Guild Wars 2

Can we nerf the dagger pistol perma stealth rubbish?

Don’t know about every other non thief out there, but these thieves that can solo a bunch of people and win, due to perma stealth is bull ****, so over fighting them, I just walk away now, as it takes to many resources to down just one of these pugs.

Perma stealth is extremely annoying, and needs to be stopped, there is serious balance issues when 1 toon cant take on 5 and win, class match ups should be even and balance better.

Curious what you encountered, do you have a video?
Or if you missed the record button, roll a D/P thief and demonstrate taking, for example, a supply camp (only NPC’s) with permastealth.

Solo a bunch of people and win?

Usually the threads define a thief winning as them not dieing and having to run off. Is this the definition you are working with here, OP?

Stealth is very poorly designed in this game, making this class laughably easy. I encourage you to send respectful and persistent feedback to anet and NCSoft. Perhaps they will change stealth so that the thief class can get other fixes it dearly needs. Right now, the player base will revolt if thieves get buffed.

Sanduskel.1850:

Stealth is very poorly designed in this game, making this class laughably easy. I encourage you to send respectful and persistent feedback to anet and NCSoft. Perhaps they will change stealth so that the thief class can get other fixes it dearly needs. Right now, the player base will revolt if thieves get buffed.

“Please break the class completely so that they can rebuild it after everyone quits.”

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

Incurafy.6329:

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

It’s actually easier now lol

Sanduskel.1850:

It’s actually easier now lol

How so? Show us, oh, master thief.

Sanduskel.1850:

Incurafy.6329:

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

It’s actually easier now lol

No it’s not. The days of spamming HS 3-4 times through BP to get perma stealth while not having to worry about cool downs or running out of initiative was as easy as it gets… and that was nerfed into the ground Dec 10th. Now unless you can show us an alternative way that makes the December nerf moot, the Devs are likely to look in this thread and then come to the inevitable conclusion that someone is trolling.

Don’t feed the troll.

wrong thread and wrong game …

Shrike.3154:

Perma stealth is extremely annoying, and needs to be stopped, there is serious balance issues when 1 toon cant take on 5 and win, class match ups should be even and balance better.

I can understand it being annoying to deal with. However, where did you see a D/P thief take on 5 players and win? the only way this happens is if all 5 players were terrible at their class or upleveled. In most cases a roaming thief like roaming warrior or roaming ele or roaming ranger etc will simply disengage from a group of 5 players. they didn’t win they were just smart enough to realize they can’t win 5 vs 1.

Perma stealth is impossible without utilities that have long CDs and even with them it wont be permanent. During this time a thief can not attack in any etc drop a field (caltrops, and poison field). If you are having issues with D/P name your class and you’ll likely find a rather easy counter that requires you to be aware. If you play ranger your sol outside of Spvp. Most thieves won’t be an easy counter.

Shrike.3154:

Can we nerf the dagger pistol perma stealth rubbish?

Don’t know about every other non thief out there, but these thieves that can solo a bunch of people and win, due to perma stealth is bull ****, so over fighting them, I just walk away now, as it takes to many resources to down just one of these pugs.

Perma stealth is extremely annoying, and needs to be stopped, there is serious balance issues when 1 toon cant take on 5 and win, class match ups should be even and balance better.

I don’t know how many times I need to say it… Do not use the term “perma-stealth” when speaking about said thief winning any form of combat. “Perma-stealth” is not achievable in combat whatsoever. You can stealth repeatedly yes.. after waiting for the “revealed” debuff to wear off, but it’s barely even possible to get a stomp on anyone in a group of 5 unless literally nobody is paying attention and doesn’t think to res the downed guy. Some thief did not go and kill 5 people 1 by 1 by 1 while being completely invisible.

Even stealth stomping doesn’t work well because we don’t get stability, so you can still use a knockback on the body and we will go flying. Even 2 people ressing 1 guy will res him faster than the stomp will finish. We could DPS him down, sure… but we wouldn’t be stealthed if so. Besides that’s 3 guys, what are the other 2 doing at this time?

