Stealth needs to be reduced in effectiveness

[Malus.2184]

Separate matches, a Thief in each, both managed to remain 100% Stealthed except when they were attacked, since a lot of my skills require a target then they're effectively immune to those skills. As for attacking the void with weapon skills that's a bad solution.

Stealth should have a Grace Period that counted from when the Stealth was exited and the duration of this Grace Period should be dependent on the skill's Stealth duration rather than time spent in Stealth. During the Grave period, a player is unable to enter Stealth. They can still get everything else from the skill or trait save for the Stealth effect.

No one should be able to be effectively unattackable for 100% of the time you fight them since that's a severely unentertaining fight for those on the receiving end.

Personally, I plan to do the PvP needed for the Bonus event completion and then wait until the next PvP Rush to go into PvP again.

You can increase the rewards all you want and that'll change nothing about the fact that people will only reluctantly do things they dislike and everyone dislikes being a punching bag without having any means to fight back. Stealth Detection is in availability too limited in this game and mechanically too effective to be readily available since it completely shuts down the stealth haver.

For their loss of Stealth Thieves should be compensated with more health and more ways to gain things like Protection. That would also make them viable in pvE since Stealth there is of questionable worth while also making them viable for zerg where Stealth is utterly useless with the amount of AoE damage flying around.

[Last Crab.6054]

100% in stealth seems a bit of a stretch.

Many players don't have their head on a swivel, and I find that a few seconds of stealth is enough to confuse them, the rest is just standing still behind something.

If you have minions or pets or summons, the moment the thief is unstealthed, they will run towards them.

[Malus.2184]

4 minutes ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

100% in stealth seems a bit of a stretch.

Many players don't have their head on a swivel, and I find that a few seconds of stealth is enough to confuse them, the rest is just standing still behind something.

If you have minions or pets or summons, the moment the thief is unstealthed, they will run towards them.

Those things should be removed then because the option should never be, "Just play a Necromancer" then." That's a bad solution. Everything rank that currently reveals the Stealth user should be removed as well. Pets and summons should automatically detarget them when they stealth.

I want a permanent solution to an OP problem rather than a temporary solution that against that one thing is even more OP. Solving one massively OP thing with a binary solution only makes the binary solution even more OP if the binary outcome is 'yes.'

[Last Crab.6054]

16 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Those things should be removed then because the option should never be, "Just play a Necromancer" then." That's a bad solution. Everything rank that currently reveals the Stealth user should be removed as well. Pets and summons should automatically detarget them when they stealth.

I want a permanent solution to an OP problem rather than a temporary solution that against that one thing is even more OP. Solving one massively OP thing with a binary solution only makes the binary solution even more OP if the binary outcome is 'yes.'

There is no 100% stealth.

NONE, zero. 

That's a non-issue.

I will restate, most will just use a few seconds of stealth, then move out of your line of sight, and in most cases with most players that have deer vision, it is simply standing unstealthed behind them.

I don't know if Anet can patch a player's lack of awareness.

Stealth is not going anywhere, and there is a thing called revealed that happens once the thief uses any attack, even it it only hits for 1hp.

Stealth does not prevent damage, and it makes the thief make a choice, attack or leave.

If the attack happens reveal is a 4 second cant stealth period where they cannot attack again from stealth (NO STEALTH FOR 4 secs, and 6 or more for player reveals).

 

There are already "grace periods" and "costs" to stealth.

Rereading your OP makes me believe you don't know how stealth works in the game.

Edited July 16 by Last Crab.6054

[bq pd.2148]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

Stealth should have a Grace Period that counted from when the Stealth was exited and the duration of this Grace Period should be dependent on the skill's Stealth duration rather than time spent in Stealth. During the Grave period, a player is unable to enter Stealth. They can still get everything else from the skill or trait save for the Stealth effect.

balance always should take into account all that players can build for, so over the years thieves have been pushed to use stealth more and more because they have it and are balanced around (ab)using it.
the traits or interactions that do grant stealth rarely do much more, all the other nice effects are not tied to them, they are tied to stealth itself. thief can have pretty much half their traits selected be based on stealth or indirectly on stealth attacks. so restricting stealth would restrict the access to all the sustain, utility, damage that is tied to it by traits.

that is to say a thief like class with only light stealth usage could be a possibility, but it would require serious reworks the like we have not yet seen in the game and at this point i am not sure if we can expect that at all.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

100% in stealth seems a bit of a stretch.

