Super clunky rifle stealth

[Vavume.8065]

Not talking about the stealth on dodge, I'm talking about the press 5, press 4, press 5, press 4 leap through smoke screen that you can now do on rifle, I guess we should be grateful for at least having the option but man that is some clunky .....

[Specialka.7290]

You do not need to spin 180 to gain stealth from smoke wall. Still a bit clunky tough.

[DemonSeed.3528]

Yeah, I've tried to make that combo work in fights [wvw] but no go, it's death lol. I have to make sure I am already 1200 range at minimum before I think about doing this, and only as a means of last resort gap creator. I would have more uses if everyone around me was more distracted, but yeah, not gonna risk kneeling around all that aoe madness. It's too slow for use in fights imho, and it's not something you want to execute when a mesmer is upon you ready to unleash their combo (this is assuming your weapon swap on cooldown and you are left on rifle with no other means of creating gap). In pve I imagine this would see even less usage, although the smoke screen I would probably use now and then. It's the fact you have to do several unreliable button presses to do what should really be a 2 step action. Cast time is also a factor in each step. Currently de's are mostly free kills when I see them. I am not sure if this is because of the new mechanic, or the fact they have less condi clear as before, output less dmg/pressure (rifle de's), but I've more or less settled (for the moment) on a rambo build which I call Long Range pp deadeye (yeah, don't say it out loud or even in your head, sounds weird). The reason I call it long range pp is cos of quickness and spamming 3 on my rifle feels like pp machine gun at range. M7 just keeps refilling my ini and if I run out I just roll for initiative and by that time mark is back up anyway. All the kneeling awkwardness has me just totally ignoring that function on my rifle. I do want to use silent scope, but I get stuck far too often between each singular dodge trying to get up and reset it so it's premeditation mostly for now.

[BobbyT.7192]

I though it was pretty cool that rifle has a self stealth mechanic, but it’s very finicky. Especially if you play at the full 1500 range. 5, 4, 5, 4 walk up to get back into range, than 1You can turn your camera, but you have to deselect your target before the second 4, then re-select.It take about 2-4 seconds to complete the combo. If your target hasn’t reacted to that in that time, then they might be legally brain dead.

[Lyros.4673]

As stated in other threads, it's literally just a pain to do it and is literally just there for arbitrary complexity for Death's Judgement. Here's why it's broken now, in summary.

-Stealthing/cloaking breaks as soon as any normal non condition damage is done in most cases. It's a core issue with stealth and is easily interrupted. This is the biggest reason why it's terrible at the moment but not the core issue with Deadeye.-Unlike Kneel before the patch, currently the dodge rolling when kneeling immediately activates stealth which causes any damage caused during said dodge roll to break it immediately* whereas Kneeling only activated stealth after the kneel animation was complete which made it easier to apply cursed bullet.
-Conflicts with skills like Shadow Orb and pretty much any other damage utility and any projectile mid-flight.

This is on top of cooldown of that stealth dodge roll (Shouldn't exist frankly considering it burns both endurance AND the internal cooldown), Rifle's total lack of access to stealth outside of utilities (kills any semblance of flexible playing) and is just a pain to play.

Rifle already had a stealth mechanic prior to this change. You kneeled. You stealthed. You could roll in stealth. And you could apply cursed bullet for it which was VERY useful. Now the rifle has nothing else going for it because stealth is such a short duration that if you were to activate Death's Judgement the stealth is 100% redundant.

Utterly terrible change, honestly.

[babazhook.6805]

The mechanic for kneel remains unchanged, so if you used DJ and TRB before nothing really changed. The Smoke Screen was an add so that really something we could not do before to get stealth. The skill is very awkward if one wants to use to get stealth due to duration of the field and the steps one needs to go through. Some of this might be just practice and muscle memory as was HS into Black powder for stealth stacking.

That said some solutions to make it smoother. When kneeling for the second part of the skill Auto place the field rather then leave it under the player control. I do not see a LOT of benefit in the player placing the field unless others can indicate why they would want that. If I need the field I usually face the player I want to use it against. If it autoplaced just in front of me it should be fine 9 times out of ten.

Alternatively we could get an added duration of 1 or 2 seconds to the field. This would give more time to place it and take advantage of it. As is with the nature of it now, I rarely manange to get a block or fire shots through it before it drops. I really do think there potential for this had as a DR that can also add stealth is VERY useful. In an SA build this can cleanse three conditions and set up your next attack and it can really confuse an enemy as to what happened to you. There then less pressure to use a dodge for that stealth.

BTW on placing the field if you stand immediately and DR you will stealth . Do this and you can DR twice and get stealth each time for 8 seconds total in an SA build. If quick enough for a bit of misdirection after the first DR turn slightly and you will relocate while stealthed to a place the enemy might not have anticipated.(I have since got 3 stacks of his off via DR , not recommended as this really burns INI) Another tip. If right up close to an enemy (yeah I know about AOE so this not a tactic you SEEK to use it an out) kneel , lay down the field and stand. Use DR you will get your shot off and the poison with damage that it does and still stealth at the end of the DR. If you are monitoring your Mali 7 this can push you to full mali 7 for the +7 ini even as you are burning the INI for the DR. Again it not something you seek to do, it just nice when it happens.