Bottom line: “Perma-stealth” was never and still isn’t possible while being in combat.. Also, the nerf to infusion of shadows already nerfed attainable stealth DURATION using BP+HS combo and still retaining ample initiative, and also nerfed the ability for large amounts of OUT OF COMBAT stealth without having to use utility skills (which was what ANET saw as the actual problem, and which was what the term “perma-stealth” ACTUALLY referred to).

People need to stop throwing around bandwagoner terms without actually knowing how things work.

People need to stop throwing around bandwagoner terms without actually knowing how things work.

Mmmhm, people nowadays just flat out refuse to accept that they were outplayed if they were killed by a Thief (and other classes such as Necro and Eles too lately), it’s auto “omg I died the class MUST be OP nerf nerf nerf”.

People call for pointless Thief nerfs so much lately even after they’ve been nerfed, that everyone still think they’re OP when in fact they’ve been nerfed to the ground and it’s the majority of the good players who stuck through it and adapted to the nerf that are still coming out on top in fights.

If Thief players can LEARN TO ADAPT to countless of nerfbats I’m sure these whiners can learn to counter a Thief eventually, if not then it’s their funeral and Thieves everywhere will just be feasting on dem tears.

Slcrisis.6930:

People need to stop throwing around bandwagoner terms without actually knowing how things work.

Mmmhm, people nowadays just flat out refuse to accept that they were outplayed if they were killed by a Thief (and other classes such as Necro and Eles too lately), it’s auto “omg I died the class MUST be OP nerf nerf nerf”.

People call for pointless Thief nerfs so much lately even after they’ve been nerfed, that everyone still think they’re OP when in fact they’ve been nerfed to the ground and it’s the majority of the good players who stuck through it and adapted to the nerf that are still coming out on top in fights.

If Thief players can LEARN TO ADAPT to countless of nerfbats I’m sure these whiners can learn to counter a Thief eventually, if not then it’s their funeral and Thieves everywhere will just be feasting on dem tears.

couldn’t have said it better myself it’s ridiculous how many times people cry when they die to a thief but when its another class, oh its all good, and the earlier posts are right you need to use utilities correctly if you want to maintain close to 95% permastealth but doing damage along with it? nope it cant happen now L2P, also theres a simple way to deal with d/p genius, STAND IN THE RING HE WILL LEAP, HIT YOU AND REVEAL! COMMON SENSE.

More often than not (if not every time), I’ve noticed, the people who still complain about fighting a thief who “perm stealthed” are actually just oblivious to their surroundings. You stealth… you realise you’re going to lose and be of no use to anyone unless you can heal or time a burst, so you obstruct the opponent’s line of sight before stealth runs out. You’re not in stealth… they just either a) can’t see you due to the extent of the obstruction, or b) don’t think to look more than 300 range in front of themselves.

Just to reinforce this, because it does sound a bit unlikely that people would be that oblivious: I even get trash talked for “perm stealthing” with S/P. I find a spot on a PvP map where I can’t be seen by the target, and I infiltrator’s strike to them. When they go for a burst or drop some AoEs, or enter death shroud or whatever, I infiltrator’s return back for a second, heal if necessary, then infiltrator’s strike back down. They just stand on the spot, evidentally not reading my animations at all, and then go into a rage on “perm stealthing” thieves after I kill them. The most amusing of these incidents was against an engineer. Even after I told them S/P weapon set cannot repetitively stealth, I was instead using infiltrator’s strike/return from above them, and that they could counter it or at least see it by target locking or simply opening their eyes, they raged that I was using a broken ability to escape their turret perm immobilise + aoe condition nuke. Well.. obviously it’s either escape and run (then get trash talked for being a fleeing thief), die (not the objective of the match), or repetitively escape and keep fighting using their lack of observation to my advantage. Even after realising I wasn’t perm stealthing, they still flew off the handle because I was using a thief.

It really does make you wonder how many complaints about “perm stealth” before Dec 10th patch were also a result of poor observation.

EDIT: Just some grammar corrections.

A lot of it is a player getting used to “I hit these three buttons and I win …” and then when it does not work against thieves concluding “it must be they are overpowered”.

Man did you not scroll down the forums… and see the Nerf Wish List? That’s meant for threads like this….
Fear not I will add your post to it (in 5 minutes).

