39 replies to this topic

[Minion]

If you haven't played a thief before, you might not know what this mechanic is.

"Revealed- You cannot stealth for 2 seconds."

You are afflicted with this condition every time you drop out of cloak. This is used to prevent "perma cloaking" or "chain cloaking" but that is stupid. The problem is this:

There are two types of melee thief builds; DB spam/condition heavy, Stealth Backstab/crit heavy. They both play completely differently, even though they use the same weapon set. However, there is a problem. Some will argue the DB spam build is dull/weak, but it provides high defence, high damage over time (very helpful for solo play since you can rally more reliably) and the AoE range is immense. The most important factor is that it's proactive in that you control how much initiative you gain according to traits, attack chains and precision-based gear. So the amount you can spam Death Blossom is based on something you control. You can spam it as much as you want until you are drained. Stack all that bleeding. All that AoE damage to trigger Dynamic Event points/loot without even having to kill.


The last point is why Revealed is a terrible mechanic. It's controlling. It prevents good players from being able to use opportunities which may require stealthy action. It makes backstab builds mediocre when they don't have to be. Cloaking is still nice in PvE because of mob resetting, etc. but the single damage we put out does not = the AoE damage and DoT that DB can potentially put out. We are limited, even after paying 6i for a cloak and dagger to proc backstab. That means we can only use CaD twice before having to wait about, as opposed to DB who can use three, maybe four with Signet Use and watch the mob(group) drop together.


So, compare DB spam with cloak/backstab:
High single-target damage from both cloak and dagger and Backstab
Must wait 2s after backstabbing to use Cloak again, even if "thy initiative runeth over"; relegated to more low, single-target damage.
It's ALL single-target, direct damage.
Cloak and Dagger costs 6i. Vulnerability lasts 6s (DB's bleeding lasts 13s, one stack per hit)

I think you can straight away see the imbalance and contrivance of the Revealed mechanic. Fear not, for I have the solution:

The reason Revealed was added was to prevent maintaining stealth; not that stealth is a game-breaker, really. But you only have so many stealth skills and only so much initiative. There is already an obvious way to prevent stealth chaining without the revealed mechanic.

Already set in place, when you deal damage when cloaked, you are taken out of stealth. The enemy can now see you and you can flash back into stealth as soon as you break, as long as you have enough initiative for cloak and dagger or hit a foe or wasn't already in stealth. if you use a cloaking skill while already in stealth, it will break your stealth. Alternatively, if you feel there needs to be a downside to spamming Stealth, you can change the revealed condition to "vulnerable for 2s" with several stacks of vulnerability. Far more reasonable. Being unable to improve a build further because of a contrived mechanic is terrible. It removes the skill curve completely for these kinds of builds.

This keeps everyone happy. It doesn't make backstab/cloak thieves overpowered but more in stead with blossom spam. It doesn't break sPvP and especially not WvW, since AoE damage is far more popular there anyway with shortbow, etc.

TL;DR: Revealed sucks, Anet- plz remove.

[Ritualist]

Delete stealth, thank you very much.

EDIT:
Oh crap, this really seems to be a PvE RP thread. My bad for responding below, I've deleted my post.
You have fun now!

Edited by Protoss, 28 September 2012 - 06:33 AM.

[Jiminy]

Protoss, on 28 September 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

Delete stealth, thank you very much.

Agreed. But only after all the other cprofessions primary mechanics are also deleted.

[Lordkrall]

Keep in mind that this is not a specific thief thing. It is the same for ALL cloaking skills.

It is a good thing. We do not want people to be able to be more or less constantly invisible. That WILL, no matter how you look at it, be overpowered.

[Minion]

Protoss, on 28 September 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

What about stealth makes the game better? Why is a game that relies on positioning so much better by including options that make the player disappear from everyone's sight at the push of a button? Why is the game better by not only giving players the ultimate defensive option better by also giving players one of the most damaging offensive options as a follow up to this?
Because of immersion? Or RP?

Thieves have Medium armour. Stealth builds sacrifice the evasion dual skills due to lack of initiative. Initiative is already the main preventer of cloaking as often as you like, not this silly mechanic. Also, backstabs require more positioning than just "dodge to avoid being hit".

Lordkrall, on 28 September 2012 - 05:48 AM, said:

Keep in mind that this is not a specific thief thing. It is the same for ALL cloaking skills.

