What if the functionality of Stealth is changed entirely.

[Acheron.4731]

perhaps they can make roads or areas of frequent travel perma revealed...then stealth can be used in the areas in between.I.E. if you are on the path someone cannot stay in stealth however if someone is off the path it is at the travelers own risk. If a person is being constantly harassed by a thief/mesmer they can move to the nearest path and the thief/mesmer must calculate whether they want to continue to pursue or not.

[DemonSeed.3528]

@Acheron.4731 said:perhaps they can make roads or areas of frequent travel perma revealed...then stealth can be used in the areas in between.I.E. if you are on the path someone cannot stay in stealth however if someone is off the path it is at the travelers own risk. If a person is being constantly harassed by a thief/mesmer they can move to the nearest path and the thief/mesmer must calculate whether they want to continue to pursue or not.

I'd say go a step further and make it a zone where no one can attack you, that would be fair for all classes. I'm only serious if you are.

[Hot Boy.7138]

They should just make stealth only a skill for thieves. All classes should be able to blast smoke fields for stealth, but only thief should have it as an actual skill.

[Acheron.4731]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@Acheron.4731 said:perhaps they can make roads or areas of frequent travel perma revealed...then stealth can be used in the areas in between.I.E. if you are on the path someone cannot stay in stealth however if someone is off the path it is at the travelers own risk. If a person is being constantly harassed by a thief/mesmer they can move to the nearest path and the thief/mesmer must calculate whether they want to continue to pursue or not.

I'd say go a step further and make it a zone where no one can attack you, that would be fair for all classes. I'm only serious if you are.

they already have that...pve, duhhhhyeah I am serious

[Dralor.3701]

The current complete invisibility is fine. The problem is the thief resource system in combination with “spamable” skills that can be used for stealth. Some of the elite design has furthered this problem. Plenty of popular MMOs have had relatively permanent stealth until combat/reveal breaks it, the difference between those and GW2 was very limited resets.

They need to just do an overhaul on the stealth skills/traits while also compensating the thief class for any said nerfs. As has been pointed out Mesmer has a lot of outs, thief (even dd to a lesser extent) rely on the current implementation of stealth.

[ilMasa.2546]

At the end of the day we all know that huge changes regarding stealth will never happend: there is too much "work" to do for the devs to change an entire mechanic and then adjust those professions using it.If we just look at thieves,this means fully rework the profession.We are 8 years in with 2 xpac out...not going to happend.I mean they have stopped delivering armor skins cos they required "too much work" compared to outfits.

....aaaaand since its not a broken mechanic in pve (the actual beloved child) its not gonna get a "fix"

I would like to remind you the ghost trapper issue back in 2017: was looked into only after someone soloed Slothasor.So yea.

[crepuscular.9047]

needs to make sure Stealth = combat mode

and yes and people been requesting for a long time, need to be less spammy

[Jables.4659]

@Anput.4620 said:Why all the crying about DE when there is a profession that can do the same thing to your healthbar except unlike DE it has followup right after if they fail and infinitely more defenses/invuls.

Greatsword Mirage generally runs two stealth skills (one if they're using focus instead of torch). The Prestige gives them 3 seconds of stealth on a 30 second cooldown, while their utility stealth gives 2 or 3 seconds of stealth on a 30 or 40 second cooldown respectively. Although their torch stealth cd can be reduced to 24 seconds, insta-gib Mesmer's do not run the illusions trait-line (they need both dueling and domination to insta-gib anything other than a glass thief/ele) so its stuck at 30. None of their utility stealth skills have cd reduction traits. Because of the low stealth uptime available to viable mirage builds, you will not get killed instantly out of no where unless you are afk or extremely unaware of your surroundings. I personally dislike all forms of insta-gib (since its essentially ending a fight before it begins), but lets not pretend that mirage is more oppressive than the class that can perma-stealth and then literally one shot someone with a backstab. Anet is already proposing large changes that will (hopefully) make insta-gibs a thing of the past. What isn't being addressed is the insanity of a class that has access to perma-stealth, the ability to cleanse reveal, and great mobility. Meanwhile, mirage is losing half its endurance bar in the coming patch, further reducing its already neutered defenses and lowering its mobility at the same time as its insta-gib potential is being removed. I swear, some players will not be happy until Mesmer is literally a fucking clone. I get it, condi and insta-gib bad. Instead of directly addressing both of Mesmer's problem builds, Anet chose to nerf Mesmer in ways that hit the class at its entirety time after time. Now were left in a situation where the class that once had the highest amount of build diversity is rarely seen in anything except the two lamest builds ever created.