Btw perma-stealth exploit build (as some would explicitly call it), took a big hit on Dec 10.

Sanduskel.1850:

Zero Day.2594:

Man did you not scroll down the forums… and see the Nerf Wish List? That’s meant for threads like this….
Fear not I will add your post to it (in 5 minutes).

Btw perma-stealth exploit build (as some would explicitly call it), took a big hit on Dec 10.

Not really. With higher initiative regeneration rates, it’s easier now for me, lol.

Sorry, I can only post every 5 minutes… didn’t want to waste it on a reply like this…
Bro, we know your the best thief 2013 and will be in this year too. I personally nominated you and Burnfall for the best thieves in that “Who’s the best thief” thread.

Zero Day.2594:

Man did you not scroll down the forums… and see the Nerf Wish List? That’s meant for threads like this….
Fear not I will add your post to it (in 5 minutes).

Btw perma-stealth exploit build (as some would explicitly call it), took a big hit on Dec 10.

Not really. With higher initiative regeneration rates, it’s easier now for me, lol.

You guys ever played D/P vs D/P? Yeah… don’t bother, it is quite literally pointless – might as well flip a coin – at least there’s some hope of resolution.

Perma-stealth only was a problem when you could contest in stealth, now it’s useless. D/P still gives a breezy 9 seconds using only your initiative, more than enough time to… do whatever you want without giving anything up whatsoever – you can’t do anything with genuine perma-stealth (in fact, it’s just setting you up for your most powerful offensive tool – if for some unknown reason you need more time, that can be arranged), other than contest a point vs zerg long enough for your own blob to reply – and the increased base initiative regen has only enabled a higher degree of stealth spam during combat.

Docherty.8372:

…
and the increased base initiative regen has only enabled a higher degree of stealth spam during combat.

?
lolowut
?

much regen
very spam
so stealth
wow

Zero Day.2594:

Docherty.8372:

…
and the increased base initiative regen has only enabled a higher degree of stealth spam during combat.

?
lolowut
?

Yeah, by increasing the base intitiative regeneration by approximately 40% allows the Thief to enter stealth via Heartseeker/Clusterbomb more often – I’d estimate by about 40% – is there something about this you’re having difficulty understanding, with the mathematics?

I’m amazed that you actually edited that in there… seek help

Docherty.8372:

Zero Day.2594:

Docherty.8372:

…
and the increased base initiative regen has only enabled a higher degree of stealth spam during combat.

?
lolowut
?

Yeah, by increasing the base intitiative regeneration by approximately 40% allows the Thief to enter stealth via Heartseeker/Clusterbomb more often – I’d estimate by about 40% – is there something about this you’re having difficulty understanding, with the mathematics?

I’m amazed that you actually edited that in there… seek help

As anet said, it was a MASSIVE buff. Some thieves just don’t know it enough to utilize it.

Sanduskel.1850:

Docherty.8372:

Zero Day.2594:

Docherty.8372:

…
and the increased base initiative regen has only enabled a higher degree of stealth spam during combat.

?
lolowut
?

Yeah, by increasing the base intitiative regeneration by approximately 40% allows the Thief to enter stealth via Heartseeker/Clusterbomb more often – I’d estimate by about 40% – is there something about this you’re having difficulty understanding, with the mathematics?

I’m amazed that you actually edited that in there… seek help

As anet said, it was a MASSIVE buff. Some thieves just don’t know the class well enough to utilize it.

Well, I surrender, at first there was one, now there’s two…

Docherty.8372:

You guys ever played D/P vs D/P? Yeah… don’t bother, it is quite literally pointless – might as well flip a coin – at least there’s some hope of resolution.

Well it depends. If one player is better than the other unless shadow refuge is dropped generally you headshot the other thief once you see him go for HS stopping his stealth. While a resolution maybe hard if both stayed engaged the better one will win.

Generally speaking like all roaming build the point is to stay on the move and contest objectives quickly and efficiently. this means disengaging from long fights like D/P vs D/P.

If your complaint is about the stealth you cna simply interrupt the HS. If your complaint is about the mobility well that has less to do with DP and more to do with thief by design.

