damage during those seconds thanks to bleeding stacks+direct damage, after waiting a bit for the bleed to build). Shortbow could be a very useful control too, having a 2 seconds Inmob each 8 seconds, plus the already existing AoE attacks (being able to maintain Weakness with 15 in DA) and the movement (with now and scape) on IA.

@BurnWeed:

Exactly, the Thief has multiple minor mechanics instead of just 1, but if something is a mechanic, it should be used no matter the build. Mesmers got 1 clone and 1 phantasm per weapon set, Necros got Life Force building on every single weapon set, but we have a mechanic that more than half of our weapon sets can’t use without picking utilities for it.

I like black powder as it is thanks and Infiltrator Arrow is much better as it is, it just needs better range. I think there should be less stealth overall to be honest. I would rather see more diversity to our profession instead of forcing stealth onto every aspect.

I would love to see more emphasis on vigour, dodging (Dodge grant protection?), endurance regeneration, boon stealing and less emphasis on stealth. Stealth is a defining feature but it shouldn’t be our only feature.

S/D style would be hurted alot, since if we can’t stealth for 10 secs we can only use autoattack, or spam skill #2 to confuse enemy if he’s noob (tho autoattack is enough for em in the first way), since nothing more is usefull at this moment. TS has potential, but how it is now its totally useless vs moving target.

And tbh this is the main problem. Thiefs have sets of wpn they can carry but there is NONE where u can use all of it’s skills, and thats the worst.

Personally i really love S/D since u need to be very sneaky to control the opponent. But if you cut off stealth then its nearly impossible to do so anymore, making S/D brainless autoattack wpn set.

I’m not saying that reducing stealth is wrong at overall, but it affects alot some wpn sets, that would need a real burst in useabillity.

Hm, sorry I have to disagree with most points except maybe stealth in greater abundance.

I think 4 seconds traited stealth is already WAY TOO LONG.

kKagari.6804:

Hm, sorry I have to disagree with most points except maybe stealth in greater abundance.

I think 4 seconds traited stealth is already WAY TOO LONG.

And here is the opinion of the game developers,concerning Stealth:

“We want every single class to deal situations in an unique manner – we keep “purity” in certain skills/traits i.e. only mesmers and thieves have stealth to deal with some situations. Not everyone have stealth but every class have a defensive mechanism they can use if they don’t stealth.”

In other words,Stealth is equivalent of things that you find in other classes,but you accept as something completely normal.Like almost double base HP of the warrior/necro and the access to various other damage counters like protections/invulnerabilities/e.t.c.

Hmmm if I had 8 seconds of stealth every time I used CnD… Running with enemy zergs would be so fun xD. CnD the ranger, then the mesmer, and then the warrior, and then the mesmer again, to the necro…

This is the problem if stealth was even longer from one use. Although this is still possible to do with CnD as it is, what the OP is suggesting would make this as simple as auto attacking.

A bad idea as it would turn the thief into using nearly only autoattacks and would gimp their DPS which would make them even less desired in PvE.

P/D right now requires you to hit the enemy with CnD to apply any damage at all, with your suggested change they will only autoattack.

S/D equals P/D in its playstyle, but instead of ranged condition, it tries to control an enemy on melee range, it would turn into autoattackign only aswell.

D/D – direct dmg would be pretty gimped if you dont go with a burst build. With a more survival build you would try to stealth often and apply backstabs often, with your suggested change you couldnt do that and thieves would turn into autoattack thieves.

Shortbow would profit from that change alot and I predict that this change would result in thieves mainly using shortbows or going with the insta-gib burst build.

D/P would spare some init for stealthing but it would turn that weaponset into autoattack spamming aswell as you cant apply constant dmg with backstabs anymore.

P/P would gain stealth but hardly profit from it. Unload is direct damage while the sneak attack from P/x is condition damage. It might end up with an interesting gameplay for that weaponset but its hard to say if it would be worth it.

Chewy.9263:

Hmmm if I had 8 seconds of stealth every time I used CnD… Running with enemy zergs would be so fun xD. CnD the ranger, then the mesmer, and then the warrior, and then the mesmer again, to the necro…

This is the problem if stealth was even longer from one use. Although this is still possible to do with CnD as it is, what the OP is suggesting would make this as simple as auto attacking.

