[BUG] Can ANet please fix spells following the target through stealth, target breaks and portals?

[Bigbosos.2063]

The most obvious offenders of this behaviour are, for example: Ranger's rapid fire (longbow 2), Mesmer's confounding images (scepter 3) or iWarlocks' channelled attack, Necromancer's Ghastly Claws (axe 2). If they lock on before stealth or target break, they will keep on hitting the target unless outranged, interrupted or LoSsed.

The less obvious offenders are instead those skills such as Revenant's unrelenting assault (sword 3) or Ranger's smokescale smoke assault. These spells do not chase the target through stealth or target break, but can instead chase it if they take a portal, regardless of distance, making the attacker reappear along with it's target at the exit.

This leads to unexpected and weird situations as the attacker probably had no will to get teleported 5000 units away from where they were, as well as creating unfair advantages for 1 of the two parties involved (for example a mesmer could abuse this to remove a revenant or a soulbeast from a teamfight and force them in a completely different part of the map or, differently, trivialize the usage of portal in this specific situation as an escape tool).

If this is intended behaviour, it makes no sense. If it's not intended, please fix.

(can someone tag ANet?)

[DarkHamster.7908]

I agree on the stealth point, although the issue on unrelenting assault and portal sounds like something intended to me. I see it as something positive to have a counter to a portal - just like many other sustain/escape skills that have counters: elixir S vs condi, shroud vs moa, renewed focus vs stunlock, etc...

[Bigbosos.2063]

@DarkHamster.7908 said:I agree on the stealth point, although the issue on unrelenting assault and portal sounds like something intended to me. I see it as something positive to have a counter to a portal - just like many other sustain/escape skills that have counters: elixir S vs condi, shroud vs moa, renewed focus vs stunlock, etc...

But you're seeing this only from the defender point of view. Maybe the attacker has absolutely no intention to chase the mesmer through the portal. Imagine this: revenant uses unrelenting assault on a mesmer during a teamfight. The mesmer knows they can take 1v1 vs revenant, or even just wants to troll. Opens portal, ports through it, kills the revenant and goes back to where he wanted to go. Or even, takes the portal, brings the revenant with him, ports back where they were 1 second before, leaving the other somewhere else.

You see how this can be abused both ways?

[DarkHamster.7908]

@Bigbosos.2063 said:

@DarkHamster.7908 said:I agree on the stealth point, although the issue on unrelenting assault and portal sounds like something intended to me. I see it as something positive to have a counter to a portal - just like many other sustain/escape skills that have counters: elixir S vs condi, shroud vs moa, renewed focus vs stunlock, etc...

But you're seeing this only from the defender point of view. Maybe the attacker has absolutely no intention to chase the mesmer through the portal. Imagine this: revenant uses unrelenting assault on a mesmer during a teamfight. The mesmer knows they can take 1v1 vs revenant, or even just wants to troll. Opens portal, ports through it, kills the revenant and goes back to where he wanted to go. Or even, takes the portal, brings the revenant with him, ports back where they were 1 second before, leaving the other somewhere else.

You see how this can be abused both ways?

Fair point. (personally) I don't see anything wrong with that if anyone wants to use portal in that way given the long CD of portal (which makes it better suited for other purposes) and how hard it is timing-wise to actually react to unrelenting assault in that way.

[Bigbosos.2063]

Fair point. (personally) I don't see anything wrong with that if anyone wants to use portal in that way given the long CD of portal (which makes it better suited for other purposes) and how hard it is timing-wise to actually react to unrelenting assault in that way.

Well yeah, it's not a common situation, still annoying nonetheless when it happens.

[Noz.4650]

This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters. If you use your stealth cooldowns to avoid a rapid fire, you messed up. Try moving better around points to have more cover if needed.

The mesmer portal/unrelenting assault interaction should stay too. It almost never happens in practice and can often be a trade off anyways.

[Bigbosos.2063]

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters.

Both stealth and target break are exactly made to prevent the enemy from attacking you. It makes absolutely zero sense that if someone breaks target channelled skills keep hitting them because they locked before target break.

[pah.4931]

@Bigbosos.2063 said:

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters.

