Invisibility has Gotten out of Hand

[kash.9213]

@Sleepwalker.1398 said:

@kash.9213 said:

@Sleepwalker.1398 said:

@gousgou.5438 said:

@Sleepwalker.1398 said:

@gousgou.5438 said:

@Sleepwalker.1398 said:

@"BeepBoopBop.5403" said:Learn to play

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Target_Painter

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Target_Painter_Trap

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sentry

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Schematic:_Watchtower

See a someone who stealths alot coming to u, dude can you wait..i need to quickly buy some target painter.If that fails.....dude there is a sentry up, can you follow me there and fight.Well if that fails also....then, dude can you wait abit, i just took this tower and need to upgrade it and put watchtower tactic. can you come fight me after that?

It is seriously your mistake for not packing target painters if you play WvW.

Yeah it takes 2 slots from you bags but brainless aoe 50ppl trains visit merchants often enough to empty your bags.

My comment was a joke but here's the thing.I hope you know how painter and traps work.You can only set 1 at a time and it costs supply and thief can see you placing it with the animation it does.2nd, if you see red circle or him stealthing and you not fast enough, throwing the painter is a waste.3rd, thief may pick on a 50 man tail, but he'll surely be dumb to go take on a zerg head on.

They need to have a small field to allow counterplay. If the thief is fast enough they should get rewarded for playing around the trap. From my experience most thieves zone in for the kill and step right on it, allowing me to turn the tables.

The cost is the only problem, I believe they should drastically lower it (like 1 resource cost) or remove it altogether.

The painters can seriously hamper stealth play, apart from the cost the only thing I want to see is a set of quickslots so you can use items without having the inventory open. That would be a real QoL addition to the game!

As for the zerg part I seriously believe that it is braindead-follow the crowd gameplay (and I say that to stress the way more relaxed than solo or small group roaming gameplay) that allows for way more flexibility regarding resupplying, selling trash and having backups from other people. People do not use consumables like the painters and disablers enough and it is a big mistake!

If for example you play against a double rifle Deadeye, he will not walk up to you when it is much safer to just press rifle 2 from distance and dodge for days cos the damage from rifle 2 is so rewarding.

How do I dodge for days on a Rifle DE? That damage from rifle 2 isn't rewarding, it's just the most frugal and so about the only option.

Pretty simple really, Signet of Agility, Energy sigil and endurance regen food.I used to play this, very rewarding but i got sick of it.Plus you can make a condi immob build too with rifle :)

Seems dumb to give up three good slots like that to be wasteful with dodges.

[DemonSeed.3528]

@kash.9213 said:Seems dumb to give up three good slots like that to be wasteful with dodges.I wouldn't waste time using acro line either with all that.

[urd.8306]

@Caedmon.6798 said:Its fun how people nag about stealth while we have groups with a near permanent reflect + projectile destroy uptime and still pretend wvw is an 1on1 mode. People that get picked out of that blob,Should get picked out of that blob because youre simply,not good enough. You casuals have enough carry mechanics already.

It's fun how some people always throw completely unrelated statements into discussions. Make a thread about that if it bothers your skilled zerg gameplay so much.

[Caedmon.6798]

@diomache.9246 said:

@Caedmon.6798 said:Its fun how people nag about stealth while we have groups with a near permanent reflect + projectile destroy uptime and still pretend wvw is an 1on1 mode. People that get picked out of that blob,Should get picked out of that blob because youre simply,not good enough. You casuals have enough carry mechanics already.

It's fun how some people always throw completely unrelated statements into discussions. Make a thread about that if it bothers your skilled zerg gameplay so much.

It's completely on topic,its not my fault youre not getting it.

Make a thread about what exactly ?

[Xenorak.2154]

As someone who mains thief, and thoroughly enjoys it. I think removing the mechanic entirely would be a terrible awful idea. People have issues with rogues in every other MMO, it's not a matter of it being broken. Even if it was fairly implemented people would still complain they were either outsmarted or lost to it. However, a nerf to make it more competitive with the other classes while not removing the entire advantage thieves have? I'd be more than okay with that. I don't think this is just a two option issue like many people are making it out to be. I'm very surprised people are complaining about thief among all classes to complain about, however. Thief has a very high skill ceiling last time I checked, and it's not as much of a cakewalk in any pvp as many other classes are. You're more likely to play against a bad thief than a good one.

