Guild Wars 2

Today I was in WvW and there were 2 thieves from an enemy server that seemed to have infinite stealth. They were in stealth mode for well over 2 minutes whilst attacking everybody and not being able to be attacked back. I have asked around and this seems to be some kind of new “hack” or “exploit” this has really annoyed me and is crushing the experience I’m having with this AMAZING game. Please reply to this. It would also be really amazing if a Dev could reply as to whether this is not right and if its going to be fixed soon or looked into.

P.S
I have never played a Thief so I’m just not sure but it really seems unfair and i’ve never seen it before

I asked about this at one point in my guild. They pop out of stealth for VERY brief times between stealthing. If they have all the traits, slot skills and what not it can look very like perma stealth. Saw a thief run around in the middle of 15 people never coming out of stealth long enough for anyone to target him and use a skill. We ended up chasing him off with massive aoe but it was pretty stupid that he could sustain it that long.

I think you are facing 2 issues:

2 thieves can easily share stealth and keep each other hidden for a good amount of time. But they cannot do damage while staying in steath, they can however do damage and pop right back in after a quick stab or 2. This isnt cheating.

Other issue is culling, you are possibly not loading the enemy thief, there is some what of a fix that is coming in a week.

With the above said, thieves are very squishly, if you ever play one, you will understand what i mean. If you take their ability to stealth away then they will be useless in WvW since they rely mostly on close combat.

AoE is your best bet when fighting a thief, also most thieves deliver their max dmg in their opening strikes, if you dodge the first couple then you have outlived it.

I recommend you play a thief and learn what difficulties they face and you can develop some techniques on how to combat them.

user furry with the worrior roots then and i can put a 12 stack of bleed on the buggers realy screws them good

It’s not a hack or exploit.

For the people that are saying that the theives in question are not hacking, i say to you that you have clearly not been playing WvW recently. These theives will hit you, dissapear in less than a second, come back 2 seconds later and repeat until you and the other 10 people you are with are all dead. There is nothing you can do to stop these people, and targeting them is out of the question.
On top of this are the people you see in PvE that will teleport around to the mining and gathering spots to collect their fill, then instantly disappear and reappear at the next place. And you are telling me there are no hacks?
I paid for this game as opposed to a free to play MMO because i was sick of playing with hackers in other games when the moderators do nothing about it. I assumed that with the income Arenanet was pulling in that they would have a team assigned to deal with these issues. This has been going on for months. I loved this game, but now i wish i could get my money back.

seems like normal thieves with stealth build to me… the ones that run away scared every time they fail to burst down someone ;o

No this is completely different. There were 2 thieves I was talking about but at seperate times. They were alone. I was dodging it for atleast a minute and the whole time was stealthed, coming out for like 0.5 seconds to attack then stealth WITHOUT using a skill

Guitarist.4017:

No this is completely different. There were 2 thieves I was talking about but at seperate times. They were alone. I was dodging it for atleast a minute and the whole time was stealthed, coming out for like 0.5 seconds to attack then stealth WITHOUT using a skill

If the thief has a dagger off hand they can use their #5 skill to attack then stealth, and for annoyance they can repeat doing this. There is also utility skills that can blind you, making it so you can’t see the thief(they haven’t stealthed), and one of their heals also stealths, as well a ground targeted stealth utility skill … dagger/pistol thief can also use black power + heartseeker to stealth.

There are probably some other options I have not explored yet but they are the ones I know about.

Guitarist.4017:

…I have never played a Thief…

Guitarist.4017:

…then stealth WITHOUT using a skill

these 2 lines sums up your thread. you don’t know how thieves skills work. and therefor you claim that they are hack. i find that ignorant and rude.

In Eternal Battlegrounds I was able to saw two thieves hitting the houses in enemies’ overlook and gaining stealth, making the effect last a really long time. That exploit is giving them quite an advantage, I believe the case will be the same for any effect or buff gained by hitting an enemy/structure. I think those structures should be only damaged by siege’s to avoid this huge disadvantage.

Unclear whether it’s a hack or not. However, perma stealth is completely imbalancing and needs to get fixed, I agree. Despite what some thieves claim, they can attack and remain stealthed the entire time. check out the numerous videos showing as much. All I can suggest is to send respectful and persistant feedback to anet.

How many times do you need to be told ? There is no such thing as perma stealth combined with damage. There is culling that makes entire zergs ( including thiefs) invisible.

