Detection Skills...

[bluberblasen.9684]

I know no one is reading this, and especially Anet is not but ...

Can we after 13 years finally get every class some decent detection skills ? Because there is no counter to stealth in this game - everyone would agree that stealth is op apart from teefs and some mesmers and rangers.

Ok Thank You !

 

 

[Jski.6180]

Well i suggest stop making stealth eat animations of skills when they hit an stealth target. If an stealth player is in aoe and they are hit then it should show up that they are being hit.

[Sonork.2916]

But the poor stealth spamming classes though...

[Sweetbread.3678]

It really is mind boggling that this hasn't been addressed after 12+ years of people pointing out how terrible it is. There must be some like deranged c-suite moratorium on giving stealth actual counterplay or something. 

[Isopod.4156]

My soulbeast with its six second reveal be cryin.

[Burnfall.9573]

On 7/18/2024 at 3:51 AM, bluberblasen.9684 said:

I know no one is reading this, and especially Anet is not but ...

Can we after 13 years finally get every class some decent detection skills ? Because there is no counter to stealth in this game - everyone would agree that stealth is op apart from teefs and some mesmers and rangers.

Ok Thank You !

 

 

 

Once again, take a look at a thread by a Thief Profession player addressed to Thief Profession Dev.: Karl to make Stealth Mechanic competitive and fair to the playerbase. 

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/A-Plea-to-Karl

By the way, through years, many in the Thief Profession Community, had written countless of threads, posts. Giving suggessions, providing feedbacks to make their Professions including Stealth Mechanic to be rework/removed to create a healty gaming experience for the playerbase. 

13 years later

I will continue to remind the playerbase and The Community over and over again; this game is made for us.

 

The difference between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2

-Guild Wars Cornerstone Embraced The Principal Of  Fair Competitive Sportsmanship Play - Promoting a Positive Gaming Sporting Culture Experience For The Playerbase-

(Stealth Mechanic was non-existent)

 

That is all!! 

 

Edited July 24 by Burnfall.9573

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

If you fight a player with a focus on condition-damage, you have to use cleanse-skills. When you fight an opponent that uses a lot of CC, you need to bring stun-breakers. And if you fight a stealth enemy, you need to bring detection skills.

Now the problem is not really the lack of those skills, rather than players refusing to 'waste' precious utility slots for those skills. Most players who complain about the detection options we have, would like to have a passive-trait that auto-reveals targets. But even such an option should come with a 'real' benefit, like an additional percentual damage-boost. Because a skill/trait that is only useful against stealth targets is considered a total waste.

I use those 'trash' skills in WvW actively. My favorite enemies are Thieves, because they are quite easy to read. If you manage to break them out of stealth quick enough, they usually run away like scared chickens. A single utility-skill is in most cases enough. The only thing that does not work with those skills is blindly mashing the buttons. It is a counter mechanic, which means you have to time its use.

Don't get me wrong, I do not mind getting more skills with reveal-ability. But as long as it is not just a bonus-effect on a meta-skill, we will not see an increased used of stealth-breakers. They have added more skills with that ability a few times in the past. Mostly non-meta skills. Dust catchers. 

Edited July 24 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

If you fight a player with a focus on condition-damage, you have to use cleanse-skills. When you fight an opponent that uses a lot of CC, you need to bring stun-breakers. And if you fight a stealth enemy, you need to bring detection skills.

Now the problem is not really the lack of those skills, rather than players refusing to 'waste' precious utility slots for those skills. Most players who complain about the detection options we have, would like to have a passive-trait that auto-reveals targets. But even such an option should come with a 'real' benefit, like an additional percentual damage-boost. Because a skill/trait that is only useful against stealth targets is considered a total waste.

I use those 'trash' skills in WvW actively. My favorite enemies are Thieves, because they are quite easy to read. If you manage to break them out of stealth quick enough, they usually run away like scared chickens. A single utility-skill is in most cases enough. The only thing that does not work with those skills is blindly mashing the buttons. It is a counter mechanic, which means you have to time its use.

Don't get me wrong, I do not mind getting more skills with reveal-ability. But as long as it is not just a bonus-effect on a meta-skill, we will not see an increased used of stealth-breakers. They have added more skills with that ability a few times in the past. Mostly non-meta skills. Dust catchers. 

