Stealth and Invisibility (Concealment pool)

[Heraclea]

They don't seem to be different enough now to justify having two powers that are now so very similar that it hardly seems justifiable to take both powers from the same pool. 

 

After the stealth changes, basically Invisibility is a very slightly more robust version of Stealth, at least in PvE.  Stealth no longer slows you. Invisibility no longer puts you in 'only affect self' mode.  Invisibility gives you more defense than Stealth does; in either case that mostly goes away when you attack.  Neither Stealth nor Invisibility are themselves enough to get you past ordinary mobs if you're forced into close proximity at a door.  They both are good enough in that situation in the case where you also have a Stealth IO in Sprint, Combat Jumping, or some other travel power.  Neither will still be enough when confronted with mobs that have +perception like Rikti, Malta, and Nemesis.  I don't know how much stealth is needed there, only that I've never gotten there. 

 

In short, Invisibility doesn't offer enough to justify taking it as a second dip in that pool, and the other powers in Concealment (Grant Invisibility,  Phase Shift, Misdirection) don't seem to be all that popular now either.  We now have a power pool whose entire benefit stops at the first tier.  That isn't all that rare among pool powers. 

 

Some kind of buff to Invisibility in PvE would appear to be called for.  Making its concealment strong enough to get you past snipers and mobs with +Perception would appear to be the obvious improvement for the higher tier power.  I suspect this could be done without mucking around with PvP too much, since the powers seem to work entirely differently there. 

[Lost Ninja]

A power pool that it's entire purpose (apart from that first pick) is as a LotG mule... 😛

 

IMO: (Purely PvE uses.)
Stealth - Leave as is.

Invisibility - A much better version of Stealth, Totally invisible to all enemies at any range. Turns into normal stealth if you attack. The downside is it costs more than double the end of Stealth to run, takes longer to come back up after combat. And applies a -ToHit to the user (you're less accurate as you cannot see your own hands/feet/laser beam eyes/etc. If you pick both powers (Stealth and Invisibility) the -ToHit is removed. (Out of combat enemies cannot see you, even if they're a much higher level or have huge amounts of +ToHit, in combat all those advantages disappear unless you also have stealth (or similar power from your AT). If you do the power reverts to what ever other stealth power you have, after you are back out of combat it comes back on suppressing whatever other stealth type power you have. While it won't work at the same time as another stealth type power, it won't detoggle them, their affects just won't coexist.)

Grant Invisibility - Grant stealth to other players/pets/etc. Works like all the other Ally buff powers, it applies to all in range (not the caster), breaks on combat (though still grants minor +def (enemy -ToHit).

Misdirection - 7' PBAoE Toggle, with high end cost (well low end cost with extra end per mob affected (like Repulsion, Repel, etc). Otherwise a placate, has no effect when using Invisibility as mobs won't attack you. Minor chance to confuse enemies (normal confusion caveats) or cause them to panic (fear). Enemies might see you but they're not sure they can believe their eyes and it confuses them, are you there or are they imagining you...

Shadow Step - Short Range (30') Teleport (no hover effect). Can click a location or target a mob/ally. Clicking a location when you arrive you emit a short range PBAoE placate (low mag) (same idea as Misdirection but weaker). If used on a mob, the effect on arrival is a ST placate with much higher mag. They won't see you arrive unless they have a very high +ToHit or are much higher in level. If Targeting an ally on arrival you provide a short range placate around the targeted ally, this will stop them being attack from within that range (melee range), but could cause you to be attacked instead, enemies see you arrive even if they can no longer see your ally.

[Zepp]

Shadow Step should not be in the Stealth Pool (if it were to become a pool power).

[tidge]

My Mastermind takes Grant Invisibility early in the career to allow pets to 'stealth' through missions with him (after he takes Invisibility). I am appreciating the recent changes to Invisibility, especially the reduced End cost. I never take more than those two powers! Aside from also muling defense sets, I have never looked at this set as needing to be much more than a tool that provides an alternate approach to some game content.

[Rathulfr]

I wish we could revert to the previous versions of Stealth and Invisibility, except for two things:

1. Just remove the movement penalty from Stealth.
2. Just reduce the end cost of Invisibility.

I liked everything else about those two powers as they were before, and I don't think the recent changes add much else.  And I absolutely loathe transparent Stealth: are they ever going to fix that?

[Heraclea]

I often take the pool on characters that don't rely on stuff like damage or taunt auras and that don't have stealth powers in their primaries or secondaries.  It can't be used at all if you are running something like Hide or Field Operative, so it just isn't available to make those powers more effective. 

