THIEF - new player / former wow player

[roq.1968]

Hello,

is it possible to perma stealth with 1 button like in wow?Or is there at least a way to perma stealth with a certain rota?

Im about to buy the game tho im bored of wow and cant afford the time to play wow anymore so im thinking about to get gw2.

thanks for your help o/

[Alatar.7364]

No perma stealth no.Some extremely gimmicky and mostly useless DE builds can keep up rotation to stay stealthed almost indefinitely but it's not like wow, it requires almost every possible investment in to stealth and except for some low rated ganking in WvW its utterly useless.

Also if you are talking about Open Word PvE then just ignore stealth, absolutely no reason to use it unless you have trouble skipping some mobs you can't/don't wanna fight.Regarding Fractals and Raids I think there still are some builds that require stealth for max dmg rotation but if you are really new you dont have to thing about that at all for a very very very long time.

[roq.1968]

OK thank you! :)

[saerni.2584]

@roq.1968 said:Hello,

is it possible to perma stealth with 1 button like in wow?Or is there at least a way to perma stealth with a certain rota?

Im about to buy the game tho im bored of wow and cant afford the time to play wow anymore so im thinking about to get gw2.

thanks for your help o/

There’s plenty of rotations that achieve permastealth. Basically you have two ways to stealth: skills and combo finishers. Skills that apply stealth directly are self explanatory. Combo finishers are leap and blast finishers inside smoke combo fields.

Pick the Shadow Arts traitline which gives you extra stealth duration on your stealth skills and makes your heal skill apply additional stealth.

Using Hide in Shadows will give you 7 seconds of stealth on your heal. You will need a few utilities beyond that to achieve permastealth depending on your build. Smoke Screen is great for combos using Heartseeker (for leaps) and Cluster Bomb (for blasts).

Your rotation will look something like HiS -> Smoke Screen -> Combos x5 -> Other stealth granting utility.

How many combos you can do and what utility you take to get permastealth depends a lot on your build, there are more options for Deadeye in terms of utilities but Daredevil can use their dodge for extra leap finishers which opens up an alternative option to achieve permastealth.

[saerni.2584]

I will add to the above:

Permastealth is useful in only a few situations. You are most likely to need permastealth in a PvP or WvW 1v1 fight versus another thief because the thief that can stealth more usually has a decisive advantage over the other, in terms of landing significant damage on an otherwise squishy target.

Permastealth is less important when fighting other professions because weaving in and out of stealth is more important to maintaining pressure (assuming you run a stealth based thief build and not an evasion build). Fighting against another profession won’t usually be settled quickly if you are spending a long time stacking stealth rather than doing damage. In those cases where you can’t pressure them you are better off stealthing and disengaging rather than permastealth’ing in their vicinity. Keep in mind that other professions have abilities that will reveal you or otherwise do AoE damage which can still hurt you.

That said, permasteath will help you sneak up on targets regardless of profession and help make you less predictable whether or not you are there. This can lead to players making mistakes in PvP believing that you won’t show up to decap the second they are too far away to defend their point. Many thief builds don’t need permastealth for this, however, because a short stealth duration is often enough to use a few teleport skills and achieve that same decap with less time spent on hiding (letting you spend more time on helping secure your team’s kills and success).

[kash.9213]

I only really stack stealth to mask my direction traveling around on WvW maps responding to stuff. The rest of the time you only need a couple seconds of stealth to position for a Stealth Attack like Backstab or Tactical Strike and for modifiers activated by stealth from traits or whatever else. You'll still take damage in stealth and unless you condition bombed or something you're not doing damage in stealth. If you're thinking about probing around for a one shot you just need to play and figure it out and you'll likely be bad at it.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@roq.1968 said:Hello,

is it possible to perma stealth with 1 button like in wow?

WoW's stealth is more about strategic ambush than tactical maneuver. In GW2, it is about tactics and repositioning which means, you don't really want to stay in stealth too long nor the game even allows you to stay in stealth permanently.

Or is there at least a way to perma stealth with a certain rota?

You can manage to extend stealth more than 3s, however that will require a lot of resources that may negatively affect your damage output. In GW2, it's better to go in and out of stealth than to stay in stealth. In WoW, you cannot go in and out of stealth during combat. You'll find that having the ability to go in and out of stealth while in combat more satisfying that in WoW.

Im about to buy the game tho im bored of wow and cant afford the time to play wow anymore so im thinking about to get gw2.

thanks for your help o/

There are plenty to do in GW2 that sometimes it can be overwhelming.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

In general, permastealth DE one shot builds are very rock paper scissors. You either kill your target outright, or you do no damage at all and you're forced to retreat. So most of the use of such a build comes from recognising a player's build from his weapons and damage types, knowing what gear that build runs and what the player's max health is likely to be, and knowing whether you do enough damage in your initial spike to get the kill. If you mess up you are pretty much forced to back off and reset and you lose your main advantage as he now is expecting the next attack, so you're often better off swapping to a more balanced build from that point.

[roq.1968]

thanks a lot for all of your feedback guys! helps a lot! :)

And yea i just wanted to know it for the tactical matter tapping bases etc... but what is really awesome and what i didnt know is that u can stealth out of combat, which u propably can only do once in WOW.

THANKS EVERYONE! :)

[Psybehr.2518]

Hope you enjoy your Thief! I’m returning from WoW too and can’t wait to get back on thief. Conquest is so much more fun than arena IMO.