Guild Wars 2

This would be a nerf/buff at the same time and stop all the crying about stealth. If stealth was a boon you could GAIN more just by having boon duration specs in your trait tree. On the flip side if you target has boon removal then they can just rip it right off you. This would also hand classes that don’t normally have stealth skills the chance to use it with the right runes.

The main thing is I was revealed to go back down to 3 seconds and instead give players the power to counter stealth.

Null Field, Null Field everywhere.

It would be cool though.

to counter stealth: attack.

Those that are incapable of already countering it would still not be able to counter it if it was a boon, while those that can counter it already will have even easier times shutting the thief down while at the same time causing thieves to have to redesign their builds, traits and play style to fit in the new “mechanics”

And theres no benefit to the thief with the change, its all negative.

Auesis.7301:

Null Field, Null Field everywhere.

It would be cool though.

Well that’s just it. A aware Mesmer could counter a veil.

with this shadow refuge will be suicide field.

Abilities that remove boons from targets:

Mesmer Greatsword #3
Mesmer Sword #1
Mesmer Null Field
Mesmer Phantom Disenchanter
Mesmer Arcane Thievery

Thief S/D #3

Necro Lich Form #5
Necro Corrupt Boon
Necro Well of Corruption

Now out of those that can be used on a stealthed target (The ones that don’t need a target to be used) it comes down to mostly 2 situational Necro abilities and a bunch of Mesmer abilities.

So very little risk of counterplay, at the cost of being able to have CnD give up to 8 seconds of stealth (4 second base with 15 Shadow Arts + 100% boon duration) and Shadow Refuge giving up to 30 seconds of stealth in an AoE not to mention spammable 6 second duration stealths from finishers in smoke fields…

All it’d do is make thieves even more complained about and hard countered by most Mesmers (Sword auto-attack removing stealth…)

doubt a thief would hit 100% boon duration, theres not much thats useful to a thief on boon duration stuff not for just 1 boon etc.

Not just 1 boon he says. Stealth lasting for 8 seconds causing all stealth related traits to suddenly double in strength is something you call not interesting to a thief?
When im able to double my stealth duration through boon stats on gear, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Regenerate initiative faster in stealth
Cleanse a condition/3seconds in stealth
Regenerate health while in stealth
50% more speed in stealth
Double the chances to get away alive from a bad fight
Double the range at which a fight can be engaged from stealth

ALL OF THESE last longer and/or get more ticks.
The effects of being able to double your stealth duration would be beyond reason.
Not to mention it would increase the value of boon traits which are currently not very wanted on themselves. But when u add the stuf i mentioned above? You’ll be in for a treat, I promise you that.
No, keep it the way it is.

Wow no boon has a debuff after it ends, so remove the debuff and it might be a good idea together with possible duration doubling

Perma-stealth much?
I should be glad there is a cap already.

Vyxion.6358:

Not just 1 boon he says. Stealth lasting for 8 seconds causing all stealth related traits to suddenly double in strength is something you call not interesting to a thief?
When im able to double my stealth duration through boon stats on gear, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Regenerate initiative faster in stealth
Cleanse a condition/3seconds in stealth
Regenerate health while in stealth
50% more speed in stealth
Double the chances to get away alive from a bad fight
Double the range at which a fight can be engaged from stealth

ALL OF THESE last longer and/or get more ticks.
The effects of being able to double your stealth duration would be beyond reason.
Not to mention it would increase the value of boon traits which are currently not very wanted on themselves. But when u add the stuf i mentioned above? You’ll be in for a treat, I promise you that.
No, keep it the way it is.

If you did indeed build for boon duration (so stacking heal power gear) you’d get realistically at most 3 more seconds, thats 1 more initiative regained from trait, 1 more condition cleansed and a bit more health healed.

Of course you’d be doing little damage because you’d need to be wearing said boon duration increase which rarely comes with any form of offensive stats just to get that 4 second increase.

Throw on that mesmers become a straight up hard counter to you and anyone else who happens to get boon removal in the future etc while everyone else will STILL be able to hit you in stealth just the same as now.

