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How to reduce Thief's ability to stack stealth without ruining the rest of the class.


Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

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This is probably the part that should be done first before the second.

The first is to add a STRONG visual indicator for Black Powder. I never really understood why Black Powder pretty much only had a ring and a distortion effect to give away that it's being used. At a distance, a player may have a hard time picking up where this effect has been dropped down in the heat of the moment.

If you recall the Ash Legion, in Ascalon they actually have a smoke field effect that's hard to miss. While this isn't a nerf, this adds a needed tell to help the opposing player make a decision.

The second is this.

Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

Because of the reduced duration, REDUCE THE INITIATIVE COST TO COMPENSATE OR SPEED UP THE CAST TIME

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@derd.6413 said:probably won't help the issue much

It will limit the first problem of thief stacking stealth on Dagger/Pistol which is the first primary complaint and one of the main causes of perma stealth though. Daredevils can still do it through Bounding Dodger, but the trade off there is they are losing dodges to do it.

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@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@derd.6413 said:probably won't help the issue much

It will limit the first problem of thief stacking stealth on Dagger/Pistol which is the first primary complaint and one of the main causes of perma stealth though. Daredevils can still do it through Bounding Dodger, but the trade off there is they are losing dodges to do it.

and the current trade-off is initiative, all you've done is made stealth stacking slower and require more initiative because now you have to use blinding powder twice. will this deter or end perma stealth builds? no, unless you nerf it into useless.

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@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:This is probably the part that should be done first before the second.

Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

No no no..How to reduce Thief's ability to stack stealth without ruining the rest of the class?

Easy: remove Combo Finisher: Leap from Bound. Reduce the initiative cost of Black Powder from 6 to 4 (as trade off).

This way, with D/P you would be able to stack stealth with 5-2-2-2 (Black Powder + Heartseeker x3) or with Black Powder+ Blinding Powder + Heartseeker x3, or using Cluster Bomb or Vault.. well if you play thief you know the ways XD

This would guarantee to Daredevil access to stealth mechanic, but would kill the stupid Dodge stealth mechanic and the permastealth problem.

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Half of the players hate Daredevil for the stupid no sense mechanic of perma stealth with Black Powder + Bound dodge that allows to hit with high damage backstab and Vault (with +10% damage from Bound and + 540 power from assassin signet), without any kind of risk.

I really don't know why the "balance team" never hit the problem and nerf casual skills and traits often making the situation worse.

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I'd actually argue that the issue is we have too much access to either leap finishers (bound daredevil) or ini regen in stealth (SA) depending on which build we're talking about. Stealth should cost something, at the moment builds exist that can basically ignore the inherent trade-off between defence and offence stealth comes with because they have too much of one of these two things.

I think leap finishers through smoke fields should do something other than stealth. To compensate, either increase stealth duration or decrease cooldowns on stealth giving utilities, and give them really obvious tells so people can respond to them being cast. I'm thinking like the energy gathering animation on point blank shot or something, leaving cast times of skills as they are. Leave blasting smoke fields as it is for the time being since that already requires weapon swaps or utilities, and see how that works.

Combined with removing the extra ini regen in stealth from the grandmaster SA trait, leaving ini regen sources as requiring attacks (M7) or a utility (RFI or mercy), this would make things much easier to balance in the long run without directly crippling any specific build imo.

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Stealth needs a complete rework to address its bugs, its issues and the problems it causes.
It can't be left as it is, because problems from it keep popping up. Eventually, something will have to be done.But it can't be removed, and there's definitely no quick fixes for it, and changes should not just be done to nerf it. It doesn't needs nerfing. It needs fixing.We need new mechanics and effects to address the problems it has for both those using stealth and those facing enemies with stealth.

At this moment I think it all comes down mainly to 3 points:

  • It has some bugs.
  • It can last too long.
  • It doesn't have 'moving parts' that allow for tweaks and balance other than duration and enemy sources of Revealed, which are too 'all or nothing'.

And here are some examples of possible measures to deal with them:

  • Fix its bugs:
    • When leaving stealth, players seem to load the enemy model right after stealth ends. Because of this, some people will take longer to see the model at all, and the model will play the animation for the current action from the start. So when it may seem the finisher just started, it may be actually ending, and properly timing interrupts becomes practically impossible.
    • Losing any effect that gives stealth will often reveal the character even if they still have other stealth effects like Hide in Shadows.
    • Channeled skills already locked on a player continue tracking the player after they enter stealth. Instead, if the skill requires a target to deliver effects like Flamestrike or Spatial surge it should get cancelled or hit the air like when used without a target, and if the skill shoots projectiles like rapid fire, it should keep firing but lose the automatic tracking on the cloaked player, forcing the user of the tracking skills to either aim manually or switch targets to track a different enemy.
  • Reduce the duration of its full invisibility when fighting against players, while keeping its full capabilities against AI for the whole duration.
    • The longer full stealth lasts, the harder is to tell where the cloaked enemy is. And that greatly reduces the risks of using stealth as both an offensive and defensive tool. Yeah, experienced players can deal with it, but the game isn't just for experienced players. It has to be intuitive for all and welcoming for newbies.
    • The way to address this problem that I like the most is "Stealth Decay". After 1-3 seconds depending on the source of the stealth, traits and upgrades, stealth would go from completely invisible to partially visible. This partial visibility would be even more noticeable while the thief is moving, and return to full invisible after a few seconds from leaving combat and standing still.
    • Decayed stealth would keep the player untargetable, and most NPCs and player-controlled AI would still ignore them, but players would be able to see them if they pay attention, as they would appear partially visible with a translucent effect. Even if they can't be targeted, AoEs, cleaves and aimed projectiles can still hit them, just like always. It'd be just a bit easier to know where to hit with them.
    • Using skills and triggering traits that give stealth to self would reset stealth to fully invisible.
    • Getting stealth from combos and other players would not reset stealth back to fully invisible, with a few exceptions. For example, Mass Invisibility and Shadow Sanctuary would reset stealth on allies and have a skill fact that says "Resets ally stealth", but Veil and Binding Powder would not reset stealth on allies, only self.
    • Getting stealth from allied skills or from skill combos in a smoke field would not reset full invisibility, it would just reset the time of decayed stealth.
    • And of course stealth from instance mechanics and environmental effects would have its own behavior depending on its purposes. For example, the stealth from WvW stealth fountains in Obsidian Sanctum would remain fully invisible for their whole duration.
  • Add an adjustable factor for revealed other than its sources and durations.
    • Revealed is an "all or nothing" mechanic. A skill either reveals or it doesn't. That doesn't leave room for adjustment and balance. One way to address this problem is a new "Suspicion" mechanic.
    • Suspicion would be a stacking effect that is accumulated with certain actions done while under stealth. When someone gets a certain number of stacks, they would lose stealth and all suspicion stacks, and get revealed for the same duration as when getting revealed with a direct attack. Revealing oneself with a direct attack would also remove all Suspicion stacks.
    • It would be accumulated from actions that should not reveal right away or if done sparingly, but should reveal eventually if done repeatedly, like:
      • Applying or having DPS conditions ticking on enemies.
      • Finishing an enemy
      • Getting hit with direct attacks. Standing in front of someone to attack them while they swing a weapon has never been a good idea, but suspicion would make it an ever worse idea.
      • Hitting with a stray projectile that was fired before getting stealth, but that hits after getting it. One may give stealth to allies, but they can't just stop a projectile already fired. Which means that without voice chat to warn them to stop attacking right before getting stealth, stealth given to allies firing projectiles is often wasted. These projectiles can't be made not to trigger stealth or that would be exploited. Suspicion fixes that by letting them hit just a bit from stealth without losing it, but not do it repeatedly, so one won't be revealed right away from a stray arrow fired right before getting stealth.
      • Missed attacks that hit nothing would give a small amounts of suspicion, like when spamming an attack without anyone in range, hitting the air; or someone moves away from the trajectory of a projectile, or moves behind an obstacle and the attack is obstructed. Missed attacks from being blind would give a bit more suspicion that attacking the air, but still a small amount.
      • Attacking someone blocking or invulnerable would give a large amount of suspicion or reveal right away.
      • Triggering traps and having your traps triggered. Stacking traps would stack so much Suspicion that it would always reveal, but it should be possible to use skills like Shadow Trap sparingly without being revealed right away from triggering it. Walking over too many traps even while evading should also reveal eventually.
    • Revealed caused by enemies will not reset stacks of suspicion. Only receiving revealed from Suspicion or one's own attacks would reset stacks of suspicion back to 0.
    • Shadow Meld would still remove revealed, but it would not clear stacks of suspicion.
  • Add new a mechanic to allow for more stealth counters while keeping stealth's defensive capabilities:
    • We can't have a lot of AoE revealing skills like Detection Pulse, Sight Beyond Sight or Gaze of Darkness because there are no counters for it other than Shadow Meld. Removing revealed is something so troublesome it has to be limited to an elite skill. If a mechanic was added to act as a 'stability' for stealth, that prevents being instantly revealed when entering stealth, that would be solved by giving a pre-emptive safety tool without giving more Revealed removal.
    • For example, Unrevealable would be an effect given by some skills that cause stealth, but not all sources of stealth. Unrevealable would usually be seen in skills meant to have a survival or panic button use like Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder or Decoy.
    • It would last very little, like just from 0.75s to 1s, as it's mostly meant to avoid spam of revealing skills to be able to get away from danger.
    • It would only apply to self, skills that give allies stealth and make oneself unrevealable won't make other allies unrevealable, with a few exceptions like Mass Invisibility.
    • Revealed makes characters immune to Unrevealable like it does with stealth, so it will only work while not revealed or if the stealth skill giving unrevealable also removes revealed like Shadow Meld.
    • Getting Unrevealable would also reset decayed stealth to full stealth.
    • Unrevealable would not prevent being revealed by attacking enemies or from getting Suspicion, only being revealed by enemy skills.
    • Stealth from combos on smoke fields would never give unrevealable.