Not if you read the entire suggestion. With an 8 seconds revealed state. Indeed what you said is more viable right now with 3 seconds of revealed and culling, as in the opponent computer you will be perma-invisible.

Panacea.4927:

A bad idea as it would turn the thief into using nearly only autoattacks and would gimp their DPS which would make them even less desired in PvE.

P/D right now requires you to hit the enemy with CnD to apply any damage at all, with your suggested change they will only autoattack.

S/D equals P/D in its playstyle, but instead of ranged condition, it tries to control an enemy on melee range, it would turn into autoattackign only aswell.

D/D – direct dmg would be pretty gimped if you dont go with a burst build. With a more survival build you would try to stealth often and apply backstabs often, with your suggested change you couldnt do that and thieves would turn into autoattack thieves.

Shortbow would profit from that change alot and I predict that this change would result in thieves mainly using shortbows or going with the insta-gib burst build.

D/P would spare some init for stealthing but it would turn that weaponset into autoattack spamming aswell as you cant apply constant dmg with backstabs anymore.

P/P would gain stealth but hardly profit from it. Unload is direct damage while the sneak attack from P/x is condition damage. It might end up with an interesting gameplay for that weaponset but its hard to say if it would be worth it.

Most of the sets that use Stealth so much RIGHT NOW only auto-attack. With a wait of 8 seconds until using the stealth again you have to get creative with your other skills.

Like I said, I’ve been experimenting a bit of how this situation would be with my P/D and I’ve been doing fairly well with my P/D, getting a lot of use from the dual skill (and discovering how amazing it’s, it’s super fast, faster than most melee attacks so you will avoid them, and hits really hard for the initiative cost, something I didn’t realize before because of how CnD was keeping all my initiative, with an ocasional Dancing Dagger to cripple a running foe).

Lokheit.7943:

Panacea.4927:

A bad idea as it would turn the thief into using nearly only autoattacks and would gimp their DPS which would make them even less desired in PvE.

P/D right now requires you to hit the enemy with CnD to apply any damage at all, with your suggested change they will only autoattack.

S/D equals P/D in its playstyle, but instead of ranged condition, it tries to control an enemy on melee range, it would turn into autoattackign only aswell.

D/D – direct dmg would be pretty gimped if you dont go with a burst build. With a more survival build you would try to stealth often and apply backstabs often, with your suggested change you couldnt do that and thieves would turn into autoattack thieves.

Shortbow would profit from that change alot and I predict that this change would result in thieves mainly using shortbows or going with the insta-gib burst build.

D/P would spare some init for stealthing but it would turn that weaponset into autoattack spamming aswell as you cant apply constant dmg with backstabs anymore.

P/P would gain stealth but hardly profit from it. Unload is direct damage while the sneak attack from P/x is condition damage. It might end up with an interesting gameplay for that weaponset but its hard to say if it would be worth it.

Most of the sets that use Stealth so much RIGHT NOW only auto-attack. With a wait of 8 seconds until using the stealth again you have to get creative with your other skills.

Like I said, I’ve been experimenting a bit of how this situation would be with my P/D and I’ve been doing fairly well with my P/D, getting a lot of use from the dual skill (and discovering how amazing it’s, it’s super fast, faster than most melee attacks so you will avoid them, and hits really hard for the initiative cost, something I didn’t realize before because of how CnD was keeping all my initiative, with an ocasional Dancing Dagger to cripple a running foe).

Ye but they do auto-attack after an action. Also u are describing ONE weapon set, when there are people with diffrent setups. Like i said before main problem for allmost every wpn set is that there are useless skills that are ini eaters only and dont provide any strategist actions, simply couse they’re broken or just extremely weak. Thats why stealth is crucial for fighting. If it wouldnt be like that, then i see no prob to nerf it at all.

Kenmei.7138:

Ye but they do auto-attack after an action. Also u are describing ONE weapon set, when there are people with diffrent setups. Like i said before main problem for allmost every wpn set is that there are useless skills that are ini eaters only and dont provide any strategist actions, simply couse they’re broken or just extremely weak. Thats why stealth is crucial for fighting. If it wouldnt be like that, then i see no prob to nerf it at all.

