Perma Stealth Thiefs - What to do?

[Virdo.1540]

We recently have trouble on our server with fighting against groups including multiple thiefs. If one wall is open, they will wait for hours until they can get their friends back in to destroy inner wall (t3 keeps) and we havent found a way to deal with them.

 

Traps to Reveal arent triggering or are simply running out with mega ports of thiefs.

Skill-Reveals are never hitting, if yes,  port through the whole keep -> invisible again

 

And permanently having people camp in the lord room doesnt work either, because after a little bit waiting, the enemy group gets simply bigger. 

 

Are people having any advice what to do against them?

[Xenesis.6389]

Yeah switch maps, because anet doesn't care about stealth abuse until it affects their pve stuff, and it's not worth to stress over it's stupidity.

[Virdo.1540]

Just now, Xenesis.6389 said:

Yeah switch maps, because anet doesn't care about stealth abuse until it affects their pve stuff, and it's not worth to stress over it's stupidity.

Well ive seen perma stealth thiefs solo raid bosses aswell, so i doubt they are something "healthy" for pve

[Xenesis.6389]

8 minutes ago, Virdo.1540 said:

Well ive seen perma stealth thiefs solo raid bosses aswell, so i doubt they are something "healthy" for pve

Well they have rev soloing bosses with torment and then they went and buffed torment for pve.. so they probably just don't care in general anymore.

 

I mean they put in reveal on all enemies after you cap a keep to keep mesmers out, but then hand over portal with stealth to thieves... then give them stealth on dodge. Beyond stupid how they've handled stealth in this game, and you can't have a decent discussion about changes for it in the forums, so don't expect it to ever change.

[Svarty.8019]

 

1 hour ago, Virdo.1540 said:

Traps to Reveal arent triggering or are simply running out with mega ports of thiefs.

Skill-Reveals are never hitting, if yes,  port through the whole keep -> invisible again

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Meld

[KeyOrion.9506]

Any CC on a thief, they usually break and stealth, or they port and stealth, or they just shadowstep repeatedly of range, then move right back up into you.  I play Ranger and it's pretty much impossible.  If they stealth, I can entangle, and I can see my roots on the ground where they entangled something.  But then they just shadowstep out of the entangle rendering it useless in less than a second.  I can put a Superior Sigil of Fire on my bow, and when enemy stealths, i can fire Barrage on my personal location.  A flame blast will occur on critical, showing location of anything that's stealthed.  But then i only have a few seconds to try to wallop that one little spot that the flame burst occured.  But again the thief just moves out of the field or shadowsteps out of the AoE area, again making it useless.  You can have multiple players place traps on one single location and hope that the thief isn't watching you all kneel at one location which would indicate to him that your placing a bunch of traps there....  And if he's stealthed and watching, renders those traps useless.  Does work if they keep contesting your waypoint at your garrison or keep, if they keep hitting the same spot.  Then they just run around in circle of the location walls, and then you can place the traps.  We burned several thieves, but didn't really stop them from coming and continuously contesting the location.  Again, it becamse useless.  There's little or no repurcussions to perma-stealthing.  Cooldowns are inneffective at this juncture.  Three to four shadowsteps added with stealth makes catching up impossible.

 

1. If you set traps, and their stealthed, they're watching where you place traps.  Or maybe they are aware of the most common areas that traps are set.

 

2. CC's have become useless vs. a thief if they have any stab on.  And if it's a staff thief, then it's permastab, making CC's beyond useless.

 

3. Area of Effect Sigils or skills are meh vs thief who just leaves the area fairly easily.

 

This is magnified even worse when a team of thieves and mesmers get together and then it's like swimming through pirahna.

One positive aspect to all this, most of this stuff doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  I've given up trying to deal with thieves 3/4 of the time.  Just isn't worth my time to fight them any more, if my class can't see them, can't hit them, or can't catch them.

