So, as people have evolved from the old “stealth is op” to the new “stealth is op because there is no counter play” I began to have hope. Hope that people would listen to logic now that they had a legitimate reason. But, given the number of times this keeps coming up, I decided to make a thread showing that stealth DOES have counter play, and maybe… just maybe, convincing more people that thieves are, if anything, in need of a buff (yea, I know, it won’t happen, but whatever, worth the try at least). Ok, so here goes.
The main thing people say about stealth showing that it has no counterplay is that “once they are in stealth, there is no way to make the thief revealed but to get hit,” aka, there is no skill or trait that makes stealthed thieves visible. However, people miss a key word in here that is hiding all the counterplay behind stealth: ONCE. WHAAAAT!?!?!?!?!? How does that work? Well, it’s quite simple: thieves have only 1 uninterruptible stealth move: blinding powder, that is an instant cast. However, it is 3 seconds of stealth on a 40 second cooldown… thus it is balanced. There are many other ways to stealth, like smoke field->leap/blast finisher, shadow refuge, hide in shadows, and cloak and dagger. Every one of these skills is interruptible (even shadow refuge, which also has the obvious counterplay to that few people complain about). This is where the word “once” comes in. People always complain about ONCE the thief is in stealth, forgetting all together that they allowed the thief to get into stealth in the first place.
So, before people complain about you not having enough interrupts to keep a thief out of stealth every time he tries to, take in mind that attempting to stealth takes a lot of initiative. Interrupting one stealth may not kill the thief (unless he’s complete glass), but it will give you a huge advantage in the fight and put the thief on the defensive, allowing you to gain your bearings and prepare for a long fight, or, if you’re glass yourself, capitalize on the opportunity and quickly dispatch the thief.
So, what happens when a thief does get into stealth? So maybe he is good and managed to recover before you finished him, and has his stealth up before your interrupt is back up, what happens now? Do you sit there and let him hit you? NO! There are a few things to watch for: first, has he used steal yet? If not, he will most likely position himself behind you then port and backstab. If he has, try to remember if he is using infiltrator’s signet, and if so, pan behind you and watch for the signet (that appears while he’s in stealth I might add) pop up above his head, and dodge as soon as you see it. Finally, if he’s d/p, pay attention to if you get hit by a light attack, as it may be the pistol 3 port that a good thief can use backstab with. All of these things create some counterplay to the thief who is actually in stealth. While this is all small and very detailed (something you might have picked up if you, say, played the thief for a bit… hmm, that sounds familiar) counterplay, coupled with the counterplay to stealth BEFORE stealth happens, I think most people would agree that stealth has plenty of viable counterplay.
Ok, so I wanted to convince you that thieves need a buff…why? Ever notice how many thieves play d/p backstab? Now, I know you think that it’s because it’s op and everyone obviously only wants to play an op build… but that’s not it. d/p is the only perfectly balanced weapon set on the thief, aka, it’s the only one that you need to use every skill on the set to reach your full potential. What thieves need is for every weaponset to have that “completeness,” such that every skill is useful in some way. How to do that is a very long story that is not for this topic, but it is something that does need to be addressed eventually.
tl;dr the counterplay to stealth happens mostly BEFORE the thief goes into stealth, not after. Also, thieves need more “complete” weaponsets to give them more variety in the types of builds that they can use.
[TFI]
