Stealth gives trouble to two types of players:

A) Players who only rely on range.

B) New Players.

WK has been really pushing for "B" since NECA bought it. Everything can be traced to making the game easier / simpler / enticing for new players. Hence the "need" for Stealth-Busting.

A few comments:

GS X-Men Nightcrawler and SI Ms. Marvel are extremely good and I think its obvious to most that that HSS + Stealth combo should be more expensive than just adding the cost of HSS and Stealth. That combo is bad enough but then putting Plasticity on Ms Marvel and the trio of Super-senses with move options, Shape change and the "Snatch" power on NC were way too much.

I used to love playing the Trick-shot feat and I played it frequently. It seemed to be costed correctly for what you got (20 points).

I really wish that the sharpshooter mechanic would have allowed for ranged attacks in adjacency, shooting around any figs (opponent or teammate) to attack, ignoring stealth, and ignoring hindering.

I'm happy to see lots of ways to nerf stealth.

I know the rule is that stealthed figures can't be outwitted by regular OW but I have always disliked that rule.

The new TK rules are anti-stealth but they are peculiar to use.

I've never understood why energy explosion couldn't have been an attack on anyone in a square. This seems like it would have been a way to counter stealth that didn't make EE ridiculously powerfu but it would have been useful as a counter to stealth.

I'm one of those older players who like ranged tentpoles and theme teams.

LIGHT THE DANGER: Green Lantern ignores Stealth. When a character takes damage from his attack, that character can't use Stealth this turn.

...is not...

a power that reads "characters cannot use stealth."

Such as Kid Zoom:
STOP! : (non-optional) Other characters can't use Hypersonic Speed.

You've got to admit that the DC75 Alan Scott is as close as it gets.

Stealth busting good, lots of stealth bad. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get a new Batman related set soon enough with 90% of the pieces having stealth.

How about HoT Daredevil?
Iknow, I know, a power that reads "characters cannot use stealth" hasn't been used...

I'm with the masses I am all for busting stealth.

In the case of bencrawler its not the HSS that makes him so broken, not at all, it's the Super senses, Shape change and stealth combo with a 19 defence. When you take away the stealth things get a bit better and if you can take away the stealth and outwit either SS or SC suddenly Nightcrawler is only 40 points overcosted instead of 100.

ummm....no. If they released a new Oracle that had a power that said "other characters cannot use stealth" that would be as close as it gets.

not that ol' Alan isn't awesome...but what he has is a Superman TA lite combined with an outwit for the characters stealth that he hits...with his 10 attack. Great fig? yes. Silver bullet to stealth? No.

The game has lately added lots of counters to various powers. This is a good thing.

This. Stealth was one of the few things that forced close combat and somewhat assured your oppenent wouldn't pick you apart before you got to him. In an already range heavy game I think the new rules are making it even harder to field a straight close combat team if you want to stand a chance at winning.

I think the biggest problem for a while now has been not at the meta-game or the casual "play for fun" venues, but the inbetween venues. I could be wrong, but don't recall any of the top 16 teams being a stealth abuse team. Seemed like a lot of them had a stealth fig (NC) or two, but none relied on stealth completely. At the play for fun venues, you usually just don't get people who play like that. If you do it's usually only once in a while.

well, look at Captain America - there has been some increase in Poison, more than any set....and look at Indy, a lot of BCF and Stealth....look at Web of Spider Man, a lot of shape change, L/C, supersense....so there will be always an increase in one of those powers in each set....in the few DC sets, how many superman Ally TA has been seen? not much....maybe one or two per sets...now its time to get as much as it can...there has been a lot of figures with Batman Ally TA....I wont be surprised if we see more Ultimates TA in the next set or sooner. an increase in one or two power is expected.

I'm not bothered by the Superman TA in a Superman set. I was more refering to the TK, grenades and so forth. I would expect a lot of Superman TA in a Superman set just like Bat team in a Batman set. Even though we got for Bat Enemy in AA than Bat team.

Wow sounds like a bunch of people need to learn stratagy alot of this lady like bickering could be avoided if both sides learned how to plan better.

Everything about this post leads me to believe that you are a mean person. Was that your intention?

Stealth has always been extremely overpowered because outwit is overpowered, and outwit is only stopped by 2 things. Power cosmic/Quintessence, and stealth.

Stealth should have always been able to be outwitted. "But that would make stealth worthless!" I can hear many of you saying as you read that comment. Be careful, because you just admitted that every power is worthless because it can be outwitted.

Outwit (and perplex/prob for that matter) need some tweaks to be weaker and stealth needs to be countered by a common power. No not telekinesis, as that is non-nonsensical and stupid. Energy explosion makes a lot of sense, so does mind control, possibly even just outwit.

To those who argue that stealth is helping close combat pieces be viable in a range dominated game, that isn't true at all. A good piece with stealth isn't one that's a close combat piece, it's a piece with stealth AND range. Batman wasn't dangerous because he had stealth and strong close combat powers, it was because he had range and was immune to range at the same time. Pieces with stealth and 0 range are only good if they have support powers, have mobility powers though special powers or team abilities, or are very cheap. There isn't even a piece with stealth over 100 points and a 0 range that is any good. Judge Death and WoS Wolverine are the only pieces that come to mind and they're both mediocre at best. Stealth strengthens range dominance in this game, because the stealthed pieces have range and still kill the close combat guys before they get to them.

You want to help close combat pieces? Make it so you can't outwit damage reducers so the sub 50 point black panther or Question doesn't reduce your 200 point tentpole into a defenseless loser.

umm stealth is overpowered

because some busting was in order.

now with a variety of low to mid level options for anti-stealth, stealth is finally closer to balanced.