 

I noticed this on a regen scrapper that has both Invisibility and Stealth.  No taunt aura  there, so the pool is an option for the character.  After the stealth changes there seemed to be no real difference in the PvE function of the two powers.  Either of them, in combination with a stealth IO in Sprint, are good enough to get past most normal mobs.   Neither of them are good enough to get past mobs with +perception.  So Invisibility seems redundant on the character and I probably will burn a respec to get rid of it and grab something else. 

 

Perhaps just making them cumulative with other kinds of stealth in PvE may be the way to go here.  Make them runnable concurrently and stacking; make using them improve Hide and similar powers as well. 

[Leogunner]

I would add 3 changes to the current powers :

 

1. Add +ToHit (around +8% to self) and resistance to -perception to stealth that is always on. 
2. Invisibility will pulse -perception to 17 foes in a 30ft AoE on activation of the toggle.
3. Remove the -threat from Phase Shift and allow the use of Misdirection while phased. 

[Lost Ninja]

6 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

And I absolutely loathe transparent Stealth: are they ever going to fix that?

If you mean what I think you mean it appears to be fixed on Pineapple... personally I hate it... like to have proper stealthy look (without actually taking invisibility).

[CyberElf]

Back in 2008 when I last played CoH/V the Stealth power slowed you down by 1/2 and allowed you to sneak past mobs if you walked slowly and took some care where you moved. The Invisibility power gave greater defense without the speed loss, and the endurence cost was not to much higher. Using both would stack the Defense and the speed was reduced by 1/4 vs. 1/2 and sprint would make up the difference, but cost more in Endurence so I just did not use sprint.

I have used the new consealment power set and I prefer the old origional version. I could move around large mobs (10 - 20) enemies without being detected about 85% of the time, now it is less than 30% of the time.

[Zepp]

I think mobs' perception has been increased. Superior Invisibility used to allow you to take out a minion without aggroing nearby minions. That is no longer possible.

[Replacement]

On 9/29/2019 at 6:30 PM, Heraclea said:

Invisibility no longer puts you in 'only affect self' mode.  Invisibility gives you more defense than Stealth does; in either case that mostly goes away when you attack.

You sure it's not still giving only affects self? I know it was missing from Justin for a while but I'm quite sure I read patch notes of them reinstating it.

 

About the defense -- also quite sure none of Stealth's defense is suppressed, while most of invisibility's is.

[Heraclea]

11 hours ago, Zepp said:

I think mobs' perception has been increased. Superior Invisibility used to allow you to take out a minion without aggroing nearby minions. That is no longer possible.

If that's the case, it may be changed on Pineapple without being changed yet on Live. 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

13 hours ago, CyberElf said:

Back in 2008 when I last played CoH/V the Stealth power slowed you down by 1/2 and allowed you to sneak past mobs if you walked slowly and took some care where you moved. The Invisibility power gave greater defense without the speed loss, and the endurence cost was not to much higher. Using both would stack the Defense and the speed was reduced by 1/4 vs. 1/2 and sprint would make up the difference, but cost more in Endurence so I just did not use sprint.

I have used the new consealment power set and I prefer the old origional version. I could move around large mobs (10 - 20) enemies without being detected about 85% of the time, now it is less than 30% of the time.

You seem very confused. Stealth was never more then a modest speed debuff, your movement speed in no way impacted your visibility to mobs aside from super speed with its stealth aspect and the ability to zip past mobs before they could register you and react. You have never been able to have both stealth and invisibility on at the same time.

 

Stealth plus SS has been a go to way to fully avoid mobs and zip through TFs with the addition of recall friend since year one. As long as there are not snipers, drones, or giant eyeballs around that combo will prevent the vast majority of mobs from ever noticing you until you choose to engage them.

 

So I have no idea what game you were or are playing but your statement does not seem to equate to any version of the game I ever played.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Bentley Berkeley

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

11 hours ago, Zepp said:

I think mobs' perception has been increased. Superior Invisibility used to allow you to take out a minion without aggroing nearby minions. That is no longer possible.

as some one who has had stealth on almost every toon Ive ever made and still do, you are as far as I can tell entirely mistaken. Even stalker stealth, the strongest in the game has never kept you from being noticed once you are engaged. all visibility reduction drops when in combat and as far as I recall always has.

