Hi everyone!
Thief here. I also play Mesmer on occasion, as well as Engi.
There seems to be a bit of a misconception about what stealth is, what it does, and how effective it is. Specifically, people seem to think that a Thief in Stealth is the most absurdly OP thing in the game. This is understandable! But only if you don’t know what Stealth is, and what the difference between a mechanic and player skill is.
I’m here today to let you know all about it.
What is ‘Stealth’?
Stealth is the ability to become temporarily invisible. This is a Thief’s specialty, as they have kitten -poor health and defense in most builds that focus on it. It lasts for anywhere between 2-15 seconds depending on how you enter it, with 15 being achievable usually through standing in a highly visible Shadow Refuge pool for its full duration. As a Thief with stealth you can do some of the following (but not all):
- Blind nearby foes upon stealthing
- Move 50% faster (does not stack with Swiftness)
- Gain 2 stacks of might (does not stack if you multi-cast multiple stealths)
- Get a guaranteed critical strike
- Regenerate HP
- Gain 2 initiative (being nerfed on 10DEC)
- Regenerate Init faster
- Remove a condition every 3 seconds
- Regenerate more HP
Wow thats a lot of stuff! Keep in mind though, it is not possible to get all of these at once. 90% of these are in the same 2 trees even, and are not available at the same time. Just a quick glance, and I can get about 5 of these at the same time, but the build itself is functionally useless for anything other than hiding out in stealth for a bit…
Let’s go over these a bit more!
- Blind nearby foes upon stealthing. This serves a single purpose ultimately; to make it so that you don’t get gibbed going into stealth. After all, there isn’t a point of going into stealth if the second you did you got Stomp launched by a warrior. One could argue this should be an inherent capability of stealth in the first place! In SPvP/WvW a Thief will more likely have Shadow’s Embrace for the condition removal anyways.
- Move 50% faster in stealth. This is not that useful in combat to be honest. If you’re running away, sure. If you’re traveling across the map and Infiltrator’s Arrow isn’t fast enough for you, I suppose. Chasing an enemy? That’s half the point of our class mechanic (Steal). This usually isn’t traited for due to Vigorous Recovery or Power of Inertia.
- Gain 2 Stacks of Might. This is one of those rare situations where ANet has provided an appropriate mandatory-trait in the right tree for once. It not only encourages using stealth in combat, but it actually makes you stronger as the fight goes on so long as you keep applying it.
- Get a guaranteed critical strike. This trait is negligible. Guaranteed crits are nice and all, but most Thieves that would take this already have somewhere around 50-65% passive crit WITHOUT Fury applied. The only logical application for this is a D/D Thief anyways, and with our inherent love of Heartseeker, we’ll usually end up taking Executioner for the +20% damage since it is more synergetic with our off-set weapons as well as Heartseeker. This is mostly a PvE trait as a result.
- Gain 2 Init upon entering Stealth. WOW! A whole 2 init? This is scheduled for nerf on 10DEC anyways. Right now you get 2 init everytime you cast a stealth skill, after the nerf it will only happen when you initially enter stealth. Also, this trait is in the adept tier of Shadow Arts alongside Shadow’s Embrace and Cloaked in Shadow… Pick 1.
- Regenerate initiative faster. This is a laughable trait if ever there was one! It is a single initiative every 10 seconds. More specifically, this is currently equal to about 7.7% faster init regen, since most stealth does not last for 10 seconds. As of 10DEC, it will be the same as +10% additional init, again – only actually 10% if your stealth lasts that long. If you’re fighting a glass-cannon Thief (which is why you would be complaining about Thieves in the first place!) they have Hidden Thief instead, which lets them go stealth when they use Steal on you.
- Remove a condition every 3 seconds. This is ultimately the best reason to go into stealth aside from prepping for a Backstab. It is also the only real defensive ability that Stealth provides other than running away.
- Regenerate more HP. CONGRATULATIONS! You went all the way down the Shadow Arts traitline WITHOUT the intention of getting AoE-applied poisons for your team! WOO! This is a great trait to have while you’re licking your wounds for a few seconds in stealth. Do high damage, or be good at running away after getting your kitty-butt handed to you. Pick one.