Guild Wars 2

Pretty much the title: if people are serious about balancing ghost thieves and stealth in wvw, then stealth stacking needs to change in some way. Black powder (pistol 5) is the obvious target for changes, as it leaves combo finishers well alone so any group support we have through that is unchanged.

So instead of a smoke field, what if black powder gave a dark field, aoe blind and stealthed the thief for 3s? 4s with SA. Maybe have a skill split with Pvp so that’s left as it is (since the problem is WvW related), that can be discussed.

Pistol offhand builds would then still be able to stealth, they’d gain a lifesteal option which would benefit P/P, and you’d still get enough stealth to reposition etc anyways, but it would make it far harder to continuously stack stealth without building for it. Thieves needing to stealth a group would still have Refuge, the smoke wall and blinding powder.

The main issue I can think of is counterplay, but there is no opportunity to interrupt with bound or permanent stealth thieves already, so hey. The point of this is to force an opportunity cost between stealth and damage.

Genuinely just brainstorming here, so any thoughts are welcome.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of any change to off hand pistol that would increase its utility even more compared to off hand dagger. If you remove the necessity of using a leap or blast finisher in Black Powder, you just make off hand pistol builds even more forgiving to play.

I’m not sure if your reference to “permanent stealth thieves” is directed at the “Ghost Thief” build or not, but if it is, the easiest way to nerf that build is to simply add an insignificant amount of power based damage to each trap, so the thief will be revealed if he his target is hit by a trap.

As far as interrupting the current combos in the smoke field left behind by black powder, it’s quite easy to interrupt a thief using heartseeker through the field. If a thief is using bound to stealth in combo with the field then the thief is using a dodge as well, so there is a trade off. I think a “Press 5 and you gain stealth, an aoe blind, and leave a dark field” skill would be quite overloaded with utility, unless you made it cost quite a lot of initiative, in which case your damage potential would decrease because you’d have less initiative to use on actual damaging weapon skills.

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

i feel like if this happens anet would be forced to put a CD on black powder

Unless you were going to do something where comboing in a smoke field didn’t grant stealth (thus eliminating the loophole altogether) or required that said combo struck a target to “activate” it (thus closing the loophole), I’d say this would just make everything worse.

fluffdragon.1523:

Unless you were going to do something where comboing in a smoke field didn’t grant stealth (thus eliminating the loophole altogether) or required that said combo struck a target to “activate” it (thus closing the loophole), I’d say this would just make everything worse.

“Loophole” implies ambiguity in the design intention. This is working exactly as Anet intended.

Straegen.2938:

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

I don’t think this would be a bad system. Having the stealth timer always be either 3 or 4 seconds and then either 4 or 5 with SA (I gave some extra time available there in case anet decides with that system base stealth needs to be longer) would add more consistency to the thief while still giving it strong access to stealth and if the cd on stealth attacks was removed then you wouldn’t have a the whole issue of “Without stealth stacks you only get 1 try and then you’re stuck”. Also helps to eliminate the natural dominance of offhand pistol as it’d grant the same amount of access to stealth that dagger did. Ofc some things like Shadow refuge would need to be touched to allow for the system to be put into place but I wouldn’t mind stealth behaving like this as I never really have to camp it anyway.

Side note: It would help to appease some of the lack of counterplay that stealth is accused of having, you’d be able to consistently track a target that is stealthing with d/p and you could count the stealth timer to give attentive players a read on when the thief’s window of burst opportunity is.

Edit: Pistol 5 would still have to function the way it does now with maybe a small ini decrease to compensate for it’s lack of stealth stacking ability

The counterplay to pistol 5 is that you have to leap over it to gain any stealth giving the enemy plenty of time to smack you. You hardly drop that much initiative for a couple of pulsing blinds.

I do agree ghost thief needs to be looked at.

~ Kovu

Straegen.2938:

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

Rather like this idea. With like a 4/5s base.

Straegen.2938:

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

This is the best way to approach it, and has been suggested many times in the past as well. Actually, I think all stealthing abilities should work this way, because most people agree that the very notion of stacking stealth is just a bad idea.

They could then remove the reveal when leaving Shadow Refuge and still have it be balanced as an in-and-out ability. A lot of stealth access could subsequently be given a second glance as well. And then permanent stealth no longer exists.

As far as having an easy and cheap OOC stealth tool in general like the OP is suggesting, it’s really not a good idea. Stealth is a powerful effect. It should require some investment and risk to achieve it, and should reward using it at the right times.