[snh.7091]

@Yasai.3549 said:Instead of totally removing the player from sight, they become transparent instead.

They will be untargetable and their player name and tag won't show, but faint silhouettes will be there when the stealthed player moves.

If they stay still or walk, they will disappear from view like normal.

Will this make Stealth less oppressive?

If a player is abusing stealth alot they will be detected by an experienced player, and being forced to walk to stay stealthed will keep the stealthed player's mobility limited.

I suggested similar a long time ago - camouflage.

The problem isn't stealth itself. It's a mechanic present in many games. What is an issue are counters. When they messed up reveal on the Engi I just scratched my head about the genius department...

[Yasai.3549]

@"Inoki.6048" said:

I suggested similar a long time ago - camouflage.

The problem isn't stealth itself. It's a mechanic present in many games. What is an issue are counters. When they messed up reveal on the Engi I just scratched my head about the genius department...

I'm highly convinced that the Devs don't really care about game balance, rather they just feel like throwing things into the game they feel like throwing in.

From a balance standpoint, removing the Detection Pulse makes 0 sense in a meta where people already featured Stealth bombing, especially after the Scrapper update which made group Stealthing and mobility through Superspeed easier to access and easier to apply.

They are instead more interested in "making a drawback for Scrapper" by removing their Toolbelt Elite, something on the same lines of Holo Elite replaced by Photon Forge, except Scrapper doesn't even get a built in Weapon set, they get a crappy skill which presses F in an AoE.

[Swagger.1459]

@"Yasai.3549" said:Instead of totally removing the player from sight, they become transparent instead.

They will be untargetable and their player name and tag won't show, but faint silhouettes will be there when the stealthed player moves.

If they stay still or walk, they will disappear from view like normal.

Will this make Stealth less oppressive?

If a player is abusing stealth alot they will be detected by an experienced player, and being forced to walk to stay stealthed will keep the stealthed player's mobility limited.

Kinda like this...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/60005/stealth-rework-2-0

@"Swagger.1459" said:These are 2 suggestions I’d like to propose for Stealth mechanics in wvw AND spvp....

1- This would be the simplified suggestion...

Stealth effects used while out of combat or not Revealed- Same as now. Skills function to make the player(s) not visible.

Stealth effects while a player is flagged for combat or Revealed- Player(s) remain visible, but visually translucent (“cloaked” if you will). Stealth skills used while in combat are treated as a damage mitigation Boon, similar to Protection. This Boon could offer 20% damage reduction to Direct and Condition damages while in effect.

Sample scenario-

Mesmer drops https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mass_Invisibility on their team to get the jump on a group or to break targeting. Then enemy necros drop AoEs revealing the Mesmer’s group and flagging them for combat. Although the Mesmer’s group is now visible, they are translucent and carry a “cloak” damage mitigation buff of -20% to Direct and Condition damage for the duration of the Mass Invisible skill.

OR

2- In addition to increasing boon duration, Concentration could be a stat that provides a player Stealth “perception”....

So let’s look at some simple numbers...

10% Concentration would provide 100 radius Stealth perception.

22% Concentration would provide 220 radius Stealth perception.

43% Concentration would provide 430 radius Stealth perception.

