Suggestion for countering permastealth thieves/dead-eyes.

[Ronin.4501]

With the new specializations recently beta-tested, Anet added a new corruption; blight. 

 

I suggest to counter perma-stealth thieves and dead-eyes, for every 2-4s (I'm open to suggestions for the duration at which blight is acquired) a thief/dead-eye is stealthed, they acquire 1 stack of blight, or another new corruption similar to stealth such as a confusion-type blight.  This would make stealth more of a risk/reward feature the way overheating affects Holosmoths and blight affects Harbingers.

 

I'm sure the thief/dead-eye crowd will hate it, but after 9 years of dealing with a broken mechanic and 5 years of dealing with a broken class (dead-eyes), I think it's time Anet did something.

[subversiontwo.7501]

I don't think you need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to look at some traits and how too much of builds and specs channel into the same places. There are so many powerful things rolled into the core mechanics (stealth, dodge, init, etc.) rather than being button choices. That's what separates vanilla Thief from PoF Thief.

 

It also has a number of stacked abilities that synergizes into these traits. This may not be the best example because it isn't the most popular choice by any stretch, but I think it is a very clear cut example of my point: Look at the heal Hide in shadows. It is a big heal, a stealth, a buff and a cleanse. It can then be more heals, more stealth, more cleanse, more initative and so forth out of triggers. There are more and better examples, but I am in a rush.

 

On other classes more of those things have been nerfed. It's becomming a tired example but Warriors and stuns. There's a reason Bull's charge is no longer a port, a knock, high damage or triggers a whole slew chain reactions that makes it hit harder, knock longer, travel faster or setup more skills and traits better.

 

Synergy and building into it is good to a point. However, synergies also need to be balanced and asessed.

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Telgum.6071]

I have another suggestion with no theory on it but a lot of experiences that it works:

 

Step 1. Quickly open your inventory

Step 2. Pick a Target Marker

Step 3. Throw it on the thief

Step 4. There are no more steps because Thief is the only class that can be fully countered by just one item in your inventory and yet people claim is OP when the only thing they are truly good is at running and avoiding damage.

 

I have thrown dozens of markers to enemy thief so I guarantee you: 90% of them will just run away from you, and half of them will whisper you to mention your mother and that kind of stuff they do. The remaining 10% will stay and fight back with the huge disanvantage of only having two seconds of stealth during 30 seconds.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

deadeye can two times cleanse marked... and any thief that isn't totally pepega just kills u during trying that

 

would actually be smart if that penalty mechanic would be created for stealthing longer times. guess that would be not thief only then tho, if anet changes sth alike in. considering how bulky thieves feel sometimes, it might be a really good thing to give them penalties in sustain for this.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think the bigger problem is insufficient access to Reveal for different classes. For example Spellbreaker and Engineer have access to an AoE reveal that is quite successful at stopping Thieves' permastealth, while other types of reveal in the game tend to be quite bad, especially when they need the Thief visible to use them..

[HARDOFREADING.7298]

  rofl....Ya   Give everyone a skill that 1 shot's thieves from 1850+....Oh wait...That already exists....How about taking all stability from thieves...Oh wait....That's already happened.  How about completely changing the functionality of how Malice works after selling PoF to people....Oh wait..They already did that... How about adding "Marked" functionality to every sentry and tower....Oh wait they already did that. How about removing traps from thieves after 5.5 years and give them a terrible substitution, call it a "Preparation"and make it something they actually have to manually trigger instead....oh wait nevermind...The already did that. How about nerfing 3/4 of the pathing placements for shadowsteps....Oh wait they already did that too. How about destroying the functionality of 9/10ths of thief builds and crow barring them into 1-2 "viable" builds....oh wait....That's already happened too. How about giving them virtually no role in wvw zerg fights....Hmmm...that's already happened too.

LoL Seriously dude....Do this. Go back for the last 18 months and read every set of wvw patch notes and counter the number of things that have been nerfed for thieves and then compare that to every other class. The bias is staggering.

 I dont know what "WvW" you're playing but I saw 3 Dead Eyes last week and i played like 40+ hours.

 I'm all for adding some stealth skills via WvW skills for all classes and letting everyone use stealth shrines in SMC not just whomever owns SM at the time.

 You should play thief for a couple weeks, cuz I guarantee you'll be playing that victim role again.

Wow

 

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, HARDOFREADING.7298 said:

 LoL Seriously dude....Do this. Go back for the last 18 months and read every set of wvw patch notes and counter the number of things that have been nerfed for thieves and then compare that to every other class. The bias is staggering.

 

Mesmers all bust out laughing so hard.

 

 

 

[Abyssisis.3971]

Just remove stealth, problem solved.

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

The remaining 10% will stay and fight back with the huge disanvantage of only having two seconds of stealth during 30 seconds.