Perma stealthing DP has no purpose and can not be done without using log ultlies. Most DP thieves now a days do not jump through BP multiple times (too easy to counter and pointless) and if you want to run SB and knowledge of terrain are exceedingly more useful.

Zero Day.2594:

Well, I surrender, at first there was one, now there’s two…

It’s not about how many there are… but whether their arguments make sense… you give up because 1+1=2 and all you got is gibberish like “lolwut” (it wasn’t cool or funny ten years ago, nothing changed – incoherence is incoherence).

A Thief with off-hand pistol can STILL (this time without taking Infusion of Shadows, which requires sacrifice of a little DPS) stack enough stealth to regenerate enough initiative to stack more stealth to do virtually anything except contest a point for minutes at a time (which they can’t do anymore anyway).

Following? My Thief can HS through BP for enough stealth to regenerate enough initiative to do it again for nearly as long without even taking the master-trait or utility (haven’t even tried with Smokescreen – I’d estimate I could wring at least a full 20 seconds out of it) – no, I can’t quite achieve 100% up-time… just 80-90%-ish… don’t need it, I use sword and fight honorably.

TheGuy.3568:

If your complaint is about the stealth you cna simply interrupt the HS.

So long as you scrubbed the Blind (BP does that… don’t ya know?), or your interrupts, if they’re fast enough (very rare, if you even have any even!), aren’t on cooldown… sure, I run S/P – I got interrupts to spare, but I’m a Thief, and a unique snowflake who gets to spam them as much as he likes.

So many counter-Thief techniques do somewhat seem to rely on the Thief being functionally brain-dead.

But, like I tell new Thieves – bait the rolls, dodge the interrupts – they can’t keep it up forever – they’re playing with cooldowns, you’re not. It’s not rocket-surgery, you still need basic dueling skills to win against switched-on players.

People will always complain about Thief no matter how many times Thief gets nerfed. Players hate fighting stealthed enemies in any game MMO or not. It takes away their most important asset to a fight, their vision. Unless stealth is removed entirely, people will still complain. Get over it.

Docherty.8372:

TheGuy.3568:

If your complaint is about the stealth you cna simply interrupt the HS.

So long as you scrubbed the Blind (BP does that… don’t ya know?), or your interrupts, if they’re fast enough (very rare, if you even have any even!), aren’t on cooldown… sure, I run S/P – I got interrupts to spare, but I’m a Thief, and a unique snowflake who gets to spam them as much as he likes.

So many counter-Thief techniques do somewhat seem to rely on the Thief being functionally brain-dead.

But, like I tell new Thieves – bait the rolls, dodge the interrupts – they can’t keep it up forever – they’re playing with cooldowns, you’re not. It’s not rocket-surgery, you still need basic dueling skills to win against switched-on players.

First off if you are talking about the initial stealth then it doesn’t matter. If you are talking D/P vs D/P then that blind doesn’t matter either (you seem to be a thief figure it out yourself). I really really hate cherry pickers.

The only thieves who spam are the crappy ones we all know that. the rest of us manage our initiative so no we don’t spam until it hits.

What i quoted was about D/P vs D/P a topic you brought up. I never mentioned other classes. If your only reason for posting is to bicker about D/P perhaps you should play it and understand how a good D/P user counter the basic BP →2. In any case neither has a way to keep the other fully engaged if the run last refuge (as it should be with a roaming build).

Docherty knows what he is talking about as does Piogre. Personal attacks get you nowhere other than a ban. Try to be constructive, fellas.

Docherty.8372:

Following? My Thief can HS through BP for enough stealth to regenerate enough initiative to do it again for nearly as long without even taking the master-trait or utility

Paint us your picture then. As I see it you get 3 seconds of stealth, for 3 initiative regen, per HS, which costs 3 initiative, but you spend 6 initiative on Black Powder, which is not regenerated in that time. Even if you get the master trait for 4 seconds of stealth and 1 upon entering (assuming you also got hte adept trait) you only get 3+1=4 initiative back – as you can only get BP + 3 HS out of your base 12 initiative: 12 + 4 + 1 = 17 < 6 + 4*3

Did I miss something?