With all these new mechanics combined, sources of stealth can be made to last way more or even indefinitely until revealed, having stealth skills that give 2-4s being able to give 10s or more. And even being able to make an Elite thief signet with a passive effect that constantly pulses decayed stealth and an active effect that gives stealth for 10s, and unrevealable for 0.75s.At the same time, revealing skills could be more frequent. For example:

  • Hallowed Ground could pulse 1s revealed, or cause it one time for 3s when cloaked enemies try to enter the area.
  • "Nothing Can Save You!" could deal 6s of revealed.
  • Rangers could get a Bat land pe and and a Dolphin underwater pet that have an Echolocation skill that deals 5s AoE revealed.
  • An elementalist sand-themed pulsing AoE like sandstorm could also pulse revealed.
  • Null Field could also pulse or cause revealed on the first or last pulse.

With changes like these examples, using and countering stealth would require more skillful play, and there would be no need to prevent stealth from stacking, because it would not matter how much stealth you can stack as stealth will decay to partially visible and won't reset from combo fields.

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Make thiefs stealth a cloak like the predator so it always has counter play. Thief and DE should get certain buffs while cloaked and have access to long durations of it so ur not spending 90 percent of ur play time stacking it,its annoying to do so as is and with stealth being like predator cloak and not true invisibility it wouldn't be broken. DD all stealth skills are changed from cloak to shadow barrier similar to scourge barrier but weaker due to having multiple ways to re apply promoting DD as a brawler and adding a active way to provide more sustain thru a fight. That seems cool to me lol u could blast urself a barrier with blinding powder and a leap

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Stealth shouldn't stack and there should be no self reveal state. Other players should be able to use reveal skills but an attack should only expose a player but not set a revealed state. If a player is skilled enough to backstab then CnD right behind it, that is skilled play and requires a thief to be in a dangerous melee position to execute. The ability to submerge into stealth by stacking insane amounts at a safe distance is the fundamental problem with the its access to stealth. Most stealth should be a very short disruption allowing for positioning.

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@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

Because of the reduced duration, REDUCE THE INITIATIVE COST TO COMPENSATE OR SPEED UP THE CAST TIME

No way. Black Powder was already nerfed to tick every 2s instead of every 1s. It only pulses 3 times and reducing the duration will mean that it will only pulse 2 times. You cannot satisfy both 2s ticks and 3 pulse with a shorter duration. Either you speed up the ticks for the shorter duration, or you reduce the number of pulse to 2.

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@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

Because of the reduced duration,
REDUCE THE INITIATIVE COST TO COMPENSATE OR SPEED UP THE CAST TIME

No way. Black Powder was already nerfed to tick every 2s instead of every 1s. It only pulses 3 times and reducing the duration will mean that it will only pulse 2 times. You cannot satisfy both 2s ticks and 3 pulse with a shorter duration. Either you speed up the ticks for the shorter duration, or you reduce the number of pulse to 2.

Black powder should change into an ammo skill with 0 recharge in the skill itself as always, but 3 skill ammo and 6-10s recharge on the ammo., then have its initiative cost reduced to 4, freeing potential initiative to use other skills.

It's not the only thief skill that should be changed to have ammo, so it can still be used in succession with initiative, but not spammed too often.Infiltrator's arrow is another one. That one should have just 2 charges, and recharge them every 12-15s, then have its initiative cost reduced to just 3.

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@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

Because of the reduced duration,
REDUCE THE INITIATIVE COST TO COMPENSATE OR SPEED UP THE CAST TIME

No way. Black Powder was already nerfed to tick every 2s instead of every 1s. It only pulses 3 times and reducing the duration will mean that it will only pulse 2 times. You cannot satisfy both 2s ticks and 3 pulse with a shorter duration. Either you speed up the ticks for the shorter duration, or you reduce the number of pulse to 2.

Black powder should change into an ammo skill with 0 recharge in the skill itself as always, but 3 skill ammo and 6-10s recharge on the ammo., then have its initiative cost reduced to 4, freeing potential initiative to use other skills.