Many players don't have their head on a swivel, and I find that a few seconds of stealth is enough to confuse them, the rest is just standing still behind something.

If you have minions or pets or summons, the moment the thief is unstealthed, they will run towards them.

Nah man, he's talking about that godly meta thief build that wins matches by remaining in stealth 100% of the time that never attacks anything.

Obviously dude, come on.

Edited July 16 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sweetbread.3678]

Stealth pretty much just needs it's current pvp/wvw durations cut in half at this point. Too many defensive procs are attached to it to just outright remove it or increase revealed duration (Revealed applying abilities being a dumb and randomly applied rock/paper/scissors band-aid fix in the first place). It'd still be an incredibly strong as a playmaking burst/disengage/misdirection tool, but at least there would actually be a skill component to using it instead of the entire burden being placed on the defending party like it is atm. None of this kitten where a thief/ranger can just stealth and leisurely wait out an entire defensive rotation or everyone has to mentally calculate the football field+ sized area a thief could potentially superspeed/teleport within while invisible.

I think it's funny, because with how forgiving and lacking in counterplay Stealth is in this game, you actually have to play the least stealthy on classes that can abuse it. If I'm on my Ele I have to actively avoid sightlines and misdirect other players if I'm trying to effectively rotate; if I'm on my Thief I just spam leap into a wall, roll my eyes, and then run in a straight line directly from A to B without a care in the world. It's kittening dumb.

[Sahne.6950]

We seriously have to stop the "omg, pls nerf stealth threads".

Dont we learn?

Like... everytime this comes up.... they are nerfing counters to stealth.

We should ask for buffs to thief.    maybe this works.....  idk...

[jdawgie.1835]

10 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

There is no 100% stealth.

NONE, zero. 

That's a non-issue.

I will restate, most will just use a few seconds of stealth, then move out of your line of sight, and in most cases with most players that have deer vision, it is simply standing unstealthed behind them.

I don't know if Anet can patch a player's lack of awareness.

Stealth is not going anywhere, and there is a thing called revealed that happens once the thief uses any attack, even it it only hits for 1hp.

Stealth does not prevent damage, and it makes the thief make a choice, attack or leave.

If the attack happens reveal is a 4 second cant stealth period where they cannot attack again from stealth (NO STEALTH FOR 4 secs, and 6 or more for player reveals).

 

There are already "grace periods" and "costs" to stealth.

Rereading your OP makes me believe you don't know how stealth works in the game.

This is amazing (in a genuine and non-sarcastic way) this made me laugh out loud. Especially:

11 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

There is no 100% stealth.

NONE, zero. 

That's a non-issue.

So true - God bless the forums. 😂

[Malus.2184]

12 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

There is no 100% stealth.

NONE, zero. 

That's a non-issue.

I will restate, most will just use a few seconds of stealth, then move out of your line of sight, and in most cases with most players that have deer vision, it is simply standing unstealthed behind them.

I don't know if Anet can patch a player's lack of awareness.

Stealth is not going anywhere, and there is a thing called revealed that happens once the thief uses any attack, even it it only hits for 1hp.

Stealth does not prevent damage, and it makes the thief make a choice, attack or leave.

If the attack happens reveal is a 4 second cant stealth period where they cannot attack again from stealth (NO STEALTH FOR 4 secs, and 6 or more for player reveals).

 

There are already "grace periods" and "costs" to stealth.

Rereading your OP makes me believe you don't know how stealth works in the game.

17k Health, Unable to attack the player who attacked me from full to down. That they probably got lucky with their crits has nothing to do with it. It happened twice. That's 100% Stealth no matter the circumstance.

Revealed as a counterplay? Now I know that it's stupidity talking. If it was a counterplay then more Professions would have it base. Basically, everyone would have it on a Utility Skill.

Even in the average case how would awareness help? If the stealth user can deal 50% damage to a player with 20k then it's 10k. Thieves with Berserker have around 14k health. 14k health vs 10k health should end with a victory for the 14k health if the damage on both sides is balanced.

As for the Stealth, this is how it works to get around the self-reveal. Only attack when it's about to run out, the target is still in combat while they're stealthed. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that Stealth users have to attack immediately. A good stealth user will only attack just when the stealth is about to run out so they can stealth immediately after since the "revealed" they get starts ticking from when Stealth is applied rather than when the Stealth ends. If it was applied when the Stealth ends then Stealth would be a lot more balanced.