Piogre.2164:

Kamikazi.5380:

People will always complain about Thief no matter how many times Thief gets nerfed. Players hate fighting stealthed enemies in any game MMO or not. It takes away their most important asset to a fight, their vision. Unless stealth is removed entirely, people will still complain. Get over it.

Cloaking works fine in tf2, but the way most forum thieves act, I suspect if tf2-style implementation of stealth were to be implemented, they’d all lock themselves in their rooms and cut themselves…

Ironically stealth is extremely similar to TF2. You get a loud sound when you destealth, you are only able to stay in stealth for a certain time, and you won’t destealth if you get hit.

Besides backstabbing only works out of stealth I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Unless you want Engineer’s flamethrower to suddenly make Thieves visible when set on fire.

Please nerf warriors. They 2x HP, 2x Armor and deal 3/4 damage. How is that balanced?

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

Following? My Thief can HS through BP for enough stealth to regenerate enough initiative to do it again for nearly as long without even taking the master-trait or utility

Paint us your picture then. As I see it you get 3 seconds of stealth, for 3 initiative regen, per HS, which costs 3 initiative, but you spend 6 initiative on Black Powder, which is not regenerated in that time. Even if you get the master trait for 4 seconds of stealth and 1 upon entering (assuming you also got hte adept trait) you only get 3+1=4 initiative back – as you can only get BP + 3 HS out of your base 12 initiative: 12 + 4 + 1 = 17 < 6 + 4*3

Did I miss something?

Trickery, Quick Pockets, Smokescreen, Roll for Initiative… and more – optimal passive regen with QP and a swap – about 16 per 10 secs (no Infusion, Opportunist, etc), 15 base – so you can stack four stealths to start – use BP then 3xHS from your base, thanks to increased regen you can slip another one in (for beginners: pan the camera directly overhead, the HS travels a much shorter distance like this – game’s tight yo!) before the smoke clears (4 seconds pulsing, you’ll regen 4 init in that frame, your first load uses 18 init total for 12 seconds stealth), as discussed, during that period you can regen the initiative spent, if you’re so inclined – not saying it’s a good idea, just that it’s an idea – throw Smokescreen and Roll for Initiative in there I’d be surprised if you couldn’t maintain a good 30-40 seconds

If it looks like permastealth, and smells like permastealth…

But it’s all academic, such a function is worse than useless these days. For the practical combat purposes of your day-to-day Thief it’s redundant in the extreme – he just wants to know how many more BP/HS/backstabs he gets – well, about 40% more, if he plays his cards right. Thanks to +40% base regen, very simple logic, IMO. (D/P not being hurt much by Opportunist nerf, since he never really got enough hits in to make it matter)

p.s. You mods are out of control – I can only shrug at my post you killed here… nice work if you can get it eh? Why don’t you just sit there and imagine what I’d say to you if it wasn’t all to be transmogrified into ‘kitten’. Out.

Actually d/p permastealth is possible without “utilities with long cooldowns”. Patience (SA X), blinding powder, and hide in shadows will do the trick. Using the standard x/30/30/x/0 d/p build, you can get 3 HS off 1 BP, and you can rotate blinding powder and hide in shadows when your initiative is low. I’ve tested this and can maintain permastealth fairly easily.

That said, in order to get the full benefit of permastealth, you’ll be very low on initiative by the end of the BP + HS combo, and you’re usually either without a utility or without a heal. That’s a pretty significant tradeoff for maintaining permastealth, IMO.

Also, with regards to the BP + clusterbomb combo, you definitely canNOT maintain stealth from that the same way you could pre-December 10th. Before the nerf, you could take Infusion + Patience in SA and maintain aoe permastealth with BP + clusterbomb (very useful for permastealthing mesmers in keeps). Since the Infusion nerf, that’s no longer possible, and the buff to the base initiative regen isn’t enough to offset it.

Lastly, with regards to the OP’s complaint, I have no idea how a d/p thief won a 5v1. It’s a good build, but it shouldn’t even be able to win a 2v1 against competent players. Maybe if you guys chased him in a line and got bursted down one by one. However, like many posters have noted, if he did win, it wasn’t due to permastealth.

