Guild Wars 2

When a CLASS DEFINING ability that we’ve been using for the last 6 months (and almost a year if you played through the betas) gets changed… you have to wonder what happened.

However, the patch notes were very subtle about the change, and I personally haven’t seen a post from ArenaNet.

Why was stealth changed?
Is there a post (from ArenaNet) explaining the reason for the change?

I’ve seen discussion threads like these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Enemies-are-expert-trackers-now-stealth/
But would love to get a REAL response.

Ill learn to live with it. But I think It was unnecessary.
So I like to know why too

Sinsko.9342:

When a CLASS DEFINING ability that we’ve been using for the last 6 months (and almost a year if you played through the betas) gets changed… you have to wonder what happened.

However, the patch notes were very subtle about the change, and I personally haven’t seen a post from ArenaNet.

Why was stealth changed?
Is there a post (from ArenaNet) explaining the reason for the change?

I’ve seen discussion threads like these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Enemies-are-expert-trackers-now-stealth/
But would love to get a REAL response.

perhaps it was to allow rangers’ pets to attack them better.

Sinsko.9342:

When a CLASS DEFINING ability that we’ve been using for the last 6 months (and almost a year if you played through the betas) gets changed… you have to wonder what happened.

However, the patch notes were very subtle about the change, and I personally haven’t seen a post from ArenaNet.

Why was stealth changed?
Is there a post (from ArenaNet) explaining the reason for the change?

I’ve seen discussion threads like these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Enemies-are-expert-trackers-now-stealth/
But would love to get a REAL response.

I would like to hear their thought process behind this one.

skupuz.6940:

Sinsko.9342:

When a CLASS DEFINING ability that we’ve been using for the last 6 months (and almost a year if you played through the betas) gets changed… you have to wonder what happened.

However, the patch notes were very subtle about the change, and I personally haven’t seen a post from ArenaNet.

Why was stealth changed?
Is there a post (from ArenaNet) explaining the reason for the change?

I’ve seen discussion threads like these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Enemies-are-expert-trackers-now-stealth/
But would love to get a REAL response.

I would like to hear their thought process behind this one.

I second that.

Sifu.6527:

skupuz.6940:

Sinsko.9342:

When a CLASS DEFINING ability that we’ve been using for the last 6 months (and almost a year if you played through the betas) gets changed… you have to wonder what happened.

However, the patch notes were very subtle about the change, and I personally haven’t seen a post from ArenaNet.

Why was stealth changed?
Is there a post (from ArenaNet) explaining the reason for the change?

I’ve seen discussion threads like these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Enemies-are-expert-trackers-now-stealth/
But would love to get a REAL response.

I would like to hear their thought process behind this one.

I second that.

third…

I really wait for an explanation too.

The reason I’ve heard was it was to fix a bug that caused mobs including Champions to immediately drop combat when the thief stealthed, causing the mob to fully heal up. It basically tripped their combat over protocol.

It was done so that mobs wont reset when the players enter stealth.
Or so was said.

If anyone is struggling with dungeon runs as a result, simply having a pistol off-hand, using black powder and cluster bombing it at a reasonable distance from mobs, followed by a shadow refuge and again by black powder and cluster bombs if need be. This should be more than enough to drop agro on mobs!

How would you do that? That is two weapon sets occupied, you aren’t seriously suggesting using those two, SB and /P, in dungeons, by default?

frans.8092:

How would you do that? That is two weapon sets occupied, you aren’t seriously suggesting using those two, SB and /P, in dungeons, by default?

I’ve done it, and lived. My Thief was SB/Dual P for most of her existence. Although, I
still experiment with other combinations.

It’s very much the default setup for anything difficult. Shortbow has so much utility, I’d never run without it. Pistol offhand is similar in its utility and therefore is another common option.

It’s not vital, but it is an option to overcome this change.

I’d like to hear the reason for this change as well. I played a Thief for many hours (it was my main character) and the mob resetting was not that big of problem in my experience.

Becouse the “thief community” asked for mobs (specially skill chalanges) not to reset after you stealth. Becouse thief community has so slow fingers, they didnt have enough time to stealthattack mobs after they stealthed. Well here you have it, enjoy.

Mob resetting and regenerating ultra fast was surely the major issue of the PvE lone thief.

As a solo thief hunter of champions I must admit that the frustration generated by a champion regenerating after 15mn of very intense fight makes me shout insanities at my computer.

Even on trash it’s very annoying, especially when they RUN away once you stealth.
I even posted a thread complaining about this issue.
I’m afraid that this recent nerf COULD be a lazy fix for this issue?!