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Like I’ve said in other posts, stealth as a mechanic should allow the thief to do 2 things; gain a preemptive strike (and try to burst you down with that one chance), or escape and reset the battle. If stealth can let them reset the battle, then stealth should allow enough time for other classes to reset as well, but most of the time the thief can reset the battle for himself after forcing their opponent to blow most of their CDs and endurance, then reappear to finish them off while their utilities are still on CD. Being barely able to see them while you’re in active combat (and I agree the culling issue is one of the main culprits), is also absurd. Thief animations also make it hard for them to be targeted (e.g. heartseeker). I’m not complaining about damage at all as it seems ok when I go 1v1 against the thief, but stealth mechanics itself needs to be looked at.

SuperHaze.4210:

… If stealth can let them reset the battle, then stealth should allow enough time for other classes to reset as well, …

What is reset to you? If the thief drops out of combat (like being able to use map travel) then so would his opponents, or they should. If it’s just not attacking to recharge then normally their opponents should see their skills come off cooldown. It’s not like the thief has Time Stop.

Thief animations also make it hard for them to be targeted

Using mouse targetting is your own choice. You’re standing still or using keyboard turning while trying to mouse-target the thief hopping around?

Now I understand while peeps jump all the time, it’s not to dodge attacks but to dodge the mousepointers …

Columba.9730:

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Disagree with what lol ? I said there is no such thing as perma stealth while doing damage, hello revealed mechanics and im right. All other is culling.

frans.8092:

SuperHaze.4210:

… If stealth can let them reset the battle, then stealth should allow enough time for other classes to reset as well, …

What is reset to you? If the thief drops out of combat (like being able to use map travel) then so would his opponents, or they should. If it’s just not attacking to recharge then normally their opponents should see their skills come off cooldown. It’s not like the thief has Time Stop.

Thief animations also make it hard for them to be targeted

Using mouse targetting is your own choice. You’re standing still or using keyboard turning while trying to mouse-target the thief hopping around?

Now I understand while peeps jump all the time, it’s not to dodge attacks but to dodge the mousepointers …

We are the One!!! The glitch in the Matrix

Karolis.4261:

Columba.9730:

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Disagree with what lol ? I said there is no such thing as perma stealth while doing damage, hello revealed mechanics and im right. All other is culling.

Yet we experience getting damaged by thieves while never seeing them. plenty of vidoes show thieves killing enemies while never being seen. So again, I respectfully disagree.

Columba.9730:

Karolis.4261:

Columba.9730:

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Disagree with what lol ? I said there is no such thing as perma stealth while doing damage, hello revealed mechanics and im right. All other is culling.

Yet we experience getting damaged by thieves while never seeing them. plenty of vidoes show thieves killing enemies while never being seen. So again, I respectfully disagree.

Oh columba you see what you want to see! Culling and Stealth are 2 different things is what he is saying. When you attack from stealth you are revealed if I don’t render on Columba’s screen because he is using a Mac from 1996 then I don’t know it I don’t think I am still in stealth and I sure don’t have access to stealth skills like backstab because your Mac didn’t render me on screen fast enough.

oZii.2864:

Columba.9730:

Karolis.4261:

Columba.9730:

Well, this post and the videos posted are evidence that permastealth happens. someone even posted a video with how to permastealth in the title. So I respecfully disagree.

Disagree with what lol ? I said there is no such thing as perma stealth while doing damage, hello revealed mechanics and im right. All other is culling.

Yet we experience getting damaged by thieves while never seeing them. plenty of vidoes show thieves killing enemies while never being seen. So again, I respectfully disagree.

Oh columba you see what you want to see! Culling and Stealth are 2 different things is what he is saying. When you attack from stealth you are revealed if I don’t render on Columba’s screen because he is using a Mac from 1996 then I don’t know it I don’t think I am still in stealth and I sure don’t have access to stealth skills like backstab because your Mac didn’t render me on screen fast enough.

well your assumptions are incorrect. I have 2 gig video, 16 gig ram, i5 quad core, ssd drive. so it’s not my system. To be honest for thieves, culling vs stealth are symantics because thieves can use culling to stay perma stealthed, unlike other classes that eventually emerge. 3 seconds of culling invisibility is very common.

lastly, it’s been proven that culling is server side not client side, so your personal attacks don’t really make sense.

I have a 10gig vid card and thieves render w/out problems.

