Perma Stealth Thiefs - What to do?

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

No one buys items to counter a thief. 

And that's not to say reveal affects more mesmer than thief itself due to lower mobility. 

Latency does in fact makes some stuff broken, there's also culling, it takes more time than what is supposed to, to render a stealthed player after an attack. 

[Sahne.6950]

Is this "delay" where the thief gets visible a second after he does damage really that much of a thing?

I have not encountered it alot myself...i am playing with a ping of under 20, so that might be why... i mean...i know its a thing.. i have seen it aswell.. but its very rare... atleast when you have a good latency.

what i noticed is that alot of the time it is actually thiefs doing "reveal-avoiding"- Smokescreen + Heartseeker + Steal or Shadowstep combos. You are being hit by the Heartseeker and dazed from steal and then the Thief quickly becomes stealthed again thanks to the leap combo. If you do it frame perfect it looks like a "flickery and delayed reveal". You wait for the stealth time to almost run out, detarget so your bullet from 5 doesnt reveal you, and then do this combo, you land the heartseeker just briefly after the stealth runs out, so you do not get the "Revealed" debuff. Then you can proceed with your backstab and only get visible after that. Alot of people have been calling me out that my stealth is laggy and my reveal is delayed... when in reality i was literally just playing around the reveal mechanic. If you time it frameperfect you barely even get visible. To the opponent it feels like you already hit them and should be revealed by now, but the hit that they received was literally you going into the stealth. you then get visible a second or so after that, when you are actually backstabbing them. To the enemy it looks and feels like a "flickery and delayed reveal". 

To someone that is not too familiar with thief this might appear, like the thief has already started his attack... but he is not visible yet!?!?! what!? i already lost 3k hp and im dazed! why is teef not visible? b00m another 5k backstab and there he is! finally! kitten laggy stealth!

i seriously believe that is what is happening to alot of players. Or i am not experiencing this because of my good latency?

Edit: also..... Page 17?!?!? guys come on 😂

Edited June 15, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

@Sahne.6950 it does happen, not that uncommon and not a thief only problem. 

I also play thief although not my main and mainly s/d, so I do know about combos. 

 

[Svarty.8019]

19 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

you CAN do it to disable an extremely recurrent mechanic. Imagine if you had an item that would block or reflect projectiles to counter rangers? Or an item that would negate boons to use against celestial abusers? Or an item that could recurrently blind warriors? Well, none of those exist, but there is an item that can mark foes during 30s for just 10 supply, negating the permastealth.

Your arguments are straw men. Pathetic, mealy-mouthed excuses for a ridiculous, outmoded mechanic that should never have passed QA.

[senftube.6081]

2 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Your arguments are straw men. Pathetic, mealy-mouthed excuses for a ridiculous, outmoded mechanic that should never have passed QA.

No it is not a Strawman, its a fact.

[Svarty.8019]

Just now, Yunari.9065 said:

No it is not a Strawman, its a fact.

It's clear that no amount of reasonable, rational conversation will change your mind. Some people enjoy defending the indefensible.

[Telgum.6071]

3 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Your arguments are straw men. Pathetic, mealy-mouthed excuses for a ridiculous, outmoded mechanic that should never have passed QA.

I will always laugh at people talking about facts and then discarding other person's argument because whatever reasons they can find. @TrollingDemigod.3041you got a serious contender here.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

28 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

I will always laugh at people talking about facts and then discarding other person's argument because whatever reasons they can find. @TrollingDemigod.3041you got a serious contender here.

I'm still waiting for some logical arguments from you though.

[Kherae.2109]

After reading  through maybe 8 pages from the start, I'm just...gonna chime in with my somewhat limited experience.
Besides GW2 I've played WoW, Rift, FFXIV and ESO, which have stealth classes.