As for Stealthed people still being susceptible to damage that was the reason I said it was useless in (WvW) Zergs because of the indiscriminate AoE easily fragging the Thief as they have no other defences In PvP it's immeasurably OP since there's no such thing. As for being still targetable, that requires that you attack the darkness, which is rather easy if the target has little idea what to do since they'll attack from a given direction. People who know what to do will never make such a mistake unless they have no other option. You can cover a lot of ground in 4-seconds, especially if you have Swiftness.

Something being simultaneously OP and UP is bad design. Something being immeasurably better whether handled by someone new or someone experienced is also bad design, it's good design if it's simply just better. Something being countered by a playstyle that's easily countered by other people is also bad design. That's three strikes in the "bad design" for Stealth in this game.

[Sahne.6950]

33 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

the "revealed" they get starts ticking from when Stealth is applied rather than when the Stealth ends. If it was applied when the Stealth ends then Stealth would be a lot more balanced.

uhm..... bro.....   Thats is NOT how it works XDDDD

 

Thats the mechanic. 

you deal damage while you are stealthed -> you are revealed for 4 seconds. 

This has nothing to do with "when the stealth was applied" or "how long he was stealthed"   You hit someone out of stealth, you are reveald for 4 seconds.    Thats the rule.

 

But how can they deal damage to me then, and immediately restealth?!!?? 😵

What you can do is use Heartseeker (dagger2) right as the stealth is about to run out.  You hit your target with the 2 right after the stealth ran out, but the leapfinisher is applied AFTER the hit.  So you hit your target and gain back stealth immediately.

This is probably what you are experiencing.  

 

Also Wvw.... yeah stealth is rly underpowered in Zergplay....   Thats why no blob has ever done a stealthpush. /s

Edited July 17 by Sahne.6950

[Terrorhuz.4695]

13 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

100% in stealth seems a bit of a stretch.

A core thief can do that with something like 5 minutes of practice and Shadow Arts.
Cast pistol5, dagger2.
Wait 2.5s, cast dagger2 again.
You'll leave stealth for 0.1s (SA refunds initiative on stealth leave; that's 2 ini), then immediately enter stealth again (and proc SA again, 1 more initiative). Boom, 99.9% stealth uptime without wasting a single cooldown nor actual initiative.

From there you can build up with stealth from healing skills/utilities/using daredevil dodges instead of ini-costly backstabs (and those leaps are also uninterruptible)
You're welcome.

Edited July 17 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Sahne.6950]

1 minute ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

A thief can do that by themselves without needing a buddy. Pistol5, dagger2.
Wait 2.5s, cast dagger2 again.
You'll leave stealth for 0.1s (just enough to trigger the SA trait to refund initiative), then immediately enter stealth again. Boom, 99.9% stealth uptime without wasting a single cooldown nor actual initiative, since proccing the SA trait twice will refund it entirely. You're welcome.

^This

Now you add unseen invasion relic ontop... and etvoila. 

Neuron activation.🐒

[Terrorhuz.4695]

1 minute ago, Sahne.6950 said:

^This

Now you add unseen invasion relic ontop... and etvoila. 

Neuron activation.🐒

And the SA trait for 0.75s superspeed once you enter stealth, and the cleanse, and the PBAoE blind on enter stealth from the trait (on top of the PBAoE blind from black powder, and the ranged blind -always from black powder). 

[Sahne.6950]

5 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

And the SA trait for 0.75s superspeed once you enter stealth, and the cleanse, and the PBAoE blind on enter stealth from the trait (on top of the PBAoE blind from black powder, and the ranged blind -always from black powder). 

aczchuallyyyy    The "poison on stealth trait" is boosting your sustain wayy to much to not take it.  

"blind on stealth" trait you only take on DE, cuz then your dodgeroll blinds.. which is hella bonkers.

 

anyways... few more comments on this Thread and they nerf revealed skills once again..

Edited July 17 by Sahne.6950

[Terrorhuz.4695]

I'm not trying to say thief is OP or whatever, but d\p thieves can and do maintain 100% stealth uptime while also preserving all of their cooldowns and be back at 100% ini once they performed their rotation.

[Malus.2184]

21 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

balance always should take into account all that players can build for, so over the years thieves have been pushed to use stealth more and more because they have it and are balanced around (ab)using it.