 

But you do have unique ways of detecting them.  Entangle roots, appear on stealthed subjects.  Nova blast from Sigil of Fire on any AoE skill can show location of stealthed subject.  Have no clue what class you play.  I'm sure you can put something together.

[Abyssisis.3971]

I just don’t log in, problem solved.

[Knighthonor.4061]

This game poorly handles stealth

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

As someone who co-mains a DE in WvW who has done the perma hide and seek thing to be able to port ppl in after walls go up or after they flip (and someone who likes to hunt for one in a tower/keep) its legit all about smart stealth trap placement and watching them and where they stealth at (look for red circles). They typically stealth around the same location multiple times. Step in their powder fields so they can't leap through it. Thieves love on top of walls too just fyi.

I cant tell ya how many times ive "infiltrated" a tower or keep once the walls went down or once it flipped and managed to stay alive/hidden until I got reinforcements in

[kash.9213]

12 hours ago, KeyOrion.9506 said:

Any CC on a thief, they usually break and stealth, or they port and stealth, or they just shadowstep repeatedly of range, then move right back up into you.  I play Ranger and it's pretty much impossible.  If they stealth, I can entangle, and I can see my roots on the ground where they entangled something.  But then they just shadowstep out of the entangle rendering it useless in less than a second.  I can put a Superior Sigil of Fire on my bow, and when enemy stealths, i can fire Barrage on my personal location.  A flame blast will occur on critical, showing location of anything that's stealthed.  But then i only have a few seconds to try to wallop that one little spot that the flame burst occured.  But again the thief just moves out of the field or shadowsteps out of the AoE area, again making it useless.  You can have multiple players place traps on one single location and hope that the thief isn't watching you all kneel at one location which would indicate to him that your placing a bunch of traps there....  And if he's stealthed and watching, renders those traps useless.  Does work if they keep contesting your waypoint at your garrison or keep, if they keep hitting the same spot.  Then they just run around in circle of the location walls, and then you can place the traps.  We burned several thieves, but didn't really stop them from coming and continuously contesting the location.  Again, it becamse useless.  There's little or no repurcussions to perma-stealthing.  Cooldowns are inneffective at this juncture.  Three to four shadowsteps added with stealth makes catching up impossible.

 

1. If you set traps, and their stealthed, they're watching where you place traps.  Or maybe they are aware of the most common areas that traps are set.

 

2. CC's have become useless vs. a thief if they have any stab on.  And if it's a staff thief, then it's permastab, making CC's beyond useless.

 

3. Area of Effect Sigils or skills are meh vs thief who just leaves the area fairly easily.

 

This is magnified even worse when a team of thieves and mesmers get together and then it's like swimming through pirahna.

One positive aspect to all this, most of this stuff doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  I've given up trying to deal with thieves 3/4 of the time.  Just isn't worth my time to fight them any more, if my class can't see them, can't hit them, or can't catch them.

 

But you do have unique ways of detecting them.  Entangle roots, appear on stealthed subjects.  Nova blast from Sigil of Fire on any AoE skill can show location of stealthed subject.  Have no clue what class you play.  I'm sure you can put something together.

Shadowstep has a long cooldown. You're not going to shadowstep repeatedly.

 

Convince the devs to get rid of Shadow Meld. Other than that, stealth isn't a huge problem, but people crying on here will get everything else nerfed on core thief except for the actual problems. Another thief thread, another circlejerk,

[ArchonWing.9480]

The real question is why do people care about someone taking stuff several hours later in 2022? I mean if you guys are asleep by then like normal people, they wouldn't need ports. Just regular siege and breaking in would be good enough especially if your walls aren't repaired. (why are your walls still open????)

When they're hit by a target painter or stealth trap, they can still stealth for a brief time until they get revealed again. It's kind of a bizzare mechanic but they do work.

I remember we killed a thief nonstop for like 30 minutes until I logged off, and the camp flipped. Like big deal; the keep upgraded already and I maintained l6 partcipation just by killing them and escorting yaks.