ANet's implementation of stealth, and by extension invisibility, is problematic. So here's a (likely unwanted) list of comparisons:

• GW2: stealth/invis broken by dealing direct damage (Anyone remember permastealth trapper?). FFXIV/Rift/WoW: stealth broken by taking damage or initiating an attack. ESO: it lasts 3 seconds and requires a resource to use, breaks on doing damage or taking direct damage.
• GW2: cannot cancel attacks easily, auto attack is notoriously annoying to stop and often attacks will fire whenever you use a skill with an enemy targeted. Next 3 games: Stealth/invisibility shut off auto attack. ESO: There is no auto attack, it's all manual.
• GW2: some sources of stealth or invisibility are instant and do not stop auto attack (midnight signet for example).
• GW2: stealth is something you can permanently upkeep out of combat. Other 4: Same thing.
• GW2: stealth is something you can permanently upkeep in combat. next 3: no. in the first 2, you do however have skills that let you re-enter stealth on a long cooldown. ESO: It costs a resource which has significantly lower regeneration in combat and thus cannot be kept up without sacrificing something.
• WoW/Rift: you have a window where you can't be revealed in the form of those long cooldown re-stealth abilities. ESO: You can just re-stealth right after. GW2: Hahahahahahah sorry were you trying to stealth? That shot that went off on its own half a second ago just broke it and got you revealed. (Turn off auto-attack, noob)

Of course, I also saw mention of issues in Shadow Arts, and saw someone's comment that kinda struck home: What about specter? They have a trait that grants barrier to the target when you apply stealth...but it requires stealth to expire before it will trigger on the target again. Why aren't more traits like this? They could re-budget the traits around applying only when you first enter stealth, or when Revealed expires, stuff that requires more interactive gameplay.

So...what I'd like to see changed:

• SA becomes more interactive, kind of like what ANet threw at Deadeye in its rework. (mesmer's prismatic understanding could use that, too, I guess)
• Invisibility and stealth traits that periodically apply effects instead only apply when applied to a target that didn't already have the effect (and are rebalanced around that).
• All stealth/invisibility effects to grant immunity to being cancelled (but not remove Revealed!) for maybe 2-3s, when first applied, following the prior mentioned condition.
•  

"you tried to hit something, you're revealed now" outside of above immunity window.

more classes get reveals. some reveals (new and old) are unblockable/undodgeable/AOE as is thematically appropriate.
 

All this said, my expectation from ANet: Nothing about thief changes meaningfully. people continue to scream into a vacuum like it has some meaning. Guardian gets buffed and elementalist gets nerfed (again.)

 

[senftube.6081]

20 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

It's clear that no amount of reasonable, rational conversation will change your mind. Some people enjoy defending the indefensible.

You don't need to infer and project from yourself to others.

 It is simply stupid to moan about thiefs in 2022 when u have Cele Builds and horrible broken Condi Builds.

 

To the scribbler above me. But you can't compare GW 2 with WoW & FFIV. These two MMOS use a static combat system from the distant past.
In ESO, on the other hand, everyone can actually make themselves invisible. You just have to get on your knees. But this game has a really really really bad "WvWvW" for my taste. Immortal guild groups or even players. Potions that can deleterate an entire class and stupid weaving. I don't even want to start with the massive lags and miserable performance. When I was there again, you actually saw to 90% only tanky kitten. Very boring and you can also see that Cyrodiil is almost dead.

On the hood there is also still Procc sets. For me, the epitome of the boring 0815 passive crap we have already seen in X other games. Find it funny how many MMO players always want the same rehash necessarily.

Edit: Ah and ESO also have Animation Cancelling.

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Yunari.9065

[KrHome.1920]

12 minutes ago, Yunari.9065 said:

You don't need to infer and project from yourself to others.

 It is simply stupid to moan about thiefs in 2022 when u have Cele Builds and horrible broken Condi Builds.

You mean like super tanky immob spamming celestial deadeyes, that benefit from the added expertise?

I know how stupid expertise deadeyes are as I am duo roaming (celestial power reaper + celestial deadeye) a lot with one. And it feels like cheating more often than not. The pindown potential of the deadeye is so dumb, that I am basically fighting static targets with my reaper build. The deadeye itself is unkillable and can chase and immob any class/build forever. And everything except minstrel bunkers will die to the rifle spam alone eventually. My reaper is just accelerating the process.

Edited June 16, 2022 by KrHome.1920

[senftube.6081]

5 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

You mean like super tanky immob spamming celestial deadeyes, that benefit from the added expertise?

I know how stupid expertise deadeyes are as I am duo roaming (celestial power reaper + celestial deadeye) a lot with one. And it feels like cheating more often than not. The pindown potential of the deadeye is so dumb, that I am basically fighting static targets with my reaper build. The deadeye itself is unkillable and can chase and immob any class/build forever.

