Wow, so much anger in this thread and it seems to be causing too many people to miss the point. Downed isn’t dead. In fact, far from it. Anet has designed the game in multiple ways to make it easy to rally. They really want to give you a second chance to get up and fight. Personally, I think they give too much of chance, but we’ll need a separate thread for the “I shot a downed player 6 times with a ballista and he self-resurrected” discussion. If I get beat in a 1v1, the person who downed me had better have more than 3-4K health left if they are silly enough to come over and try to stomp me, because that’s how much damage I can do in the 3-4 seconds it takes them to run over and finish the stomp. At that point I rally, with more health than they had a few seconds ago, dodge roll backward, and unleash everything. I think it’s kind of lame, but that’s the game’s philosophy. Why do you think the stomp animation is so obvious and so long? Interrupt me! Kill me now!
As mentioned by several people, the issue with the stealth stomp is downed players cannot target the stamper. You probably should lose anyway, but at least you can throw some dirt or some screws at the guy for a few seconds more. However, in a 1v1 situation, that’s a fatal problem, and it only applies to one class. That doesn’t seem to be in balance and it runs contrary to overall theme of having a good chance to get up from a downed state. The stealth stomp is not the same as the invinci stomp or any of the others mentioned, as they all come with very long cool downs. That’s the balance. If somebody wants to keep their obsidian flesh in their pocket for an entire fight, just to use it on the stomp, that’s a tactical decision. I don’t mind the invincible stomp. You get to use it once — you beat me — and didn’t even have to use it. Well done. And obviously it keeps me from doing 4K of damage to you.
You can’t complain about the stealth stomp (or any other kind of stomp) in a Zerg battle. It’s a free for all, and there are no rules. There are a million ways to die once you’ve been downed and getting stomped should be the least of your worries. In fact, no one should be trying to stomp you at all, unless it’s for pure vanity. When someone goes down, everyone within 1200 should be unloading on the downed player and anyone trying to resurrect. Stomping just makes you oblivious to the action and an obvious target. The stealth stomp in a zerg battle is a smart tactical play and I don’t blame a thief for using it — no matter how much I hate it in 1v1.
The real problem is the downed skills don’t allow you to target the stealthed thief. How many classes have an aoe-no target required downed skill? At least one other person already said it, the balance to stealth stomp needs to come in the downed skills, for all classes. The stomping player will still likely win, but once again you can throw dirt and screws at them for a few seconds. And in keeping with the overall design philosophy, you still have SOME chance to get back up. At the moment, that chance is zero.