It is a good thing. We do not want people to be able to be more or less constantly invisible. That WILL, no matter how you look at it, be overpowered.

To be constantly invisible requires you deal 0 damage. Seems like a fine trade-off, lol. It's not like you can make much ground without engaging in combat to stealth up again. Death Shroud lasts 4s or so, nothing else really perma cloaks in a broken fashion.

Edited by Minion, 28 September 2012 - 05:52 AM.

[Veldan]

solution:

1. rename thief
2. remove thieving
3. make stealth the class mechanic instead
4. give a permanent stealth skill (perhaps with movement speed reduction)
5. make stealth out of combat only
6. replace stealth skills on weapon sets by normal weapon skills (that deal dmg, inflict conditions etc)

revealed mechanic is now no longer needed, and nobody will care if it's in the game or not, and we've just improved combat cuz there's one less class that dissapears all the time

[Micalovits]

While i understand what you are annoyed of OP(has been myself as well)the real problem comes with cloak and dagger...,
Before revealed was added, it was possible to, with initiative focused traits, constantly keep stealth up with cloak and dagger. Such having a perma invisibility, were you constantly dealt damage to your enemies, and the ONLY ways they could get you out of stealth is to guess when you are going to hit them with your next c/d., and then dodge/block.
Now, you COULD argue that this will only increase the level of play, as it requires more of both the thief and his opponent, but as it was then,  the build in itself simply had to high damage, so t had to be nerfed in one way or the other. They went for the revealed thing(which in my opinion was the best solution).
Now, imagine what you could do in PvE, were the mobs can't predict when you are going to attack them...

[Minion]

Micalovits, on 28 September 2012 - 06:34 AM, said:

While i understand what you are annoyed of OP(has been myself as well)the real problem comes with cloak and dagger...,
Before revealed was added, it was possible to, with initiative focused traits, constantly keep stealth up with cloak and dagger. Such having a perma invisibility, were you constantly dealt damage to your enemies, and the ONLY ways they could get you out of stealth is to guess when you are going to hit them with your next c/d., and then dodge/block.
Now, you COULD argue that this will only increase the level of play, as it requires more of both the thief and his opponent, but as it was then,  the build in itself simply had to high damage, so t had to be nerfed in one way or the other. They went for the revealed thing(which in my opinion was the best solution).
Now, imagine what you could do in PvE, were the mobs can't predict when you are going to attack them...

However, now you cannot chain CaDs to maintain stealth. All they need to do is make it so once stealthed, you cannot maintain the stealth; next time you hit, cloak ends. But what I don't want is a cap on how quickly I can go back into stealth. This removes a skill curve from the thief's point of view. It's still only 2-3 second stealth, so it's hardly permanent.

[Generic UN Here]

Correct me if I'm wrong but revealed only happens when you try to stealth WHILE YOU ARE IN stealth.

In other words with the proper timing you actually still very much so have the ability to be in perma stealth. The damage of any builds will be reduced a bit but at the same time it actually gives you a little bit more time to gain initiative in between strikes.

I personally think its a really good mechanic that penalizes people for spamming.

[RaoulDukeHST]

more whine from the "here,spam these 2 buttons to win" class.Have you no shame?Isn't the class OP enough?Do you know i need to cycle through 3 attunements,and press 15 keys in total to do what a thief does with 2 actions?Stop winging!

[Minion]

Generic UN Here, on 28 September 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but revealed only happens when you try to stealth WHILE YOU ARE IN stealth.

In other words with the proper timing you actually still very much so have the ability to be in perma stealth. The damage of any builds will be reduced a bit but at the same time it actually gives you a little bit more time to gain initiative in between strikes.

I personally think its a really good mechanic that penalizes people for spamming.

Yeah, you're wrong. Also, initiative prevents you from spamming. The skill comes in managing your initiative, getting your burst damage out and managing to survive another fight or retreating to regen.

[Tregarde]

As someone who plays a Thief, I have no problem with this. Seems like reasonable game balancing to me. You'll just have to learn how to best use all your abilities instead of only a few.

[Resolve]

Minion, on 28 September 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

There are two types of melee thief builds; DB spam/condition heavy, Stealth Backstab/crit heavy.

The last point is why Revealed is a terrible mechanic. It's controlling. It prevents good players from being able to use opportunities which may require stealthy action.

Good players will work around it. Also why did you leave off HSS spam and S/P?

