Reduce Silent Scope stealth duration

[kash.9213]

@Turk.5460 said:We don't need stealth on dodge. Frequent stealth is necessary with how little staying power we have in a toe-to-toe fight, but this uninterruptible stealth is not the way to go. I run it, obviously, it's too good not to. But honestly I'm getting kinda bored with it. It's too easy... :\

The original Silent Scope took some forethought about where you wanted that foot print and how you would bail if you needed to. It had it's strengths in that it lead into Kneel and you kept your ground but it was more apt to be countered or at least you might be forced to clear circles. Since I'm using a dodge and moving in or out anyway I've re-built to pretty much one shot and reset. Between dodge stealth, my utility bar, and a tuned health pool there's such a fluid sequence to quickly clean up and roll out that it feels too good to run around with anything else.

[Kageseigi.2150]

Random thought not necessarily connected with Silent Scope, affecting all Thieves (with the exception of modified Daredevil dodges)...

What if the Thief gained a "faux Stealth" dodge? Basically, a Thief goes invisible during the dodge. It vanishes the moment a dodge key is recognized, then reappears (if no true Stealth is present) the moment the dodge ends. In theory, it would simply hide the direction the Thief dodged, making it more difficult to track in melee.

An alternative would be to modify a Shadow Arts trait to grant true Stealth that lasts only the duration of a dodge (completely ignoring Meld with Shadows). This would not allow any attacks to take place. Once again, it would mainly be used to force the opponent to lose tracking/targeting. But the added benefit would be the condition cleanse of Shadow's Embrace and the Regeneration of Shadow Protector and the Blind on Stealth of Cloaked in Shadow or the small single heal and single initiative gain of Shadow's Rejuvenation. Preferably, the Thief should be immune to Revealed during the actual dodge roll, which would help Deadeyes from self-Revealing as they did when Silent Scope granted Stealth at the beginning of the dodge roll.

[Kiroshima.8497]

FROM WVW CONTEXT

Reducing the duration doesn't do anything imo. That would just increase the time the deadeye spends stacking stealth instead of having two players actually fight each other, which is already a tiny amount of time as it is. Like, at least with D/P heartseeker/bound spam, you can try to play smart to interrupt it, but having it attached 100% to the dodge just makes Deadeye vs X a pure waiting game where no one is fighting, which completely benefits the deadeye and no one else (except other thieves).

Honestly, I wouldn't even call it broken, just boring/stupid. The majority of roaming deadeyes aren't that great anyways, so they get straight punished when you toss up any sort of resistance because you have Awareness . But it doesn't matter to those that do know what they're doing, because you get only 1 moment to counter attack before they use a dodge and they're gone.

Basically, it's back the the meta where Thief controls the pacing of the entire fight and you have no agency in it. I could be on the most over powered dueling build in existence and it wouldn't matter because 90% of the time I spend is waiting, not fighting.

I'm not really sure how to fix it, maybe make the thief regenerate stolen skills based on the marked target so they can restealth outside of extremely long CDs, plus stolen skills are interruptable (although those cast times are short).

And no, reveal is never the answer. Reveal is a terrible counter for most classes minus Engineer (who has a traitable reveal, or a quick 1200 range aoe reveal) since taking a reveal skill usually means giving up a stun break or other defense you want/need to deal with not just the deadeye, but anything else you find. Or they are melee PBAoEs which are basically useless (lol Sight Beyond Sight on spellbreaker, that skill is complete garbage with that radius).

Maybe it's time for a stealth rework...

[bq pd.2148]

@"Kiroshima.8497" said:And no, reveal is never the answer. Reveal is a terrible counter for most classes minus Engineer (who has a traitable reveal, or a quick 1200 range aoe reveal) since taking a reveal skill usually means giving up a stun break or other defense you want/need to deal with not just the deadeye, but anything else you find. Or they are melee PBAoEs which are basically useless (lol Sight Beyond Sight on spellbreaker, that skill is complete garbage with that radius).

