Stealth Rework Idea #1562

[Infinity.2876]

I hesitate to post this as I am absolutely certain someone will have a problem with this.

ever since deadeye have access to stealth on dodge, shadow meld, and ways to stack stealth from heartseeker into smoke field 3 times, stealth gankers have been prevalent in wvw and in some cases spvp. Now anet made sure to nerf stealth so enough that its better to be out of stealth than in it for multiple reasons. 

 

heart seeker 3x into a single field is a really cheesy way to get stealth and nerfing the amount of stealth you get from a single smoke field would be ok, but it doesn't address the real problem.

 

the real problem: stealth hides people from view and if the map is big enough you have no clue what soever where the thief is, he could be behind you, in front of you, or he could have left you entirely to pick on somebody else.

 

then I thought about it. In other games what makes you able to catch a thief? Noise.

 

Now we can't add footsteps to the game because it would be extremely difficult and funnel players into buying good headphones like those gammers in 1st person shooters. But we can add an approximate area. I suggest a circle appear randomly around the player, the thief could be at the bottom of the circle or top or anywhere in between. This circle would be bigger or smaller depending on skill that provided stealth. Exiting this circle would be a penalty of half of the thief's current stealth duration. If a skill is over preforming simply lower the radius of the circle

[Burial.1958]

I think the proposal is bad.

 

You provide part of your answer yourself. SA was reworked and Stealth Stacking was punished with less Ini Reg.

Such a target would make the thief a freebag. Gw 2 doesn't exactly save with AoE's which often do immense damage.

All these suggestions are so often bad because this is not an improvement but a big nerf without compensation. The thief has hardly any defense except stealth and mobility.

I realize that a deadeye is very annoying but the thing is that it's not always the spec itself but rather in conjunction with what gear they have. Deadeye with Double Rifle and Dura is just ultra pepe because the set is tanky as heck. This is because Anet has currently made everything pretty bonky. Means so a mobile stealther is then also still tanky and then it is just cumbersome to spike.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Burial.1958

[Fueki.4753]

Just make Stealth see-through when close (maybe 300 to 450 units) to the player, similar to WoW.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Burial.1958]

58 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Just make Stealth see-through when close (maybe 300 to 450 units) to the player, similar to WoW.

 

Okei, but then I also want to be able to do damage when someone blocks or is invulnerable.

[senftube.6081]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Just make Stealth see-through when close (maybe 300 to 450 units) to the player, similar to WoW.

 

Bad idea.  That would take stealth to the absurd.

[Dr Meta.3158]

The actual thief players have builds with a good amount of defenses that don't rely on stealth. Its just stealth is easier.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Dr Meta.3158

[senftube.6081]

15 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

The actual thief players have builds with a good amount of defenses that don't rely on stealth. Its just stealth is easier.

 

Okei tell me about those defensives. What does thief have?

[Fueki.4753]

49 minutes ago, Burial.1958 said:

 

Okei, but then I also want to be able to do damage when someone blocks or is invulnerable.

But only if you are within 50 range.

41 minutes ago, Yunari.9065 said:

That would take stealth to the absurd.

Are you implying the current non-interactive absolute invisibility hasn't already been absurd since (pre-)release?

There needs to be some reasonable counter to stealthed enemies and currently there is none.

21 minutes ago, Yunari.9065 said:

Okei tell me about those defensives. What does thief have?

There's Bandit's Defense on Daredevil.

There're the Blinds, and movement impairing conditions.

Shadowsteps can be used defensively to get out of the opponent's attack range.

And if you want to see it as a defensive tool, Daggerstorm has three seconds of Evade.

You can use Seal Area to impair enemy players.

You can roll backwards with Withdraw and Roll for Initiative to evade damage.

This probably is not a complete list, but it's what Thief has as defensives.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[cyberzombie.7348]

3 hours ago, Infinity.2876 said:

the real problem: stealth hides people from view and if the map is big enough you have no clue what soever where the thief is, he could be behind you, in front of you, or he could have left you entirely to pick on somebody else.