I mean yes we could probably do something about this, but the fundamental problem is people no-lifing after empty keeps here.

Edited January 5, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Virdo.1540]

2 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

The real question is why do people care about someone taking stuff several hours later in 2022? I mean if you guys are asleep by then like normal people, they wouldn't need ports. Just regular siege and breaking in would be good enough especially if your walls aren't repaired. (why are your walls still open????)

When they're hit by a target painter or stealth trap, they can still stealth for a brief time until they get revealed again. It's kind of a bizzare mechanic but they do work.

I remember we killed a thief nonstop for like 30 minutes until I logged off, and the camp flipped. Like big deal; the keep upgraded already and I maintained l6 partcipation just by killing them and escorting yaks.

I mean yes we could probably do something about this, but the fundamental problem is people no-lifing after empty keeps here.

There are always people awake.

[Virdo.1540]

5 hours ago, Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

As someone who co-mains a DE in WvW who has done the perma hide and seek thing to be able to port ppl in after walls go up or after they flip (and someone who likes to hunt for one in a tower/keep) its legit all about smart stealth trap placement and watching them and where they stealth at (look for red circles). They typically stealth around the same location multiple times. Step in their powder fields so they can't leap through it. Thieves love on top of walls too just fyi.

I cant tell ya how many times ive "infiltrated" a tower or keep once the walls went down or once it flipped and managed to stay alive/hidden until I got reinforcements in

The "red circle" for stealth is still a thing thats barely used. Thief has so many options to become perma-stealth, even without any circle they place

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

Just now, Virdo.1540 said:

The "red circle" for stealth is still a thing thats barely used. Thief has so many options to become perma-stealth, even without any circle they place

Without SR its hard without other red circles. Marking, Meld and the one that makes you go poof and the heal are the only ways really (without a red circle of any kind).

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

Without SR its hard without other red circles. Marking, Meld and the one that makes you go poof and the heal are the only ways really (without a red circle of any kind).

And silent scope. That's 5 ways of stealthing without leaving any tell. Not that putting down a red circle once in a while is an issue with thief mobility. Yep, definitely not a whole lot of options ...

Not that stealth or thief in general are a problem, but SA builds (DE and DrD in particular) are just stupid and giving them the ability to port other players into structures was a terrible desicion.

Edited January 6, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

14 hours ago, Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

As someone who co-mains a DE in WvW who has done the perma hide and seek thing to be able to port ppl in after walls go up or after they flip (and someone who likes to hunt for one in a tower/keep) its legit all about smart stealth trap placement and watching them and where they stealth at (look for red circles). They typically stealth around the same location multiple times. Step in their powder fields so they can't leap through it. Thieves love on top of walls too just fyi.

I cant tell ya how many times ive "infiltrated" a tower or keep once the walls went down or once it flipped and managed to stay alive/hidden until I got reinforcements in

Alright, now write things that actually work against perma stealth teefs. 
Stealth traps within objective are either uber useless(keeps/red map/sm) or usable (towers on normal maps). Beside the traps, you also need quite a bit of damage to deal with them and chasing potential with range. Another thing is paint, which teef can simply... port out of it's range quite easily.
There is a kitten load of places to place such red circles that won't be visible because how obstructed the area is.
Stepping into their powder fields will only work against PvErs, Teefs DO NOT have to leap through the middle of fields, they can use the very edges of them to gain stealth and still not hit someone inside of it.

I don't know, you people always write such bs and call it "viable counter", which in reality will only work on some PvE newbies at most and against them anything will work...
Could you also enlighten me, why Teefs don't get stunned by Shocking Aura while using Dagger Storm, even though they pretty much sit on me? No they didn't have any stability while casting it.

[sector.9634]

Just a contribution from me. Am not the overpro and Gw2 elite... just my opinion as an average player about it.

 

First of all, nothing helps 100% sure. There is no win button. Not against DE and not against any other class.

 

There are markers and marker traps, there are sentries that mark, there are traps that mark, there is LOS (that is important), movement, refects, doges.... But nothing helps alone and nothing helps absolutely sure.