And of course while your getting all this benefit for waiting 3 more seconds than usual your also spending 3-4 less seconds actually doing anything to the enemy who will either still be hitting you or healing up and such themselves.

So yeah its still pretty worthless.

no i disagree, mesmers are already hard for thieves, and they got the best boon removal

Turning stealth into a boon would NOT be a good idea:

1. With boon duration runes and consumables, stealth would last longer, making it overpowered
2. Boon removal is pretty rare (most professions don’t have access to it). Most of the boon removal skills require a target, thus they would not work against an already stealthed opponent.
3. Stealth still lacks hard counters e.g. see invisibility skill / trait, anti-stealth area skill / trait and this wouldn’t change the actual problem

Game designers should get through their thick skulls: Powerful game mechanisms, like stealth, should always either have a hard counter or be made extremely scarce. Stealth is implemented badly in this game.

I would want to see the thief profession get better utilities e.g. currently most traps are more or less useless, not just stealth+ hit +stealth + hit class.

Taril.8619:

Abilities that remove boons from targets:

Mesmer Greatsword #3
Mesmer Sword #1
Mesmer Null Field
Mesmer Phantom Disenchanter
Mesmer Arcane Thievery

Thief S/D #3

Necro Lich Form #5
Necro Corrupt Boon
Necro Well of Corruption

Now out of those that can be used on a stealthed target (The ones that don’t need a target to be used) it comes down to mostly 2 situational Necro abilities and a bunch of Mesmer abilities.

So very little risk of counterplay, at the cost of being able to have CnD give up to 8 seconds of stealth (4 second base with 15 Shadow Arts + 100% boon duration) and Shadow Refuge giving up to 30 seconds of stealth in an AoE not to mention spammable 6 second duration stealths from finishers in smoke fields…

All it’d do is make thieves even more complained about and hard countered by most Mesmers (Sword auto-attack removing stealth…)

Mesmer sword#1 only removes a boon with the third chain hit. So its pretty much useless against a stealthed player.
Phantom disenchanter needs a target
Arcane thievery needs a target

So that just leaves GS#3 and null field. GS#3 is also pretty useless since its area of effect is really small and most likely will miss the target. So that leaves mesmer just with one trustworthy skill to rip your boon off.

I have nothing against stealth, your argument just made no sense

Kamata.5762:

Mesmer sword#1 only removes a boon with the third chain hit. So its pretty much useless against a stealthed player.

If you’re bad then it’s useless against a stealthed player.

If you’re capable of knowing the most likely ways a stealthed player is moving then it’s incredibly powerful.

It’s possible to complete attack chains on stealthed players (Or even use one-shot abilities like Cloak and Dagger, that don’t give you 2 hits that swap through attack chains to let you know you’re hitting the target beforehand)

This still leaves them with 3/5 of their abilities that can remove boons off stealthed targets (GS #3 is a skillshot, but if it lands, then it’s gone)

My argument is that it won’t introduce counters to stealth (Since only 1 class will have the tools to actually counter stealth more than once per minute) and that all the suggestion would do is make that one class a hard counter to thieves (Due to how often they can remove boons with Sword) and also make thieves have more stealth (Due to boon duration)

Taril.8619:

Kamata.5762:

Mesmer sword#1 only removes a boon with the third chain hit. So its pretty much useless against a stealthed player.

If you’re bad then it’s useless against a stealthed player.

If you’re capable of knowing the most likely ways a stealthed player is moving then it’s incredibly powerful.

It’s possible to complete attack chains on stealthed players (Or even use one-shot abilities like Cloak and Dagger, that don’t give you 2 hits that swap through attack chains to let you know you’re hitting the target beforehand)

This still leaves them with 3/5 of their abilities that can remove boons off stealthed targets (GS #3 is a skillshot, but if it lands, then it’s gone)

My argument is that it won’t introduce counters to stealth (Since only 1 class will have the tools to actually counter stealth more than once per minute) and that all the suggestion would do is make that one class a hard counter to thieves (Due to how often they can remove boons with Sword) and also make thieves have more stealth (Due to boon duration)

Note that every hit in the chain needs half a second to hit. So the third hit that removes the boon hits after 1.5 seconds youre telling me now that you cant get away in 1.5 seconds with a thief? It doesnt depend on the mesmer if the third chain hits but on the thief. Im a good mesmer. I can destroy thieves even if theyre stealthed. Like I said. I have no problems whatsoever with stealth. Go make a mesmer and try to hit the 3rd chain with sword on stealthed players. + I know that they wont make stealth a boon nor do I find it a good idea. I think its a bad idea. But your argument makes no sense like I said before.