ZilentNight.5089:

With the above said, thieves are very squishly, if you ever play one, you will understand what i mean. If you take their ability to stealth away then they will be useless in WvW since they rely mostly on close combat.

AoE is your best bet when fighting a thief, also most thieves deliver their max dmg in their opening strikes, if you dodge the first couple then you have outlived it.

So over hearing AoE is the solution, Randomly throwing out long cooldown AoE’s to somehow target an area where an invisible opponent might be. Such a BS solution. Or swing around wildly hoping that you might hit them.

And have you even seen the latest thief builds that heal while they are stealthed. Watch their youtube clips and see how tough they are. New builds are out, they are not that squishy anymore.

Thobek.1730:

ZilentNight.5089:

With the above said, thieves are very squishly, if you ever play one, you will understand what i mean. If you take their ability to stealth away then they will be useless in WvW since they rely mostly on close combat.

AoE is your best bet when fighting a thief, also most thieves deliver their max dmg in their opening strikes, if you dodge the first couple then you have outlived it.

So over hearing AoE is the solution, Randomly throwing out long cooldown AoE’s to somehow target an area where an invisible opponent might be. Such a BS solution. Or swing around wildly hoping that you might hit them.

And have you even seen the latest thief builds that heal while they are stealthed. Watch their youtube clips and see how tough they are. New builds are out, they are not that squishy anymore.

aoe is not really a practical answer to permastealthed thieves. it assumes that you know where to place your aoe, which is nearly impossible.

Considering thieves need to get behind you for a backstab, it’s kind of obvious where you need to place your AOE…

Lofat.2406:

Considering thieves need to get behind you for a backstab, it’s kind of obvious where you need to place your AOE…

Indeed, but if we are constantly moving to prevent backstab, it’s not so obvious where to aoe.

That didn’t make sense.
You know where you are going to move to, so you know where you’re back will be.

The reality is that it’s just a bad strategy because presuming they were permanently stealthed, they would just wait out your aoe anyways.
Pro-active attacks on stealth work in the short-term when you know the distance they can be is finite and the time they can remain hidden is finite which simultaneously forces their hand. If they are prolonging stealth, this strength of knowledge on your side disappears.

Columba.9730:

Lofat.2406:

Considering thieves need to get behind you for a backstab, it’s kind of obvious where you need to place your AOE…

Indeed, but if we are constantly moving to prevent backstab, it’s not so obvious where to aoe.

So what do you do when you move, close your eyes and randomly wiggle your mouse while saying “dear god please don’t hit me”? Drop your AOE, run near it or in it.

The solution to thieves is a CC move and the tab button. It’s that simple. CC a thief and he will die in half a second. If he doesn’t, he’s a crappy tank build and you can safely ignore him and run away because he won’t be killing you before you distance him.

The most important thing with thieves is to not play their game.

Columba.9730:

lastly, it’s been proven that culling is server side not client side, so your personal attacks don’t really make sense.

Thanks for taking that bait then why are you all up in the thief forums complaining all the time when you should be ummmm.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Culling-Poll-1327-votes-23-Better-64-Worse/first

You know threads about culling? If you understand how and why culling happens we can’t do anything about it and the thief forums isn’t the place to to debate on culling.

Your here to argue how our class works etc with weak arguments at that. Columba always talking in circles.

Next week you will be complaining about damage or something new.

Culling isn’t equal to perma stealth. Someone who is revealed (but still culling) CAN be targetted.
“But I can’t see them, how do I target?”
1) Tab-target him, in small fights like 1v1 or even 3v3 it’s easy to quickly tab find him
2) Click on him when he renders, you see a black smoke when he re-appears
3) If he is revealed from attacking you, he’ll be the nearest enemy (mostly). Use the “Target nearest enemy” option.

Also, if you’re in a party, “Target” him. It’ll help your fellow friends to find him if they can’t do the above themselves (or were busy with something else).

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Culling isn’t equal to perma stealth. Someone who is revealed (but still culling) CAN be targetted.
“But I can’t see them, how do I target?”
1) Tab-target him, in small fights like 1v1 or even 3v3 it’s easy to quickly tab find him
2) Click on him when he renders, you see a black smoke when he re-appears
3) If he is revealed from attacking you, he’ll be the nearest enemy (mostly). Use the “Target nearest enemy” option.

Also, if you’re in a party, “Target” him. It’ll help your fellow friends to find him if they can’t do the above themselves (or were busy with something else).