Mobs AI should be fixed and go through a different process upon loss of all threat or for being too far from their spawn point. ( I won’t post possibilities here; it should be done in a separate thread.)

IF this is a fix to help the solo PvE thief then it’s ugly and stupid.
Don’t complain at Anet that your dog is barking, they would kill it!

IF it’s about nerfing the grouped PvE thief, so in dungeons, I don’t see the point at all, since our class desirability is already quite low, and Anet knows it, so why making it even lower?

They changed it to fix a bug with bosses resetting (mainly with Arah’s boss from hell). But they only focused and fixed resetting and didn’t even stop to think even a little about how it effected Thieves, thus causing more bugs and mechanic flaws.

Karolis.4261:

Becouse the “thief community” asked for mobs (specially skill chalanges) not to reset after you stealth. Becouse thief community has so slow fingers, they didnt have enough time to stealthattack mobs after they stealthed. Well here you have it, enjoy.

There was no time to stealth attack certain skill challenge mobs, they’d turn friendly the moment you stealthed and run back to their spawn point.

Because Thieves today rely more on stealth then they ever have. This change means that new Thieves will be forced to learn movement more, and not rely on bad habits. It also allows for an easier transfer over to PvP, as players don’t reset like mobs use to do.

I find only one problem with the change. Some enemies still target and attack you when you move around in stealth. I fought a fire imp and it seamed like it could see me through stealth and I was pummeled with fireballs.

Seriously, can anyone point me a problem with the change? I’m loving it so far. Makes a solo thief actually playable while using stealth.

Doggie.3184:

They changed it to fix a bug with bosses resetting (mainly with Arah’s boss from hell). But they only focused and fixed resetting and didn’t even stop to think even a little about how it effected Thieves, thus causing more bugs and mechanic flaws.

Do you have a post from ArenaNet on this?

Being primarily a PvE Thief and Dungeons being my favorite and most played part of the game… there have only been a handful of times that a boss has reset on my group unexpectedly. I would be absolutely devastated if this is the reason.

Now that they changed how stealth affects aggro, can we have our original Shadow Protector back?

5 secs of protection instead of healing.

I posted this in another thread but just gonna copy it here. lol

I for one liked how the mechanics functioned before the patch.
It was cool to have a build that consisted of high toughness which allocates aggro tables to put that character higher on the priority list, when the character itself is squishy but was able to stealth to give aggro to someone else, heal, and support. But to nullify the only means to reset aggro and (situational) send it to someone who has high vitality/specific boons etc.. and set the thief back up on the aggro table is really breaking how the class is played in my opinion.
So basically a stealth build thief is now just a squishy warrior with high toughness making it a higher threat to mobs on aggro tables who uses stealth to try to heal and backstab (If they’re even using D/D) instead of just using straight out healing utilities and boons like real warriors do!? Thanks Anet T_T

However I am still fairly new to GW2 and I guess I just might not understand how Anet works, but my question(s) are:
1) Did any person who normally plays thief ask for this?
2) Did Anet disclose that they were thinking of changing aggro tables for stealth and ask the community’s opinion since virtually no one was talking about it?…LOL
3) Is it me, or is all this information being shared on this thread, though insightful on both ends of the one sided argument going to be acknowledged by Anet at all? A bit of time has passed since the patch and still no word (that I know of) from an Anet representative on the matter to at least explain their reasons for changing a mechanic that no one asked to be changed. :/

I do understand I might be asking a lot of Anet by suggesting to..you know.. interact with it’s members lol. Especially on an issue like this in which they change a mechanic in the best interest of said members and also which has received the majority opinion of WTF!? Why!?. But some sort of explanation would be cool :/ Then again I might be asking too much.

If there is a thread of what I have mentioned. Please link because I have seemed to have missed it.

I don’t really know either but I guess because dropping aggro from being focused by all enemies to not being attacked at all was really strong. Stealth rez might be another reason.

I don’t know if the nerf was necessary since I don’t main a thief but from playing with a lot of thiefs I would say no.

I really don’t mind the change from the “resetting mobs” standpoint.

However, while I understand Kasama’s point about Thieves relying too much on stealth and not enough on movement, this seems like a pretty kitten poor way to encourage people to play smarter. I feel like the point of stealth is rather negated when I have to dodge roll to avoid new attacks when I should theoretically be invisible.

Rolyate.6753:

It’s very much the default setup for anything difficult. Shortbow has so much utility, I’d never run without it. Pistol offhand is similar in its utility and therefore is another common option.

