Suggestion for countering permastealth thieves/dead-eyes.

[Telgum.6071]

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Option 1:
- You throw marker at teef face, teef 3s later shows on screen without any marker, because why not.

Welcome to Guild Wars 2, where your skills can be dodged (unlike Target painter), blocked or avoided. You don't expect to always hit your targets, right?

 

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

- 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.

So...? What is the thief supposed to you? To be instantly downed? To kneel before you? You know you have to use your skills to take the enemy, right?

 

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

- You throw marker at teef face, teef *Oh no, anyways* keeps slapping you and finally kills you.

Welcome to PvP, where you can counter enemies and still lose.

 

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Also imagine if players had to be forced to open inventory window every single time to cast some skill, 10/10 design right there.

Where in order to counter all the 9 classes of this game you are limited to your own class choices, thief if the only exception that can be fully or partially countered by removing the permastealth from it, so if the "downside" is opening my inventory to have that choice on every single situation and using every possible character, I'll gladly take it, and I would do the same in the case on every single enemy class.

 

By the way, I have a fixed place for all the recurrent items on my inventory, I don't even need a full second to open my inventory and select a marker. Expect to get rekt by every average thief with that lazy mindset, leaving the forum crying strategy as your best option to win against thieves.

 

Still, I had some fun reading your post. You really honor your username.

[saerni.2584]

26 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

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.

No I meant it. The trap version is easier to land when the person runs out of combat when pressured (and immediately goes into permastealth). It relies on them being melee oriented and not paying attention when they attack you. Alternatively, you can stand near an allied sentry and then nothing can permastealth near you. But that's harder to guarantee. 
 

The trap version is easier to land sneakily over the thrown version because it doesn't require using it from inventory to activate. Thrown versions have their uses but I find permastealth players engage / disengage often enough that just using a trap works most of the time (again if they are melee oriented. 
 

For DE you need to fight more with obstructions and also kiting them out. But the best counter is ranged counter pressure and quick teleports with melee damage (in case they put up some projectile hate). Basically Ranger, guardian, rev, warrior (although killshot can be a meme it has great counter pressure).

[shrew.3059]

The solution to Stealth is and always has been: play better.

 

There are two main issues I see that provoke “nerf Stealth” threads:

 

1. “I should have killed that Thief but I couldn’t because Stealth”. Complaining that a profession used its abilities to survive and counter your attacks is not a reason to nerf said abilities. A Thief spamming Stealth is a Thief that is currently not doing any damage to you, and while it resets the fight for them it resets it for you as well. If it helps, imagine that instead of Stealth it just spammed Superspeed + Stability and just ran away. Feel better now? No player is under any obligation to fight you for as long as you want, under conditions you prefer.

 

2. “That Thief wouldn’t have beat me if not for Stealth”. Replace “Stealth” with “Barrier” or “Stability” or “Shroud” or “Rapid Fire” or literally any ability in the game. Yeah, some players are good at using their skills and some of them are better than you. Since Thieves are not out murdering everyone in sPvP and WvW with impunity, consider that maybe you need to improve.

 

Players getting killed/denied kills by Stealth assume Stealth is the problem, but their logic could apply to multiple other mechanics. The issue is Stealth is a more obvious impediment to low-skill players because they assume every fight should be on their terms and they probably don’t spend a lot of time figuring out why they lose to every other profession. And they probably do.

[Ronin.4501]

2 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

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

 

2 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

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.

 

I've got over 10k hours of roaming on this game and play multiple roaming builds.  As I said above, there are only a small handful of builds to counter play such as the permastealth build.  Only certain builds actually have decent sustain, CC, and AOE all in the same build.  While sustain can usually be built into any class, AOE is only available to some classes using specific weapons (that are generally preferred by raids, not roamers) and CC is also worthless a lot of the time if your target isn't visible (and sadly this game is buggy enough that despite not running snap targeting, the game still likes to target the nearest npc if the thief unstealths/stealths quickly enough).

