The issue of stealth (and other oddly implemented mechanics)

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 12/28/2021 at 8:14 AM, Brandon Uzumaki.1524 said:

Stealth is so broken and annoying that if we had a "no stealth weekend", were every stance of going invisible was replaced by immunity to all damage i 100% believe that Thieves would be far easier and less annoying to fight lol, "oh no, he's immune to damage", but at least i see him and can prepare myself accordingly for when the immunity ends, kinda like when Guardians, Rangers, Wars use their no damage skills.

*Gigglesnort*

Sir you don't want that. You only think you want that, but the instant a thief drops on you running hidden thief you will not want it anymore. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Swagg.9236]

On 11/9/2021 at 1:26 PM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

That's kind of exactly what that means though.

If there is an avenue for dealing with it reliably that can be mastered, then that plays into the mechanic's balance.

The problem still lies in how it's "countered."  Basically, the only way to deal with a thief consistently is to run a build that can effectively become a landmine instantaneously in hopes that the single time that the thief engages, it also explodes on contact with its target.  This is EXTREMELY reactive gameplay, and it also pigeonholes every single class into a single, twitch-happy, guessing-game strategy with the thief rather than allowing anybody to pressure or move freely (because even if the person being attacked by the thief isn't running a build that plays this "strategy" well, it's still forced to effectively imitate it).  The only things that fight thief are basically just PBAoE spam builds or other thiefs (i.e. Rev, Mesmer, Trap ranger, an actual other Thief).  Thief has consistently forced players to play a certain way, and in response, whether you've noticed it or not, every class in the game (down to Warrior) has become increasingly more Thief-like over GW2's lifespan:  more evades, more teleports, more instant/passive damage negation, and even more stealth.

It's one thing to "master the mechanic's balance," but when the metagame which is forged by that "mastery" is so mundane and shallow, is it really worth praise or support?  Am I supposed to be proud of myself that I smashed 5 buttons really quickly, and so the dude using the unfair build exploded in flames via passive burn ticks upon attacking me (because that's how I do it on scepter ele)?  It's the same trick every time; and the worst part is that, the Thief can honestly win every single time, because all he has to do is play extra passively and continue to poke from stealth because stealth negation and free-aim attacks are incongruently and arbitrarily distributed across all classes.  It basically just makes everyone in GW2 into MASSIVE babies who equate passivity to skill.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

On 12/28/2021 at 10:55 AM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Have you made a thief? They are surprisingly brittle and require a heavy time investment to learn to play properly

Under all measurable aspects, this is false. When I made a d\p daredevil I was able to always get out of situations where I should have died. I was allowed to kitten up, repeatedly, regardless of who I was facing, because there is always a last second dodge\port\blind\stealth to save your kitten.
There is no way to actually prevent the thief from resetting, either with stealth or dash being as strong as they are. Besides, the passive ways to mitigate damage (unhindered combatant provides damage reduction... which isn't a lot, but combine that with weakness after dodge, on class that does NOTHING BUT DODGE) are still there.

Now, I wasn't really able to get many kills, but that's because I left after some 30 minutes; I was disgusted. But calling thieves "brittle" while ignoring how the class is literally built on free-out-of-jail buttons is delusional.

[Genesis.5169]

55 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Under all measurable aspects, this is false. When I made a d\p daredevil I was able to always get out of situations where I should have died. I was allowed to kitten up, repeatedly, regardless of who I was facing, because there is always a last second dodge\port\blind\stealth to save your kitten.
There is no way to actually prevent the thief from resetting, either with stealth or dash being as strong as they are. Besides, the passive ways to mitigate damage (unhindered combatant provides damage reduction... which isn't a lot, but combine that with weakness after dodge, on class that does NOTHING BUT DODGE) are still there.

Now, I wasn't really able to get many kills, but that's because I left after some 30 minutes; I was disgusted. But calling thieves "brittle" while ignoring how the class is literally built on free-out-of-jail buttons is delusional.

So you had success as running away from every fight.
Boy I have news for you....
You know who else can run away?
Everyone.
You know what running away from a fight is?
A loss.

When you play against good players at most you see 3 deaths most of the time you see 0 or 1.
Playing for 30mins and running away from every fight makes ya thief expert now a days wild.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Genesis.5169

[Swagg.9236]

1 hour ago, Genesis.5169 said:

So you had success as running away from every fight.
Boy I have news for you....
You know who else can run away?
Everyone.