8 seconds means A LOT of initiative to be used. You don’t have to tank initiative so you can stealth again, you can perfectly use 3 to 6 other skills in that time dpending on their costs and still have enough initiative for your stealth.

I agree that some skills might need improvements so they can shine (I mentioned S/D dual skill and Pistol 2 as needing buffs as it would be their time to shine without so much stealth tanking). And I also agree that initiative forces the same skills to be used over and over again, and that’s in fact why I though about this change, to make /D not so neccesary, and to make stealth skills not as usable as before as you have 8 or more seconds where you don’t get the Stealth part.

With D/D there isn’t such a problem as 2, 3 and 4 are fairly used by most D/D players depending on their build (2 and 3 even being spammed). Pistols need Body Shot to be changed (mathematically it’s a waste except for great events, where there are 25 Vuln. anyway on the boss), and probably Unload to be more interesting than plain and boring damage burst. And S/D dual skill needs something more too. But that makes only 2 or 3 skills that need an improvement to be consistently used during those seconds before using stealth, and even then, many builds wouldn’t need it as much, as many current /D builds that don’t use it too much.

The main point of my suggestion is to give every thief access to stealth, but greatly limit how many times it can be used so he has to spend the initiative in other things, but has that stealth if he needs it to either open the fight surprising the opponent, scape it, or getting some tactical use of the stealth skill.

If you limite the access on the amount of stealth, you also need to buff certain stealth related things.
For instance backstabs need to do much more dmg to not kitten up the constant dps of thieves, but at the same time it will promote burst builds too much.
Or you buff the autoattack which again will turn the thief into an autoattack class.
Or you buff other skills like heartseeker which again will promote spamming just that one skill.

Stealth itself and the revealed debuff is nothing else but a hidden cooldown system which is tacked onto the init system of the thief. Hence stealth related attacks are often stronger as the skills which only need initiative.
Thieves just lack alot of usefull skills on nearly all of their weapons and only stealth and the related attack from stealth is pretty viable. (if we dont consider the Unicorn-build)
Thieves also lack protection/aegis/regeneration/condition removals/invulnerability which stealth tries to offset and only succedes with the shadowarts tree.

If you want to take such a big step to double the duration on stealth and the revealed buff, you would need to revamp the whole class from scratch as stealth is just too much tied into the whole class to be viable in PvE and PvP.

Panacea.4927:

If you limite the access on the amount of stealth, you also need to buff certain stealth related things.
For instance backstabs need to do much more dmg to not kitten up the constant dps of thieves, but at the same time it will promote burst builds too much.
Or you buff the autoattack which again will turn the thief into an autoattack class.
Or you buff other skills like heartseeker which again will promote spamming just that one skill.

Stealth itself and the revealed debuff is nothing else but a hidden cooldown system which is tacked onto the init system of the thief. Hence stealth related attacks are often stronger as the skills which only need initiative.
Thieves just lack alot of usefull skills on nearly all of their weapons and only stealth and the related attack from stealth is pretty viable. (if we dont consider the Unicorn-build)
Thieves also lack protection/aegis/regeneration/condition removals/invulnerability which stealth tries to offset and only succedes with the shadowarts tree.

If you want to take such a big step to double the duration on stealth and the revealed buff, you would need to revamp the whole class from scratch as stealth is just too much tied into the whole class to be viable in PvE and PvP.

Exactly. Thats the other thing bout stealth. It’s main defensive skill for thieves and if u reduce it, we will die alot simply couse of lack HP and defense if we want to do decent dmg. Also many of our traits works during stealth or when using it. You will destroy the whole class by nerfing stealth and thinkin only to “redo” wpn skills.

Kenmei.7138:

Exactly. Thats the other thing bout stealth. It’s main defensive skill for thieves and if u reduce it, we will die alot simply couse of lack HP and defense if we want to do decent dmg. Also many of our traits works during stealth or when using it. You will destroy the whole class by nerfing stealth and thinkin only to “redo” wpn skills.