Docherty.8372:

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

Following? My Thief can HS through BP for enough stealth to regenerate enough initiative to do it again for nearly as long without even taking the master-trait or utility

Paint us your picture then. As I see it you get 3 seconds of stealth, for 3 initiative regen, per HS, which costs 3 initiative, but you spend 6 initiative on Black Powder, which is not regenerated in that time. Even if you get the master trait for 4 seconds of stealth and 1 upon entering (assuming you also got hte adept trait) you only get 3+1=4 initiative back – as you can only get BP + 3 HS out of your base 12 initiative: 12 + 4 + 1 = 17 < 6 + 4*3

Did I miss something?

Trickery, Quick Pockets, Smokescreen, Roll for Initiative… and more – optimal passive regen with QP and a swap – about 16 per 10 secs (no Infusion, Opportunist, etc), 15 base – so you can stack four stealths to start – use BP then 3xHS from your base, thanks to increased regen you can slip another one in (for beginners: pan the camera directly overhead, the HS travels a much shorter distance like this – game’s tight yo!) before the smoke clears (4 seconds pulsing, you’ll regen 4 init in that frame, your first load uses 18 init total for 12 seconds stealth), as discussed, during that period you can regen the initiative spent, if you’re so inclined – not saying it’s a good idea, just that it’s an idea – throw Smokescreen and Roll for Initiative in there I’d be surprised if you couldn’t maintain a good 30-40 seconds

That is not what you said, you said “without even taking the master-trait or utility”, or at least so I understood.

If it looks like permastealth, and smells like permastealth…

But no longer achievable with just BP+HS and one adept trait. You do need further traits and utilties. This was stated as the intended goal for the nerf to infusion.

… well, about 40% more, if he plays his cards right. Thanks to +40% base regen,

I think not, infusion was nerfed – I am not arguing whether this was needed or not, just stating the fact – and with the nerf to opportunist builds/weapons that had high hit volumes also lost out (and yes, it’s very noticable with clusterbomb and unload), but that is beyond the scope of this thread.

per·ma·nent
?p?rm?n?nt/
adjective
1. lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely.
“a permanent ban on the dumping of radioactive waste at sea”

in·ter·mit·tent
?int?r?mitnt/
adjective
1. occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous or steady.
“intermittent rain”

English is hard.

Kamikazi.5380:

Piogre.2164:

Kamikazi.5380:

People will always complain about Thief no matter how many times Thief gets nerfed. Players hate fighting stealthed enemies in any game MMO or not. It takes away their most important asset to a fight, their vision. Unless stealth is removed entirely, people will still complain. Get over it.

Cloaking works fine in tf2, but the way most forum thieves act, I suspect if tf2-style implementation of stealth were to be implemented, they’d all lock themselves in their rooms and cut themselves…

Ironically stealth is extremely similar to TF2. You get a loud sound when you destealth, you are only able to stay in stealth for a certain time, and you won’t destealth if you get hit.

Besides backstabbing only works out of stealth I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Unless you want Engineer’s flamethrower to suddenly make Thieves visible when set on fire.

-In tf2, entering and exiting stealth takes a 1 second on/off time during which you’re partially visible due to the fading but cannot use skills

-in tf2, you FLICKER if hit and are therefore able to be tracked by a skilled opponent

-while all instances of burning making you visible might be a bit much, I’m inclined to agree that the best way to introduce stealth counterplay would be to implement ways of seeing through stealth instead of applying revealed, which causes a bunch of other issues do to how much the class is built around stealth. Whenever revealed is brought out, thieves point out that “the entire stealth trait line” is affected- use of certain skills to see stealthed players, instead of applying revealed, would let them keep stealth bonuses while still being seen.

@Arrow.4619
I’m pretty sure you’ve just been baited and are now being trolled. They’ve got you disputing the changes to initiative regeneration to prove the reduced ability stay in stealth for a long period of time. You’re wrong to use opportunist to counter it, because you’re not attacking while permanent stealthing and therefore are not benefiting from the 15 Critical Strikes trait. So it comes down to base initiative regeneration only. You’d be right about the changes balancing out if quick recovery was factored in, however, not every thief will, or would have been, using quick recovery. Considering base initiative regeneration as your only source of initiative, the changes would indeed allow for more stealth combos to be executed, and stealth to be maintained for a longer duration.

