bring a turret build to the point anytime, and never use the overcharge. You will get destroyed every time.
An engineer has no weapons swap. They will have very very limited active damage, no condition removal at all, and very weak damage from the turrets.
You appear to be making statements with little to know experience in the profession.
This one seems defensive about turrets
I’m interested in how the next ToL turns out. I expect to see mesmers rarely played, and those teams that do, will do poorly against teams with thieves.
Teams with mesmers will probably still do good in ToL, portal is the reason for bringing one.
Wait, this is bad matchup for mesmer? As a thief player, a zerker shatter mesmer is one of the scariest things for me to fight.
Maybe the old sword/x shatter which sometimes ran mirror images. Against that it becomes a game of who bursts who first.
As for those believing the 2/0/0/6/6 build is the only problem, take a look at these SS. S/D thief will still be around if Anet nerfs that build, they’ve been “nerfing” s/d since they redid the 3 skill and it’s still good.
Please post the full context of screenshots, that’s obviously with 25 might stacks and berserker. But other people will think 2/0/0/6/6 does that as soon as a fight initiates.
Fire/Air sigil + Acro Trickery is the problem. P/D Celestial is the other problem.
Those two build concepts need some shaving.
yeah, every thing else in the game is flawless, no other profession need “shaving”, just keep nerfing thieves to make every one happy.
It’s like football and politics, if there is no football every one complaints about politician, if there is football all problems vanish!
So as long as thieves are being nerfed, every thing else is “forgotten”.
Stuff like AI playing for you wile you go get a drink, warriors that can 1 shot ppl and get from A to B faster then other lighter professions, root bug, unkillable eles and so on.
FYI I main thief, and don’t play those builds specifically because I think they need nerfs.
I think other professions need nerfs too, but this thread isn’t about those.
The main problem I have with AI builds is the passive play it encourages. It needs so little player input to be effective and the pressure on the enemy is so great, it’s far too rewarding. I spectated a MM necro the other day and he literally didn’t use his dodge key a single time, yet he was still able to perform really well and ended with a high score in the pvp match. Something is wrong if just a build can carry you that far.
Based on what I am reading here, it appears you do not actually know how they work at all. For any damage or effects outside of that of a very basic and low damage auto attack, players must activate various skills and actions with summon creatures, with the exception of mesmers.
Those “Active” AI plays are extra benefits on top of the what AI already does, and aren’t even factored into any power points discussed for AI builds in this thread up until now.
S/P is a high tier spec too. People just have been using S/D more because you can dodge so much.
Nothing has the same down state cleave pressure in the game as an S/P thief.
Fire/Air sigil + Acro Trickery is the problem. P/D Celestial is the other problem.
Those two build concepts need some shaving.
Thanks for your reply! I agree with everything you’ve said. Condi heavy builds have been giving me trouble lately but the generosity sigil on my short bow helps a little.
Save HiS to be your condi removal. Use Shadowstep as a condi removal too. There’s no simple way to explain when to use these properly vs condi specs.
A good rule of thumb for HiS is if you’re at 2/3 or lower health with a lot of condi’s you want to use it.
There is no rule of thumb to follow for shadow step, other than once you’ve initally casted save the return for as long as possible in case you get condi’s on you.
If you get loaded up with confusion, torment, bleed, burning, and poison, then use HiS first, and if you have too many stacks of torment and confusion use shadow step.
Bad 1v1 matchups are Guardians and Engineers. It’s hard to find a reason to 1v1 these, so in general don’t. A lesser opponent is the only reason to regularly take this matchup.
Hambow and D/D ele aren’t favorable matchups for D/P when they’re being driven by highly skill players. A good hambow will always wreck your day as D/P, you have no shot to 1v1 a top tier hambow. D/D is winnable, but you have to land the ice shard chill while they are in or have just left water and hope it doesn’t get cleansed. This will keep the skills on cooldown long enough for you to widdle them down and hopefully down them, but it’s a rough tall task vs top tier D/D ele’s.
Shatter mesmer can be an interesting matchup for D/P. Utilize shortbow, Avoid the shatter, and go on the offensive when the shatter is down. If you can avoid the shatter it’s a favorable matchup for you.
Rangers should be a favorable matchup, so long as you avoid wasting your steal on blocks/evades depending on the build. Vs Power Ranger in Longbow stick to them like glue with shadow shot and infiltrator’s signet and you’ll out dps them, vs greatsword avoid the the knock block and bear bash. Use stealth, but don’t try to be too tricky vs a power ranger with your stealth, just out dps them.
Vs skirmisher or trap ranger builds it should be favorable, it’ll be a longer fight, but you can win as long as you condi cleanse correctly, meaning don’t miss your steal, against those evade heavy builds. Regardless of ranger build always be aware of the pets and their skills.
I don’t feel like I’ve played enough good necro’s to guage whether it’s a favorable matchup or not. It depends a lot on their death shroud. What I will say, is you don’t want to charge it for them. So stealth and avoid hitting them while they have spectral armor up, watch for spectral armor to trigger when they’re at 50% health. Have your condi cleanses available and don’t waste them. The fear from steal is hard to land, it’s best to use it immediately after you stealth. Vs terror chains, let them stack fear before stun breaking.
Why not make this a mechanic for all weapon skill with chains.
When a player is dazed or stunned they forget where they are in their attack chain.
Doesn’t make sense to apply to utilities. Mantras wouldn’t be viable for example.
Thanks for the positive response, they’re pleasantly surprising.
haha yep i was probably playing with you that premade team was annoying. it was actually 3 experimental turret engies. 1 mm necro and 1 fear spam necro. There was no way to recap anything unless we zerged one person. yet another turret engi just takes it place. It was a brutal match to play in and just watching everyone bounce around.
Did that one have 4 AI builds? I miscounted then. They’d never be able to rotate effectively with that many turret builds, and the minions are a bit slow to migrate too.
The concepts are similar but the game impact is different.
AI absorb cleave for one.
They can be used to block projectiles for another.
They add difficulty into tabbing through targets for yet another.
