WvW perma stealth deadeye?

[Izuizu.2648]

Hello,I just got back to gw2 after a long break, and yesterday on my mesmer, I kept getting one shot by this thief using a rifle in wvw.I searched google and saw bunch of videos/builds on this "one shot perma stealth deadeye" thingy. I'm just wondering, how are they keeping perma stealth with just Hide in Shadows, Blinding powder and shadow trait. Isn't the max stealth stack only 5?Thanks

[bq pd.2148]

you can only stack 5 stealth effects that is true but you can keep on stacking to overwrite old stacks.you dont even need as much stuff in your build.so first of all if you play stealth build you will run silent scope, that is 3s or 4s(with SA) stealth. base endurance regen is 1 dodge per 10s. this can be buffed with endurance food +40% and vigor +50% (75% with acro but why would you run SA+acro) as well as sigil of energy or rune of the adventurer. so if you run SA +trickery(with bountiful theft) you can pertty much permastealth with just dodging.ontop we got combos with rifle+dagger our smoke + leap is better then with just d/p becuase snipers cover is a 5s smokefield that costs 4 ini compared to black powders 4s field for 6 ini. even without trickery i got enough ini to use snipers cover + 4x heartseeker wich results in 12s stealth for 16 ini. during 12s i regen exactly 16 ini with shadows rejuvenation. so just this combo is also basically 100% stealth uptime outfight. (bonus: you can hide snipers cover in walls or objects to not leave a visual tell)so we got 2 resources(ini and endurance) that can give us ~100% stealth uptime each.to that we got skills/traits for stealth:hidden thief = 3s stealth with 17,5-30s cd, blinding powder 3-7s stealth 32-40s cd, shadow refuge 15-20s stealth 48-60s cd, shadow gust 3-4s stealth on 30s cd, shadow trap 5-6s stealth on 36-45s cd , shadow meld with 3-4s stealth on 45s cooldown and hide in shadows with 3-4s stealth on 24-30s cooldown. (+merciful ambush 3s on 10s cd, but you dont allways have a rezzable corpse nearby)so yeah we got alot more stealth then we actually need for permastealth.

[babazhook.6805]

Other sources of stealth. DE

Hidden thief. On steal gain 4 seconds stealth. With DE the new steal allows you to remain in place and not port to the enemy so a DE can stealth with steal and use his weapon FROM stealth.

Shadowmeld. This the new elite . It stealths and removes reveal. It uses the ammo system giving two usages every 45 seconds.

Shadowgust. A new stealth Cantrip giving stealth with knockback. It can be used in conjunction wih other stelath utilities such as Shadow Refuge and Blinding powder.

Silent Scope. A new trait in DE line. When a rifle equipped one can gain stealth on dodge. This has a Cooldown but if one uses RIFLE #5 this cooldown can be reset. While DE loses the extra dodge that the DD has, two dodges into stealth is still 8 more seconds.

Rifle combo. Kneel and fire your rifle using the #4 skill. This is snipers cover setting up a smoke field in front of you. Stand immediately and #4 away with deaths retreat. This is a leap thus applying stealth due to the smoke field. It not used as often as it awkward but is an added source.

Now just as example if a thief has HIS , Blinding powder , Smeld traited while in rifle with silent scope you can maintain stealth for significant periods of time just rotating through those skills. Now the thing is just parking stealth is not going to do a lot of good as you can not build Malice that way. With no Malice your DJ from stealth will not hit that hard. What a thief will usually do is MARK target with steal , get off either some skirmishers shots, double taps or Three round bursts via #2 and #3 against his victim , then stealth and set up his DJ shot.

The best way to counter is use BLOCKS and invulns against those malice build skills. Preserve a DODGE for his DJ shot. Dodge that shot (it has a big tell but can not be blocked) this emptying his malice. If that thief does not want to be caught it very hard to do so unless you have some reveal skills or ways to pull him from stealth (taunts etc).

[bq pd.2148]

@babazhook.6805 said:Now the thing is just parking stealth is not going to do a lot of good as you can not build Malice that way. With no Malice your DJ from stealth will not hit that hard. What a thief will usually do is MARK target with steal , get off either some skirmishers shots, double taps or Three round bursts via #2 and #3 against his victim , then stealth and set up his DJ shot.

The best way to counter is use BLOCKS and invulns against those malice build skills. Preserve a DODGE for his DJ shot. Dodge that shot (it has a big tell but can not be blocked) this emptying his malice. If that thief does not want to be caught it very hard to do so unless you have some reveal skills or ways to pull him from stealth (taunts etc).

MI grants malice in stealth, for example against some oneshot ele /mesmer and thieves it is safer to get 2-3 malice off MI and malicios backstab for ~20k +. and as mark + heal grant malice i pretty much start with 2 malice. if i want to can get m7 malice just from MI, i only do that or need to do that if i am highly outnumbered or if my opponent avoids backstabs with execcive movement as i dont allways want to burn a utility to port into the backstab.

[Izuizu.2648]

Thank you so much for the clarification guys. I have a thief but I don't play it much since i'm so bad at playing squishy class....bad reflex lol. And I don't have the DE spec unlocked. It's interesting to know that DE steal is ranged stealth, cus according to wiki, it only says that steal is replaced by DE mark. Also, 4 ini smoke field from DE is awesome, since I love to play D/D instead of D/P....you know it's just cool to wield dual daggers lol, which means now I can stealth on the go with D/D. xDDE is pretty interesting, gonna level up my thief now :)Thanks everyone!

[bq pd.2148]

@Izuizu.2648 said:Thank you so much for the clarification guys. I have a thief but I don't play it much since i'm so bad at playing squishy class....bad reflex lol.well considering permastealth and being able to oneshot most even using valkyre(21k+hp), i dont think DE is that squishy. any build that can kill you within your short visible frame dies to a low malice backstab and thanks to shadows embrace you are pretty much only killable by power damage, not with condis.

[babazhook.6805]

@MUDse.7623 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:Now the thing is just parking stealth is not going to do a lot of good as you can not build Malice that way. With no Malice your DJ from stealth will not hit that hard. What a thief will usually do is MARK target with steal , get off either some skirmishers shots, double taps or Three round bursts via #2 and #3 against his victim , then stealth and set up his DJ shot.

The best way to counter is use BLOCKS and invulns against those malice build skills. Preserve a DODGE for his DJ shot. Dodge that shot (it has a big tell but can not be blocked) this emptying his malice. If that thief does not want to be caught it very hard to do so unless you have some reveal skills or ways to pull him from stealth (taunts etc).

MI grants malice in stealth, for example against some oneshot ele /mesmer and thieves it is safer to get 2-3 malice off MI and malicios backstab for ~20k +. and as mark + heal grant malice i pretty much start with 2 malice. if i want to can get m7 malice just from MI, i only do that or need to do that if i am highly outnumbered or if my opponent avoids backstabs with execcive movement as i dont allways want to burn a utility to port into the backstab.

Ah yes, I forgot about MI. I tend to use that in the Condition version of my DE builds.