Both stealth and target break are exactly made to prevent the enemy from attacking you. It makes absolutely zero sense that if someone breaks target channelled skills keep hitting them because they locked before target break.

Stealth is really, really lame in GW2 (one of the worst implementations of it in all MMOs). So I am going to say ... working as intended.

[Bigbosos.2063]

Stealth is really, really lame in GW2 (one of the worst implementations of it in all MMOs). So I am going to say ... working as intended.

Of all the mechanics that GW2 implements, I feel stealth is one of the less obnoxious ones tbh. Why do you think it is lame?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

It's not a bug, attacks like Rapid Fire will continue to follow the target if it is cast before the stealth is applied. If this effect was removed, UBER stealth builds would be unbelievably god awful over-powered.

[pah.4931]

@"Bigbosos.2063" said:

Stealth is really, really lame in GW2 (one of the worst implementations of it in all MMOs). So I am going to say ... working as intended.

Of all the mechanics that GW2 implements, I feel stealth is one of the less obnoxious ones tbh. Why do you think it is lame?

There is no trade-off involved (or risk). And "reveal" is really wonky and limited. Meaning, there's very little counter-play. No counter-play isn't fun.

My absolutely favorite implementation of stealth is in Archeage (though it wouldn't work at all in GW2). It breaks on damage and when attacking or using a skill. It lasts 45s then has to be cast again (and there is a sound cue and a puff of white smoke... so opponents do have warning as to where you are). You're movement speed is reduced. If you are "too close" to an opponent, the can spot and target you (like WoW). Again, designed for open world pvp and not small-scale arenas, but it's nice.

In GW2, you just pop stealth. Target is dropped, you can move the same, damage won't break it (who care's about all those dots?), they can still use abilities (non-damage) that won't break stealth. The advantage is ALL on the stealther. The opponent can't really counterplay. Add the fact that engaging from stealth can be incredibly strong and almost impossible to avoid... you have some stupid mechanics.

In fact. It's not even stealth. It's invisibility... which doesn't fit the thief "flavor" ... they aren't sneaking, they are magically disappearing (nuanced difference, but still!). And on classes like mesmer, which are already often times OP as hell, it's just obnoxious.

[Noz.4650]

@Bigbosos.2063 said:

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters.

Both stealth and target break are exactly made to prevent the enemy from attacking you. It makes absolutely zero sense that if someone breaks target channelled skills keep hitting them because they locked before target break.

It's likely an unintended result of the combat system they decided to keep in because GW2 stealth is quite strong. Remember for a few years reveal didn't even exist, some counters had to be kept in. Even now reveals aren't super common so it's not like everyone is running hard counters, stealth is still a very strong tool to any class. Again, with good movement/LoS and cooldown management, rapid fires shouldn't be killing you very often anyways.

[NuhDah.9812]

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters. If you use your stealth cooldowns to avoid a rapid fire, you messed up. Try moving better around points to have more cover if needed.

The mesmer portal/unrelenting assault interaction should stay too. It almost never happens in practice and can often be a trade off anyways.

Stealth has counters in the name of revealing abilities as well as all the aoe spam that exists in the game, circles, circles and some more circles everywhere, anywhere. Stealth actually isn't making you immune to any kind of dmg so even aiming to the right spot or predicting enemy movement is a way to take care of it. That being said, perma stealth shouldn't exist in the game and it's amazing they added the stealth creep (as in the 1 shot kill deadeye) back to the game after removing that shit from the condi ghost trapper thief. But anyways, channeled abilities shouldn't follow anyone in stealth as long the person in stealth is not actually aimed at. It's counter intuitive, annoying and unfair for professions who only have stealth as a reliable defense when playing against classes that can abuse 1-100% channel abilities and also have effective defenses against being 1-100% themselves. Abilities that track you from far away without any player input are no skill high reward by themselves even without tracking people in stealth.

Anyways, normal stealth in this game is nowhere near that overpowered thing lots of people whine about, and if it wasn't abused by some gimmick builds that used it to perma stealth or have it on top of another 1000 ways of defending themselves at the same time (like mirage), the amount of cry about it would be way lower.

[megilandil.7506]

@Bigbosos.2063 said:

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters.

