Stealth needs a downside (in competitive modes)

[igmolicious.5986]

 

I know this horse has been absolutely beaten to death and then some, but stealth needs some sort of downside in competitive modes. Being able to make all skills that require a target completely useless on top of being invisible makes for bad gameplay when it can be done permanently (pitchforks and torches would come out if elementalists were able to maintain permanent shocking aura and magnetic aura, and they'd still be visible and vulnerable to AOEs, unblockables, and stability-heavy builds, and they DID come out when Virtuoso had a long-duration block on a long timer in addition to its invulns).

UPDATE: Smaller ask that is in no way touching stealth, but still giving professions a countermeasure to it: add access to at least 1 method of dispensing reveal to all core professions. Stealth is no longer changed, so thieves don't feel slighted, but everyone would have a way to deal with stealth to some degree, just like everyone has some core-ability to deal with conditions and stuns.

Some different ideas that could be used as a downside to stealth:

1. Initiative stops regenerating while stealthed. This would still allow for bursts of stealth for a getaway, but would at least cut back on some perma-stealth builds and would make thieves less able to instantly burst down targets and re-stealth.

2. While stealthed, gain a stack of "mental fatigue" each second. When stealth is broken, mental fatigue would convert into 1 second of revealed (could even have a trait to reduce the conversion a bit). This would allow for permanent stealth to set up ambush attacks, but would prevent withdrawing into stealth immediately, and would make withdrawing from fights against high-mobility opponents (like willbender or other thieves) more difficult.

3. Movement speed reduced by 25%, and shadowstep/port distances halved while stealthed. Would still allow perma-stealth, but would make withdrawing and setting up ambushes more involved.

4. Damage taken while in stealth increased by 50%. Perma-stealth still do-able but risky if facing AOE-heavy or condition-heavy builds.

I'm sure other people have better ideas, but having some sort of downside (in competitive) really seems like a small ask, and honestly I would be happy to see thieves get higher base health/toughness as a way to compensate if stealth had some downside. In most other MMOs, stealth not only slows you down, but is also "detectable" at close ranges, which gives it at least some counterplay.

 

LATE ADDED 5th IDEA: If an enemy breaks stealth with an attack, grant the victim a temporary "special action" ability (that allows them to use a 900 range 3 second reveal) that lasts until used. Would affect all stealth users equally, tho would definitely have more impact on stealth-heavy builds, and would make hit-and-runs from stealth on groups less safe.

Edited March 9 by igmolicious.5986

[Chiral.8915]

12 years has passed with nothing done. Nothing will be done. 

[nanan.8912]

With that cmc dude nothing is gonna get better. Look at the state wvw is in rn. Most of the balance meetings they do is more prolly bickering at each other like we saw in the livestream then calling it a job well done.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

Stealth has a downside: Time.

You can't be stealthed forever. Sooner or later it's going to run out. There are two professions that use stealth, Thief and Mesmer, and nother can keep it up that long. I'm a mesmer and with all skills and traits I can max out my invisibility at about 30....ish seconds. But that's doing nothing BUT invisibility and you can't attack without breaking it. I don't know how long a thief can keep it up (that's what she said) but they have to follow the same rules. Attacking still breaks stealth. It already has downsides.

It just sounds to me like you're mad about getting ambushed. I get it. Getting backstabbed sucks. Anyone that's ever played Team Fortress 2 is well aquainted with having a good day, getting your kills in, boosting that ratio and BAM, you're dead. Never saw it coming. BUT THAT'S THE PROFESSION. You can hate it all you want but that's thieves doing what they do. Are you going to get mad at the elementalists for setting you on fire? Maybe the rangers and necros for ganging up on you with their pet or minions? You have to get over it. Treat every open stretch of land and every corner like there might be a thief waiting to backstab you and, I hate to say it, get good.

Edit: All confused emojis are just people mad they got backstabbed. Checkmate.

Edited March 8 by ShadowKatt.6740

[igmolicious.5986]

10 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Stealth has a downside: Time.

You can't be stealthed forever. Sooner or later it's going to run out. There are two professions that use stealth, Thief and Mesmer, and nother can keep it up that long. I'm a mesmer and with all skills and traits I can max out my invisibility at about 30....ish seconds. But that's doing nothing BUT invisibility and you can't attack without breaking it. I don't know how long a thief can keep it up (that's what she said) but they have to follow the same rules. Attacking still breaks stealth. It already has downsides.

It just sounds to me like you're mad about getting ambushed. I get it. Getting backstabbed sucks. Anyone that's ever played Team Fortress 2 is well aquainted with having a good day, getting your kills in, boosting that ratio and BAM, you're dead. Never saw it coming. BUT THAT'S THE PROFESSION. You can hate it all you want but that's thieves doing what they do. Are you going to get mad at the elementalists for setting you on fire? Maybe the rangers and necros for ganging up on you with their pet or minions? You have to get over it. Treat every open stretch of land and every corner like there might be a thief waiting to backstab you and, I hate to say it, get good.

Mesmer can't keep it up forever, but smoke-field blasting/leaping thief has absolutely no problem with keeping it up in dagger/pistol, with the easy access to smoke field from black powder and leap from heartseeker, and if they have shortbow as second weapon can also blast smoke fields with cluster bomb. That on top of other utilities that either provide smoke fields or stealth intself definitely gives them the ability to maintain 100% uptime, tho they do leave behind some telltale aoe fields this way, they by no means need to stand in them to take advantage of them. Stealth only breaks when they actually damage something with an attack, so just doing combos lets them stay in stealth while they extend stealth.