DeceiverX.8361:

Straegen.2938:

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

This is the best way to approach it, and has been suggested many times in the past as well. Actually, I think all stealthing abilities should work this way, because most people agree that the very notion of stacking stealth is just a bad idea.

They could then remove the reveal when leaving Shadow Refuge and still have it be balanced as an in-and-out ability. A lot of stealth access could subsequently be given a second glance as well. And then permanent stealth no longer exists.

As far as having an easy and cheap OOC stealth tool in general like the OP is suggesting, it’s really not a good idea. Stealth is a powerful effect. It should require some investment and risk to achieve it, and should reward using it at the right times.

Again, I concur that stealth stacking has to be addressed in some manner but still insist that traits in the SA line that award greater benefits the longer one in stealth would need to be redesigned or the line just would not be competitve.

Obviously this not all skills. Things like RS , Leeching venoms and the like are not tied to length of time in stealth . Things like Shadow rejuv and SE are.

So an SE might change from "cleanse 1 (damaging) condition every 3 seconds while in stealth to “On gaining stealth cleanse 3 (damaging) conditions” and adding a cooldown.

This would mean camping stealth could in fact be counterproductive as condition cleanses would not occur if you just camped stealth. You would get the intitial cleanse then would have to exit and reenter for more.

The health and ini gain off rejuv could work the same way. Award a fatter base amount on achieving stealth and then shutting it off if you remai.n in stealth. If you are not coming out to take some pain you will get no gain from those traits.

This on its own might help limit stealth camping.

Why every week someone comes up with elaborate way nerfing the ghost thief and at the same time breaking the whole class? Ghost thief nerf is so simple and yet it doesn’t affect anything else in the slightest bit – add damage to caltrops and spike trap. Done.

But I guess it’s easier to revamp the whole stealth mechanic, rather than fix the real ‘issue’.

Stealth stacking is fine, when you’re stealthed you’re not doing anything much, except running around. All these talks about limiting stealth are silly.

Looks like if some people here on forums were deciding, all classes would have same normalised attacks and access equally to everything. This isn’t politics.

Straegen.2938:

If I had a say, Stealth abilities would replace existing time instead of add on to it. Then reduce the initiative cost of BP. Thieves should have strong stealth access but that also needs counter play. Being able to go dark indefinitely or even for 10s is absurdly difficult to balance.

In this system total amount of stealth outside of BP stays relatively the same but with more risk to the thief and more opportunity for counter play.

This is a really good suggestion, much better than mine haha like I said I was just brainstorming a bit there, I’d rather find a solution that makes stealth more balanced without destroying a playstyle completely. I mean, if you’re full dire/trailblazer you can afford to be revealed sometimes.

And I don’t have a problem with ghost thieves myself, for the record, I’d just rather not see traps etc nerfed when the problem is stealth stacking. It’s not a problem in pvp as you only want a few seconds of stealth anyways, in wvw it’s way more problematic.

Why is stealth stacking such big issue? Is it breaking game in some way? Why isn’t any other boon stacking problem?
For example why isn’t protection stacking problem? Protection is much more active way of dealing with stuff. Or quickness? Or blocks galore? Or stabilities? Or resistance?
From your opening post it looks like ghost thieves are reason for this suggestion, and everyone knows an easy fix for ghost thieves. And traps wouldn’t be nerfed in any way if you add damage portion to them. Even better, give them large damage portion and it’ll be a welcomed buff for spike trap. Other traps can stay without damage, they are irrelevant.

Thieves are finally getting some action and immidiately there are suggestions for nerfs left and right. Let’s then just delete stealth, give thieves armor and vitality to replace for the loss of defense through stealth and… actually just copy stats from warriors and we’re good.

DeceiverX.8361:

As far as having an easy and cheap OOC stealth tool in general like the OP is suggesting, it’s really not a good idea. Stealth is a powerful effect. It should require some investment and risk to achieve it, and should reward using it at the right times.

I agree that Pistol 5 giving stealth is not good idea, but stealth does require investment and risk, you seem like very experienced thief and you should know that. Even with traiting into stealth a lot, you still need lots of resources to maintain that stealth. Standard D/P build pretty much uses up all initiative to get barely 10 seconds of stealth. And that includes jumping around a red marker on the floor that tells enemies ‘Smash here’.