Both stealth and target break are exactly made to prevent the enemy from attacking you. It makes absolutely zero sense that if someone breaks target channelled skills keep hitting them because they locked before target break.

no , stealth is to prevent being targeted, not to prevent being ataked, stealth is not and interrrup

[Noz.4650]

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@"eksn.7264" said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs

some

counters. If you use your stealth cooldowns to avoid a rapid fire, you messed up. Try moving better around points to have more cover if needed.

The mesmer portal/unrelenting assault interaction should stay too. It almost never happens in practice and can often be a trade off anyways.

Stealth has counters in the name of revealing abilities as well as all the aoe spam that exists in the game, circles, circles and some more circles everywhere, anywhere. Stealth actually isn't making you immune to any kind of dmg so even aiming to the right spot or predicting enemy movement is a way to take care of it. That being said, perma stealth shouldn't exist in the game and it's amazing they added the stealth creep (as in the 1 shot kill deadeye) back to the game after removing that kitten from the condi ghost trapper thief. But anyways, channeled abilities shouldn't follow anyone in stealth as long the person in stealth is not actually aimed at. It's counter intuitive, annoying and unfair for professions who only have stealth as a reliable defense when playing against classes that can abuse 1-100% channel abilities and also have effective defenses against being 1-100% themselves. Abilities that track you from far away without any player input are no skill high reward by themselves even without tracking people in stealth.

Anyways, normal stealth in this game is nowhere near that overpowered thing lots of people whine about, and if it wasn't abused by some gimmick builds that used it to perma stealth or have it on top of another 1000 ways of defending themselves at the same time (like mirage), the amount of cry about it would be way lower.

I agree that it is counter intuitive, but I still don't think it's an issue. I don't know why people keep exaggerating about perma stealth either, it's not a thing. Again, reveals aren't very common and if you stand in AoE without an escape plan as a stealth-oriented class, you went too all in and that's on you. Regardless, no class "only has stealth as a reliable defense". The 2 most stealth heavy classes in thief and mesmer have more reliable ways to negate pressure than stealthing. Good positioning on the map and around points is a universal way to minimize pressure on you and is one of the reasons why thief and mesmer (traditionally) have a very high skill ceiling. You get punished for bad positioning more than other classes.

[NuhDah.9812]

@eksn.7264 said:

@NuhDah.9812 said:

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs

some

counters. If you use your stealth cooldowns to avoid a rapid fire, you messed up. Try moving better around points to have more cover if needed.

The mesmer portal/unrelenting assault interaction should stay too. It almost never happens in practice and can often be a trade off anyways.

Stealth has counters in the name of revealing abilities as well as all the aoe spam that exists in the game, circles, circles and some more circles everywhere, anywhere. Stealth actually isn't making you immune to any kind of dmg so even aiming to the right spot or predicting enemy movement is a way to take care of it. That being said, perma stealth shouldn't exist in the game and it's amazing they added the stealth creep (as in the 1 shot kill deadeye) back to the game after removing that kitten from the condi ghost trapper thief. But anyways, channeled abilities shouldn't follow anyone in stealth as long the person in stealth is not actually aimed at. It's counter intuitive, annoying and unfair for professions who only have stealth as a reliable defense when playing against classes that can abuse 1-100% channel abilities and also have effective defenses against being 1-100% themselves. Abilities that track you from far away without any player input are no skill high reward by themselves even without tracking people in stealth.

Anyways, normal stealth in this game is nowhere near that overpowered thing lots of people whine about, and if it wasn't abused by some gimmick builds that used it to perma stealth or have it on top of another 1000 ways of defending themselves at the same time (like mirage), the amount of cry about it would be way lower.

I agree that it is counter intuitive, but I still don't think it's an issue. I don't know why people keep exaggerating about perma stealth either, it's not a thing. Again, reveals aren't very common and if you stand in AoE without an escape plan as a stealth-oriented class, you went too all in and that's on you. Regardless, no class "only has stealth as a reliable defense". The 2 most stealth heavy classes in thief and mesmer have more reliable ways to negate pressure than stealthing. Good positioning on the map and around points is a universal way to minimize pressure on you and is one of the reasons why thief and mesmer (traditionally) have a very high skill ceiling. You get punished for bad positioning more than other classes.