Maybe it's time for a stealth rework...

reveal is not just terrible because most reveals are unreliable, it is also terrible as when it hits it is too devastating especially in group fights. it is only needed that people see the thief, yet they not just see the thief, they also disable a ton of traits and their stealth attacks. after i killed a ranger in WvW a thread in pvp(moved to WvW) and ranger forum appeared. in the ranger one, he basically asked to make sic em AoE reveal to make it more reliable. yet also AoE is not reliable. the only reliable reveal is lock on (and yes maybe detection pulse cause of the area covered) as the thief cant put it on cooldown avoiding it, yet that is also pretty oppressive and i wouldnt call it good design. someone in that ranger thread proposed that reveal skills should instead of applying reveal give the user Veil Sight. this would have benefits for both sides and i would be happy to see it.

for the thief:

• can still make use of all his traits and stealth attacks
• is only seen by 1 and not revealed for all his allies

for the one using the skill:

• 100% reliable.

this would basically turn reveal from an unreliable hardcounter for stealth heavy play, to a reliable softcounter. with current reveal the thief if build for stealth has to go very defensive, yet if all my SA traits still work i might fight back. then give Veil Sight also on interrupting a stealthed opponent so everyone has some base access to it. we also can remove anti stealth traps from WvW then. deadeye elite could then instead of removing revealed wich you only get from attacking, give the deadeye Veil Sight. was already wondering how a sniper class specialised in stealth cannot detect others in stealth.

currently stealth heavy play is binary in most cases. either opponents cant pressure you at all or too much. thats is why i would like veil sight instead of reveal and a little more defensive deadeye while visible , with less lethal stealth opener(MBackstab, no animation on stealth binding shadows). obviously some other classes need stuff adressed too both reflect and unblockable uptimes on some classes could use a tuning down as well as the amount of stackable damage reductions, making rather offensive builds feel super tanky, thoughness is worth nothing compared to damage reductions but comes at a higher investment mostly.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"MUDse.7623" said:someone in that ranger thread proposed that reveal skills should instead of applying reveal give the user Veil Sight.

Couldn't that be an F3 function for every Thief? Or at least in a Core traitline/utility?Sometimes, the only defense a Thief has against a Stealthed opponent is to enter Stealth themselves, and unless the Thief has D/P or Rifle, they may not have any access to Stealth-on-demand at all.

[Kiroshima.8497]

All classes should have theoretical access to Veil Sight since it only a self buff, unlike reveal which can scale with the number of allies attacking the target.

Like Ranger's pet can sniff them out, Warrior could "sense killing intent", Guardian uses light magic or w/e, Ele could use Earth magic to sense movement, dunno about Mesmer, engi has technology, thief is a stealth character and can find other stealth characters, rev has the blindfolded sight thing, and necro can sense life energy or w/e. Just rework a bad utility on each class to be it.

[Vornollo.5182]

I actually really like that idea about 'Veil Sight' MUDse, whoever remembered that mechanic, kudos to them... The idea about 'Faux Stealth' Kageseigi mentioned also seems a bit OP to me, but I could somewhat live with that, considering we got Mirages. What that'd essentially do, which is by my idea almost as good as Stealthing, is de-target you. That's a damn strong mechanic for anyone to have.Would seem fairly logical and "lore friendly" for Thief to get it, considering how apperantly the Mirage is "A Thief through the eyes of a Mesmer" or whatever the devs said during those release promo's...We'd get such a huge amount of salt for it though, I bet... Can't wait, lol.