It’s not vital, but it is an option to overcome this change.

It’s pretty silly to equip /P and Shortbow so you can Cluster Bomb your Black Powder to create enough stealth to get away. You can not exchange weapons while in-combat so your stuck with them. And while neither of them are really bad, I wouldn’t want to be stuck with them.

The change seems to make it easier to backstab mobs, once you C&D them they’re just standing still it seems. Does make it harder to fight them in groups it seems. I also have the impression that some melee attacks now behave more like channeling skills.

No official response found yet… drat… gonna keep waiting I guess.

Does ArenaNet look at the class forums? lol

they probably have a team or at least a few people reading up on all of the forums
how else would they manage closing threads that involve too many obscenities ?
can’t have that much unsupervised chaos
but they also can’t go answering in all of them
the ones reading all of them might not know the correct answers,or they are not allowed to answer,or they just can’t answer every question for,well,just multiple different reasons,is what i’m guessing

As far as I’ve seen, the people who do most of the moderating on the forums are completely separate from the game devs, so I’m guessing that a great deal of on content on the forums gets ignored from anyone who can actually impact game changes.

If that’s not the reality, that’s certainly how it feels. I see many and more thoughtful, productive threads get completely ignored by ArenaNet, and even the most massive threads don’t seem to get much (if any) feedback.

It’s possible that I’m biased and they’re just low on manpower/time, but anymore I feel like they just don’t care about what people say on the forums. The changes I saw in the latest patch seemed to pretty much ignore the vast majority of playerbase opinion.

I don’t know about you guys, but I love the change. Now I can backstab Giganticus Lupicus without it resetting. It improved my overall DPS in dungeons by a lot.

Raidium.3916:

I don’t know about you guys, but I love the change. Now I can backstab Giganticus Lupicus without it resetting. It improved my overall DPS in dungeons by a lot.

I never had an issue with him resetting… just curious as to what would possibly cause a reset?

That is of course, aside from the rest of your group being out of combat or climbing under your shadow refuge without attacking?

I can only think of a handful of times that a boss actually reset when we didn’t want it to… but in EVERY dungeon I run I feel the pain of being top of the aggro table.

If this was a change to “help” the thief in PvE, revert it. I never had problems with mobs resetting. This new change just means as soon as I’m visible again, I get attacked. There needs to be a second or two before a mob can react when you appear.

style.6173:

If this was a change to “help” the thief in PvE, revert it. I never had problems with mobs resetting. This new change just means as soon as I’m visible again, I get attacked. There needs to be a second or two before a mob can react when you appear.

seriously
if this WAS the reason
never had i once gotten a mob to reset on me when leveling my thief using Cloak and Dagger and Backstab
if people actually had an issue with this it’s either a bug that only affected some people (highly unlikely) or just idiots who thought they could Stealth for the full duration to get passive effects in stealth to start activating or something
if not that,then they must have just been too stupid to understand how to act quick enough (which the timeframe was huge anyway) and they really just should NOT be rolling a thief,if that’s the case,period

Alpha.1308:

style.6173:

If this was a change to “help” the thief in PvE, revert it. I never had problems with mobs resetting. This new change just means as soon as I’m visible again, I get attacked. There needs to be a second or two before a mob can react when you appear.

seriously
if this WAS the reason
never had i once gotten a mob to reset on me when leveling my thief using Cloak and Dagger and Backstab
if people actually had an issue with this it’s either a bug that only affected some people (highly unlikely) or just idiots who thought they could Stealth for the full duration to get passive effects in stealth to start activating or something
if not that,then they must have just been too stupid to understand how to act quick enough (which the timeframe was huge anyway) and they really just should NOT be rolling a thief,if that’s the case,period

It had nothing to do with reaction times. Bosses like Lupicus were resetting instantaneously ignoring the other players in the area. Basically, the thief would stealth and the boss would forget the other party members along with the thief and reset the fight.

Dual.8953:

Alpha.1308:

style.6173:

If this was a change to “help” the thief in PvE, revert it. I never had problems with mobs resetting. This new change just means as soon as I’m visible again, I get attacked. There needs to be a second or two before a mob can react when you appear.

seriously
if this WAS the reason
never had i once gotten a mob to reset on me when leveling my thief using Cloak and Dagger and Backstab
if people actually had an issue with this it’s either a bug that only affected some people (highly unlikely) or just idiots who thought they could Stealth for the full duration to get passive effects in stealth to start activating or something
if not that,then they must have just been too stupid to understand how to act quick enough (which the timeframe was huge anyway) and they really just should NOT be rolling a thief,if that’s the case,period

It had nothing to do with reaction times. Bosses like Lupicus were resetting instantaneously ignoring the other players in the area. Basically, the thief would stealth and the boss would forget the other party members along with the thief and reset the fight.