@Martin
DecieverX said there that the OP’s suggestion for the easy OOC stealth was bad because it takes away part of the investment and Risk that is and should be attached to Stealth.
Essentially you just both said the same thing, though the context is different :P

Anyhow, for the OP’s suggestion.
Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. The issue with those Ghost Thieves comes from two things 1) Trapper Runes’ effect and 2) Lack of Physical damage on Needle Trap + Caltrops.
Easiest fix is to give Needle Trap Physical Damage, it’d make the Trap Stronger, but make the Perma-Stealthing quite tedious.
That said, I don’t like nerfing a build/skill that already isn’t viable for anything other than trolling. Just ignore the Thief and there’s no way that he can pressure you enough to actually get anything done.
Another idea could be the Stealth Disruptor Trap.

Vornollo.5182:

@Martin
DecieverX said there that the OP’s suggestion for the easy OOC stealth was bad because it takes away part of the investment and Risk that is and should be attached to Stealth.
Essentially you just both said the same thing, though the context is different :P

Anyhow, for the OP’s suggestion.
Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. The issue with those Ghost Thieves comes from two things 1) Trapper Runes’ effect and 2) Lack of Physical damage on Needle Trap + Caltrops.
Easiest fix is to give Needle Trap Physical Damage, it’d make the Trap Stronger, but make the Perma-Stealthing quite tedious.
That said, I don’t like nerfing a build/skill that already isn’t viable for anything other than trolling. Just ignore the Thief and there’s no way that he can pressure you enough to actually get anything done.
Another idea could be the Stealth Disruptor Trap.

To be honest, this is also my point: the issue with ghost thief is precisely neither of those two things. I’m fine with the spec getting changed as yes, it’s basically another clone death PU mesmer as has been said, I just want it to not be changed in a way that screws over other builds. My original suggestion clearly didn’t do that when looking back, but I mostly wanted to start a discussion so I’m not bothered about my idea being bad tbh.

The reason trapper runes aren’t the issue is that most thieves that have put thought into it will run plex runes and stealth with D/P, which already gives more than enough stealth when running SA. I run trapper runes on my condi thief because I play P/D, so I want the extra stealth to set up sneak attacks from range which is something ghost thief doesn’t need to do.

ANet is very unlikely to add physical damage to traps as the traps had physical damage originally, and were specifically changed to encourage use with trapper runes. On top of that, needle trap was inexplicably buffed last patch, so you can pretty much guarantee that needle trap won’t get damage added to it in the future. There are also other skills that would fit the bill (knockdown trap, pain inverter (asura racial) with confusion and poison from steal plus plex runes) should a thief want to perma stealth and burst without needle trap.

I’d also like to say that if needle trap gets damage on it again, I’d be fine with that personally as I’d just put geomancy sigils on both weapons to make up for the fact I’m revealed. I don’t play perma stealth, nor do I feel you need to to play traps effectively. I just think that if you consider the health of the profession as a whole, stealth stacking is actually the problem that needs addressing here.

Like I say, I have no issue with nerfs, it’s just irritating when people complain about something then ask for nerfs to things that won’t actually solve the problem haha xD

Edit: Don’t take this as a personal attack or anything, it’s not meant that way. Just explaining my reasoning ^^

Vornollo.5182:

@Martin
DecieverX said there that the OP’s suggestion for the easy OOC stealth was bad because it takes away part of the investment and Risk that is and should be attached to Stealth.
Essentially you just both said the same thing, though the context is different :P

Anyhow, for the OP’s suggestion.
Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. The issue with those Ghost Thieves comes from two things 1) Trapper Runes’ effect and 2) Lack of Physical damage on Needle Trap + Caltrops.
Easiest fix is to give Needle Trap Physical Damage, it’d make the Trap Stronger, but make the Perma-Stealthing quite tedious.
That said, I don’t like nerfing a build/skill that already isn’t viable for anything other than trolling. Just ignore the Thief and there’s no way that he can pressure you enough to actually get anything done.
Another idea could be the Stealth Disruptor Trap.

trapper runes are not behing Ghost Thief. Most Ghost Thiefs do not use trappers runes as it a loss in damage compared to others.