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

Any decent thief can outlast a target painter's reveal. A good thief can do that while putting up a good fight. Especially through the short bursts of stealth they are allowed to go in. Only exception is if the thief is outnumbered while revealed.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing since 2013. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

[saerni.2584]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing

since 2013

. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

Not to jump to @UNOwen.7132’s defense, because he’s often wrong...but here’s the actual history.

Condi trapper thief was hilariously bad. Condi trapper 1) had an unfair advantage when stacking multiples of itself and 2) was able to kill people with no/low cleanse really easily. In 1v1 situations where there was only one condi trapper I could literally apply one cleanse and walk away. The cool down on their “burst” (not really all that much damage) was so high and they spent so much time working to maintain stealth that it was basically unable to kill decent players.

But it got nerfed because it was an outlier build that violated the “do damage and be revealed” rule. So it had to go. Not because it was overpowered but just because the design of traps was inherently a problem. And of course traps were eventually not only needed but removed to make way for a new set of skills probably because Anet wanted to move thief away from trap gameplay (which is hard to imagine a thief doing without stealth like it was originally).

Your solutions are pretty drastic and need a lot of work for Anet to implement. The easier nerf is probably to smoke combo finishers directly. Right now the stealth duration per finisher is a bit high and people can chain a lot of finishers so you can easily end up not seeing your opponent for 10-20 seconds at a time. Then we could nerf or buff profession specific stealth skills to achieve the right balance (but not eliminate entire skills that create much more significant balancing concerns).

[Aeolus.3615]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing

since 2013

. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

Removing the blast stealth mechanics would be a great move towards it, eveyrhing else only touched if really needed.,

Stealth should be provided to others via direct skill or self casted, never on blasts.

[kash.9213]

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing

since 2013

. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

Removing the blast stealth mechanics would be a great move towards it, eveyrhing else only touched if really needed.,

Stealth should be provided to others via direct skill or self casted, never on blasts.

They could change blast on smoke from stealthing allies to revealing or pulse revealing enemy stealthed in a larger radius than the field or something.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing

since 2013

. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

I would still like to stealth out of combat somehow for some areas, that suggestion just sounds like taking away from the game for no real good reason. And that's a vague suggestion of rework SA and DE, I like both of those right now, what are you suggesting change with those? I could do without stealth on heal and Shadow Meld but the rest of that trait line and Elite are fun and don't feel too over or under tuned right now.

[Caedmon.6798]

All of you are running with a minimum of 5 people,having sustain around you while shitting out condis left and right still having the carry factor named downed state aswell. And yall get upset when that Solo Thief wrecks one of you.

[kash.9213]

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@"Caedmon.6798" said:Everyone of you is running on condi spamm nec or borked fb's and ele,s complaining about that one thief that kills you at times. Yall a joke hahaha.

not a joke

What results do you obtain from a Toxic Bad Design Profession?

8 years and ongoing.....how much more years of hard evidences are needed that this Profession is Unhealthy to the players experiences?

(+1 Shot, Stealth, Invulnerability, Immunity, Teleport, High Burst, High Mobility, High Conditions, High Damages …..all exclusive...included in one package)

HOW LONG WIILL THIS BE TOLERATED??!!

That video didn't do anything for your argument though. Their stealth was staggered and only used for it's stealth attack. There wasn't excessive porting or dodging and their movement and positioning was paced. They double teamed some glass builds who probably didn't want a fight who panicked and ran in circles and they happened to be smarter about their kill order. Even your videos don't agree with you, that should tell you something about your argument.

[Helicity.3416]

I feel like most people don't understand the marked and revealed mechanics.A lot of folks seem to think target painters and traps can be cleansed by Deadeye.

This is not correct.

The Deadeye can cleanse the reveal but will remain marked, and will thus be revealed again if they stealth for 3s+

A target painter hit is more often than not a death sentence on DE.