 

After an attack, the attacker is visible.
As when playing a thief timing is quite important when playing against a thief.

 

As a final tip:
Play perma invis bersi thief yourself.

I played necro from 2013 to 2016. Then I was fighting deadeyes.
My thought was: if it's okay for Anet, it's okay for me. Since 2017 I play main DE in WvW. From 2017 it was a nice time again.

A strategy I would use again, if new classes coming in.

 

Deadeye
To prevent disappointment, even with a perma invis Deadeye there is no Win button and it is extremely fragile and actually tolerates less mistakes than it looks.

In the beginning I thought: one hand on the balls, one on the mouse and win.
The next stage was the feeling of sitting in a glass submarine and having to move a lot of levers incredibly fast.

When it all works, it just looks easy. Lol.
I'm not a computer gaming talent. I don't find it as easy as it looks from the outside.

Sometimes you get annoyed as De about "blocked LOS" (for nothing, except thin air), there you sometimes pump a lot of juice into the void, in a confined space, you're dead meat. Sweetspot is open field, but fights are often not open field.

Play it, you will see.

[cyberzombie.7348]

 -Listening for both audio and visual ques will be your friend, especially for deadeyes.

-If you have an exact bearing on their location, try sneak up to them but don't make it obvious that you're hunting them. So they're more likely to become complacent.

-When it comes to marking them I find the thrown painters to be more reliable than the traps. The laying animation is just too much of a dead giveaway.

Edited January 6, 2022 by cyberzombie.7348

[primatos.5413]

Anet logic; chase teef with full zone and kill them. Teef fine. End.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

swap maps because its not worth dealing with that kitten

[Justine.6351]

Use untargeted cc to mess with them. I have been having great fun with temporal curtain / illusionary wave on power block mesmer. If you pull with into the void be sure to sword cleave the center of it afterwards.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

On 1/4/2022 at 9:49 PM, Virdo.1540 said:

We recently have trouble on our server with fighting against groups including multiple thiefs. If one wall is open, they will wait for hours until they can get their friends back in to destroy inner wall (t3 keeps) and we havent found a way to deal with them.

 

Traps to Reveal arent triggering or are simply running out with mega ports of thiefs.

Skill-Reveals are never hitting, if yes,  port through the whole keep -> invisible again

 

And permanently having people camp in the lord room doesnt work either, because after a little bit waiting, the enemy group gets simply bigger. 

 

Are people having any advice what to do against them?

Lol if their waiting for hrs in the keeps for their buds than I say that's punishment enough, leave as is lol, omg I couldn't imagine here boring that would be....like why?

Thst said get a few of the right teammates, couple rangers with both using sic em, a rev or 2 and a warrior running magebane should have enough reveals, mobility,range and burst to delete any DE u focus on even if their running DE's elite.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Psycoprophet.8107

[Shining One.1635]

8 hours ago, Nirari.4827 said:

To prevent disappointment, even with a perma invis Deadeye there is no Win button and it is extremely fragile and actually tolerates less mistakes than it looks.

My Nomad Deadeye is far from fragile and can make plenty of mistakes.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

If thief remains permanently invisible: I usually leave them and go elsewhere. I once blasted AOE around but only hit thin air and the thief still managed to be hiding in the tower and take it as soon as we left. It is far quicker to just let them have it and recap it later on.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

its bad designed really. at best u send some roamers to hunt the thief, at least 2 good ones as the thief is a high mobility class.

 

in a zerg, u can use abilities like FB f3 skill2, stuff that taunts them, or tring go cc-fish them during stealth. stealth does not make players invulnerable. u can still bomb and kill them with spreaded out AoE. just the huge port can save thieves sadly even there often enough.

 

another issue: permastealth thieves often swap to full bulk bunker builds, so they wont get easily killed by spread out damage. anet should just limit portal range heavily, so it gets harder to ab-use it.