The impact of an AI health pools is also very different than a passive 180 precision from a signet.
It normally doesn’t matter to me, but playing in an uncoordinated team queue vs AI is really what put me over edge with my QQ. I can take loosing to players who coordinate, but coordinated AI builds vs an uncoordinated team just makes me frustrated.
Yes, those are all reasons to run the builds. Builds are supposed to have strengths (all those things listed) and weaknesses (they can be killed, kited, etc.), AI builds just happen to be more visible.
Literally all that needs to happen to make AI builds absolutely fine and no more or less skill-based or annoying than any of the other stuff that’s run is to take significant amounts of their damage and/or utility and put it onto their actives (in the case of spirits/turrets/minions, spirit weapons have other issues and other summons aren’t viable builds).
If the player is using their own skill through smart and active use of their abilities, then why does it matter if that ability manifests itself as a living creature (which you can kill or kite, completely unlike other abilities) or as just a visual effect. I get the frustration, but it is no different than facing a team of (insert one of infinite annoying combos that happens to counter my build).
Besides the differences mentioned above, there’s the additional issue of managing the pressure that numerous damage sources apply.
There’s also the fact that it’s not player vs player, it’s player vs player plus numerous AI.
I don’t care as much when I’m playing in coordinated teams that steamroll AI based builds, but It’s not enjoyable either, it lacks satisfaction.
There’s nothing innately different about running “AI” than there is having signets, passive procs, blah blah blah (except that minions bug out all the time and those don’t, go figure). All they need to do is swap some of their passive strength over to their active abilities and we’re good to go.
The concepts are similar but the game impact is different.
AI absorb cleave for one.
They can be used to block projectiles for another.
They add difficulty into tabbing through targets for yet another.
The impact of an AI on health pools is also very different than a passive 180 precision from a signet.
It normally doesn’t matter to me, but playing in an uncoordinated team queue vs AI is really what put me over edge with my QQ. I can take loosing to players who coordinate, but coordinated AI builds vs an uncoordinated team just makes me frustrated.
(edited by Shockwave.1230)
I just had my most frustating night in PvP ever.
It was literally AI Wars. Numerous matches with two to three AI profs, MM Necro and Turret engi.
As a thief that plays exclusively D/P and refuses to play anything else, they hard counter me. I get it cool, I’ll fight on other points or coordinate when in team queue.
When coordinating these builds are average at best, but when just trying to relax and have some fun at the end of the weekend before work starts up tomorrow, it’s literally the most infuriating game experience I’ve ever had. Rage quitting was on my mind, but that wouldn’t have been fair.
If these builds are what the average players are supposed to play in order succeed then PvP in this game has failed.
Why make something effective enough to dominate uncoordinated teams, but make it unviable in a coordinated setting.
More importantly PvPers want to play players, not PvE. Why ever make AI viable in PvP? There is absolutely no reason to mix AI builds and non-AI builds in the same environment. AI vs non-AI should never be at a state where AI is a viable option for the general playerbase to use in Player vs Player games. These builds are like Acro thieves, they play an entirely different game especially vs uncoordinated teams. The fact that they shouldn’t be and don’t seem to be viable in coordinated play, is alone enough for anyone to question why these builds even exist in the form that they do.
I know there’s only about 25,000 players who team queue with any regularity, thank the leaderboards for sharing that info (jumping from the 25th percentile to the top 1000, the tooltip shows a rank increase of 20,000 ranks), but why would you allow any of that 25k population to think it’s okay to use AI builds in a Player vs Player mode.
tl;dr
I’m frustrated and QQing on the forums.
I’m hard countered by AI builds, I was playing with uncoordinated teams in team queue, I was vsing teams with 2-3 AI builds, the AI was killing my team’s players and myself.
Getting a coordinated team would have effectively hard countered these teams, and wouldn’t have been fun anyways.
There’s no just no fun in winning against or losing to AI in a PvP environment.
/end_qq
Pen > Sword
Sword > Mesmer
Therefore?
Pen > Mesmer
I did math in excel power is the best way after update
Sometimes it will be. It depends on your crit chance. If it’s really close, as in the damage has a 1 or 2 percent different I would go with crit damage, because the damage variance will fluctuate more resulting sometimes in higher spikes of damage. This is especially good for triggering traits like bolt to the heart sooner to get more even more damage.
Still can’t dodge during moonwalk, plz fix.
Yes, a bug I see often. Anyone know if steal goes on full cool down? And if so do the effects like bountiful theft and mug still trigger?
Does steal go on a 5 second cool down if you try to steal from an in range target on a ledge or does it go on full cool down and you don’t get the steal bundle? Or something else entirely?
I can’t figure out what they meant in the patch notes.
Also are thieves still not able to dodge during the SB3 moonwalk?
I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth.”
“Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.”
You are saying he doesn’t have a idea what he is saying and wasn’t thinking like you when he made the statement.
I see you have a doctorate in spin.
I am communicating his statement was wrong not that he is incompetent.
Another logical fallacies, but this time it’s even worse because you are trying to make him look like he’s the one using them. What is the point to even discuss with you?
I’ll be happy to discuss if you’d like to provide details on what you’re referring to
tl;dr below
A stealth inexperienced player friendly change would be to have some kind of ‘Hit?!’ indicator popup over the caster/attackers head if they only hit stealthed enemies with skill 1. It’s effectively the same thing as noticing your auto attack chain trigger except 2 major differences. 1) It’s presented in a more noticeable way, and 2) it would let skills not in a chain indicate a hit as well. Though I would like to see this still limited to skill 1 of any weapon set, except for kits (because bomb kit and grenade kit are aleady super forgiving vs stealth).
If such a change was implemented, it’d be important to hide the amount of damage done, as well as have the UI pop be in a static location, not over the head of the stealthed enemy that was attacked. To add more counterplay, the ‘Hit?!’ could be implemented so that it only triggered when you hit only stealthed enemies, so that it’s hidden if you cleave a stealthed and non-stealthed enemy. This gives stealthed players an option to take a cleave hit without the enemy knowing they did so. For example a mesmer eating it with one of their illusions, or a thief eating a hit with a rockdog. For more counterplay options it’d be nice not to show the hit indicator when a hit connects vs a block or invulnerability.