For ambushes, ya, they can be a problem, but the real problem is that if you survive and the thief doesn't want to deal with the pressure they can withdraw to out of combat using stealth, and unless you are a mind reader or very lucky with your aoes, there's nothing you can do to stop them once they stealth. For burning stacks, you can cleanse -- that's counterplay; for necro minions you can either cc or burst them down (they don't have much health), which again is counterplay. For stealth unless your specific specialization or (rarely) your core profession has access to reveal you don't have counterplay, and even then it's on a long-ish timer for a very short period and in most cases forces you to take an otherwise bad trait or utility JUST to fight thieves. Thief has excellent mobility which is already a great defence -- a secondary defence without any real counter is heads above defences any other professsion has strong access to.

 

Side note: spy in team fortress can't move when invisible, and pyro definitely is known for "spy checks" with flamethrower on people when they just use disguise. Spy also can't teleport half-way across the map.

Edited March 7 by igmolicious.5986

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Stealth has a downside: Time.

You can't be stealthed forever. Sooner or later it's going to run out. There are two professions that use stealth, Thief and Mesmer, and nother can keep it up that long. I'm a mesmer and with all skills and traits I can max out my invisibility at about 30....ish seconds. But that's doing nothing BUT invisibility and you can't attack without breaking it. I don't know how long a thief can keep it up (that's what she said) but they have to follow the same rules. Attacking still breaks stealth. It already has downsides.

It just sounds to me like you're mad about getting ambushed. I get it. Getting backstabbed sucks. Anyone that's ever played Team Fortress 2 is well aquainted with having a good day, getting your kills in, boosting that ratio and BAM, you're dead. Never saw it coming. BUT THAT'S THE PROFESSION. You can hate it all you want but that's thieves doing what they do. Are you going to get mad at the elementalists for setting you on fire? Maybe the rangers and necros for ganging up on you with their pet or minions? You have to get over it. Treat every open stretch of land and every corner like there might be a thief waiting to backstab you and, I hate to say it, get good.

I think you're missing the bigger picture.  Nobody likes ambush attacks.  But as you say, that's the profession.  The problem with the way GW2 handles stealth is that they don't restrict in-combat stealth, so it can be used to repeatedly disengage.  I feel like if you showed a video of the way rifle deadeye is played as a WvW roamer to any competitive player from any other MMO they'd have a good laugh at how utterly stupid that is as a design. 

[Antrix.4512]

3 hours ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

Mesmer can't keep it up forever, but smoke-field blasting/leaping thief has absolutely no problem with keeping it up in dagger/pistol, with the easy access to smoke field from black powder and leap from heartseeker, and if they have shortbow as second weapon can also blast smoke fields with cluster bomb. That on top of other utilities that either provide smoke fields or stealth intself definitely gives them the ability to maintain 100% uptime, tho they do leave behind some telltale aoe fields this way, they by no means need to stand in them to take advantage of them. Stealth only breaks when they actually damage something with an attack, so just doing combos lets them stay in stealth while they extend stealth.

For ambushes, ya, they can be a problem, but the real problem is that if you survive and the thief doesn't want to deal with the pressure they can withdraw to out of combat using stealth, and unless you are a mind reader or very lucky with your aoes, there's nothing you can do to stop them once they stealth. For burning stacks, you can cleanse -- that's counterplay; for necro minions you can either cc or burst them down (they don't have much health), which again is counterplay. For stealth unless your specific specialization or (rarely) your core profession has access to reveal you don't have counterplay, and even then it's on a long-ish timer for a very short period and in most cases forces you to take an otherwise bad trait or utility JUST to fight thieves. Thief has excellent mobility which is already a great defence -- a secondary defence without any real counter is heads above defences any other professsion has strong access to.

 

Side note: spy in team fortress can't move when invisible, and pyro definitely is known for "spy checks" with flamethrower on people when they just use disguise. Spy also can't teleport half-way across the map.

Why do you make comparisons with TF2? Why not with WoW, where rogues have essentially permanent stealth? Why not with TESO, where a Nightblade can indefinitely press their 4-second stealth button? Why don't you write about the advantages of other classes and what skills or mechanics need to be taken away from them to somehow balance the whole thing?
 

As I've said before, in such cases, I'm very glad that ANet doesn't care about such feedback 😁

[jason.1083]

17 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Stealth has a downside: Time.

You can't be stealthed forever. Sooner or later it's going to run out. There are two professions that use stealth, Thief and Mesmer, and nother can keep it up that long. I'm a mesmer and with all skills and traits I can max out my invisibility at about 30....ish seconds. But that's doing nothing BUT invisibility and you can't attack without breaking it. I don't know how long a thief can keep it up (that's what she said) but they have to follow the same rules. Attacking still breaks stealth. It already has downsides.

It just sounds to me like you're mad about getting ambushed. I get it. Getting backstabbed sucks. Anyone that's ever played Team Fortress 2 is well aquainted with having a good day, getting your kills in, boosting that ratio and BAM, you're dead. Never saw it coming. BUT THAT'S THE PROFESSION. You can hate it all you want but that's thieves doing what they do. Are you going to get mad at the elementalists for setting you on fire? Maybe the rangers and necros for ganging up on you with their pet or minions? You have to get over it. Treat every open stretch of land and every corner like there might be a thief waiting to backstab you and, I hate to say it, get good.

There was never a problem with being stealthed for too long, it's being able to approach while stealthed without the other player having a chance to notice and then one-shoting them. And if that doesn't work, go stealth again 2 seconds later and port away, that's the problem, especially deadeyes since they can do that from long enough range where most people won't have the chance to engage before revealed expires.

Edited March 7 by jason.1083

[Szymon.5369]

You said yourself that stealth breaks on Thief dealing damage, Thief has to use damaging finishers to combo a field, and the field is visible to you. Please connect the dots and either stand there to catch the heartseeker (it tickles when above 50%, don't worry) or drop a bomb there or something.

That said I agree the design itself is flawed.

