Guild Wars 2

Let me preface this by saying that this is a graphical bug and as such may depend on a player’s specific hardware. You might not get this bug, but I know many people do because they mention it. Problem is most people don’t know what it is, they are just describing the symptom. Many of these people don’t even realize what is happening or that they have encountered a bug.

What they see: A thief stealths and starts attacking him, kills them while still in stealth and never comes out of stealth, or they only flicker into view for a fraction of a second from time to time.

What’s wrong with this? It’s not possible, or it shouldn’t be. Stealth applies a debuff called revealed that prevents consecutive stealths for about 3 seconds.

What’s actually happening is that the thief isn’t technically stealthed, but the game isn’t bothering to redraw him for 2-3 seconds. His stealth dropped when he first hits someone, and everything looks kosher on his screen. It’s a graphical bug but it can have a huge impact on PvP since you can’t see animations or judge positioning.

It’s not specific to thieves, it’s just most obvious with them because they have more stealth skills and chain them together enough that it can make them appear to be permanently invisible. It can occur with anyone or anything that is in stealth.

this happens to me a ton… its very very annoying and unfair

Same. Noticed it as soon as I started sPvP.

This happens to everyone and isn’t getting the attention it deserves imo. Biggest reason why Mesmers and Thieves are problematic right now.

I got 3-4 attacks in about 1 second by a thief around me and I don’t see him at all.

Yup this is a huge problem; it is making stealth unintentionally extra powerful

As the above posters have said this happens quite often.

This issue is usually commented on by theives who say that they aren’t in stealth, but the problem is that on their screen (the person who stealthed) becomes visible, yet they aren’t visible for 2-3 seconds on the victims screen.

It’s hard to tell whether this is down to latency or is indeed a bug, but I’d vote bug.

Can you reproduce this issue? if yes then make a youtube presentation from Thief and his enemy point of view..

So thats what was happening.. I just thought stealth didn’t break on the first hit haha.

The official answer is the same as for portal bombs I assume. So to cut it short:

“As we have stated, this is no exploit so far but another tactic that players can use in their gaming experience.”

The joy of the client limitations for rendering.

You don’t know how the Revealed debuff works. This is why you think it shouldn’t be possible.

Revealed is applied on a player that exited from stealth through an hostile action. NOT when the Stealth runs out of time. It’s also applied when a player gets out of the Shadow Refuge area but that’s not the point here.

If you time the cast of Cloak and Dagger so that it connects with the target after the previous Stealth finishes, you’ll get back in hiding a split second after without a problem. It does tend to limit the thief damage dealing capabilities to one attack every 3s though (4s if he got the trait for it).

stof.9341:

You don’t know how the Revealed debuff works. This is why you think it shouldn’t be possible.

Revealed is applied on a player that exited from stealth through an hostile action. NOT when the Stealth runs out of time. It’s also applied when a player gets out of the Shadow Refuge area but that’s not the point here.

If you time the cast of Cloak and Dagger so that it connects with the target after the previous Stealth finishes, you’ll get back in hiding a split second after without a problem. It does tend to limit the thief damage dealing capabilities to one attack every 3s though (4s if he got the trait for it).

that isnt what anyone here is talking about. Im talking about getting quickness pistol whipped 3 times in a row without being able to see the thief attacking me

Yeah, most people realize “Revealed” only happens if you actually connect an attack from stealth.

But the issue with stealth in this topic does happen. I’m a thief myself, I understand it. However, when someone backstabs you, has time to haste+HS spam, and is already halfway through the finish animation, it’s too much. This is after they should have appeared after the hit from the backstab.

I’m not so sure if it’s the game client directly. I’m thinking it’s more than likely related to lag. But it could possibly be the client as well. Or maybe a combination.