[Treble]

Jiminy, on 28 September 2012 - 05:35 AM, said:

Agreed. But only after all the other cprofessions primary mechanics are also deleted.

I wouldn't mind losing my mentally challenged, nearly useless pet in exchange for Thieves to lose stealth.

Edited by Treble, 28 September 2012 - 06:15 PM.

[matsif]

from what I understand, you like your build, but because you can't chain cloaks together it is not as effective as a different build using a different mechanic.  this is due to a built in mechanic to the profession that does not allow you to chain/perma cloak because it would be unbalanced.  so, instead of working around it and trying to find a new opportunity/thinking outside the box with your build to see how you could make it better by traiting differently/using different stats/using different weapons/etc., you are complaining that this is an unbalanced mechanic that should be removed/altered to make your build better.

now, given I haven't played a thief, I don't really understand what you are talking about, so maybe I'm overgeneralizing the topic, but it certainly sounds like a whine that you aren't as effective with your build as you think you should be.

[Millimidget]

I hope someone pointed out that you don't even render until that debuff drops (basically), so it's two free seconds of extra stealth tacked onto every stealth ability.

Too late to do the right thing and not put stealth into the game except as a novelty. At least I always win if I can land pain inverter, even if I almost always lose if I fail to, despite pushing 3K armor. I can kind of live with that, because the odds are slightly better than the 1v2+s I regularly come across in WvW.

Still pretty embarassing; I guess one or more of the guys responsible for World of Roguecraft made their way to Arena.net. Which leaves me wondering just how many Blizzard devs played Rogues, if some of them left and they still had enough dev support to avoid any real nerfs, as well as just how many Arena.net devs play thieves (simply put, one is too many IMO).

[Minion]

Resolve, on 28 September 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

Good players will work around it. Also why did you leave off HSS spam and S/P?

Do you mean Heartseeker spam? What does that have to do with cloaking? It doesn't; that's why I didn't mention it. S/P has no access to a spammable cloak anyway; Revealed makes no difference since Hide in Shadows is all you can reliably use.

Tregarde, on 28 September 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

As someone who plays a Thief, I have no problem with this. Seems like reasonable game balancing to me. You'll just have to learn how to best use all your abilities instead of only a few.

I can play perfectly fine without it; you're missing the point. The reason it's a bad mechanic is it's not necessary. Thieves already have initiative to stop spamming. This is a case of poor balancing, and I have suggested a new mechanic for Revealed which gives us vulnerability. This makes much more sense in a roleplay and gameplay standpoint. If a spy is spotted/revealed, he will panic and try to re-cloak to get out of there, but he will be tense and panicked. Vulnerable. He may be able to compress some more damage into you but you have the potential, if you get him in those two seconds, to either 100% crit chance the thief or deal +x% damage.

Edited by Leyana, 05 November 2012 - 01:05 AM.
No

[Jiminy]

To clarify: untargetable opponents that have zero damage output.

I hate fighting opponents that have AOE's. Should we get rid of them also?

[rukia]

Thief, as with any assassin-esque class in any MMO ever, has been and always will be an unbalanced crap class that uses crap gimmicks to down a target. I mean, thieves currently are literally rogues from WoW. There is no difference, everyone runs glass cannon backstab or pistol whip and globals everyone. Even I'm forced to do this because what else is there? Every other build sucks. The class will never be balanced, I am smart enough to know this from experience in years and years of MMO's with the class.

More damage when behind target / while stealthed has always been a horrible mechanic due to the ease of kiting and generally how faceroll it is to dodge a backstab, I mean you have to be pretty bad at this game to let a thief backstab you in stealth unless you're immobilized or stunned and those are very limited and can even be avoided.

Edited by rukia, 29 September 2012 - 03:29 AM.

[Minion]

ilr, on 29 September 2012 - 02:35 AM, said:

umm..
Most people hate fighting untargetable opponents?

Do I win a cookie?

You can still hit them with PBAoE, ground targeted AoE and even slashing around if you get lucky. But it's not luck, it's intuitive thinking. It makes you a better player if you can guess where they will be. Obviously aiming for your back. And  you can dodge, cripple, kite or fear the thief away. If you dodge CaD, you avoid two attacks and the thief has wasted 4-6i failing an attack that has done 0 damage.

rukia, on 29 September 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

Thief, as with any assassin-esque class in any MMO ever, has been and always will be an unbalanced crap class that uses crap gimmicks to down a target. I mean, thieves currently are literally rogues from WoW. There is no difference, everyone runs glass cannon backstab or pistol whip and globals everyone. Even I'm forced to do this because what else is there? Every other build sucks. The class will never be balanced, I am smart enough to know this from experience in years and years of MMO's with the class.