Oh and I like how the thread name is always "stealth is XYZ", but it's always about Thieves specifically and not a word about entire zergs stealthing, I guess that's all fine and dandy 🙃

Edited March 7 by Szymon.5369

[igmolicious.5986]

8 hours ago, Szymon.5369 said:

You said yourself that stealth breaks on Thief dealing damage, Thief has to use damaging finishers to combo a field, and the field is visible to you. Please connect the dots and either stand there to catch the heartseeker (it tickles when above 50%, don't worry) or drop a bomb there or something.

That said I agree the design itself is flawed.

Oh and I like how the thread name is always "stealth is XYZ", but it's always about Thieves specifically and not a word about entire zergs stealthing, I guess that's all fine and dandy 🙃

In theory the aoe fields would be helpful, but thieves specifically ALSO have incredible mobility so those aoe fields don't generally appear anywhere near where most aoes can reach (maybe ranger longbow could, but with 1200 - 1500 range on ports (and 900 range on the semi-spamable shortbow port), the best you can usually hope for is that they drop a shadow portal somewhere while someone else chases them and you can camp it until they maybe port back. When a thief can literally port around while completely invisible and drop those aoes well out of range or around corners (and not to mention being able to shadowstep through some walls or vertically up walls, which means any melee/midrange has no ability to retaliate, AS WELL AS having a heal that not only doesn't break stealth but grants stealth). On top of all of that, stealth doesn't even drop immediately to OTHER PLAYERS, so a thief still APPEARS invisible for a while after attacking, still untargettable by attacks that require a target, but restealthing doesn't have the same issue, allowing them to effectively attack while invisble if they are hitting and stealthing quick enough. If, say, a guardian could spam its invulnerability and only break it to attack, that wouldn't be ok, right? Even mirage lost its ability to evade while immobilized because it prevented counterplay with its near perma-evade, so I have a hard time understanding why anyone would defend being able to maintain stealth permanently.

When I see thief aoes appear, I usually bomb around myself with any aoes I can to dissuade an ambush, but here's the thing: my aoes usually have a cooldown that can't outlast permanent stealth (and that's assuming the thief doesn't think they can take me down before my aoes do enough damage to them to push them off), so it's a waiting game for them, and it's not like more than a few specializations can outrun a thief, so it's just stealthed attrition at that point with them always at the advantage.

On your last note, I think MOST of the suggestions I had would have an effect on other stealth users, but the reason thief is used so heavily is that it is the only one capable of permanent stealth, so is the easiest example on the problems with stealth. Zerg stealth requires either druids or mesmers (technically engineer is semi-capable of this, but it's much more difficult and would require excellent coordination to maintain for any duration over a few seconds, maybe slightly longer with scrapper's stealth gyro), both of which have a much more restrictive mechanic for maintaining stealth (druid has to use up celestial energy as well as pop in and out of avatar and mesmer's mass invisibility is 6 seconds on a 48 second cooldown [8 out of 10 people in a group would need to be mesmers to maintain mass invis permanently]). Can they be a problem? Yes, especially with a mass invisibility to portal zerg ambush, but that has as many if not more tells than a perma-stealth thief with only a tiny pinch of mobility they are afforded. On top of that, the most greivous offences of zerg stealth ambushes would definitely be dealt with suggestion #3 or #4 (possible even #2 if one of their stealthers got out of sync or interrupted).

Edited March 7 by igmolicious.5986

[Szymon.5369]

44 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

In theory the aoe fields would be helpful, but thieves specifically ALSO have incredible mobility so those aoe fields don't generally appear anywhere near where most aoes can reach (maybe ranger longbow could, but with 1200 - 1500 range on ports (and 900 range on the semi-spamable shortbow port), the best you can usually hope for is that they drop a shadow portal somewhere while someone else chases them and you can camp it until they maybe port back.

1. No Thief uses Shadowstep when already semi-safe in stealth only to go ahead and stealth some more, it's too valuable of a cooldown. Also, shadowstep leaves a telltale circle behind too, which disappears when Thief ports back in. Instead of blindly spamming AoEs in hope of hitting them, hover with an attack ready over the circle and whack it when it disappears for nearly guaranteed hit.

2. I'm fairly certain that since December 1, 2020 literally nobody used Infiltrator's arrow in Stealth in WvW or PvP, because it costs 8 initiative. It is not semi-spammable, and is in fact the poster example of bad and unimaginative initiative nerfs, because on Specter you get base 9 Initiative, while this skill costs 8, making this shortbow feature nigh-unplayable.

44 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

When a thief can literally port around while completely invisible and drop those aoes well out of range or around corners

Again. If a Thief is "porting around" while already invisible, they are burning their escape tools while already safe and likely won't pursue you anymore.

44 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

and not to mention being able to shadowstep through some walls or vertically up walls, which means any melee/midrange has no ability to retaliate

Well that is indeed kitten to deal with, I can give you that, and counterplay involves knowledge of no-port zones - short version is, shadowsteps only work on continuous and permanent terrain, so you can't teleport on/from various platforms, stairs, siege walls, sometimes boulders etc. You can port up a wall only if it's natural and continuous terrain that's just too steep to climb normally. So there is counterplay to somebody teleporting to you, but I agree it's very weird and unintuitive.

44 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

On top of all of that, stealth doesn't even drop immediately to OTHER PLAYERS, so a thief still APPEARS invisible for a while after attacking, still untargettable by attacks that require a target, but restealthing doesn't have the same issue, allowing them to effectively attack while invisble if they are hitting and stealthing quick enough.

Not gonna lie you lost me there completely. If you attack hit strike somebody from stealth, you get the Revealed status. The only way to remove Revealed from yourself has been removed. Either you face hackers, the thieves port away instantly, or you somehow failed to locate the enemy in 3 seconds. From my experience, if you try to carelessly Steal -> Backstab somebody who happens to be experienced in dealing with thieves, it is still possible to dodge it, so to land Backstabs you have to get a bit more creative.