Except you get a lot more of use for the “during stealth” skills as you’re stealthed for a lot of time when you stealth with this change. And survivality increases for most sets that currently don’t have it, with access to 8-10 seconds to either run or restart the fight. Survivality for sets that currently use -/D only changes, instead of getting sporadic stealths (most times used to get access to the stealth skill and repositioning rather than survival) you get a very long one when dodging and using evasive skills (we got many of those) isn’t enough. We can survive with that change with every build, S/D as I said will need a compensation, and a nerf is comming for P/D and we all know that.

If you gonna stay in stealth for alot of time to take full use of “durng stealth” skills, then it will mostlikely reset the whole combat :/ And i wasn’t talkin bout surv. I was talkin bout defense. Stealth atm provides us with an ability to “dodge” hits so we can stay in combat. As you did convinced me with the wpns somehow, i still have some worries bout defense at all. And again i dont mean surv, i mean defense during combat.

Stealth is part of combat. This would make us have to stay in it for the duration giving our enemies that entire time to do whatever they want. It would also promote max burst builds.

If they are going to make any major changes to stealth it is going to be an entire class overhaul. Maybe they decides they want to go traditional toggle stealth and re-design.

I doubt it though, they are stubborn with controversial things like downed state. This stealth mechanic is unique and their own design. I doubt they throw it away. Especially since it’s not an issue for experienced, skilled players which are the ones they want to attract for e-sports and such.

It kind of feels like this was made with the intent to only use stealth as an escape because when you stealth offensively, you’re stealthed for the shortest time possible so you can get of your stealth skill right away. If you deliberately wait the whole duration, you’re just giving your opponent more time to heal and prepare, erasing any progress you’ve made on them.
The more I think about it the more I notice, the only sets that will benefit from this are the ones that never had stealth to begin with, S/P now sporting 3 accessible dazes and access to stealth would completely overshadow S/D. P/P, SB, Spear and Harpoon would become much stronger, all the land melee sets would become weaker; and BS insta-gib would feel the smallest nerf.

To the OP

I think you misinterpreted what I meant. When using cnd in a zerg you would not auto attack to give you the revealed buff. You would be chaining your cnd one right after the other so as to achieve essentially perma stealth.

Chewy.9263:

To the OP

I think you misinterpreted what I meant. When using cnd in a zerg you would not auto attack to give you the revealed buff. You would be chaining your cnd one right after the other so as to achieve essentially perma stealth.

If you use CnD while stealthed you’re revealed. If you mean waiting until the end to use culling in your favor, then maybe revealed could be applied even when not attacking so you can’t stack them longer. Anyway, attacking them will put them into combat mode and bombard the area with AoEs until they find you.

Lokheit.7943:

Of course, because of how it affects some weapon sets, the following changes are a must:

- Vital Shot needs a speed boost (to match its tooltip). Many users claim for this, that Pistol real need is for Vital Shot to be faster so it can properly stack bleeds. If Vital Shot gets Ranger Shortbow speed, then bleeds are a good source of damage without needing to spam Sneak Attack chains. As Sneak Attack wouldn’t be usable as often with this change, Vital Shot NEEDS this boost now to properly maintain bleeds. Body Shot could use something too to get an opportunity now that 2-3-4 would be “available more often”.

P/D may be hurt a bit (specially on 1 vs X fights), but with this change the bleed should be as maintainable as before (even more), and 3 is a very good skill to avoid melee opponents (a great skill for that indeed), and we all now a nerf is coming sooner of later anyway.

P/P gets access to some scaping and the possibility to go conditions thanks to increased speed on Vital Shot, and access to Snesk Attack on the set, which might be very good to open a fight with blinds and bleeds. This way not ALL the fight is 333333333333333333333333333.

- Tactical Strike (PvP version) should return to its previous 2 second daze. More seconds even if now you can’t spam it would be too much given how most dazes in the game are 1 second, with the 2 second ones having long recharges.

S/D style might be hurt a bit (at least you would get a compensation on the initial daze, and a way to scape if you screw things), and 3 could get some boost in compensation so the set can be solid and competitive.

S/P would get an scape tool, and a way to access its Stealth Skill.

D/D burst would work as fine as before (even better with the increased time to properly land the Backstab, so maybe its damage would be reduced a bit in compensation), except maybe for the D/D that were not that great on burst and used it the same way than P/D to keep landing backstabs over the fight.

D/P gets access to Backstab without needing to do a Leap Combo, being able to Stealth before the fight so it will get more use now, with D/D probably getting more use for venom builds.