Edit: I also play a thief sometimes in spvp. For the reasons that I know what their mechanics are. You however didnt play mesmer or maybe you did but you dont know anything about them.

Kamata.5762:

Note that every hit in the chain needs half a second to hit. So the third hit that removes the boon hits after 1.5 seconds youre telling me now that you cant get away in 1.5 seconds with a thief?

This isn’t about how long it takes for me to get away as a thief (Especially since I don’t use stealth to get away, since it’s atrocious for actually escaping decent players, whom are the only people I need to get away from)

It’s about how easy it is for people to continue hitting onto stealthed targets that have stealthed for whatever reasons (Either to do damage, escape or to wait for healing just outside of range)

I can consistently hit with Dagger auto-attacks on thieves with my Necro and Thief (Takes 2 seconds to complete a full chain)

I can consistently hit with GS and Axe auto-attacks on my Warrior, Sword auto-attacks on my Mesmer and Guardian.

I can consistently hit with Dagger auto-attacks on my Elementalist (Some attunements are easier than others)

Edit: I also play a thief sometimes in spvp. For the reasons that I know what their mechanics are. You however didnt play mesmer or maybe you did but you dont know anything about them.

Perhaps you haven’t played Thief enough to know the most predictable routes that are used by thieves when they stealth.

• If they stealth to do damage, they’ll make a bee-line to your back
• If they stealth to run away, they’ll run directly away from you
• If they stealth to wait for healing, they’ll dodge back and wait a few feet away from you.

These are the most predictable ways a Thief moves in stealth, why do they do this? Because stealth has a very short duration making less predictable movements riskier since if stealth wears off before you’ve had chance to do what you wanted then you’ve lost out on a big advantage.

Taril.8619:

Kamata.5762:

Note that every hit in the chain needs half a second to hit. So the third hit that removes the boon hits after 1.5 seconds youre telling me now that you cant get away in 1.5 seconds with a thief?

This isn’t about how long it takes for me to get away as a thief (Especially since I don’t use stealth to get away, since it’s atrocious for actually escaping decent players, whom are the only people I need to get away from)

It’s about how easy it is for people to continue hitting onto stealthed targets that have stealthed for whatever reasons (Either to do damage, escape or to wait for healing just outside of range)

I can consistently hit with Dagger auto-attacks on thieves with my Necro and Thief (Takes 2 seconds to complete a full chain)

I can consistently hit with GS and Axe auto-attacks on my Warrior, Sword auto-attacks on my Mesmer and Guardian.

I can consistently hit with Dagger auto-attacks on my Elementalist (Some attunements are easier than others)

Edit: I also play a thief sometimes in spvp. For the reasons that I know what their mechanics are. You however didnt play mesmer or maybe you did but you dont know anything about them.

Perhaps you haven’t played Thief enough to know the most predictable routes that are used by thieves when they stealth.

• If they stealth to do damage, they’ll make a bee-line to your back
• If they stealth to run away, they’ll run directly away from you
• If they stealth to wait for healing, they’ll dodge back and wait a few feet away from you.

These are the most predictable ways a Thief moves in stealth, why do they do this? Because stealth has a very short duration making less predictable movements riskier since if stealth wears off before you’ve had chance to do what you wanted then you’ve lost out on a big advantage.