There are multiple ways to flush out a stealthed player 

1: Tethering aoes (i.e., guardian's binding blades, thief's daggerstorm and lotus dodge, necro's tainted shackles)

2: Tethered skills (guardian's spear of justice and spellbreakers megabane tether)

3: Fire signet + aoe/cleave

4: Herald's darkness facet

5: Engineer's lock-on & detection pulse

6: Precasting a long-channeled skill before they stealth

7: If you have a visible target, ricocheting skills like thief's throw dagger or mesmer's mirrorblade will also track whomever is stealthed off of the subsequent bounce.

Edited February 26, 2023 by cyberzombie.7348

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Fueki.4753 @Dr Meta.3158

Quote

There's Bandit's Defense on Daredevil.

There're the Blinds, and movement impairing conditions.

Shadowsteps can be used defensively to get out of the opponent's attack range.

And if you want to see it as a defensive tool, Daggerstorm has three seconds of Evade.

You can use Seal Area to impair enemy players.

You can roll backwards with Withdraw and Roll for Initiative to evade damage.

This probably is not a complete list, but it's what Thief has as defensives.

There's no combination of utilities listed above that can keep thief alive without moderate inclusion of stealth. The cooldowns are either so large or, in the case of sword, the attack damage is so poorly scaled that stealth is the only way thieves can reliably approach, disengage from, or challenge objectives.  

Quote

Seal Area

I use this out of desperation for defensive options that actually do anything. It takes 3 seconds to arm and people already have started hatemailing me when they get caught in it despite it being inconvenient to use.

Instead of agonizing about why so many thieves are stealthing and trying to find ways to make it easier to fight them, you should be looking at making those defensive options you listed above better first. Guardians get Aegis, blocks, blinds, and invulns to protect their 11k hp. Eles get blocks, reflects, blinds, superspeed, invulnerability and traits that negate crit damage. 

You want thief to fight you with a 1second block and a 3 second evade elite that has a 90 second cooldown, and port back and forth (with ports that are still within the range of most ranged weapons), and nothing else? Get serious. Once Acrobatics/sword isn't 90% useless (because people whined until it was useless) we can talk about stealthless play. 

Quote

see now how overloaded this crap is ?

I bet gold your class is more overloaded. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

13 hours ago, Infinity.2876 said:

I hesitate to post this as I am absolutely certain someone will have a problem with this.

 

Your spider sense was right. 

Make the other defensives (or the attacks on thief) better, then we can talk about making stealth worse. There's a reason thieves are being annoying with stealth now, and it's not because "it's easy" like @Dr Meta.3158 claims. Play thief for one day and you'll change your opinion immediately. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

There's no combination of utilities listed above that can keep thief alive without moderate inclusion of stealth. The cooldowns are either so large or, in the case of sword, the attack damage is so poorly scaled that stealth is the only way thieves can reliably approach, disengage from, or challenge objectives.

Those are tuning issues that would ideally addressed in a patch that finally dealt with Stealth.

But given that Arenanet refused to do either in over 10 years, I don't think it'll ever happen.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

21 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Those are tuning issues that would ideally addressed in a patch that finally dealt with Stealth.

But given that Arenanet refused to do either in over 10 years, I don't think it'll ever happen.

 

I don't mind playing fair, but I don't like the general implication that:

 

>stealth is uncounterable

>there is a viable way for thief to play without stealth reliance right now and every thief currently is just choosing of their own volition not to do that. 

 

Every low stealth build thief has ventured to this point has been targeted by someone, from staff to sword. Put options back, then thieves will stealth less. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Fueki.4753]

9 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I don't mind playing fair, but I don't like the general implication that:

>stealth is uncounterable

I don't think it's uncounterable, but it's undeniable that absolute invisibility is simply non-interactive. And that's very unhealthy for a competitive mode.

12 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Every low stealth build thief has ventured to this point has been targeted by someone, from staff to sword. Put options back, then thieves will stealth less. 

If Stealth and the runaway mentality get shaved, I'm all for Thief having more options that are healthier for competitive play.

[Dadnir.5038]

16 hours ago, Burial.1958 said:

The thief has hardly any defense except stealth and mobility.