[bq pd.2148]

@"Vornollo.5182" said:I actually really like that idea about 'Veil Sight' MUDse, whoever remembered that mechanic, kudos to them... The idea about 'Faux Stealth' Kageseigi mentioned also seems a bit OP to me, but I could somewhat live with that, considering we got Mirages. What that'd essentially do, which is by my idea almost as good as Stealthing, is de-target you. That's a kitten strong mechanic for anyone to have.Would seem fairly logical and "lore friendly" for Thief to get it, considering how apperantly the Mirage is "A Thief through the eyes of a Mesmer" or whatever the devs said during those release promo's...We'd get such a huge amount of salt for it though, I bet... Can't wait, lol.

someone said to me ingame a veil sight could be too strong in like GvG fights when both guilds stack stealth as that would be kinda obsolete. not sure if it still works if the veil sight is limited, like not your full vision range. for exampl 900 or 1200 radius around you instead of the i think 3500 or 4000 range you can normaly see.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"Vornollo.5182" said:The idea about 'Faux Stealth' Kageseigi mentioned also seems a bit OP to me, but I could somewhat live with that, considering we got Mirages. What that'd essentially do, which is by my idea almost as good as Stealthing, is de-target you. That's a kitten strong mechanic for anyone to have.

Yeah, I was thinking of that, so I didn't specifically mention the "de-targeting" for Faux Stealth, but the loss of tracking instead... visually. Basically, if there wasn't true de-targeting, then I would imagine that the targeting would remain, it would simply be invisible while the Thief was invisible. Or I guess it could even remain visible, though the Thief (and its nameplate) would be invisible... so you'd not know which direction the Thief actually dodged, so you won't know where the Thief is going to pop up, which would give the Thief a slight advantage over what it has now.

Of course, I'm not against true de-targeting either. It may actually give the Thief a decent shot in melee, though still having to deal with all the AoE's.

@MUDse.7623 said:someone said to me ingame a veil sight could be too strong in like GvG fights when both guilds stack stealth as that would be kinda obsolete. not sure if it still works if the veil sight is limited, like not your full vision range. for exampl 900 or 1200 radius around you instead of the i think 3500 or 4000 range you can normaly see.

It sounds like that would give Thieves an actual role to play... much more of scouting/overwatch. If only 1/9th of the teams can actually see or directly attack the opposing team, I don't see how that would be so imbalanced.

[Vornollo.5182]

Just some quick thought, as the GvG point is indeed very valid.How about the caster of the "reveal" gets the full 'Veil Sight', but Party/Squad members see said target as a sort of Chameleon-like state. They can vaguely see the target, but not fully target it. This would allow for Strategic placement of CC and AoE's without fully nullifying Stealth in it's entirety. It would also improve the lives of Focus Parties a little bit, which are already so very lacking in this meta...In fact, such a Chameleon-like state/version of Stealth could also work for that Dodge idea I think...But yeah, just a quick little idea, I'll probably reconsider this 5 minutes down the line.

[bq pd.2148]

@"Vornollo.5182" said:Just some quick thought, as the GvG point is indeed very valid.How about the caster of the "reveal" gets the full 'Veil Sight', but Party/Squad members see said target as a sort of Chameleon-like state. They can vaguely see the target, but not fully target it. This would allow for Strategic placement of CC and AoE's without fully nullifying Stealth in it's entirety. It would also improve the lives of Focus Parties a little bit, which are already so very lacking in this meta...In fact, such a Chameleon-like state/version of Stealth could also work for that Dodge idea I think...But yeah, just a quick little idea, I'll probably reconsider this 5 minutes down the line.

in a GvG you can communicate with your team, them seeing the stealthed players in any form is the issue. the way reveal currently works it is not a soft counter from one player to another like shooting with unblockabled through block. it is a scaling hardcounter as it will also let your allies counter you.i want to reduce the power of reveal but improve its reliability. on higher levels of play reliability is the most important think after all.so if skills that currently give reveal would give you 'veil sight' that lets you simply see and attack everyone that is in stealth within 900-1200 radius around you that would be perfect for most applications. making the range unlimited would mean you can see in a GvG the full stealthed opposing guild and rightaway tell your mates in voice how they are moving from 3-4k units away, so limiting it to 1200 ranger perfectly does its job in allmost all fight situations while it doesnt show stealthed opponents half a map away.for focus party to get relevant we might still need more ways to instant finish aside from final blow in the game. cause instant rez is a thing.