Invisibility and why it doesn't work in GW2 sPVP

[Badwolf.9725]

First, I'm not against invis in many pvp games, mostly games like Dota and LoL, but only because they are well thought out and properly balanced.

Let's begin by looking at Dota, the game I'm most familiar with. Another 5v5 arena where killing the enemy is a side objective, much like GW2's. Let's look at Riki, a hero that, last I played at least, gets an innate passive that allows for nearly 100% invis time (Bounty Hunter is another good example too). That sounds like a rather OP set of abilities, yet it is nearly garbage except against players who refuse to counter it. Any player can go buy sentry wards, to place true sight areas for a set time. Any player can go buy dust to create a huge aoe that reveals invis units. Any player can go buy a gem of true sight to reveal everything in a smaller aoe around them.

In addition to this, there are certain units that innately counter invisibility. Slardar has an ability that can reliably punish, for a rather extended time, invisibility. Bloodseeker has a passive that reveals all units below a certain hp. The necronomicon, another item anyone can buy, has units that can provide truesight.

In contrast to all of these counters... GW2 has a very limited number of skills on a limited number of professions on a limited number of builds that provide any real "counter" to invisibility. Even then, they allow the invis character in question to generally use their invisibility and only punish once the unit is allowed to engage.

I'm mostly concerned about the thief that can attain near perfect invisibility. There is no actual counterplay to it, aside from "wait". Enemy ranged units allow me to use terrain to close a gap, enemey melee likewise, invisibility though? Not so much. Invis simply does not work when it is allowed to so freely work. Unless I bring one of a small set of classes with one of a small set of builds, there is really very little that allows me to counter invisibility, especially since there is no limitation on ranged versus melee use. In Dota 2, most heroes with a reliable, long term access to invis are all melee. Clinkz, the only exception here, requires the user to balance offense with eating creeps, somewhat balancing the invis access with the additional cost of extra time and resource management. Outside of that, all other invis skills are relatively high cost, high cool down and low duration (Mirana's ult for example).

There is no real "cost" to invis here though. It's easy access, little counter (with even littler chance of actually seeing said counter) and potentially a long duration. Additionally, it allows for people to go full glass cannon with the ability to effectively one shot most builds and then instantly teleport/invis away.

What I get frustrated by in sPvP, more than anything else, is seeing perma invis snipers with TONS of access to mobility and having no reliable way to counter them except hoping they are bad. To me, there is just absolutely NO fun in playing against a thief that uses perma invis (much less the games with 2 of them) unlike Dota2 where I actually enjoy the counterplay against a character like Broodmother who can easily snowball out of control due to the access to invis. Most games I see an invis thief... I just kinda sigh and wait for it to end. I still try, but I don't really have any fun, just waiting for the moment the enemy decides to end me and vanish.

Overall, invis, in its' current form, has no real place in sPvP. It's not properly countered and is, at best, a huge troll to normal, non-hardcore pvpers like myself. There is no cost to it, there is no counter to it, there is nothing but waiting. I can cleanse conditions, I can heal HP, I can break stuns and evade attacks... I can't counter invis, I just wait and hope I see it in time to dodge.

Also, PLEASE stop with the scourge pixel vomit! I feel like half the problem of dealing with a scourge is just seeing anything in all the giant red circles of gfy... Seriously, GW2's artwork is second to no other MMO, but scourge just vomits on it...

[kin korn karn.9023]

Look, I'm no fan of the Deadeye spec. It's not fun to play, nor is it fun to play against. And I do think that there should be more skills that reveal.

That said, there's a reason nobody wins the monthly ATs with a Deadeye on their teams. It is literally the easiest semi-viable spec to shut down. Yeah, he might get a few good pops off here and there, but if he's not shut down at least 80% of the time, either your team is playing poorly or you have a garbage comp. Nearly all the time it's a L2P issue.

I suggest playing a class with teleports or shadowsteps, possibly some reflect as well, and you'll soon find how incredibly easy it is to make a DE irrelevant in the match.