Core:

• Blind: Black powder, Blinding powder, smoke screen, shadow shot
• Evade skills: Death blossom, flanking strike, disabling shot, withdraw, roll for initiative, daggerstorm
• Projectile hate: Seal area, smoke screen
• Protection: cover of shadow (prot upon entering/exiting stealth
• Weakness: lotus poison (weakness upon poisoning a foe), crippling strike, signet of shadow
• Relatively high endurance regeneration: Endless stamina (50% increase in vigor effectiveness), signet of agility

Daredevil:

• 3rd dodge, Endurance thief (50 endurance on steal)
• Damage reduction mod: Marauder's resilience (-10% incoming damage), Weakening strike (-10% incoming damage + weakness on next strike after a dodge), Unhindered combatant (-10% incoming damage),
• Block: bandit defense,
• Evade: debilitating arc, vault,
• Blind: dust strike
• Weakness: weaknening charge

Deadeye:

• Damage reduction mod: Iron sight (-15%)
• Protection: Maleficient seven
• Blind: collateral damage, malicious tactical strike

Specter:

• Shroud: 33% damage reduction mod, Shielded health bar, barrier gain
• Barrier: Panaku's ambition

And I'm not even listing the self healing tools and stolen item. Mobility and stealth are far from being the only things a thief have to sustain themself. That said, thief isn't that great against condition damage.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

32 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I don't think it's uncounterable, but it's undeniable that absolute invisibility is simply non-interactive. And that's very unhealthy for a competitive mode.

 

Invulnerability is non-interactive. Thieves still take damage in stealth, and you can still interact with them. some classes will even continue to give you feedback if you manage to hit them while they're in stealth. Warrior adrenaline pips and flipover skills, for instance, can give you a general idea of what you've done to an invisible thief.

 

Quote

If Stealth and the runaway mentality get shaved, I'm all for Thief having more options that are healthier for competitive play.

 

I heard this before, yknow. Then Daredevil came out. Then I heard it again and then Specter came out. It is the correct course of action, but I don't think people will ever be able to look at a thief mechanic that allows the thief to live or do damage and come to the conclusion that it is reasonably healthy for competitive in general. When a solution is created that is more bruiser and less stealth, the community always targets the visible, mitigative thief builds first. 

 

Further:

Quote

Just make Stealth see-through when close (maybe 300 to 450 units) to the player, similar to WoW.

 

Think about what this does to every thief build that requires close range. 

Thieves will never get a backstab again, and stealth offers no damage reduction, so the only time a thief that is glass will interact with you is if they're finishing you off, have ported in from behind a tree, or are running pistol, rifle or some other weapon that allows them to skirt that requirement.

 

Youll fight nothing but pistol thieves and deadeyes, both of which are more annoying effects of trying to make the game harder without paying attention to the balance state that makes thieves use stealth in the first place. 

 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

18 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Core:

• Blind: Black powder, Blinding powder, smoke screen, shadow shot
• Evade skills: Death blossom, flanking strike, disabling shot, withdraw, roll for initiative, daggerstorm
• Projectile hate: Seal area, smoke screen
• Protection: cover of shadow (prot upon entering/exiting stealth
• Weakness: lotus poison (weakness upon poisoning a foe), crippling strike, signet of shadow
• Relatively high endurance regeneration: Endless stamina (50% increase in vigor effectiveness), signet of agility

Daredevil:

• 3rd dodge, Endurance thief (50 endurance on steal)
• Damage reduction mod: Marauder's resilience (-10% incoming damage), Weakening strike (-10% incoming damage + weakness on next strike after a dodge), Unhindered combatant (-10% incoming damage),
• Block: bandit defense,
• Evade: debilitating arc, vault,
• Blind: dust strike
• Weakness: weaknening charge

Deadeye:

• Damage reduction mod: Iron sight (-15%)
• Protection: Maleficient seven
• Blind: collateral damage, malicious tactical strike

Specter:

• Shroud: 33% damage reduction mod, Shielded health bar, barrier gain
• Barrier: Panaku's ambition

And I'm not even listing the self healing tools and stolen item. Mobility and stealth are far from being the only things a thief have to sustain themself. That said, thief isn't that great against condition damage.

Sure, sure.

Can you put any of these skills together in a way that makes a viable build that doesn't rely on stealth and can do reasonable amounts of damage? 10 or 15% damage reduction on 11k hp will not save you, and most of the evasive skills you listed take up so much initiative that you rarely have much left for attacking if you need to use them to evade. Using one debilitating arc, for instance, uses a third of your max initiative in exchange for that evade if you're taking trickery, and almost half of your init pool if not. 

