Guild Wars 2

TL:DR – Change anti-stealth traps to “show the player” regardless of the stealth state. This allows the thief’s 12 stealth dependent traits (10 of them in the Shadow Arts line) to still function. I’m fine either way of how this would affect stealth #1 attacks.

I don’t mind revealed, and didn’t even when it was 4 seconds. This may slow down the builds I play, but ultimately it is just forces the thief to slow down a bit. I do mind revealed at 30 seconds. This is not because of being unable to stealth per se, but because of the profound impact it has on certain trait lines.

Most people are familiar with the (in)famous Hidden Killer trait in the critical strikes line. This is what ever GC backstab build uses. A few people might know about Fleet Shadow in acrobatics, but not many. That’s it, right? Oh wait, we missed a trait line – SHadow Arts.

All 3 minor traits and 7 major traits in the Shadow Arts trait line are built around stealth. All of these are rendered useless with the generous 30 second revealed state that traps bring with them. I would propose a way to keep the intent of traps intact, while letting “on/in stealth” traits to still function. I’m going to assume the intent was to reveal the location of players, rather than to neuter Shadow Arts thieves.

How can we do this? Change the nature of the anti-stealth trap’s revealed debuff. Make it different from the standard revealed, which prevents stealth, and make it into one that shows the location of the player (standard non-stealth graphics) regardless of stealth. This could also prevent the use of stealth attacks such as backstab.

I would convert it to a “Flare Trap”, or something with a similiar name. When triggered, it explodes loudly and fizzles like the end of a sparkler, brightly lighting the area. Stealthed enemies become silhouettes, identical to what a player looks like to themselves, but with more refraction/shadow from the light.

You wouldn’t be able to target them, but you can still clearly see them and hit them with anything you want, be it melee cleaves, AoE, whatever.

The key would be the sound and bright light. It would become a “LOOK HERE, SOMEONE IS TRYING TO SNEAK PAST” trap, instead of a “completely shut down any player trying to use stealth until they die or run” trap.

Auesis.7301:

I would convert it to a “Flare Trap”, or something with a similiar name. When triggered, it explodes loudly and fizzles like the end of a sparkler, brightly lighting the area. Stealthed enemies become silhouettes, identical to what a player looks like to themselves, but with more refraction/shadow from the light.

You wouldn’t be able to target them, but you can still clearly see them and hit them with anything you want, be it melee cleaves, AoE, whatever.

The key would be the sound and bright light. It would become a “LOOK HERE, SOMEONE IS TRYING TO SNEAK PAST” trap, instead of a “completely shut down any player trying to use stealth until they die or run” trap.

I agree, much like the flare ability that hunters have in WoW, it reveals you so you have to run out of it to stealth again. What we have now is way too OP and completely dominates any stealth build, traits, etc.

I don’t want to be infracted again but honestly, did any thought go into this trap? Can we get some dev insight on what is going to be done? Do you just not want thieves in WvW at all?

Honestly I want to see how this trap plays out for a week or so. There is always a lot of first day the sky is falling talk but we don’t know how people will utilize or abuse this trap. Though I do feel 30s is much to long. I think I would be much happier with 10s. The arrangement I see people throwing around is it is to counter veil bombs and mass invis tactics. That may be true but the normal 3s revealed would be enough for that. The point would be to get them out of stealth.

Along with traits it renders part of 1 heal skill and 2 utility’s useless.

my guild uses mass invis. it gives us MAYBE a suprise 2 sec jump on enemy zerg….but its hard to run 4 secs of invis as a larger group and surpise anyway anyway….u know whewre they are bc they are too big to move in any 1 direction :P….

srry went off there on a tangent…..my question is …was INVIS ever that big a deal on mass scale? never heard a complaint. kinda reminds me of trick shot.

Travlane.5948:

my guild uses mass invis. it gives us MAYBE a suprise 2 sec jump on enemy zerg….but its hard to run 4 secs of invis as a larger group and surpise anyway anyway….u know whewre they are bc they are too big to move in any 1 direction :P….

srry went off there on a tangent…..my question is …was INVIS ever that big a deal on mass scale? never heard a complaint. kinda reminds me of trick shot.

True