Edited March 7 by Szymon.5369

[igmolicious.5986]

1 hour ago, Szymon.5369 said:

2. I'm fairly certain that since December 1, 2020 literally nobody used Infiltrator's arrow in Stealth in WvW or PvP, because it costs 8 initiative. It is not semi-spammable, and is in fact the poster example of bad and unimaginative initiative nerfs, because on Specter you get base 9 Initiative, while this skill costs 8, making this shortbow feature nigh-unplayable.

wvw is my primary competitive mode, and it's very common there still, and maybe it's a build thing, but it's also not uncommon to see thieves use #5 twice in a row to make escapes.

1 hour ago, Szymon.5369 said:

Again. If a Thief is "porting around" while already invisible, they are burning their escape tools while already safe and likely won't pursue you anymore.

Also very much not uncommon to see them port while stealthed in my experience, especially when I am close enough to dump aoes near their aoes, sometimes with shadowsteps (as you mentioned leaving behind the small white circle), sometimes with other ports (despite the initiative costs very commonly with inflitrator shot from shortbow up to high ground, tho rifle users also commonly do the turn and back-port from rifle, tho no sure how they kneel and unkneel so quickly).

1 hour ago, Szymon.5369 said:

Well that is indeed kitten to deal with, I can give you that, and counterplay involves knowledge of no-port zones - short version is, shadowsteps only work on continuous and permanent terrain, so you can't teleport on/from various platforms, stairs, siege walls, sometimes boulders etc. You can port up a wall only if it's natural and continuous terrain that's just too steep to climb normally. So there is counterplay to somebody teleporting to you, but I agree it's very weird and unintuitive.

Maybe I am mistaken, but shadowstep seems to work regardless of terrain if there's a path and a critter that you can target, much like willbender's shadowstep, and there are critters absolutely everywhere in wvw. If nothing else jumping shadow-steps even let you get into places that you shouldn't have any way to get to in some cases, like keeps and towers, but that's a different issue altogether.

1 hour ago, Szymon.5369 said:

Not gonna lie you lost me there completely. If you attack hit strike somebody from stealth, you get the Revealed status. The only way to remove Revealed from yourself has been removed. Either you face hackers, the thieves port away instantly, or you somehow failed to locate the enemy in 3 seconds. From my experience, if you try to carelessly Steal -> Backstab somebody who happens to be experienced in dealing with thieves, it is still possible to dodge it, so to land Backstabs you have to get a bit more creative.

While hacks wouldn't surprise me in SOME cases, this happens enough that I would have a hard time believing there are that many people cheating. My best guess is that it's just a matter of the game not prioritizing showing people after leaving stealth as much as it prioritizes hiding them when entering stealth. It is common for them to only be visible and targettable by attacks that require targets for a second or so, and sometimes not at all (tho as you suggest this could be something less legit, since it's not the norm). Maybe a better first step would be to make leaving stealth have the same priority as entering stealth when it comes to targetting/showing from a game-side thing.

[Antrix.4512]

2 hours ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

wvw is my primary competitive mode, and it's very common there still, and maybe it's a build thing, but it's also not uncommon to see thieves use #5 twice in a row to make escapes.

Also very much not uncommon to see them port while stealthed in my experience, especially when I am close enough to dump aoes near their aoes, sometimes with shadowsteps (as you mentioned leaving behind the small white circle), sometimes with other ports (despite the initiative costs very commonly with inflitrator shot from shortbow up to high ground, tho rifle users also commonly do the turn and back-port from rifle, tho no sure how they kneel and unkneel so quickly).

Maybe I am mistaken, but shadowstep seems to work regardless of terrain if there's a path and a critter that you can target, much like willbender's shadowstep, and there are critters absolutely everywhere in wvw. If nothing else jumping shadow-steps even let you get into places that you shouldn't have any way to get to in some cases, like keeps and towers, but that's a different issue altogether.

While hacks wouldn't surprise me in SOME cases, this happens enough that I would have a hard time believing there are that many people cheating. My best guess is that it's just a matter of the game not prioritizing showing people after leaving stealth as much as it prioritizes hiding them when entering stealth. It is common for them to only be visible and targettable by attacks that require targets for a second or so, and sometimes not at all (tho as you suggest this could be something less legit, since it's not the norm). Maybe a better first step would be to make leaving stealth have the same priority as entering stealth when it comes to targetting/showing from a game-side thing.

Read this, learn to play and stop crying.

You can be as confused as you like, but it won't change or negate the fact that you are either a thick-skinned troll or you simply lack the skill to play, completely. That's okay, experience comes with time, not immediately. I was also frustrated by some aspects of the game, especially those concerning the thief. Over time, everything fell into place. Your hatred for the class and its mechanics is quite justified by a lack of skill, and there is nothing shameful about that. The biggest problem here is just another topic cluttering up this forum.

Edited March 7 by Antrix.4512

[Atoclone.4810]

On 3/6/2024 at 3:57 PM, nanan.8912 said:

. Most of the balance meetings they do is more prolly bickering at each other like we saw in the livestream then calling it a job well done.

and folks say they don't learn anything from the forums

[ShadowKatt.6740]

19 hours ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

Mesmer can't keep it up forever, but smoke-field blasting/leaping thief has absolutely no problem with keeping it up in dagger/pistol, with the easy access to smoke field from black powder and leap from heartseeker, and if they have shortbow as second weapon can also blast smoke fields with cluster bomb. That on top of other utilities that either provide smoke fields or stealth intself definitely gives them the ability to maintain 100% uptime, tho they do leave behind some telltale aoe fields this way, they by no means need to stand in them to take advantage of them. Stealth only breaks when they actually damage something with an attack, so just doing combos lets them stay in stealth while they extend stealth.

So you said a lot in there about smoke fields, and I had to look that up because I don't pay much attention to combos. I think combos are highly overrated but you've convinced me that perhaps I need to give them a second chance. Still, with what you're talking about it sounds like there's a bar for entry when it comes to keeping a thief stealthed. Maybe it's not a high bar, but the bar is there nonetheless. You also point out that it leaves a trail of smoke fields, so much like the trail of bubbles in the water if you see smoke, you know there's fire. It's not perfect stealth is what I'm trying to say here, and so I see no problem with this.