But thats the problem of Celestial and not the class. Instead of fudging classes, Anet should finally adjust certain sets and among them are clearly Celestial & Ministrel. After that they can adjust Classes. Cele is to strong and carries alot Classes at the moment.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Yunari.9065

[smiiirf.3201]

On 6/15/2022 at 10:04 AM, Scolix.4879 said:

I just either change map or just Alt-F4 and do something else.

I hate stealth classes in any games they are the most unfun classes to fight against and totally ruin any fun.

And you play condi mesmer.  Really fun to play against. Really.

[Svarty.8019]

17 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

I will always laugh at people talking about facts and then discarding other person's argument because whatever reasons they can find. @TrollingDemigod.3041you got a serious contender here.

Of course you will laugh. Laughter is a refuge for the wrong.

[Virdo.1540]

6 hours ago, Kherae.2109 said:

After reading  through maybe 8 pages from the start, I'm just...gonna chime in with my somewhat limited experience.
Besides GW2 I've played WoW, Rift, FFXIV and ESO, which have stealth classes.

ANet's implementation of stealth, and by extension invisibility, is problematic. So here's a (likely unwanted) list of comparisons:

• GW2: stealth/invis broken by dealing direct damage (Anyone remember permastealth trapper?). FFXIV/Rift/WoW: stealth broken by taking damage or initiating an attack. ESO: it lasts 3 seconds and requires a resource to use, breaks on doing damage or taking direct damage.
• GW2: cannot cancel attacks easily, auto attack is notoriously annoying to stop and often attacks will fire whenever you use a skill with an enemy targeted. Next 3 games: Stealth/invisibility shut off auto attack. ESO: There is no auto attack, it's all manual.
• 
  
   

Invis shuts off Auto attacks in gw2 aswell

[Gehenna.3625]

I remember playing Aion Online (another NcSoft game) and there was the Ranger class that had it all. It had the longest range, plenty of mobility, evasion, perma stealth and stunlock. 

So they could sneak up on you with stealth, shoot from outside your range, stunlock and kill you without anything you could do against it. And then if your allies want to chase him/her, then they could use their mobility to stay out of range and then pop stealth again an oh, if you did manage to catch them then they'd have all kinds of evasion skills and they'd run off again and re-stealth.

This was never fixed afaik and it's one of the reasons why people stopped playing it afaic.

------

My point is that with deadeyes in particular, I'm reminded of this. Not quite as bad but a long way towards it.  A deadeye can one-shot other players from stealth, without warning. And get away with ease as well. 

Going into stealth should be an occasional thing like with the health skill Hide in Shadows that gives you stealth but has a cooldown of 30 seconds. And not have 4-5 more skills that give stealth that you can rotate between.

Actually I think that stealth attacks as a profession mechanic for thieves should be replaced by flanking attacks.

For deadeyes I can see that some stealth to get into position would be a thing but as soon as the target is marked, they'd become visible and gaining stealth again should remove the mark. It seems only fair. It's a game and you should at least be able to defend yourself, I feel.

I also think that things would be a lot more interesting if Meld with Shadows has the movement speed buff taken out. Point is that moving with stealth should be more difficult than moving normally. Not get a really high (the highest?) movement speed buff. I mean there's just no downside to using stealth, in spite of how powerful it is.

To quote the GW2 wiki: Thieves are less powerful in terms of durability in comparison to some professions. They must rely on stealth, evasion, surprise attacks, and debilitating and damaging conditions to overpower their opponents. 

Poor thieves right? /s Even still, why should they have perma stealth on top of that? Or anyone for that matter...

 

Just my opinion but there it is.

 

 

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

3 hours ago, Yunari.9065 said:

But thats the problem of Celestial and not the class. Instead of fudging classes, Anet should finally adjust certain sets and among them are clearly Celestial & Ministrel. After that they can adjust Classes. Cele is to strong and carries alot Classes at the moment.

Sure, no problem, but stealth is deleted from the game permanently. Fair trade.

[senftube.6081]

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

A deadeye can one-shot other players from stealth, without warning. And get away with ease as well. 

 

 

That is not true. Can't you see well and can't you hear? When a DE is closing in on you, you can hear it very well and the sign that you are marked is also very visible. In addition there are Reflects, Blocks, Bubbles, Evades, Dodges etc. etc. to avoid the shot. To that end, I haven't seen a DE really kill an opponent in one shot in a long time.

38 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Sure, no problem, but stealth is deleted from the game permanently. Fair trade.