Shortbow’s Surprise Shot doesn’t need a change, it was rarely available before, so being usable without using other set or utilities is a boost itself. Infiltrator’s Arrow no longer blinds, but it was generally used to scape and move, so the Blind was rarely used.

At the end, if all those changes are applied, we get an stealth that is used FOR THE REASONS it’s supposed to be used (open a fight and being effective at scaping it), instead of how it’s now being able to remain stealthed for half of the time, unlikIe most other games where you can’t even stealth once you’re in combat.

We get improvements to some builds with not much love, with the mentioned changes it doesn’t hurt so much existing builds (specially when the nerfbat is coming anyway for those builds, so better take benefits from it), and makes every weapon set able to use the Stealth Attacks profession mechanic (I will repeat it: it’s a profession MECHANIC, other professions don’t get extra skills when stealthed, so we should get easy access to them).

Culling is no longer such a big problem as it will be gone before we can stealth again, we get more use of our other skills and we’re able to scape whe we really screw things, justifying our VERY LOW HP that is supposed to be there because we can Stealth to survive, but right now not all weapon sets can do it. And it’s not a get out of jail free card as if you open a fight with Stealth, then you can be killed before you can use it agains, and AoEs will hit you so if you’re in the middle of something big you will die anyway.

I think it might solve some problems with some weapon sets, give us more survivality overal, less access to exploits and stop the cryes.

Would you like something like this?

I totally agree thast our weapons need some rework with stealth i cant go a steaslth build with out hasving stealth utility which kinda locks me in

Well yes but your trying to dismiss the issue I originally brought up. A good their can easily run with the enemy zerg without being noticed. they would be able to do this with all the stealth skills you suggest. As soon as stealth is about to drop, time it so it goes back up. Sith practice there would be a very very small time frame in which you would be revealed. Culling aside, targeting a thief in that split second would be extremely difficult. Which is why I say increasing stealth to 8 seconds would make it easy because you have 8 seconds to prepare your next stealthily skill

@OP, I do like many of your ideas but I also agree with the poster who said that it was likely too many changes for anet to make.

Personally, I think we are much more likely to see a longer stealth debuff and the each of the corresponding weapons sets getting a damage buff. In other words, if you are running something like S/D, you wouldn’t be able to permastealth and as a trade off, you would hit harder while visible.

I am going to have to strongly disagree with everything the OP said…

Changing stealth like this would required changing a whole bunch of weapon sets and in general changing the entire thief class into something different.

I don’t see this every happening.

Stealth is key to many builds, however there are plenty of other builds that don’t rely on stealth or use it as much.

I run a D/D + S/D build but some people are P/P + P/D or something different. I like using stealth as much as possible because to me that is fun.

Some others like to use non-stealth attacks and then stealth later.

Fact is, you are playing a stealth class. If you don’t like it make a warrior or something else. Thieves are balanced. IMO, the only skill in this game that is grossly overpowered is the portal ability. The rest of it is pretty close to balanced now.

Yea hundred blade warrior with 8 sec cd isnt imba

Lokheit.7943:

Chewy.9263:

To the OP

I think you misinterpreted what I meant. When using cnd in a zerg you would not auto attack to give you the revealed buff. You would be chaining your cnd one right after the other so as to achieve essentially perma stealth.

If you use CnD while stealthed you’re revealed. If you mean waiting until the end to use culling in your favor, then maybe revealed could be applied even when not attacking so you can’t stack them longer. Anyway, attacking them will put them into combat mode and bombard the area with AoEs until they find you.

You don’t have to use culling at all to chain CnD. All that is required is that you time your attack perfectly to the moment your stealth almost wears out. Since CnD does have a cast time, you can use that to your advantage and precast it before stealth runs out so that it hits right after stealth is off.

I don’t really like the idea of longer stealth though. My current play style with D/D is pretty dynamic and it has a lot to do with mixing stealth in for the extra damage from backstabs or simply to out-maneuver. Having 8s on stealth would make the fights feel less dynamic in my opinion. I also never really see thieves as long-term stealth type fighters, but more of a smart/agile/tricky fighter. The short stealth currently really seems to fit what I see a thief as.