Positioning is something that works more for ranged classes. You can call mesmer if you want a class with ranged capabilities, but for thief (excluding DE) you need to get into melee range regardless of your positioning. S/D has no stealth and it's meta right now for the same reason. Stealth is weaker if you need to go in melee and it's your only reliable defense when it comes to a contest of evades compared to lots other professions have more evades than the stealth thief specs even with a lot of passive and active invulns and blocks and vigor uptime (and I'm not exaggerating here).

That being said I'll give you some examples from my experience to show you how stupid tracking someone in steath with channeled abilities is. D/P thief, every one praises / loathes it for it's high escape potential:

Had some battles near one of the camps but there was a bit of too much enemy around so I decided to not stick around.So I ran away from there outside 1200 distance from a ele (probably fresh air weaver) which was following me while spamming their auto, a beam that was connecting to me even if it wasn't in range and wasn't dealing dmg. Since the angle the ele was taking would eventually make me be in range I decided to stealth up for safety and also to break target on me, but apparently even though I entered stealth when the ele was out of range the beam was steal connected to me and a fraction of a second later along with the connecting beam that killed me. So the ele bursted me coming from out of range just by connecting that beam to me and entering range after I was in stealth.

Another, more of a classic one, these days I run around in wvw meet a soulbeast, it's funny how besides staying out of their range approaching them in any way is suicidal as a D/P thief. Range 1500+++ (cause there were some videos done on this subject showing the 1500 range of ranger lb is going way beyond 1500 units) check; pet that follows you even beyond that, deals significant amount of dmg and cc - ckeck; mobility - well I ported, got out of LoS dashed he was able to keep up with me no problem - so checked. 100%-0 with the press of a button - check; passive invulnerability that prevents them to be 100-0ed - check; more evades then I get by switching to melee weapon, merging with smokeskale, vigor uptime etc. - check. The cooldown on the rapid fire was faster then the time I recover an evade probably due to the quickness uptime this spec has, not to mention I need to dodge point blank shot too and stealth is not helping me even do the laughable "best thing" I was made for -> escaping.

So tell me how scenarios like these make any sense and make tracking someone in stealth ok.

P.S. in my previous post I forgot to mention one other stealth counter that is very much used these days which is the whole mighty popular condition dmg. Even though revealed might be something that is not used that much, people prefer to cry about stealth instead of specing for revealed, but even so I feel like I've mentioned more then enough "counters" to stealth to clarify why this tracking in stealth thing shouldn't exist in the game.

The devs were able to do everyone a "favor" when "fixing" the leap lengths so they can't be controlled by camera positioning cause "it wasn't intuitive", I guess "fixing" a counter intuitive mechanic like this shouldn't be an issue for them.

[NuhDah.9812]

@megilandil.7506 said:

@Bigbosos.2063 said:

@eksn.7264 said:This is a feature, not a bug. Stealth needs some counters.

Both stealth and target break are exactly made to prevent the enemy from attacking you. It makes absolutely zero sense that if someone breaks target channelled skills keep hitting them because they locked before target break.

no , stealth is to prevent being targeted, not to prevent being ataked, stealth is not and interrrup

True, stealth isn't and wouldn't prevent you of attaking either interrupting you with or without the fix. It would just make player targeting channeled abilities to stop tracking someone after entering stealth as they should work.

[Ithilwen.1529]

It works the same with ranger and thief burst. If they fire before the stealth/target break it still tracks. Removing that would be a nerf to ranger and deadeye. That being said, I find it annoying too. The trick is to act early.

[NuhDah.9812]

It would be a slight nerf to rangers when they come against specs that use stealth indeed, but let's be honest it's not like a well played ranger doesn't have the tools to compensate for that. It just makes the match up less one sided, with potential of escape if it comes down to it. As for deadeye, if I understand correctly they are still working at it now so I guess it's not too late to take a change like this into consideration for updates, also while it might be a nerf to deadeye firepower when they play against stuff that uses stealth it would also be a buff for their defenses since DE itself is a heavy stealth user, I guess it is balancing out itself in a way.

[Vague Memory.2817]

This crept in at some stage, I remember when stealth seemed to act as a target breaker. Now if someone queues skills with you targeted they will hit you with every single one despite you being stealthed or teleporting.