[UNOwen.7132]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

Ah yes, thats why ... no part of it was nerfed, and there are scarcely any records of it even existing. It was not overpowered. It was a really bad meme build. The traps were still traps. Against any half-decent enemy, they simply wouldnt hit, they had an arm time, and a really bad hitbox. And of course, it died to any condi cleanse because once your traps are down and failed to kill, youre just a really gimped condi thief. In fact, the build was so bad, that not only did it not get nerfs. It got buffed. So yeah, I do know my history. Apparently you dont.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing since 2013. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Its a sentiment a lot of people have expressed. And yet, people complain about in-combat stealth.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

Well, Im not sure I agree on that. Completely removing out of combat stealth feels incorrect. Besides making it so backstab gets practically impossible to use in a 1v1, it also removes some of the flavour. Limit it, certainly, but dont completely remove it.

[UNOwen.7132]

@saerni.2584 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ilMasa.2546 said:

The same goes for thieves and stealth. It wasnt mobility alone that led to

• solo Slothasor kill
• perma stealth condi trapper

Why are you bringing up PvE here? Also, the latter doesnt exist, and Im pretty sure never existed because of how bad traps were.

You lost your credibility here. It was grossly overpowered for nearly a year, even in WvW. You apparently don't know the history of this class.

I will not disagree the real problem here is OOC stealth and max stealth duration, however - but that's a sentiment I've literally been expressing

since 2013

. People who insist otherwise are either bad thieves who need to get carried by the mechanic or are inexperienced players who do not understand the game, the thief, or their own classes, and lack knowledge of say, D/D thief, to understand 3s stealth isn't a problem.

Remove stacking stealth across all classes, and only allow stealth when in combat. Rework SA. Rework DE. Remove trapper runes. Rework Sneak Gyro. Rework PU. Rework Smokescale. This endemic-huge-issue problem becomes solved.

Not to jump to @UNOwen.7132’s defense, because he’s often wrong...but here’s the actual history.

Im rarely wrong, but thanks nonetheless.

Condi trapper thief was hilariously bad. Condi trapper 1) had an unfair advantage when stacking multiples of itself and 2) was able to kill people with no/low cleanse really easily. In 1v1 situations where there was only one condi trapper I could literally apply one cleanse and walk away. The cool down on their “burst” (not really all that much damage) was so high and they spent so much time working to maintain stealth that it was basically unable to kill decent players.

Yup.

But it got nerfed because it was an outlier build that violated the “do damage and be revealed” rule. So it had to go. Not because it was overpowered but just because the design of traps was inherently a problem. And of course traps were eventually not only needed but removed to make way for a new set of skills probably because Anet wanted to move thief away from trap gameplay (which is hard to imagine a thief doing without stealth like it was originally).

Thats the funny part. It wasnt nerfed. It was buffed. The only "nerf" trap thief builds ever got was reducing the duration on the traps from 1 hour to 5 minutes. Needless to say, this didnt matter for the build. Im not sure why that change was made anyway.

Your solutions are pretty drastic and need a lot of work for Anet to implement. The easier nerf is probably to smoke combo finishers directly. Right now the stealth duration per finisher is a bit high and people can chain a lot of finishers so you can easily end up not seeing your opponent for 10-20 seconds at a time. Then we could nerf or buff profession specific stealth skills to achieve the right balance (but not eliminate entire skills that create much more significant balancing concerns).

Just put a max cap on stealth duration out of combat. Something like 6 seconds. No need to mess with combo finishers.

[ASP.8093]

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@"Caedmon.6798" said:Everyone of you is running on condi spamm nec or borked fb's and ele,s complaining about that one thief that kills you at times. Yall a joke hahaha.

not a joke

What results do you obtain from a Toxic Bad Design Profession?

8 years and ongoing.....how much more years of hard evidences are needed that this Profession is Unhealthy to the players experiences?

(+1 Shot, Stealth, Invulnerability, Immunity, Teleport, High Burst, High Mobility, High Conditions, High Damages …..all exclusive...included in one package)

HOW LONG WIILL THIS BE TOLERATED??!!

Are you the Necro in this video or something.

[Burnfall.9573]

@ASP.8093 said:

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@"Caedmon.6798" said:Everyone of you is running on condi spamm nec or borked fb's and ele,s complaining about that one thief that kills you at times. Yall a joke hahaha.

not a joke

What results do you obtain from a Toxic Bad Design Profession?

8 years and ongoing.....how much more years of hard evidences are needed that this Profession is Unhealthy to the players experiences?