It's not quite the same thing. Anyone can spec to counter CC using stunbreakers and stab with several options available. Many often do other things, so you are not just slotting a counter but something else useful too. OVER HALF of the especs in the game do not have a viable access to even a single reveal ability. There are nearly 100 stunbreak skills that players can choose to slot and over 50 for stab (some that do both). Less than 15 skills for revealed.

I'd be perfectly happy if every spec has at least the option to pick between 2-4 existing, viable skills that can apply revealed, which may include core skills.

Edited July 24 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Sonork.2916]

Because stealth it so abusable as it stands, every core class should have at least 1 reveal skill.  imo. 

[bq pd.2148]

On 7/24/2024 at 11:48 PM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It's not quite the same thing. Anyone can spec to counter CC using stunbreakers and stab with several options available. Many often do other things, so you are not just slotting a counter but something else useful too. OVER HALF of the especs in the game do not have a viable access to even a single reveal ability. There are nearly 100 stunbreak skills that players can choose to slot and over 50 for stab (some that do both). Less than 15 skills for revealed.

I'd be perfectly happy if every spec has at least the option to pick between 2-4 existing, viable skills that can apply revealed, which may include core skills.

i don't think stunbreak/stab is the right thing to compare here.

CC is an effect on you and so you will need counters to free yourself from that, to follow your game plan.  -> reveal is much more like a CC and yet the only option to remove reveal was removed from competitive modes.

stealth is an effect on the opponent and you want an ability to nullify it.  the more apt comparison would be boon rips, which also are not available to everyone enough that one can build to counter opponents that are drowning in boons.

now if instead of reveal we had an effect like 'true sight', that lets you see a stealthed opponent without denying them their stealth (and thus also not revealing them to your allies) , then a comparison with stunbreaks/stab would be more apt.

Edited August 1 by bq pd.2148

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

i don't think stunbreak/stab is the right thing to compare here.

CC is an effect on you and so you will need counters to free yourself from that, to follow your game plan.  -> reveal is much more like a CC and yet the only option to remove reveal was removed from competitive modes.

stealth is an effect on the opponent and you want an ability to nullify it.  the more apt comparison would be boon rips, which also are not available to everyone enough that one can build to counter opponents that are drowning in boons.

now if instead of reveal we had an effect like 'true sight', that lets you see a stealthed opponent without denying them their stealth (and thus also not revealing them to your allies) , then a comparison with stunbreaks/stab would be more apt.

The hiding/stealth versus perception/revealing relationship is just as much a fantasy trope in RPGs as cc vs free movement. You're just splitting hairs on mechanics. Anet has already chosen how they want the mechanics to work, so that's what we have to work with. And so that's what we suggest.

If players are going to have access to a mechanic that gives them an advantage over other players in PVP, then there should be counter play abilities available to the players that have to face them. Anet has already chosen that counterplay, and it's called Revealed. It just has to be available to players who want to slot it.

[bq pd.2148]

21 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

 Anet has already chosen how they want the mechanics to work, so that's what we have to work with. And so that's what we suggest.

indeed by granting very limited access to reveal.

21 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

If players are going to have access to a mechanic that gives them an advantage over other players in PVP, then there should be counter play abilities available to the players that have to face them.

right but were is my boonrip when i play ele or guard for example? boons also give advantage over other players in pvp and there should be counter play abilities available to players that have to face them.

21 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Anet has already chosen that counterplay, and it's called Revealed. It just has to be available to players who want to slot it.

i am not against options to counteract stealth. merely pointing out that counters to effects on the enemy are usually more restricted than counters to mechanics affecting your character. 

therefor if we changed the way the counter to stealth works in the game, it might be more abundant. there are advantages and disadvantages for both the one using the counter as well as the one affected by it with either method:

• actions that affect the opponent can usually be avoided by them, but also profited from by any allies abound
• actions that affect oneself can not be avoided by the enemy, but allies might not be able to capitilize on this
• actions that affect the opponent will only affect them, ones that affect yourself can work against more opponents

but hey if you think asking for more reveal will get you actually useful reveal skills that you will slot, go ahead, ill be watching from stealth over here.