Nope. Tried it multiple times. Tab target doesn’t target culled characters.

Tab targeting works for so many others, why doesn’t it work for you? You sure you’re doing it right?

Well I am a thief can someone explain how to even utilize steal? I’m new to GW 2 and don’t quite understand builds, all that great but I would like to know how to get long stealth? like 30 secs in PvE or is this only a PvP thing?

byron.1627:

Well I am a thief can someone explain how to even utilize steal? I’m new to GW 2 and don’t quite understand builds, all that great but I would like to know how to get long stealth? like 30 secs in PvE or is this only a PvP thing?

stealth is capped at about 15 seconds, you cant stack more. The only possible way to get this much of stealth time is using shadow refuge ( must have 15 in shadow arts to reach cap) or using blast finishers leap finishers multiple times inside smoke field, each aplication will add 4 seconds of stealth ( if traited). Other way is to learn good timing while using Cloak and dagger ( off hand dagger skill) and simply use it again and again after u leave stealth with minimal out of stealth time. This helps while exploring maps in pve a lot.

wish.3102:

The solution to thieves is a CC move and the tab button. It’s that simple. CC a thief and he will die in half a second. If he doesn’t, he’s a crappy tank build and you can safely ignore him and run away because he won’t be killing you before you distance him.

The most important thing with thieves is to not play their game.

If you think tankier thief builds are crap then you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Adding a bit of tankiness makes the thief all but immortal in a small fight. He loses the ability to burst down a target in 1 sec with steal/backstab/CnD but is still able to keep an incredible amount of DPS pressure on a target, especially with a condition build.

Also you assume that everyone can outrun a thief which is a ridiculous assumption — D/D Ele, Thief, GS War are the only builds/classes that can do that.

Fun gameplay at it’s finest, swinging at invisible targets and trying to stack conditions to them even when they have easy access to cleanse.
Who came up with this stuff?

My suggestion to you is to join the winning team like the rest of us and roll a thief, this game has no qa people so it’s likely nothing will be done about it.

I am all for thieves getting a buff. Hell, increase their Hp and toughness by 1k points each , I don’t care. The only thing I have a problem with is stealth and steal. I believe GW2 is the only game I have every played where you could slash a guy, then go into stealth and repeat this process three or four times. It makes it so that you have to be a MUCH better player than said thief to win. In regards to steal, I have a problem with skull fear in general. Why do thieves steal a fear that is 3X longer than a necros standard fear. It is like we were holding a dagger and they managed to steal a great sword.

DragonXavier.3964:

It is like we were holding a dagger and they managed to steal a great sword.

That’s absurd, we thieves don’t like greatswords

I have over a thousand hours in WvW, and I can tell you
positively its a mixing bowl of issues, mainly culling and hacks.

In several dozen instances, Ive seen myself getting attacked
in big bursts, and not only dont see the thief, Im finished
without him ever coming out. Im assuming this is a culling
issue.

What I am trying to get a video on, is what I beleive to be
a major hack: instant kill. What Im talking about, is getting
from 100% to 0% instantly, and NO damage or attack is
shown in your combat log. This happened twice this week
already. I believe it would be a thief doing it in stealth.

Im a pretty hardcore MMO player, so dont bring any of this
up to QQ, since I always adapt to a game. My only confusion
on a thief though is the potential of opening damage. I play
sPvP and am a bunker ele with 1900+ toughness. I was hit
last night from 7518 backstab that I never saw. That plus the
2500 steal before it sealed the deal. That is what my problem is
with parts of the game, toughness at the level should reduce more.

I think the main issue regarding the so called ‘perma stealth exploit’ is due to the fact that a thief can reset a fight at will to gain the upper hand. Naturally people who do not how to deal with this will nag, however when the thief chooses to reset a fight there are two things that happen. First, they stay out of combat long enough to actually be out of combat, both for himself and his opponent. This is somewhat fair, it lets the other player recover and the chances for battling the thief are reset to some degree (of course it can be really situational and the other player can have a huge dissadvatage).

The second thing that happens is when a thief goes into stealth for a short period of time, just enough for him to recover his burst and his opponent to waste his survival skills. Hence, constantly dishing out damage, recovering just enough initiative to do so, leaving your opponent helpless and being able to survive only by stealthing around is in fact pretty unfair. Why do I say that it is so? Well you may happen to see all those videos of thief players fighting 1 vs 20+ with relative ease. Naturally it takes time and a certain amount of skill to survive such fights, but it is not without exploiting a very clear advantage that thief has over any other class in the game. If you ever (as a thief) want to experience this, please turn the tables and roll another character and experience this yourself.