19 hours ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

For ambushes, ya, they can be a problem, but the real problem is that if you survive and the thief doesn't want to deal with the pressure they can withdraw to out of combat using stealth, and unless you are a mind reader or very lucky with your aoes, there's nothing you can do to stop them once they stealth. For burning stacks, you can cleanse -- that's counterplay; for necro minions you can either cc or burst them down (they don't have much health), which again is counterplay. For stealth unless your specific specialization or (rarely) your core profession has access to reveal you don't have counterplay, and even then it's on a long-ish timer for a very short period and in most cases forces you to take an otherwise bad trait or utility JUST to fight thieves. Thief has excellent mobility which is already a great defence -- a secondary defence without any real counter is heads above defences any other professsion has strong access to.

So....thieves doing exactly what they're supposed to do. They're not frontline fighters, and they're not support casters. They are opportunistic, back-stabbing ambush predators. The appear, do their damage, and vanish. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, I GET IT. I don't play a lot of WvW but I have been murdered by my fair share of theives. It sucks. But it's what they do. So the best counterplay for thief seems to me to be....friends. Seriously, if the thief can just kill you, make it so there's two of you. If they pop out and try to get one of you, the other has your back. A smart thief wouldn't try it, and a dumb thief might not get away.

19 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think you're missing the bigger picture.  Nobody likes ambush attacks.  But as you say, that's the profession.  The problem with the way GW2 handles stealth is that they don't restrict in-combat stealth, so it can be used to repeatedly disengage.  I feel like if you showed a video of the way rifle deadeye is played as a WvW roamer to any competitive player from any other MMO they'd have a good laugh at how utterly stupid that is as a design. 

Again, that's how they play, and you're welcome to not like it. I gotta say I disagree when if they use a smokebomb that's the classic  *FLASH!* *SMOKE!* they're gone.....so I'm not gonna agree with you on that. That being said though, if you've got a video to show how Deadeyes abuse this to a ridiculous degree, share it. I want to see it, not to try and disprove anything but I want to learn what they're doing and how they do it. That's usually the first step to countering these things anyway.

15 hours ago, jason.1083 said:

There was never a problem with being stealthed for too long, it's being able to approach while stealthed without the other player having a chance to notice and then one-shoting them. And if that doesn't work, go stealth again 2 seconds later and port away, that's the problem, especially deadeyes since they can do that from long enough range where most people won't have the chance to engage before revealed expires.

I've already addressed these points above so I'm not going to repeat them here except to say that that's the profession. I know someone argued about using TF2 comparisons instead of WoW comparisons but I'm going to keep using them because they work well. The thief is all the best or worst aspects of the Spy, Scout, and Ranger depending on your perspective. Using Stealth they can approach you and backstab like a spy, and being able to vanish lets them pick their battles or retreat like a scout. And for Deadeye having the ONLY other 1500 range weapon in the game because Arenanet had to give us a stupid HEALING rifle instead of a 1500 range weapon so we cou- I'm sorry, I got a little distracted there. The Deadeye having the ONLY other 1500 range weapon means they can safely engage you before you even knew they were there. But this is really nothing new. None of this is stuff that gamers haven't dealt with for decades now. Beware the thieves, don't go out alone, head on a swivel, know your exits. This is all basic stuff. We can argue about balance all day but this whole discussion really boils down to, in my opinion, just hating thieves for being thieves. And that's fine, hate them. And then learn how to beat them, don't go to Anet and ask them to break their toys so you can win. Get better than their toys.

[Sweetbread.3678]

This game truly does have the worst designed stealth I've ever seen but there's really no point in making a thread about it; you're just setting yourself up for frustration. If Anet hasn't decided to do something about it in the past 12 years when they may have actually had the resources to tackle it, then they certainly aren't going to try and fix it now. And getting a decent dialogue going is going to be virtually impossible when stealth burst pvp mains clearly don't give a single kitten about anyone else's gameplay experience and will never argue in good faith. There's an incredibly obvious reason why they've naturally gravitated to the playstyle of "hide in complete unbreakable invisibility, picking and choosing the most lopsided matchup possible to throw a one shot at, and then, if you somehow F up and weren't able to end the fight before it began, run away like a gigantic coward to reset and try again", and it sure as kitten isn't because they care about decent game design, interactivity, competition, or combat mechanics. Honestly, the only thing you're gonna get out of this is a bunch of morons so completely dogwater at the game that they literally have to be invisible to compete in a pvp environment telling you, with 0 irony of course, to "get good". The whole thing's a kittening joke.

[Shagie.7612]

The bigger problem most of the time is mobility and the relative inability to punish the thief unless you're one yourself, usually.
They could make some smaller changes, like reveal on block, making reveal skills better, but that stuff isn't going to help that much. The only one that actually scares a decent thief is Lock On.

It's part of why for so long thief was meta defining and the team with the better one won, and the only way they could figure out how to address it was adding more and more initiative cost to SB5.

[Batalix.2873]

On 3/6/2024 at 7:21 AM, igmolicious.5986 said:

I know this horse has been absolutely beaten to death and then some, but stealth needs some sort of downside in competitive modes. Being able to make all skills that require a target completely useless on top of being invisible makes for bad gameplay when it can be done permanently (pitchforks and torches would come out if elementalists were able to maintain permanent shocking aura and magnetic aura, and they'd still be visible and vulnerable to AOEs, unblockables, and stability-heavy builds, and they DID come out when Virtuoso had a long-duration block on a long timer in addition to its invulns). Some different ideas that could be used as a downside to stealth:

1. Initiative stops regenerating while stealthed. This would still allow for bursts of stealth for a getaway, but would at least cut back on some perma-stealth builds and would make thieves less able to instantly burst down targets and re-stealth.

