Make the Warclaw Sniff skill reveal stealthed players for a while

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Consider to make the Warclaw Sniff skill reveal stealthed players for a while. This will serve two purposes:

1. Make the Sniff skill get some actual usefulness
2. Help alleviate the problem of permanently stealthed enemy players in your structures.

[justnora.2754]

Juuuuust wondering .. but I feel like Sniff already has great use in WvW? like seeing if an enemy zerg is waiting for you around the next corner? 

 

Oh and for 2. .... perma stealth is already quite a bit harder compared to some time ago .. but in any case there still are reveal traps and stuff like that. 

[Johje Holan.4607]

Anything that nerfs stealth in WvW is a good idea. This has my support!

[MarzAttakz.9608]

I don't even play Teef but the thought of 50 co-ordinated Sniffs seems anathema to me. Yes they're annoying to deal with but straight out gutting them is a bit brutal...

[KeyOrion.9506]

Lot of groups, zergs, don't even bother to mount up to sniff.  IF they do, sometimes they just don't even bother to hunt the dot down.  Heck, they don't even do proper Mesmer sweeps in WvW anymore, and just keep running with the thought that "someone else" will hunt the dot down, when it's seen.  Apathy of a zerg to hunt down a target usually leads to the location being switched quickly back to the enemies hands.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

Sure, Sniff can apply revealed if it also applies a debuff that prohibits Aegis/Blocks and Invuln for the same duration.  Deal? 🙂

WvW is already rife with Reveals via the Marked mechanic.  Marked effectively prevents "perma stealthing" by cancelling stealth after a few seconds and applying Revealed, which further locks out stealth for its duration.  There are also the Watchtower upgrade and Sentries that apply Marked.  Then there are various skills that apply Revealed, like Sic'Em, not to mention the self-reveal of Death's Judgment.  Revealed duration was also increased some years back.

The Shadow Arts trait line on Thief was nerfed last year to significantly reduce stealth duration.  Add to this that the only reveal-counter, Shadow Meld, was stripped of its ability to remove Revealed just a week ago, and "perma-stealthing" really isn't a thing.

Stealth has taken a lot of hits over the years, and especially recently.  Yet the specs that depend on it to survive were not designed around such reduced access to stealth.  They lack the block and invuln spam of other specs.  People who don't play stealth classes tend not to realize that as annoying as it may feel to play against, stealth is their primary means of defense.  How would the block and invuln-heavy classes feel to play if built-in game mechanics and other players' skills could totally disable their defenses?

TL;DR: There's more than enough Revealed relative to stealth access in WvW already.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

3 hours ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

Sure, Sniff can apply revealed if it also applies a debuff that prohibits Aegis/Blocks and Invuln for the same duration.  Deal? 🙂

WvW is already rife with Reveals via the Marked mechanic.  Marked effectively prevents "perma stealthing" by cancelling stealth after a few seconds and applying Revealed, which further locks out stealth for its duration.  There are also the Watchtower upgrade and Sentries that apply Marked.  Then there are various skills that apply Revealed, like Sic'Em, not to mention the self-reveal of Death's Judgment.  Revealed duration was also increased some years back.

The Shadow Arts trait line on Thief was nerfed last year to significantly reduce stealth duration.  Add to this that the only reveal-counter, Shadow Meld, was stripped of its ability to remove Revealed just a week ago, and "perma-stealthing" really isn't a thing.

Stealth has taken a lot of hits over the years, and especially recently.  Yet the specs that depend on it to survive were not designed around such reduced access to stealth.  They lack the block and invuln spam of other specs.  People who don't play stealth classes tend not to realize that as annoying as it may feel to play against, stealth is their primary means of defense.  How would the block and invuln-heavy classes feel to play if built-in game mechanics and other players' skills could totally disable their defenses?

TL;DR: There's more than enough Revealed relative to stealth access in WvW already.

And then you woke up and saw teef teleporting 3879145618734618374 meters away from you while being marked.
Watchtower and Sentries can be fully avoided, there's only 1 camp in the entire game that is covered by both sentry and watchtower, everything else can be sneaked. On top of that, these 2 have different purpose than marking some teefs. Like, every other class in the entire game can go and avoid it, but teefs need to walk to it and get marked?
Various skills are like what? 1-2 per class? And not all have access to it still.
Shadow arts was buffed*. Shadow Meld should never have counter to counter mechanic in the first place, so it was bug fix than anything else.

Stealth is still the best tool in the game, even better than invuln, like, in case of invuln you'll always know where enemy goes and what it does, with stealth? Lmao, guess game, did he go make sandwich in kitchen? Ported to spawn? Went to gank that Invader dude walking out of tower with his 421376487 frandz? Combine it with crazy mobility of teef and you have abomination of class that was made to bully others. Let's add the problem with rendering character models, because engine hamsters didn't get food in last 10 years or so.
You all act like stealth is the only mechanic available to some classes and don't see 3174613864 other busted things available to you or even used in the same build.

[Xoranium.6481]

Sure do this, but also let it prevent the use of block and invulnerability, infact all reveals should also do this...

[oatsnjuices.1698]

I always thought it would be good to see them as a blip for the duration of sniff. Another good change is to have thief come out of stealth if he attacks and misses.

[Chips.7968]

Just make the lord of a keep the same as a sentry in the sense that it reveals stealthed players after 3s within a certain radius; i.e. radius of 600 in towers, 900 in keeps, 1200 in sm? Players can still stealth for up to 3s, they'll just be revealed after that duration.

[cyberzombie.7348]

One issue with that is in thief vs thief scenario, the one that's mounted will have a blatant advantage. Or during a duel, one random player 100m away could randomly reveal someone. 

