Random thought

If pistol 5 acted more like the blinding powder utility, would balance be better?

Think about it. It deals with permastealth spike builds (D/P is always the common denominator in these builds) without breaking D/P, gives stealth access to S/P and P/P so they can take advantage of malice, and would allow the devs to make changes without giving birth to a new permastealth fotm one shot build every patch.

Obviously would need a cast time, aoe stealth and balanced ini cost/ammo system so it's usable but not spam worthy. Just an idea at present.

Thoughts?

now that we got permastealth on rifle , it will not deal with permastealth spike builds if that is really what you want to adress mainly. also if it is still AoE stealth then with what ever ammo / ini restriction any type of x/p build thieves 2-3 of em and permastealth again with 0 investment into stealth.

as for giving s/p and p/p stealth access, they need it only with DE , DD already has stealth access with bound using these kits , and core - why would you play these sets on core ? so i would prefer to extend silent scope to rifle and pistol, but with rifle you can reset the cooldown

I'm just spitballing here mostly. I'm just thinking about the solo roaming stealth builds that have been a problem in WvW and nerfed in the past, and the common denominator is almost always D/P. If the problem is the amount of stealth access on that set, then wouldn't that be the simplest thing to change when balancing? And if the change won't negatively affect D/P play in PvP, but make balancing other builds easier across other modes, wouldn't that be positive? And honestly I'm not convinced stealth on dodge is the best idea balance wise either, it has very little counterplay.

Two-three thieves will be able to permastealth together regardless of if pistol 5 is AoE (refuge, smoke screen), and a single guy shouldn't live if he's attacked from stealth by 2-3 players, so to me this isn't particularly relevant as I'm more thinking of solo specs. People might play more sets on core if there were more options available to them though.

Like I say, it's just a thought.

the solo stealth builds are not really a problem, they are an annoyance maybe but not a problem. if you die to a thief running SA to anything else then a oneshot, then you do something wrong. sure you might not be able to kill them if they retreat early enough, but aswell shouldnt die to someone giving up one traitline for suprior escape options.now SA and oneshots, in some cases normal d/p backstab can oneshot but even more so malicious backstab and those 2 are the ones causing issues as there is no counterplay aside from predicting. normal backstab in many non oneshot build is already underwhelming so i guess cant nerf this one in damage but it only gets lethal together with assassins signet. malicious backstab on the other hand.. i dont know what other malice bonus should be given to this maybe a teleport backstab with range depending on malice? as we lack steal for gap closing in as DE.one thing i also dont understand why is a solo player in WvW a major issue for anyone? the main issue for other solo roamers are group roamers / gank squads not another solo roamer no matter the build. for a group a solo player no matter the build should not be a threat. so who is actually having a problem with a solo roamer running a stealth heavy build ?

as a stealth heavy solo roamer i can escape groups pretty good but even if they are not thaat good i have an issue with stomping against more then 3 in most cases. therefor i would like a change to the downstate penalty, instead of having to go down 4 times within a minute for full deaths i think 2 times within a minute should already kill you. not sure if this would help other solo roamers that do not use as much stealth.the reason for this is if i am outnumbered too far, i wont bother fighting as i cannot stomp anyone but if there was somethin in for me in trying to face the odds, then alot of situations would be less annoying for groups facing me and myself. but as long as my opponents dont risk anything, there is no reason for me to risk my death.

anyway your suggestion was a diffrent pistol offhand skill to prevent permastealth onshot solo roamers, they can aswell permastealth with rifle dodge and then swap to dagger / x for the hit, dont even need a pistol offhand. and as malicious backstab is far superior to backstab, there is no reason to play a stealth oneshot build without being a DE, so yeah pretty much your suggestion will not fix your issue.

I don't really have an issue per se, I'm a thief main and most thieves are predictable and killable once you know the builds. I'm not fishing for a nerf or a buff either, I just question the logic of anet nerfing stealth heavy builds in the past without actually changing the thing that, until the last patch at least, was the reason those builds had so much stealth. Just seems sideways to me.

Your suggestion regarding down state would actually help a lot though, I have the same thought process as you regarding 1vX