However they have, and have got you, to completely disregard the changes to infusion of shadow. That trait is why it’s no longer possible to easily maintain permanent stealth without specific utilities and weapons. You need D/P + SB, hide in shadows, blinding powder, smoke screen, and shadow refuge to do it now. Before, you could do it with just D/P and hide in shadows. The change to infusion of shadow is why they are wrong.

That being said, it’s not a nerf to every thief. Only those that stealth too much – to the point where they aren’t really helping anyone. The changes to base regeneration, opportunist and quick recovery again, aren’t nerfs to every thief. It is a buff to those that don’t use the latter two, and a buff to those who use stealth strategically. It may even be a buff in practice, to those who do use them, because you’re not attacking all the time. When your attacks are dodged, when you are blinded, the time spent in stealth, and the time spent being kited or disabled is all time that you don’t get any benefit from opportunist. The maths may be sound, but it can’t give you the facts as they are in practice. As evidence, I run D/P without quick recovery, and after Dec 10th I was able to get rid of infusion of shadow with no change in play style required. I can still stealth just as much as I did before, and use my 2 and 3 skills more often when playing aggressively.

@Impact:
You’re right this is is a troll thread since they are pretending something is in fact possible that isn’t.

It is fascinating the obsession with Stealth. To me, as a PvE player Stealth is at best a modestly useful ability in PvE encounters (saved me many times while I was learning this game) but I can easily see why its viewed as critical in PvP and also despised by others in PvP. I say “modestly” useful in PvE because it basically only grants a reprieve in which you can run away or reposition or heal. That last is assuming it is even wise – which it might not be if you are say using Signet or Malice – or doable which it wont be if your heal isn’t on CD. AOEs and “environmental” effects still smack you around just fine and channeled attacks (like a Ranger’s longbow #2 Sanduskal that start before you stealth track you just fine. Most importantly, when you are either in Stealth (or dodging for that matter) with a thief you are not damaging your opponent and therefore not progressing in the encounter. In team play you are probably doing nothing to help your team succeed either (unless as someone put it you are invisibly rezzing the downed Warriors). This again rolls back around to the single biggest problem I have with the thief class as a PvE player – nearly every nerf that has made since launch has its source in trying to balance PvP. Zero thought given to the impact on PvE – zero thought given to players that don’t want to spend their time ganking other players or being ganked by them.

Relevant to your other point regarding alternative builds: I just play PvE and I don’t play a Stealth-reliant thief. Haven’t since the now long ago nerf to Stealth. Which means my build was not x-30-30-x-x. SA is nice trait line but in PvE the additional toughness from 30 points in SA is significantly offset by the amount of aggro a tougher character can drawn. So I have to ask: Why is it that Anet’s stated goal of “making alternative builds more viable” didn’t seem to include mine? If they really wanted to “make alternative builds viable” they should have 1) buffed base initiative regeneration as they did, 2) left the initiative traits in Acrobatics and Trickery, etc. as the were, and 3) not nerfed vigor in any of the trait lines. That might have given players an incentive/reward for traiting heavily in something other than CS/SA or even going full damage zerk-style 30-30-x-x-x and relying heavily on stealth for fleeing. Instead I now actually feel pushed to use stealth more now than I ever did before and I’m considering going to the x-30-30-x-x build to maintain effectiveness.

If Anet wanted to encourage more diversity in thief builds they could have made a single, simple change and accomplished that: Put thieves in the mid-tier for health. When you can actually take damage and not crumple like a piece of paper you have the “luxury” of not having to be optimal in dodging and dodge every blow you can by relying on vigor, you don’t have to scrape for every scrap of initiative so you can “flash” down your target before it hits you, and you don’t have to be overly reliant on stealth to regen/heal or flee. If Anet really wants to make “reward” thieves who are willing to claw through an encounter (any encounter – against long odds or short) and not flee that’s the one change they can make that would likely accomplish that. No more futzing around tweaking traits etc. They just need to give a hand to hand class with access to modest armor and no defensive boons other than vigor and/or regeneration the reasonable/appropriate level of health to enable them to stay in a fight.