[kash.9213]

10 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

And then you woke up and saw teef teleporting 3879145618734618374 meters away from you while being marked.
Watchtower and Sentries can be fully avoided, there's only 1 camp in the entire game that is covered by both sentry and watchtower, everything else can be sneaked. On top of that, these 2 have different purpose than marking some teefs. Like, every other class in the entire game can go and avoid it, but teefs need to walk to it and get marked?
Various skills are like what? 1-2 per class? And not all have access to it still.
Shadow arts was buffed*. Shadow Meld should never have counter to counter mechanic in the first place, so it was bug fix than anything else.

Stealth is still the best tool in the game, even better than invuln, like, in case of invuln you'll always know where enemy goes and what it does, with stealth? Lmao, guess game, did he go make sandwich in kitchen? Ported to spawn? Went to gank that Invader dude walking out of tower with his 421376487 frandz? Combine it with crazy mobility of teef and you have abomination of class that was made to bully others. Let's add the problem with rendering character models, because engine hamsters didn't get food in last 10 years or so.
You all act like stealth is the only mechanic available to some classes and don't see 3174613864 other busted things available to you or even used in the same build.

Ya, that's why squads are over stacked with stealth thieves. Mobility is no where near what you're spinning, stop acting like a child in these threads, was funny before but it's just tired now. Mobility and using space is also how thief stealth builds mitigate, for lack of other mitigation. With stealth being less strong now, if you're still crying around about it, you're just willingly bad.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

I fully expected a lot of "confused" reactions to my and other posts comparing stealth to other specs' defensive abilities.  There are a lot of stealth haters and most of them have never played a stealth-dependent build for a serious amount of time. I strongly suggest they do so if they believe stealth is so great, especially in 2023.

13 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Shadow arts was buffed*

With respect to stealth, which is the topic of this discussion, Shadow Arts was nerfed.  In the June 28, 2022 update, Stealth duration was reduced by reworking traits like Meld with Shadows (increased stealth duration) and Hidden Thief (stealth on steal).  Some things like Superspeed during stealth were added to compensate, but stealth duration itself was very much nerfed.

Edited February 23 by Twilight Tempest.7584

[asterix.9614]

That sounds dumb, and I accidently clicked f ing YES.... Imagine sniff revealed stacks, Jeebus....

[Chips.7968]

1 hour ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

I fully expected a lot of "confused" reactions to my and other posts comparing stealth to other specs' defensive abilities.  There are a lot of stealth haters and most of them have never played a stealth-dependent build for a serious amount of time. I strongly suggest they do so if they believe stealth is so great, especially in 2023.

With respect to stealth, which is the topic of this discussion, Shadow Arts was nerfed.  In the June 28, 2022 update, Stealth duration was reduced by reworking traits like Meld with Shadows (increased stealth duration) and Hidden Thief (stealth on steal).  Some things like Superspeed during stealth were added to compensate, but stealth duration itself was very much nerfed.

They also added traits that meant you gained initiative on entering (2) and exiting stealth (1) on top of general init generation, coupled with traits to gain superspeed on entering and exiting stealth. Don't paint a picture as "ITS BEEN RUINED" - still meet majority d/p thieves and deadeyes.

[cyberzombie.7348]

4 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

Ya, that's why squads are over stacked with stealth thieves.

Nah but they def love to stealth bomb using mesmers and scrappers. 

[kash.9213]

6 minutes ago, cyberzombie.7348 said:

Nah but they def love to stealth bomb using mesmers and scrappers. 

But that's not what they're crying about. They were specific.

[cyberzombie.7348]

@kash.9213True, just figured to hint thieves hiding in objectives won't be the only thing affected. 

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

3 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

They also added traits that meant you gained initiative on entering (2) and exiting stealth (1) on top of general init generation, coupled with traits to gain superspeed on entering and exiting stealth. Don't paint a picture as "ITS BEEN RUINED" - still meet majority d/p thieves and deadeyes.

Glad you brought this up, as I was about to edit my post to include this.  Why?  Because it shows how the overall Shadow Arts rework was expressly designed to encourage frequent entering and exiting stealth in order to gain the benefits of these traits.  I.E., NOT "perma-stealthing."  Which again, is what the OP's concern is:

On 2/19/2023 at 5:46 AM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

Help alleviate the problem of permanently stealthed enemy players in your structures.

By preventing stealth with more Revealed, the proposal of this topic, there will be less ability to enter and exit stealth, and therefore, less ability to benefit from the Shadow Arts reworks.  People don't realize how much of a chain-effect is involved by simply restricting access to stealth. 

The Shadow Arts rework also shows that, at least in theory, Anet understands that reducing a spec's primary defense (in this case, stealth) requires compensating with other methods of sustain (Superspeed, Regeneration, Cleanse, Initiative).  So if, as this topic seems to advocate, we were to further hamper stealth, what are we prepared to give in return?  Whatever it is, it would have to be independent of stealth use, since that's getting reduced.  Blocks and invulns for thieves?  Never.  So that leaves reducing other spec's defenses by a similar margin.  Only fair, right?  Do people care about fairness, or just killing specs they personally disfavor?

People still talking about "perma stealth" in 2023 should try it and see just how viable it is(n't).

Edited February 24 by Twilight Tempest.7584

[Loke.1429]

good idea, 1+ to nerf stealth in all forms

[Lucentfir.7430]

Most I'd say is maybe make sniff track stealthed  players in sniff range rather than applying revealed or the tracking debuff from sentries.  It'd be pretty absurd in the middle of getting ready to stealth bomb the enemy zerg and one person with sniff effectively just reveals them all anyways lol.