What counterplays are there to Stealth?

[TIM.3064]

What counterplays are there to Stealth?

Whilst personally looking this up in related threads, which I can only find in posts complaining about the Thief class which in turn usually devolves into a spiral of years of potato balance philosophy, making or breaking said class, and whataboutism with other classes (

Spoiler

and lots of salt

).

So I figured I would try and approach it from another angle, specifically what can you do when encountering a Stealthed player? Any and all solutions would be appreciated (inb4 turn off game).

Don't take what's written below as a format, but more of a categorized thought process so counterplay replies aren't arbitrary without context (feel free to write it in your own words dingus).

Think about it in three gamemode contexts:

1. sPvP
2. PvP
3. WvW Roaming

Three types of Behavior:

1. Passive (Something that always counters stealth without any input from the player, for example: sticking with a group)
2. Reactive (A player reacting without prior knowledge, for example: dodging)
3. Proactive (A player ready and prepared to counterplay stealth: being ready to use a block skill)

Outcome:

• Reduce chances of encountering Stealth users
• Prevents the burst instakill
• Increases time it takes to die
• Punishes the Stealth user
• Resets the encounter
• Lets you escape
• Stalemate
• Lunch
• Etc. Etc. Other.

Viability:

Although subjective, think about it like a 2D axis/grid, which is:

• Skill require to pull it off.
• How effective it is at actually being a counterplay to stealth.

And lastly how much fun it is for both the Stealth user and let's say Victim Defender.

 

Input from players who use Stealth would be appreciated, it's your time to shine.

 

Edited March 4 by TIM.3064

[GBEW.5947]

thieves do negative dps in wvw so i never really think about it. 

[Omega.6801]

1) Skills that reveal
2) Knowing where they probably are and unloading AoEs
3) Knowing that a single hit of them will reveal them and that there are very few if any one shots so it's probably going to be fine
4) Moving away
5) Unloading AoEs/Auras on self
6) Not dueling the stealth class on a bersi build that relies on support
7) Taking it to the forums and making the bazillionth "DeLeT sTeLtH pLoX" thread and hope it will work this time.

 

Edited March 4 by Omega.6801

[bq pd.2148]

stealth like anything else a player could do has some cost, be it cooldowns, intitiative or endurance.  understanding what your opponent has invested in and what they couldn't bring because of it is important for dealing with any player. because of this i would advise first and foremost to play the classes and builds that utilize stealth to better understand when they are vulnerable, to see when they overstep.

that being said.. stealth itself just removes your view on the target and pauses the fight in a way, if they were to deal damage they would lose stealth instantly and maintaining stealth again costs resources. 

• if you dont think you have a good chance at hitting the stealthed target with something substantial that could put them on the defensive / down them, dont waste you skills as you will miss them when they pop back out. 
• similarly dont panic spamm all your defensive skills. if you do want to anticipate their hits and avoid them do so with an understanding of their engagement options.
•  movement like stealth costs resources especially if the target stealthed on range, you can further open the gap forcing the stealthed target to also use movement skills. if the stealth user is also fighting from range, try to break LoS.

lastly do you even have to fight them to the death contextually?
while stealthed you do not contest nodes in spvp or help in teamfights, so it might be better to shortly pressure the stealth user when they are not stealthed and focus more on the others while they are stealthed, ofc keeping their engagement options in mind but not tryharding to fight shadows.
in WvW the ones heavily using stealth during a fight are often not much of a threat and reset way too often, just continue with what you were doing and dont stay to chase shadows. mounting up will negate most stealth engages by single players, it will also make it impossible to maintain stealth and keep up with the speed.
WvW small scale the stealth in small groups is usually used to engage or disengage but more often than not just filters unaware opponents, if they are not comped but more like a large assembly of only thieves and willbenders, thus a chicken squad...just ignore them as they are a waste of time and if they try to take an objective they will instantly wipe against a similar sized comped group.

[kiri.1467]

A general bit of advice when it comes to learning how to counter something (or if something is perceived as overpowered, whether it actually is or isn't) is to try it yourself. It doesn't really answer the OP, but I play against stealth much better ever since playing a Deadeye in WvW and even playing a little on Mirage (in PvE, mind you). You know what works, what doesn't, where you (as the stealth player) can be pressured and where your opportunities lie. When you experience that side of the fight, you're much better prepared to take on a stealth user, if that's the necessary objective.

Edited March 5 by kiri.1467

[Jury Duty.3704]

Does doing damage to a stealthed opponent break their stealth? What allows players to pop in and out of stealth? 

Had a pvp match where this player did just that for 40-60 seconds at a cap. Couldn't figure out how to fight it.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

If you put it into a vacuum, there is no counter to stealth spam.  In order to "counter" something, you have to know it is there to be countered, and stealth prevents exactly that.  If you combine this with the fact that the two stealth-spamming professions have high in-combat mobility, this creates the situation where it is nigh impossible to know where someone is after they've gone invisible.  I've marked people with traps in WvW, only for them to disappear completely off of the mini-map thanks to some pre-placed portal or shadow step.  The best general advice I can give is to always pack a long ranged weapon, as to minimize the amount of advantage that their mobility can generate.

There are some pyrrhic victories that you can get, though.  Victory in the Vs. modes is only determined tangentially by the amount of kills you can get.  sPVP specifically is about zone control.  Stealth makes controlling narrow zone points very difficult, so as long as you can perpetually fend off the annoying players you can maintain zone control and keep racking up points.  WvW is more objective based, but if you're roaming you'll find a skilled thief/mesmer to be just insufferable to fight.  The best you can do is hope that enough friends arrive to discourage the stealth spammer, or that you can escape to a tower where there's a marking system for you to take advantage of.  That is the closest thing you can call "victory" in these circumstances.  Seriously, I've seen skilled thieves win 1v5 fights by warping all over the place while invisible, and taking pot shots over and over again.  Simply not dying to one is about as much victory as you can get.  

