Guild Wars 2

Again, I’ve met a guild with 3 thieves and one Mesmer near our Lord in Askalion…. when they tp the rest of their guild to cap the keep.

How can we counter these kind of tactic ?? A perma-stealth thief is a pain, but if he works with a mesmer, it’s not even fair….
Of course, we can set a Stealth Disruptor Trap, but this thing costs 10 supply (which is huge when you’re lacking supply) and the players have to step on it. For example, if they are hiding in a corner, no chance to spot them.
And yes, I know, the animations of stealth skills are obvious…. but now imagine you have 2 Thieves inside your inner gate. Which animation belong to the first one ? to the second one ? it’s impossible to say…. So when you chase one, the other one is free.

Moreover, every dead mesmer/thief inside the inner gate is a threat. if you do nothing, they just rez each other and kill the lord.

This tactic exists since day 0, but now you can see whole guilds dedicated to this… They don’t even care if you cap the keep or if you manage to kill one or two members, since they know that at least one thief will survive and rez them.

We need more counter-stealth…. or maybe do you have other ideas to deal with this problem ?

P.S :And yes, I’m kinda mad tonight, because we (me and 3 other players) have spent 10 min spaming traps, bomb, Aoe over a dead player with even a stealth trap to prevent a rez and finally there were not 1 thief, but 2 with a mesmer..

Mesmers and thieves should have an anti-stealth skill.

Tower and keeps should have the ability to where if no walls or gates are down you can activate it to disable enemy stealth for a minute (only inside of walls)

The battle for PPT rages.

What’s worse do you reckon, 3 thieves and a mesmer, or a full map blob?

Ross Biddle.2367:

The battle for PPT rages.

What’s worse do you reckon, 3 thieves and a mesmer, or a full map blob?

I’m going to go with option C

A solo Bearbow Ranger, terrifying !

AoE? People in stealth are still vulnerable to AoE. Just start AoE-ing with your Staff #1 and place a Stealth Trap or 2 on narrow passages (such as stairs).

hihey.1075:

AoE? People in stealth are still vulnerable to AoE. Just start AoE-ing with your Staff #1 and place a Stealth Trap or 2 on narrow passages (such as stairs).

Most professions don’t have a spammable AoE, so you need to know WHERE the thief is to use it. And you can’t one-shoot thief with AoE, even if you hit them, they just walk away.
Traps cost too much. When you are one or two in a keep with 0 supply, what do you do ? If you go to the nearest camp, they’ll have time to rez their teammates….

And I want to add another point : this tactic is often a good cover for hacks, such as flyhack. Something like : “OMG, there are 5 ppl attacking our lord !!! oh…too late ” and when you mp the ennemies : “noob, we had mes+thief inside”.
The question is : thief +mes, or mes with flyhack ? Impossible to say….

So, two or three guys are willing to spend the time it takes to capture your tower.
Question is, are you willing to spend the same amount of time making sure they don’t?

Yes I do, but as soon as tp their teams, we are kittened…… As I said, the problem isn’t really permastealths, because I can sit here all day, but when they work with mesmer.

And, we need more players to defend it than the actual number of attackers. Is it normal ?
The situation, especially in inner gate when ALL walls and doors are up, should be heavily in favor of defenders. Right now, it requires so much ressources to defend it (ex : supply and players), that most commanders don’t want to waste their time chasing the thieves : they try to attack another objective and just say : “we’ll recap it after”.

This situation promotes karma train..

If they are prepared to dedicate 3-5 people to hide and wait in the keep, while your side aren’t prepared to clear them out, then yes they deserve to recap the keep easily.

It really doesn’t take much effort to clear them out. If your full pug-zerg or guild-blob were to dedicate themselves to it, it would only take a matter of seconds, but most people can’t be bothered with “sweeping” any more. I can’t actually remember the last time I heard a commander order “full mesmer sweep”, while a year ago it used to be pretty standard. I guess that’s because a year ago alot more people played the PPT game, while now everyone knows it’s a waste of time.

Even if you can’t persuade your commander/zerg to help sweep a keep, a party of 3-5 should have no problems getting it done. It just might take a few minutes rather than seconds, and you may have to adjust your builds a bit to do it effectively. All you need is heavy CC to break up their perma-stealth combos. To maintain perma-stealth a thief has to manage his initiative very carefully and make every point count, so if you can make him waste even a few initiative he’ll have to break stealth, and then it’s easy. Knock him out of Shadow Refuge, CC him before he can Heartseeker through Black Powder, or interrupt his Cloak and Dagger, and he’s in big trouble.

And, contrary to your post above, all classes have skills which are useful in hunting down a thief in a keep.
Warrior -> Nearly everything they do is CC.
Guardian -> Ring/Line of warding, immobilise on sceptre and hammer, Banish, Shield knockback
Ranger -> Traps, Sic ’Em, Rapid Fire tracks enemies in stealth
Thiekittencorpion Wire + Basilisk Venom will ruin their day
Engi -> Shield knockback/stun, Toolkit pull, heavy condi pressure from bombs/grenades, Supply Crate
Ele -> Very heavy AoE damage and CC. Tornado.
Necro -> Fear is amazing against them (Mark, Wall and Deathshroud). Very heavy AoE condition pressure.
Mesmer -> Not much direct AoE damage, but knockback on GS and pull on Focus are very useful, and Moa Morph = game over.