It's not the only thief skill that should be changed to have ammo, so it can still be used in succession with initiative, but not spammed too often.Infiltrator's arrow is another one. That one should have just 2 charges, and recharge them every 12-15s, then have its initiative cost reduced to just 3.

They can't do that. That will open up a whole can of worms where they start adding CD on Thief's weapon skills. Even if it is a CD for the Ammo, it would still be the first weapon skill with CD.

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@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

Because of the reduced duration,
REDUCE THE INITIATIVE COST TO COMPENSATE OR SPEED UP THE CAST TIME

No way. Black Powder was already nerfed to tick every 2s instead of every 1s. It only pulses 3 times and reducing the duration will mean that it will only pulse 2 times. You cannot satisfy both 2s ticks and 3 pulse with a shorter duration. Either you speed up the ticks for the shorter duration, or you reduce the number of pulse to 2.

Black powder should change into an ammo skill with 0 recharge in the skill itself as always, but 3 skill ammo and 6-10s recharge on the ammo., then have its initiative cost reduced to 4, freeing potential initiative to use other skills.

It's not the only thief skill that should be changed to have ammo, so it can still be used in succession with initiative, but not spammed too often.Infiltrator's arrow is another one. That one should have just 2 charges, and recharge them every 12-15s, then have its initiative cost reduced to just 3.

They can't do that. That will open up a whole can of worms where they start adding CD on Thief's weapon skills. Even if it is a CD for the Ammo, it would still be the first weapon skill with CD.

What people want and what has to be done isn't always the same, unfortunately. Thieves could never get cooldowns in their skills, as that would utterly destroy the basic design of thief weapons. But ammo still allows using the weapon skills repeatedly like before ammo, but puts a stop on spam that allows both repetitive gimmicks and falling into repetitive traps, while also leaving more initiative to other skills, and in turns allows improving the skills themselves as they no longer have to be limited by how much initiative a person can put in a single skill.

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@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:Reduce the duration of Black Powder field. Give the thief enough time to Use it once in an open field. But juuuust enough time where it's incredibly difficult for the thief to use it a second time in an open field (Not leaping into the wall).

Because of the reduced duration,
REDUCE THE INITIATIVE COST TO COMPENSATE OR SPEED UP THE CAST TIME

No way. Black Powder was already nerfed to tick every 2s instead of every 1s. It only pulses 3 times and reducing the duration will mean that it will only pulse 2 times. You cannot satisfy both 2s ticks and 3 pulse with a shorter duration. Either you speed up the ticks for the shorter duration, or you reduce the number of pulse to 2.

Black powder should change into an ammo skill with 0 recharge in the skill itself as always, but 3 skill ammo and 6-10s recharge on the ammo., then have its initiative cost reduced to 4, freeing potential initiative to use other skills.

It's not the only thief skill that should be changed to have ammo, so it can still be used in succession with initiative, but not spammed too often.Infiltrator's arrow is another one. That one should have just 2 charges, and recharge them every 12-15s, then have its initiative cost reduced to just 3.

They can't do that. That will open up a whole can of worms where they start adding CD on Thief's weapon skills. Even if it is a CD for the Ammo, it would still be the first weapon skill with CD.

What people want and what has to be done isn't always the same, unfortunately. Thieves could never get cooldowns in their skills, as that would utterly destroy the basic design of thief weapons. But ammo still allows using the weapon skills repeatedly like before ammo, but puts a stop on spam that allows both repetitive gimmicks and falling into repetitive traps, while also leaving more initiative to other skills, and in turns allows improving the skills themselves as they no longer have to be limited by how much initiative a person can put in a single skill.

At a ini of 6 spamming sb5 uses all ur resources very fast so 3 sb5 is all that's possible that is if u wait few sec after the second shot to get the ini needed for the 3rd shot. Thief cant spam anything for long even with preparedness

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Eh. Honestly, as much as I dislike playing stealth and would rather have a brawler, there's a pretty good argument that it's necessary for thief in this stage of the game, and that the core mechanics are never gonna change to the extent that thief becomes anything besides the stealth class.

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With the adds to stealth other classes no receive through things like sneak gyro , mass inviso and the like removing stealth stacking from thief is no longer an option. No class is as reliaint on survival as much as thief given one of their main defense lines built around it and the thief should always have MUCH more stealth access over any other proffession.

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@babazhook.6805 said:With the adds to stealth other classes no receive through things like sneak gyro , mass inviso and the like removing stealth stacking from thief is no longer an option. No class is as reliaint on survival as much as thief given one of their main defense lines built around it and the thief should always have MUCH more stealth access over any other proffession.

îts just a good thing to fall back to when calling for buffs. thieves in this forum have been doing this for a very long time. asking to get buffs for trading stealth, wich they often dont even use much in the builds they run.

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