[michelada.2947]

stealth is absurd in this game, 6 years of the game and seems that the answear is just "deal with it", same with mesmer that seems that they think that is a perfect balanced class, in terms of design for a pvp game you always have to think in 3 things, how fun is to play, how strong it is compared to other abilities/classes and how fun is to play against, the game failed hard in some of this points.

[Bazsi.2734]

@Badwolf.9725 said:current form, has no real place in sPvP. It's not properly countered and is, at best, a huge troll to normal, non-hardcore pvpers like myself.

You say stealth isn't properly countered and that you're not a really good player in the same sentence... the former seems so because of the latter! I can easily deal with stealth heavy builds most of the time, but im pretty much a veteran so I have several hunreds(but mostly thousands) of matches on every spec.I've found the easiest way to figuring out counters is playing the build you want to counter yourself.

There is no cost to it,

Thats just flat out false. You spend cooldowns and/or initiative to maintain stealth.

there is no counter to it, there is nothing but waiting.

Again, thats not true at all. Stealth doesn't make you invincible, you can still guess where the stealthed player is going (the sPvP maps aren't that big with many choke points where the enemy will likely pass). From throwing down staff marks as a necromancer to using your toolbelt as a scrapper, there are many ways to interfere with an incoming stealthed enemy. If you anticipate the incoming attack, you can do something against it. If you're totally hardcountered, use LoS: walls, pillars are your friends.

I can cleanse conditions, I can heal HP, I can break stuns and evade attacks... I can't counter invis,

So with no intention of being rude, this is an L2P issue here. It's possible counter invisibility most of the time with no problems. If anything, after a few kiting/baiting mindgames of running around the capture point, I still have the capture point ticking for me, and the stealthed enemy is stuck trying to set up a burst that im constantly preventing by moving/blocking/reflecting/whatever(depends on the build).

I just wait and hope I see it in time to dodge.

Yeah, thats the problem right there... Just be on the move, run in and out of cover, spam some AoE, anything! Waiting for them to open is the worst thing you can do.

My advice would be to play those stealth heavy builds that give you trouble. Once you learn how they work, they will be way easier to defeat.

[DAN.7314]

If you're taking the monthly ATs seriously, in this extremely poorly balanced game, and going to argue deadeye isn't a problem I don't know what to tell you. Reason this game is near death is poor balance, and deadeye (stealth) is one of the more ridiculous problems. Sure, you can counter with one of the other unbalanced builds, with built in passive anti 1 shot abilities. Those builds are problems too.

Versus these other builds at least you can see them and fight back. These other builds (with passive invulnerability) are just as ridiculous balance wise. They are still going to destroy the vast majority of classes/builds just because they have access to more evade/dodge/invulnerability and can still put out high damage. But verse these builds you aren't instant killed from stealth like against a deadeye. At least you can try to fight back. You can dodge their attacks because you can see them. That's a big difference. The balance still sucks, but just waiting for a perma invis deadeye to 1 shot you is just awful. There are times I know they are right there, and there is literally nothing I can do. There is no counter unless you play only certain builds. You shouldn't be forced to play a certain build in a well balanced game just to not get one shot. For 90% of the population that doesn't play a build with a passive anti 1 shot ability it's a very un-fun game.

[derd.6413]

stealth ain't perfect but the game has much bigger balance issues then DE stealth.

[bennypig.6428]

Except that stealth in gw2 only have 3 seconds per stack instead of dozens of seconds in other games.

[Airdive.2613]

Stealth prevents you from contesting the nodes. It is important.

You can indeed try to set up some AoEs or protective barriers while you wait.

Waiting itself isn't bad. Use this free time to your advantage: heal, buff yourself, swap weapon sets if necessary (so you can swap again earlier next time).

[Tehologist.5841]

Deadeye is mostly a problem on side nodes that you are trying to capture. Not much you can really do if dead eye decides to camp their home node. Their single target damage from stealth is too high, they can stop a single player from decapping their home all day long unless they bring someone with them. Other times they are literally dead weight, in low ranks they rarely play well and don't do much to help you win.