More damage when behind target / while stealthed has always been a horrible mechanic due to the ease of kiting and generally how faceroll it is to dodge a backstab, I mean you have to be pretty bad at this game to let a thief backstab you in stealth unless you're immobilized or stunned and those are very limited and can even be avoided.

I have no idea what rogues are like in WoW; never played. I know how assassins are in GW, and they are similar here, apart from not having a cloaking feature. They did have faster attack speeds than any other class, and weaker armour. This is the basis for my proposal of being vulnerable in those two seconds of revealed instead of not being able to cloak. It's more balanced than TF2, where a spy can one-hit KO you with a backstab from full hp. And that's just one hit. All I am requesting is the removal of the 2s timer.

[Grumpdogg]

How's about they fix the other classes before helping poor old thieves be even more OP.

[Resolve]

rukia, on 29 September 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

Thief, as with any assassin-esque class in any MMO ever, has been and always will be an unbalanced crap class that uses crap gimmicks to down a target. I mean, thieves currently are literally rogues from WoW. There is no difference, everyone runs glass cannon backstab or pistol whip and globals everyone. Even I'm forced to do this because what else is there? Every other build sucks. The class will never be balanced, I am smart enough to know this from experience in years and years of MMO's with the class.

Try running condition damage in pvp then.

[Omedon]

Minion, on 28 September 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

There are two types of melee thief builds;

To be blunt, you lost all of your credibility right there.

On topic, as a main thief, specced deep (30) into shadow arts because stealthing is conceptually vital to my character, revealed makes perfect sense from a balancing perspective.  People need to learn to establish their expectations and playstyles around what we HAVE not what we'd LIKE to have (or not have) in the game.

In beta, we could perma-stealth.  That was broken (for this game).  Stealth works fine as it is now.

[Larkenis]

I play a thief, and while I find the revealed debuff annoying, I do think that removing it would make stealth a little overpowered. First of all, don't forget that when you get hit while in stealth, you don't get revealed.

Say I use a build where I go 30 into shadow arts. I get 4 second stealths using CnD. I trait for receiving 2 initiative whenever I go into stealth. I trait to recover initiative faster when in stealth. And I trait to get passive initiative recovery every 10 seconds from acrobatics. There are other sources of initiative, which I shall not go into here.

The thing is, without the 'revealed' mechanic, what's to stop me from CnD ->stealth -> CnD again after 4 seconds without that backstab? I would never run out of initiative due to the increased passive regen, and that returned 2 initiative whenever I go into stealth. Perma stealth is possible, and given the way stealthed characters are rendered in GW2, we would be unkillable, and there would be no way for ANY class to see us, given how damage doesn't reveal us. At best, they could AOE at random and hope it downs us, which isn't exactly fair.

Now, we could argue for the choice to reduce the 'revealed' debuff's duration so that we could chain cnd -> backstab -> cnd -> backstab smoothly without having to pause for that 2 seconds. That would be slightly fairer if it were to ever happen. But as it is, after getting revealed from a backstab, I find that the mob typically doesn't attack me straight away. It gets off one hit just before the debuff ends, and I go back into stealth again. If the revealed debuff was shortened by one more second, I'm guessing there's a chance that I wouldn't get hit at all by any mob in PVE if I wanted. And that's overpowered.

I'm annoyed that I couldn't stealth as much as I want either, but I do see the potential problems that would come by removing the mechanic altogether. Thieves would be gods.

[Red_Falcon]

Disagreed completely, stealth is fine as it is.
If you could stealth on demand you'd be able to spam backstab over and over.
Plus revealed balances stealth so that you need to play correctly not just mash you stealths.

[Minion]

Larkenis, on 29 September 2012 - 11:54 AM, said:

Now, we could argue for the choice to reduce the 'revealed' debuff's duration so that we could chain cnd -> backstab -> cnd -> backstab smoothly without having to pause for that 2 seconds. That would be slightly fairer if it were to ever happen. But as it is, after getting revealed from a backstab, I find that the mob typically doesn't attack me straight away. It gets off one hit just before the debuff ends, and I go back into stealth again. If the revealed debuff was shortened by one more second, I'm guessing there's a chance that I wouldn't get hit at all by any mob in PVE if I wanted. And that's overpowered.