Quote

That said, thief isn't that great against condition damage.

 

Disagree. Thief melts conditions, particularly if you take Escapist's fortitude.

 

Quote

3rd dodge, Endurance thief (50 endurance on steal)

 

25% in pvp. 

 

Quote

Endless stamina (50% increase in vigor effectiveness)

 

Requires you to take acrobatics, which bars you from a damage or defensive line. If you're taking Trickery for bountiful theft, where's your damage? 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Fueki.4753]

36 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Thieves still take damage in stealth, and you can still interact with them. some classes will even continue to give you feedback if you manage to hit them while they're in stealth. Warrior adrenaline pips and flipover skills, for instance, can give you a general idea of what you've done to an invisible thief.

I don't consider pot-shotting at invisible things a viable counterplay or a even interactive. It's effectively no different from hitting the air around you.

36 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I heard this before, yknow. Then Daredevil came out. Then I heard it again and then Specter came out. It is the correct course of action, but I don't think people will ever be able to look at a thief mechanic that allows the thief to live or do damage and come to the conclusion that it is reasonably healthy for competitive in general. When a solution is created that is more bruiser and less stealth, the community always targets the visible, mitigative thief builds first.

Both Daredevil and Spectre still have access to Stealth, so they still are part of the problem.

I personally don't remember having issues with their mitigation.

That aside, people complain about mitigation builds all the time. Bruisers across all professions that got neutered. Thief is not special in this regard.

36 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Think about what this does to every thief build that requires close range. 

Thieves will never get a backstab again, and stealth offers no damage reduction, so the only time a thief that is glass will interact with you is if they're finishing you off, have ported in from behind a tree, or are running pistol, rifle or some other weapon that allows them to skirt that requirement.

Youll fight nothing but pistol thieves and deadeyes, both of which are more annoying effects of trying to make the game harder without paying attention to the balance state that makes thieves use stealth in the first place.

These are also tuning issues.

Hard to land Backstabs should deal decent damage. But if they are from complete invisibility, Backstab and other Stealth Attacks deserve little more than back-scratching damage (in my opinion).

I have no idea about addressing ranged Stealth annoyances, outside of the generic ranged weapons should deal less damage, which never really worked out across the board, as far as I remember.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Yasai.3549]

I rather they did things which inversely helped fight stealth than rework stealth.

 

What I mean by this is to change Revealed into a 600 unit True Sight on a player as a non-interactable buff. Skills which previously applied Revealed to a target now buffs the caster so they can detect Stealthed enemies in this limited range around them. 

 

An attack from Stealth that previously apply Revealed to the player themselves now apply Revealed to the recipient of the Attack for a few seconds, so that back to back Stealth attacks are no longer effective.

But if the player in question is patient and skilled, they may choose to wait until the Revealed buff wears off and attack again. At least this gives the target some chance to fight back without directly touching the Stealth mechanic.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Burial.1958]

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Core:

• Blind: Black powder, Blinding powder, smoke screen, shadow shot
• Evade skills: Death blossom, flanking strike, disabling shot, withdraw, roll for initiative, daggerstorm
• Projectile hate: Seal area, smoke screen
• Protection: cover of shadow (prot upon entering/exiting stealth
• Weakness: lotus poison (weakness upon poisoning a foe), crippling strike, signet of shadow
• Relatively high endurance regeneration: Endless stamina (50% increase in vigor effectiveness), signet of agility

Daredevil:

• 3rd dodge, Endurance thief (50 endurance on steal)
• Damage reduction mod: Marauder's resilience (-10% incoming damage), Weakening strike (-10% incoming damage + weakness on next strike after a dodge), Unhindered combatant (-10% incoming damage),
• Block: bandit defense,
• Evade: debilitating arc, vault,
• Blind: dust strike
• Weakness: weaknening charge

Deadeye:

• Damage reduction mod: Iron sight (-15%)
• Protection: Maleficient seven
• Blind: collateral damage, malicious tactical strike

Specter:

• Shroud: 33% damage reduction mod, Shielded health bar, barrier gain
• Barrier: Panaku's ambition

And I'm not even listing the self healing tools and stolen item. Mobility and stealth are far from being the only things a thief have to sustain themself. That said, thief isn't that great against condition damage.

