Fixing Stealth

[TheBravery.9615]

Let's talk about some ideas to address stealth as a mechanic in GW2. I don't really think deadeyes or mirages are overtuned themselves, but the mechanics in place that make them overpowered. This game is heavily reliant on tab targeting despite being an action mmorpg, some simple adjustments to the stealth as a mechanic can balance mirage and deadeyes without nerfing the professions themselves.

[Gop.8713]

C is the only option that should even be considered, but it's fine as is. And just for the record I don't play any stealth classes . . .

[Gorani.7205]

Voted C + wanting to have more skills that reveal stealthed players (e.g. Ele could get that on Signet of Air). for all professions.

[James.9071]

A: would delete pretty much every thief build aside from dagger dagger condi spam and SD.

B would make certain tactics useless, and make more tactics of chasing people in stealth using the ping on the map when you target someone.

C wouldn't break anything but doesn't really seem needed, deadeye has a ton of backpedal, and the change wouldn't do too much.

[Tyyphoon.5301]

Where is option (F): "Keep stealth access for thief class only, and delete stealth access for all other classes."

As it should have been from the dawn of GW2.

 

???

[DemonSeed.3528]

What about including druid celestial Avatar too? Actually, I agree with Tyyphoon, it should exclusively only belong to thieves.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

sweet lets fiddle around with core mechanics because especs are broken... makes sense...

[oOStaticOo.9467]

Where is: F. Remove Stealth from the game because it's a lazy mechanic and should only be used in PvE missions.?

[Widmo.3186]

A,B and D are not needed, stealth as mechanic is fine, its not like in WoW because of GW2 other mechanics, but still its good. What makes it broken/annoying/ppl complaining is that one of specializations has too big access to it without any field signs (which might not make big difference in PvE or PvP, but WvW has tons of open field to be used and abused). C nerf can be considered by some ppl as good, but imo its DE business card and should remain as a viable pick.

Just being honest, if you have problems with Stealth mechanic, play thief/mes, learn class movement and next time just predict where they could move and nuke that place.

[DemonSeed.3528]

> @"Widmo.3186" said:

> Just being honest, if you have problems with Stealth mechanic, play thief/mes, learn class movement and next time just predict where they could move and nuke that place.

 

I think for the majority of time that I see complaints being made towards classes/builds in general is that many do not want to take the time to learn how to beat it. Their bias or hate towards it has either made them refuse to creating a character for that class/build or only using it for a short time period where they decide it is unbeatable but not giving it enough time, seeing where the actual weaknesses lie - this takes time and many encounters with differently skilled opponents.

 

[MithranArkanere.8957]

I don't like any of those alone.

Stealth needs a rework to address its bugs, its issues and the problems it causes.

It can't be left as it is, because problems from it keep popping up. Eventually, something will have to be done.

But it can't be removed, and there's definitely no quick fixes for it, and changes should not just be done to nerf it. It doesn't needs nerfing. It needs fixing.

 

After juggling and bouncing ideas over and over, I think [this one](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/516685/#Comment_516685 "this one") came closer to what I'd like to see for stealth.

At this moment I think it all comes down to 4 points:

 

* Fix its bugs:

* When an enemy is revealed, it can take a while for the player model, standard model and even the nameplate to appear, extending the effective duration of stealth for those affected by this.

* When leaving stealth, players seem to load the enemy model right after stealth ends. Because of this, some people will take longer to see the model at all, and the model will play the animation for the current action from the start. So when it may seem the finisher just started, it may be actually ending, and properly timing interrupts becomes practically impossible.

* Losing any effect that gives stealth will often reveal the character even if they still have other stealth effects like Camouflage or Hide in Shadows.

* Stealth doesn't always break enemy targeting, and it doesn't stop skill auto-tracking.

* When an enemy used a skill that requires a target like Phantasm skills, it should fail to activate if the target is in Stealth.

* When a skill requires a target but can be used without a target like clone skills and Flamestrike, if the skill finishes while the original target is in stealth, it should not hit the target as if the skill was used without a tartget. It would still be possible to quickly switch targets to make the skill work on the new target instead.

* When a skill is a channeled autotracking projectile attack like Rapid fire, when the target goes into stealth the skill should stop auto tracking. It would change to manual aim and you'd have to try and aim at the cloaked enemy with your camera, or select a new visible target to have the autotracking switch to that character instead.

* Make sure the full invisibility effect of stealth can't last too long when fighting against players, while still being lasting against AI.