2. While stealthed, gain a stack of "mental fatigue" each second. When stealth is broken, mental fatigue would convert into 1 second of revealed (could even have a trait to reduce the conversion a bit). This would allow for permanent stealth to set up ambush attacks, but would prevent withdrawing into stealth immediately, and would make withdrawing from fights against high-mobility opponents (like willbender or other thieves) more difficult.

3. Movement speed reduced by 25%, and shadowstep/port distances halved while stealthed. Would still allow perma-stealth, but would make withdrawing and setting up ambushes more involved.

4. Damage taken while in stealth increased by 50%. Perma-stealth still do-able but risky if facing AOE-heavy or condition-heavy builds.

I'm sure other people have better ideas, but having some sort of downside (in competitive) really seems like a small ask, and honestly I would be happy to see thieves get higher base health/toughness as a way to compensate if stealth had some downside. In most other MMOs, stealth not only slows you down, but is also "detectable" at close ranges, which gives it at least some counterplay.

 

LATE ADDED 5th IDEA: If an enemy breaks stealth with an attack, grant the victim a temporary "special action" ability (that allows them to use a 900 range 3 second reveal) that lasts until used. Would affect all stealth users equally, tho would definitely have more impact on stealth-heavy builds, and would make hit-and-runs from stealth on groups less safe.

Although there have been more nonsensical balances implemented, I would throw out Option 1 as a matter of profession strengths and flavor. If any job deserves *not* to have additional penalties to stealth, it would be Thief. It would be a flavor fail to have Thief be somehow *worse* at stealth than any other class. Thief already gets the advantage of having a lot more access to stealth; simply applying blanket penalties to stealth for all professions is enough. Especially where I do agree with you that it is *stealth* that needs a downside, not Thief.

I think Option 4 is the strongest and most straightforward. It plays naturally into the "glass-cannon" nature of stealth builds, would be flavorfully very on point for Thief and other stealth skills, and would be the simplest to implement with no additional buffs/condis or special actions.

Option 3 is my second favorite. Even though it could present some issues for non-Thief stealth users, and may be too punishing overall. I also am not totally vibing with Deadeye's movement contours getting flattened even more after the kneel movement change. But like Option 4, it would add meaningful limitations to stealth without cluttering classes with additional submechanics.

Option 2 seems too complicated and too punishing. I hate the idea of a dedicated condi stack for a single mechanic. And, at least as you have written it out, I don't think it would be fair to have mental fatigue start building as soon as a person enters stealth. I think a more fair implementation of this idea would be to have mental fatigue start building after a certain time limit under stealth.

Option 5: lasts until used is too long for anything. And I'm not sure why it has to be a special action? Would it be game-breaking to just have the reveal automatically happen upon break?

[KryTiKaL.3125]

18 hours ago, Antrix.4512 said:

Why do you make comparisons with TF2? Why not with WoW, where rogues have essentially permanent stealth? Why not with TESO, where a Nightblade can indefinitely press their 4-second stealth button? Why don't you write about the advantages of other classes and what skills or mechanics need to be taken away from them to somehow balance the whole thing?
 

As I've said before, in such cases, I'm very glad that ANet doesn't care about such feedback 😁

Just a point of clarification...Rogues in WoW can only remain "permanently stealthed" while not in combat, however they can still be detected with both audio and visual indications; a sound effect plays when they are detected by your character and also when detected they are faintly visible, damage also breaks stealth. Also once in combat the only way they are able to return to a stealthed state is with a skill called Vanish that has a 2 minute cooldown. Also I don't credit ESO with good combat design...I dislike its combat and have remained adamant about that position for a very long time now.

I can understand Thief mains being particularly resistant to any sort of change to Stealth as a mechanic, it is ingrained in the class and one of its primary points of defense (and offense)...however it is too much at this point, it has been for a while. Does it make Thief egregiously overpowered? No, of course not, but it does make fighting them a not terribly enjoyable experience when you encounter builds that spam it, and they are not rare. Putting some limitations within the game mechanic itself so as to be able to counter it could likely result in the necessary removal of the roundabout ways ANet has approached the issue so far over the years; namely Marked from Sentries in WvW and Revealed effects from skills that they have been adding progressively over the years.

They quite literally added these things into the game because Stealth as a mechanic is not terribly well implemented, and just judging by these things even ANet recognizes this but it seems they may be hesitant to do anything to the mechanic itself due to, based on just your reaction to the idea, massive backlash. And yes, Revealed is technically a "late" edition to the game as it was not in the beta but the feedback they got likely prompted them to add it for when the game launched and its duration has remained at 4 seconds in PvP, 3 seconds in WvW since that addition. Same thing happened to Warrior and Adrenaline; it used to not decay out of combat.

I understand being frustrated with people calling for changes that would have such significant effects on your class and how it plays, especially so if you feel you have enough difficulty as it is dealing with other things that other classes do that seem overwhelming or just painful to deal with. Those also are on ANet for allowing them to persist...perma dazing Mirages is a new one, but we've had immobilize spam from things like Druids for a long time and its seen no changes and is a viciously annoying thing to deal with, and Celestial stats just in general being a big fat annoyance for a while now, the essentially "perma invuln/block" that Virtuoso has going for it, Warriors it used to be passive Stances and the passive health regen (even as a Warrior main I can say yeah those were not good to have) and then it turned into silly amounts of sustain from Shouts.

 

[Antrix.4512]

20 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

Just a point of clarification...Rogues in WoW can only remain "permanently stealthed" while not in combat, however they can still be detected with both audio and visual indications; a sound effect plays when they are detected by your character and also when detected they are faintly visible, damage also breaks stealth. Also once in combat the only way they are able to return to a stealthed state is with a skill called Vanish that has a 2 minute cooldown. Also I don't credit ESO with good combat design...I dislike its combat and have remained adamant about that position for a very long time now.