[Virelion.4128]

I don't think that stealth is badly implemented, maybe just stealth on dodge is a bad design by itself, but stealth in combination with very high burst is cancerous as kitten.

[Axelteas.7192]

I'm a core thief and get shot by deadeyes when im in stealth it has no sense.

[Jalal.6783]

It never has worked

[Jalal.6783]

@"Badwolf.9725" said:First, I'm not against invis in many pvp games, mostly games like Dota and LoL, but only because they are well thought out and properly balanced.

Let's begin by looking at Dota, the game I'm most familiar with. Another 5v5 arena where killing the enemy is a side objective, much like GW2's. Let's look at Riki, a hero that, last I played at least, gets an innate passive that allows for nearly 100% invis time (Bounty Hunter is another good example too). That sounds like a rather OP set of abilities, yet it is nearly garbage except against players who refuse to counter it. Any player can go buy sentry wards, to place true sight areas for a set time. Any player can go buy dust to create a huge aoe that reveals invis units. Any player can go buy a gem of true sight to reveal everything in a smaller aoe around them.

In addition to this, there are certain units that innately counter invisibility. Slardar has an ability that can reliably punish, for a rather extended time, invisibility. Bloodseeker has a passive that reveals all units below a certain hp. The necronomicon, another item anyone can buy, has units that can provide truesight.

In contrast to all of these counters... GW2 has a very limited number of skills on a limited number of professions on a limited number of builds that provide any real "counter" to invisibility. Even then, they allow the invis character in question to generally use their invisibility and only punish once the unit is allowed to engage.

I'm mostly concerned about the thief that can attain near perfect invisibility. There is no actual counterplay to it, aside from "wait". Enemy ranged units allow me to use terrain to close a gap, enemey melee likewise, invisibility though? Not so much. Invis simply does not work when it is allowed to so freely work. Unless I bring one of a small set of classes with one of a small set of builds, there is really very little that allows me to counter invisibility, especially since there is no limitation on ranged versus melee use. In Dota 2, most heroes with a reliable, long term access to invis are all melee. Clinkz, the only exception here, requires the user to balance offense with eating creeps, somewhat balancing the invis access with the additional cost of extra time and resource management. Outside of that, all other invis skills are relatively high cost, high cool down and low duration (Mirana's ult for example).

There is no real "cost" to invis here though. It's easy access, little counter (with even littler chance of actually seeing said counter) and potentially a long duration. Additionally, it allows for people to go full glass cannon with the ability to effectively one shot most builds and then instantly teleport/invis away.

What I get frustrated by in sPvP, more than anything else, is seeing perma invis snipers with TONS of access to mobility and having no reliable way to counter them except hoping they are bad. To me, there is just absolutely NO fun in playing against a thief that uses perma invis (much less the games with 2 of them) unlike Dota2 where I actually enjoy the counterplay against a character like Broodmother who can easily snowball out of control due to the access to invis. Most games I see an invis thief... I just kinda sigh and wait for it to end. I still try, but I don't really have any fun, just waiting for the moment the enemy decides to end me and vanish.

Overall, invis, in its' current form, has no real place in sPvP. It's not properly countered and is, at best, a huge troll to normal, non-hardcore pvpers like myself. There is no cost to it, there is no counter to it, there is nothing but waiting. I can cleanse conditions, I can heal HP, I can break stuns and evade attacks... I can't counter invis, I just wait and hope I see it in time to dodge.

Also, PLEASE stop with the scourge pixel vomit! I feel like half the problem of dealing with a scourge is just seeing anything in all the giant red circles of gfy... Seriously, GW2's artwork is second to no other MMO, but scourge just vomits on it...

One of the most well thought out explanations as to why stealth is this game is ridiculous. 100% agree. Excellent work and wow. I might save this. You sir need to be on the balance team but you'd probably never get hired because if they hired people with real insight like this, they would never have even half the issues present in pvp

[Airdive.2613]

@Jalal.6783 said:

@"Badwolf.9725" said:First, I'm not against invis in many pvp games, mostly games like Dota and LoL, but only because they are well thought out and properly balanced.