None taken
And I’m aware that hardly any of them run Trapper Runes, but it’s something that I’ve heard others whine about to no end. But that’s why I didn’t say anything about changing that Rune, rather than the traps because the rune really is insignificant to the Ghost Thief. As for proper fixes to Stealth Stacking… I really don’t find it much of an issue at all. I’ve never been killed by such thieves (except one time where I went afk for a moment…) because stacking stealth doesn’t serve any real purpose. They don’t deal enough Condi damage to burst you down with, there’s a very slow reapplication of Condi that it hardly pressures you… It’s annoying, but I don’t think it’s a pressing issue of any sort. If someone wants to be an ineffective nuisance, fine by me. Ignoring them and simply Infiltrator’s Arrow away counters them well enough.
Maybe I’m oblivious to some OP Underworld Community build that capitalizes off Stealth Stacking, but I don’t see an issue. A Thief in Stealth is Harmless until he pops out and starts to use weaponskills I reckon.

I think one issue is not so much the ghost thief doing damage from stealth as it is 2 or three combining from stealth to do the same.

Given the player targetted never sees those thieves they tend to assume it just the one thief and on being downed assume it an OP build. The issue is exacerbated by the tendency of the same “player type” to flock together. (Ie certain types just like to troll. Certain types like to spawn camp and so on)

There also a bit of human psychology at play. From the time of the knights who saw peasants with longbows as “cowardly” to modern warfare where grunts in trenches despised enemy snipers, being killed by someone you can not see or that is in hiding has drawn en emotional type reaction. This translates into the gaming world as well where the player just feels a given battle “not fair” unless they can see an enemy. They might well face a non stealth build that meets and beats them 100 to nothing each and every time they meet , yet be killed ONCE in a day by a ghost thief and save all the vitriol and claims of an OP build for that Ghost thief.

The “fun factor” has to be considered here as this is a game after all and while it hard to be able to determine what will frustrate a given player the most given there so many player types , mechanics that make it too frustrating to play for too many can be harmful to the games health as a whole.

babazhook.6805:

I think one issue is not so much the ghost thief doing damage from stealth as it is 2 or three combining from stealth to do the same.

Given the player targetted never sees those thieves they tend to assume it just the one thief and on being downed assume it an OP build. The issue is exacerbated by the tendency of the same “player type” to flock together. (Ie certain types just like to troll. Certain types like to spawn camp and so on)

There also a bit of human psychology at play. From the time of the knights who saw peasants with longbows as “cowardly” to modern warfare where grunts in trenches despised enemy snipers, being killed by someone you can not see or that is in hiding has drawn en emotional type reaction. This translates into the gaming world as well where the player just feels a given battle “not fair” unless they can see an enemy. They might well face a non stealth build that meets and beats them 100 to nothing each and every time they meet , yet be killed ONCE in a day by a ghost thief and save all the vitriol and claims of an OP build for that Ghost thief.

The “fun factor” has to be considered here as this is a game after all and while it hard to be able to determine what will frustrate a given player the most given there so many player types , mechanics that make it too frustrating to play for too many can be harmful to the games health as a whole.

Exactly. The argument shouldn’t be about whether or not the build is overpowered. Honestly, there are a lot of factors at play to determine this, and it’s been discussed to death; people are in disagreement as to whether or not it’s OP, suggesting that it inherently isn’t.

The reasoning behind why Ghost thief, and stealth stacking in general, needs to be removed is because it’s just simply not fun to deal with. This is a game, not an actual war where winning carries a much more significant amount of weight/merit. What matters is primarily people having fun and enjoying their time, which ultimately is and should be what matters most to ANet; we’re paying for entertainment, and nothing more. That’s a promise that needs to be delivered on for them to profit and feed their families and so on. Fact is, a large majority of the playerbase actively despises this build not inherently because they think it’s numerically overpowered, but because it’s just not fun.

I’m not trolling when I say that I play Power-Shatter Mesmer with Chaos traitline cuz i wanna play a “stealthy high dmg burst” class. so if thief had easier access to stealth than mesmer, i’d love to play it again.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

This is a really good suggestion, much better than mine haha like I said I was just brainstorming a bit there, I’d rather find a solution that makes stealth more balanced without destroying a playstyle completely. I mean, if you’re full dire/trailblazer you can afford to be revealed sometimes.

Just for clarity my suggestion was not mine originally. This was something another user posted in year one of GW2 back when D/P was just wrecking everything. D/P has mellowed out a bit as the thief trait lines have seen numerous nerfs but the heavy access to long term stealth has been a problem since day one.

D/P is just straight up OP in the right hands in small scale WvW. I stopped running it because it gets boring with fixed rotations that are effective against 90% of the builds and near unkillable by the other 10%.