* The longer full stealth lasts, the harder is to tell where the cloaked enemy is. And that greatly reduces the risks of using stealth as both an offensive and defensive tool. Yeah, experienced players can deal with it, but the game isn't just for experienced players. It has to be intuitive for all and welcoming for newbies.

* The way to address this problem that I like the most is "Stealth Decay". After a couple of seconds, stealth would go from completely invisible to partially visible. This partial visibility would be even more noticeable while the thief is moving.

* Decayed stealth would keep the player untargetable, and most NPCs and player-controlled AI would still ignore them, but players would be able to see them if they pay attention, as they would appear partially visible with a translucent effect. Even if they can't be targeted, AoEs, cleaves and aimed projectiles can still hit them, just like always. It'd be just a bit easier to know where to hit with them.

* Getting stealth from combos and other players would not reset stealth back to fully invisible, with a few exceptions. For example, Mass Invisibility would reset stealth on allies and have a skill fact that says "Resets ally stealth" , but Veil would not.

* Using skills and triggering traits that give stealth to self would reset stealth to fully invisible.

* Getting stealth from allied skills or from skill combos in a smoke field would not reset full invisibility, it would just reset the time of decayed stealth.

* Revealed is an "all or nothing" mechanic. A skill either reveals or it doesn't. That doesn't leave room for adjustment and balance.

* One way to address this problem is a new "Suspicion" mechanic.

* Suspicion would be a stacking effect that is accumulated with certain actions done while under stealth. When someone gets a certain number of stacks, they would lose stealth and all suspicion stacks, and get revealed for the same duration as when getting revealed with a direct attack. Revealing oneself with a direct attack would also remove all Suspicion stacks.

* It would be accumulated from actions that should not reveal right away or if done sparingly, but should reveal eventually if done repeatedly, like:

* Applying or having DPS conditions ticking on enemies.

* Finishing an enemy

* Getting hit with direct attacks. Standing in front of someone to attack them while they swing a weapon has never been a good idea, but suspicion would make it an ever worse idea.

* Hitting with a stray projectiles that were fired before getting stealth, that hits after getting it. One may give stealth to allies, but they can't just stop a projectile already fired. Which means that without voice chat to warn them to stop attacking right before getting stealth, stealth given to allies firing projectiles is often wasted. These projectiles can't be made no to trigger stealth or that would be exploited. Suspicion fixes that by letting them hit just a bit from stealth without losing it, but not do it repeatedly.

* Missed attacks that hit nothing would give a small amounts of suspicion, like when spamming an attack without anyone in range, hitting the air; or someone moves away from the trajectory of a projectile, or moves behind an obstacle and the attack is obstructed. Missed attacks from being blind would give a bit more suspicion that attacking the air, but still a small amount.

* Attacking someone blocking or invulnerable would give a large amount of suspicion or reveal right away as always.

* Triggering traps and having your traps triggered. Stacking traps would stack so much Suspicion that it would always reveal, but it should be possible to use skills like Shadow Trap without sparingly being revealed right away from triggering it. Walking over too many traps even while evading should also reveal eventually.

* Revealed caused by enemies will not reset stacks of suspicion. Only receiving revealed from Suspicion or one's own attacks would reset stacks of suspicion back to 0.

* Shadow Meld would still remove revealed, but it would not clear stacks of suspicion.

* We can't have a lot of AoE revealing skills like Detection Pulse, Sight Beyond Sight or Gaze of Darkness because there are no counters for it other than Shadow Meld. Removing revealed is something so troublesome it has to be limited to an elite skill. If a mechanic was added to act as a 'stability' for stealth, that prevents being instantly revealed when entering stealth, that would be solved by giving a pre-emptive safety tool without giving more Revealed removal.

* For example, Unrevealable would be an effect given by some skills that cause stealth, but not all sources of stealth. Unrevealable would usually be seen in skills meant to have a survival or panic button use like Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder or Decoy.

* It would last very little, like just from 0.75s to 1s, as it's mostly meant to avoid spam of revealing skills to be able to get away from danger.

* It would only apply to self, skills that give allies stealth and make oneself unrevealable won't make other allies unrevealable, with a few exceptions like Mass Invisibility.

* Revealed makes characters immune to Unrevealable like it does with stealth, so it will only work while not revealed or if the stealth skill giving unrevealable also removes revealed like Shadow Meld.

* Getting Unrevealable would also reset decayed stealth to full stealth.