Let's begin by looking at Dota, the game I'm most familiar with. Another 5v5 arena where killing the enemy is a side objective, much like GW2's. Let's look at Riki, a hero that, last I played at least, gets an innate passive that allows for nearly 100% invis time (Bounty Hunter is another good example too). That sounds like a rather OP set of abilities, yet it is nearly garbage except against players who refuse to counter it. Any player can go buy sentry wards, to place true sight areas for a set time. Any player can go buy dust to create a huge aoe that reveals invis units. Any player can go buy a gem of true sight to reveal everything in a smaller aoe around them.

In addition to this, there are certain units that innately counter invisibility. Slardar has an ability that can reliably punish, for a rather extended time, invisibility. Bloodseeker has a passive that reveals all units below a certain hp. The necronomicon, another item anyone can buy, has units that can provide truesight.

In contrast to all of these counters... GW2 has a very limited number of skills on a limited number of professions on a limited number of builds that provide any real "counter" to invisibility. Even then, they allow the invis character in question to generally use their invisibility and only punish once the unit is allowed to engage.

I'm mostly concerned about the thief that can attain near perfect invisibility. There is no actual counterplay to it, aside from "wait". Enemy ranged units allow me to use terrain to close a gap, enemey melee likewise, invisibility though? Not so much. Invis simply does not work when it is allowed to so freely work. Unless I bring one of a small set of classes with one of a small set of builds, there is really very little that allows me to counter invisibility, especially since there is no limitation on ranged versus melee use. In Dota 2, most heroes with a reliable, long term access to invis are all melee. Clinkz, the only exception here, requires the user to balance offense with eating creeps, somewhat balancing the invis access with the additional cost of extra time and resource management. Outside of that, all other invis skills are relatively high cost, high cool down and low duration (Mirana's ult for example).

There is no real "cost" to invis here though. It's easy access, little counter (with even littler chance of actually seeing said counter) and potentially a long duration. Additionally, it allows for people to go full glass cannon with the ability to effectively one shot most builds and then instantly teleport/invis away.

What I get frustrated by in sPvP, more than anything else, is seeing perma invis snipers with TONS of access to mobility and having no reliable way to counter them except hoping they are bad. To me, there is just absolutely NO fun in playing against a thief that uses perma invis (much less the games with 2 of them) unlike Dota2 where I actually enjoy the counterplay against a character like Broodmother who can easily snowball out of control due to the access to invis. Most games I see an invis thief... I just kinda sigh and wait for it to end. I still try, but I don't really have any fun, just waiting for the moment the enemy decides to end me and vanish.

Overall, invis, in its' current form, has no real place in sPvP. It's not properly countered and is, at best, a huge troll to normal, non-hardcore pvpers like myself. There is no cost to it, there is no counter to it, there is nothing but waiting. I can cleanse conditions, I can heal HP, I can break stuns and evade attacks... I can't counter invis, I just wait and hope I see it in time to dodge.

Also, PLEASE stop with the scourge pixel vomit! I feel like half the problem of dealing with a scourge is just seeing anything in all the giant red circles of gfy... Seriously, GW2's artwork is second to no other MMO, but scourge just vomits on it...

One of the most well thought out explanations as to why stealth is this game is ridiculous. 100% agree. Excellent work and wow. I might save this. You sir need to be on the balance team but you'd probably never get hired because if they hired people with real insight like this, they would never have even half the issues present in pvp

Meanwhile in League of Legends as of recent (hey, it was mentioned in the post) they had to actually buff active (short-duration) stealth so that vision wards do not reveal stealthed champions. Furthermore, even if you use your (admittedly readily available) detection AoE, you're only going to see the silhouette of a stealthed champion, so you can sorta see them and hit them, but can't target them with targeted spells.And yet, League of Legends manages to stay competitive despite Rengar stealth-jumping and killing you in literally 0.13 seconds because players learn awareness and basic strategy.

[breno.5423]

@"Badwolf.9725" said:There is no cost to it, there is no counter to it, there is nothing but waiting. I can cleanse conditions, I can heal HP, I can break stuns and evade attacks... I can't counter invis, I just wait and hope I see it in time to dodge.