And there's your problem--exactly as I've said before.  The game basically devolved into the same build spread unevenly across all the classes.  Everyone's just running their own flavor of thief, which kind of makes the whole game extremely passive, reactive and homogenous.  Really flattens down the skill ceiling.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

On 12/31/2021 at 2:38 AM, Genesis.5169 said:

blahblahblah

Listen, all I'm saying is "you can't pretend thieves are brittle when thief is the class that allow by far the greatest amount of kittenups before they even actually die". Brittle is something that can be killed easily; some soulbeast builds are brittle and you focus them because they are fragile. Some weaver builds are brittle, and you focus the crazy weaver with fresh air because you know it's fragile.
In my 6 years in this game nobody ever focused the daredevil; could that be because thief isn't brittle at all? Could that be because any decent thief is virtually unkillable?

On 12/31/2021 at 2:38 AM, Genesis.5169 said:

You know what running away from a fight is?
A loss.

Jogging away when you can't take a node is not a loss, it's rotating, every class happens to rotate every now and then.
On the other hand, being able to kitten up duels at will and still being able to jog away with no consequences is the kind of fantasy only a thief would call a loss.
Go play holosmith, someone jumps on you, you die. Enemy teams gets 5 points from your death, then you have to bleed for some 15s, then you wait 15s to respawn, then some more 20s to go back to mid; that is a loss. Want to compare that to endless dodging to some other node and keep on doing whatever you were doing?

Edited January 1, 2022 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Genesis.5169]

6 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Listen, all I'm saying is "you can't pretend thieves are brittle when thief is the class that allow by far the greatest amount of kittenups before they even actually die". Brittle is something that can be killed easily; some soulbeast builds are brittle and you focus them because they are fragile. Some weaver builds are brittle, and you focus the crazy weaver with fresh air because you know it's fragile.
In my 6 years in this game nobody ever focused the daredevil; could that be because thief isn't brittle at all? Could that be because any decent thief is virtually unkillable?

Jogging away when you can't take a node is not a loss, it's rotating, every class happens to rotate every now and then.
On the other hand, being able to kitten up duels at will and still being able to jog away with no consequences is the kind of fantasy only a thief would call a loss.
Go play holosmith, someone jumps on you, you die. Enemy teams gets 5 points from your death, then you have to bleed for some 15s, then you wait 15s to respawn, then some more 20s to go back to mid; that is a loss. Want to compare that to endless dodging to some other node and keep on doing whatever you were doing?

Oh so you just moved the goal post from not being brittle and having to run away from every fight because your not brittle, to thieves being able to +1 fights and run away okay.

So your version of success is never win any duel or node by yourself and running away and +1'ing for better players, so for sure you don't know how to play thief and cost all the loses on your team and if you won you were carried 100% i play against thieves like you they are normally deadeyes who just die all game and hug some player and hopes to be carried.

I'm sorry sir you not only suck at thief but you prolly dont even know how to play the game mode.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Genesis.5169

[Morwath.9817]

3 minutes ago, Genesis.5169 said:

Oh so you just moved the goal post from not being brittle and having to run away from every fight because your not brittle, to thieves being about to +1 fights and run away okay.

So your version of success is never will any duel or node by yourself and running away and +1'ing for better players, so for sure you don't know how to play thief and cost all the loses on your team and if you won you were carried 100% i play against thieves like you they are normally deadeyes who just die all game and hug some player and hopes to be carried.

I'm sorry sir you not only suck at thief but you prolly dont even know how to play the game mode.

 

I can tell you he definitely knows what hes doing and what hes talking about just by judging his leaderboard position in the past...

[anduriell.6280]

On 11/8/2021 at 4:06 AM, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

Sombra is revealed partially if she gets too close to an enemy which is absolutely great mechanical design. 

I think that is all that is needed in this game, stealthed targets are partially visible to enemies within a radius. 

* Shadow Magic (thief, smoke fields) would be partially visible to enemies within a range of the thief. Example any enemy within 450 of the thief could see the shadow/shape of the sheathed. Still the steathed is not directly targetable. 
* Thief could have a trait to reduce that range to 300. 

* Mesmers and Invisbility/Mind manipulation users on the other hand and could be the other way around. They would be visible to enemies farther than a certain threshold from the mesmer. Example: Mesmer is invisible to any enemies closer than 600 units from the mesmer.
* Mesmers could have a trait to increase the threshold to 900. 

This creates a different set of invibility opening a lot of different interactions. Other effects like runes or elixirs  could pick one of the categories. 