(+1 Shot, Stealth, Invulnerability, Immunity, Teleport, High Burst, High Mobility, High Conditions, High Damages …..all exclusive...included in one package)

HOW LONG WIILL THIS BE TOLERATED??!!

Are you the Necro in this video or something.

no no

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

@Helicity.3416 said:I feel like most people don't understand the marked and revealed mechanics.A lot of folks seem to think target painters and traps can be cleansed by Deadeye.

This is not correct.

The Deadeye can cleanse the reveal but will remain marked, and will thus be revealed again if they stealth for 3s+

A target painter hit is more often than not a death sentence on DE.

C'mon just how many times have you wandered into something a player takes 5 seconds to lay in front of you? Possibly going into a camp and one is there you don't see but in active roaming that is a useless mechanic nobody has the time to put down while being picked off from 1500 feet away lol. Fact is stealth and burst skills associated with it are OP and have been for a long time it is way overdue to be addressed. That said i doubt very much they actually care anymore and are only concerned with the next expack and the money that will bring in so people just need to get used to this cancer.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

messing with ooc smoke fields or max stealth duration doesn't fix the actual problem while at the same time it messes up organized play. how about this: you enter stealth and any skill used outside the smoke field (or shadow refuge) reveals you (1 sec grace period), entering within 130 range of enemy reveals you (change teef melee stealth attacks to 240 range dashes), delete DE reveal removal, up revealed duration to 6 sec (lol 3 sec is practically non existent, who needs to stealth that often anyway except for spammers/ griefers?), and finally get rid of watchtower/ sentry mark.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@kash.9213 said:

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@"Caedmon.6798" said:Everyone of you is running on condi spamm nec or borked fb's and ele,s complaining about that one thief that kills you at times. Yall a joke hahaha.

not a joke

What results do you obtain from a Toxic Bad Design Profession?

8 years and ongoing.....how much more years of hard evidences are needed that this Profession is Unhealthy to the players experiences?

(+1 Shot, Stealth, Invulnerability, Immunity, Teleport, High Burst, High Mobility, High Conditions, High Damages …..all exclusive...included in one package)

HOW LONG WIILL THIS BE TOLERATED??!!

That video didn't do anything for your argument though. Their stealth was staggered and only used for it's stealth attack. There wasn't excessive porting or dodging and their movement and positioning was paced. They double teamed some glass builds who probably didn't want a fight who panicked and ran in circles and they happened to be smarter about their kill order. Even your videos don't agree with you, that should tell you something about your argument.

Kash, we both know that you will defend your Profession to the death and we both know that in the end, Truth Wins

:smile:

No, what we know is that youre so far into your thief hatred you have decided to abandon the truth a long, long time ago.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:messing with ooc smoke fields or max stealth duration doesn't fix the actual problem while at the same time it messes up organized play. how about this: you enter stealth and any skill used outside the smoke field (or shadow refuge) reveals you (1 sec grace period), entering within 130 range of enemy reveals you (change teef melee stealth attacks to 240 range dashes), delete DE reveal removal, up revealed duration to 6 sec (lol 3 sec is practically non existent, who needs to stealth that often anyway except for spammers/ griefers?), and finally get rid of watchtower/ sentry mark.

No, actually that does fix the problem. The problem being long out of combat stealth. What you suggest on the other hand does indeed not fix the problem, and instead adds more problems. Youre making the already weak in-combat stealth even weaker, while leaving the overperforming out of combat stealth untouched.

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

Somedays I miss my old ghost trapper teef build. To be able to kill groups of people and never show myself once was troll-tastic. I even got reported many times due to people think I was "hacking" xD

It was OP for 1 reason....it could kill you and you would never see them the whole encounter.

[Burnfall.9573]

@"Bigpapasmurf.5623" said:Somedays I miss my old ghost trapper teef build. To be able to kill groups of people and never show myself once was troll-tastic. I even got reported many times due to people think I was "hacking" xD

It was OP for 1 reason....it could kill you and you would never see them the whole encounter.

+1 correct

[Handin.4032]

There are really 2 big things which make stealth in gw2 much more OP than many other MMOs.