There are two other changes that make sense to do that have nothing to do with stealth.
1) Implement a config option to fire projectiles parallel to the ground when the camera is between certain angles, if we’re measuring angles perpendicular to level ground and 0 degrees is straight down while 180 degrees is straight up, then it would make sense that between angles 30ish degrees and 95ish degrees that projectiles be fired forward parallel to the ground. Again, as config option in the menu settings, please.
2) Add some kind of non-target way to deal the damage for skills that require a target, specifically skills Flame Strike, Arc Lightning, Blood Curse Chain, and Spatial Surge. As a random example, for spatial surge when it’s targeted it behaves as is, but when it’s not targeted it applies the shortest range damage to a small area in front of or around the player. Spatial Surge and Arc Lightning obviously do multiple hits, so maybe it would make sense in this kind of rework to reduce those hits to a single or couple hits. Devs choice obviously.
This is a straight buff to lessening the amount of awareness being required to fight against stealth, as well as a straight buff to any weapon skill 1 that wasn’t an attack chain. Tracking with skill 1 is important enough, that I feel this is a fair solution, since not all weapons have it.
tl;dr
I know from experience stealth isn’t noob friendly to fight against, so making all weapon slot 1 skills (except kits) trigger a ‘Hit?!’ indicator as a way to help track stealth similarly to any auto attack chain seems super fair to me. It also doesn’t require a nerf to the stealth mechanic.
I feel like not being able to track stealthed players with skill 1 is a legimate complaint, and should be available on every mainhand weapon. These are just some potential implementations I’ve thought of that don’t involve more revealed, and don’t inolve nerfing stealth, and don’t involve making the stealthed players exact location known. I’m sure you devs could refine this.
I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth.”
“Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.”
You are saying he doesn’t have a idea what he is saying and wasn’t thinking like you when he made the statement.
I see you have a doctorate in spin.
I am communicating his statement was wrong not that he is incompetent.
Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.
This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession. Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.
You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think you are wrong, I already know that’s what you think. And its the core reason why you continue to post because of this fact. You are so far invested into your personal interpretations that you have even gone so far to say that Jon Sharp doesn’t know what he is talking about so that you can maintain the illusion that what you are saying is absolutely correct.
You do a lot to maintain the state of your perspective even when given irrefutable facts:
1. Jon Sharp is wrong when he states that stealth had no counter prior to sic em
2. Then it became Jon Sharp was only communicating to people who share my perspective or in other words he was only appeasing a certain group of people
3. A counter doesn’t mean it has to be a opposing force, even though the definition says so
4. When all else fails you revert to trying to talk about a deficiency in the players game experience in order to continue to maintain your position. In other words you feel players only experience stealth in a negative way because they aren’t applying what you have told them.
Every single last thing you do is to keep yourself in that position. There is no harm in being wrong, in fact you gain more in being wrong than you do right. But that is something you will have to figure out on your own accord.
I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I am simply stating he wasn’t thinking about the counterplay that exists when he made those statements.
The main evidence I use to understand that stealth has counterplay is the state of the meta. Stealth isn’t dominating entire team comps therefore people, such as myself have found ways to counterplay it.
Continuing to get caught up on this ‘polar opposite counter’ idea is not helping you understand that stealth does have counters that people can do.
Why you are so caught up on only that context of counter I don’t understand, but again the context of a counter that everyone else is talking about is a response to negate an initial action as I previously mentioned. ANet has stated that it’s intended to limited hard counters, which seems to be what you are asking for. They’ve also had stealth the way it’s been for as long as it has, so that should be further evidence of their intent for it to be that way.
I’ve also previously pointed out that besides sic ‘em stealthed players counter themselves by removing stealth and applying revealed to themselves. This is a polar opposite counter that you want. The only thing you don’t seem to like about it is that it’s not readily available to you for use. There’s a good reason for that, because if it was stealth wouldn’t be viable as professions could chain it on a thief heavily reducing both its offensive and defensive capabilities.
But none of this discussion actually matters because the reality is that stealth does have counters, because if it didn’t then it would be the only thing people ran.
I see logical fallacies everywhere… to the point where it’s getting redundant.
How so?
I’d be happy to elaborate on any concerns you have with the justification provided.
If the thief was OP it’d be the only thing people ran in at least one game mode.
S/D Acro Trickery and P/D DeadlyArts ShadowArts potentially should be looked at for nerfs, but the profession doesn’t need a rework.
As it stands though, the profession is not OP.
Let me guess because they are the only “tank” thief builds eh? Stealth and evade eh? Can’t handle a glassy class holding a little longer eh?
Thief user logic: When I go into a toughness(Shadow Arts) or vitality(Acrobatics) trait line I deserve some kind of survivability or else those points I spent are useless.
Thief opponent logic: Why does he survive if he’s a glassy class,why can’t i hit him,why does he do so much damage,why is he so annoying?
GW2 logic: Huh mmm so thief did not become what we expected or did they forget the definition of thief or maybe they only want glass canon thieves. Should we remind them one more time or is it pointless?
I’m guessing Acro Trickery S/D is your response. It’s the best thief build by far. Nothing comes close to its combined mobility, damage, utility, and sustain. A lot of thief builds have a high amount of the first three I mentioned, but adding sustain without adequeating lowering the other three in some way is where the problem lies.
As an FYI, I main a thief in PvP.
Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.
This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession. Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.
You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think you are wrong, I already know that’s what you think. And its the core reason why you continue to post because of this fact. You are so far invested into your personal interpretations that you have even gone so far to say that Jon Sharp doesn’t know what he is talking about so that you can maintain the illusion that what you are saying is absolutely correct.