Arrow.4619:

Most importantly, when you are either in Stealth (or dodging for that matter) with a thief you are not damaging your opponent and therefore not progressing in the encounter. In team play you are probably doing nothing to help your team succeed either (unless as someone put it you are invisibly rezzing the downed Warriors)

Finally! Someone else who understands! Other classes have survival mechanics in place so they can quickly heal up, remove conditions, or even have those effects passively occurring. Thief has stealth. While in stealth, our healing ticks quite low, we can’t attack, we can still be damaged, and people seem to forget that yes, while we’re in stealth our utilities and heal is cooling down, but so are their’s! And their weapon skills are cooling down too which is offsetting our supposed advantage with initiative. Additionally, unlike other class’ unique mechanics, mesmer, engineer and ranger all have access to stealth.

Arrow.4619:

(unless as someone put it you are invisibly rezzing the downed Warriors)

lol’d

Yeah thief is only appreciated in PVE for group stealth past trash and when revives are needed now. It’s been pushed into a support role when it isn’t even designed to support a party. There is no real ‘support thief’, but the Ninja Nurse is where we’re heading with each patch. Our DPS isn’t even within the top three now, and that was meant to be the focus of an assassin class.

I also agree about changing base health. In fact, there shouldn’t be 3 tiers of health. It’s incredibly unbalanced when you remember that toughness, defense and healing power increase the effectiveness of each point of health. Classes with higher health and higher armour are immediately much more robust than just an extra 8k health. That’s 8k quantified by armour and healing power. The lowest health tier should be removed and all those in it bumped up to the second.

Sanduskel.1850:

Incurafy.6329:

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

It’s actually easier now lol

This is entirely false. If you’re unwilling to post a video showing us how easy it is for you to perma-stealth like D/P did pre Dec 10th, you’re just spreading lies.

evilapprentice.6379:

Sanduskel.1850:

Incurafy.6329:

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

It’s actually easier now lol

This is entirely false. If you’re unwilling to post a video showing us how easy it is for you to perma-stealth like D/P did pre Dec 10th, you’re just spreading lies.

Lol go google it on Youtube, buddy. Very easy to do. Nothing got nerfed!

Sanduskel.1850:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sanduskel.1850:

Incurafy.6329:

How many times does it have to be said? D/P pseudo-permastealth was already nerfed on the 10th of Dec and it is now impossible to maintain it without the use of utilities with lengthy cooldowns. In fact, maintaining it while doing noticeable damage is close to impossible.

It’s actually easier now lol

This is entirely false. If you’re unwilling to post a video showing us how easy it is for you to perma-stealth like D/P did pre Dec 10th, you’re just spreading lies.

Lol go google it on Youtube, buddy. Very easy to do. Nothing got nerfed!

He asked you because you have got a point to prove and we’re not going to do your job. Make a video proving it’s become easier to perma-stealth.

But you won’t do that, you never have and we all know why.

Stealth should only last for a few seconds imo. Then it can be balanced. It should be there as a way of escaping damage and confuse your enemy. The perma stealth thief is op and it’s a game breaking build that ruins the game.

I disagree with this… nerf stelth even more that is rubbish It should be there as a way of escaping um this is not a block man… the butiful with the thief is that we can move unseen for a short period if one removes that then we can all stop playing this game i will anyway stop to play this game if that happens… cus then the game is ruied and i dont say ruied for just the thief but all who can go invis will be ruied mesmer etc.

The stelth is not ruining the game its people who cant think for themeself i mean if a player with more experiance vs one with less then the experianced player often win even when one fight multiple oponents you know way becuse that player know how do evade and confuse the kitten out of the enemies that just means the herd of 5 people is less experianced and therefor can not find the experianced player this goes for all classes. i dont want to see this game being a world of warcraft copy where we stand and spam spells … the game mechanic is desigend to favor the human factor dont remove that…

i was fighting a hacker the other day who had perma stealth
and revealed was not working on him !

though he was not useing D/p he was just spamming the utility skill blinding powder or a similar skill.. any time he wanted …

Nice necro!

Don’t worry this thread is going to disappear soon.

D/P is an already established troll weaponset.

It’s more D/P in combination with the other Utilities and Traits in WvW at least, but there is no easier way to access stealth and blinds really.