Excuse me but what? Even when marked, the thief has 40% uptime on stealth. They can stealth for 2s every 5s. Revealed only last 3s. And that assumes they even get revealed. Deadeyes can dodge stealth with the rifle without getting revealed because it last under 2s.

Being marked mean literally nothing for a decent thief.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Telgum.6071]

5 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

They can stealth for 2s every 5s.

Bad writing, that's what I mean.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

5 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

I have another suggestion with no theory on it but a lot of experiences that it works:

 

Step 1. Quickly open your inventory

Step 2. Pick a Target Marker

Step 3. Throw it on the thief

Step 4. There are no more steps because Thief is the only class that can be fully countered by just one item in your inventory and yet people claim is OP when the only thing they are truly good is at running and avoiding damage.

 

I have thrown dozens of markers to enemy thief so I guarantee you: 90% of them will just run away from you, and half of them will whisper you to mention your mother and that kind of stuff they do. The remaining 10% will stay and fight back with the huge disanvantage of only having two seconds of stealth during 30 seconds.

Some flaws with this.

First, you need to see thief or the stealth field to hit.

Second, you need an infinite stack of supply cos 1 person can put only 1 trap at a time or throwing 2 markers will dry up you supply.

[Telgum.6071]

3 minutes ago, Sleepwalker.1398 said:

Some flaws with this.

First, you need to see thief or the stealth field to hit.

Second, you need an infinite stack of supply cos 1 person can put only 1 trap at a time or throwing 2 markers will dry up you supply.

I'm not talking about the trap but the throwable version Target Painter

And well yeah, you have to know where the thief is 😄

[T G.7496]

Thought you were gna say delete thief.

Disappointed.

[vilkanor.3072]

that has never been the real issue with Thief class. There are plenty of games with even more broken stealth mechanics that were/are able to keep the encounter balanced (something Anet wasn't able to do).

It is perfectly ok to have a class that can go full invisible and stay that way as long as they want: it is not ok to not implement direct counters to that ability.

As long as the class has the ability to just be stealthy but can't pose a real threat in a fight, there is no problem: it would be perfect for scouting, it would have a precise role and that's it.

What we have in GW2, instead, is a class that can:
- stay invisible

- explode with insane burst damage

- disengage at will endlessly

 

believe me when I say that early GW2 Thief was much more powerful, and yet it still is ridiculously broken, which leads me to think -after nine years- that Anet simply wants the class to be like this.

 

TL;DR:

stealth = good

stealth + insane damage + insane mobility = bad

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

The problem with nerfing thieves is that they have been nerfed so hard already that they are easy to counter. If you can't beat one, it's because you either have a build that they hard counter or you need to l2p. Stealth is easy to play against esp since as they are resting in stealth, so can you.  It's super easy to predict where they are going to be.  I've never bee been killed by a d/X or staff or sword thief on my necro. Mesmers and rangers and heralds also have an easy time with thieves, melee and ranged. 

 

Learn to play against stealth builds and use a build meant for it rather than complain because you have a hard time. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Nerf shadow arts delete silent scope

[schokelmei.8271]

The problem with nerfing Engineers is that they have been nerfed so hard already that they are easy to counter. If you can't beat one, it's because you either have a build that they hard counter or you need to l2p. Engineer is easy to play against esp since as they are resting, so can you.  It's super easy to predict where they are going to be.  I've never bee been killed by a x/X or staff or sword Engineer on my necro. Mesmers and rangers and heralds also have an easy time with Engineers, melee and ranged. 

 

Learn to play against all builds and use a build meant for it rather than complain because you have a hard time. 

[ASP.8093]

23 hours ago, Ronin.4501 said:

With the new specializations recently beta-tested, Anet added a new corruption; blight. 

 

I suggest to counter perma-stealth thieves and dead-eyes, for every 2-4s (I'm open to suggestions for the duration at which blight is acquired) a thief/dead-eye is stealthed, they acquire 1 stack of blight, or another new corruption similar to stealth such as a confusion-type blight.  This would make stealth more of a risk/reward feature the way overheating affects Holosmoths and blight affects Harbingers.

 

I'm sure the thief/dead-eye crowd will hate it, but after 9 years of dealing with a broken mechanic and 5 years of dealing with a broken class (dead-eyes), I think it's time Anet did something.

Or you could learn how to reflect projectiles instead.

[Ronin.4501]

49 minutes ago, gebrechen.5643 said:

The problem with nerfing Engineers is that they have been nerfed so hard already that they are easy to counter. If you can't beat one, it's because you either have a build that they hard counter or you need to l2p. Engineer is easy to play against esp since as they are resting, so can you.  It's super easy to predict where they are going to be.  I've never bee been killed by a x/X or staff or sword Engineer on my necro. Mesmers and rangers and heralds also have an easy time with Engineers, melee and ranged. 