Lol, you really think that Im a bad player? I know how to deal with thieves. Its easy. I can hit them too with my chain, all 3 of them. But what about good thieves? Ive seen many thieves that were harder to kill than most of them due to them knowing when to dodge etc. Now look at this, Im a thief and youre a mesmer. I stealth and I know that you will auto attack me to remove my stealth boon, what will I do? Let you remove it, or just press V and dodge it? When I play a thief and I fight a warrior or a close combat class, I always dodge right after CnD when that person is on rage auto attack mode. Like I said, its more or less the thieves choice to get hit by melee.

Kamata.5762:

you really think that Im a bad player?

I don’t know anything about your skills in game (I haven’t played with/against you) so all I’m going on is your previous posts going on about how hard it is to hit with auto-attacks (Namely the Mesmers Sword) which you mention in this post that you do also hit them with your sword auto attacks.

But what about good thieves?

Against good thieves that evaded initial hits (Though if you’re saying that all melee attacks are negated by a thief in stealth dodging backwards…) then Stealth (The primary defensive mechanism for Thieves, which they get instead of high health, high armour, easy access to defensive boons and the like) actually becomes a defensive skill.

Yay for balance!

Ive seen many thieves that were harder to kill than most of them due to them knowing when to dodge etc. Now look at this, Im a thief and youre a mesmer. I stealth and I know that you will auto attack me to remove my stealth boon, what will I do? Let you remove it, or just press V and dodge it? When I play a thief and I fight a warrior or a close combat class, I always dodge right after CnD when that person is on rage auto attack mode. Like I said, its more or less the thieves choice to get hit by melee.

I’ve been in the situation where a thief has stealthed and dodged back immediately, but due to similar amounts of predictability it’s possible to just move forwards to their new location and continue the attacking sequence once again. If they dodge a second time, they’re most likely out of endurance (Unless 15 into Acrobatics) and rapidly running out of stealth duration. This negates pressure that they can apply from stealth (Thus rendering Stealth for damage countered), makes them vulnerable when they exit stealth (Thus rendering Stealth for healing countered) and makes it so they’ve had to spend time trying to not die instead of escaping (Thus rendering Stealth for escape, semi-countered unless utilities and such are used to shadow step away)

Then of course the other option to ensure attacks onto a Thief is to use control abilities, Cripple, Chill, Immobilize, Stun, Knockdown and Knockback can help to assure where a thief is if they stealth during/after one of these are applied.

As it is, Stealth is a rather weak defensive ability that is also the reason why Thieves have little to no other ways to avoid/reduce damage. Having it also require the only other tool Thieves have to avoid damage (Dodging) to actually provide anything against a good player helps further weaken it.

Adding ways to effectively shut down this rather limited defence either on auto-attacks (In case a Thief can’t/hasn’t been able to dodge all 3 parts of the chain during stealth (Heck if you get the first 2 parts of the chain off before they stealth, you only need to land 1 hit to remove the stealth)) or via other abilities (GS #3 isn’t reliable but can work with good prediction, heck with a 0.25 activation I dare say it’s possible to whack it down right ontop of where the thief was when he went into stealth via CnD, unless he dodges immediately his stealth is gone) would be crippling to a thief, but only versus the one class (Which is already a good chance for either side to win, neither have a huge advantage over the other) all the while making Stealth more cheesy for other classes to fight against (Longer duration = less predictable movements are possible = less possible counters also issues with Stealthing allies and giving people no time to react to attacks)

Also there’s the issue of Null Field (45 second cooldown) and Well of Corruption (45 second cooldown) completely negating Shadow Refuge (60 second cooldown)

@Taril

I never said I evaded backwards. There is your mistake. You think that you know every possible tactic ever in the game. So I guess that you also never lost a 1v1 fight. It sounds like youre stating that you can hit every single attack on whoever is playing.

I was never talking about CC, and I dont count them in, neither do I count null field or well of corruption in since you have to try your best to misplace those skills. My only problem with you is that youre stating that you can hit every single auto attack on a stealthed thief. With no immobilized no cripples etc..

Kamata.5762:

You think that you know every possible tactic ever in the game.

Not every tactic, but the most common ones, that get used by the majority of the playerbase.

So I guess that you also never lost a 1v1 fight. It sounds like youre stating that you can hit every single attack on whoever is playing.