 

Again, thieves (and specifically dead-eyes) have benefited from a bad mechanic for years. Rather than telling everyone else to L2P, maybe it's time for thieves/dead-eyes to L2P without having to rely on stealth so much instead? 😉

 

1 hour 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. 

 

LOL.  If you're not kiting/dodging/moving at all times as a roamer you're dead.  That's Roaming 101.

 

Furthermore, Target painters and target painter traps are worthless on a dead-eye when they can just use Shadow Meld (Shadow Meld can be used twice in 45s.  A single target painter has a cooldown of 45s) to remove the reveal unless you've got a party of 3+ players all throwing the traps.

[ASP.8093]

2 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Option 3:

- You throw marker at teef face, teef *Oh no, anyways* keeps slapping you and finally kills you.

This is like complaining when you dismount someone with the Warclaw lance and they beat you in the ensuing fight anyway.

[Ronin.4501]

42 minutes ago, shrew.3059 said:

The solution to Stealth is and always has been: play better.

 

There are two main issues I see that provoke “nerf Stealth” threads:

 

1. “I should have killed that Thief but I couldn’t because Stealth”. Complaining that a profession used its abilities to survive and counter your attacks is not a reason to nerf said abilities. A Thief spamming Stealth is a Thief that is currently not doing any damage to you, and while it resets the fight for them it resets it for you as well. If it helps, imagine that instead of Stealth it just spammed Superspeed + Stability and just ran away. Feel better now? No player is under any obligation to fight you for as long as you want, under conditions you prefer.

 

2. “That Thief wouldn’t have beat me if not for Stealth”. Replace “Stealth” with “Barrier” or “Stability” or “Shroud” or “Rapid Fire” or literally any ability in the game. Yeah, some players are good at using their skills and some of them are better than you. Since Thieves are not out murdering everyone in sPvP and WvW with impunity, consider that maybe you need to improve.

 

Players getting killed/denied kills by Stealth assume Stealth is the problem, but their logic could apply to multiple other mechanics. The issue is Stealth is a more obvious impediment to low-skill players because they assume every fight should be on their terms and they probably don’t spend a lot of time figuring out why they lose to every other profession. And they probably do.

 

The fact that you think "A Thief spamming Stealth is a Thief that is currently not doing any damage to you, and while it resets the fight for them it resets it for you as well" tells me you're new to the game.  Thieves (as well as mesmers) will often put enough condis on an enemy player (some classes have terrible condi cleanse) to keep them in combat while the thief clears the condi and moves far enough away to reset combat for themselves but not their enemy.  It's another terrible mechanic brought to you by Anet, but that's for a different thread.

[ASP.8093]

2 minutes ago, Ronin.4501 said:

Furthermore, Target painters and target painter traps are worthless on a dead-eye when they can just use Shadow Meld (Shadow Meld can be used twice in 45s.  A single target painter has a cooldown of 45s) to remove the reveal unless you've got a party of 3+ players all throwing the traps.

Target Painter doesn't apply Revealed, it applies Marked, which is an effect that will Reveal you for 3 seconds any time you stay in stealth for 2 seconds.

[Ronin.4501]

1 minute ago, ASP.8093 said:

Target Painter doesn't apply Revealed, it applies Marked, which is an effect that will Reveal you for 3 seconds any time you stay in stealth for 2 seconds.

 

You knew what I meant.  Either way Target Painters weren't designed to counter thieves/mesmers.  They were designed to show the movements/location of large raids moving across the map to draw defenders attention to their location.  But I think at this point it's clear you're going to defend thieves/dead-eyes no matter what valid arguments are made to counter your points, so it's rather pointless to respond to you any further.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

2 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Welcome to Guild Wars 2, where your skills can be dodged (unlike Target painter), blocked or avoided. You don't expect to always hit your targets, right?

 

So...? What is the thief supposed to you? To be instantly downed? To kneel before you? You know you have to use your skills to take the enemy, right?

 

Welcome to PvP, where you can counter enemies and still lose.

 

Where in order to counter all the 9 classes of this game you are limited to your own class choices, thief if the only exception that can be fully or partially countered by removing the permastealth from it, so if the "downside" is opening my inventory to have that choice on every single situation and using every possible character, I'll gladly take it, and I would do the same in the case on every single enemy class.

