Thief is by far the class that needs the least amount of skill to achieve any kind of decency with the profession. Being able to stealth every 4 seconds is stupid (to put it nicely). You don’t’ have to use any kind of “skilled play” to just spam stealth. All you Thiefs’ know it is true and just use it to get cheap kills.
Either 1 of 4 things need to happen.
1) Rework the trait that gives the condition removal on stealth. It is ridiculously that they can remove a condition every time they go in stealth and another one while they are in stealth for 3 seconds (which every stupid stealth in this game for them is at least 3 seconds). This makes it only possible for a Necromancer or Engineer with conditions to actually kill them with conditions. Even then they will just use their cheesy stealth to run away.
2) Increase the reveled de-buff to at least 8 to 10 seconds. Make them actually fight and think about what they are going to do instead of allowing them to just stealth backstab, teleport around while evading back into stealth just to have all of their conditions removed and fill their initiative to full. To all of you who will whine that this will ruin the class… you still have the most evades on any weapon set. You have them for a reason. You have another skills beside 2 and 1. Learn to use them.
3) Remove the unbalanced pure stealth from the game and make it a silhouette stealth. This way skilled players can actually do something about stealth; instead of letting bad players completely benefit from having a advantage the entire fight.
The fight is always in the Thiefs hands no matter who they face. They choose who they fight and don’t. No class should be able to do this with such ease as they do. No class should be able to get away when they have been beaten by a more skillful player just by using stealth. Stealth allows this class to just poke and prod the opponent with no draw backs. Since all of their skills rely on the very cheap initiative system, they rarely have to think about what to do since it will all be restored in a short order of time (much shorter than all the other classes good skills with 20+ second cooldowns).
4) If you get hit in stealth you are removed from stealth. This one is harsh but the best for the current system since you can just spam stealth anyway. You only have to be visible for 4 seconds so if someone is skilled enough to follow you and hit you, he deserves to be rewarded.
None of these suggestions would make Thief horrible and useless like all of you will claim. You fear actually having to use slight skill and thought before you engage someone. In the current situation of the game you have 0 risk involved in engaging anyone.
Edit: There is no argument against stealth being a cheap class ability. You have no defense and you know it is true. This is why the majority of the first comments are mere mocking comments more than discussion about the ability.
(edited by Vanthian.9267)