A team of 3 using any of the stuff above should have no trouble tracking down a thief/mes pain. If you aren’t prepared to put the effort in to counter them, then yes they deserve to run rings around you.

Again, you need 3/5 players to chase one opponent for about 5 minutes, which isn’t normal imo when your are in YOUR structure.

Most of the skills listed above require a target (toolkit pull, Moa, scorpion wire for example) or have long Cd (tornado, supply crate..).

Just make dead for a minute = forced respawn.

Markus.9084:

Again, you need 3/5 players to chase one opponent for about 5 minutes, which isn’t normal imo when your are in YOUR structure.

Most of the skills listed above require a target (toolkit pull, Moa, scorpion wire for example) or have long Cd (tornado, supply crate..).

Which is why you use them after you’ve forced them to break stealth with the other stuff ^^
The point is to lock them down before they can escape again.

And I thought we were talking about a team of several thieves/mes. If it’s only 1, then it only requires 1 or 2 players to track them down. Again, if you’re not prepared to make the same effort as the enemy….

Ragnar.4257:

Markus.9084:

Again, you need 3/5 players to chase one opponent for about 5 minutes, which isn’t normal imo when your are in YOUR structure.

Most of the skills listed above require a target (toolkit pull, Moa, scorpion wire for example) or have long Cd (tornado, supply crate..).

Which is why you use them after you’ve forced them to break stealth with the other stuff ^^
The point is to lock them down before they can escape again.

And I thought we were talking about a team of several thieves/mes. If it’s only 1, then it only requires 1 or 2 players to track them down. Again, if you’re not prepared to make the same effort as the enemy….

Have you ever managed to kill a perma-stealth with only 2 players ??? a good perma-stealth ?
It’s clearly impossible. There is so much space in WvW, and if he uses Traveller runes like most thieves do, he can outrun you… and hide in another corner
Btw, they usually use that trait which tp you when you are disabled. So a tornado/supply crate is useless….

Markus.9084:

Again, I’ve met a guild with 3 thieves and one Mesmer near our Lord in Askalion…. when they tp the rest of their guild to cap the keep

Yes, we do this each day but it is not easy, we train each day to improve and do it better, even alone…a video from the last week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTuHzWFflU&feature=youtu.be

If you think that is easy just try, only a couple of thieves in the server could do that with a critics build.
What kind of game we want to pursue? Just blob against blob? Just hitting doors?
Thieves and mesmers give new options to the game. It is possible to fight them but you need to take some measures…
We have been training together since the start of the game, do not expect merciness.

Best

Haltair

Markus.9084:

Btw, they usually use that trait which tp you when you are disabled. So a tornado/supply crate is useless….

You have obviously NEVER played a thief. Play a class first before you talk about it..

Markus.9084:

Again, you need 3/5 players to chase one opponent for about 5 minutes, which isn’t normal imo when your are in YOUR structure.

Well, perhaps you are the one in THEIR structure.
What would you prefer?Once the lord is taken all the enemies should be moved to the WP or what?
Zerg play should not be encouraged, learn to fight in small numbers.

Best,

Haltair

Haltair.3062:

Markus.9084:

Again, I’ve met a guild with 3 thieves and one Mesmer near our Lord in Askalion…. when they tp the rest of their guild to cap the keep

Yes, we do this each day but it is not easy, we train each day to improve and do it better, even alone…a video from the last week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTuHzWFflU&feature=youtu.be

If you think that is easy just try, only a couple of thieves in the server could do that with a critics build.
What kind of game we want to pursue? Just blob against blob? Just hitting doors?
Thieves and mesmers give new options to the game. It is possible to fight them but you need to take some measures…
We have been training together since the start of the game, do not expect merciness.

Best

Haltair

I have no problems with that…… trying to kill the lord is fine, and you were lucky that nobody saw the life of the lord.

My problem is when a dead mesmer doesn’t tp and wait for a stealth rez, or when a mesmer benefit from the stealth of a thief to hide…..

And I do not want more blobs, I play in small groups too. Last time, we cap Askalion with 2 players and 1 guild cata. But, imo, this tactic is even worse than blobbing, because it promotes karma train….
Let’s be honest, a mesmer and a thief at the lord wouldn’t try to cap the keep, but would just call the nearest blob to cap it.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Just make dead for a minute = forced respawn.

Yes, that would be a good solution, and thieves like OdS could still do their jobs like in the video…

(And I play Thief, but I prefer playing poison rather than crit/stealth…..)

Jim Hunter.6821:

Just make dead for a minute = forced respawn.

Best idea yet – only I’d have it for less than 60 seconds – more like 30… if I am not up by 30, I am hiding.