Edited August 1 by bq pd.2148

[Gaiawolf.8261]

39 minutes ago, bq pd.2148 said:

indeed by granting very limited access to reveal.

right but were is my boonrip when i play ele or guard for example? boons also give advantage over other players in pvp and there should be counter play abilities available to players that have to face them.

i am not against options to counteract stealth. merely pointing out that counters to effects on the enemy are usually more restricted than counters to mechanics affecting your character. 

therefor if we changed the way the counter to stealth works in the game, it might be more abundant. there are advantages and disadvantages for both the one using the counter as well as the one affected by it with either method:

• actions that affect the opponent can usually be avoided by them, but also profited from by any allies abound
• actions that affect oneself can not be avoided by the enemy, but allies might not be able to capitilize on this
• actions that affect the opponent will only affect them, ones that affect yourself can work against more opponents

but hey if you think asking for more reveal will get you actually useful reveal skills that you will slot, go ahead, ill be watching from stealth over here.

Boon rip should also be more widely accessible. Why do you think we complain when Anet keeps nerfing them?

Most applications of revealed do require you to hit the target. It's typically not a free action that they can't avoid. Edit: To be more clear about this, I'm fine with restrictions like this. Just as long as the restriction isn't "you can't make viable use of this counter mechanic because of the class you chose to play." There was a good reason they went away from the "only FB/druid/etc. can play support class dynamic."

Edited August 1 by Gaiawolf.8261

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

On 7/24/2024 at 11:48 PM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It's not quite the same thing. Anyone can spec to counter CC using stunbreakers and stab with several options available. Many often do other things, so you are not just slotting a counter but something else useful too. OVER HALF of the especs in the game do not have a viable access to even a single reveal ability. There are nearly 100 stunbreak skills that players can choose to slot and over 50 for stab (some that do both). Less than 15 skills for revealed.

I'd be perfectly happy if every spec has at least the option to pick between 2-4 existing, viable skills that can apply revealed, which may include core skills.

I used that example to show that there are mechanics and counter-mechanics and people have to put some effort into counters to succeed. You looked at the raw numbers of skills, which is obviously not equal for all mechanics and their counters, due to their accessibility. How many classes can successfully utilize stealth in combat? How many classes can access crowd-control? Not talking about an option to enter stealth once in a blue moon that is never used. Successfully utilize means, it is part of an actual build.We both know that only a few classes can do that. In addition, those classes are not stealth-only classes. Which means they can be played and are actively played not relying on stealth as well. And here you have your answer why there are so much less stealth-breakers than stun-breakers in the game. If everyone could use stealth as much as crowd control, an equal number of stealth-breakers would indeed make sense ;). 

[Gaiawolf.8261]

3 hours ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

I used that example to show that there are mechanics and counter-mechanics and people have to put some effort into counters to succeed. You looked at the raw numbers of skills, which is obviously not equal for all mechanics and their counters, due to their accessibility. How many classes can successfully utilize stealth in combat? How many classes can access crowd-control? Not talking about an option to enter stealth once in a blue moon that is never used. Successfully utilize means, it is part of an actual build.We both know that only a few classes can do that. In addition, those classes are not stealth-only classes. Which means they can be played and are actively played not relying on stealth as well. And here you have your answer why there are so much less stealth-breakers than stun-breakers in the game. If everyone could use stealth as much as crowd control, an equal number of stealth-breakers would indeed make sense ;). 

I'm not asking for an equal number. 20 something is much less than almost 100, well over 100 if you include stability skills that can also counter cc. I'm also not interested in playing a rock-paper-scissors game where certain classes are close to hard counters for other classes.

[Funky.4861]

It amuses me how people fixate on 'reveal' as the counter to stealth when the REAL COUNTER is aoe skills. Besides, not every class and spec has to hard-counter stealth because not every class has the same level of access to it.

If you're fighting a thief and they stealth they will do one of two things:

a) run away to reset and possibly re-engage

b) set up a backstab/deaths judgment etc.

What are your options? Hang around in the open like a moron or find some cover maybe? How about going on your merry way knowing that they might return and that your skills will also have come off cooldown? Just because you're fighting a thief and they stealth doesn't mean it's the end of the world or that you've automatically lost/you're going to die in a few secs- use your brain!

[Panda.1967]

On 7/31/2024 at 9:22 PM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Just as long as the restriction isn't "you can't make viable use of this counter mechanic because of the class you chose to play."