I'm annoyed that I couldn't stealth as much as I want either, but I do see the potential problems that would come by removing the mechanic altogether. Thieves would be gods.

I don't really think the cloak is very strong in itself in PvE. In solo play, sure, it helps for running through areas without fighting, but with the way the game wants to be played, in dynamic events, even playing just with one person, as soon as you cloak once and backstab, you will rarely be re-targeted until your friend is downed.

Maybe there needs to be a trait in Shadow arts that lowers the effect of Revealed. At the moment there isn't much point in speccing full Shadow Arts unless you're a baddie who can't dodge. I'd rather this thread be about suggestions for a better Revealed mechanic, because the current one isn't great.

Edited by Leyana, 05 November 2012 - 01:06 AM.
No

[Larkenis]

Playing as a half Knight/Berserker geared thief, the hit from Cloak and Dagger can get pretty huge at times, so I wouldn't say that its isn't strong in PVE. In most DEs I've tried, it is rare that I play melee - most of the time it is just easier to spam 2 on a shortbow for aoe tagging. But that is another story which has nothing to do with the revealed mechanic.

What I've found fighting solo all the time is that after going into stealth with a mob on you, what happens is that the mob starts walking back to their original positions. A backstab revealing you doesn't instantly make them target and start attacking you, even if you're the only player around (there appears to be a reaction lag, even from npcs). That's my concern - it seems that if there is no revealed mechanic, I could in theory CnD (stealths) -> backstab (unstealthed) -> CnD again without getting hit by the mob even once.

But one thing I agree with you absolutely - full Shadow Arts is honestly very lacking (and I have tried this for a few days before finding it truly inadequate), and I think the proposed reduction in the debuff given that the thief specs Shadow Arts is a somewhat more reasonable.

I understand the issue with capping initiative on a pure crit-backstab build - basically all we want to do is Cnd -> backstab. There is hardly any reason to use Death Blossom with crit/power gear, Heartseeker doesn't hit quite as hard until the last HP tier is hit. We're not kiting, so there is no use for dancing daggers (utility wise). Other than CnD, there isn't a need for any other initiative spender, other than the choice not to waste unspent initiative points.

But I do agree that the length of the current debuff is a little crippling for thieves wanting to play a pure backstabby build. Basically I use heartseeker not because it is a good damage skill, but rather that my initiative is capping, and I can't use CnD because I still have the debuff on me. So its either HS, or autoattack. Its a concern, but imo, removal is too much. Shortening sounds good.

[Rrafaz]

OP, don't you see that chaining stealth without revealed isn't hard at all? You can hit CnD, backstab, CnD again, backstab, use a utility or RFI/Hidden Thief Steal, backstab. That means you're pretty much invincible while you kill another player, as they can't see you or what's going on. You've even still got 2 utilities to fall back on if you whiff your CnD's.

If anything, revealed needs to last longer.

[rukia]

Resolve, on 29 September 2012 - 07:06 AM, said:

Try running condition damage in pvp then.

Try fighting any half decent player with condition removal. lololo all we got is bleed weakness and poison, you ain't killing anybody with that unless they're horribad.

[Minion]

rukia, on 01 October 2012 - 06:45 AM, said:

Try fighting any half decent player with condition removal. lololo all we got is bleed weakness and poison, you ain't killing anybody with that unless they're horribad.

And vulnerability?

Rrafaz, on 30 September 2012 - 06:01 AM, said:

OP, don't you see that chaining stealth without revealed isn't hard at all? You can hit CnD, backstab, CnD again, backstab, use a utility or RFI/Hidden Thief Steal, backstab. That means you're pretty much invincible while you kill another player, as they can't see you or what's going on. You've even still got 2 utilities to fall back on if you whiff your CnD's.

If anything, revealed needs to last longer.

Not hard, but initiative already cuts up your "chaining" as you so rightly play out in your skill usage rundown. You get a burst of compressed damage, then you have to gimp your build to fuel your initiative instead of using better traits. Just because you can't be targeted much of the fight doesn't mean you can't be hurt from AoE and even regular attacks if you strike lucky. But it's not luck, it's usually obvious.

Edited by Minion, 01 October 2012 - 08:43 AM.