* Unrevealable would not prevent being revealed by attacking enemies or from getting Suspicion, only being revealed by enemy skills.

* Stealth from combos on smoke fields would never give unrevealable.

 

 

With all these new mechanics combined, stealth can be made not to stack, but also last way more, having stealth skills that give 2-4s being able to give 10s or more. And even being able to make an Elite thief signet with a passive effect that constantly pulses decayed stealth and an active effect that gives stealth for 10s, and unrevealable for 0.75s.

At the same time, revealing skills could be more frequent. For example:

* Hallowed Ground could pulse 1s revealed, or cause it one time for 3s when cloaked enemies try to enter the area.

* "Nothing Can Save You!" could get 6s of revealed.

* Rangers could get a Bat land pe and and a Dolphin underwater pet that have an Echolocation skill that deals 5s AoE revealed.

* An elementalist sand-themed pulsing AoE like sandstorm could also pulse revealed.

* Null Field could also pulse or cause revealed.

[Luindu.2418]

B + new boon called "vision" that works like [Nuhoch Stealth Detection](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nuhoch_Stealth_Detection "Nuhoch Stealth Detection")

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

Im up for any of the above. Constant dodging and stealthing doesn't make for a fun game. I dont mind stealth when it is used for scouting, that makes sense. But once you engage in a fight, you need to be in it for the long haul. While they are fixing stealth if they can fix the massive power creep and super high damage output that would be nice too! The game seems too focused on complete damage (10k+ hits) or complete damage avoidance (invulnerable, stealth, dodging etc.). Needs more balance and strategic play!

[DemonSeed.3528]

On that note, what would be considered strategic play/combat? I'm just asking because I wonder what middle ground we can go for.

[Tyyphoon.5301]

> @"DemonSeed.3528" said:

> > @"Widmo.3186" said:

> > Just being honest, if you have problems with Stealth mechanic, play thief/mes, learn class movement and next time just predict where they could move and nuke that place.

>

> I think for the majority of time that I see complaints being made towards classes/builds in general is that many do not want to take the time to learn how to beat it. Their bias or hate towards it has either made them refuse to creating a character for that class/build or only using it for a short time period where they decide it is unbeatable but not giving it enough time, seeing where the actual weaknesses lie - this takes time and many encounters with differently skilled opponents.

>

 

It seems your comment takes the cake. Dont see many plausible observations like this nowadays.

 

I am amazed at the influx of self-entitled new players trying to QQ at ANET and expecting to change the mechanics of this 6-year-old game. Then again, historically, unjustified thief QQ has existed for every build iteration there has been since the release of the game (stealth or non-stealth builds, does not matter). #amused

 

Maybe, ANET will finally implement a **dual-sword thief** build for all the plebeians to rage at in the future. #XmasWishList

[TheBravery.9615]

> @"Tyyphoon.5301" said:

> > @"DemonSeed.3528" said:

> > > @"Widmo.3186" said:

> > > Just being honest, if you have problems with Stealth mechanic, play thief/mes, learn class movement and next time just predict where they could move and nuke that place.

> >

> > I think for the majority of time that I see complaints being made towards classes/builds in general is that many do not want to take the time to learn how to beat it. Their bias or hate towards it has either made them refuse to creating a character for that class/build or only using it for a short time period where they decide it is unbeatable but not giving it enough time, seeing where the actual weaknesses lie - this takes time and many encounters with differently skilled opponents.

> >

>

> It seems your comment takes the cake. Dont see many plausible observations like this nowadays.

>

> I am amazed at the influx of self-entitled new players trying to QQ at ANET and expecting to change the mechanics of this 6-year-old game. Then again, historically, unjustified thief QQ has existed for every build iteration there has been since the release of the game (stealth or non-stealth builds, does not matter). #amused

>

> Maybe, ANET will finally implement a **dual-sword thief** build for all the plebeians to rage at in the future. #XmasWishList

 

You know, just because it's a 6 year old mechanic doesn't mean it's balanced. It was a gimmick that shipped with the game and long overdue for an adjustment.

 

Remember permastealth trapper thief? what's broken wasn't the traps, it was the stealth mechanic. But ANET decided on making it a quick fix rather than addressing the actual problem- stealth. Most of the revealed applying skills require a target lock to work or have limited range if pbaoe. So the options to deal with this was to aoe spam and hope for the best. This problem only became worst when anet introduced new mechanics (shadow meld and mirage target breaking) to an already broken mechanic.