Well Mesmer, & Elementalist have zero access to Revealed… Ranger has only one skill that applies Revealed and it can’t even actually be used for that purpose “Sic ‘em!”. Guardian only has access to Revealed if using the Dragonhunter eSpec. Warrior’s only access to revealed if they are not a Spellbreaker is “On my mark!” which has the same problem as “Sic ‘em!”. And Thief only has self Revealed…

Seriously, who let not 1 but 2 skills get through QA with applying revealed and requiring a target… you cant target a stealthed enemy… so they don’t work for counterplay… instead they both have to be used preemptively to prevent stealth in the first place… not an effective counter by any stretch of the imagination… they only work to stop a thief from stealthing at low HP as a means to escape combat… that is not counterplay…

Edited August 2 by Panda.1967

[Gaiawolf.8261]

6 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Well Mesmer, & Elementalist have zero access to Revealed… Ranger has only one skill that applies Revealed and it can’t even actually be used for that purpose “Sic ‘em!”. Guardian only has access to Revealed if using the Dragonhunter eSpec. Warrior’s only access to revealed if they are not a Spellbreaker is “On my mark!” which has the same problem as “Sic ‘em!”. And Thief only has self Revealed…

Seriously, who let not 1 but 2 skills get through QA with applying revealed and requiring a target… you cant target a stealthed enemy… so they don’t work for counterplay… instead they both have to be used preemptively to prevent stealth in the first place… not an effective counter by any stretch of the imagination… they only work to stop a thief from stealthing at low HP as a means to escape combat… that is not counterplay…

It depends, and it's a varied dynamic. Stability is a preemptive tactic as well, while stun breaks and resistance can be reactive. They're just using revealed as a catch-all against stealth, which is fine because stealth is not as ubiquitous or diverse as CC.

I'm fine with revealed being used both preemptively or reactively depending on the skill, and having the skill balanced with those options. Having more options so players can pick their strategies is the first step. Of course having more options also means that existing options might need to be nerfed a bit, since they can fit into more builds with more use cases.

Edit: I agree that Sic'em should be used with or without a target. Pets should be smart enough to run in a direction and sniff out a target if none is given.

Edited August 2 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Asur.9178]

I'd rather they completely remove stealth from the game and rebalance skills and classes around that; but, I doubt the lazy balance team will be willing to do that since that requires quite a bit of work, especially on thief - and we all know how passionate (not) the balance team is when it comes to thief.

It's utterly stupid how a class's (thief) main defensive mechanics is shoehorned around stealth, making it a forced playstyle thanks to shadow arts and complete lack of other defensive options. So, even if thieves wanted to play without stealth, they can't feasibly be effective enough (they'd literally be handicapping themselves) because that's just how the balance team has balanced the class.

The above is not as much of an issue on something like mesmer or ranger since both of those has a plethora of other defensive options on top of frequent stealth access (spear adds even more for ranger - so, have fun with that). So, from a balance perspective, those are just loaded and bloated and not forced into that gameplay for effectiveness (instead, it merely adds to their effectiveness- a nice little bonus if you want to call it that).

Edited August 2 by Asur.9178

[Cuks.8241]

Stealth is just badly implemented in this game. It's spammy (at least on thief) and quite noninteractive. Revealed is also not the best counter. Well it's actually good as it is implemented as a prevention and thus it should be scarce. But like someone already mentioned, catching enemy in stealth with aoe should give clear feedback and it should also punish the player that got caught (especially with how spammy stealth can be).

I'm not even saying stealth is op or anything (it's just very very annoying if you are not good against it). I was bad against thieves so I played one spvp season with it (and really liked it btw). And got much better against them (or at least against more popular builds like d/p DD). Because I know what to expect from them and suddenly stealth becomes a non issue. But gw2 also has this "problem" (it's not really a problem it's generally strength but not in this case) that there are many builds that play very differently and they keep changing so to stay on top of it all you constantly need to refresh your knowledge (which can be hard if you don't play as much). It's not like wow where playing against rogue has it's core rules of engagement that never really change regardless of the build.

But yeah I'm not really a fan of invisibility in competitive games. Rarely such mechanics improve the game and I've played games where they just scrapped it at some point or restricted it immensely and no one really complained. 

[Panda.1967]

8 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It depends, and it's a varied dynamic. Stability is a preemptive tactic as well, while stun breaks and resistance can be reactive. They're just using revealed as a catch-all against stealth, which is fine because stealth is not as ubiquitous or diverse as CC.

I'm fine with revealed being used both preemptively or reactively depending on the skill, and having the skill balanced with those options. Having more options so players can pick their strategies is the first step. Of course having more options also means that existing options might need to be nerfed a bit, since they can fit into more builds with more use cases.