You do a lot to maintain the state of your perspective even when given irrefutable facts:
1. Jon Sharp is wrong when he states that stealth had no counter prior to sic em
2. Then it became Jon Sharp was only communicating to people who share my perspective or in other words he was only appeasing a certain group of people
3. A counter doesn’t mean it has to be a opposing force, even though the definition says so
4. When all else fails you revert to trying to talk about a deficiency in the players game experience in order to continue to maintain your position. In other words you feel players only experience stealth in a negative way because they aren’t applying what you have told them.
Every single last thing you do is to keep yourself in that position. There is no harm in being wrong, in fact you gain more in being wrong than you do right. But that is something you will have to figure out on your own accord.
I never said Mr Sharp doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I am simply stating he wasn’t thinking about the counterplay that exists when he made those statements.
The main evidence I use to understand that stealth has counterplay is the state of the meta. Stealth isn’t dominating entire team comps therefore people, such as myself have found ways to counterplay it.
Continuing to get caught up on this ‘polar opposite counter’ idea is not helping you understand that stealth does have counters that people can do.
Why you are so caught up on only that context of counter I don’t understand, but again the context of a counter that everyone else is talking about is a response to negate an initial action as I previously mentioned. ANet has stated that it’s intended to limited hard counters, which seems to be what you are asking for. They’ve also had stealth the way it’s been for as long as it has, so that should be further evidence of their intent for it to be that way.
I’ve also previously pointed out that besides sic ‘em stealthed players counter themselves by removing stealth and applying revealed to themselves. This is a polar opposite counter that you want. The only thing you don’t seem to like about it is that it’s not readily available to you for use. There’s a good reason for that, because if it was stealth wouldn’t be viable as professions could chain it on a thief heavily reducing both its offensive and defensive capabilities.
But none of this discussion actually matters because the reality is that stealth does have counters, because if it didn’t then it would be the only thing people ran.
@ Aza
Your comments are rather biased.
Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.
I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.
Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.
Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.
Here is the quote:
“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”
- Jonathan Sharp
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first
Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.
Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.
So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.
Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.
Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.
Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.
You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.
Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.You have too much of yourself invested in your posts about stealth that you can’t even say you are wrong. But don’t worry, you aren’t unique. Most people are this way were as they only want to be right.
I understand your comment about invulnerability perfectly and I’m telling you that you do not know what you are saying. You can’t counter invulnerability with invulnerability since its a identical force. It would have to be a opposing force for it to be considered a counter. Meaning there would have to be a skill that makes target vulnerable to all attacks or a skill still hits even when the target is invul.
Regarding invulnerability, I get the feeling you are looking at it within a silo. Invulnerability gives you the opportunity to play without risk when you would otherwise have it.
Take Scepter Focus fresh air ele for example. To play that build effectively you need to rely heavily on positioning, because it’s very squishy. Say you’re up against a dps guardian. If you’re both low on health and as the Guardian are attempting to LoS around a corner and the ele chooses to follow, then he’ll likely come around the corner casting obsidian flesh, then casting Phoenix and his air spike, because he thinks he’ll finish you by getting rid of your blinds and blocks as well as ignoring them. He’s also invincible so you can’t dps him down.
So how do you counter this moment of invincibility that he takes? By using renewed focus yourself to become invincible.
Invincibility does not remove Invincibility that is of course true. Also it definitely counters any opportunity Invincibility creates.
(edited by Shockwave.1230)
@ Aza
Your comments are rather biased.
Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.
I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.
Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.
Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.
Here is the quote:
“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”
- Jonathan Sharp
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first
Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.
Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.
So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.
Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.
Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.
Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.
You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.
Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.You have too much of yourself invested in your posts about stealth that you can’t even say you are wrong. But don’t worry, you aren’t unique. Most people are this way were as they only want to be right.
I understand your comment about invulnerability perfectly and I’m telling you that you do not know what you are saying. You can’t counter invulnerability with invulnerability since its a identical force. It would have to be a opposing force for it to be considered a counter. Meaning there would have to be a skill that makes target vulnerable to all attacks or a skill still hits even when the target is invul.
Numerous people have provided examples of how to counterplay stealth, we’re not wrong. If we were and stealth had no counterplay to it, then thieves would take 0 damage and always land flanking strikes to trigger stealth attack bonuses.
This is not reality, because stealth has counterplay to it and it’s available on every profession.
Mr Sharp seems to have been communicating for people who have perspectives such as your own, people who thinks stealth has no counterplay to it.
I recommend you try to take a D/P thief and fight a Sc/F | GS Dps guardian.
Feel and experience how hard dps guardian counters D/P thief, probably one of the most stealth dependant builds.
Take a Dagger thief build and fight any meta engineer build and experience how hard a counter engineers are to various thief stealth builds.
Fight a hambow warrior and see how long it takes to get anywhere.
Your opinion is that provided arguments with my experiences is somehow a weakness, I view it as a strength.
This explains how low is the pvp level in this game
Most thief complaints are due to WvW roaming. WvW doesn’t equal PvP, so there’s really little to no value in comparing players from the two.
Considering that the top posts are currently almost all about stealth, I would say in general that there is a high discontent between non-thief/mes players and how stealth can be fought against. I did see their philosophy on balance stream and while they did point out why stealth doesn’t really have hard counters (they don’t want builds to be completely shut down) all I could think about is that… ironically that is really what stealth does to some builds. Not all builds have access to melee weapons and the “anti stealth technique” of swinging wildly into the air. Play with pistols or other weapons that require a target to hit anything and watch how painful fighting stealth becomes.
Personally I’m not asking for adding in anything that completely shuts down stealth, but more ways to play against it, like sic em. Similar to how someone has to “dance” around a warrior on endure pain till it leaves, forced revealed through sic em forces someone to dance around without stealth for a bit and doesn’t completely shut down any build.I would like to devs to think about adding more skills similar to sic em, that is all.
Stealth has made a lot of people disgruntled since launch, lots of threads on it, numerous thread merges for it.
I was one of those people that didn’t like it, because my first main I made was elementalist. I had no clue how stealth worked, because I didn’t have access to it, so I couldn’t figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were. Then I started playing my thief more in PvP it made sense why it was the way it was, because stealth was balanced around the thief having low survivability.