[kiranslee.4829]

Removing SA trait line is a start. But that may lead into forcing thief players to l2p and since thief is anet favored pet, dont think will happen. 

[kash.9213]

11 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

If you put it into a vacuum, there is no counter to stealth spam.  In order to "counter" something, you have to know it is there to be countered, and stealth prevents exactly that.  If you combine this with the fact that the two stealth-spamming professions have high in-combat mobility, this creates the situation where it is nigh impossible to know where someone is after they've gone invisible.  I've marked people with traps in WvW, only for them to disappear completely off of the mini-map thanks to some pre-placed portal or shadow step.  The best general advice I can give is to always pack a long ranged weapon, as to minimize the amount of advantage that their mobility can generate.

There are some pyrrhic victories that you can get, though.  Victory in the Vs. modes is only determined tangentially by the amount of kills you can get.  sPVP specifically is about zone control.  Stealth makes controlling narrow zone points very difficult, so as long as you can perpetually fend off the annoying players you can maintain zone control and keep racking up points.  WvW is more objective based, but if you're roaming you'll find a skilled thief/mesmer to be just insufferable to fight.  The best you can do is hope that enough friends arrive to discourage the stealth spammer, or that you can escape to a tower where there's a marking system for you to take advantage of.  That is the closest thing you can call "victory" in these circumstances.  Seriously, I've seen skilled thieves win 1v5 fights by warping all over the place while invisible, and taking pot shots over and over again.  Simply not dying to one is about as much victory as you can get.  

I agree stealth heavy thieves are insufferable to fight, but until Anet thinks up a different system, pan your camera a lot to catch stealth signs and whatever else is plotting in your peripheral. WvW also has a lot of natural lanes squads and people use a lot depending on skill pathing and whatever. There's only so many slots anyone gets though, so are we talking like two to three mobility options is high for a class that mitigates damage by avoiding it? They have to fit in stealth stacking and staggering options also because you're most likely interrupting their skill combos and all that. 

Stealth should be about masking travel or getting opening position so there really should be some kind of automatic target re-acquisition if you had it selected already, aside from whatever other measure that can stop dropping combat to bounce. It can be countered though, no need to oversell it. 

5 hours ago, kiranslee.4829 said:

Removing SA trait line is a start. But that may lead into forcing thief players to l2p and since thief is anet favored pet, dont think will happen. 

If they move the support stuff somewhere, sure, then you can l2p without excuse. Favored pets don't have our nerf history, get real. 

[Xoranium.6481]

The best way for you to counter stealth from a thief is to roll one and learn it...

You will soon have your answer and even wonder why you asked that question in the 1st place...

[kaylanvoos.8407]

Thief here, very few classes I can beat in (SA) if they are good and don't panic- mainly do not give up your back. If the thief is using relic of the firewaork, they have a huge tell when your gonna get back stabbed and you dodge easily.  Thief health pool is small and they can tank much dmg so AOE, punish the 3 second reveal time - hit 1 to waste the blind / daze and counter with any CC.  You will generally cause more damage to the thief than the other way around.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Countering stealth builds? As far as WvW goes I use my minstrel healer deadeye build when moving across the map (link in sig). First defence is to use rifle ports to open distance as soon as they stealth (forcing them to burn more resources to get in damage range) and make sure to dodge gap closers like shadow shot. Dodging drops target and gives ini to fuel more ports, and if I do get caught I use Shadow step and heal. Most thieves have burned everything at this point and give up chasing, engi mostly only one shots if you chase into grenades, power mesmers are rare and the burst easily dodged if you watch for the greatsword 2 projectile and rangers tend to use stealth more defensively than offensively. 

That's how I'd do it on thief. The real answer is knowing what stealth builds tend to do and knowing your kit well enough to know what you can do to prevent the stealth user from having an easy day. 

[Zacchary.6183]

On 3/4/2024 at 4:27 AM, TIM.3064 said:

What counterplays are there to Stealth?

None, if the player is bad. In competitive modes, the objective is to win. If something is OP, it should be played so they can start winning and anet can get the data to balance accordingly. Or they can continue to call for nerfs until the players that are killing them can switch and kill them on another profession.

[remorseless.6352]

On 3/5/2024 at 12:41 PM, kiranslee.4829 said:

Removing SA trait line is a start. But that may lead into forcing thief players to l2p and since thief is anet favored pet, dont think will happen. 

U lose to any thief spec u bad🤣

[Asur.9178]

I do like how this thread is specifically in the thief subforum and how most people associate stealth with thief only, when there are infinitely more obnoxious and stronger builds like condi druid.

[bq pd.2148]

4 minutes ago, Asur.9178 said:

I do like how this thread is specifically in the thief subforum

that is a mods fault. it wasn in general discussion and thus about the mechanic itself not limited to thief.  comments like that of kiranslee missing the point of the thread certainly didnt help, not long after their post it was moved.

Edited March 7 by bq pd.2148

[cyberzombie.7348]

The most sure-fire way is to use tethered aoes. Skils like guardian binding blades, necro's tainted shackle, or thief's daggerstorm tracks a target regardless of stealth.

Another thing that ignores stealth are ricocheting projectiles like mesmer's mirror blade (though albetit it requires visible target to bounce off).

Using a long-channeled skill like warrior's volley just before the pop stealth will still track them. 

[Scolix.4879]

ALT-F4 I hate stealth and stealth classes its the most unfun mechanic to fight against not just in GW2 but any game ever made.

[remorseless.6352]

Buff stealth buff thief