Edit: I agree that Sic'em should be used with or without a target. Pets should be smart enough to run in a direction and sniff out a target if none is given.

Different mechanics require either preemptive or reactive countermeasures. Stability is a preemptive measure against control effects, primarily forced movement. A reactive countermeasure against forced movement is not very effective as many of these effects can cause a lot of harm even if they only takes hold for a second, several of them can’t even be reacted to as they result in instantaneous movement.

Stealth on the otherhand is not effectively counterplayed with a preemptive counter since it is easy enough to just stealth again when revealed ends, and in most cases the revealed target has tools that can keep them alive for those 6 seconds. Revealing a stealthed target reactively, however, will disrupt their plans and can cause a split second lapse in judgement, this is an effective counterplay as it turns the tables allowing you to catch them offguard instead. Preemptive reveals are only good for securing a kill by preventing an easy escape, which a reactive reveal would still do a better job at.

 

Edit: I feel it needs to be pointed out that stealth in this game is not actually anywhere near as big of an issue as many people make it out to be either. Stealth only lasts for a few seconds (~3sec) at a time, and if a stealthed player breaks stealth they gain 6seconds of revealed. Meaning absolutely no one can stealth, run in hit with a stealth attack, stealth again and run away or repeat. They will always be visible for a minimum of 6 seconds. Chaining stealth skills back to back only works if they intend to run away. So while it is theoretically possible for someone to remain stealthed indefinitely, they would be a non-threat while doing so since any action that will directly harm or hamper another player will break stealth, and all indirect means of doing so are ineffective. Also the amount of effort and the skills needed to maintain perma stealth in this game would make it impossible to effectively utilize any indirect sources of damage while stealthed. Currently this is only actually possible as a Deadeye and costs all 3 Utility skills, your Elite skills, Healing skill, and requires use of Rifle to pull off without the aid of someone else providing you permanent Alacrity. With Alacrity you don't need to be deadeye freeing up your elite skill and weapon choice… its not practical by any means.

Edited August 2 by Panda.1967

[Kozumi.5816]

This game has the strongest stealth of any PvP game I've ever played, including DOTA2 which has a hero with perma stealth.

[Panda.1967]

3 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

This game has the strongest stealth of any PvP game I've ever played, including DOTA2 which has a hero with perma stealth.

I don’t know what game you are playing, but its clearly not GW2… this game has the weakest stealth of every PvP game out there.

[Sobx.1758]

On 8/1/2024 at 4:22 AM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Boon rip should also be more widely accessible. Why do you think we complain when Anet keeps nerfing them?

Most applications of revealed do require you to hit the target. It's typically not a free action that they can't avoid. Edit: To be more clear about this, I'm fine with restrictions like this. Just as long as the restriction isn't "you can't make viable use of this counter mechanic because of the class you chose to play." There was a good reason they went away from the "only FB/druid/etc. can play support class dynamic."

Does boon rip lock any profession out of their mechanic? No? Then it's not nearly the same.
Stealth could be better balanced "around itself", for example: no stacking in-combat (so you still potentially have that ambush opener fantasy) and automatically applied reveal after every time the player goes out of stealth (duration similar to the current one, except currently the player needs to deal damage while in stealth to have the reveal effect applied). What that does: harder to reset fights through stealth stacking the moment something goes wrong and clearer opportunity windows where the stealth user can at most weave in and out of stealth every few seconds for a few seconds. Because of the forced reveal, there's no cheesing the mechanic by applying stealth right when it ends either.

[Panda.1967]

26 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Stealth could be better balanced "around itself", for example: no stacking in-combat (so you still potentially have that ambush opener fantasy) and automatically applied reveal after every time the player goes out of stealth (duration similar to the current one, except currently the player needs to deal damage while in stealth to have the reveal effect applied). What that does: harder to reset fights through stealth stacking the moment something goes wrong and clearer opportunity windows where the stealth user can at most weave in and out of stealth every few seconds for a few seconds. Because of the forced reveal, there's no cheesing the mechanic by applying stealth right when it ends either.

I actually think this is a perfect solution… it doesn’t make stealth any weaker than it already is, and it addresses the actual problem people have with stealth… stealth has never actually been strong in this game, people are just adept at cheesing it to annoy others. Auto applying reveal anytime stealth ends in combat not just when damage is dealt and preventing it from stacking in combat solves that.

Edited August 3 by Panda.1967