Most people complaining in the forums don’t have very much experience playing as thief in PvP, or even mesmer. You can’t get superior positioning to deal ranged damage as thief, you can’t out sustain someone in a fight, you have to rely on your dodges, blinds, stealths, and evades. You also have to deal damage way faster than your opponent because they will have more sustain than you do. It’s probably the least forgiving profession to play, and that’s one of the draws of the profession in my eyes.
That all said, I totally understand why people complain about the thief, and that’s why I think it’s important to explain how to counter stealth builds. It’s something that is different than most of the other professions, and because thief is a snowflake and stands out there’s this natural psychological behavior to make the snowflake conform.
If the thief was OP it’d be the only thing people ran in at least one game mode.
S/D Acro Trickery and P/D DeadlyArts ShadowArts potentially should be looked at for nerfs, but the profession doesn’t need a rework.
As it stands though, the profession is not OP.
@ Aza
Your comments are rather biased.
Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.
I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.
Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.
Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.
Here is the quote:
“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”
- Jonathan Sharp
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first
Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.
Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.
So what you are saying is the developer who designed the skills is wrong and that you know better. Its difficult to admit to yourself that you are wrong, work on it.
Invul doesn’t have counter play that is true. But its irrelevant, the cdsare way to long for them to be a problem. The only skill that had a short cd with invul was blurred frenzy but that was changed because it had no counter.
Yes I am telling you that the designer/developer was incorrect in his assessment, or wasn’t thinking completely about his statement at the time.
Stealth has counterplay without sic ’em.
You misunderstand my invulnerability comment, invulnerabilty has no counter, but it does have counterplay.
Edit
Forgot that Invulnerability does have a counter, it’s invulnerability.
(edited by Shockwave.1230)
@ Aza
Your comments are rather biased.
Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.
I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.
Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.
Not true at all. so its not necessarily intended. When they changed sic em to be revealed Anet said they introduced it because there was no counter play to stealth and players have been asking for it. Meaning all of the stuff you have named isn’t counter play at all, like I said.
Here is the quote:
“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”
- Jonathan Sharp
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first
Using conquest mode as a example of why stealth isn’t overpowered has nothing to do with anything.
Mr Sharp was incorrect in his assessment of there being no counterplay to stealth. If there was no counterplay to stealth then there is no counterplay to invulnerability, which there is.
@ Aza
Your comments are rather biased.
Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.
I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.
Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.
For sPvP it isn’t imbalanced since while in stealth you cannot capture points, which are the main gain of points in that mode, limiting its uses outside of defensive purposes. WvW is a separate beast altogether, and does need its own separate balance patches from sPvP, REGARDLESS of what the higher ups in Anet think.
Without objectives it’s stronger, but not broken as a mechanic. You won’t see a thief win most of the time, vs every 1v1 build matchup. I don’t like the state of P/D thief though. Maybe I just haven’t fought with/against it enough, but currently I feel like that is too strong and is its own case that needs dealt with.
In WvW though it’s zerg vs zerg . Veil is the viable stealth there, which lasts for 3 seconds on a 72 second cooldown (buffs included). Besides that stealth skill, what impact does stealth play? The roamers fighting each other in WvW have a miniscule if any impact on a WvW matchup, would you not agree?
why does everyone want some autowin button against thieves?
Because thief takes a different mindset to play against. People don’t like things that are different.
Mesmer takes a different mindset too, probably every profession does I suppose. But you don’t see all the QQ about Mesmers.
@ Aza
Your comments are rather biased.
Not biased, I’m objective. What I’ve written so far has nothing to do with my personal experience in game.
I think what people are trying to point out to you is that all these things you are complaining about are intended.
Regardless though if professions with stealth were imbalanced why aren’t the majority of people’s pvp comps made up entirely of stealth professions? The answer is rather obvious, because it doesn’t work, and that’s because stealth is not imbalanced.
That’s not dodging any question, please reread. Your root cause issue, is that you don’t know where your target is, I provided how you know where your target is.
I also noted that players using stealth inflict a “polar opposite counter” on themselves, which is also true.
You for some reason are fixated on this concept of a polar opposite counter having to exist for your own personal use, when that’s simply not true. Invincibility has no polar opposite counter, teleporting has no polar opposite counter. Plus the polar counter does exist for stealth anyways, players just inflict it upon themselves.
Quite simply it is your opinion that this “polar opposite counter” should be readily available to you, instead of being implemented in the way that it is. Whereas it is ANet’s opionion that it should be the way that it is currently.
It is dodging the question, you avoid answering it by simply trying to shift the discussion back to your own personal thinking of what a counter is.
Fixated? Are you sure about that one? The only thing I do is continue to bring the accepted definition of what a counter is back into the discussion. Which again involves opposites, you act like I made up the definition. Maybe you should seek out the creator of it since you seem to have a problem with it.
The accepted definition of a counter is a way to respond that will negate or reduce the impact of the initial action. For example, you would counter a larger force with strategies, tactics, or advanced technology like formations, flanking, or modern weapons.
You can negate the impact of stealth by doing things that I and others have suggested.
You don’t have to agree with the accepted definition, but that’s okay.
There is truth in what you are saying, but its a bit deceptive. The only reason why counter would be used in context with your example is if the strategists figured they had a equal force to oppose the larger one. It would not be a counter without the equal force.
Regardless, none of this has nothing to do with your listed counters for stealth. How would be dropping aoe in a random place be a equal force to stealth. Better yet how does it negate or lessen the effect of stealth?
On its own stealth is a debuff that also prevents you from being seen. The only postive effect is that it gives you opportunities, nothing more nothing less. So what you do is negate those opportunities via the various means that people such as myself have suggested.
Off topic discussions we’re focused on thief for some reason not each other. Only solution that make total sense make the light fields capable of revealing and combo finishers through it lengthen the effect this gives guardian a plus for support their main purpose for some reason.
Stop trying to make every profession anti-stealth it is not responsible we can’t remake a whole trait line called Shadow Arts.