Have you heard about "reveal" already?

My suggestion is, play a little with stealth based builds and it will change your mind. Stealth may be broken at WvW, but at spvp its an disadvange actually, because it prevent point protection.

[michelada.2947]

yeah but in league of legends there are some indicator for stealth characters and for the characters that go stealth with no indicator the effect usually last for 3 seconds at most, in guild wars we have classes that can hit you and go perma stealth with 0 indication of where it is.

[Airdive.2613]

@michelada.2947 said:yeah but in league of legends there are some indicator for stealth characters and for the characters that go stealth with no indicator the effect usually last for 3 seconds at most, in guild wars we have classes that can hit you and go perma stealth with 0 indication of where it is.

Can they?There's not an awful lot of places your enemy can go during short-term invisibility if you have already spotted them near you; in most cases invisibility granted with a single skill application in GW 2 lasts about 3 seconds.If you're talking about shadow refuge in particular - it does have its clear weaknesses (telegraphed initial application, long cooldown).

[Daishi.6027]

I'm fine with how much anticipation you need to fight stealth, since realistically majority of this game is anticipation and reads. It's a clear counter to stealth and if you are patient you can play around it.Saying "there is no counter" is disingenuous. It's like saying Rampage has no counter.

However I think an argument can be made that stealth whiffs should be more punishable. It's way to easy to jump back into stealth, or evade through reveal after getting hard read a few times; there should be some stronger diminishing returns instead of allowing players to endlessly try again until one of you screws up.

Granted an argument vs that can say "it's only balanced if we stalemate until someone screws up instead of just running out of resources and dying" (even though that is a problem for some builds in sustained fights, but regardless). However to counter that mentality imposing a stricter feel of running out of resources is fair when the stealth attacker has such a significant advantage thanks to an extremely long and extendable window to attack with no tell, or ability to disengage on a whim.

Also keep in mind that stealth is it's own kind of pressure, given the previously mentioned ability to extend stealth windows depending on the build makes stealth in and of itself free pressure to any target who knows you are about to attack, in many cases it's not hard to wait for players to pop precious cooldowns and then freely attack. You are effectively trading free pressure from something pseudo-passive and safe to force out cooldowns with little to no worry.

Another option would be "shadow steps reveal" but I don't think anyone wants that.

[Badwolf.9725]

@"bennypig.6428" said:Except that stealth in gw2 only have 3 seconds per stack instead of dozens of seconds in other games.

Yes, but like I mentioned, in other games they allow players to actively counter/reveal invis and even then, most heroes with invis have limited access to it, requiring high amounts of mana and/or long cooldowns (Mirana). Riki probably has as close to 100% perma stealth as you can get, but any player can go buy wards to reveal and ACTIVELY counter play against invis. That's the core issue in GW2, there is no ACTIVE counter beyond investing hundreds of hours into each spec. That's great if you are SUPER excited that the sPvP is designed solely for the 1% of players that are hardcore into the game and don't give any care to actually expanding the base.

That's just it though, "get gud" isn't an answer if you want to expand the game. When I first started playing Dota, I was frustrated beyond belief against heroes like Riki... then I looked up a guide that said more than "invest hundreds of hours into the game and get gud"... those guides showed actual strategies that I could use, they showed ACTIVE actions I could do, beyond simply throwing AoE around and hoping I get lucky. Even still, in those games, I didn't have to bring a build built specifically for expose before the game, because I could ACTIVELY adapt my strategy in game and buy wards or dust or a gem. In GW2 though, the whole process is just passive. How do I counter them? Randomly AoE, hoping the enemy is an idiot, or.... what? Wait?

"it has a cost" okay, sure, it does. I didn't mean that in the most literal sense possible. What I mean is that it doesn't have ENOUGH of a cost to justify the advantages. You can easily run a long range high burst build that can easily outflank and the cost of the invis isn't enough to reliably punish such a powerful ability on top of a build that has high mobility and high burst dps.