 

Rogues in WoW won't run alongside you waiting to be detected – they will just move away in the face of danger or to recover HP, wait for cooldowns, etc., to then attack again. They are not confined by any limits. Also, Vanish is more of an escape ability for a rogue rather than something from the rotation, which (I remind you) also allows the rogue to calmly leave without the need for tricky maneuvers with a quite complex "perma-stealth" rotation and very shortened duration in PvP in GW2. Additionally, just like the rogue, the thief can be easily knocked out of stealth by AoE abilities.

You did a good job detailing your point, but it's just an incorrect comparison both in this particular situation and overall regarding the stealth mechanics of these games. I used that example precisely to show that this comparison is incorrect, just as with TF2.

So, I don't see the point in discussing this, especially since there are hundreds of similar topics, yet none of the whiners have shown "thief OP and here is my video I shown why", unlike a fairly well-known WoW player who, playing as a warlock (IIRC), stated that rogues are OP and then proved it by decimating everyone as a rogue (which, I repeat, wasn't even his class).

[KryTiKaL.3125]

25 minutes ago, Antrix.4512 said:

Rogues in WoW won't run alongside you waiting to be detected – they will just move away in the face of danger or to recover HP, wait for cooldowns, etc., to then attack again. They are not confined by any limits. Also, Vanish is more of an escape ability for a rogue rather than something from the rotation, which (I remind you) also allows the rogue to calmly leave without the need for tricky maneuvers with a quite complex "perma-stealth" rotation and very shortened duration in PvP in GW2. Additionally, just like the rogue, the thief can be easily knocked out of stealth by AoE abilities.

You did a good job detailing your point, but it's just an incorrect comparison both in this particular situation and overall regarding the stealth mechanics of these games. I used that example precisely to show that this comparison is incorrect, just as with TF2.

So, I don't see the point in discussing this, especially since there are hundreds of similar topics, yet none of the whiners have shown "thief OP and here is my video I shown why", unlike a fairly well-known WoW player who, playing as a warlock (IIRC), stated that rogues are OP and then proved it by decimating everyone as a rogue (which, I repeat, wasn't even his class).

No, they won't just follow alongside you, true, but there is still a possibility of detection especially with the right consumables. Not to mention this is not spammed behavior like it is in GW2. Yes, in GW2 you accomplish "perma stealth" by rotating abilities that provide it, but that does not equate to the limitations of Stealth in WoW while in combat. Yes they can disengage with Vanish, which they do, but so does Thief in GW2 simply by using one of its Stealth skills, and then they can still repeatedly do so throughout the duration of a fight. A rogue in WoW can simply use Vanish, leave, and wait for cooldowns but that is only every 2 minutes...not 7+ times within a 30 second period like in GW2 with Thief. Max you may see a Rogue go into Stealth in a fight is maybe 3 to 4 times throughout the entire duration of say...a single round in Arenas.

Another important distinction here is that damage breaks Stealth in WoW, aside from the brief duration after Vanish, however damage does not break Stealth in GW2 (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth) unless said AoE you refer to has a Revealed status associated with it. Also Thieves can entirely avoid the application of Revealed upon themselves from breaking Stealth when they attack by simply waiting for the Stealth to end and then attack (granted this requires foregoing something like Backstab to simply Stealth immediately afterwards, with no wait period due to 3 to 4 seconds of Revealed not being applied.

I am not claiming Thief is OP, that is not, or should not be, the discussion despite the incorrect proclamations of such made by others. It simply isn't. The method by which Stealth is implemented in this game which, by virtue, results in how it gets used in the game is not good. Notice how hard DH fell off for WvW Roaming with no longer being able to access Stealth through a Rune. Granted this is in combination with Willbender just being so strong, but that change did not help. Just ended up seeing more Willbenders.

Similarly to immobilize spam from Druids, daze spam from Mirages, and similarly to Celestial stats in general honestly. These things are not OP, or they don't make things OP, they are simply egregiously not fun to encounter or deal with in the game; aka unhealthy. Stealth to the level that it is routinely used is one of them.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

1 hour ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

but it does make fighting them a not terribly enjoyable experience

I find almost all PvP in any form to be a "not terribly enjoyable experience". Thief ambushes are the START. Warrior juggernauts, Minion Masters, Inescapable rangers, stun-locking engineers, immortal or just incinerating Guardians, nuclear elementalists, AND I'M A MESMER. I wouldn't want to fight me and my three other me's. I find ALL PvP to be basically just "Here's the worst of every profession. Go get your kitten kicked by it!"

I can sum up this thread real easy: "I got killed by a thief and now I want all thiefs nerfed!". Come on, we all know it, we've all seen a hudred of these threads. But here's the real dirty secret about that: Every profession is like that. Sure, the meta wibbles and wobbles back and forth so who's on top changes about every two-ish months, but every profession complains about every other profession. "Thieves have too much invisibility!" "Necros have too much healing and barrier!" "Holosmith is OP" "Mirage ambush needs to be nerfed back" EVERYONE has a complaint. It comes down to this: if you're gonna play, get ready to lose. If you're not ready to lose, don't play. It's really that simple. And I'm not directing this at you in particular, this is directed in general to just everyone in the PvP market. I'm not immune to this. I HATE PvP. I have to log into WvW for a gift of battle or something, I've got three deaths and I'm rage quitting. But that's also why I stay out of it unless I absolutely have to. Anyone that voluntarily goes into PvP needs to grow a thicker skin. It's not the thiefs fault. It's yours.

[Sonork.2916]

I would love to see an ANET dev fight a good thief.  Just to watch the utter hopelessness of them trying to fight back.   The game they made with next to zero counterplay to the mechanic, zero way to play against the stealth/stun/dmg/port cycle.  Same with the current daze mirage as a melee class.  It would be a joy to watch them suffer their own balancing.