No wonder many did not make the EoD end meta.

 

We can but then Thief needs alot of buffs in the defensive abilities. And i can say here and now, you would be again here to moan about thief.

 

[Burial.1958]

2 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

  A deadeye can one-shot other players from stealth, without warning.

 

 

For sure. Must be John Wick then or even Leon the Professional.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

1 hour ago, Yunari.9065 said:

No wonder many did not make the EoD end meta.

 

We can but then Thief needs alot of buffs in the defensive abilities. And i can say here and now, you would be again here to moan about thief.

What does EoD meta has to do with broken stealth mechanic though? Don't tell me that you think that if you slap hard timer, big hp pool and RNG mechanics is top kek "hard content". Lmao.
Teef doesn't need any buffs in the slightest though, where you people get idea that teef need some sort of compensation for removing broken mechanic? It'll still be pain in kitten to fight against with kitten load of teleports, mobility, blinds, interrupts and a lot more stuff in their kit.

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

What does EoD meta has to do with broken stealth mechanic though? Don't tell me that you think that if you slap hard timer, big hp pool and RNG mechanics is top kek "hard content". Lmao.
Teef doesn't need any buffs in the slightest though, where you people get idea that teef need some sort of compensation for removing broken mechanic? It'll still be pain in kitten to fight against with kitten load of teleports, mobility, blinds, interrupts and a lot more stuff in their kit.

Because those mechanics aren't broken regardless of your own personal inability to mitigate them. Hit up Anet about some of the problematic build and trait combos if you need to keep screeching about something. Stealth is part of how a thief mitigates damage in lieu of passive counters. If you take that out, then of course it needs to be replaced by something, no one is going to take you seriously if you're claiming otherwise because that would just be ridiculous. 

We all understand if you need a more sure fight for yourself, but gimping entire classes for your benefit is selfish and sizes you up as a player.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

An idea, since thief and ranger are similar in a lot of ways--could deadeye be given an energy management system similar to Druid? Druid can also stealth a lot, clear condis, etc. but only at the mercy of avatar form--so you must build around that for it to be effective.

I don't really see the other thief specs as problematic, as daredevil's have evade instead of stealth, don't really ever see core anymore, and spectre is a mixed bag--either they are really good and unkillable or really bad and ignorable.  

Also yes, Celestial is a problem for practically any class at this time--discussions around this can probably be ignored as either anet will hit cele or its here to stay and not a talking point anyway.  

[Axelteas.7192]

On 1/5/2022 at 4:03 AM, Virdo.1540 said:

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

you're lying, and you know it

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

1 hour ago, kash.9213 said:

Because those mechanics aren't broken regardless of your own personal inability to mitigate them. Hit up Anet about some of the problematic build and trait combos if you need to keep screeching about something. Stealth is part of how a thief mitigates damage in lieu of passive counters. If you take that out, then of course it needs to be replaced by something, no one is going to take you seriously if you're claiming otherwise because that would just be ridiculous. 

We all understand if you need a more sure fight for yourself, but gimping entire classes for your benefit is selfish and sizes you up as a player.

So it's completely balanced and dandy to camp stealth for 10min straight in PvP environment? On top of kitten amount of mobility, cc, teleports, evades and blinds? 
You're the one defending broken mechanic though, not me. Unlike you I'm completely fine with removing anything that is toxic for gameplay from my own main class, yet you on the other hand have a problem with removing one of the most toxic gameplays, I wonder why is that.

[kash.9213]

4 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

So it's completely balanced and dandy to camp stealth for 10min straight in PvP environment? On top of kitten amount of mobility, cc, teleports, evades and blinds? 
You're the one defending broken mechanic though, not me. Unlike you I'm completely fine with removing anything that is toxic for gameplay from my own main class, yet you on the other hand have a problem with removing one of the most toxic gameplays, I wonder why is that.

Did I say that part in bold? No? You're argument is so bad you have to make up someone to argue with. 

"kitten amount of mobility, cc, teleports, evades and blinds?" You're not getting a huge amount of any of that on one build. That's called build decisions, try it out, you might like like it. 

You can be childish and dramatic all you want, you're still wrong. Stealth is toxic to someone like you because you refuse to do anything about it with your own build or effort. If you happen upon an actual problematic build, hit it up or leave and give your feedback someplace. Just be legit about your feedback though, what you're doing here actually is toxic.