1: You do not drop stealth if you attack, and MISS - or if your attack does not deal direct damage (E.g. Caltrops do not drop stealth). So, even if you have a player which dodges your first attack, you can still attack while stealthed. In every other MMO I've played, the moment you attack you drop stealth, regardless if it hits or miss and if it is an attack skill (versus a heal or buff).2: You do not drop stealth when you take damage (or show any visual markers). This again means that you can attack, disengage and even if they hit you with a big burst, it may likely not drop you out of combat, allowing you to disengage and heal.

Both of these result in stealth being low risk but very high payout. Whether you are single thief roaming, or an entire Zerg stealthing. In fact, big groups using stealth is a bit more of the issue - even if you see them stealth, and can apply some burst, without a painter trap or similar, it will not reveal them. They can even stack stealthed and heal (which does not drop steal) through a burst if an opposing group has an idea where they are. Some of the videos posted here shows just this happening: a thief applying an opening burst while in stealth, missing, and still remaining in stealth - even if they take some damage in return. Most games, having stealth invokes a trade off (e.g. slower movement, having to risk dropping it if you take damage or miss) with the huge bonus of having the 1st move in an engagement, and a way to disengage. In GW2, you don't have any of those tradeoffs, but still the substantial bonus. Painters do counter, but they're on a much longer cool down, a somewhat small AoE (or for thrown, a big animation) and take supply - they are not a good viable counter. Pulse detection was a decent counter, then it got shunted to a POS gadget (gadgets are a whole other rant...).

tl;dr: Stealth doesn't need to be removed. They just need to modify it so it involves more risk/tradeoffs. There are ways to do this without killing Thief, or Zerg play (e.g. drop stealth if you miss an attack, or show footprints if you take damage).

[UNOwen.7132]

@Handin.4032 said:There are really 2 big things which make stealth in gw2 much more OP than many other MMOs.

1: You do not drop stealth if you attack, and MISS - or if your attack does not deal direct damage (E.g. Caltrops do not drop stealth). So, even if you have a player which dodges your first attack, you can still attack while stealthed. In every other MMO I've played, the moment you attack you drop stealth, regardless if it hits or miss and if it is an attack skill (versus a heal or buff).2: You do not drop stealth when you take damage (or show any visual markers). This again means that you can attack, disengage and even if they hit you with a big burst, it may likely not drop you out of combat, allowing you to disengage and heal.

These are only relevant for in-combat stealth. Which, mind you, is already weak. The problem with stealth is out of combat stealth, and thats despite the fact that GW2s out of combat stealth is already weaker than in other MMOs (where you can usually just press one button for permanent stealth).

Both of these result in stealth being low risk but very high payout. Whether you are single thief roaming, or an entire Zerg stealthing. In fact, big groups using stealth is a bit more of the issue - even if you see them stealth, and can apply some burst, without a painter trap or similar, it will not reveal them. They can even stack stealthed and heal (which does not drop steal) through a burst if an opposing group has an idea where they are. Some of the videos posted here shows just this happening: a thief applying an opening burst while in stealth, missing, and still remaining in stealth - even if they take some damage in return. Most games, having stealth invokes a trade off (e.g. slower movement, having to risk dropping it if you take damage or miss) with the huge bonus of having the 1st move in an engagement, and a way to disengage. In GW2, you don't have any of those tradeoffs, but still the substantial bonus. Painters do counter, but they're on a much longer cool down, a somewhat small AoE (or for thrown, a big animation) and take supply - they are not a good viable counter. Pulse detection was a decent counter, then it got shunted to a POS gadget (gadgets are a whole other rant...).

No, they dont. See the part that youre missing is the inherent risk in-combat stealth gives. Which is that while youre in stealth, the enemy can hit you, but you cant hit them. And entering stealth is usually slow and easily punished. Thats why in-combat stealth is already weak. The tradeoff for in-combat stealth is that you give the enemy free hits in exchange for maybe avoiding some. Its a trade that is pretty much never worth it. Thats why in-combat stealth isnt very good. But out of combat stealth is great. That one just needs a max duration.

tl;dr: Stealth doesn't need to be removed. They just need to modify it so it involves more risk/tradeoffs. There are ways to do this without killing Thief, or Zerg play (e.g. drop stealth if you miss an attack, or show footprints if you take damage).

The former does nothing to affect out of combat stealth but weakens in-combat stealth. Same for the other one. These are bad changes that hit the wrong thing.