 

By the way, I have a fixed place for all the recurrent items on my inventory, I don't even need a full second to open my inventory and select a marker. Expect to get rekt by every average thief with that lazy mindset, leaving the forum crying strategy as your best option to win against thieves.

 

Still, I had some fun reading your post. You really honor your username.

Which part of "You throw marker at teef face, teef 3s later shows on screen without any marker, because why not." you don't understand? Thief eats on it's face your "super counter" aka target painter and still doesn't have "Marked" on him, it's too buggy and unreliable most of the time thanks to desyncs and lot of other random things that are questionable while fighting teefs.
Yes, he should also apologise for abusing unbalanced and broken mechanic called stealth, if he commits to the fight and then run away because he can then something is wrong with said mechanic as well.
No, you're wrong, you didn't "counter" enemy in the slightest with paint as you try to claim here, if it was the case and blocking the stealth for some time was as strong as you think the teefs should become free food for anyone and everyone who marked them on the field, which rarely or never happens. Yes, it happens with Option 4 as I wrote before.
You still forget or simply ignore the fact that traps and paints COSTS resources, if that resource would become 10g per use, would use said paints? 
Why do you even bring inventory organization here and try to use it as an some kind of argument? You still need to open that kitten inventory, doesn't matter if it's 0.1s or 10min, it's an outside "source" of "revealed" to have "some" chances against teefs.

Lastly thank you, but out of all available languages on this planet I have decided to speak facts here.

[Caedmon.6798]

2 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Welcome to Guild Wars 2, where your skills can be dodged (unlike Target painter), blocked or avoided. You don't expect to always hit your targets, right?

 

So...? What is the thief supposed to you? To be instantly downed? To kneel before you? You know you have to use your skills to take the enemy, right?

 

Welcome to PvP, where you can counter enemies and still lose.

 

Where in order to counter all the 9 classes of this game you are limited to your own class choices, thief if the only exception that can be fully or partially countered by removing the permastealth from it, so if the "downside" is opening my inventory to have that choice on every single situation and using every possible character, I'll gladly take it, and I would do the same in the case on every single enemy class.

 

By the way, I have a fixed place for all the recurrent items on my inventory, I don't even need a full second to open my inventory and select a marker. Expect to get rekt by every average thief with that lazy mindset, leaving the forum crying strategy as your best option to win against thieves.

 

Still, I had some fun reading your post. You really honor your username.

So you don't even know that a mark throw cant be dodged ? Ok.

[Telgum.6071]

19 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Which part of "You throw marker at teef face, teef 3s later shows on screen without any marker, because why not." you don't understand? Thief eats on it's face your "super counter" aka target painter and still doesn't have "Marked" on him, it's too buggy and unreliable most of the time thanks to desyncs and lot of other random things that are questionable while fighting teefs.

Them the issue are the bugs, not stealth 😄 By the way, my experiences says otherwise. I have never seen a thief taking a marker and not being affected by it.

 

21 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

No, you're wrong, you didn't "counter" enemy in the slightest with paint as you try to claim here

If a player heavily relies on permastealth and you remove that possibility from him yes, you are countering said player. Check the meaning of counter.

 

21 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

You still forget or simply ignore the fact that traps and paints COSTS resources, if that resource would become 10g per use, would use said paints?

You couldn't have pic a more stupid and wrong example, like traps costing you, I don't know, mystic coins or skirmish tickets? Man, there are supplies everywhere an the painters are truly cheap. I hope you don't use siege at all because "sIeGe cOSt rEsOuRceS"

 

24 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Lastly thank you, but out of all available languages on this planet I have decided to speak facts here.

Your biased opinion =/= facts

[Telgum.6071]

4 minutes ago, Caedmon.6798 said:

So you don't even know that a mark throw cant be dodged ? Ok.