Just because a build isn't in the top 1%'s best build doesn't mean it's not OP, it just means that it's not OP for the 1% of the base. For anyone who hasn't spent hundreds of hours in the game, the build is just too cancerous. A build that has no real counters (afaik, "reveal" skills are few and far between and only really applicable to a few builds), and can freely engage in a large open area with no warning. Aside from random AoE, a wish and a prayer, there is no real active counterplay... just wait and hope you see the attacks. It's just not balanced enough for normal players.

Like I said before, I can dodge attacks. I can cleanse conditions, heal damage and use terrain to position myself to an advantage.... all things I can ACTIVELY do to counter most builds and most incoming attacks... I can't ACTIVELY do anything to an enemy that can perma stealth and engage me from halfway across the map in one burst... then disappear. Dota2's invis works because players can actively counter it, any class, any hero, any build can use resources to counter in dynamic ways. GW2, in most other ways, also allows me to dynamicly counter enemies... except invis...

[michelada.2947]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@michelada.2947 said:yeah but in league of legends there are some indicator for stealth characters and for the characters that go stealth with no indicator the effect usually last for 3 seconds at most, in guild wars we have classes that can hit you and go perma stealth with 0 indication of where it is.

Can they?There's not an awful lot of places your enemy can go during short-term invisibility if you have already spotted them near you; in most cases invisibility granted with a single skill application in GW 2 lasts about 3 seconds.If you're talking about shadow refuge in particular - it does have its clear weaknesses (telegraphed initial application, long cooldown).

Yes they can, I made a thief with perma stealth and the trait that give's you 100% crit chance for 2-3 secs and valkyrie stats, it works really well.

[FyzE.3472]

Ah, another irefusetousemybrain post. Nice!

[polvere.2805]

DOTA and GW2 compared ? WHAT ???I have more than 2k hours on dota. They are totally different games. What is this thread?

Next time we will see CS:GO and GW2 compared!

I suggest you to go and watch a guide about kiting, with all the no tp spot on the maps. It will probably take you less time than come here asking for baseless nerfs on the forum.

HEy pss: If you are stealthed you can't cap!!!

[Malafaia.8903]

For me stealth is just a nice mechanic, tbh i think it's well implemented in most cases.The only problem is Anet developed deadeye, the spec was completely useless, and now they implemented a mimick build that is annoying as hell to play against, because, as said by one deadeye in this topic, your only real "counter" is "guessing" where the player are, and try to spam some kind of AoE.Oh, but they implemented "reveal", nice, a counter... But then you have a counter to the counter: "Remove revealed and stealth yourself."

[zinkz.7045]

@"polvere.2805" said:DOTA and GW2 compared ? WHAT ???I have more than 2k hours on dota. They are totally different games. What is this thread?

Next time we will see CS:GO and GW2 compared!

I suggest you to go and watch a guide about kiting, with all the no tp spot on the maps. It will probably take you less time than come here asking for baseless nerfs on the forum.

HEy pss: If you are stealthed you can't cap!!!

If you think comparing things that are "different" is somehow worthless then that says more about you than anything else and in this case it is particularly ironic given the devs who made this game specifically mentioned how they looked at various aspects of MOBAs when designing the PvP in this game.

[Tiah.3091]

Comparing Dota2 and GW2 is wrong. Mobas are usually quite well balanced not because their devs are smart, and our devs are stupid. (I know, most of you think the former is exactly the case what we have here).It rather happens, because MOBAs are much easier to balance, as there is a MUCH fewer amount of variables to adjust.

About DE: there's just one talent on DE, which is broken AF. The one, which provides stealth on dodge. And additionally gives 20% chc on kneeling.I mean... seriously? Stealth on dodge? How retarded is that? With acrobatics you can dodge every <4 seconds, while maintaining endurance. Which in turn means almost permanent stealth.

Could they at least introduce an internal cooldown, for fuck sake? Say, 10 seconds? Or an Exhaustion?

About oneshots: a huge part of DE oneshot, as far as I understand, is extremely easy access to 25 stacks of might (and other multiple sources of +power, like traits and signets). That, and 15 stacks of vulnerability from their utility root.