 

Learn to play against all builds and use a build meant for it rather than complain because you have a hard time. 

 

Huh??? This is a post about thieves and more so dead-eyes.  Scrapper stealth isn't an issue imo as it's a 15s stealth with a 60s cooldown.  If scrappers could stealth every few seconds it'd be a different story.

 

*EDIT: I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant thief.  But seeing as you're talking about staff and that's only available to Daredevils, who rarely bother with stealth except to run away, I think you're a bit confused here. 

 

14 minutes ago, ASP.8093 said:

Or you could learn how to reflect projectiles instead.

 Not every class/specialization has access to multiple reflect projectiles.  I suppose you want me to limit myself to one of the handful of builds Anet tries to pigeon-hole every roamer into playing?

Edited August 23, 2021 by Ronin.4501

[ASP.8093]

9 minutes ago, Ronin.4501 said:

Not every class/specialization has access to multiple reflect projectiles.  I suppose you want me to limit myself to one of the handful of builds Anet tries to pigeon-hole every roamer into playing?

Tell us what you're playing and we'll tell you what to do.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

23 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

I have another suggestion with no theory on it but a lot of experiences that it works:

 

Step 1. Quickly open your inventory

Step 2. Pick a Target Marker

Step 3. Throw it on the thief

Step 4. There are no more steps because Thief is the only class that can be fully countered by just one item in your inventory and yet people claim is OP when the only thing they are truly good is at running and avoiding damage.

 

I have thrown dozens of markers to enemy thief so I guarantee you: 90% of them will just run away from you, and half of them will whisper you to mention your mother and that kind of stuff they do. The remaining 10% will stay and fight back with the huge disanvantage of only having two seconds of stealth during 30 seconds.

Reality:
Option 1:
- You throw marker at teef face, teef 3s later shows on screen without any marker, because why not.
Option 2:
- You throw marker at teef face, teef runs away faster than light to spawn from opposite side of map and you can't catch him either way.
Option 3:

- You throw marker at teef face, teef *Oh no, anyways* keeps slapping you and finally kills you.
Option 4:
- You throw marker at teef face, you kill teef because it's some newbie that barely know what's he doing.
I'm pretty sure you only encounter option 4 in WvW considering how you think that burning 10 supps for "maybe it'll give you some chances" in a fight as valid counter to stealth.
Also imagine if players had to be forced to open inventory window every single time to cast some skill, 10/10 design right there.

[ASP.8093]

4 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

I'm pretty sure you only encounter option 4 in WvW considering how you think that burning 10 supps for "maybe it'll give you some chances" in a fight as valid counter to stealth.

Sustain, CC, and AOEs are also all valid counters to stealth.

 

If they want to fix the UI problem of "did you actually hit a hidden player with that attack," I'm not going to complain, but y'all keep posting like stealth makes you UNKILLABLE rather than simply ANNOYING.

[saerni.2584]

The best way to counter thief is by kiting them. If they chase you they are burning their mobility (and stealth duration cooldowns) in the process. String them out (even if you aren't faster than them) and then punish them for over-extending.

 

If they are in stealth don't just stand there. Move and kite. Then when they become visible they will be far weaker than if you just stand there and wait for them (or burn your own cooldowns trying to guess when they are going to attack. 
 

That's also why if you are chasing a thief in a group, spreading out can prevent them from being able to easily juking using Shadowstep's Return ability. Anticipate their skills and move in order to limit their movements. 
 

And if they are permastealth and always leave when pressured (just harassing) then just put a target painter trap down and be ready to chase with ranged pressure when they trip the trap. Nothing easier to kill than a thief who can't use stealth for longer periods of time in order to disengage. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

14 minutes ago, saerni.2584 said:

The best way to counter thief is by kiting them. If they chase you they are burning their mobility (and stealth duration cooldowns) in the process. String them out (even if you aren't faster than them) and then punish them for over-extending.

 

If they are in stealth don't just stand there. Move and kite. Then when they become visible they will be far weaker than if you just stand there and wait for them (or burn your own cooldowns trying to guess when they are going to attack. 
 

That's also why if you are chasing a thief in a group, spreading out can prevent them from being able to easily juking using Shadowstep's Return ability. Anticipate their skills and move in order to limit their movements. 
 

And if they are permastealth and always leave when pressured (just harassing) then just put a target painter trap down and be ready to chase with ranged pressure when they trip the trap. Nothing easier to kill than a thief who can't use stealth for longer periods of time in order to disengage. 

I think you meant Target Painter. No player would intentionally trigger a trap, not to mention that it requires supps on top of costing silvers and badges, and has a very long cast/placement time.

 

Btw, it costs nearly 4k badges for a stack of these.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Captain Kuro.8937]

Allow the defender to mount and leave , if Thief remains for  more than 2.5 sec in stealth