I myself play a ranger and I have become really adept at fighting 1v1, 1v2 and 1v3 against stealth thieves and I have managed to come victorious mostly in 1v1, but the time I put to develop the skill to fight a really good stealth thief and be able to defeat them was amazing, nothing at all compared to the skill a thief requires to succeed in such a scenario. Coupled with comments from other players, experiences I have had and have seen in WvW and PvP, I can admit that thief needs its stealth, but clearly it can be exploited way too easily.

Good points awge, but its also worth noting that many
classes like an Ele have to blow defensive CDs to survive
the first battle (ie Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, etc), and
those will be on CD when the second fight starts 5 seconds
later.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Good points awge, but its also worth noting that many
classes like an Ele have to blow defensive CDs to survive
the first battle (ie Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, etc), and
those will be on CD when the second fight starts 5 seconds
later.

I takes a lot longer than 5 seconds to reset a fight to where both people are out of combat.

awge.3852:

I think the main issue regarding the so called ‘perma stealth exploit’ is due to the fact that a thief can reset a fight at will to gain the upper hand. Naturally people who do not how to deal with this will nag, however when the thief chooses to reset a fight there are two things that happen. First, they stay out of combat long enough to actually be out of combat, both for himself and his opponent. This is somewhat fair, it lets the other player recover and the chances for battling the thief are reset to some degree (of course it can be really situational and the other player can have a huge dissadvatage).

The fight is reset! Why did the other guy stay there again? The fight resets the bad player see’s thieves guild and stands there instead of leaving the area or backing up while the house is still active on shadow refuge. That is plenty of time to get distance in non combat situation that by time the thief gets to the person his stealth is about to wear off or has.

If people would just put some kind of distance then the thief is more forced to blow cd’s and initiative to get a kill to chase. That is playing in your hands not the thiefs. Standing by the shadow refuge plays into the theifs hands.

@OP Do you know why the higher ranked people don’t complain about Thieves? Guess what, they know what to do. You just start calling for changes (be it good or bad) while you have no clue what you are talking about. Just like you said, you never played a Thief. Start playing one for a day, maybe you can beat one if you are competent enough to understand the profession.

Unless things have changed, there was a build you could do to get infinite stealth for a theif. I believe it involved pistol/dagger skill with other deception skills. Its on youtube, Id link it but I am at work and do go on youtube whilst at work.

sostronk.8167:

Unless things have changed, there was a build you could do to get infinite stealth for a theif. I believe it involved pistol/dagger skill with other deception skills. Its on youtube, Id link it but I am at work and do go on youtube whilst at work.

People still getting beaten up because they can’t understand stealth are bad. WvW players are bad in general. Try that P/D ‘infinite’ stealth in sPvP. All the higher ranked people will laugh at you.

Death Henk.7143:

@OP Do you know why the higher ranked people don’t complain about Thieves? Guess what, they know what to do. You just start calling for changes (be it good or bad) while you have no clue what you are talking about. Just like you said, you never played a Thief. Start playing one for a day, maybe you can beat one if you are competent enough to understand the profession.

They don’t have player rankings in WvWvW.

Death Henk.7143:

sostronk.8167:

Unless things have changed, there was a build you could do to get infinite stealth for a theif. I believe it involved pistol/dagger skill with other deception skills. Its on youtube, Id link it but I am at work and do go on youtube whilst at work.

People still getting beaten up because they can’t understand stealth are bad. WvW players are bad in general. Try that P/D ‘infinite’ stealth in sPvP. All the higher ranked people will laugh at you.

Last I checked, thieves were nerfed for Spvp.

Columba.9730:

Death Henk.7143:

sostronk.8167:

Unless things have changed, there was a build you could do to get infinite stealth for a theif. I believe it involved pistol/dagger skill with other deception skills. Its on youtube, Id link it but I am at work and do go on youtube whilst at work.

People still getting beaten up because they can’t understand stealth are bad. WvW players are bad in general. Try that P/D ‘infinite’ stealth in sPvP. All the higher ranked people will laugh at you.

Last I checked, thieves were nerfed for Spvp.

Last I checked nothing involved in your precious ‘infinite stealth’ worked any different in PvP compared to Wvw/PvE