Target Painter - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

Unpack a target painter. This trick marks up to 50 enemy players in the area for 30 seconds. Costs 10 supply to deploy. Cannot be avoided

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, Ronin.4501 said:

 

The fact that you think "A Thief spamming Stealth is a Thief that is currently not doing any damage to you, and while it resets the fight for them it resets it for you as well" tells me you're new to the game.  Thieves (as well as mesmers) will often put enough condis on an enemy player (some classes have terrible condi cleanse) to keep them in combat while the thief clears the condi and moves far enough away to reset combat for themselves but not their enemy.  It's another terrible mechanic brought to you by Anet, but that's for a different thread.

Clear the condi, you have build choices, and it sounds like that other thief made theirs and was able to size you up. You're talking about "only a small amount of builds" while failing to mention those builds are choices. No one is forcing some glass cannon to run out there and try to one shot people (including thieves) while packing almost none of the basics. That thief packed their kit with everything to stagger stealth and they're going gas out if bumped out of their comfort zone. I've suggested replacing things like Shadow Meld and maybe Stealth on Dodge, but the devs seem to consider the stealth access fair currently. I don't know if it is fair, but they never have a problem nerfing everything else about thieves so it's not like they're hands off. 

Edited August 23, 2021 by kash.9213

[Telgum.6071]

1 hour ago, Ronin.4501 said:

 

The fact that you think "A Thief spamming Stealth is a Thief that is currently not doing any damage to you, and while it resets the fight for them it resets it for you as well" tells me you're new to the game.  Thieves (as well as mesmers) will often put enough condis on an enemy player (some classes have terrible condi cleanse) to keep them in combat while the thief clears the condi and moves far enough away to reset combat for themselves but not their enemy.  It's another terrible mechanic brought to you by Anet, but that's for a different thread.

So if that thief is currently not fighting you (and far enough to reset the fight as you say) while cleaning conditions, why you don't do the same? Thiefs don't naturally clean conditions while stealthed, that comes from a trait. Do the same.

[ASP.8093]

I'd be fine with out-of-combat regen starting based on the last time you took strike damage (or last time a condition was applied) rather than the last time condition ticks damaged you, for what it's worth.

[shrew.3059]

2 hours ago, Ronin.4501 said:

 

The fact that you think "A Thief spamming Stealth is a Thief that is currently not doing any damage to you, and while it resets the fight for them it resets it for you as well" tells me you're new to the game.  Thieves (as well as mesmers) will often put enough condis on an enemy player (some classes have terrible condi cleanse) to keep them in combat while the thief clears the condi and moves far enough away to reset combat for themselves but not their enemy.  It's another terrible mechanic brought to you by Anet, but that's for a different thread.

 

Nope, been here the whole time. Assuming you’ve been here for just as long, I presume in that time you’ve picked up a Thief just to get a better sense of how they work, right? And when you did, were you unkillable?

[Xenesis.6389]

On 8/23/2021 at 10:37 AM, gebrechen.5643 said:

I've never bee been killed by a x/X or staff or sword Engineer on my necro.

 

The rest of us haven't been killed by a staff engineer either.....

Also, doesn't matter what their weapon is, a couple grenade shots for 20k-25k is what will kill you, and how about from stealth.

Scrappers have access to pretty much everything, except for portals.

You haven't been nerfed hard until you lose a dodge.

[shrew.3059]

How about this compromise:

 

1. Create a hard-counter mechanic to Stealth.

2. Give it only to Thieves.

 

There, problem solved. Now if you want to keep from getting ganked by Thieves, you’ll need to find yourself a personal pocket Thief. Win-win; you’ll get peace of mind knowing that no one will ever sneak up on you, and the Thief will get someone to rez over and over because Stealth wasn’t the reason you were dying in the first place.

[Shroud.2307]

Shadow Arts needs to have increased Stealth duration and additional ways to access Stealth removed, while still retaining the defensive benefits of being in Stealth. That way the trait line still has the identity of being for defense and providing a unique utility of healing, cleanse, etc. while Stealthed without increasing access or duration of Stealth.

Then, Critical Strikes and Acrobatics need some huge buffs/reworks and Trickery needs to be brought in line with the remaining lines so it isn't so mandatory. It's never a good thing to have a trait line that is a requirement for the class to reasonably function - it limits diversity.