I DO miss cursed bullet.

[kash.9213]

I could be okay with this sequence if Deaths Retreat bounced back depending on the direction your facing instead of having to deselect target to have control over it. Even targeting a wall or something on accident will send you who knows where and how low or high if you had something targeted.

[bq pd.2148]

@babazhook.6805 said:BTW on placing the field if you stand immediately and DR you will stealth . Do this and you can DR twice and get stealth each time for 8 seconds total in an SA build.meld with shadows does not work with combos. therefor it is only 6 seconds with and without SA.

[Kallist.5917]

It works fine if your actively using the Smoke wall anyway. Ive been using it more and more lately, and have been using the stealth as a way to break aggro and port to people for rezing. On its own, if definitely falls short, but with other features of the class, it seems to really start to shine. While I dont like the loss of damage ive gotten, I will say I've noticed a fair bit more survivability in my Thief lately.

[babazhook.6805]

@MUDse.7623 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:BTW on placing the field if you stand immediately and DR you will stealth . Do this and you can DR twice and get stealth each time for 8 seconds total in an SA build.meld with shadows does not work with combos. therefor it is only 6 seconds with and without SA.

Hmm Ok not something I knew but than I rarely stacked stealth. I knew it was over 4 seconds and it FELT like 8.

[Madisonlee.9641]

Yeah most people don't realize Meld with shadows doesn't work for combos but they cry to high heaven about SA stealth lol; The cheese from SA isn't the stealth, it's Shadow's Rejuvenation that people are probably wanting to cry about (tho not really because no one really uses SA that much anymore do they?)

[bq pd.2148]

@Madisonlee.9641 said:Yeah most people don't realize Meld with shadows doesn't work for combos but they cry to high heaven about SA stealth lol; The cheese from SA isn't the stealth, it's Shadow's Rejuvenation that people are probably wanting to cry about (tho not really because no one really uses SA that much anymore do they?)

there is alot of misunderstanding that leads to hate against SA. i mean why would selfcrippling be considered cheesy now. while SA provides awesome sustain, this sustain you only have during stealth and as it happens you cannot inflict any pressure while stealthed. it doesnt help you to kill anyone, just helps escaping.in a thief vs thief fight IR is far more cheese then the full SA traitline. but as it is meta, its cool while SA is cheese for what ever reason. cheese never stopped people from playing it but there are still few SA thieves, so something is wrong about that.for me i use SA in WvW as i expect ounumbered fights mostly, when you fight outnumbered you can try to kite the ones you are not pressuring or you can stealth. with stealth you got a target break and every opponent needs a while to pressure you when you come out of stealth again. you cannot kite any profession, but you can targetbreak anyone. the sustain you gain from SA is little but it doesnt matter how many opponents you face , while acro will give alot better sustain against 1-2 opponents it doesnt scale as good as SA.if SA was a bonus you can pick or not without having to drop anything for it, then sure it would be cheesy - but the way it is now if you die to a SA thief you are doing something wrong ( unless oneshot backstab / Mbackstab).

as for rifle now it gives us the option to play us in a way that we can pop in and out frequently as the stealth on dodge can be used frequently and not interrupted. the combo however is kinda stupid, i dont even use snipers cover as i dont see a good use for it.maybe if it was instant ON the deadeye in the direction he is facing then it could be usefull. because the wall is rather small so people can shoot around it taking a few steps but if it is on the deadeye it will protect from any direction. but i still wouldnt use it for stealth-

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

To be honest, I'd be happier if they changed sniper's cover to either a radial projectile block, like rev hammer or DH virtue, or outright scrapped it for another damaging skill so I have more than 2 skills that build up malice. Rifle feels so spammy now it's silly.

That said, I run SA for the condi cleanse and stealth on mark. I was running acro S/D rifle deadeye until a little while after the auto change, it was fun and had good damage but the reason I lost was almost always I was being outsustained or I needed to stealth but couldn't. With the damage loss on auto (and DJ? it feels weaker these days) and malicious backstab being a thing, I can't find a reason to run it anymore.

Also, if you want it for stealth, run blinding powder. More stealth, and it'll cover you as you awkwardly unkneel and death's retreat.

[babazhook.6805]

@Madisonlee.9641 said:Yeah most people don't realize Meld with shadows doesn't work for combos but they cry to high heaven about SA stealth lol; The cheese from SA isn't the stealth, it's Shadow's Rejuvenation that people are probably wanting to cry about (tho not really because no one really uses SA that much anymore do they?)

I still use for Condi cleanse and the rending shade. I used to really like rending shade combined with Cursed Bullet.

It also used in Condition builds as the Rending shade helps tear away resistance and the multiple stealths get more sneak attacks off (I speak to p/d here) For a p/d build in conditions it the best defensive line as Acro does not do a lot. While I was in it for the Cursed/bullet RS combo in rifle prior I am not sure I will stick to it with revamp. You pretty well need some form of boon rip and with no more Cursed it down to staying in TR for BT or going SA for rending.