Blasting a light field to inflict revealed actually sounds like a really cool idea. I hope ANet tries this internally to see if it could work with various durations of revealed, start at inflicting a 1 second revealed and work your way up.
That’s not dodging any question, please reread. Your root cause issue, is that you don’t know where your target is, I provided how you know where your target is.
I also noted that players using stealth inflict a “polar opposite counter” on themselves, which is also true.
You for some reason are fixated on this concept of a polar opposite counter having to exist for your own personal use, when that’s simply not true. Invincibility has no polar opposite counter, teleporting has no polar opposite counter. Plus the polar counter does exist for stealth anyways, players just inflict it upon themselves.
Quite simply it is your opinion that this “polar opposite counter” should be readily available to you, instead of being implemented in the way that it is. Whereas it is ANet’s opionion that it should be the way that it is currently.
It is dodging the question, you avoid answering it by simply trying to shift the discussion back to your own personal thinking of what a counter is.
Fixated? Are you sure about that one? The only thing I do is continue to bring the accepted definition of what a counter is back into the discussion. Which again involves opposites, you act like I made up the definition. Maybe you should seek out the creator of it since you seem to have a problem with it.
The accepted definition of a counter is a way to respond that will negate or reduce the impact of the initial action. For example, you would counter a larger force with strategies, tactics, or advanced technology like formations, flanking, or modern weapons.
You can negate the impact of stealth by doing things that I and others have suggested.
You don’t have to agree with the accepted definition, but that’s okay.
Now you can see how rediculous some of the listed opposing view points are, but some are not rediculous, yet they’re all valid in some way.
The point is that when people provide ways to counter stealth, it’s because there actually are ways to counter stealth.
The only thing I see is the absence of comprehension on your behalf. The thing is its not my view point, since what I’m saying is objective not subjective. Its based solely upon what the definition of counter is not what I “think” or “feel” it is. The list you made is completely subjective since its based upon your own personal interpretation of what a counter means.
Its a fact that all of the mechanics I listed stand on the opposite end of the spectrum of their counter parts. It doesn’t matter how you say they are applied, the only thing that does matter is that there are mechanics in place that balance out each other by providing the opposite effect.
Going by the “definition” of counter, not your own personal interpretation of the meaning. Show me how anything you listed is even roughly related to it.
Okay if you’d like to look at everything in a silo then my argument is that stealth does nothing by itself except put you at a disadvantage of not being able to interact with objectives.
Therefore stealth is actually a debuff.
This is irrelevant because you are shifting the discussion from the mechanic itself to things outside of it such as objectives or your personal opinion that its a debuff. Looking at the mechanic itself, illustrate how any of what you listed in your previous reply fits the definition of a counter.
If you like to know what the hard counter to stealth is those are
- Stealth by itself (as the play in stealth is less useful than when they are out of stealth)
- Revealed
And there’s the list of other counters that I previously mentioned, such as Invincibility or blocks, or blinds, since stealth by itself is actually a debuff and is useful for creating an opportunity deal damage.
Stealth makes the target invisible. What skills can make a target visible?
Let me fix that for you…
Stealth makes it so you don’t know where your target is, what skills allow you to know where your target is?
- Auto attack chains
- On hit sigil procs (fire & air)
- Any channel skill used before the target enters stealth
To answer the original question though, any damage skill is the answer. A stealthed player reveals himself/herself and inflicts a revealed debuff as well, preventing stealth again, wihch means the stealthed player counters hiself/herself.
I’m still waiting for you to show me how what you are saying fits the definition of counter. All you have done so far is dodge the task by providing examples in accordance to your own interpretation of the word.
That’s not dodging any question, please reread. Your root cause issue, is that you don’t know where your target is, I provided how you know where your target is.
I also noted that players using stealth inflict a “polar opposite counter” on themselves, which is also true.
You for some reason are fixated on this concept of a polar opposite counter having to exist for your own personal use, when that’s simply not true. Invincibility has no polar opposite counter, teleporting has no polar opposite counter. Plus the polar counter does exist for stealth anyways, players just inflict it upon themselves.
Quite simply it is your opinion that this “polar opposite counter” should be readily available to you, instead of being implemented in the way that it is. Whereas it is ANet’s opionion that it should be the way that it is currently.
Now you can see how rediculous some of the listed opposing view points are, but some are not rediculous, yet they’re all valid in some way.
The point is that when people provide ways to counter stealth, it’s because there actually are ways to counter stealth.
The only thing I see is the absence of comprehension on your behalf. The thing is its not my view point, since what I’m saying is objective not subjective. Its based solely upon what the definition of counter is not what I “think” or “feel” it is. The list you made is completely subjective since its based upon your own personal interpretation of what a counter means.
Its a fact that all of the mechanics I listed stand on the opposite end of the spectrum of their counter parts. It doesn’t matter how you say they are applied, the only thing that does matter is that there are mechanics in place that balance out each other by providing the opposite effect.
Going by the “definition” of counter, not your own personal interpretation of the meaning. Show me how anything you listed is even roughly related to it.
Okay if you’d like to look at everything in a silo then my argument is that stealth does nothing by itself except put you at a disadvantage of not being able to interact with objectives.
Therefore stealth is actually a debuff.
This is irrelevant because you are shifting the discussion from the mechanic itself to things outside of it such as objectives or your personal opinion that its a debuff. Looking at the mechanic itself, illustrate how any of what you listed in your previous reply fits the definition of a counter.
If you like to know what the hard counter to stealth is those are
- Stealth by itself (as the play in stealth is less useful than when they are out of stealth)
- Revealed
And there’s the list of other counters that I previously mentioned, such as Invincibility or blocks, or blinds, since stealth by itself is actually a debuff and is useful for creating an opportunity deal damage.
Stealth makes the target invisible. What skills can make a target visible?
Let me fix that for you…
Stealth makes it so you don’t know where your target is, what skills allow you to know where your target is?