So one bugged boss that doesn’t interact correctly with ANY form of stealth, is a justification to destroy a class defining mechanic? Instead of fixing the bugged boss? Brilliant.

Sinsko.9342:

Raidium.3916:

I don’t know about you guys, but I love the change. Now I can backstab Giganticus Lupicus without it resetting. It improved my overall DPS in dungeons by a lot.

I never had an issue with him resetting… just curious as to what would possibly cause a reset?

That is of course, aside from the rest of your group being out of combat or climbing under your shadow refuge without attacking?

I can only think of a handful of times that a boss actually reset when we didn’t want it to… but in EVERY dungeon I run I feel the pain of being top of the aggro table.

Umm I usually duo Lupicus with a warrior and occasionally the warrior needs to space to replenish his health out of combat while I hold aggro backstabbing it without a reset. I also don’t understand why people are complaining about “PvE” thieves? Maybe thieves need to learn to dodge instead of hiding in stealth 24/7. This mechanic change is definitely a buff for backstab.

Raidium.3916:

Sinsko.9342:

Raidium.3916:

I don’t know about you guys, but I love the change. Now I can backstab Giganticus Lupicus without it resetting. It improved my overall DPS in dungeons by a lot.

I never had an issue with him resetting… just curious as to what would possibly cause a reset?

That is of course, aside from the rest of your group being out of combat or climbing under your shadow refuge without attacking?

I can only think of a handful of times that a boss actually reset when we didn’t want it to… but in EVERY dungeon I run I feel the pain of being top of the aggro table.

Umm I usually duo Lupicus with a warrior and occasionally the warrior needs to space to replenish his health out of combat while I hold aggro backstabbing it without a reset. I also don’t understand why people are complaining about “PvE” thieves? Maybe thieves need to learn to dodge instead of hiding in stealth 24/7. This mechanic change is definitely a buff for backstab.

Ahhh another ‘learn to dodge’ argument… which then I could follow with something cynical like “Dodging is not the issue.. although if you’re running with greens and blues you might not be on top of the threat chart either.” – but that’s not constructive and doesn’t help the situation at hand.

However since you brought this up and you’re the one ‘holding aggro’ so your teammate can heal… I’m curious… do you backstab from the front? or do you use your stealth time running through/around the boss to get behind it to backstab?

Cause it would seem to any rational person that the time it takes running around a monster like Giganticus Lupicus is valuable damage dealing time where before we could C&D/Backstab swap almost instantaneous.

Just thinking about it though there are also 3 people in the group that are hopefully doing something else constructive… so then you put the boss on a spinning pedestal each time you stealth which means attacks are flying all over the place in all directions and causes more trouble for the group overall especially in fights where aoe/cone damage is apperant like the spider in AC Explorable.

Am I over-thinking this? I hope so. It’s over-thinking things that help groups understand and progress… and it’s what coordinating traits in a group for maximum damage output and survival is all about.

So it’s clear to say that with the aforementioned that the issue is not dodging, but the mechanics of an encounter based on the stealth change.

Of course, all of this is irrelevant because the initial question at hand in the subject matter that you are referencing was never answered in your banter about all this ‘complaining’ and learning to dodge. Let me remind you what it was:
Just curious as to what would possibly cause a reset?

What about the down #3 ability? That ability sucks in PvE now…

I never had stealth drop aggro, unless I worked to have it do so. I liked that I could use it to drop aggro. It was another tool, and another option.

Now I only dodge, and am reworking my build without any stealth. Stealth is pretty useless to me now as it is like a taunt when exiting stealth. No matter how far I manage to go in stealth, the mobs instantly know where I am and keep attacking.

Previously, I could get it to drop aggro when I wanted. Now….it is good for backstab I suppose, but I was never a backstab thief.

Feels like a duelist or something now, not a sneaky thief. Much of the fun is gone for me, personally.

As a thief, I dodge and evade constantly, and using stealth to drop aggro was a great tool in addition to that. Now….it is much more dull, and the thief is much less fun for me.

Really, I never used stealth that much since I did not need to to set up a backstab, for example. But as I used it for an aggro drop, it was fun and useful.

Sadly, a lot of the fun is gone as the feel of the gameplay has become a bit more limited and…just duller. I play my necro a lot more now.

Some people like it, but for me…it is just one less tool.