Thief and Mesmer having traits to improve the effects also increases the uniqueness of the classes as they get to improved effects over the baseline other classes may have access to. In those cases invisibility applications could be extended as there is a self-balancing feature in the mechanic itself so it does not need external balancing. 

Edited January 1, 2022 by anduriell.6280

[Axl.8924]

On 12/31/2021 at 2:38 AM, Genesis.5169 said:

So you had success as running away from every fight.
Boy I have news for you....
You know who else can run away?
Everyone.
You know what running away from a fight is?
A loss.

When you play against good players at most you see 3 deaths most of the time you see 0 or 1.
Playing for 30mins and running away from every fight makes ya thief expert now a days wild.

Necros can run away from fight too, and they got the ability to engage when they want with who they want because they have enough firepower unlike thief who has to constantly +1 peeps and jump them. 

Difference is: You do need to learn to kinda bait people on thief  and jump out because your defense is evades and disengages, unlike necro who just facetanks a lot of stuff.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Axl.8924

[Vancho.8750]

55 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

Necros can run away from fight too, and they got the ability to engage when they want with who they want because they have enough firepower unlike thief who has to constantly +1 peeps and jump them. 

Difference is: You do need to learn to kinda bait people on thief  and jump out because your defense is evades and disengages, unlike necro who just facetanks a lot of stuff.

That is because like @Swagg.9236 said everyone is playing some kind of thief build on another profession the worm port should have been long nerfed to 60 seconds like all other disengage skills (elixir S, blink, portal yada yada), no one is committing to fights, everyone is running several disengage skills which in turn becomes attrition battle and then people come to complain why necro is "op" since they play attrition vs the best attrition profession in the game. This in turn pushed thief out of the Meta since everyone is playing attrition with sustain since thief can't be countered on micro level 1v1 but it can be countered on macro level when everyone as a team can just deny their rotations by turtling up just long enough for help. The bad part is that thief needs to play against higher risk that are about trying to kill each other with full commitment to fights but it is pointless to play them since thief just farms them .This is one of the reasons Warrior for example doesn't work anymore, it doesn't have the kill potential, it doesn't have the sustain for attrition and it doesn't have get out jail free card skill, you need to have 2 out of 3 to be able to compete in this type of Meta but since warrior can only do 2 of those and they got nerfed  so it is useless.    
The whole thing is tangled up and there is a reason for everything.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Vancho.8750

[Terrorhuz.4695]

3 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

* Shadow Magic (thief, smoke fields) would be partially visible to enemies within a range of the thief.

* Mesmers and Invisbility/Mind manipulation users on the other hand and could be the other way around. They would be visible to enemies farther than a certain threshold from the mesmer

This sounds both cursed and fun af. I would just do it the other way around, as this would destroy pretty much all of thief's sneak attacks, and destroying a class mechanic is never good.

[Axl.8924]

2 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

That is because like @Swagg.9236 said everyone is playing some kind of thief build on another profession the worm port should have been long nerfed to 60 seconds like all other disengage skills (elixir S, blink, portal yada yada), no one is committing to fights, everyone is running several disengage skills which in turn becomes attrition battle and then people come to complain why necro is "op" since they play attrition vs the best attrition profession in the game. This in turn pushed thief out of the Meta since everyone is playing attrition with sustain since thief can't be countered on micro level 1v1 but it can be countered on macro level when everyone as a team can just deny their rotations by turtling up just long enough for help. The bad part is that thief needs to play against higher risk that are about trying to kill each other with full commitment to fights but it is pointless to play them since thief just farms them .This is one of the reasons Warrior for example doesn't work anymore, it doesn't have the kill potential, it doesn't have the sustain for attrition and it doesn't have get out jail free card skill, you need to have 2 out of 3 to be able to compete in this type of Meta but since warrior can only do 2 of those and they got nerfed  so it is useless.    
The whole thing is tangled up and there is a reason for everything.

I agree with the assessment of nerfing worm to 60 seconds personally since they are already tanky and can stay in longer and think some of the stealth and teleports can be power crept.

 

I think for Core nec just have to rotate carefully when roaming as minionmancer and not be able to instantly escape whenever things go wrong as often as glass classes who dont' have that luxury.

 

[Obliviscaris.6937]

 

Re: Terrorhuz (forgot to quote the post whoops)

Thief's sneak attacks would still function and be able to be executed identically to what they are now. So they'd still be okay.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Obliviscaris.6937

[Crab Fear.1624]

This thread is from the perspective of a necro main.