Although Thief is still incredibly strong at high levels of play, that doesn't mean it can't be balanced to be both rewarding for talented players and easier to grasp for newer players.
That's a part of what makes balancing Thief so difficult though. It has so much potential compared to other classes, but the average player will only ever feel underpowered and seek the path of least resistance. You can't give the really good players god mode just to satisfy the average Joe.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Shroud.2307

[Dangus.6572]

Oh my, oh my... just play any AOE, CC, Condi, tank class with reveal and it's done. I play classical thief. To even hit a target from stealth is like collecting 5 different conditions, spending half or more initiative. Every class is a thief now. Mobile, has high dps, and especially AOE dmg. Thief, stealth is not a problem. Issue is when diversity is lost. Every class can not be equal, and there is no best build to kill anyone. 

 

Short answer: make a thief and try to survive. 

P.S. I love killing DEs :). They die so easily from a one shot thief build.

[Xenesis.6389]

26 minutes ago, Dangus.6572 said:

Oh my, oh my... just play any AOE, CC, Condi, tank class with reveal and it's done. I play classical thief. To even hit a target from stealth is like collecting 5 different conditions, spending half or more initiative. Every class is a thief now. Mobile, has high dps, and especially AOE dmg. Thief, stealth is not a problem. Issue is when diversity is lost. Every class can not be equal, and there is no best build to kill anyone. 

 

Short answer: make a thief and try to survive. 

P.S. I love killing DEs :). They die so easily from a one shot thief build.

Starts off by stating thieves are weak.

Ends with one shot thief build.

🙄

[ArchonWing.9480]

3 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Starts off by stating thieves are weak.

Ends with one shot thief build.

🙄

Dear Anet. The class(es) I play requires a lot of skill and requires me to do pushups every morning to even log on my characters. I would like to say that I do the game a valuable service by one shotting people trying to do their dailies so I can add them to my montage and it takes a lot of work and preparation to do that.  After all, those noobs come in trying to kill the warg and can farm legendary armor like that, so I need to protect the sanctity of this game mode.

 

Sometimes they even get away and I cry myself to sleep every night thinking about it.

 

Meanwhile, the classes I don't play are played by people that don't even lift and play themselves.  They also kill with me with skills that I don't understand and don't care to understand, so please delete their accounts for ruining my gameplay experience.

Edited August 24, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Telgum.6071]

5 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Starts off by stating thieves are weak.

Ends with one shot thief build.

🙄

Literally every class can be built towards one shot mechanics by giving up defenses..........

[Xenesis.6389]

34 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Literally every class can be built towards one shot mechanics by giving up defenses..........

Yeah but let's not come in here and pretend they're "weak". They have the tools to be successful in everything but aoes for zergs.

You go to metabattle and they have 6 specs in wvw rated 5.0, while the other classes only have 1-3, that says something.

And every class can be built for one shot still? just imagine what those stealth classes were doing before the tone down last year.

Stealth has a place in pvp, but not when it's basically 95% uptime loaded with perks. There's a reason why you don't see thieves fighting other thieves much.

 

But as I say every time now this topic comes up, stealth is never going to change in this game, it took beating a raid boss before they bothered looking into ghost thieves, the game isn't built to be "fair" or "balanced". Bring a bunch of friends, that's the roaming meta now.

[SnowHawk.3615]

 

Just throw an AoE at their smoke cloud, they literally just die they have no blocks unless they run the skill for it and the trade off isn't worth it vs other better skills in their kit. They can't take any type of damage and in the hands of a better player than you- they will just do what works on that class. They are pure glass. They can't break auto target once aimed at even when in stealth- so play a ranger or a necro and bomb them from a distance and pay attention. They've been nerfed to the ground- it's not the Thief player's fault that you can't count 2-3 seconds before they hit you (they stealth and then ready their burst). Let thieves die with what little dignity they have before it's nerfed away like everything else.  They are an engage and disengage class and repeat once their better half of skills are off CD. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by SnowHawk.3615
typo