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

> @"DemonSeed.3528" said:

> On that note, what would be considered strategic play/combat? I'm just asking because I wonder what middle ground we can go for.

 

I think one of the things that drew me to this game was the strategic dodging, but it was a dodge to avoid a big damage move or dodge to avoid being hit. This was earlier on in the game back in 2012/2013 where the mobility was toned down. I remember some of the earliest videos of the game talked about combo fields and combinations, and so in my mind I started to think "Oh I get this game! You need to be strategic where and when you cast your spells, youll get big damage spells if you work together in groups and use the right combo fields and combinations. Youll avoid a big damage spell if you time your dodge correct etc."

 

I remember laughing the first time I went back into WvW after POF was released ran into what I thought was ranger firing arrows, and was just stunned at the damage output, almost full health to none in just one arrow barrage, which introduced me to the Soulbeast. It was an odd thing because dodge didnt seem to really mitigate any damage, it was almost this complete lock on, die in 5 seconds. I started to realize the power creep and damage was just going up and up.

 

Or Ill be running with 2-3 people toward a camp, some mesmer appears out of nowhere, does this insane amount of damage, disappears completely, reappears, you managed to do some damage on the mesmer, they disappear again regen health up and wait for their spell timers to reset, then reappear and down more people. I saw this play out with druids after HoT and Thieves as well. I dont find anything fun about that or strategic.

 

I get the fact that if a mesmer or thief or whatever stealth appears and gets the kill, that makes sense. But at that point, the advantage should be gone, at that point if their surprise attack fails, they should pay the price and be downed. A risk and reward type of combat. But for that stealth to just keep reappearing during a fight, with revealed skills and spells, being few and far between, with bad range and targeting, it just doesnt appear to me to be a fun or strategic fight.

 

[Ubi.4136]

I would like to see them make stealth permanent, but than once you engage in combat, you can not restealth till out of combat. For deadeye, the elite could allow a single get out of combat stealth. You still get the ability to 1-shot from stealth, and with thieves mobility, could likely still run away to reset fights. But, it would avoid all the things currently broken about stealth, not to mention the culling the server adds (or regional lag).

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

> @"oOStaticOo.9467" said:

> Where is: F. Remove Stealth from the game because it's a lazy mechanic and should only be used in PvE missions.?

 

This.

 

Otherwise don't allow stack and rework shadow meld.

[sostronk.8167]

Stealth is fine. There are probably some damage outputs that are needed to be adjusted from stealth. Should probably also nerf the bunker classes that can do good DPS output as well. I'm at a point where I pretty much ignore and avoid condi bunker mesmers now. PS I don't use Deadeye, I find Daredevil to be superior overall.

[sneakytails.5629]

Target dropping is the biggest problem i have with stealth right now.

 

[XenesisII.1540]

Don't know why you guys bother, it's never going to change.

[anduriell.6280]

What about:

 

So the stealth stops being the toxic mechanic that it is today, direct source of most of the grieving in wvw/pvp.

* thief stealth (and by extension blasting smoke fields) does not work with enemies withing 400 units. So foes farther than 400 can't see the thief, but the thief is visible to others closer than that.

 

To keep the original design idea of "high stealth uptime but limited mobility" this has to be applied.

* Shadow meld and Silent Scope to apply [Camouflage](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Camouflage "Camouflage") instead stealth.

 

The thief does have access to other tools than stealth with the amount of teleport and dmg spike this class has, as it was designed for pve and not pvp scenarios, stealth should not be a tool the thief can use all the time. Also the implementation of burstiest damage during the stealth is a very toxic design, as right now there is no risk while using stealth to attack anything in game.

 

This small change would fix most of the classes (and future ones) with one swoop which right now are problematic because of the stealth: Druid and Thief.

 

[Glider.5792]

There could be a simple fix to shadow meld actualy. Shadow meld only removes PERSONAL reveal. If its enemy reveal, this skill rather shortens that reveal duration by "x" seconds.

[Riko.9214]

Stealth is fine as is, although I would see 1 nerf/buff reasonable:

 

Nerf: remove stacking and instead make it so that longer stealth substitues shorter one rather then adding to it. That way stealthing for prolonged periods of time would become way too resource demanding as it relies on field+leap/blast stacking. If thief use his abilities to stay in stealth for longer he will come out with close to 0 resources for it left.

 

Buff: remove channeled attack tracking in stealth, those are a bit too easily available for how good they are against stealth.