Let me give you mine:

NO

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 12/30/2021 at 7:43 PM, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Under all measurable aspects, this is false. When I made a d\p daredevil I was able to always get out of situations where I should have died. I was allowed to kitten up, repeatedly, regardless of who I was facing, because there is always a last second dodge\port\blind\stealth to save your kitten.
There is no way to actually prevent the thief from resetting, either with stealth or dash being as strong as they are. Besides, the passive ways to mitigate damage (unhindered combatant provides damage reduction... which isn't a lot, but combine that with weakness after dodge, on class that does NOTHING BUT DODGE) are still there.

Now, I wasn't really able to get many kills, but that's because I left after some 30 minutes; I was disgusted. But calling thieves "brittle" while ignoring how the class is literally built on free-out-of-jail buttons is delusional.

I don't see how that escapes the definition of brittle, for this reason:

Quote

I was able to always get out of situations where I should have died.

Quote

I wasn't really able to get many kills

Weakness has a 50% chance of doing nothing, on top of being removable. You can't rely on it as you would be able to rely on something like, say, protection or aegis. Dodging is active mitigation and that comes with its own downsides.Thieves have high access to stealth, sure. While they stealth though, they have no contest contribution, so they have to use it sparingly if they want to benefit their team. 

Good thieves will reset you, sure. A thief resetting means that it couldn't contest you and had to leave, though. What about that lack of staying power isn't classified as brittle?

Further, preventing the thief from resetting isn't the goal or balancing metric for conquest. A constantly resetting thief is doing nothing for their team, that is what you want, give or take the occasional kill.  And if by some metric you think it should be, put your money where your mouth is and give the thief duelist options. 

I'm sure you think differently, so let's assume we will never see eye to eye on this. In that case, what would you prefer?

High visibility thieves that can contest the point (and live long enough to do so),

or thieves that can leave/approach a point in a hurry/via multiple avenues, without much fighting or staying power? Either is fine, but both have been actively shamed as OP. over the years.

You're going to have to tolerate one of those, because a thief that can't disengage/reset that also can't kill its opponent isn't going to be acceptable for obvious reasons.
 

EDIT:

Quote

Brittle is something that can be killed easily;

Oh, I see.

No, that isn't all of it. Brittle also includes builds that can easily have their function in a map/on a team interrupted, so that they have to retreat with nothing.  My goal as a thief  is to contest/decap a point and any amount of contesting by an opponent means I am unable to do that/I need to leave. It is able to do one thing well/is solid in some aspect (Stealth/mobility) but crumbles easily when any pressure is exerted. 

Quote

On the other hand, being able to kitten up duels at will and still being able to jog away with no consequences is the kind of fantasy only a thief would call a loss.

What is this about thieves and dueling? Am I missing something here?

Arriving at a point and not being able to take it when you don't have enough fight presence to contest is indeed a loss. You're not only wasting your time, but you're weakening your team's presence on the map. You being able to port away and save your team the 5 points your opponent would have gotten for killing you really doesn't measure up to the points gained from losing the cap/whatever happened to your teammates at the other nodes.

So be it though. If you want thieves to have less run away buttons, you're going to have to give them the damage/sustain required to contest points. 

Edited January 2, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Terrorhuz.4695]

58 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

some thief gibberish

Not gonna comment on that. Especially the weakness "can be removed" is beyond offensive.
We're talking about one of the strongest conditions in game, and this human bean says it can be removed. Even boons can be removed, that's how the game works, that doesn't make them useless.

58 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

You're going to have to tolerate one of those, because a thief that can't disengage/reset that also can't kill its opponent isn't going to be acceptable for obvious reasons.

Thief can definitely kill, s\d is a perfectly good example. The only reason it's not being run is because if you try to pull that off, d\p thieves are going to send you back to spawn 24/7. Imagine a design so unhealthy that your class is gatekept by your own class.

The only reason I wasn't able to get significant kills on thief was because learning to land backstabs properly is an art all on its own, not because the class itself lacks damage -thief gets away with way more damage than it should, regardless of its immortal design.
You want even more damage, go DE and land malicious backstabs >8k every time (can't remember if you need signet of the assassin, probably not), no malice required, and unlike DJ it doesn't even have a tell before landing, it's just a nuke out of nowhere, or just have fun with skirmisher shot; with signet of the assassin you can erase people before they can even react. Even without going DE, we have Shorts on stream dropping 6/7k cloak and dagger out of nowhere... but that would mean getting running risks? A concept thieves are apparently not familiar with.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

38 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Not gonna comment on that. Especially the weakness "can be removed" is beyond offensive.
We're talking about one of the strongest conditions in game, and this human bean says it can be removed. Even boons can be removed, that's how the game works, that doesn't make them useless.