I’ve lost plenty of 1v1 fights. Never to a thief though (On any of my characters) is that purely down to my skill? No, I’d assume that most of the Thieves I’ve gone against were bad.

I was never talking about CC, and I dont count them in, neither do I count null field or well of corruption in since you have to try your best to misplace those skills. My only problem with you is that youre stating that you can hit every single auto attack on a stealthed thief. With no immobilized no cripples etc..

If you count in Dodges to assist with escaping being hit when stealthed, you should also include CC to assist in doing hits to stealthed targets.

I also didn’t say that I hit every auto-attack on a stealthed target (Not limited to thieves, I’ve faced plenty of Mesmers that use stealth, in fact the last kill I got was against a Mesmer who’d popped Mass Invisibility) but that I can consistently get hits off.

Meaning I do miss occasionally and have spent a lot of time swinging at air, but that I also land full auto-attack chains a good portion of the time (Or other abilities such as Cloak and Dagger, Burning Speed, Throw Axe, Cyclone Axe, Whirlwind Attack, Maul etc that don’t have 2 skills changing to give a big “You’re hitting the target, keep attacking that area” signs)

@Taril

When I read that you only played against bad thieves I stopped reading and this conversation is over. Have fun destroying bad pvpers while Im having fun and fighting good pvpers.

Kamata.5762:

@Taril

When I read that you only played against bad thieves I stopped reading and this conversation is over.

I don’t recall saying I only played against bad thieves.

I said I assume they’re bad, due to how easily I counter their stealth attempts (Either dodging CnD or just continuing to attack them while stealthed)

But of course that could be a sign of Stealth being pretty easy to counter (I do similar things vs good Mesmers that utilise stealth)

AoE > Stealth. Just saying.

There are also Sigils to rip boons. I really should have posted this in the WvW forum or General. Stealth is a main ability of thieves but is not unique to them. A mesmer could mass stealth a zerg (they already do) and a good one can shut it down almost as fast. Personally I would never trait for boon duration because it would shut down my damage and as someone above me posted we would be doing nothing in that timeframe. Trolls will be trolls and baddies the same when it comes to slapping on a heal and just running away for 5~10 seconds but they are running because they can’t do kitten to you anyways.

tl;dr Making it a boon would just make counters. People want a “hard” counter to stealth instead of just swinging around and throwing down AoEs so give them one and as a trade off return the revealed duration.

Problem is thief isn’t strong enough to survive being hard countered.

In higher tier there actually one of the weaker pvp choices due to the lack of actual damage reduction and easy to counter without changing your build defenses, in lower tier even with hard counters there will still be those that will think its ridiculously powerful that thieves can go invisible.

You have the burst thieves that are capable of potentially downing a single individual in 1 burst every minute or so, a feat many professions are able to do easier in many cases which are easily counter-able already by decent players and then you have the non burst thieves that build in a way that puts them around the same level as the average profession who can do well due to skill but will reach a point where professions without as many inherent weaknesses will start doing better regardless.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Game designers should get through their thick skulls: Powerful game mechanisms, like stealth, should always either have a hard counter or be made extremely scarce. Stealth is implemented badly in this game.

and ?
4 seconds revealed for an squishy clas is not an hard counter ?
I am sorry but i am not really sure what you try to point here.
Thief stealth
guardian -retailation
warriors -imunes to psihical damage for 18 seconds every 90 seconds … etc

more counters to stealth = no backstab / no pistol wisp etc
how to kill enemy’s autoatack ?

Stealth already has several counters. ;/ and the QQs of bad players who dunno how to counter it will never go away unless they delete Thief.

If stealth was made into a boon then it could be coded to have 0 duration but stack intensity at 1s intervals (5s of stealth = 5 stacks that count down every second). However I think its something that should have been considered before the other nerfs. A decent idea but a little too late.

The suggestion of turning stealth into a boon would grant the possibility of people being actually able to rip it off. I see people complaining about having that aspect, but I guess us thieves will remain with our stealth unrippable. It seems people will always complain about thieves.