[igmolicious.5986]

17 hours ago, Antrix.4512 said:

Read this, learn to play and stop crying.

You can be as confused as you like, but it won't change or negate the fact that you are either a thick-skinned troll or you simply lack the skill to play, completely. That's okay, experience comes with time, not immediately. I was also frustrated by some aspects of the game, especially those concerning the thief. Over time, everything fell into place. Your hatred for the class and its mechanics is quite justified by a lack of skill, and there is nothing shameful about that. The biggest problem here is just another topic cluttering up this forum.

Never ceases to amaze me how quickly people resort to ad hominem when they can't defend their position with reason or civil discussion, especially so when it comes to a game. Just because you don't agree with a topic, doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

13 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

So you said a lot in there about smoke fields, and I had to look that up because I don't pay much attention to combos. I think combos are highly overrated but you've convinced me that perhaps I need to give them a second chance. Still, with what you're talking about it sounds like there's a bar for entry when it comes to keeping a thief stealthed. Maybe it's not a high bar, but the bar is there nonetheless. You also point out that it leaves a trail of smoke fields, so much like the trail of bubbles in the water if you see smoke, you know there's fire. It's not perfect stealth is what I'm trying to say here, and so I see no problem with this.

Being able to stealth is one thing, being able to stealth and have incredible mobility means that the aoe fields that are left behind rarely tell you more than the fact that a thief is nearby. Having no way to respond except in the brief period that a thief is visible is the issue -- I am honestly not sure what other classes have access to the ability to only be targettable for a few seconds at a time as well as the ability to withdraw from combat completely at will. Does it take skill to play a thief well? Of course! But having access to mechanics that most professions have no reasonable access to counterplay against (revealed is available to only 3 core professions, necromancer, engineer, and ranger -- elementalist and mesmer have no access to it at all even through elite specializations, and other professions require a specific elite specialization [or 2 in the case of warrior]) seems out of line. Every profession has at least some defence against conditions through cleanses, every class has at least some defence against stuns with stability and/or stun breaks, so not having some method available to counter stealth seems off at the very least.

13 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

So....thieves doing exactly what they're supposed to do. They're not frontline fighters, and they're not support casters. They are opportunistic, back-stabbing ambush predators. The appear, do their damage, and vanish. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, I GET IT. I don't play a lot of WvW but I have been murdered by my fair share of theives. It sucks. But it's what they do. So the best counterplay for thief seems to me to be....friends. Seriously, if the thief can just kill you, make it so there's two of you. If they pop out and try to get one of you, the other has your back. A smart thief wouldn't try it, and a dumb thief might not get away.

I find it hard to to be ok with a solution that is just "have more people," as that can apply to pretty much any problem that people have in wvw or pvp. If a profession's counter is have more people, that is very much showing that there is a balance issue at play somewhere.

13 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Again, that's how they play, and you're welcome to not like it. I gotta say I disagree when if they use a smokebomb that's the classic  *FLASH!* *SMOKE!* they're gone.....so I'm not gonna agree with you on that. That being said though, if you've got a video to show how Deadeyes abuse this to a ridiculous degree, share it. I want to see it, not to try and disprove anything but I want to learn what they're doing and how they do it. That's usually the first step to countering these things anyway.

I wasn't the person you were replying to on this, but just wanted to add that in general, deadeyes are generally not the perma-stealthers (at least in wvw). They are generally more fightable since they rely on mobility with short bursts of stealth (stealth on dodge with rifle is only like 1 second) when repositioning, and projectiles having a travel time makes dealing with them pretty reasonable in my experience (can dodge/block/reflect depending on what you are running). I even have a build specifically for fighting them on my main character.

 

Edited March 8 by igmolicious.5986

[ShadowKatt.6740]

23 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

Being able to stealth is one thing, being able to stealth and have incredible mobility means that the aoe fields that are left behind rarely tell you more than the fact that a thief is nearby. Having no way to respond except in the brief period that a thief is visible is the issue -- I am honestly not sure what other classes have access to the ability to only be targettable for a few seconds at a time as well as the ability to withdraw from combat completely at will. Does it take skill to play a thief well? Of course! But having access to mechanics that most professions have no reasonable access to counterplay against (revealed is available to only 3 core professions, necromancer, engineer, and ranger -- elementalist and mesmer have no access to it at all even through elite specializations, and other professions require a specific elite specialization [or 2 in the case of warrior]) seems out of line. Every profession has at least some defence against conditions through cleanses, every class has at least some defence against stuns with stability and/or stun breaks, so not having some method available to counter stealth seems off at the very least.

You know what I think would be a perfect solution to all of this? Someone above...let's see if I can find them...

On 3/6/2024 at 9:21 AM, igmolicious.5986 said:

4. Damage taken while in stealth increased by 50%. Perma-stealth still do-able but risky if facing AOE-heavy or condition-heavy builds.

On 3/6/2024 at 10:10 PM, igmolicious.5986 said:

unless you are a mind reader or very lucky with your aoes

20 hours ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

When I see thief aoes appear, I usually bomb around myself with any aoes

Oh wait! Those were all you! Anyway, I think that's actually the fix we need for this. I think if I had to make a change to stealth, I would make it so stealth breaks on damage. Not just AOE, but any damage, or if we want to be generous, just strike damage. That way if you're poisoned you can still try to slink away into the shadows. But if strike damage could reveal, not to extra damage but just reveal, it would effectively counter it. Then wild swings or saturation bombing with AoEs would give an element of counterplay. Now ironicly this is roughly the same tactic as I said above with bring a friend just in a different form. Either way you're just adding more power. One is widespread effect, the other is an additional body, and as a mesmer lemme tell you not to underestimate having another or three bodies around you. Thieves are precision strikers. Pick a target, destroy the target. The opposite of precision is broad and blunt. So that's the counterplay, and if strike damage inflicted revealed I think that would solve everything.