To answer the original question though, any damage skill is the answer. A stealthed player reveals himself/herself and inflicts a revealed debuff as well, preventing stealth again, wihch means the stealthed player counters hiself/herself.
Now you can see how rediculous some of the listed opposing view points are, but some are not rediculous, yet they’re all valid in some way.
The point is that when people provide ways to counter stealth, it’s because there actually are ways to counter stealth.
The only thing I see is the absence of comprehension on your behalf. The thing is its not my view point, since what I’m saying is objective not subjective. Its based solely upon what the definition of counter is not what I “think” or “feel” it is. The list you made is completely subjective since its based upon your own personal interpretation of what a counter means.
Its a fact that all of the mechanics I listed stand on the opposite end of the spectrum of their counter parts. It doesn’t matter how you say they are applied, the only thing that does matter is that there are mechanics in place that balance out each other by providing the opposite effect.
Going by the “definition” of counter, not your own personal interpretation of the meaning. Show me how anything you listed is even roughly related to it.
Okay if you’d like to look at everything in a silo then my argument is that stealth does nothing by itself except put you at a disadvantage of not being able to interact with objectives.
Therefore stealth is actually a debuff.
This is irrelevant because you are shifting the discussion from the mechanic itself to things outside of it such as objectives or your personal opinion that its a debuff. Looking at the mechanic itself, illustrate how any of what you listed in your previous reply fits the definition of a counter.
If you like to know what the hard counter to stealth is those are
And there’s the list of other counters that I previously mentioned, such as Invincibility or blocks, or blinds, since stealth by itself is actually a debuff and becomes useful to create an opportunity to deal damage.
(edited by Shockwave.1230)
Now you can see how rediculous some of the listed opposing view points are, but some are not rediculous, yet they’re all valid in some way.
The point is that when people provide ways to counter stealth, it’s because there actually are ways to counter stealth.
The only thing I see is the absence of comprehension on your behalf. The thing is its not my view point, since what I’m saying is objective not subjective. Its based solely upon what the definition of counter is not what I “think” or “feel” it is. The list you made is completely subjective since its based upon your own personal interpretation of what a counter means.
Its a fact that all of the mechanics I listed stand on the opposite end of the spectrum of their counter parts. It doesn’t matter how you say they are applied, the only thing that does matter is that there are mechanics in place that balance out each other by providing the opposite effect.
Going by the “definition” of counter, not your own personal interpretation of the meaning. Show me how anything you listed is even roughly related to it.
Okay if you’d like to look at everything in a silo then my argument is that stealth does nothing by itself except put you at a disadvantage of not being able to interact with objectives.
Therefore stealth is actually a debuff.
Countering backstab is pretty simple, and is ultimately what was being complained about in recent posts. Below is a list of counter backstab options that are not random at all.
Options include but are not limited to the following:
- Back directly away from where the thief stealthed and dodgeroll 1.5 seconds after, then continue to back directly away (attacking simultaneously)
- AoE the ground (preferably with a snare, but damage is good too), back directly away from where the thief stealthed.
- Knockback as soon as stealth happens and back directly away.
- Use a DoT defensive skill such as Renewed Focus or Shield Stance
- Activate a counter block skill, then dodge when you see block, and back directly away from where you dodged from (also works with Aegis)
- Stealth to counter their Stealth
- Use a leap skill then about-face, and back away
- Equip Healing Signet, the more time a thief is in stealth the more you are winning
- Blind the area around you
- Etc…
Again the above list isn’t random actions, but you can be random if you feel like it will accomplish something.
No no and no.
Everything you listed are “preventions” not counters. Its amazing that people just can’t comprehend the definition. The definition of a counter is simple, a eye for a eye a tooth for a tooth. For it to be a counter it has to be something of equal value to what its opposing.
Cripple counters swiftness, vulnerability counters protection….there is a pattern you see?
Cripple is everything swiftness is not, swiftness speeds you up, cripple slows you down. Protection increases your defense, vulnerability decreases your defense.
Everything you listed has nothing to do with countering at all, sorry man no disrespect.
These in fact are counters.
I see you’ve provided a list of things you think have counters, I could apply your own kind of logic to your own list and show you why they aren’t counters..
Here are examples:
1. Protection – Vulnerability
2. Might – Weakness
3. Endurance – Weakness
4. Stun, Daze etc – Stability
5. Healing – Poison
6. Conditions – Condition removers
7. Block – Unblockable attacks
- 8. Stealth – Sic em
- 9. Evade – Nothing
1. Vulnerability doesn’t counter protection, because you can’t constantly apply 25 might stacks to mathematically make them even.
2. Weakness and might don’t counter each other, because it doesn’t affect each kind of build in the same way. It counters berserker builds harder than soldier builds. It reduces berserker build dps by more than half, whereas 25 might stacks only increases power by 50%. Vs condi builds weakness basically has no effect, whereas 25 might stacks increases their condi stat by about 100%
3. (Assuming you meant vigor not endurance, if you didn’t though then this is a prime example of your view of something called a ‘prevention’ being something you view as a counter) Weakness doesn’t counter vigor properly, because when both are applied your endurance regen rate is 75% of normal.
4. Stability doesn’t counter daze or stuns, because stability doesn’t remove them, it only prevents them.
5. Poison isn’t a counter to healing, because all it does is prevent some healing (a prime example of your view of ‘preventions’, which people are suggesting are in fact counters)
6. Condition removal doesn’t counter conditions, because conditions can be applied too easily and there’s not enough condition removal to account for all the conditions (another kind of ‘prevention’, that you view as a counter)
7. Unblockable attacks don’t counter blocks, because players get smart enough to time block skills until after unblockable skills are used.
Now you can see how rediculous some of the listed opposing view points are, but some are not rediculous, yet they’re all valid in some way.
The point is that when people provide ways to counter stealth, it’s because there actually are ways to counter stealth.
Countering backstab is pretty simple, and is ultimately what was being complained about in recent posts. Below is a list of counter backstab options that are not random at all.
Options include but are not limited to the following:
Again the above list isn’t random actions, but you can be random if you feel like it will accomplish something.