You should comment on it. I didn't say it was useless, I said it was unreliable. Given your healthpool is 11k on thief, you can't rely as heavily on weakness as you seem to think. Unhindered combatant's damage reduction is mild, and occasionally weakness will save you while you are attempting to do damage.  And it being removable wasn't the point; the point was that damage mitigation depends largely on your opponent not removing it. Sure, it's strong.

Quote

Thief can definitely kill, s\d is a perfectly good example. The only reason it's not being run is because if you try to pull that off, d\p thieves are going to send you back to spawn 24/7. Imagine a design so unhealthy that your class is gatekept by your own class.

S/D gets sent back to spawn by more than just Dagger pistol thieves right now, let's not be coy. There's a bunch of thieves perfectly happy to play low stealth/low run builds, but people been just as vehemently opposed to those denominations, including S/D, as they have to high stealth/unhindered ones so they've gotten punishing cost increases. 

Quote

The only reason I wasn't able to get significant kills on thief was because learning to land backstabs properly is an art all on its own, not because the class itself lacks damage. You want damage, you go DE and land malicious backstab with signet of the assassin; 9k, you don't even need to build malice up, and unlike DJ it doesn't even have a tell before landing, it's just a nuke out of nowhere... but that would mean getting killed once every while and we can't accept that a thief sometimes is sent back to spawn, can we?

*whispers* Would you rather oneshot backstabs than a thief that needs to leave under any kind of pressure? I'd say that's even more unhealthy and even more stealth reliant. You sure you aren't gonna monkey paw this whole thing? I don't think you wanna call backstabs an art to make this point. 

Quote

not brittle

It's brittle. 

Quote

Want to compare that to endless dodging to some other node and keep on doing whatever you were doing?

Sir I'd like to poke this also with the assertion that a holosmith that can contest a point and successfully defend it occasionally is doing more for their team than a thief that has difficulty decapping due to chaseoff, even if the thief never or rarely downs; and that while the holosmith may lose his fights occasionally the thief harms their team by merely not getting the decap.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[ysnake.3619]

After reading through this carefully and thoughtfully, I think it is safe to conclude that Thieves are severely underpowered and need massive buffs.

[saerni.2584]

Thief is inherently brittle without access to stealth (SA builds), evade (Daredevil builds), usually combined with some kind of mobility (teleport on weapon skills, teleports on utilities, dash/withdraw, Shortbow 5, Dagger Storm, etc). There's also the use of blind to avoid being hit, which thief has plenty of access to through traits, utilities, and weapon skills. That's a lot so I can see why people have difficulty accepting that thief without those is brittle.

 

I think there's two definitions of brittle being used here. One is more general survivability. At which, of course, thief excels. If escaping from a situation that would have killed anyone else is the measure then thief is, to borrow the popular ranking system, S-tier.
 

The other definition is more nuanced because it cares more about overall fight presence (ability to stay in a fight without needing to disengage) and ability to go toe-to-toe (fighting on point to hold a point from being taken. The later is not usually considered a thief "role" precisely because Stealth is such a disadvantage when it comes to capture point contribution. Thief doesn't defend and uses stealth to slip away to decap, as a rule. Similar is the rule that the thief shouldn't stay in team fights longer than necessary to help secure a kill or two before again slipping away to deal with decap or roaming into a +1. A thief who nevertheless tries to defend a point or sticks to Team fights either has a disadvantage (running away won't defend the point or help their team) or has to take a off-meta approach to contribute effectively. That tends to make thief more B-tier in terms of that definition/understanding of brittle. As an aside, skill factors in a lot here so you can potentially make some of those plays despite being at a disadvantage if you know how to play around your opponent. 
 

We will have to see how this opens up with EoD. Specter may show how a thief who remains in a support role for team fights has less personal survivability despite massive healing and barrier potential. And it may show how, if you give thief barrier and healing, thief can then compete in defensive plays using mobility to quickly defend points while waiting for backup. 

[Genesis.5169]

On 1/6/2022 at 4:08 AM, ysnake.3619 said:

After reading through this carefully and thoughtfully, I think it is safe to conclude that Thieves are severely underpowered and need massive buffs.

Nah they are perfectly fine as of now.
Maybe acrobatics can be looked at 300ICDs are not cool but thats about it..
But i like how you think..

Edited January 7, 2022 by Genesis.5169