 

Okei, Dadnir. Then enlight me and show me a video how you deal with enemies on D/P without any stealth. 🙂 I have some decent enemies for you then .....on any class. U can even pick one. Is that a deal?

Edited February 27, 2023 by Burial.1958

[Yasai.3549]

36 minutes ago, kai.5149 said:

That suggestion will not work.

We already have ''Sight beyond Sight''

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Sight_beyond_Sight

And it is useless, because by the time u get close to the thief they have already ported away much farther than the skill range.

That's why some use "On My Mark!"

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title="On_My_Mark!"

 

However when a thief sees a revealed debuff on him he just starts porting away untill it wears off AND you are stuck with a skill that does nothing else for you - nothing essential - no stability - no block - no condi removal nothing of use rlly

Also even if revealed the things go hairy for the thief they usually start spamming evades, if no ports available.

 

So no, the only solution is either to rework thief from the ground or completely delete it

 

 

You completely mistaken what I'm talking about and what that skill actually does. 

Sight Beyond Sight sucks because it doesn't give "true sight" to the player, it pulses a Reveal to an AoE (600 units being a rather small AoE for tagging anything mind you) around the caster. 

The sole reason On my Mark is effective is because it has 1200 range. 

 

My suggestion is to turn Revealed into a Player buff, and having Revealed will let you see invisible units in a 600 unit radius which will persist as long as the buff is on you. (of course this means the Buff wouldn't be called Revealed anymore, more like True Sight)

 

This is a much better measure than having to "tag" an enemy with Revealed, which is always a point of contention between Stealth players and players who can apply Revealed to the Stealth player involuntarily. With this change, it changes this sort of involuntary back and forth into a real skill based/patience back and forth. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[senftube.6081]

Looks like the thief haters are awake again. 

[senftube.6081]

7 minutes ago, kai.5149 said:

well thief is begging for it since the beginning of time, honestly what reaction did you expect an overloaded class would trigger

 

Overloaded sure did u even see the Tierlists? Thief is only good in Roaming WvW. In all other modes other classes are much better. 😀 I don't say this often but here i really have to say  -> Git gud. I'm not even a thief main.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

2 hours ago, kai.5149 said:

I have the best permanent solution. Just delete this garbage class and balancing can start.

 

Thief has been a pain in the kitten for everybody since launch, just cut that kitten out already.

It's been deleted multiple times, but it still manages to rise from the ashes every time to annoy people who have gone 10 years being implacably angry at class mechanics that shipped with the game. 

It's kinda funny. And won't stop until other options are provided. 

Quote

that would be nice but the very least would actually be stealethers to be revealed by default at close range since you know like every normal game with stealth out there 

Yknow what, go for it if:

> we also get additional mitigation or damage as a result of that rework.

That can probably very easily be done, it works like that if you're in a party with a thief and drop into the arena. If you can see me within a certain range, I want more damage on my skills, more initiative to use more that a few skills at a time, and more sustain since I am targetable when close. 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Dadnir.5038]

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Can you put any of these skills together in a way that makes a viable build that doesn't rely on stealth and can do reasonable amounts of damage?

I answer to what I quote. So, does thief have more defense than stealth and mobility? Yes it does. As a matter of fact, It does have extensive access to dodge, blind and evade.

As for your question, I'm not going to entertain you about your dream of being super tanky while having glass canon level of damage. If elementalist or guardian can survive with what they are given, thief can certainly survive with what I've listed.

The thief playerbase being accustomed to rely on stealth and mobility doesn't mean that it's this profession only mean of defense. If you've been around for some time and have a little bit of memory, I'm pretty sure you're aware that at some points evade thief had so much survivability that the whole competitive modes community couldn't help but feel the need to ask for it to be nerfed. The skeleton of the old "OP" build is still there, albeit it's less potent than it used to be. But less potent doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

2 hours ago, Burial.1958 said:

Okei, Dadnir. Then enlight me and show me a video how you deal with enemies on D/P without any stealth. 🙂 I have some decent enemies for you then .....on any class. U can even pick one. Is that a deal?

Ah the good ol' "show me a video" argument... From experience with this kind of arguments, even if I were to provide you with one, you'd still deny facts. So, like I said, I answered to what I quoted, you'll have to live with this much.