(edited by Shockwave.1230)
Who uses stealth to wait out a stance? Why waste a cooldown?
I just back off until the stances wear off.
thief is even worse in a 2v2.. no other class can take out one of the opponents faster during focus fire thus turning it into a 1v2 quite easily
As team fights get bigger the thief’s impact lessens, because there’s so much risk in them landing a spike.
In 2v2 or larger fights all you need to do is focus the thief when they come in range. They will drop fast.
Upon approaching skill cap, what professions/builds hard counter each other?
I would agree with that except from the opposite perspective not all classes can attack from stealth so easily, outside of having help from a thief/mesmer. And to add to that their attacks aren’t specialized in stealth either. And even further that thieves don’t have to be in stealth to remove aegis just like other classes.
As with your discussion with shinigamith.7120, I think the point you’re missing is what happens when a thief is already in stealth. Stealth doesn’t come for free; you either have to blow half your initiative pool or a utility on long cd. And continuing Shockwave.1230’s point, do you think it’s fair to have to continue to spend initiative in order to remove blind/aegis when every other class gets it for free, after making that sacrifice? You’re right, other classes don’t have specialized attacks in stealth. But that only makes his point stronger because you end up losing a lot more than the other classes for coming out of stealth.
Yes, that’s what I’m advocating which is; when people want to knowingly counter play stealth with blocks, or worse aegis, that they shouldn’t be punished for doing so.
And for when the thief is already in stealth I do support the suggestion that it should cost at least 1 initiative per backstab. This can be altered to occur only when they are blocked or missed but if there is no aegis or block up then the BS can be free as usual. The suggestion is to prevent spam and encourage more skillful play as others have mentioned. If a thief knows there’s aegis or blocks up they can wait and regen their initiative (1 per 3/4s if i’m not mistaken) before initiating again as compared to the person who is blocking or put up aegis will be coming out much more behind in terms of skill CD. For example: engineer gear shield block is a 20s (untraited AFAIK) CD vs a thief who CnD’d would have a net loss of 2-3 initiative if they just wait it out. So still the person blocking comes out behind in that situation.
For the receiving end, it’s no fun playing as a guardian/etc to have put aegis up (72-90s CD) to prevent a BS when it can be stripped without consequence in stealth from that one attack, repeatedly.
PS whatever that weird forum error is, is really messing up replying.
The suggestion to prevent spamming in stealth is counter intuitive, the only way to counter aegis, blinds, and blocks is to spam them away regardless of whether or not you are in stealth.
The suggestion is still to punish thieves for using stealth whereas every other prof gets to deal with these things for free, even if they are in stealth.
The suggestions is only for backstab and block/aegis, other skills are questionable.
Yet that would mean that blocking and aegis themselves are also counter intuitive if they are meant to block damage but can’t because of the above mentioned issues. Meaning to say, why block at all and waste CD and opportunity when it won’t matter in the end since you’ll still end up getting hit by what you were trying to block in the first place without consequence to the attacker?
Stealth doesn’t guarentee a backstab vs blinds and blocks. It would be good experience for you to try D/P thief for a dozen pvp matches to understand how important backstabs are at making thief viable with dagger.
People like to bash on thief without trying to play as thief vs solid players. They don’t understand that dagger thieves don’t have sustain vs damage and have to be inflicting damage faster than they take it in order to be viable.
Penalizing backstab vs blinds and blocks just puts dagger builds further behind the 8 ball than they already are, and leaves sword builds as a better option overall since profs like warrior, guardian, mesmer, and ele can chain blinds, blocks, and invulns to help nuetralize backstab. As an aside I find it ironic that there is so much stealth hate, when sword builds don’t use stealth in combat and are better all around builds than dagger builds.
I would agree with that except from the opposite perspective not all classes can attack from stealth so easily, outside of having help from a thief/mesmer. And to add to that their attacks aren’t specialized in stealth either. And even further that thieves don’t have to be in stealth to remove aegis just like other classes.
As with your discussion with shinigamith.7120, I think the point you’re missing is what happens when a thief is already in stealth. Stealth doesn’t come for free; you either have to blow half your initiative pool or a utility on long cd. And continuing Shockwave.1230’s point, do you think it’s fair to have to continue to spend initiative in order to remove blind/aegis when every other class gets it for free, after making that sacrifice? You’re right, other classes don’t have specialized attacks in stealth. But that only makes his point stronger because you end up losing a lot more than the other classes for coming out of stealth.
Yes, that’s what I’m advocating which is; when people want to knowingly counter play stealth with blocks, or worse aegis, that they shouldn’t be punished for doing so.
And for when the thief is already in stealth I do support the suggestion that it should cost at least 1 initiative per backstab. This can be altered to occur only when they are blocked or missed but if there is no aegis or block up then the BS can be free as usual. The suggestion is to prevent spam and encourage more skillful play as others have mentioned. If a thief knows there’s aegis or blocks up they can wait and regen their initiative (1 per 3/4s if i’m not mistaken) before initiating again as compared to the person who is blocking or put up aegis will be coming out much more behind in terms of skill CD. For example: engineer gear shield block is a 20s (untraited AFAIK) CD vs a thief who CnD’d would have a net loss of 2-3 initiative if they just wait it out. So still the person blocking comes out behind in that situation.
For the receiving end, it’s no fun playing as a guardian/etc to have put aegis up (72-90s CD) to prevent a BS when it can be stripped without consequence in stealth from that one attack, repeatedly.
PS whatever that weird forum error is, is really messing up replying.
The suggestion to prevent spamming in stealth is counter intuitive, the only way to counter aegis, blinds, and blocks is to spam them away regardless of whether or not you are in stealth.
The suggestion is still to punish thieves for using stealth whereas every other prof gets to deal with these things for free, even if they are in stealth.
Ultimately the root cause of the problem is that a lot of things have situational uses, and not everything is equally viable.
Another suggestion could be for ANet to balance their game, and change skills, but I think that is feasible whereas communicating what builds work best in game is feasible.
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