That has no effect on the mechanics of stealth being blatantly overpowered in itself. It's so overpowered that there's an item in WvW that completely shuts it off, meaning., that Stealth is even more overpowered unless you have it in which case it's utterly useless. There's no in-between. Binary outcomes for anything will always be bad for any game as the outcome will be that it's either OP or UP and there's no middle ground. You have exactly that with stealth where it's OP solo and UP in a large group.

[Malus.2184]

9 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

What you can do is use Heartseeker (dagger2) right as the stealth is about to run out.  You hit your target with the 2 right after the stealth ran out, but the leapfinisher is applied AFTER the hit.  So you hit your target and gain back stealth immediately.

This is probably what you are experiencing.  

 

Also Wvw.... yeah stealth is rly underpowered in Zergplay....   Thats why no blob has ever done a stealthpush. /s

That makes it okay that it is possible that since you have to time it really well? 

With the last sentence I know you're pushing an agenda as it has all context removed. Removing the context is lying by omission and lying by omission is still lying. When a zerg uses a Veil Push it's to apply Stealth to everyone save for Thieves since there are no Thieves in a Zerg unless it's A) For the lulz. B) For an extremely specific purpose, like stealth stomps. C) In a PUG zerg, in which case I'm surprised it can even coordinate a Veil.

[shion.2084]

What stealth, port, invuln need is a debuf to damage for a period of time after leaving it.   Make it a strategic positioning choice, but at the cost of damage (condi or physical).   Teleport ganks from behind a wall where you can't view the opponent should not be a full damage hitting thing.    Repeatedly stealthing so that no counter attack is possible should come at the cost of not doing as much with each poke.   If you want to do more, you stay out of stealth longer... thus allowing for the chance of retaliation.

Edited July 17 by shion.2084

[bq pd.2148]

11 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

It's so overpowered that there's an item in WvW that completely shuts it off

no there is no such item.

13 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

meaning., that Stealth is even more overpowered unless you have it in which case it's utterly useless.

something does not get more powerful with the existence of a soft counter.

[Sahne.6950]

11 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

That makes it okay that it is possible that since you have to time it really well? 

With the last sentence I know you're pushing an agenda as it has all context removed. Removing the context is lying

Bro what? XD

[Malus.2184]

7 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Bro what? XD

Your last argument was technically correct. Something can only be technically correct if you remove the context from it.

[Malus.2184]

19 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

no there is no such item.

something does not get more powerful with the existence of a soft counter.

Target Painter gives Revelead. Revealed cancels Stealth. There is such a thing.

What does that even mean? All the counters to Stealth are hard counters that completely disable Stealth while it lasts.

[bq pd.2148]

43 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Target Painter gives Revelead. Revealed cancels Stealth. There is such a thing.

target painters apply the marked effect like sentries, they do not apply revealed.

now if you stealth for more than 2 seconds while marked, you get shortly revealed. but for most 1 vs X fights that i don't have to run from, it does not matter if i am marked or not as i wouldn't stay that long in stealth anyway. important is to frequently get into stealth to activate all the traits + get a stealth attack, which for the way i play axe, the stealth attack does like half of my total damage.
where it does make a difference is in thief vs thief, but usually there is still enough options left to kite the 30s and /laugh
 

43 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

What does that even mean? All the counters to Stealth are hard counters that completely disable Stealth while it lasts.

so what? the tricks still dont make stealth more overpowered in wvw than it is pvp.

now beyond semantics i don't expect much to come of this thread, you can even see that there is not much engagement with the points raised as the topic has come up very frequently and likely will continue to do so.

Edited July 18 by bq pd.2148

[senftube.6081]

On 7/17/2024 at 8:41 PM, Malus.2184 said:

That has no effect on the mechanics of stealth being blatantly overpowered in itself. It's so overpowered that there's an item in WvW that completely shuts it off, meaning., that Stealth is even more overpowered unless you have it in which case it's utterly useless. There's no in-between. Binary outcomes for anything will always be bad for any game as the outcome will be that it's either OP or UP and there's no middle ground. You have exactly that with stealth where it's OP solo and UP in a large group.

Bro there are builds which can perma reveal them like Spellbreaker, Holos and also rangers do have good chances to kill them easily. There are also sentries, watchtowers and some traps and target painters.  Problem is that 90% of the players are super bad in this game and can only play some meme builds and think with 1 build/class they can kill everything. Lazy players.