...

...

100% Concentration would provide 1,000 radius Stealth perception... and this is where it is maxed.

(As above) Additionally, all Stealth skills could be worked to provide X% power and condition damage reduction while Stealth is active so it would still be useful even if detected...

Reveal remains as is to prevent the use of the “invisibility” portion of Stealth...

Changes like these provide better counterplay to Stealth. It creates more useful build options with gears and foods. Stealth now becomes more of a safety skill, and requires more intelligent use, as opposed to allowing players to attack freely from any position on the battlefield without fear...

These ideas would bring balance to Stealth mechanics in the game.

Ty for reading!

Edit- And before any Thief players QQ...

Max perception range for idea 2 is 1,000. Steal is 1,200. Shadowstep 1,200. Rifle Attacks 1,200/1,500. 2 Infiltrator’s Arrows take you 1,800 if you need to move in or escape... So I don’t want to hear any complaints about not being able to use Stealth to attempt an ambush.

[Anput.4620]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@"Anput.4620" said:Why all the crying about DE when there is a profession that can do the same thing to your healthbar except unlike DE it has followup right after if they fail and infinitely more defenses/invuls.

Because it also utilizes Stealth to set up their burst.Mesmers doing their combo out of stealth are extremely obvious and any half decent player who isn't sleeping can dodge like 80% of their GS combo with a single evade.

Stay on topic here.

Stealth is what we are discussing and everyone in this thread seem to agree at some level that Stealth is abit too powerful, because it provides no counterplay at all, besides a few select classes which can pulse Reveal or lucky tag someone with Revealed.

DE is mentioned often because they are notorious of their ability to remove the Revealed debuff and basically ignore all Stealth limitations.Thieves are mentioned often because of their unlimited access to Stealth through a simple Black Powder + any Leap Combo.

Mesmers have their own slew of problems like extreme survivability, insane burst, condi spam, stuff which are actually being hit pretty heavily with upcoming balance patches, but one thing which isn't changed at all is Stealth as a mechanic, hence this discussion.

And everyone that doesn't agree with you isn't in this thread.

Where exactly are stealth builds massively outpeforming atm compared to others?

[Yasai.3549]

@Anput.4620 said:

And everyone that doesn't agree with you isn't in this thread.

Where exactly are stealth builds massively outpeforming atm compared to others?

It's a no brainer really.How do yu hit something that can't be seen?

Fighting Stealth in this game is like fighting blindfolded.Because some classes have such ridiculous access to Stealth, they become extremely reliant on it and would defend it with their life because they don't know what to do without it.

That in itself is clear sign that stealth is unhealthy for the game, and nothing short of a straight up nerfbat is needed to bring it down to acceptable levels.

If Boonbeasts can't have their perma boons, Revs can't have their their Evade spam, Warriors can't have their CC burst chain, Weaver can't have their sustain and durability, Necros can't have their super corrupts :

Then pray tell me, why was nothing done to Stealth so that Thief can't abuse the living hell out of it and stay either Perma Stealthed or enter Stealth every 3 seconds.

Everything they have nerfed besides damage scalings were done so to remove unhealthy gameplay from player vs player settings, yet they left Stealth mostly in tact.

This is why everyone already predicted Thief to be extremely powerful the next patch, because absolutely nothing has been done to curb Stealth spam.

[Svarty.8019]

@Yasai.3549 said:Instead of totally removing the player from sight, they become transparent instead.

They will be untargetable and their player name and tag won't show, but faint silhouettes will be there when the stealthed player moves.

If they stay still or walk, they will disappear from view like normal.

Will this make Stealth less oppressive?

If a player is abusing stealth alot they will be detected by an experienced player, and being forced to walk to stay stealthed will keep the stealthed player's mobility limited.

How about you get that glassy effect happening, but the thief is targetable and invulnerable while in stealth? ANYTHING to get rid of this invisibility bs.