 

 

[Rathulfr]

8 hours ago, Replacement said:

You sure it's not still giving only affects self? I know it was missing from Justin for a while but I'm quite sure I read patch notes of them reinstating it.

 

About the defense -- also quite sure none of Stealth's defense is suppressed, while most of invisibility's is.

There seems to be some confusion on this, at least on my part.  My understanding was that the defense bonus of Stealth was never suppressed -- only the stealth component was suppressed by combat. 

 

This is why I've always included Stealth in many of my builds: I pick it instead of Combat Jumping.  The defense value of Stealth is the same as CJ and Hover; however, the endurance cost of Stealth and Hover are higher than CJ because of the additional benefits of Stealth's reduced perception bonus or Hover's improved vertical mobility.  That additional end cost was worth the tradeoff (CJ has a much cheaper end cost).

 

But somewhere along the way, that changed.  After carefully insuring that my builds soft-cap defense with Stealth, it's disheartening to see my defense drop below that in combat, since the patch.  I've heard someone say that it's always been suppressed (I doubt that, but honestly can't say for sure, because I never paid so much attention before), someone else say that half of it suppressed (which seems kind of like what's happening now), and others (like me) who say it never suppressed before.  Which is it?  Which is it supposed to be?  Which should it be?

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Rathulfr

[Zepp]

1 hour ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

as some one who has had stealth on almost every toon Ive ever made and still do, you are as far as I can tell entirely mistaken. Even stalker stealth, the strongest in the game has never kept you from being noticed once you are engaged. all visibility reduction drops when in combat and as far as I recall always has.

Stalker Hide = +150' Stealth (suppressed in combat)

Superior Invisibility = 200' Stealth + -100% Threat (Can also stack with Group Invisibility = 60' Stealth + -100% Threat) (not suppressed in combat)

You are incorrect about Stalker Hide being the strongest in game. Superior Invisibility is not only stronger, but has no combat suppression and threat reduction which on Live allowed you to (with sufficient distance) attack a mob without aggroing adjacent mobs... Stack SI and GI and you could almost attack from melee range without aggroing adjacent mobs...

[Zepp]

1 hour ago, Rathulfr said:

There seems to be some confusion on this, at least on my part.  My understanding was that the defense bonus of Stealth was never suppressed -- only the stealth component was suppressed by combat. 

 

This is why I've always included Stealth in many of my builds: I pick it instead of Combat Jumping.  The defense value of Stealth is the same as CJ and Hover; however, the endurance cost of Stealth and Hover are higher than CJ because of the additional benefits of Stealth's reduced perception bonus or Hover's improved vertical mobility.  That additional end cost was worth the tradeoff (CJ has a much cheaper end cost).

 

But somewhere along the way, that changed.  After carefully insuring that my builds soft-cap defense with Stealth, it's disheartening to see my defense drop below that in combat, since the patch.  I've heard someone say that it's always been suppressed (I doubt that, but honestly can't say for sure, because I never paid so much attention before), someone else say that half of it suppressed (which seems kind of like what's happening now), and others (like me) who say it never suppressed before.  Which is it?  Which is it supposed to be?  Which should it be?

 

Other than Steamy Mist and Shadow Fall (and maybe one or two others), stealth defense has always dropped in combat, even for Superior Invisibility. (all values reduced by half, for Hide AoE loses the 5x bonus and then is reduced by half).

[CyberElf]

3 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

You seem very confused. Stealth was never more then a modest speed debuff, your movement speed in no way impacted your visibility to mobs aside from super speed with its stealth aspect and the ability to zip past mobs before they could register you and react. You have never been able to have both stealth and invisibility on at the same time.

 

Stealth plus SS has been a go to way to fully avoid mobs and zip through TFs with the addition of recall friend since year one. As long as there are not snipers, drones, or giant eyeballs around that combo will prevent the vast majority of mobs from ever noticing you until you choose to engage them.

 

So I have no idea what game you were or are playing but your statement does not seem to equate to any version of the game I ever played.

I started playing in 2004 and still have both the Official CoH & CoV  origional  3' binders that were sold back then and yes they were stackable. Much or the Info is no longer useful due to the added classes, powers, nerfs, adjustments & story line changes, but for looking up old info they still work. I left the game in 2008 due to prison so I can't say what happend to the powers after that.

I only used Consealment power set on 1 character, and found it limiting to what I wanted to do so I never used it on other toons. I like some of the new adjustments made to the game, & I think CoH still is one of the best MMO games ever made, and I would still pay the monthly membership fee, like I was before.